(Part 2) Top products from r/explainlikeimfive

I would say that countries are really complex systems that cannot be simplified with a couple of variables into developed and underdeveloped.

I always thought that this oversimplification made sense but then I migrated from India to the US and realized that the United States is actually archaic in a lot of things that India is good at. A big example would be mobile payments and mobile internet in general - Even the poorest of Indians are comfortable using mobile wallets and more Indians have mobile wallets than they have credit cards. I think India sort of skipped the plastic money phase and went straight to mobile.

Planet Money has an excellent podcast on the topic of how and who determines the variables that make a country developed or underdeveloped - https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/01/31/582233478/episode-821-the-other-davos
Essentially it works just like how an inefficient, political system works - The powerful and well networked get to make the decision on what matters

Another thing to factor in is democracy and functioning of the government. There is and there never will be truly altruistic leaders. Every individual is essentially motivated by self interest. So lets a leader comes into power in a developing country, he will have a cohort of individuals whom he has to keep satisfied for him to stay in power longer. This cohort will consist of people who have the most resources in the country - Industrialists, people who own the media etc. The smaller the number of people he has to please, the better it is for him. If the country becomes developed, then there will be more people to keep satisfied and thus it becomes harder for the leader. So development is actually counter-intuitive for someone who wants to stay in power.

There are some interesting exceptions - Saudi Arabia, China etc. It would be really good if someone can explain the rationale of leaders in these countries and how they stay in power. It's difficult to rely on stats such as the Gini coefficient in these authoritarian countries - cause they may be manipulating it.

A really good book on this topic - https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845

There is a video that explains the book perfectly. Could not find it. sorry.

Deviating a bit to reply to one of the comments....

One of the comments here say that knowledge comes at the charity of developed countries - nothing could be further from the truth. Developed countries invest in developing countries purely for utilitarian purposes. China for rare earth minerals and manufacturing, Inda and Bangladesh for clothes etc. There is nothing wrong with this. Capitalism at work. I think one thing that badly affects developing countries is "Interventionism". That is rich people thinking they exactly know what a kid in Kenya needs. This has historically lead to more inequalities and even civil wars in Africa. If you really want to help someone, just give them a small loan, they will know what to do with it.

If I may, I'll throw in my somewhat-learned 2 cents. I have read a fair number of books on the subject and am currently studying music at the undergrad level--I'm by no means an expert.

If you're interested in the neurological understanding of music, I would recommend the book Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy. Pretty good read that goes into some detail without requiring an MD to understand. Basically, we respond to tension and resolution because of tendencies in our brain to seek out new and variant stimuli.

You mentioned major sounding happy and minor sounding sad. It would be interesting for you to know that this was not always the case. If you're playing in an orchestra or wind ensemble, chances are most of the music you're being exposed to in that setting is from the Classical and Romantic periods of the so-called Western Music Tradition: Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn. Maybe some more modern music as well, but probably nothing too "out there". Also bear in mind, most of the music you hear on the radio, pretty much since the 1970s is very closely related harmonically to classical music from the Classical and Romantic periods.

All this is to say that if you look at Baroque music and earlier, or more modern Western music, as well as music from any other cultural tradition, you'll find very different understandings of harmony, melody, and rhythm. There are few universally enjoyable traits in music across various cultures and types of listener. /u/Bears_in_Blue_Houses has some good points: repetition is usually favored, and people usually like music they can understand and relate to. Beyond that, it really depends on 1. why you're listening to music and 2. what music you're used to. Some people desire intellectual stimulation, and find more complex harmonies, rhythms, structures, and sounds to be enjoyable; others look for simple beats to dance or relax to. Most people look for different things at different times.

You may find this book called your inner fish: a journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body very interesting. It is a really fascinating and, quick read.

Tetrapods include amphibians, reptiles, birds, turtles and mammals. All tetrapods have a single common ancestor, that was as you describe "the first fish dude who jumped out of the water". Really, that is the best way I have heard it described and youre not wrong! We don't know which species is the first, but we do have several transitional fossils from water to land. These species are collectively known as tetrapodomorphs which basically means "kind of like a tetrapod - kind of like fish". This picture gives you a good idea of some of the different species alive around that time. Tiktaalik is one of my favourites, mostly because the name is fun to say. This species lived about ~375 million years ago, during the Denovian. Here is another example of the limbs of those transitional species from fin to limb!

Acanthostega (~365 million years ago) and Itchthyostega (~360 million years ago) are two species of tetrapods that lived after Tiktaalik, and they are better suited for life on land. They likely lived in swampy areas but were still tied to the water.

After the first tetrapods established themselves on land they evolved or radiated into many different groups. This is a good and simplified family tree of tetrapods. There are the amphibians, the turtles, the mammals and the reptiles. This is another family tree which depicts some extinct groups. Notice that the birds are placed firmly with the other dinosaurs and are now the only living representatives of that lineage. And that early mammal ancestors (therapsids) stem from a distant synapsid ancestor which evolved quite early on.

The reptiles are a bit of a funny group because they contain a lot of extinct species and this confuses people as to what actually is a reptile. Simply put reptiles include the living turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards, and tuatara and many other extinct species including the dinosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles like the pterosuars and the extinct aquatic reptiles like ichthyosaurs. Another cool fact is that crocodiles and birds are more closely related to each other than they are to the other reptiles (turtles, snakes, lizards and tuatara).

So legitamcy, like others have said.

Then other things from the Dictator's Handbook:

1. It helps keep their supporters in line
   
2. It helps them get money
   
   2 is fairly straightforward. Current efforts to help democratize autocracies like to demand changes in governance in exchange for loans; Since giving loans / debt forgiveness without changes doesn't result in change, commonly. So an easy answer for a dictator is to just throw a sham election and say: "See? I'm all democratic n' shit". If they're sneaky enough to do the rigged election right, then they can meet the letter of the terms of the loan / debt forgiveness and immediately get themselves more money.
   
   1 is a bit of a walk, but in summary: dictators need people to rule (someone to run the police, someone to collect the taxes, etc), so they pay their supporters to keep them in line while stealing from the populace. But their supporters are also those that are most likely to work to overthrow them, so a ruler needs a way to keep them in line in addition to the rewards I mentioned. One easy way is to show that they're replaceable, you get replacements from the population that supports them. A sham election can then be used to show a wide range of support from the populace; This isn't very convincing to any thinking person, but does create uncertainty about how popular a leader really is (since there are some actual supporters in that 90%+ voting rate that the election returns) and thus how unlikely it would be to stir up a rebellion to overthrow the leader. This balance of "carrot" and "stick" helps to keep the supporters in line and off balance.
   
