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October 9

7 p's of marketing

Can someone please help me compare the 7p'f of marketing for macdonalds and burger king?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.225.79.210 (talk) 14:32, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

7 p's - it's not something specific to Macdonalds/Burger King it's a marketing 'concept' or 'theory' or whatever you call it. Either way it should be under Seven P's or 7 p's - was when I searched anyways 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

While there's a policy here not to do peoples' homework for them, you should read through the Seven Ps and marketing mix articles to familiar yourself with them. When you've done that, consider analysing the two companies using SWOT and/or PEST analysis. When you've finished those, you should have a good understanding of the internal and external factors of each business, and how the marketing mix is relevant to each (and how they differ). Booglamay (talk) - 14:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

OCR on Java or http pages

I am trying to find a program that will allow me to ocr words on jave or http pages, anyone know of any?thanksCanacatcancan (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The only even vaguely plausible meaning you might intend for OCR is optical character recognition. But if that is what you mean, why would you want to recognise characters which you already have in electronic form? --ColinFine (talk) 22:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I do mean optical character recognition. I am unable to select the text on the webpage by highlighting, I have only been able to copy the page. When the page is copied to other programs, i.e., word- the text comes in as a picture. I am trying to find a simple way to get the ingredients listed on a product, such as cheetos from the frito-lay site, into text form. I need to enlarge the text for seniors to be able to be read easily, enlarging it on the computer screen, has been fine for some seniors, but others need a printout.thanksCanacatcancan (talk) 05:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see. It's nothing to do with HTML (or HTTP) then - you don't have text, but only a picture of text. If you have a scanner, you have software that will do this (after all, they scan in the picture whether it is a photograph or a document, and then run an OCR process on it. Whether your scanner system makes the OCR program available to you for files already on your computer or not, I don't know.

But googling for "OCR software", I find that the second and fourth hits are for free OCR packages: http://www.simpleocr.com/ and http://www.softi.co.uk/freeocr.htm. I have no idea how these are, but it won't cost you anything to try them. --ColinFine (talk) 07:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how many times I've had to manually type in a company/organization address because the contact page is an image. Web designers of the world—think of the end user. Darkspots (talk) 11:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The image prevents spammers from "harvesting" the email address. --Nricardo (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Jeep Wrangler Unlimited

Hello

2 door Jeep wrangler unlimited's were made from 2004 1/2 to 2006 i was curious how many were made all together and how many were made avaliable with the "H" package these were made from 2005-2006

Thank you Brian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.229.248.70 (talk) 16:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The article Jeep Wrangler is pretty comprehensive. If the article itself does not contain the specific information you are looking for, there are references and external links at the bottom that may. Good luck --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Fly spray

Do flies suffer pain when killed with fly spray? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 17:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I think what you're really asking is, what is it like to be a fly? --Trovatore (talk) 21:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe Kafka´s Metamorphosis may provide some insight into insecticidal angst. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

There's no need to get metaphysical on the poor fellow! Surely there is a biological answer. For instance, while the fly is dying by fly spray do any unusual signals flow to its brain? Plasticup ^T/C 00:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is a need to get metaphysical. In fact your (apparent) identification of the neurological correlates of perception, with perception itself, is a metaphysical position. --Trovatore (talk) 01:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Neurological response is a necessary condition for perception. If the fly has no neurological response to insecticide then the metaphysical argument is moot. Plasticup ^T/C 03:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps -- but what if it does have a response? Let's see you try to get outta doing metaphysics then. Wittgenstein and others of his ilk unfortunately managed to convince a bunch of folks that metaphysics is dispensable, but they were wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 05:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Blimey, I didn't mean this question to stir up a bout of metaphysical fisticuffs. OK, let me rephrase the question. Do flies have a neurological response to insecticide? I would take it to the science desk, but they're a bunch of geeks over there who can't get girlfriends :) --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You are right, Trovatore, but I was hoping that we could find a metaphysics-free answer. Philosophy is usually my last refuge, after all empirical methods have failed. Plasticup ^T/C 14:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

When I was a kid, I remember losing sleep and having nightmares after seeing a photograph in some kind of science book in which a fly had has half of it's abdomen chopped off - and yet was still eating sugar-water that had been laid out for it. This suggests (albeit superficially) that the fly really isn't smart enough to feel pain. But it's an extremely tough question to answer. SteveBaker (talk) 03:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

As I'm sure you've observed, spraying fly spray onto a fly elicits an aversive response. The fly either flies away or writhes if it has received a killing dose. Whether you wish to interpret that as pain or not is up to you. Clearly the fly is suffering some discomfort, alternatively its neural and motor systems are reacting to an aversive stimulus. Pick you word, or read up on your philosophy. As to a specific question above - the signals flowing to the fly's brain are not unusual - they are the standard "I'm dying" signals. Franamax (talk) 10:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Are they? Surely the twitching could be a motor response over which the brain has no control. Some bug sprays are neurotoxins, so they could act by killing neurons and shutting down the brain without eliciting any neurological response at all. Plasticup ^T/C 14:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Extension of earlier Question re; USA Congress(es)

I followed the link given in answer to the earlier question and noticed that following JFK's assassination, the 88th Congress House of Representatives' numbers fell BACK to 435 from its higher numbers in 2 previous Congresses. Why was that? 92.20.0.126 (talk) 18:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

From United States House of Representatives#Apportionment:

The number was temporarily increased to 437 in 1959 upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii (seating one representative from each of those states without changing existing apportionment), and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census.

--71.106.183.17 (talk) 18:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Security of Obama relatives

With Barack Obama's relatives spread out in various places, including some living in Kenya slums, if Obama was elected president, wouldn't it be easy for terrorist groups to, say, kidnap one of them and make demands on the U.S.? How would Obama handle such a situation? --71.106.183.17 (talk) 19:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't get the impression that he's particularly close to his Kenyan relations; didn't his Kenyan father leave his mother to raise him from a very early age? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 19:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

That does not necessarily mean that, should there lives be threatened, he would lack any compassion towards the situation. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Certainly not, but it seems that he would react more as a President reacting to the threatening of civilians' lives, and less like a man whose family has been threatened, in my personal opinion. . -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

What members of the US President's family usually get protection? Isn't it just spouses, children and grandchildren? [1] says "immeadiate family". --Tango (talk) 21:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You might as well ask about terrorists taking anybody hostage—all political figures have family, friends, etc. spread out over a wide area, like most people (perhaps even more so given their resources). No leader worth their salt would let their personal feelings override the needs of the nation. I've seen no evidence that Obama (or McCain) would be irrational in this particular regard. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that relatives without coverage from the security folks are pretty much as at risk no matter where they live. It's really not going to be any harder to kidnap someone in the rural parts of the USA than in the plains of Kenya - and the cities in Kenya are really fairly modern and well-policed. I can't see why it's a special deal in this case. At any rate - if one used this rather remote risk as a reason not to vote for Obama, then you'd be giving the terrorists power over your ability to choose your own president - which is even more damaging than what a president might or might not do in order to secure the safe release of a relative. SteveBaker (talk) 03:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that kidnapping a family member of the President of the USA would get you simultaneous demonstrations of "we don't negotiate with kidnappers" and "we used our advanced intelligence capability to locate you, then used our advanced imaging and weapon systems to put a bullet through your head". It's not like the Secret Service is unaware of these possibilities and doesn't plan for them. Country-wide invasion and counter-insurgency may not be a US strong point, but solving a point crisis - my money would be on the US, Franamax (talk) 10:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Does university turn you into a illness resistant machine?

I've been thinking, having started University I, like pretty much everyone have got Freshers' Flu. I'm just about coming to the end of the bout but can't help thinking - even after only 3 weeks - I must've picked up some pretty strong immunity to various illnesses. My thinking goes, by the time a student finishes university, will they be immune to pretty much every common strain of every common illness under the sun? With a healthy intake of new ill freshers every year a student must build up one hell of an immune system. What do you think? -Benbread (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are so many strains of illnesses and they are constantly mutating into new strains that you can never be immune to everything (or even close). People that are exposed to lots of infections (which includes people living in Uni halls) do develop more immunities, though. --Tango (talk) 21:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Where I live we get a lot of immigrants and visitors. At any one time about 30% of the population here is both foreign and temporary, mostly from Europe, North America, South America, India/Pakistan, and the Caribbean. They all bring their bugs with them, and as a result I probably have one of the most experienced immune systems in the world. Universities (especially those with geographically diverse populations) do a very similar thing. Plasticup ^T/C 00:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

October 10

Hearts

Suppose you start a hand of Hearts with all 13 hearts (or all hearts but one, the remaining card being the queen of spades). How are you supposed to play the first turn? February 15, 2009 (talk) 01:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

If you have all 13 hearts, then it doesn't matter how you play it. If you're on lead you'll automatically take all 13 tricks and run; if you're not on lead you can never take a trick so you're guaranteed not to take any points, unless someone else can run, but you can't do anything about it in any case.

