CULTURAL QA 04-2023-08 Q1 What was life like fora German soldier after they surrendered on the Eastern Front of World War II?
A1 Michael Herndon,FormerLaw Enforcement Officer (Retired) & US ARMY Vet. (1989–2021)Sun For the majority of German soldiers captured by the Soviets on theEastern Front during WW II, lifewas very rough to say the least. Many faced years of hard labor inbrutal conditions, in hard winters, & hot summers in central Asia on a veryscant diet, & in unclean conditions. In addition they faced long hours of politicalindoctrination by Soviet commisars.Not only were German POWs seen as asource of labor during wartime, but were viewed by Joseph Stalin as a resourceto be used by the Soviets in the post war world, as he stated at the Tehranconference in 1943. Mostwere used for recontruction purposes such as repairing dams, buildings,apartment complexes, etc., or on agricultural projects. Some German prisonerscollaborated with the Soviets & received more lenient treatment, but mostdid not. Some senior German Generals such as FrederichPaulus of Stalingrad fame received much milder treatment from the Soviets. MostGerman POWs faced long periods of incarciration, some not being released until1955–56. Q2 What are the mostfascinating science facts? A2 Krishna Kamat, Lives inHindustan (2000–present)Mar 26 A human body has enough DNA to extend from our sun to Pluto and back. Your brain is more powerful, morecomplex and more clever than any computer ever built. Helium Works Against Gravity,Helium doesn’t get affected by gravity. Animals Use Earth’s MagneticField to Know their Location. Hot water freezes faster than cold water. Nothing in the universe can gofaster than the speed of light. The speed of light traveling through a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458meters per second (186,000 miles per second) The letter "J" is theonly one not found on the periodic table. Q3 What are some essentialtips that travelers should keep in mind while booking online train tickets inIndia? A3 Prashant Tiwari,IndianRailways Enthusiast Sat India has one of the largest railway networks in the world, connectingmillions of people across the country. With the advent of technology, bookingtrain tickets online has become an extremely convenient and popular way totravel. However, with so many options available, it can be overwhelming fortravellers to know how to proceed. Therefore, it's essential to keep a fewthings in mind while booking online train tickets in India. In this answer, we will discuss some of the essential tips thattravellers should keep in mind while booking train tickets online to ensure asmooth and hassle-free experience. These tips will help you save time and moneyand avoid any last-minute confusion or inconvenience. 1. Auto Upgradation One of the most useful features available to all the passengers isauto-upgradation. It offers a free upgrade to a higher class against vacantberths available after first chart preparation. I personally tick this optionevery time and have been upgraded to the higher class a couple of times. 2. Pay through UPI We generally ignore this part and select debit or credit cards to pay forour tickets. It always costs us more, as these card companies take a paymentgateway charge to proceed our transaction. We cansimply save this amount every time we book our train ticket by using UPI as ourpayment option. 3. Check Trends The demand for Indian train tickets is always high, and we usually find awaiting list for our preferred trains and journey dates. Booking a waiting list ticket is always risky, whether itwill be confirmed or not. But if we get an idea of our selected train'swaiting list trend, we can make a better decision and minimize the risk. We cancheck these waiting list confirmation trends of any train through an app namedTrainman 4. Travel insurance We generally ignore this option while booking our train tickets, but this option is reallyimportant for us. Indian Railways provides a travel insurance of Rs 10lacs to every passenger who opts for this option. It costs just Rs 0.49, whichis half a rupee, and provides coverage of Rs 10 lacs to every passenger. 5. Free Cancellation Service We all know that Indian Railways charge a cancellation fee whenever wecancel a train ticket. The cancellation charge depends on the time ofcancellation from the departure date. It can go as high as 50% of the totalfare if we cancel our ticket within 12 hours of departure time and up to 4hours before departure. FreeCancellation is a premium feature offered by an online ticket booking companynamed Trainman that refunds your full fare amount on ticket cancellations. This is a premium feature, so we have to pay a nominal fee to opt in.This can be very useful for passengers whose plans are uncertain and may changeat the last minute. There were few tips which can be very useful for the passengers whilebooking an online train ticket. Q6 What are the benefitsof stopping all animal agriculture? Will it help save the Earth from climatechange? A6 Steven Haddock, Studiedat York University (Canada)1h Regrettably, no. Unfortunately, about 40% of what is classified as “arable land” is notsuitable for growing crops that humans are capable of consuming. About half of that is onlyuseful as “pasture” and the other half is only suitable for crops animals eat,like hay. That includes the vast majority of land in places like Mongolia, whichhas massive amounts of grassland but where the cold temperatures and uncertainrainfall make growing crops possible on only the best possible land. That doesn’t mean that modern agriculture isn’t harmful to the climate.It’s incredibly energy intensive, for one thing. In addition, irrigation isstraining water supplies in several parts of the world, including Californiaand Israel. It’s unlikely that level of agriculture can be maintained for muchlonger. We’re also growing far morefood than we can actually consume. Corn yields in theUnited States have increased five-fold since the 1940s, while the populationhas only doubled. As a result, even if you count fresh corn, popcorn, cannedand frozen corn, corn flour and corn meal, only a small fraction of that isactually consumed by humans. A lot of it is fed to animals, but it’salso processed for