   Good overview by CGP grey. It doesn't cover the election per-say, but it does get you used to thinking like this.
   
   Also since I'm less than half way through the book there may be other reasons, but these were the reasons I've come accross.

I've been exploring this recently. I'm not an expert, but I'll do my best to explain it.


The shape or object represented in the gif you posted is called a tesseract or a hypercube. You can search for these terms for more information.


To explain this, some basics about 2D and 3D must first be established to understand how to continue the explanation to 4D.


A super-brief explanation of the gif above as the four dimension object (spatially) is that it is a representation or projection of viewing a 4D object/shape in a 2D view. (That gif as displayed on our computer screens is 2D because our screens are 2D and it's not encoded as 3D to be viewed with 3D glasses) and a 4-D object or shape actually appears to us to be 3D objects inside of 3D objects, just as if we look at a 2D object - say a square drawn on a piece of paper - we are able to see inside of the 2D object and see additional objects drawn inside of it and just as we are only able to draw a 3D object on a piece of paper if it is drawn as a transparent outline, this gif shows the 4D object drawn as a transparent outline in which we only see the many sides folding in and outside of itself. A being that is capable of seeing four spatial dimensions would be able to look at you and see inside of you. The following demonstrates this concept pretty well:


Fourth Spatial Dimension 101 (video, 6:27)



To better understand the concept of the fourth dimension, read on. I also included more videos below, including an excellent one by Carl Sagan.


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First, some facts / definitions:

• 0D (zero spatial dimension) is simply a point. It either exists or does not exist. There is no concept of a point moving in 0 dimensions because there is no space for it to move.
  
  
• 1D (one spatial dimension) is simply a line. It has length. A point can move along the line from side to side, left or right.
  
  
• 2D (two spatial dimensions) is a plane. It has length and width. A point can exist and/or move from side to side lengthwise and side to side width-wise, left or right, and (if we imagine the plane as a flat surface that's level to the ground,) then we can call the width direction either forward and back, if we imagine looking at the plane on a wall, we might call it up or down. Either is fine. Two dimensions.
  
  
• 3D (three spatial dimensions) is technically called "3-dimensional Euclidean space" but since it's what we commonly perceive, we often just refer to it as "space." It has length and width and height. Other words can be used for these directions, as long as it's three separate directions not in the same plane, such as left-right, up-down, and forward-back.
  
  
• 4D (four spatial dimensions) is known simply as four-dimensional space, probably because we don't use it in conversation enough to have a nifty, shorter term for it. There is also a non-spatial version of four dimensions commonly referred to as "spacetime" which is a combination of 3D space and time.
  
  
  
• A special note about the fourth dimension... Space vs time as a fourth dimension are differentiated as such: time as the fourth dimension is referred to as the Minkowski continuum, known as spacetime, and the spatial-only dimensions are referred to as Euclidean space or dimensions. Spacetime is not Euclidean space; it is not only spatial. (The gif you linked above is a representation of the spatial fourth dimension. ..yes, it includes time to show it rotating. If you were to consider it as a spacetime dimension then it would be 5 dimensions: 4 spatial plus time, but it is commonly referred to simply as spatial in my understanding.)
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  Conceptualizing the limitations and advantages of dimensional perception:
  
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 2D can see inside of objects that are 1D.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 3D can see inside of objects that are 2D.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 4D can see inside of objects that are 3D.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 1D can only see representations or projections of 2D objects.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 2D can only see representations or projections of 3D objects.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 3D can only see representations or projections of 4D objects.
  
  
  
  
  
  We are able to perceive objects spatially in 3 dimensions (3D). By spatially, we mean that we're interpreting the environment or world's space, and not considering the fourth dimension as something other than space, such as time. (The gif linked above is of a four-dimensional object of which the fourth dimension is also space.) When we look at a drawing of a square on a piece of paper, we are able to see not only its length and width, but also inside of it because we are viewing it from above - from height. If we look down at it and draw a triangle inside of it, we can see both at the same time. We are able to see inside of 2D objects. A 3D object is comprised of several layers of 2D objects stacked upon one another. So imagine the 2D drawing, and stacking many papers on top of each other until it's several inches or centimeters tall. That's a 3D object now. Then, shape it into a square at each sheet of paper (so cut through all sheets) and you will end up with a cube of paper. Shape it into a triangle and it will be a triangular, pie-like shape. Angle it more narrow on the way up and it will be a pyramid-like shape. With any of these shapes, we cannot see inside of it. But now imagine this: just as we in the 3rd dimension looking at a shape in the 2nd dimension can see inside of it, a being in the 4th dimension looking at a shape in the 3rd dimension can see inside of the 3D object. That is because just like there is only length and width in the 2nd dimension, but no height; in the third dimension we have length width and height, but no __. I'm unaware of whether there is a name for the additional direction that would exist in the fourth dimension.
  
  
  I also don't know whether a 4th spatial dimension actually exists or is just an abstract concept, nor do I know whether it is possible or known to be possible to detect. As far as I am aware, the fourth spacial dimension is only known of abstractly, meaning that there is no evidence for it actually existing.
  
  
  ------------------------------------
  
  
  These videos explain how to understand what the 4th dimension would look like:
  
  
  Dr. Quantum explains the 4th dimension (video, 5:09)
  
  An oversimplified explanation from the movie "What the bleep do we know: down the rabbit hole" in which the character, Dr.Quantum, first explains what an (imagined) 2D world (flatland) would look like to us - who are able to see the 3D world, as a way of understanding (or extrapolating) how a being that could see in the 4D world would be able to see through and inside of 3D objects. (note: I've been warned that this is part of a video that goes on to some cult-like recruiting, so please be forewarned about the video's conclusion and entirety.)
  
  
  Cosmos - Carl Sagan - 4th Dimension (video, 7:24)
  
  Carl Sagan explains how to imagine what the 4th dimension looks if we were able to see it and how it would allow us to see inside 3D objects. An important part of this video is explaining and showing exactly how and why we can only see a distorted version of 4D objects since we only see in 3D
  
  
  4th Dimension Explained By A High-School Student (video, 9:05)
  
  An excellent description of the first through fourth dimension and how we can perceive them.
  
  
  Unwrapping a tesseract (4d cube aka hypercube) (video, 1:39)
  
  
  Hypercube (video, 3:18)
  
  Watch the above two videos to see how we can conceptualize a 4D object in 3D space.
  