If you have 12 hearts plus the queen of spades, if you're on lead, then according to the usual rule you're forced to lead the queen since hearts have not been broken. If everyone ducks, lead the ace of hearts next if you have it (if you don't I'm afraid you're hosed). If someone takes the queen with a higher card, then hold onto the heart 2 if you have it until the first heart lead, on which you'll play it. If you don't have it I'm afraid you're probably hosed. --Trovatore (talk) 02:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The 2 of clubs always leads, so if you have all the hearts or all but one and the queen of spades, then you won't be leading. You'll have to throw away on the first turn, breaking hearts. After that, if you have all the hearts, you'll throw away every turn get no points, if you are missing one heart you have to hope it is either thrown away or it isn't the deuce. If the deuce is led, you'll have to win that trick, taking 2 points. If you still have the queen, you should then lead it in the vain hope that someone will have to play the king or ace and then you can throw away for the rest of the game for a total of 2 points. If you have already thrown away the queen (which is wise, since there is a risk of you winning a trick if spades is led), you'll have to win every trick from then on. So, for the first turn: If you have all the hearts, it makes no difference and you'll end up with zero points. If you have the queen of spades instead of a heart other than the deuce, discard it first and hold onto the deuce (or any other heart lower than the one you're missing) in case the other heart is led. If you have the queen instead of the deuce, you're going to have to gamble on whether you think the deuce will be led (and how early in the game) or thrown away. I'm not sure what the best strategy there is, since it depends on the actions of other players. --Tango (talk) 09:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Leading in hearts depends on the variation you are playing. The version with Windows uses the 2 clubs lead but other rules do have the person on the left of the dealer leading. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 13:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The correct rules are that the left of dealer leads, of course. --Trovatore (talk) 17:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the question is regarding the rule that you cant play point cards on the first trick. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.8.100.50 (talk) 17:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no such rule, not in the correct version, which as always means "the version I learned". However, if you're playing with such a non-canonical rule, then obviously it has an exception for this case, just as the rule that you can't lead hearts until a point card has been played (whether by sluff, lead, or follow) has to be modified in the case that you're caught on lead with only hearts. --Trovatore (talk) 18:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There are many variations on Hearts, and no one version is canonical or "correct". All these rules are frequently used enough to be considered within the typical Hearts canon... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The correct version, of course, is the one played in Fleming Hovse, where men are men and the thundering herd is real. --Trovatore (talk) 19:01, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Gametraders

Is Gametraders the only Australian franchise that sells old games?

Link removed.

Cash converters also sells them. 203.202.144.223 (talk) 01:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Miss Hawaiian Tropic International

I'm looking for a reliable source for an article. I want to find out who Miss Hawaiian Tropic International for 1989 was. I know who Wikipedia says it was but there's no source. I've tried both the Hawaiian Tropic web site as well as Google and I can't find anything. Thanks. Dismas|^(talk) 03:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

this page has pics, but no names. If you can find another pic of the person who it is claimed to be in the Wikipedia article, you could probably look and see for yourself... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

IMDB says its Jennifer Campbell. As does this page and this page and this one too and this one as well. Was this what you were looking for? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems like at least three of those links are Wikipedia mirrors, that's bad form. Especially for someone like me, just looking for a picture... Franamax (talk) 10:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Quite possibly. I just typed the name from the Wikipedia article into Google, and looked for what was returned. The last link (the table) says that the source is Hawaiian Tropic itself, however. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:04, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The Pageant.com source seems the best. IMDb is full of user submitted data. Thanks for the link. I hadn't found that one in my searches. Dismas|^(talk) 20:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Copyright question regarding mediaevil images

First off I'd like to say I'm a real copyright noob. I was just wondering if is there could any reason that this image (for example) might be copyrighted? Is it possible for images from the middle ages to be copyrighted? Thanks, --Cameron* 12:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the article copyright there is this section

"In the United States, all books and other works published before 1923 have expired copyrights and are in the public domain. In addition, works published before 1964 that did not have their copyrights renewed 28 years after first publication year also are in the public domain, except that books originally published outside the US by non-Americans are exempt from this requirement, if they are still under copyright in their home country (see How Can I Tell Whether a Copyright Was Renewed for more details).

But if the intended exploitation of the work includes publication (or distribution of derivative work, such as a film based on a book protected by copyright) outside the U.S., the terms of copyright around the world must be considered. If the author has been dead more than 70 years, the work is in the public domain in most, but not all, countries . Some works are covered by copyright in Spain for 80 years after the author's death."

Perhaps that helps? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There's no information supplied with your example image. If we assume that the image is a straightforwards photographic reproduction of a middle ages image, then it is in the public domain. Any claim of copyright on it is more in hope & error, than in reality. Despite this, very many institutions and websites make erroneous copyright claims for public domain items. There are circumstances in which a reproduction might accrue new copyright - but the test is to do with "originality", which in the example you've shown, would appear to be absent. In the US, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. is a landmark case in this area. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Note that the "a reproduction of something in the public domain is also in the public domain" applies in the US (though not all such companies recognize it at all—e.g. Corbis does not and happily claim copyright on things that are in the public domain, claiming they "own the copyright to the scan"), and not necessarily elsewhere. Some countries appear to recognize the "sweat of the brow" model of copyright (which I think is ridiculous but there you go). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

OK so straightforward photographic reproductions of mediaevil images are in the public domain? I think that's all I need to know then. Thanks so much! ;) --Cameron* 14:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it might be worth noting that it's not "mediaevil" (which looks like "media evil" and is very strange looking) but "medieval". ;-) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, mediaeval is an accepted variant spelling of medieval. It comes from mediӕval. Gwinva (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. But mediaevil is not. Malcolm XIV (talk) 10:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The painting itself (presuming it's medieval) is clearly out of copyright - so you could find out where it is and go take a photo of it and do whatever you like with your photo. However, what you have here is a photograph of the painting that (presumably) someone else took. They may well own the copyright on that photograph - thereby prohibiting you from using it. SteveBaker (talk) 20:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that in the US, a two-dimensional reproduction of a public-domain image is also public domain. If the image included the frame (assuming there was one), it would be a three-dimensional reproduction and thus copyrighted. If there was something else in the shot, or some fancy lighting effects, or it was an X-ray image, also copyright. A plain 2D repro though, where no creative addition has been made - no copyright. (See Tagishsimon's link above) The image could thus be used on English Wikipedia, which is hosted in the US. To be used on Commons though, it would also have to pass the copyright test of whatever country it was created/first published in. It does get complicated... Franamax (talk) 20:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Questions like this are often best addressed at Media Copyright Questions, where there are people who understand the ins and outs of copyright law. It is not enough for things to be out of copyright in the USA, I'm afraid. If the original is held outside the US, and the copies were taken outside the US, then they still need to conform to the nation of orgin's copyright laws (the US cannot cancel someone else's copyright). For example, some original medieval works are held by the British Library. The British Library make copies (by photograph/digital scanning whatever): the BL still holds the copyright on the reproductions. Unless they give another photographer access to photograph/copy their possession, and that photographer/copiest releases their copy into the public domain. Of course, if the BL loaned their original to a US museum, and someone then took a copy in the US, that copy would be copyright free. But the fact is, the BL keeps most of the originals locked in a vault, does not allow copies to be made (other than their own) and thus their works are rarely copyright free. That is a rough explanation, and I can't say I understand all the ins and outs. But you cannot assume that a piece of work is copyright free simply because it is old. If you are in any doubt, approach the owner of the piece. Gwinva (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

MCQ regular here to help, hopefully! Wikimedia Commons has abandoned the rule about things being in the public domain in the country of origin, when it comes to claiming copyright over copies of public domain images. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag#Why_do_we_allow_the_.7B.7BPD-Art.7D.7D_tag_to_be_used_for_photographs_from_any_country.3F for more information. This is perfectly acceptable as far as WMF is concerned. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh great, now that is good news! (I'm obviously out of date by a couple of months; my apologies.) So, does that mean any 2D reproduction of a pd work is pd? We can even use the British Library's online catalogue? Gwinva (talk) 22:46, 10 October 2008 (UT

Emigration from the United States

Is there anywhere to find out information about how many Americans have emigrated out of the United States to other countries in a given time period?

--Wellington grey (talk) 19:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Might help -- Emigration information --W. B. Wilson (talk) 16:33, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What is the name...

of the famous image of Marilyn Monroe in all different colours? There's four of them and it is parodied alot in shows and games like MySims and The Simpsons to name two. It is often mistakenly called Marilyn Diptych, another of Warhol's works.--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 20:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Diptych is pretty much the famous one, but you may want to peruse this list to see if something rings a bell for you. Matt Deres (talk) 20:34, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Warhol produced many works based on images of Marilyn Monroe (as can be seen by doing a Google Images search for "Marilyn Monroe" +Warhol). Is the one shown on this page the one you have in mind? Deor (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Caribbean vacation destination

Can anyone think of place in or around the Caribbean that meets the following criteria:

• Beautiful, uncrowded beaches
• Other stuff to do, like historical sites and rainforest nature parks
• Isn't under American jurisdiction
• Isn't on the spring break circuit
• Isn't so desperately poor that there are beggars everywhere
• Isn't Cuba

Mwalcoff (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

May I recommend St. Martin, a smalish island in the Antilles which has some unique stuff going for it:

• Despite being relatively small (you can drive a loop around the entire thing in less than 1 hour) it is actually owned by two separate countries. Half the island is Dutch, which has casinos, night clubs, and shopping districts. The other half is French, which has nature preserves, quieter beaches (and even a nude beach! See Orient Beach) and is generally more laid back.
• The airport is Princess Juliana International Airport, which is on the island, and is one of the only airports in the area that can land large planes. Thus, there are less connecting flights, and no need to catch a "puddle jumper" from somewhere else.
• Said airport has one of the coolest beaches in the world next to it. I imagine there is no where else in the world where you can get THIS close to jumbo jets landing and taking off.
• It meets all of your other requirements in spades. It's one of the rare places thats not either a) a spring break mecca (like Cancun) with nothing but drunk 19 year olds running around or b) dominated entirely by "Club Med" style all-inclusive resorts. It's the kind of place where you will spend a lot of time getting out in the local culture at your own pace, and you are not totally insulated from it.

