Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 13:08, 11 May 2022

Welcome to the miscellaneous section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

Shortcut

WP:RD/M

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

May 7

Us supreme court

Members of — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1017:B110:AD58:B910:2463:23C2:CAE6 (talk) 06:55, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See Supreme Court of the United States. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See misogynists. Fgf10 (talk) 10:48, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:NOTFORUM. --Lambiam 18:37, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Chewing gum sticks availability in Poland

For some weird reason I couldn't find chewing gum in sticks (except for kids) in several convenience stores, shops and supermarkets in Warsaw, as all had it only in pellets or tablets. Particularly, there were no Wrigley's Spearmint or Juicy Fruit in sticks at all. Is it some local problem or part of wider picture? Brandmeister^talk 17:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall seeing chewing gum in sticks for grown-ups anywhere in Europe in the last umpty years. --Lambiam 18:36, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of chewing gum being categorized into kids and grown-up varieties. Our chewing gum article doesn't seem to have heard of this distinction either. Is the difference simply in the packaging or what? Shantavira|^{feed me} 19:55, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most chewing gum cannot be used as bubble gum. I consider blowing gum bubbles to be somewhat childish, and if a branded chewing gum has a bubbly name, such as Bubble Yum or Bubblicious, and is also advertized as "bubble gum",^[1][2] I think the branding aims at kids. --Lambiam 06:24, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Better that than chewing tobacco. See also Big League Chew. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:30, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's Orbit for Kids, which is marketed for them and this is the only stick gum available in Warsaw. Looks like I have to contact local supermarkets to clarify the availability issue. Brandmeister^talk 16:34, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is BrainPOP considered a reliable source by Wikipedia’s criteria?

Courtesy link: BrainPop

The question is in the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Primal Groudon (talk • contribs) 19:47, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A more appropriate venue for this question is at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Please note that the notion of reliable source is not absolute, but also depends on the context in which the source is cited. I must say, though, that it appears unlikely to me that encyclopedic material that needs to be sourced cannot be sourced from a more appropriate source than BrainPOP, accessing whose content costs money while the permanence of their content is iffy. Do they allow archiving their content? I don't think so. --Lambiam 06:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's of marginal utility at Wikipedia, it's a low-level tertiary source, meaning that a) pretty much everything they cover is only at a very basic level, and b) literally nothing there is not already well covered by other sources. I can't think of a single reason why that would be the best source. Note, however, that this has nothing to do with paid access: WP:PAYWALL makes it very clear that we are agnostic on paid vs. free sources. However, in this case, we're essentially looking at multimedia, general knowledge encyclopedia aimed at children. I can't think of any reason that another source wouldn't be better. This applies to other similar sources like Crash Course (YouTube) or even things like Khan Academy that might be aimed at a more advanced audience: the information contained therein is fine, but there's nothing from those tertiary sources that would not be better served by citing more appropriate secondary sources. --Jayron 32 15:30, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

May 8

Natural gas odorant and Havana disaster

Where I live, natural gas is commonly burned for heating and cooking, and the supply in the gas mains is always treated with an odorant so that if there is a leak, people will smell it. I've heard that this practice was established following the New London School explosion disaster in Texas in 1937.

On a TV news report about the recent disaster in Havana, I heard that this was because of a natural-gas leak. I suppose it's possible that some other sort of gas is burned in Cuba and the reporter's reference to natural gas was an error, but if not, I am led to wonder whether natural gas in Cuba contains an odorant. Anyone know? --184.144.97.125 (talk) 21:05, 8 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The latest that I've read (AP, I think),^{[citation needed]} during construction (refurbishing) there was a crane lifting out an old natural gas storage tank when it happened. Speculation is discouraged, but it probably wasn't just a "leak". --2603:6081:1C00:1187:980D:B7DC:4B69:46AD (talk) 01:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An AFP story of two days ago, with the by-line Rigoberto DIAZ, had this: "Mr Roberto Calzadilla of state company Gaviota, which owns the hotel, said the explosion happened while a gas tank was being refilled." --Lambiam 05:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I must have conflated the line A large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker out of the rubble Saturday from this AP report: [3] 2603:6081:1C00:1187:980D:B7DC:4B69:46AD (talk) 09:06, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Odorants can be added to every kind of gas and they usually are for domestic applications. That doesn't rule out explosions. In my country (Netherlands), an odorant has been added to the domestic natural gas supply for decades, yet every year a few homes explode (of the 10 million homes we've got). Natural gas gets phased out mostly for climate reasons, but the far majority of homes still has a gas pipe for heating and very often cooking too. Sometimes nobody's around to smell it or people do smell it, but don't recognise the danger. PiusImpavidus (talk) 13:49, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The circumstances suggest a catastrophic leakage during refilling, so everyone was probably well aware that there was a problem for the brief time before the explosion. Alansplodge (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was not suggesting that if there was an explosion then an odorant must not have been in use; I was wondering if an odorant was in use. I know nothing about the regulation of natural gas, or indeed other gases, in Cuba. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 22:44, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