  
  Videos mentioned elsewhere in this comment:
  
  
  Fourth Spatial Dimension 101 (video, 6:27)
  
  
  Flatland (video, 1:39:56)
  
  
  --------------------------------------
  
  
  Videos, Books and Links mentioned by other redditors:
  
  
  Flatland: a romance of many dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott (book, free, ~230kb)
  
  Amazon description & reviews
  
  hat-tip to /u/X3TIT
  
  
  "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions" by Lisa Randall (Amazon book page)"
  
  Looks interesting.
  
  hat-tip to /u/karoyamaro
  
  
  
  -----------------------------------
  
  (Edited: 1- to add video lengths; 2- added book links, 3 - readability more videos, 4 - a warning about the Dr. Quantum video.)
  

So I'm by no means an expert on this, but a while back I read a book called The Dictator's Handbook that goes into why executives and monarchs do this to their companies/counties.

A condensed version of the book can be seen by watching this CGP Grey video.

The TL;DW version of this:

Nobody rules alone. Executives have to answer to their board of directors, who in turn have other people they have to answer to and so on and so forth. These people have the power to throw you out if you don't please them.

How do you please people best? Bribe them. Give them incentives to keep you as top dog. How do you get the resources to bribe? Pillage your country/company for wealth.

You shower your immediate underlings with gifts and benefits and they won't oust you. Partially because they're in a good situation from it. Partially because if they do there is a risk that they'll get culled in a change of power (fewer people = more wealth for each person).

As a result top executives who find that they cannot get the resources to give to their underlings by improving the company will instead just grapple for anything they can get a hold of to keep their position.

This is of course a simplified explanation and the book goes into it way better.

As stated Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The region played a factor. Focusing on Europe, Europe had easy access of travel due to the Mediterranean sea. In broader view they had the silk road. There is a book called Why Nations Fail. A very interesting read. Out of dozens of examples the book shares, I will point out two that help shape Europe; the first being the story of Hercules and second the Black Death. The story of Hercule enabled a change in thought over the centuries as greek men went to the Olympics trying two win fame and glory for themseleves. The individual. The Black death on the other hand destroyed the working class and enabled a change in the current western system.

You should really read an economics book because your response is illogical. This book is very good. Technological innovation creates wealth and increases purchasing power, not the other way around. The time from the industrial revolution to the baby boomer generation involved massive leaps in automation, and yet the middle class became much better off. The period to which OP refers comes after massive automation. Your timeline is wrong. The wealth created from automation is specifically what gave individual men the purchasing power necessary to support a family.

No, the answer has to do with inflation - specifically the switch to free-floating fiat currency in Nixon's economic reforms - which led to a massive transfer of wealth to the top, which continues to this day. Inflation devalues a currency, which wipes out the effect of minimum wage laws, and folks at the top are the closest to the printing press so they benefit while those furthest from the printing press are disproportionately harmed.

Both concepts are discussed in the book I linked. You would do well to read it.

A young person has spent his entire life having his needs provided for by his parents. So the only model he really knows is one where a benevolent authority figure takes care of people in need. Naturally he supports a strong welfare state.

As he grows older and becomes responsible for himself, he begins to understand that making good choices and working hard helps him do better in life, and helps him best provide for his family. So when the authorities take more and more of his earnings and give it to other people who he thinks are making bad choices and working less hard, he gets resentful. He wants the government to get stop interfering in his life. [Here I'm using a more classical understanding of conservatism, not the currently popular xenophobic, warfare-oriented understanding of conservatism.]

Also, in rare cases, as he gets older he'll learn enough economics to understand why welfare programs do more harm than good, and will advocate against them.

I think you would enjoy reading Your Inner Fish....perfect Christmas gift, add it to your list :) The author asks the very same question you did and goes about explaining the answer in simple layman terms. Why do we all have two eyes? four limbs? one brain? Well the long and the short of it is because our first common ancestor had those traits and we inherited them. But the book is very good and goes into more explanation. I highly recommend it.

You're going to have a hard time finding someone to explain the biology of it in laymen's terms. There's a good book called "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy" that spends the first third explaining the biology of it.

Sound waves are produced by vibrations (guitar string, vocal chords, etc.) These vibrations start at a fundamental frequency (what you called "pitch") but they also vibrate at higher frequencies relative to the fundamental--these are called overtones. These higher frequencies aren't perceived as readily as the fundamental but they will color the tone of sound (timbre).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone

http://www.amazon.com/Music-The-Brain-And-Ecstasy/dp/038078209X

EDIT: I guess, in an overly simplistic way, you could say that the overtones do excite the nerves in the ear dedicated to those frequencies and the brain decodes them in pretty much the same way it does the fundamental. So, since the two sound sources emit different overtones the brain can tell them apart.

A wake-up light is nice, too. It's pretty delightful to wake up to "sunrise" instead of an alarm and I find it easier to get out of bed when it's bright.

An utterly fascinating book about this is The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. There aren't any books that spook me out any more, but this one did. It was just weird reading it...sort of what people in the 20s must have felt reading HP Lovecraft back before movies like Hellraiser became commonplace and we lost our sense of horror. From the Amazon review:

>His theory, in simplest terms, is that until about 3000 years ago, all of humankind basically heard voices. The voices were actually coming from the other side of the brain, but because the two hemispheres were not in communication the way they are now for most of us, the voices seemed to be coming from outside. The seemed, in fact, to be coming from God or the gods.
>
>But he also posits that many sophisticated civilizations were created by men and women who were all directed by these godlike voices. What is not very clearly explained (a serious gap in his theory) is how all the voices in these "bicameral civilizations," as he calls them, worked in harmony. But his theory is that ancient Greece, Babylon, Assyria, Egpyt, and less ancient but similar Mayan and Incan kingdoms were all built by people who were not "conscious" in our modern sense.
>
>When one hears voices, whether then or now, the voices tend to be commanding and directive, and the need to obey them compelling. Free will is not possible. And so the people who built the pyramids were not self-aware as we are, did not feel self-pity, did not make plans, but simply obeyed the voices, which somehow were in agreement that the thing must be done.

The author produced only this work and died in 1997. It is either total B.S. or an absolutely revolutionary idea. Unfortunately, it is non-provable, all we can do is speculate. Read the book, it's worth your time and available from the usual places, including torrents.

Er, just realized that the topic is before language. Oops. Anyway I wrote this all out so clicking 'save' anyway.

If you're interested in questions like this, you should really take a look at Guns, Germs, and Steel, the good old classic by Jared Diamond. I love it because it confronts questions about human history from a very academic perspective.

If you like TIYBOM, Robert Jourdain's Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination is right up there. Awkward title to explain in public but a fantastic read. I liked it a lot more than TIYBOM but in fairness read TIYBOM second.