I went there with my family when I was 16 (which is literally half a lifetime ago for me, you do the math) and it is STILL one of the best vacations I have ever taken. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I had a nice holiday in Saint Lucia. It has an interesting interior with mountains (volcanoes), and a (small) rainforest reserve. Hire a jeep and drive around a bit. Astronaut (talk) 02:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. How about Costa Rica as well? How are its beaches? -- 76.190.138.251 (talk) 03:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Never been there, but you might want to not get into certain activities there or you may not come back alive - [2] [3]. Of course, this applies anywhere, not just in Costa Rica. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not too worried about safety in Costa Rica; it's generally recognized as one of the safest places in Latin America. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Metric Volume

I've always been taught that litres (L) were an SI base unit but apparently it's not accepted! That is really confusing to me, especially since now there is no possible way to measure volume in the SI. And also, why isn't Celsius on the not accepted page? And how are you supposed to measure volume now? Thanks! Helixer (talk) 20:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The SI system only recognizes as "base" units, those units that cannot be reduced to simpler terms. The article on International System of Units explains the 7 "base" units as: meter, kilogram (not gram), second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. All other units can be reduced to some combination of these units. Please note that SI is distinct from the metric system, though several of the units are based on earlier metric units. As to the specific question, since volume is just displacement cubed, using base SI units, you would express volume as m³. The metric system unit "liter" is just cubic decimeters, dm³ which is equal to 0.001 m³. Hope that helps. Just remember that "SI" and "metric system" are NOT synonyms... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and to answer your question on Celsius; the Celsius temperature scale has no sound physical or mathematical basis. From the point of view of physical reality, the scale sets an arbitrary 0 point (the freezing point of water). Temperature is defined as the average kinetic energy of the molecules of a substance. Since something cannot have negative absolute energy (or, if you prefer, nothing can have negative absolute speed), then negative temperature is meaningless (it implies that molecules are going at a speed slower than zero. This is patently nonsensical). Thus, a usable temperature scale, from a scientific perspective, is one that reprsents physical reality, and should not use negative numbers. The Kelvin scale (which, for convenience sake, uses the exact same sized units as the Celsius scale) is the only allowable one. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It's really a matter of not having definitions for more things than you need to. If you defined the meter as the length of some particular metal bar in some museum somewhere - and the liter as the volume of some container stored in another glass case someplace else - then there could be a problem if the length of the bar was not PRECISELY ten times the cube-root of the volume of the container - and no matter how careful you were, they'd never be exactly that. So it makes sense to simply define the liter as being the volume of an entirely hypothetical container that is a perfect cube that's exactly 1/10th of a meter on each side. With that definition - things can't go wrong. When you choose to do that - you now have a "base unit" (the meter) and a "derived unit" (the liter). The base unit is utterly critical - and the derived unit is merely a convenience for measuring volumes without having to say such-and-such meters-cubed. Science could have worked almost as well with the liter as the base unit and the meter as the derived one - then you'd be measuring things in litres^-3 instead of meters. The math would all still work out. We have settled on the meter, the kilogram and the second more out of convenience (because they are nice "human-scaled" thing that lend themselves to easy measurement). There are some quite strong arguments for using (say) velocity as a base unit - because the speed of light in a vacuum is a nice solid constant - much better than messing around with chunks of metal in museums! BUt you can get into a lot of trouble with that kind of thing. The original idea for the kilogram was that it was the mass of a liter of pure water...but at what temperature? Nowadays the definitions of kilogram, meter and second are supposed to not get all mixed up with each other like that...but it's not easy! SteveBaker (talk) 00:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually it would be litres^1/3, not -3. -mattbuck (Talk) 01:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Ack! Of course! I'm having a bad day today. SteveBaker (talk) 01:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense!! Thanks!! Why aren't they teaching us that in schools!!!??? >< But what if you have a container that is not the shape of a 3D polygon, such as a vase? How would you express that in metres? And now that I think about it, we were told of the SI system, but were taught the metric system. And seconds are a base unit? I thought it was on the not accepted page... oh wait, those are minutes and hours and days... wait! I just had an epiphany (I just learned that word)—the SI system is rather impractical! And I still don't understand why Celsius isn't on the not accepted page?? That would make sense, being on there. Oh, and I mine as well be asking this on the discussion page of SI, but under the writing style, why does it talk about litres????? Wow.... Well, I have to talk to my science teacher about this! Thanks! Helixer (talk) 05:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The thing is that the SI system is very logical, but the official standards don't always accord with everyday use - for example, it's very convenient in everyday discussions to talk about minutes, hours and days, but for a logical system, there needs to be just one unit of time. Depending on what you are studying at school and at which level, you'll probably be taught in convenient units, rather than necessarily the official SI ones. There's no reason why you can't express the volume of a complex shape in metres cubed; it may not be easy to calculate, but, of course, if you know the volume in litres, then you're there. Warofdreams talk 15:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Celsius is in effect an SI unit, and it's generally used in school science labs and things for everyday work. Just you are likely to need to convert it to kelvin for calculations. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a good object lesson not to take SI too -- well, seriously isn't the word exactly -- too literally, maybe. It's a good system of units, but when people get religious about it and start telling you things like not to use the word micron because the official word is micrometre, you should laugh right in their faces. --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Electoral College

Hi, I was hoping someone might explain this to me because I am confused. What is the point of voting if the electoral college is going to decide president and vice president and before a single vote has been cast it seems as they have already chosen Obama (since he has the most pledges), so technically we still need to vote for the electoral but if they have already pledged and decided-it seems strange that we bother with voting at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.133.247.171 (talk) 21:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

First, distinguish the Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008 from the United States presidential election, 2008.

• The primaries (and caucuses) were held in each State between January and June, to select delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August. By the time the last few were held, it was clear that Obama already had enough delegates for the nomination, so those primaries were, arguably, pointless.
• The election will be in November, to select the Electoral College which votes for the resident in December. There is no certainty about the outcome of this process; either Obama or McCain could win according to recent opinion polls. So it is still worth your while voting. jnestorius^(talk) 21:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

  I'm not sure how an election having a clear winner makes the election pointless... --Tango (talk) 22:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

But in news reports it states that Obama has over 200 (I think he has much more than this) pledges and he only needs a couple more to win, can someone please explain this or how it works since we haven't voted yet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.133.247.171 (talk) 22:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure which reports you're looking at, but my guess is that what they're doing is adding up the votes from the states where Obama is considered to have a clear lead in the polls. No electors have yet been chosen, from any state. --Trovatore (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you are confusing the primaries (in which the party decide who they want to stand as their presidential candidate) and the actual election for president. The first of those things is done and over with - and Obama beat out Clinton. So let's forget that and concern ourselves with the presidential election proper.

The way the US system works is that each state has some number of 'electors' that is in rough proportion to the number of eligable voters in that state. Texas has 34, California has 55, for example. In theory what happens is that you cast your vote in your state - they count up the number of votes for each presidential candidate and those votes are simply recorded. Then all of the electors from all of the states go off and vote between themselves to decide who will be president and who will be vice-president. You are right in saying that technically they can choose whoever they like and they can ignore the people's votes. (Imagine Obama as president and Palin as Vice-President!) However in practice the electors always vote for the person who won the vote in their state...always...there would be a hell of an upset if they didn't! So the practical upshot of this is that you are really voting to decide how your state's share of the electors will vote. It doesn't matter a damn what the electors say in advance - or who they are - they just do as they are told...we don't even really need them to actually vote because we know precisely what they'll do the minute the popular vote in each state has been counted.

This is a slightly bizarre scheme because it means that (as happened with Bush vs Gore 8 years ago), the majority of people in the USA can vote for one guy (Gore in that case) and the other guy (Bush) can get into office simply because of the way this peculiar electoral college system works. So, if (for example) Florida with it's 27 electors is won by just a few of the people's votes (as happened in Bush vs Gore) - then all 27 electors will vote according to the majority in Florida. You'd think it would be fairer if 13 of them had voted for Gore and 14 for Bush...but that's not how it works in practice. So each state is an "all or nothing" kind of thing. Hence, in that case, Bush was able to win by a slim margin in a bunch of swing state states and despite much larger percentages of votes going for Gore in the states he won - Bush had more electors than Gore did - even though fewer people voted for him. Weird...but true. This has happened in three presidential races in the history of the USA - so it's not that unusual.

There are a couple of errors in what I just said - which I'll now correct. Firstly: Maine and Nebraska are different. They use a system where each district votes separately with one elector each who is required by law to vote however his/her district voted. Two more electors are required to vote like the other states do on a 'winner takes all' basis. This seems a lot fairer - but it's still kinda weird compared to simply counting up the number of Americans who want this president rather than that one. Secondly: Washington DC - although it's not technically a "state" but rather a "district" gets three electors...just because.

The consequences of this for someone voting in this election is that if you are in a solidly red or solidly blue state - your vote is largely going to be irrelevent. Voting for Obama here in Texas is a waste of time - even if (say) a third of voters turn out for Obama, all 55 electors will vote for McCain and not two thirds of them as would better reflect the views of the people. This is very bad news for minorities in big states. However, in a 'swing state' - it is absolutely crucial that everyone who can vote does so because just a handful of votes can put ALL of those electors into one president's total. This makes the system wildly unstable in a close race - and if it is close, you might as well flip a coin because the system simply doesn't work fairly. The system works OK when there is a bigger margin between the candidates - but then so would just about any half-way reasonable system.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There's another slight error in what you said - very occasionally, there is a faithless elector who does vote for someone other than the slate they've pledged to vote for. To an outsider like me, it does seem a bizarre system. Warofdreams talk 23:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It made sense back in the 1780s, when travel and communication were so slow. Instead of trying to vote for someone you'd never seen based on outdated information, the idea was that you'd selected a trusted proxy and have him go to the capitol and figure out who to vote for. --Carnildo (talk) 23:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Another point is that Steve makes it sound as though there's some group of electors from each state, and they wait around to see the results of the election in that state and then vote that way. Not sure if that's what he really meant, but anyway it's not what happens. What happens is that each candidate has a "slate" of electors pledged to vote for him/her. The election is to determine which slate gets appointed. If Obama wins Ohio, it will be a different set of Ohioans casting electoral votes than if McCain wins there.