syrup and used to produce alcohol. And even if you convinced theWest to give up cattle, it’s unlikely India would follow suit. India has morecattle than any other single country because they’re a primary source of fat,milk and fuel. Certainly, a lot can be done but doing in all theanimals may do more harm than good. Q7 Why doesn't a curved screenTV exist anymore? A7 Prasanna Bhalerao, M.Sc. in Electronics & Physics, Fergusson College, Pune1y I am assuming that you mean themodern LED TV in its curved avatar as shown below: The idea came from cinemas where the screen is curved. Cinema screens arecurved for a very good reason. The cinema is projected from the rear to thescreen. At that distance, the distance from the centre of the screen,perpendicular to the projector and the distance to end edges of the screen willbe greatly different. This will cause the image at the edges to be out offocus. This is show here: The curve is necessary at longradii. For some reason, promoted bySamsung, curved TVs came into existence. They claimed a complete “immersive” experience. This was a total pieceof crap. At such a small distance - typically 8 feetfor a 50″ diagonal screen - a curve is not only not necessary, but it is also ahuge gimmick. My guess is that it was a trick to overcome thelimitation of the non-IPS panel. The curved TV also came with a great disadvantage. The makers assumedthat only one or two persons will watch TV. They simply forgot that most homes have an L-shaped seatingand the large TV is often wall-mounted. This meant that those sittingdirectly in front could get a good view but those at 90 degrees had a poor viewof one side. I had long ago realised this and made a vow that I will not buy a curvedTV even if nothing else was sold. Many people went for the initial fad and gradually realised the fault. The TV did not prove to be providing a “more immersive”experience than the flat screen of the same size and they were no disadvantageseither. Just like 3D TVs, this fad thankfully saw its days. There are still some curved TVs inthe market today. People buy them unknowingly thinking that they will get thecinema experience at home, but only to be disappointed. It is not thatthe pic quality of curved TV is inferior but there is no superior qualityeither. The cost is slightly higher too. Q8 Which vegetarian foodsare similar to non vegetarian? A8 Shaunak Bhattacharjeee,Software Engineer | Traveller | FoodieApr 1 There is a fruit called Jackfruitwhich is eaten as a fruit as well as a vegetable. I cannot stand the smell of it but some people really love it. If I amnot wrong, the yellow fleshy part of the fruit, if eaten raw, it is basicallythe fruit, but if you cook it, it can be eaten as a vegetable. And if cooked perfectly, ittastes like chicken. You haveto chew it exactly in the way you would chew meat. The texture and theconsistency are almost the same. The taste is also somewhat similar. In Bengali, we call it'Echor’. It is used as asubstitute for meat in many households, in fact, and is also compared to'Pulled Pork’. Another vegetarian food thatdoesn't look or taste like meat but is used as a replacement for meat is soyabean. It has a similar consistency to that of meat andis a rich source of protein. It's not as cheap as jackfruit and hence, notsomething anybody could afford very easily, but it is still cheaper thanchicken and acts as a meat substitute among vegetarians for a good source ofprotein. My note- In srardha jack fruit after removing seed is served to srardhabhokthas, on the reason some pithruaccompanying or our pithru himself would have liked meat- I have read somewhere. Q9 Who will win between agiraffe and a lion? A9 Impeckable, AnimalEnthusiast Mar 4 A giraffe is generally too muchfor a lone lion. The giraffe is much bigger and heavier than the lion. At 3,300 pounds(1,500 kilograms), it isaround six times heavier than the feline. This gives the ruminant asignificant size advantage. Not to mention its incrediblypowerful legs. Even though a giraffe's legslook pretty thin, they can actually generate 2,000 PSI with one kick.They have been known to decapitate lions with their strong shanks. A single forceful blow fromthe powerful legs is enough to ruin the big cat's day. Lions tend to go for the neck when hunting down prey. However, measuring5.5 meters (18 feet) tall, the giraffe is too high for its neck to bevulnerable. The neck alone is 3.7 meters (12.1 feet) in the air, which is outof the lion's reach. The only way for the feline to get hold ofit would be to climb onto the giraffe's back and grab it. This wouldgive the ruminant the opportunity to kick the lion right in the face. In a fight between the two, the lion would either get beheaded, ortrampled to death. Maybe apride of four or more lions would work. But one is just not enough. My note- If giraffe can do this much why can’t elephant crush lion underit’s feet- a doubt arise in me. Q10 Most premium trains inIndia have only one 1AC coach. Are there any trains which have more than onefirst AC coach? A10 Prasanna Bhalerao, Knowsabout trains. Apr 2 Off the top of my head, I can’tremember any train having more than one AC First Class (H) coach. I remember that for some time, the Mumbai Rajdhani used to have twoH coaches but that was reverted to one coach only shortly. Whilethere is sufficient demand for AC First Class tickets to entertain the notionof more than one such coach, it comes at the expense of a coach in otherclasses. The AC First Class coach can accommodate 22 passengers whereas AC 2-Tier(टीयर) canaccommodate 52 while AC 3-Tier will cater for 78 (all LHB type coaches). The AC first class is the least profitable of all classes in IR in spiteof the high fare. Not just that, it eats into the train passenger carryingcapacity. The AC 2-Tier also makes a loss. The AC 3-Tier is the only classthat returns some positive values. The LHB rake is limited to 22 coaches whilemost Rajdhani trains are capped at 20 to enable faster acceleration. All the above QA are from Quora website on 11-4-2023.Quora answers need not be 100% correctanswers . Compiled and posted by R. Gopala Krishnan, 79, former ITS on 11-04-2023 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. 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