This has been a big subject of academic debate. But the most popular theory among economists (but not necessarily other social sciences) is that it had a lot to do with the kinds of governments that colonists set up; which in turn had a lot to do with native geography and, in particular, disease environments. I did some of my postgrad on this.

In short - if your initial settlers survived, you set up a colony your people could go live in, and you set up government and institutions based on yours back home. They weren't democracies as we know them know, but they had property rights and rule of law.

If your initial settlers didn't, you extracted what you could from the people and the land and stayed as remote from them as you could. The government and institutions you set up were then effectively corrupt and exploitative to begin with.

The theory goes that institutions like that don't change quickly (revolutions can change them, but not always for the better), so countries that started at a disadvantage with the colonisation ended up at a disadvantage.

The most common example is the British Empire in ie Canada or NZ versus sub Saharan Africa.

If you're interested in further reading this was the original seminal research even if it does get a bit technical in parts (https://economics.mit.edu/files/4123). There's also a related book by he same principal author which is more recent (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227)

It's a bit too late to reply here, but you should checkout the book NAND2Tetris, The Elements of Computing Systems[1]. It's a really good book to help you understand the basics of computers in a simple manner.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Principles/dp/0262640686/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413824881&sr=8-1&keywords=nand2tetris

I am reading a book about this right now. If you really want to learn more, I highly recommend it! One of the most enlightening books I've ever read.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262640686/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311947161&sr=8-1

Must-read for topics like the one you are describing. There is a strong belief that Europe had the right blend of raw resources, timely technological discovery, and immunities to otherwise lethal pathogens. Meaning that if we were to turn back the clock and let everything play out again, Europe would likely be a colonial power just as it was in our history.

I'm literally on the other end of that... I haven't needed an alarm for a long time, since I'm almost always awake before it would go off, usually still with too little sleep. It's extremely rare that I get 8 hours of sleep. And yeah I would definitely trade with you.

Anyway, maybe you should try one of those light alarms, one like this, they simulate sunrise and make you wake up slowly and naturally over the span of a half hour or so. People I've talked to that have it said it's awesome.

most hacking is social engineering.

call a random # in a company & request access to X.
they ask for your employee ID #.
you make up an excuse & get off the phone.
Now you know what you need to get access.

Begin plan to get someone's ID
rinse & repeat as you hit each roadblock, all the while staying as random & anonymous as possible.

This is a great book if you're interested in an in depth discussion of this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Deception-Controlling-Security/dp/076454280X

Roméo Dallaire's autobiography, Shake Hands With the Devil, is a good, if long-winded read. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families is briefer, but very good nonetheless, and contains first-hand accounts of the events from both Hutus and Tutsis.

Both books were very painful to read, indeed I couldn't bring myself to finish either, but they are very, very good. I think I will have to give them another try, definitely don't regret buying them.

> "Ghost in the Wires" by Kevin Mitnick

Yes, fantastic book. I actually contracted Kevin (and his firm) to pen test my payment device, as much for the knowledge as for the celebrity tickles it sent up my spine.

Also I would recommend Kingpin

Motel of the Mysteries is a book that deals with that idea in a humorous way. It takes place in a distant future when archaeologists find a perfectly preserved hotel from now-ish, and we get to see what they make of all of the "artifacts" they discover.

As far as the figures, I am not sure how they know. But, you may have part of the answer there in your question. There's not necessarily much of a divide between "fertility" and "sex," maybe the figures don't have to be one or the other?

I recommend the books "The Art of Intrusion" and "The Art of Deception" by Kevin Mitnik. One of the most famous hackers in history (the movie Hackers was inspired by him and Hackers 2: Takedown is a moderately historical adaptation of his escapades). The books gives a breakdown of what he did and what hacking is really like (in the 80s and 90s, at least). In short, its more research, reading, trial and error, and social engineering than actual typing.

I suggest reading Flatland. It really helps to grasp the concept of higher dimensions. It is an easy read and not long at all.

LondonPilot has an excellent explanation.

If you want everything explained in a book, look at Code by Charles Petzold. It's basically an ELI5 Computers through all the layers of abstraction, literally starting with binary.

If you want a hands on approach, check out The Elements of Computing Systems. It will take you through building the gates that LondonPilot is talking about to building Memory, ALUs, and even a CPU. It continues on to assembly language programming, writing a compiler, writing a high level language, etc.

These books combined is really a large chunk of what you should know with a BS in Computer science.

I just bought this one a month ago. So far it's been great. Our apartment is on a lower floor by a corridor, and the bedroom doesn't get any light whatsoever in the morning.

When we first moved in I had the hardest time getting up, whereas our last place had a big window right next to the bed that let the sunrise in and I always woke up before the alarm and felt ready to go, even on the weekends. At the new place, I was hitting the snooze three or four times before waking up and feeling groggy for awhile once I was up.

I started setting the clock's alarm to follow the actual sunrise (my mornings are pretty flexible) and it'll start lighting up about half an hour beforehand. I use the sound during the week, and no sounds on the weekend. For me, it was completely worth the money.

Further down I linked this video which explains some pretty complicated concepts in a manner easy to understand.

The video uses the comparison of 2D and 3D universes as a parallel to 3D and 4D. If a 3D object enters a 2D world then it appears in that world as a 2D object. It is only as the object moves orthogonally (perpendicular but generalised for n dimensions) to the 2D plane that you can see all of the 3D object, but only in 2D "slices" at any time. In the video above the guy uses his finger, and the observers would see 2D slices of the finger.

This is significantly harder to wrap your head around when thinking about 3D and 4D, but the same principles apply.

If you want to read more on the subject then the book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is highly regarded. The video uses the same concepts, but this book was written in 1884 which is just mad in my opinion; it was very forward and abstract thinking at the time, and still is today.

Here's a really great book about it. Set in the throws of the French Revolution. It's a story of how the meter was formulated using triangulation by two scientists appointed by the King.

If you have not read Incognito or Subliminal, I highly recommend them. Gives some great insight into the subconscious mind. One of the books talks a bit about early work by Freud on how he was right and wrong about his research.

I have one of those wake-up lights http://www.amazon.com/Philips-HF3520-Wake-Up-Colored-Simulation/dp/B0093162RM/ref=dp_ob_title_hpc, they're fantastic.

If you want a healthy lipid profile, butter is something you should be consuming: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462

And BTW, the "cholesterol" number they gave you is irrelevant, and the "LDL" number was made up.