Also, according to the constitution, the state legislature has plenary power to choose its electors. All states currently choose their electors via popular vote, but they don't have to. The last time this was important in a reasonably imminent scenario was in 2000, when the Florida Supreme Court was controlled by Democrats, but the Florida Legislature by Republicans. The Supreme Court appeared ready to set rules for the recount that would maximally favor Gore, but if they hadn't been overruled by the US Supreme Court, and if Gore had won a disputed recount, it appeared quite plausible that the legislature would overrule the popular vote and appoint a slate pledged to Bush. Obviously this would have been an extremely controversial move, but constitutionally it would have been bulletproof. --Trovatore (talk) 23:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The 18th century intent of the electoral college was expressly to curb "mob democracy" which the founding father's thought a spectacularly bad idea. They wanted the president to literally be the "best man for the job" and not whoever appealed to the largest numbers of people. There's extensive coverage of this in The Federalist Papers to explain the justification of the electoral college. The men who wrote the constitution we not really "common folk", they were landed aristocracy who distrusted the "will of the people" and feared what could happen if every whim of the "populace" were followed as soon as they had it. They built safeguards in to prevent "mob rule" and the electoral college was expressly one of them. In the original constitution, the ONLY national office that was voted on via popular vote was the House of Representatives, and at the time voting restrictions were so tight that most people STILL couldn't vote even for them. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

More for y'all. Federalist No. 9 (Alexander Hamilton's take on the issue) and Federalist No. 10 (James Madison's take on it) are probably the most important of the batch which deals with this issue. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the OP is confusing the predictions made by CNN (et al) with the actual results, which are made by the voters on November 4th. CNN currently predicts that Obama will win, but when the vote is held next month he may not. Plasticup ^T/C 01:17, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Cartoon\caracture

I came across an original framed cartoon painting signed by Van Lyon at an antique shop in NSW Australia. I have had no luck in tracing the artist.

Can anyone assist please.

Mark Wilkinson Forster NSW Australia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kal3b55 (talk • contribs) 22:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Typing "Van Lyon artist" into google returned this website: [4] as the number one hit. This may be the guy. It has lots of examples of his work on here. Good luck! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

joining the army

Do you have to be in good standing with society to join the US army, or can you be a total homeless vagabond and check into a recruiting station somewhere? --71.176.171.125 (talk) 22:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what recruitment criteria the US Army uses, but what I do know is that someone could lose their home through no fault of their own and still be "in good standing with society". Itsmejudith (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

However, you do generally need to put an address on job application forms and "no fixed abode" often doesn't go down well. I have no idea about the US army, though. I'm sure they have a recruitment website which will have the information though, try googling "join us army". --Tango (talk) 23:03, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're a young person in good health with a high-school education who scores well enough on the ASVAB, word on the street is that the U.S. Army is interested in you. You can google ASVAB to get an idea of what's involved with that. Darkspots (talk) 23:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

They require a high school education? Plasticup ^T/C 01:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

HS diploma or a GED, among other things. After all, they do have some fancy schmancy (expensive) weapons. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:21, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Are those criteria suspended during a draft, or are highschool dropouts excluded then too? Plasticup ^T/C 03:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

No telling what would happen if there were another draft. The army has changed a lot since the last time there was one. I was amused to find out that the weight requirements only specify maximum weights. I've read stories about guys in World War II, when there was a very different standard of living in America, who pounded down bananas or whatever to be able to make weight to join up. Darkspots (talk) 07:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The U.S drafted the hell out of dropouts in WW1 and WW2, if that is a guide. No info on how hard they scraped the bottom of the barrel in the Korean Conflict or the Vietnam conflict. Edison (talk) 00:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The things considered are physical and mental qualification to be a soldier, if a criminal record exists, and education. Evidence of former drug use is a big turn off for the armed forces. The issue of losing a home is more subtle. One might be able to join the armed forces, but if there is a credit and/or debt problem that resulted from the lost home, it might prove impossible to obtain a security clearance, and this would strongly limit the type of jobs one could perform in the armed forces. --W. B. Wilson (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I imagine there are also health requirements in terms of fitness. Someone who has been on the streets for a while will find it difficult to pass some of those requirements. Steewi (talk) 00:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I found this an interesting NYT story about waivers for felonies granted by U.S. armed forces. There's a long tradition of waivers for things like aggravated assault, but now they're granting waivers for rape and kidnapping. And a number of waivers were granted for drug posession. I'm sure W. B. Wilson is correct that they won't have the most sensitive jobs. Darkspots (talk) 00:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

According to the article, the kidnapping charge was made against a woman who was separated from her husband and moved to another state with their child. Some of the charges are probably the result of the stupidity of 'the system', so I wouldn't fault the military for taking some of those people in. That said, recruiters have been known to turn a blind eye when they should not have. --W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you about the nature of the felony convictions for which the Army is granting waivers; I think it provides some background for the OP's question, however. If they're signing up convicted rapists, kidnappers, and dealers of hard drugs, they'll probably work with somebody with no fixed address if they meet the other requirements, which a lot of people do not. Darkspots (talk) 13:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Conservapedia

It says on the Conservapedia Commandments: "Minors under 16 years old use this site. Posting of obscenity here is punishable by up to 10 years in jail under 18 USC § 1470. Vandalism is punishable up to 10 years in jail per 18 USC § 1030. Harassment is punishable by 2 years in jail per 47 USC § 223. The IP addresses of vandals will be reported to authorities. That includes your employer and your local prosecutor."

Is this a joke? I don't want to vandalize conservapedia, I am just wondering. 67.150.123.138 (talk) 23:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me parse the question you just asked "Conservapedia... Is this a Joke?" It would be so much better if it was... Sadly, some people out there take that site seriously. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

It's very difficult to tell. I'm fairly sure the people that founded it and many of the people that contribute to it are deadly serious, however a large portion of the contributors could be having a laugh and we wouldn't know it. There is really no way to tell the difference between a fundamentalist and someone parodying a fundamentalist. As for that specific warning, they may well try and press charges, but I would be very surprised if they were successful (although IANAL, so don't take the risk!). Code 1030 seems to be about computer fraud - you would need a hell of a lawyer to convince a judge and jury that writing "So-and-so is gay" on a wiki is fraudulent behaviour... They would probably have a better chance suing you in civil court, but even then they would probably need to prove actual damages, which would be de minimis if existent. --Tango (talk) 00:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

When you typed "IANAL" did you intend "THEYANAL?" Edison (talk) 00:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it a fairly empty threat for non-U.S. users? Are they trying to suggest that U.S. laws can be used to have people from other countries extradited and prosecuted for offences they allegedly committed in their own countries? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

It probably is. There aren't many countries with extradition agreements with the US and I have yet to see a district attorney who would accept such a case even if prosecuting a US citizen. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 22:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Since the servers are in the US, it is possible to try someone in a US court for offences committed involving those servers. It would have to actually be an offence, though. --Tango (talk) 23:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

There was a case some time ago where Conservapedia threatened to prosecute someone who was in violation of that rule. Suffice to say that their attempt was laughed at. Plasticup ^T/C 01:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The definition of obscenity is pretty specific—not what they think it is. They tried to report someone to the FBI for vandalism awhile back and were warned that they were wasting their time—if you have a website that allows anyone to edit, it is not "vandalism" or "hacking" or whatever for people to use that function in a way that you don't like, and none of this "vandalism" was actually property damage or cost anything, making it even more pointless, so said the FBI. (more info on the FBI incident.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia should also punish vandals and co. Somethings like 10 lashes. Mr.K. (talk) 18:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone asked a similar question here recently. Conservapedia did in fact try to report some vandals to the FBI a while ago[5]. Apparently the FBI told them to go stuff it, and surprisingly, Conservapedia admins blocked at least fourteen good faith editors in a wild attempt to cover up the incident. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

That's surprising? It's as though they're shouting "not listening!" with their fingers stuck in their ears, when anyone comes near to poking a hole in their fictional reality. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Surprising in that they would care about covering it up. Why not just call the FBI liberal scum, the same way they do with Wikipedia? --S.dedalus (talk) 07:05, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably because it would reveal that they were incorrect in the first place (in thinking the FBI would care) (see also: minitrue), and because they feel that the FBI are "their guys" and will be unshaken in that. They're a fairly nationalistic, anti-terrorism, pro-enforcing-whatever-laws-we-like bunch. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:25, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It's quite ironic that America has produced its own Soviet while complaining how others are "anti-American". --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

In response to JackofOz, whether or not Conservapedia is suggesting it, it's true. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

October 11

facial plastic surgery grants

are there any grants for the functional/cosmetic sugery of the nose? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.249.223 (talk) 00:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Where are you? If there are any, they will almost certainly be country-specific. In the UK, I believe you can sometimes get cosmetic surgery on the NHS if your displeasure with how you look gets into the realms of mental illness. --Tango (talk) 00:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Looked up IP on WHOIS. He/she's from Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. —La Pianista ^(T•C•S) 17:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you looking for grants that pay doctors to perform surgeries or that pay for patients to receive them? Plasticup ^T/C 01:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

it's in the US, the grant would be either paying the doctor to perform the surgery or the patient who can then pay the doctor, either one. I thought people where going to laugh at me for asking this question, I am surprised! if you know of anything, where could I start researching? it's for a very specific and expensive procedure that involves functional and cosmetic issues caused by a prior trauma. thank u! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.249.223 (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

You might be able to find something for the "function issues", but I very much doubt that someone would pay for the cosmetic ones. Your best bet would be to contact local hospitals and/or medical charities. If they don't have direct answers for you they could at least put you in contact with the right people. When you speak to them, they will probably need more detail than "functional and cosmetic issues", so make sure you can clearly explain your condition. Plasticup ^T/C 22:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

If the cosmetic issues were caused by trauma, rather than it just being that you don't like the way you look, then you may be able to find someone to pay for it. In the UK, it could well be covered under the NHS, in the US you would need to talk to your insurance company. --Tango (talk) 23:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Photo project of modern-day Jesus.