May 10

Caravan

In the Sahara Desert, what is the maximum time a camel caravan can expect to have to travel without any opportunity to refill their water supply? 2601:646:8A81:6070:DD66:FADA:7337:C84 (talk) 03:44, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In Trans-Saharan trade it says Ibn Battuta crossed the desert from Sijilmasa via the salt mines at Taghaza to the oasis of Oualata. A guide was sent ahead and water was brought on a journey of four days from Oualata to meet the caravan. Consulting Ibn Battuta's account of his journey, they travelled for seven days (from a water source at Tásarahlá) before being met with water. The article says "runners", but I calculate that the caravan took the same four days to travel the final stretch as the guide. (I base this on it being "a journey from Sijilmása of two months to a day", and these two lunar months being 59 days probably, and various timespans mentioned along the way adding up to 55 days at the point where the caravan was met with water.) So I'm going to say "slightly more than seven days, but definitely fewer than eleven". By the way, the text uses phrases like "ten nights' journey" and "four nights' journey", so perhaps I mean 7 to 11 nights. Card Zero (talk) 17:48, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Considering this as a mathematical problem and assuming they rely only on permanent water sources and trek from oasis to oasis, this requires determining the pole of inaccessibility, being the centre of the largest circle that does not overlap with an oasis. The radius of the circle is an upper bound, in case the caravan wants to reach that pole, and twice the radius if they want to return or move on. For that we need a map of the oases that dot the Sahara. Taking the map found here (search for "this is the best I could find") – which I assume not to be complete, though – the pole of inaccessibility seems to be the circumcentre of the circumscribed circle of the triangle formed by El Golea (El Menia), Taodenni and Tamanrasset. Using the distances given by Google map "as the crow flies", the circumradius is about 740 km. Of course, "as the crow flies" is not "as the ship of the desert sails (or ambles)". The speed seems to be about human walking speed, 5 km/h, so traversing 1480 km would require some 300 hours. At 10 hours a day, that would be about a month. --Lambiam 21:36, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if they had to spend a whole month without water then they would all die (both the people AND the camels), so they would avoid such arid areas, especially since those are also completely uninhabited (remember, the whole purpose of a caravan is to deliver supplies to people, so they would go between habitations in the desert, not to uninhabited areas) -- in fact, they would only go into the really arid, waterless areas if they have to, and generally would set their route so as to be reasonably certain of finding a water source within reach. And if they have to go between Taodenni and Tamanrasset -- I expect that they would take the long way around! 2601:646:8A81:6070:E4C1:B321:D6C1:FE54 (talk) 08:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lambian's mathematical answer above assumes that in the Sahara a caravan could travel any route with equal ease. In practice I suspect that the terrain puts serious constraints on possible routes, so actual possible journeys between two points may have to take a much longer route than the crow would fly if crows flew over the Sahara. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.88.97 (talk) 13:08, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any legal systems (in the world), that grant inheritance rights to the co-parent (who is not the spouse/concubine nor a genetic relative) of the intestate deceased?

Whether the shared descendants are still alive or had died (without property) before the deceased passed away.