You might enjoy reading the satire: Motel of the Mysteries

http://www.amazon.com/Motel-Mysteries-David-Macaulay/dp/0395284252

Because it was designed that way. Before the French revolution, units were a mess and could differ from town to town. Each town often had examples of their local foot, yard and gallon fixed to the town hall. At the height of the French Revolution, scientists who had suddenly been elevated to high positions decided, with revolutionary fervour, that a new regime needed a new, logical system of units. Thus they conceived of the meter - to be defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator at the Paris meridian - and derived all other units from that.

If you're interested, try this book, which has a good history of what happened back then: https://www.amazon.com/Measure-All-Things-Seven-Year-Transformed/dp/0743216768/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469607564&sr=8-1&keywords=the+measure+of+all+things

PLEASE read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232

It happens. One of the first threads I read here was regarding "things you never knew you needed and can now not live without". Bidet was on the list. Can't be without mine now. Added benefit of reducing TP consumption by 50%

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TPGPUW/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_-xEzybGQGV9D1

Your brain edits FAR more out than just minute vibrations. It essentially builds a customized representation of what is 'out there'. The image you 'see' isn't the photons of light entering your eye - those are just the triggers that set off the neural pathways running to the visual centers of your brain. Those centers do an enormous amount of processing and eventually settle on an 'image' in the conscious areas of the cortex that you perceive as reality, even though it isn't really.

For an interesting read, grab a copy of Incognito: the Secret Lives of the Brain by neuroscientist David Eagleman. It's a real eye opener.

Someone wrote an entire book on this: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/

tl;dr: Europe was much better suited for farming and such so society there could develop faster. You should probably just read it though. There was also a series of documentaries you could watch.

I have this same issue. You probably have some minor constipation and could benefit from more water, more fiber, maybe some metamucil. This is happening because your poop is too hard.

My solution (in addition to the above things) was to purchase an over-the-toilet bidet. I have this one, and let me tell you: it is life changing. My butthole is so clean, no more hemorrhoids, no more itchy, scratchy, stinkiness. It's like a localized shower for your anus whenever you want.

You bring up a really important factor in current African politics - that modern nations were drawn without any concern for ethnic nations within their geographic borders, but I think Rwanda is not really a good example of what you're talking about.

No one is really sure where the Hutu and Tutsi come from (!). It is often said that the Tutsi were herders who came to Rwanda from Ethiopia while the Hutu were native farmers, but there is little actual evidence to support this claim. Instead, it gained ground when European race-scientists put it forth. Ethiopians were seen as Caucasian (and therefore ,superior), so there was an attempt to attribute any good aspects of African culture or societies to them instead of to 'lesser' Africans.

Anyway, regardless of where the two groups came from, there was, over generations, lots of mixing between the two groups. By the time the Belgians got to Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, had the same religion, lived in the same communities, married eachother, had kids together. There was a general idea that Tutsis raised cattle while Hutus farmed, bu in reality both groups did both. Basically, there wasn't that big a difference between Hutus and Tutsis. The genocide couln't have been avoided if the Hutus & Tutsis were separated because, really, they weren't even different groups.

When then Belgians came, they came with their own mindset and world view. Belgian society was one with rival ethnic groups - the Flemish and the Walloons - and that rivalry came across in the make up of the Belgian government. When they set up a government in Rwanda, they set it up with that model. They saw the Tutsis as descendents of Caucasian Ethiopians and as superior to the Hutus. They made everyone have an ID card saying if hey were Hutu, Tutsi, or pygmy. They gave the Tutsis more power and more access to education and better jobs. They basically created tribal conflict where there hadn't been any.

Fast forward to Rwandan independence, and the Hutus, who had been disenfranchised under the Belgian system, were (understandably) pissed. Over the years, they began to disenfranchise Tutsis. And in 90s, it erupted into full-fledged genocide.

Clearly, this is an oversimplification. And I'm too lazy right now to go upstairs and pull citations out of the shelf full of books I have on the subject. But, for an awesome read about the genocide, its origins, and its ramifications, check out We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. You might also check out Rene Lemarchand's writings, especially Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo, Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice, and & The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa*. I don't know that those can be accessed online, but this article of his also discusses the complexities of the Rwandan genocide.

And, since this is ELI5, here's the TL;DR:

When Europeans drew borders in Africa, they didn't care about the people there. Lots of times, this lead to later civil wars because two groups that were enemies had been lumped in together or because one group was split up between two different countries so they'd try to leave and make their own new country. But what happened in Rwanda in the 1990s was a little bit different, and a lot more complicated.

My own guess is that it's slamming Carl Sagan, who is like the patron saint of a lot of Reddit, and positively quoting Crichton, whom a lot of the more alarmist climate change types have been demonizing for over a decade because he points out how much bad politicized "science" there is out there.

If it makes it easier, take a look at Gary Taubes' writing on medical research and the nonsense that gets published there: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400033462/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?pc_redir=1395587729&qid=1286302951&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Agreed. Also, reading suggestion for the OP:

https://www.amazon.com/Kingpin-Hacker-Billion-Dollar-Cybercrime-Underground/dp/0307588696

Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400033462/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_79aCybQMP5QC0

Calories that spike your insulin response will, over time, create a hormonal imbalance (insulin / leptin) that leads to increased hunger, lethargy, and weight gain around the midsection.

If you're interested, I would recommend reading The Art of Deception. It's written by Kevin Mitnick, who actually spent time in prison for hacking and today runs a security firm that gets paid to probe systems and find their weaknesses. The aspects of hacking are often more social than you might realize.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

Closing the glottis to prevent water from entering the lungs while breathing with gills in amphibious development. Gill breathing can be blocked by carbon dioxide, just like holding your breath to convert air to CO2 usually dissipates the hiccup gill response.

In the book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, the author discusses this process a bit. The book is really interesting (but sad). I read it after watching Hotel Rwanda.

http://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334242536&sr=8-3

You may also want to check out this book. It's very heady, but thoroughly explores a couple theories for the advent of human consciousness, and its relation to language.

Shoutout for the toilet bidet kit. A stool makes you a prince, but a bidet makes you a king.

Oh, and in response to your last point, take a look at David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries.

Read this: http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-The-Secret-Lives-Brain/dp/0307389928

Correct:

Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination

Read The Measure of All Things, it will yield a little more insight into the origin of the meter and the thinking that led to it.

To my American brothers and sisters if you got shit on your arm would you wipe it off or clean it with water and wipe it?


I'm a American and I bought a bidet on Amazon after using it at a friends house. In American men want to seem masculine and they wanna seem not "gay". Most American men then see water going up your ass as gay or weird. They also don't understand how it could be cleaner.

I'm a guy who owns a bidet.