I remember seeing a set of photos someone had done depicting the Second Coming--Jesus was a regular-looking fellow with a beard, seen in mundane situations, sharing a very meager meal (I don't remember if it was actually cat food) with a poor elderly woman, eventually trying to defend some gay people who were attacked, being severely beaten, then dying in an alley with no one noticing. It was surprisingly touching, and displayed a very social-justice attitude toward the character. I think the pictures were in black and white, but I don't remember precisely. Has anyone seen something like that? I'm reasonably certain I'm not making it up, but our dear and glorious leader Google has been of little assistance. grendel|khan 04:21, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes Google and google images doesn't help, but if you're interested in the social justice component of Christianity there's the article Christian left and the "see also" section lists offshoots including the possible originator of such movements, Liberation theology. There's also possibly the Jesus movement as a wellspring of/return to community responsibility within Christianity though it seems a stretch. Julia Rossi (talk) 01:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Political structure and its susceptibility towards religious right?

From Christian right#New Zealand

"In New Zealand, a unitary state, with a single parliamentary chamber, there was little opportunity for social conservative niche parties to influence politics until the electorate voted for Mixed Member Proportional electoral reform at a referendum held in 1993."

What's the political structure got to do with it? How does a political structure give more opportunity for them than another? --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know anything special about how this applies to New Zealand in particular, or the Christian right in New Zealand. But in general, proportional representation gives small parties a chance to get involved that they would never have in a single-member-district majoritarian system. That's kind of the whole idea.

This doesn't always make a lot of practical difference, though. Italy is often used as an example of how PR leads to "instability", but really it's a good example of the opposite. In Italy, from the end of World War II until the early 90s, proportional representation led to a system where, sure, you had a few colorful characters in the Chamber of Deputies, but the real power was usually held by more or less the same coalition. There were a great many different prime ministers and cabinets, but very little change in policy between them. --Trovatore (talk) 04:51, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Italy can be used as an example of a successful political system. It's ineffective and full of corruption - they can't even sort of rubbish collections... --Tango (talk) 19:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

But the corruption is consistent :-) Fribbler (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say it was successful, I said it was stable (though, I suppose, that's a sort of success, in the same way that cockroaches are highly successful). Stability is not high on my list of virtues for a political system. --Trovatore (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, also, this may not be obvious to those who haven't followed Italian politics: I wasn't talking about Italy now. I was talking about the so-called prima repubblica period, roughly from 1948 to 1994. Even that might be too large a time frame, since I was really talking about the reign of the pentapartito, five parties (Christian Democracy, Republicans, Liberals, Social Democrats, and Socialists) that had different origins but barely distinguishable policies. Kind of like Presbyterians and Methodists, if I make myself clear. It was impossible to get a majority, and no one wanted to ally with the Communists (and the Italian Social Movement was also mostly off-limits), so those five parties would always be in government, which is not much different from having a single party that's always in power. --Trovatore (talk) 22:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as NZ is concerned, the answer can be found in Political parties in New Zealand, which says: "Since the change to MMP, about one third of the seats in Parliament have been held by MPs representing parties other than Labour and National. In the years before MMP, by contrast, there were sometimes no such MPs at all." Without MPs, it's difficult to influence politics; government was Labour or National, and only Labour and National's policies counted. Now, most governments are coalitions, and minor parties can have a disproportionate voice, as they can become kingmakers. ("We'll only join with you if you include our X and Y policies".) Is this an improvement? Opinions differ!
Of course, your quote concerns the influence of "social conservative niche parties". Labour tends towards socialist (left); National tends towards conservative (right). They've had a great deal of infuence on NZ politics! Gwinva (talk) 02:52, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Contacting Reverend Run???

This is sort of a crazy thing but i want to contact Joseph_Simmons aka "Reverend Run" ...... I just saw him talk on CNN and i feel a big tie to him and what he is doing with his show on MTV etc. However, i highly doubt massive stars are going to have time to be contacted by the whole world?

I guess what i'm trying to get at is, does he have an email address or anything? If so, would he even have time to send a reply? I went to the "Runs house" link on the wiki article (http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/runs_house/series.jhtml) and theres not exactly an option "Contact Rev Run".... How hard would it be to send him something? Is it worth the effort? etc. Any knowledge on rev run or how this all works in general would be appreciated.

How would and average person contact a star? or can they?!

Thanks in advance!

137.81.40.196 (talk) 10:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, is this the same Rev Run[6]? There's a site and a PR contact in there somewhere. Julia Rossi (talk) 11:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be of some help. [7] seems to point to a link where you can ask him questions directly? But the link doesnt seem to work ([8]) Is this the result you were referring to? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.81.40.196 (talk) 22:26, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the link to words of wiz turns out to be this[9] which works so far. Run's Web may be a fansite set up to get his attention and where people can say things to him, but fwiw: [10]. Good luck, Julia Rossi (talk) 23:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Earnings in UK

Hello! Can any one please tell me that how many a fresh Acca member earn per month in UK ,with no experience,Thank You —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.43.252 (talk) 11:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you need some experience in order to get chartered, don't you? There is going to be a wide variation in salaries depending on where you work, I imagine. --Tango (talk) 13:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank You Tango for your reply ,can you please tell me the salary range from lowest to high per month.I will be very thankfull to you if you answer me and yes i know experience is very importent for accounting but here i am in ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.10.63 (talk) 05:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the numbers, I'm afraid, and it's not easy to find out - salaries are usually confidential. You might be able to get a rough idea from some career sites. I would guess starting salaries will be somewhere in the £20-30k range (I know one person that recently started in accounting and her salary is in that range), but that's before certification. Once you have a few years experience and have sat the relevant exams in order to get chartered, your salary will be considerable higher, but I'm not sure how much higher. --Tango (talk) 11:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a general note—it is far easier than you might think to talk directly to someone in a profession that you find interesting, if you're young and they don't feel any pressure from you to hire you. Call a reasonably (not stratospherically) sucessful accountant, someone at least middle-aged, and say that you're a student (if that is true) interested in the profession, and can you drop by for an informational interview. Ask them how they got started in the business and what they think of it—people love to talk about themselves. Then ask them what you can expect for a salary at different points in your career. Keep it short and follow up the next day with a thank-you note. Darkspots (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Standing of America in the world

Are Usa a real supepower considering huge debts in other countries hands? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.181.119.219 (talk) 13:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes of course. What happens in America has a huge impact across the world. The US Dollar is the most important reserve currency which - as the article suggests - does give the US additional benefits particularly in regard to debt. Honestly though a national debt is not going to stop the US being a major power, and in reality it is realistically the world superpower at the moment. The US has a hugely important army, plays a key role in most of the international organisations such as the UN, NATO, is a huge player in world trade, and one of the main sources of culture in the western world - it is 'home' to some of the biggest world brands. All of this is 'power' in a way, and certainly the US is (for the forseeable future) going to be a major political power. ny156uk (talk) 13:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the U.S.'s power, both economically and otherwise, is proven by the large debts we have. If the U.S. gov't wasn't such a good credit risk, and didn't have the economy to support such a large debt load, then they wouldn't get such easy credit. Think about it from a microeconomic point of view. Do banks loan money to poor people? No, only the really rich and powerful get huge lines of credit, because they are rich and powerful enough to pay it back. Same deal with the U.S. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The US is still a very major power, whether it's still a superpower is a matter for some debate (basically, it comes down to how you define "superpower"), but its influence in international affairs is undeniably high. Its debts don't really make much difference to that (as Jayron says, the world is confident they can afford the debt, so there's no problem). However, it is taking on a lot of new debt in order to deal with the current economic crisis - that could weaken the country long term if the bailout doesn't work (if the bailout does work, then the treasury could actually make a substantial profit). --Tango (talk) 14:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I think a better question is whether America will continue to be a superpower. It was 5 years ago, but these turbulent times may prove to be a period of transition. A lot of very smart people are writing about this and in their company my opinions would surely sound weak and undeveloped. In any event, time will show us the answer. Plasticup ^T/C 22:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

subprime crisis

I am very confused about subprime crisis. I want to know that what is the actual reason for such a crisis? Why does it happened?Sunny.msrim (talk) 13:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

We have an article, Subprime mortgage crisis, that should explain it (and economic crisis of 2008 will explain the more general crisis). The short version is that US banks lent money to people that couldn't afford to pay it back. People started defaulting on their mortgages. Usually that would just mean the banks issuing the mortgages lose money, but due to the rather complicated practice of securitising mortgages (selling them on to other people in strange ways), lots of people ended up losing money and people started to lose confidence in the system and everything went downhill from there. The article will explain it in more detail. --Tango (talk) 14:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Going to bed when you're tired