Please notice that the question becomes irrelevant in case the shared children died only after the deceased passed away, because in this case they have already inherited the property and bequeathed it to their both parents (i.e. including the co-parent). HOTmag (talk)

At this point, you're toeing the line with regard to the prohibition on asking for, and receiving, legal advice, per the header "We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice." If you have concerns about the inheritance rights of yourself or anyone in your family, you should seek the advice of a lawyer. --Jayron 32 18:31, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No legal advice at all, and please assume good faith. It's actually my academic research (in comparative jurisprudence), about inheritance rights (in any legal system in the world), granted to co-parents and/or to their offsprings. Persoanlly, I have no connection with co-parents. HOTmag (talk) 19:36, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I never once said you weren't acting in good faith. You can still do the wrong thing while acting in good faith. Bad faith means you intend to do the wrong thing. Someone can be acting in good faith, and still be wrong. --Jayron 32 12:01, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You would take the word of random users, rather than doing proper research? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't master all legal systems in the world, but I do assume that any random user who answers me about any legal system I'm not aware of (e.g. the Icelandic one or the Tibetan one or whatever), has much better knowledge than I may have in that legal system they tell me about. Wasn't that obvious since the very beginning? Anyway, once I get any initial information about any legal system, I will check it out by myself as well, in order to get more details. HOTmag (talk) 22:52, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hong Kong and Macau, pre-Handover (and later?) acknowledged the legal rights of concubines. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Concubine and co-parent are two different things: There are concubines who have never become parents (nor co-parents), and there are parents (and co-parents) who have never been spouses nor concubines. HOTmag (talk) 06:35, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In New Zealand, de facto partners of a relationship which is at least three years old or who have a child together have similar rights to marriage. See Relationship property laws and how they can affect wills as a possible starting point for your research.-gadfium 04:40, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I found the words "three years", yet not the crucial word "child" by which parenthood (and co-parenthood) is defined. HOTmag (talk) 06:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think what gadfium is describing is a good example of what you seem to be asking about. The NZ defacto partner laws generally apply to cohabitating couples and is more like the common law marriage and the couple are close to spouses. It sounds like you're interested in the situation where two people have only agreed to co-parent and do not otherwise have a personal relationship other than that which arises from co-parenting and perhaps from whatever got them there (as probably the most common way this happens is when the co-parents were in a romantic relationship but no longer). In some situations they may be cohabitating but wouldn't generally be called a couple. Nil Einne (talk) 12:21, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

May 11

French death records

I would be grateful if a user could please inform me where I can find French death records between the years 1945 to 1970. Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 08:13, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Link to a previous response:

This seems to have some suggestions. --Jayron 32 12:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23A8:4015:F500:5505:1061:B999:241B (talk) [reply]

Simonschaim posted in the archive to thank Jayron for his post. It's always good to see that appreciation for the help of others. 2A00:23A8:4015:F500:5505:1061:B999:241B (talk) 09:41, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Crossing an electric fence

I've downloaded a couple of walks around Gloucestershire and they say "cross the electric fence". Of course, until I go on the walks, I don't know if the fence is there. In case it is, how do I cross an electric fence without getting zapped. I'm way to old to jump over it. Thanks! --TrogWoolley (talk) 10:30, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There may be stiles at those places, allowing you to cross fences fairly easily. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:34, 11 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 61: / Line 61: @@
 ::Well, if they had to spend a whole month without water then they would all die (both the people AND the camels), so they would avoid such arid areas, especially since those are also completely uninhabited (remember, the whole purpose of a caravan is to deliver supplies to people, so they would go between habitations in the desert, not to uninhabited areas) -- in fact, they would only go into the really arid, waterless areas if they have to, and generally would set their route so as to be reasonably certain of finding a water source within reach.  And if they have to go between Taodenni and Tamanrasset -- I expect that they would take the long way around! [[Special:Contributions/2601:646:8A81:6070:E4C1:B321:D6C1:FE54|2601:646:8A81:6070:E4C1:B321:D6C1:FE54]] ([[User talk:2601:646:8A81:6070:E4C1:B321:D6C1:FE54|talk]]) 08:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
+:::Lambian's mathematical answer above assumes that in the Sahara a caravan could travel any route with equal ease. In practice I suspect that the terrain puts serious constraints on possible routes, so actual possible journeys between two points may have to take a much longer route than the crow would fly if crows flew over the Sahara. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/90.208.88.97|90.208.88.97]] ([[User talk:90.208.88.97|talk]]) 13:08, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 == Is there any legal systems (in the world), that grant inheritance rights to the [[co-parent]] (who is not the spouse/concubine nor a genetic relative) of the intestate deceased? ==