Astor Non-Electric Mechanical Bidet Toilet

Buy this for 24 bucks and you'll never go back plus it takes us a year to use a big package of toilet paper now.

\>A loss result for tax purposes does not necessarily mean the company is losing money.

This line of thinking occurs often, because people do not look at both sides of situation.

If I buy $100,000 worth of computers with a loan, you think it's not a "real loss" because I make profit in the future.

But what if I don't make a profit? The money was still taken from someone else (investor/bank) and they will never get it back. So IT IS a real loss.

I recommend reading Economics in one lesson

For one thing, it's cold enough in East Asia and Europe (note they're at similar latitudes) for germs to die every winter, so people live longer and technology can advance accordingly. In the case of Australia, humans inhabited the continent and killed off all the big game before they domesticated anything, so they didn't have the advantage of cows and horses. In Africa, in order to avoid diseases carried by mosquitoes, people traditionally lived in small communities far from water sources, meaning they have to put in a lot of effort to carting water. This means that they lacked the benefits of a city like job specializations, etc.

"Guns, Germs and Steel" is a really interesting read to answer this question more fully.

There was a Cracked article that made me think we don't get the whole story about Native Americans. Supposedly they were very advanced, but a plague wiped them out and allowed Europeans to conquer them.

If you are interested in such topics, you ought to read Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

It isn't Iran's weapons that threatens Israel; it is the idea that the US and Iran will get along, in which case, who needs Israel? This book is all about this: http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117

See, remember when Nixon decided to "go to China", the US kicked Taiwan to the curb (Until then the US recognized the Natinalist govt in Taiwan as officially representing China, not the govt of the Communist mainland)

Israel does not want to become Taiwan, in a post-cold War era where Israel's value as an ally is becoming highly questionable.

And neither Iran nor Israel are "surrounded by people who want them destroyed"
This is old and worn-out Zionist hasbara intended to actually justify Israeli aggression and ethnic cleansing, and has been thoroughly debunked by Israeli historians themselves ie Ilan Pappe's book on the 1948 War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIWvcBzbqVc

In the case of Iran, they have good relations with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and now even Iraq. The Saudis and their pet sheikhs of the Persian Gulf may also hate the idea of the return of Iran as the "Policeman of the Persian Gulf" like the petulant children they are (after all they benefitted from Iran providing security for the Persian Gulf) however the reality is that Iran is the natural hegemon of the region -- the longest coastline, the most strategic depth, 80 million well-educated population etc etc -- whether the Saudis like it or not. It will be the dominant force simply by existing, and it has existed for 2500 years. This is just geography and reality.

There's a really good book that explores this:

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072

Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind".

If you're REALLY serious about considering this question, read that book slowly and think about it. Is that voice actually "in your head"? Is it possible that your consciousness, whatever that is, can exist in a room down the hall? Is it existing right now or a split second in the past?

We know that chemical and physical reactions constitute brain activity, which is how we think, but your nervous system doesn't just exist in your head. There's aspects of your nervous system that function inside your body without ever consulting your brain consciously or subconsciously.

There's the concept of a mastermind, a consciousness that develops when two or more people are working on something together. Where does that consciousness exist?

Are "you" observing the world through the lens of your mind, or are you directly experiencing it as "you"? In how many ways can you observe/experience the world? We think of our experiences as a movie that we're viewing, especially when we're remembering, but all of that can be biased and influenced by the feelings we're having right now. We can even have memories implanted in our heads by others or even ourselves.

Our consciousness isn't a computer, it's an organic phenomenon that is extremely malleable and subjective. In short, it's not exactly "you".

These are fun questions to ask, specifically because they don't have an exact answer, and we've been trained to think that everything has an exact answer or no answer yet. This isn't much of an ELI5. I'm sorry.

Because Israel feels threatened by the potential for US and Iran to get along, which is why they've been pushing (through their agents and lobbyists in the US) for the US to get in yet another war in the Mideast for their benefit. This has been going on for a long time now.

http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/war-and-peace/2008/06/iran-spam

There's a whole network of pro-Israeli pressure groups active in the US who are dedicated to promoting hatred of the Muslims/Iranians
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Clarion_Fund

There's an award-winning book on this subject of Israel acting as spoiler in US-Iran relations:

http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117

As the author states:
>"[I]t wasn’t Iran that turned the Israeli-Iranian cold war warm – it was Israel . . . The Israeli reversal on Iran was partially motivated by the fear that its strategic importance would diminish significantly in the post-cold war middle east if the then [Iranian] president (1989-97) Hashemi Rafsanjani’s outreach to the Bush Sr administration was successful." https://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-irandemocracy/israel_2974.jsp

And so,

> Israeli politicians began painting the regime in Tehran as fanatical and irrational. Clearly, they maintained, finding an accommodation with such “mad mullahs” was a non-starter. Instead, they called on the US to classify Iran, along with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, as a rogue state that needed to be “contained.” http://williambowles.info/iran/iran_israel_strategy.html

>Shooting down a missile is extremely easy.

WTF? This is one of the most complicated scientific and practical issues mankind has ever encounter, it makes the moon landing look like cooking mac and cheese. We simply are not capable of doing it, short range land to land is possible with particular situations but still lots of issues and unpredictability... no one has really got past that yet.

Sidewinders and Air-to-air missile are completely unrelated and different types of animals. You don't have any idea what you're talking about I'd just stop if I were you, seriously, you completely have no idea. All "missiles" aren't "missiles", they are as different as a pistol to an artillery shell.

Bombers/fighters are the primary method of delivery of explosive payloads, nuclear or otherwise. ICBMs are...troublesome.

I highly recommend a book for you, Command and Control by Eric Schlosser might let you know how far off you are...

Paul Pillar explains why Israel sees Iran as a competitor http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-real-subject-netanyahus-congressional-spectacle-it-isnt-12337

Israel wants the US to go to war against Iran for it, or at least to make sure the two don't get along, because then Israel would not be as important if they do get along.

Here is an award-winning book explaining precisely that: http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117

So, pro-Israeli lobbyists have been active for quite a while in the US to push their agenda to start a US-Iran war, :

http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/war-and-peace/2008/06/iran-spam

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-prodding-us-to-attack-iran/

just as they pushed for the US invasion of Iraq

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-to-us-dont-delay-iraq-attack/

Remember, when the US decided to recognize Communist China, the non-Communist Taiwanese -- who until then were considered the legal govt of China by some -- were kicked to the curb. Many American foreign policy experts believe that in dealing with Iran, the US should "go to China" as President Nixon did by recognising and accepting Iran as a reality http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/if-nixon-can-go-to-china-20130303

But Israel doesn't want to be a third wheel. Iran has 80 million potential consumers of US goods and services as well as a growing well-educated middle class -- while Israel keeps getting the US into trouble and drags her down like ball and chain into a quagmire of war and ethnic cleansing. If the US and Iran get along, who needs Israel?