Yesterday night, I was terribly tired. I longed to be in bed and to sleep. Fortunately, nothing and nobody tried to stop me from going to bed. Yet instead of going to bed, I surfed on the internet, rather bored, until it was much later than it would have been on any ordinary night - when I'm not that tired. I know I'm not the only one suffering from this strange condition. But why is it so hard to go to bed when you're tired???? Lova Falk (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Check out Sleep#Causes_of_difficulty_in_sleeping and Sleep hygiene. Some people just naturally rebel against schedules, however a good regimen of pre-sleep calm-down tends to help many. Perhaps try simple meditation, reading, or other activities to relax your brain. Reading interesting pages on the internet (including that danged Wikipedia Special:Random) is not going to help you. For what it's worth, I have the same problem. --Kickstart70-T-C 15:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

But the thing is, it is no problem for me to do any of the relaxing activities you mention - except when I'm very tired and need it the most. I know it would be good for me to meditate, or read, but when I'm tired, I just don't do it!Lova Falk (talk) 16:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Lack of takeout coffee in your society. Darkspots (talk) 15:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC) :)Lova Falk (talk) 16:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, though—moderate exercise is your friend when it comes to sleeping well. Take walks in the morning and/or evening. Get a dog/walking partner/ipod, but if you can walk for an hour a day, you'll sleep a lot better. We all get too much stimulation from the internet, and I think most people find themselves aimlessly surfing or watching television when they're overtired. Darkspots (talk) 22:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't get the impression Lova Falk had a sleep problem. Their problem was not being able to tear themself away from the computer, despite their tiredness. That sounds like internet addiction to me. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's not diagnose 1/2 :-). Anyway, sure, it can be hard to go to bed when you're really tired. Partly I think it's just hard to make any change whatsoever when you're tired. You want to go to bed, but that would mean standing up, brushing your teeth, taking off your clothes (maybe putting on pajamas, if you're one of the sort that wear them), and turning out the light, and you just don't have the mental energy to start the process.

Another thing that I think can make it hard to disconnect and go to bed is if there's something bothering you a little bit that you don't want to face. As long as you're surfing you can keep it at bay, but once you turn out the light, there it is and you're alone with it. --Trovatore (talk) 23:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I have the same problem. Over the summer, when I had next to no restrictions on my time, my waking day gradually shifted later and later until I was going to bed about 6 or 7am each morning and getting up just in time for dinner (at one point, for about a week, I was sleeping only every other night, sleeping for one 12 hour period every 48 hours, was very weird!). I found the only way to stop this was to be very disciplined about going to bed at a sensible time (I got back into a more normal schedule by just not going to bed at all one night, having a short nap in the afternoon, and then going to bed at a sensible time and setting an alarm so I got up at a sensible time). --Tango (talk) 16:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

There is The Imp of the Perverse which causes us, when we are ready to go to bed at 10 pm and get a good night's sleep, instead to to "take a quick look at Wikipedia" or whatever on the internet, and then to get involved in some discussion, controversy, editing or research which prevents turning in until 1 am, with the alarm set for 6:30 am. I can't explain it. A shred of common sense would cause one to ignore the computer and go to bed. Edison (talk) 00:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Edison's comment reminds me of my nominee for the Official Cartoon of Wikipedia. Deor (talk) 02:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

But someone is wrong! On the internet! Plasticup ^T/C 05:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean conflict/stimulus and/or hunger for it can keep people from chilling enough to go to bed easily? To stimulate myself to go to bed at a "common sense" time, I set up a stimulating read to get myself there, away from higher technology treats. Julia Rossi (talk) 07:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Lehman-Nomura

How did Nomura get such a good deal?

[11]

Earlier this week, Nomura International announced that it had acquired Lehmans' European equity and advisory businesses, safeguarding about 2,500 London-based jobs. It is understood that the Japanese bank also paid about US$2 for these operations.

It is believed that the latest acquisition does not include trading assets or trading liabilities.

Lotsofissues (talk) 17:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Because it is not clear that Lehman Brother is worth anything at all. They may have bought a company whose net worth is negative. They could end up losing a lot of money here. Plasticup ^T/C 19:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

They've probably taken on lots of debts as well (not necessarily trading liabilities, Lehman will have ordinary loans as well) so, as Plasticup says, the net worth of their purchase could actually be negative. --Tango (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. They may be counting on using the name, which would have some intrinsic value, and there are some real assets (brick and mortar buildings, computer servers, intellectual property, human resources, etc.) that may be worth it for the to aquire, and take a hit on the massive outstanding debts that Lehman's has. If the company has a higher dollar value in debts than they have in assets, then Nomura may actually be paying a premium for those assets, and may not be getting that great of a deal. The price they pay must be added to the debts of Lehmans they have to assume in order decide how good of a "deal" they got. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that the most valuable asset is the staff and their client lists. --Tango (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Nomura has made sure none of the debt was included in the deal when they bought the European businesses. Therefore they only got this deal because no one else wanted it, so there was no competition. The sellers (PricewaterhouseCoopers) agreed to it in order to save the jobs of the ex-Lehamn employees, and because some other advantages that this deal gave them (e.g. some help to get rid of other Lehamn assets). --Lgriot (talk) 03:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What are these assets that made them so hard to give away? Lotsofissues (talk) 10:52, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Positions, complex trades, (not necessarily in credit or subprime related). --Lgriot (talk) 04:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Didn't they get a building in this deal (I'm assuming if they get the staff they get the staff's offices)? That has value regardless of the value of the business. --Tango (talk) 12:03, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

In Europe, Lehman was renting its offices, so no office building to sell. --Lgriot (talk) 14:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Will UBS be next to go? Lotsofissues (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What ever happened to the author Robert Hample?

I once read a book authored by Robert Hample. It changed my life. I don't recall the title but the subject matter dealt with spirituality, forgiveness and love. It may have been self published. Now he's disappeared. How can I find him and his other works? Tor —Preceding unsigned comment added by Svarten (talk • contribs) 21:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

He doesn't show up in any relevent-looking Google hits and I couldn't find him on Amazon.com or any other online book sellers. However, I did discover that an author by that name wrote "Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts - 1813-1852" - published in 1982 by Ann Arbor press. - which is listed on Amazon here as being written by "Robert L. Hampel" (HampEL not HampLE as you wrote). That lead me to this list of 5 books and articles:

• The Last Little Citadel: American High Schools Since 1940 by Robert L. Hampel (Paperback - April 1987)
• A generation in crisis?: An article from: Daedalus by Robert L. Hampel (Digital - Jul 28, 2005) - HTML
• A Kappan Special Section on Small Schools - Historical Perspectives On Small Schools.(Statistical Data Included): An article from: Phi Delta Kappan by Robert L. Hampel (Digital - Jul 29, 2005) - HTML
• Temperance and prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813-1852 (Studies in American history and culture) by Robert L Hampel (Unknown Binding - 1982)
• Historical perspectives on large schools in America (Occasional paper series) by Robert L Hampel (Unknown Binding - 2000)

The complete list is here - which is probably what you're looking for. Self-published books are really impossible to find though. It amazes me that you'd have so casually lost a book that affected you so profoundly. SteveBaker (talk) 13:53, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Aha! And now I can Google-search for this corrected name ("Hampel") - I find his website, a L-O-N-G list of articles and such, his email address and photo: Here. SteveBaker (talk) 14:05, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Insurance

In the UK, a Porsche 924 only costs a bit over two grand. This makes it easily affordable for a first car. What would be the cost of insurance ofor a 17 year old though.

Also, you can get a small old army tank for aboout four grand, how much would the cheapest insurance for that cost?

Thanks.92.5.37.195 (talk) 21:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried phoning an insurance company, going to an insurance company's website or going to a price comparison website? Any one of those things will answer your question far better than we can (since we don't have all the information they would use to calculate your premiums). As for the tank - you would want to make sure it's road legal before taking it on public roads, not all military vehicles are (there is an exception for certain military uses of them, but that won't help you!). --Tango (talk) 22:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

A Porsche of that age/price is going to be in terrible shape. It's going to be horribly unreliable (they really aren't all that reliable when new - but for someone to get rid of one that cheap - there has to be BIG problems with it). Worse still, the cost of repairs will absolutely cripple you! A clutch for a 924 costs about $850 - excluding labor. Compare that to (for example) a boring Altima at $230 That's probably pretty typical - most repairs are going to cost you three or four times more than a relatively "normal" car. Insurance will be expensive - but repairs are your bigger concern. SteveBaker (talk) 02:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Parts and labor for repair on Porsches are likely to be quite different in the UK (which is somewhat closer to Stuttgart than is the US. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:53, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest watching the Top Gear £1500 Porsche challenge. Essentially, a 924 may be nice, but at £2k it'll be in terrible nick and will cost the world to insure and repair. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm - yes - I'd forgotten about that. It underscores my point though. Yet more clear was the following challenge which they called "Cheap Coupés That Aren't Porsches" which started out with: "We proved that you can't buy a Porsche for £1,500"...Well, obviously, you can - because they did - but the message is CLEARLY that you shouldn't! If a car show expert can't find a decent one for that price - you have no hope! Porshe's are beautiful, powerful, fun cars - for someone to part with one for so little money, it's got to be on its last legs. SteveBaker (talk) 19:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Getting back to the insurance - some specialist companies do policies for classic cars where you agree to limit your mileage, which can be much cheaper than ordinary policies. I should think a 924 would count as a classic car for this purpose. Try searching for limited mileage classic insurance. For the tank - haven't a clue, it probably varies a lot depending on how helpful the companies are feeling at the moment. Try asking someone who owns one already - or perhaps a museum of military vehicles? - or this training company? AJHW (talk) 11:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I have that kind of classic car insurance on my 1963 Mini. With the policy I have, the car has to be more than 25 years old - the value the insurance pays out and the value your rates are based upon is whatever you claim the car is worth...not some green-book value that depreciates the car over time. Some policies sharply limit your mileage (I've seen 100 miles per month as a limit) - others (mine included) don't limit the mileage but only allow you to drive the car to things like car club events, shows, exhibitions and that kind of thing. You SPECIFICALLY can't use it as a daily driver. However, the insurance is amazingly cheap. My understanding is that they believe that the owners of true classic cars drive them very gingerly and lavish amazing amounts of care of them - so accident rates are low. All of this despite the fact that their crashworthyness is typically in the "Death-trap" to "OMFG - you aren't actually DRIVING that thing are you?" range. SteveBaker (talk) 18:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

On your other question I don't think a tank is road legal in the UK (they totally destroy roads unless they are going really slow, weigh loads, and are wide and heavy so you need a special licence) so you probably don't need road insurance as you won't be driving on the roads. A wheeled APC on the other hand... In either case you'd need the turret removed though because it violates some firearms act or other. Gunrun (talk) 13:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe you're right that a main battle tank (Centurion, Chieftain, Challenger, etc) is not road-legal in civilian hands in the UK, although I'm not sure precisely which legislation makes this so. (And readers should always take with a pinch of salt any pronouncement (including this one) on what is or is not "legal" unless it cites the specific statute or case law - there's an awful lot of bollocks out there.) However, there are a number of people driving CVRTs on the roads, which to the layman often seems sufficiently like a tank.