The Saudis are similarly concerned. They don't want to return to the days of the Shah when Iran was the "policeman of the Persian Gulf"

Also, the "Iran threat" is very useful for Israeli politicians who want to pretend to be the great defenders of Israel though in private they don't feel all that threatened. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/livni-behind-closed-doors-iranian-nuclear-arms-pose-little-threat-to-israel-1.231859

Nuclear weapons "capability" is a bullshit scaremongering term, which they're using because they don't have any actual evidence of any actual weapons so they frame it as "capabilities".

In fact 40 nations already have a nuclear weapons capability, and this is simply because civilian and military nuclear technology is the same not because 1 out of 4 nations on the planet plan on making nukes. Beware of this "capability" weasel language. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8V0ezWHGCYAJ:www.seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2002041473_nukes21.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

People just assume that Iran must want the bomb but that's just an assumption

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/ten-reasons-iran-doesnt-want-the-bomb-7802

And note who these authors are who say that Iran's nuclear program is not in breach of international law http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/iran-nuclear-power-un-threat-peace

But the US wants to keep the "Iranian nuclear threat" alive, since it is a convenient pretext to try to topple their government, just as "WMDs in Iraq" was just as a lie and a pretext to invade Iraq.

http://www.reddit.com/r/iranpolitics/comments/2xih2d/iran_offer_to_cut_centrifuges_by_a_third_led_to/cp0ed8x

Read more about Iran's nuclear program here http://www.amazon.com/Manufactured-Crisis-Untold-Story-Nuclear/dp/1935982338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425173705

This is a controversial topic.

The traditional nutritional advice is that all calories are equal, and to lose weight you simply need to eat fewer calories. Further, nutritionists advised that fat and especially saturated fat were bad and caused all sorts of disease.

Lately, an alternate view has emerged that eating carbohydrates tends to make your body burn less calories and creates an urge to consume more. In addition, fat and even saturated fat turn out not to be bad for you.

This article gets into the debate. "On the very low-carbohydrate diet, Dr. Ludwig’s subjects expended 300 more calories a day than they did on the low-fat diet."

Two books to check out are Good Calories, Bad Calories and The Big Fat Surprise.

I am now persuaded that calories are not all the same.

Someone likely got a hold of your card data. This can happen in several ways. Thieves put "skimmers" on ATMs for just this purpose, or it could be from a waitress that has a hand-held skimmer, who swipes each card she handles when the customer is out of sight. If your card has the sideways wifi-looking symbol on the back, it broadcasts its information wirelessly as well. This information can be zapped out of the air with relative ease. Certain phones that have NFC chips and/or the appropriate technology (nothing special), can download an app that sniffs CC info of cards that are within 6 inches or so of it (better technology can go further; while the theoretical limit for this technology on cards was supposed to be like 36 inches at Best, I saw a DefCON presentation where they were able to read card info from like a quarter mile with homemade equipment). All of this aside, it is Also extremely likely that your CC info was purchased online, from someone who hacked into a (usually) small mom/pops type place that is incorrectly handling CC info (it is technically illegal for them to store/maintain this info, at least unencrypted I know it is.... but it still happens a lot... usually when people use some "small business starter pro!!" software they don't know how to use).

Lastly, I'd like to point out that if I had to guess, the owner of that store is in on this ring of thieves. That, or the thief made a copy of your card and went there, a place where they don't really pay attention. The thief would want to make a clone of your card and do a test purchase before selling it, or before trying it at a large establishment (or simply taking the time to make his fake look Real, which costs him like 30$ of materials etc if he wants one that can pass inspection) (mind you the Tools/Machines costs 100s and 1000s of dollars... just once he's already got those, I'm averaging between 20-30$ of materials (metallic paint, hologram, other ink, etc, etc)).

Source: Read and recommend this book for you to read. Kingpin

Read this. If you want to know what's going to happen, just look at Ethiopia in the 70's. The famine wasn't the result of drought. The famine was a deliberate move on the part of the Ethiopian government. The people that starved every year were considered waste. They weren't making any of the government's constituents money, so they weren't important enough to feed. That's where we are headed in this country. If you really want a solution, and you aren't just trolling, you need to get off your ass and teach people how to be self-reliant. Shit's about to get so bad that even your little rant will seem utterly meaningless.

First of all, I'm going to highly recommend Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. It came out recently, is explicitly about nuclear weapon safety, and is a fantastic read.

There are...a lot of different things that can go wrong with nuclear weapons. No system is perfect, and any tiny imperfection is amplified by the number of weapons in service. If there's a one in a million chance of a nuke accidentally detonating during its service life, it sounds pretty safe, but if there's 10,000 of them, there's only a one in a thousand chance of there being an accidental nuclear explosion, and statistically you start getting closer and closer to being able to say with certainty that there will be an accidental nuclear explosion at some point.

The hair trigger is indeed what makes these things extra dangerous, and IIRC we've started to shift somewhat to a somewhat more relaxed doctrine? Not certain, though. The problem, especially during the cold war, is that the time between detection of a nuclear strike and the missiles impacting is extremely short. Thirty minutes would be a generous time frame, and that could go down to fifteen or even less if launched from a submarine or neighboring country.

That short timeframe means that every nuke we think we'd need has to be ready to go 24/7, able to launch within those 15-30 minutes. And while constant readiness sounds easy enough, that means you're constantly handling a lot of hazardous equipment with Nuclear weapons on the top of it.

At that timeframe, you don't necessarily have time to load the bombs onto planes. You either have to keep the planes loaded on the runway, or even better, up in the air with the bombs on board. We kept nuclear bombers flying 24/7 for years. And with that many bombers constantly landing/taking off in B-52s (which were designed for speed/altitude, and not for airframe durability), some planes are going to crash. There were numerous instances of loaded bombers crashing, planes breaking up midair, etc. Bombs had their high explosives go off. One time a bomb stayed intact as a plane was breaking up and acted like it had been dropped for real. It only didn't go off because of a single analog safety that could have very easily have been shorted out.

Missiles have their own set of problems. Rocket fuel is volatile by definition, and ICBMs have the problem that they have to constantly be ready to go, meaning you can't use cryogenic fuels like liquid hydrogen and oxygen. You have to use much more "exciting" stuff that's incredibly poisonous, eats through most protective gear, burns with just about anything, and will explode if it touches the stuff in the tank beside it. And then you store it in lightweight missiles with paper-thin walls.