There's absolutely no need to remove the whole turret, but yes, it's usual to get the gun deactivated. Apparently it is possible to keep the gun intact if registered on a normal firearms certificate, but I've no idea how practical that is to achieve. Whether you can have a firearms certificate and what weapons you can put on it are decisions that are up to your local Police force. 81.187.153.189 (talk) 22:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Death

If everyone in a household share a computer, with each having their own log in. If one of these people dies, how long do people wait before they delete the account and all of its contents. Is there a set amount of time one should wait?

Also how long is the wait before emptying the deceased person's room?

Thanks.92.5.37.195 (talk) 22:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously the answer is "you should do what seems appropriate or feels right to you". But you should know that in these situations that there will always be the kind of people, uninvolved or only slightly involved people, that criticize no matter how you handle it, so really—do what you think is best, because there is no point in attempting to please everybody, only consider the people who are actually grieving. Darkspots (talk) 22:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Besides the symbolic/sentimental question, there is a practical question. The person may have stored important private information (e.g. bank account details) in their account. Check the account contents before deleting it. jnestorius^(talk) 23:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Some people like to wait until after the funeral before they start sorting through the person's stuff. Some people find it all too much to deal with until they've had a chance to grieve (or they may ask someone else to do it). Others prefer to get it over and done with as soon as possible so it's not hanging over them and their not seeing the person's stuff everywhere. I don't think there is any right way to do it, people just need to decide for themselves. If this isn't a hypothetical question, then my condolences - you're going through a very hard time, don't make it harder by worry about doing "the right thing", just do whatever feels right. --Tango (talk) 23:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Do religions have rules about this? I imagine that there could be strict rules about how long the family is to wait before divvying up the deceased's possessions. Plasticup ^T/C 23:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Some might, but none I've never heard of. It's more a question of social convention as to how long to wait. It's in the same vein as how long does one wait before re-marrying, and not wanting to be seen to be invoking Hamlet's "The funeral baked meats did freshly furnish forth the marriage tables". I went to my uncle's funeral, and back at the house my aunt took me aside, saying "There's something I want to talk to you about. Would you come with me, please". It sounded ominous, but I followed her into her bedroom, where she pulled out her late husband's jacket, and asked me if I would like it. I was the only person it would fit, and I lived a couple of hours' drive away, so she obviously thought the practical thing was to organise it while I was in situ, rather than trying to arrange it from a distance, with all the attendant costs. So I left with more than I bargained for. I don't know when she got around to disposing of his other possessions she no longer wanted, but I doubt it would have been quite that soon. When my father died, I stayed with my mother for a few days, less than a week, and again I left with various things that had belonged to him, not because I had asked for them but because she thought it would be best to start the disposal process the day after the funeral, and why waste money sending stuff in the mail when you can hand it over in person. Other people might wait weeks, months or years before doing this. Letting go is easier for some people than for others. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Some religions certainly have rules about periods of mourning, they may well include details on how to deal with the deceased's possessions. There are also laws regarding how and when to deal with possessions, see probate. --Tango (talk) 00:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, this was a hypothetical situation. 92.5.37.195 (talk) 23:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

When my father died - my mother wanted me to take his computer. I didn't want to go through his files (that seemed like a violation of his privacy) - but I didn't want to take the explicit step of deleting his stuff either. What I decided to do was simply to cease backing up his files and to simply let time take it's course. After a few years, the disk drive crapped out - and that was that. But these days, it's harder. My computer has all of the family photos and many movies from when my kid was little. It's unthinkable that my survivors wouldn't want to recover those. So I make an effort to keep a "family" area and a "private" area. I've left my family a detailed set of instructions about who to email (how would people on Wikipedia know what happened to me otherwise?) - which accounts to close down (and what their passwords are). What the 'root' password is on our household computers. How to get the money out of my PayPal account. How to pay for any eBay auctions I might have won - yet not paid for due to my sudden demise. Which OpenSource developers should be sent copies of all of my software projects - and under what licensing conditions. How to renew the family web sites...AND (specifically in answer to this question) how to deal with my own personal web site and Wiki. It's a complicated business - and without access to someone's passwords and usernames, it would be pretty difficult for my family to deal with those things cleanly. SteveBaker (talk) 02:29, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I have never even considered leaving those kinds of instructions, but in a way it makes a lot of sense. There are so many people that I would want notified that my family would not know about. So many affairs that they could not set in order. Did you do this as part of a living will? Plasticup ^T/C 05:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Nothing so formal. I wrote my instructions down and stuck them into an envelope in my desk. I suppose if you wanted them to have the force of law that a will does then you could add them as a coda to your will - but I find I need to change that document reasonably often and I trust my family to do what I ask without any legal overheads so I've left it rather informal. SteveBaker (talk) 13:42, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Global recession

OK, the markets are in a mess and we all have to learn to deal with that - and that's no big deal - it happens. But from experience, we know that the holders of stocks and shares are the most likely to lose out in a recession/depression. But what happened to cash investors in savings accounts in the USA banks and building societies (sic) in the great depression of the 30's? In other words, of those who survived financially, whose savings (and of what type) fared best? Was it bars of gold - bills under the mattress - tins of beans in the cellar - property bought empty and cheap - or what?92.21.235.82 (talk) 23:26, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Before you start drawing comparisons between now and the 1930s it is important understand the differences. For instance, FDIC insurance means that your cash deposits in American banks are guaranteed by the Federal Government up to $250,000, and that limit might even be raised in the next few days. So cash deposits under $250,000 are 100% safe. Plasticup ^T/C 23:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The economy is also much more deeply interconnected than it was. In the 1930's, a small bank might take savings deposits from people within a 50 mile area - and lend that money as mortgages out to people in the exact same part of town. If a bunch of their loans went belly-up - then their depositors might suffer badly...but that would be a localized effect. These days, money lent for a mortgage in the US may have been deposited by big companies in China - who "insured" those deposits against a financial company in Germany who also lend money to a factory in India who sell their product to WalMart.

The effects of a local problem can now reverberate around the world. I'm not using the word "reverberate" figuratively here - it's a literal effect where a medium-sized stock market drop on the sunlit side of the planet is noted on the opposite side 12 hours later when their market opens and causes panic selling that hits their bottom line seriously. The news of that drop hits the the original market 12 hours after that as people wake up and turn on the morning news - and they get another wave of bad news causing further drops in the local market. Calming down a panic in the US therefore requires world-wide action. Bad news crosses between markets freely - but we don't have a world-wide government that can take global action to dampen things down. That kind of rapid communication didn't happen (and wouldn't have mattered) in the 1930's when the failure of a US bank would have been a mere curiosity on another continent. SteveBaker (talk) 13:37, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What I cannot understand is where all this money that the banks have lost, has actually gone. Can any one enlighten me please?--Artjo (talk) 08:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It hasn't gone anywhere. Consider this very simplistic example. If you have an item that I consider is worth $100 should you decide to sell it and I decide to buy it, then it's worth $100 to you. But if I, for whatever reason, decide that I'm now only prepared to pay $75 for it, it's now worth only $75 to you. Previously, you had the potential equivalent of $100 in your hot little hands, just waiting for the chance to convert it into cash; now, all you have is $75. The $25 didn't "go" anywhere, because it was all just potential money, not real money. It only becomes real money when a transaction actually occurs. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The crisis was caused by the banks lending too much money to people who couldn't pay it back. So the money the banks gave to those people to buy houses is "where it went". Hence the money went to people who managed to sell houses that they would not otherwise have been able to sell - and to the people who got a lot more for their houses than they were arguably "worth" because the demand was artificially higher and the supply smaller. So the money isn't "lost" it's just diffused out into the economy in the form of higher-than-it-should-have-been growth. SteveBaker (talk) 18:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