One of the central stories Command and Control explores is an incident at Damascus, Arkansas. A mechanic drops a wrench, it tears open a hole in the side of the missile resulting in a massive fuel leak. The complex is evacuated, and a few hours later a spark makes all the fuel and oxidizer blow up the silo, shooting the warhead hundreds of feet in the air in a massive fireball.

We like to think that our bombs are really safe, that they can't go off accidentally, but there have been plenty of past designs studied and shown to be unsafe, where something like a crashing plane, bullet impact, lightning strike, or even a solid drop could cause it to go off.

And that's before considering mistaken or accidental launches. There have been multiple instances in both the USA, USSR, and modern Russia of nuclear launches being detected. In the early 90's Russia actually opened their nuclear football and presented it to Yeltzin.

Then there's terrorism. We've made tens of thousands of bombs. The more there are, the easier it is for one to go missing and fall into the hands of terrorists. That's why the breakup of the USSR was scary. That's why it's scary when a smaller, more unstable nation like Pakistan or North Korea develops nukes. It's one additional failure point for Nuclear security.

The only totally safe number is zero. In any event, even after extensive arms reduction, we still have thousands of nukes, which is way more than is needed to destroy any possible enemy.

(seriously, read Command and Control. Best book I read this year.)

A great read on this subject is Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser. At some points during the cold war Strategic Air Command had nuclear equipped bombers circling around the perimeter of US and NATO airspace non-stop. As with anything we decide to do 24/7, there were some accidents. If you think a B-52 bursting into flames on a runway sounds kinda stressful, imagine how much worse it gets when you know it has shaped explosives ready to jam together some fissile materials inside it. A situation like that occurred once, and lucky, the shaped explosives melted in the heat before they could go off. In another incident a B-52 had something fail and ripped apart in mid-air. This occurred over US airspace, and in some kinda crazy failure of oversight, the bomb on that plane had its physical safety enabled, meaning if the pilot had happened to also have his bomb key turned to the right we would have ejected a live nuke onto Virginia.

To answer your question though: minor taps are unlikely to set off the shaped explosives which start the reaction. Think of the nuke as a football shaped thing with two bits of material in them that, when slammed together with a lot of force, set off a nuclear reaction. If only half the "lens" explodes, that might not be enough force even, so even if you shot the exposed bomb it might only set off some of the shaped explosives, possibly resulting in a 'dirty bomb' or possibly just a loud bang. The detonation charge has to be perfectly timed to all parts of the football in order to make sure the two halves slam together with maximum surface area.

By the way, I can't recommend that book enough, it made me much more aware of how many crazy accidents and near accidents our nuclear weapons program has had, and it really makes you think twice about why the fuck we need thousands of these weapons sitting around, and the huge amount of effort which went into them, both on the design level and on the practical every-day level.

The below is based on my recollection of this amazing book

Rwanda is a small african country. As a result of specific policy choices made during the colonial era, the country was divided between a Tutsi minority that dominated politics and trade, and a Hutu majority that often felt left out of governance.

In the post colonial period, this ethnic divide deepened, and ultimately the Hutu majority took power in the country. The country faced trouble typical of the region at the time, with strongman government and ethnic strife.

Over time, the government increasingly used the Tutsi minority as a scapegoat for problems in the country. Following the assassination of the president (which some claim was the responsibility of his supposed allies) the government called on the Hutu population to rise up and cleanse the Tutsis. Spurred by radio personalities and the government, soldiers, police, and armed mobs began to slaughter Tutsis.

The international response was divided. France considered the Hutu government a client, and was opposed to direct foreign intervention. The UN forces in the country were similarly paralyzed, and politics prevented them from taking a direct role in trying to stop the worst of the conflict. (the leader of the UN force ultimately killed himself out of guilt for failing to do more, if I recall correctly).

Ultimately, a mostly Tutsi resistance force was able to stop the killing, eject the government and force the worst of the military out of the country (Which destabilized neighboring Congo).

The estimated death toll is between 800,000 and 1.2 million killed, I think, in a matter of weeks.

Just finished reading Command and Control, so want to say that it almost happened several times with the US too:

• One time the US BMEWS detected a Soviet first strike with 99.9% accuracy, and the SAC had only 15 minutes to respond or risk obliteration (at that time second-strike capabilities weren't quite so well established so knocking out the entire American leadership in one shot may have been a viable strategy to winning a nuclear war). Only after finding out that Khrushchev was giving a speech at the UN in New York did the SAC calm down since the Soviets were unlikely to kill their own leader, and when everyone was still alive 20 minutes later it was obvious it was a false alarm. Later it was found that the BMEWS had detected the moon rising as a missile strike. Who knows what might have happened had Khrushchev been in the USSR on that day?
  
• Another time all communication to the BMEWS was knocked out from SAC headquarters, east to west. The probability of such a thing happening randomly throughout the entire extent of the BMEWS was considered highly unlikely, especially since there were redundancies in the phone system, and they were also unable to contact Thule. It was thought that a missile strike had started against the BMEWS. The only evidence otherwise was a bomber flying 24/7 over Thule whose sole purpose was simply to provide visual confirmation that Thule still existed, and sure enough this bomber finally played its role by confirming over radio that yes, Thule was still there and hadn't been obliterated in a first strike. Later it turns out that fucking AT&T had said it installed redundant phone connections, but hadn't actually done so, and one of the phone switch stations failed. Corporate greed inadvertently brought us close to a nuclear war (imagine if the bomber's radio system happened to fail for any reason?).
  
• Twice SAC headquarters showed tons of incoming missiles and destruction of American cities displayed on its status board, in a highly realistic attack that fully confirmed SAC's every prediction of what a Soviet attack would look like, but communication with radar stations revealed that they failed to detect anything, and the American cities were clearly still there. Turns out to have been practice simulation tapes that were mistakenly loaded by a technician, so no wonder they confirmed SAC expectations of what a Soviet attack would look like. Only after the second time this happened did they decide to build a separate place solely for simulation war games.
  
• Multiple times SAC computers received messages telling them that there were 202 missiles or 22 missiles, etc, heading towards the US. Once again radar stations detected nothing so it was a false alarm. The cause? A defective CPU chip that randomly replaced 0's with 2's, and a sort of ping message from computers simply confirming that they were still transmitting information, except the ping message was something like "0000 missiles detected". The CPU was replaced and the message rewritten to have no mention of missiles whatsoever.
  
  Of course things like this probably also happened on the Soviet side that the general population doesn't know about. But this is just to show that we fuck up too, and our early warning systems have in fact malfunctioned several times in the past.