October 12

Credit Crunch

It is said that the credit crunch is affecting a lot of people, but has anyone actually changed their lifestyle/spending habits. I haven't, and I want to know how many people are affected. Thanks. 92.5.37.195 (talk) 00:09, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I talk to a lot of people, and I haven't found anyone affected in any way, except by the misery from seeing their 401K decrease proportionately to the drop in the U.S. stock market indices. Small businessmen in particular say it has not affected their supply of goods to sell or the credit terms they grant their customers. Edison (talk) 00:14, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. That's a very good question. In short we are all affected. And the fact that you are even asking this question illustrates that you are affected - as are we all. How? Who? How many? How much? Who knows? Who even cares anymore? Me? I feel lucky. I have a house with no mortgage. I have an inflation-proof pension. I have no debt. I live within my (very limited) means. I can live without a 46 inch television (in fact, I can live without television, period), and I know how to make a chicken feed my family of 8 for a week. Heating? Lighting? Fuel for the car? What car? That's for TV shows. And continental holidays? What a joke - to give up your own home comforts for crappy and basic alternatives? - for what good reason? Let's get real - people - we are in the grubber - and we will survive - maybe differently for sure - but yes - we will survive. Trust me. 92.9.41.68 (talk) 00:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Live without a telivision, impossible! I'd rather die. LOL. Thanks for your answers, especially to Edison.92.5.37.195 (talk) 00:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It's certainly affected me. The property market effects have drastically changed my behavior/lifestyle. Faced with a need to relocate my family across Texas for job reasons, I decided it was better to buy a (super-cheap) foreclosed (and vandalised) nearly-new house to move into in the short term - and to rent out my old house rather than to try to sell it. A little 'sweat equity' went into the new house - and now it's looking pretty good. This strategy makes sense to me because this way I am "buying low" on the house we moved into - and I'm not "selling low" on my old house. I'm taking a risk - I now own more property without evidence that property values will increase in the future...but I figure that if people are losing their homes because of junk mortgages - they still have to live somewhere - so they must be renting...hence property rental values ought to slowly climb. The snag of course is that credit is hard to find - so getting a mortgage on a second house was tough...but we had plenty of equity in the first house and a big enough deposit on the second one - so we managed to sneak in under the wire before the worst of the crisis bit home and loans became unobtainable. Anyway - the crisis DOES directly affect some of us. SteveBaker (talk) 02:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

An ex-girlfriend of mine works for a new restaurant in Connecticut. Being a new business, it has been relying on loans to cover short-term expenses until things get rolling, but with banks having to tighten their lending standards it can no longer get the loans that it needs. Her hours have been cut in half as the restaurant cannot afford to pay her without these loans. That is a direct effect of the credit crunch. Plasticup ^T/C 03:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

There was a piece on NPR a few days ago about a doorman outside a fancy hotel (who mostly works for tips) who has been tracking the amount he collects in tips against the stock market indices - and concluding that his tip-income correlates very closely with the state of the stock market. If that carries through to restaurant tipping then Plasticup's ex- may be in more trouble still. But that's a very direct, "first-order" effect. In general, the effects of this crisis are going to filter through into 'real' people's lives rather gradually. It takes time for the consequences of a fairly obscure banking weirdness to filter through to people working in some industries.

But if banks can't lend money to restaurants and they downsize this week - then the companies that produce the food that those restaurants sell will start to suffer over the next few weeks as new orders decrease. They will then order less produce and a few weeks after that, the farmers that provide raw produce to those companies will go down. If this doesn't get fixed fairly soon - then before the next harvesting season, the companies that produce equipment for those farmers will suffer...but that won't happen for maybe another six months. Then the workers at those companies will be unemployed and...and...and...and eventually, YOUR job will be on the line. But if each of those dozen or more steps takes an average of month to filter through - then it may be a year or more between the failure of a restaurant in Connecticut causing a computer programmer in Texas to get into financial trouble. Different people will be affected in different ways depending on how far they are along that chain.

However, it's not all bad. Gasoline prices just dropped through the $3 barrier here in Texas...I didn't think I'd ever see that happen - but oil is now selling at almost half what it was at it's peak. This has a short-term benefit for people like trucking companies and airlines - but the benefit will be short-lived as their customers scale back on transportation needs.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

And here I was glad that diesel had gone down by 15p from the peak!

In the UK at least, builders such as Taylor Wimpey have been cutting large numbers of jobs [12], and unemployment is rising generally. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 10:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Cold skies

Why is it, when it is rather cold, the skies seem to be sort of brighter than they would be if it were warmer? I've always wondered this. CL — 03:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The cold air condenses water vapor in the air and turn it into rain, so that there's less fog/cloud in the sky? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in the atmosphere rather than letting it radiate straight back into space. Thus it's probably more accurate to say that it's colder on clear days, rather than clearer on cold days. FiggyBee (talk) 06:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The greenhouse effect is not noticeable on such small scales as your regular day-to-day weather phenomenon. I was hoping that linking to weather or meteorology would provide sufficient context, but both of those articles suck. Sorry. Plasticup ^T/C 06:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so the day-to-day effect is more like a real greenhouse than what has become known as the "greenhouse effect". I still stand by my assertion that clear -> cold, rather than cold -> clear. FiggyBee (talk) 07:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you are mixing up cause and effect. The ground absorbs heat from the sun during the day - and radiates it back out into space at night as infrared light. When the sky is cloudy, much of that infrared gets reflected back to the earth by those highly reflective clouds. But when it's clear, the heat is lost to space. Hence it tends to be warmer on cloudy nights and cooler on clear nights. Hence cold nights often seem clearer than warm ones. This is really a form of "greenhouse effect" - water vapor is a very powerful greenhouse gas. However - it may be cold for other reasons...for example, (in the Northern hemisphere) if the wind is blowing from the North - then colder air is being moved into an otherwise warmer region - and it's possible to have a cold night even with overcast conditions. If the wind is blowing from the south then air from a warmer latitude is being moved into colder areas and you may get a warm, clear night. So it's not ALWAYS the case that cold nights mean clearer skies - but it certainly helps. SteveBaker (talk) 13:03, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Text of Obama's recent speeches

Obviously the candidates speeches vary a little from event to event and from day to day, but their conclusions are often the same bits of well rehearsed rhetoric. I am looking for the text of Obama's recent speech, which ends as so:

Some of us have parents who said I'm never going to be a United States Senator but my son may be. I will never be President but my son or daughter may be. That's what America is about, each generation working, fighting so that the future is better than the past. Thats the moment we're in, thats why we're fighting right now. Thats what elections are about. Thats why I'm running for president

Before that (powerful) conclusion he speaks about parents who can't afford to go to college, but if they work hard maybe their children can go to college. Ditto for owning a home and owning a business. I can't find an online transcript, but maybe Wikipedians have access to sources that I don't. Plasticup ^T/C 03:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this transcript or it's many other google results? Of course, as any political speech it's repeated ad infinitum here there and everywhere by the same person and others - so whether it's the original airing of this paragraph or not I can't tell. Nanonic (talk) 04:14, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

That is a beautiful speech, to be sure, but that is not the one that I am looking for. His most recent one (of the last 5 days) specifically contains the phrases above, and uses similar rhetoric to describe the struggle of parents to send their children to college. Plasticup ^T/C 05:09, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's another possibility: La Crosse. The top notes that this is "as prepared for delivery," and I bet that's true of a lot of these; the stuff you're quoting about might have been extemporized. Maybe check for a video of this one. --Masamage ♫ 04:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wait, I found it! The speech he actually gave is indeed different, and is the one you're looking for. Here's the version based on what he really said. (For future reference, I figured out what speech it was by Googling "'fighting so that the future is better than the past' obama", which gave me a single news article that identified the location.) --Masamage ♫ 04:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Wisdom teeth extraction

Why is it that dentists recommend pulling out wisdom teeth even though it doesn't bother the patient? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.63.127.208 (talk) 05:08, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

They are often extracted to preempt future problems. See mandibular third molar and the Bush doctrine. Plasticup ^T/C 05:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What kind of problems? 75.63.127.208 (talk) 05:24, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Especially if the person has had corrective braces in the past, there may not be space for the wisdom teeth in the patient's mouth. When they erupt through the gum they can "impact" against other teeth and start pushing them around. This may be both painful and unattractive. Plasticup ^T/C 05:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

As well, they are often difficult to keep properly clean and are more prone to cavities. Note though that not all dentists want to get rid of all wisdom teeth. For example, my dentists have decided that I keep one of my original four, simply because it does match with the teeth above it and therefore is used for chewing. --Kickstart70-T-C 06:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

As Plasticup points out, the main issue is whether the teeth coming in correctly will disrupt the positions of the existing teeth. If my wisdom teeth had been allowed to come in they would have crowded all of my existing teeth something horrible (the existing teeth had been moved around already with orthodontics). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:27, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

During most of human history, by the time your wisdom teeth came in you would already have lost several of your original adult teeth to decay, so there would have been room. Now that we have good enough dental care to keep our other teeth, the third molars are extraneous and have no space to move into. Eventually, it messes up most people's mouths. (Then there's me: I don't have wisdom teeth or second molars, and no room for 'em either. o_O) --Masamage ♫ 04:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

All four of my wisdom teeth came in, but my dentist said my mouth was big enough, so I still have them. Useight (talk) 00:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

What are the odds of super-ebola emerging?

airborne, long incubation, 100%

Lotsofissues (talk) 06:48, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, didn't you hear? We all already have it. By tommorrow, every person on earth will be dead. Good night! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:48, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

How could anyone possibly know this? It's impossible to put a number on such a thing. Since such a disease doesn't exist now - it would require at least one very specific mutation (probably a lot more than one). Mutations are entirely random - and whether a mutated version would survive (for other reasons) is hard to predict. Hence you aren't going to get an answer.

One point though - "super-bugs" are at a strong evolutionary disadvantage - if you kill off your host organism - the odds are that you'll end up getting buried under 6' of dirt or burned to ashes - and your host will start seeking medical attention. It's in the interests of disease bacteria/virii to cause as little damage to the host as possible - spreading as asymptomatically as possible. The most successful infectious agents are things like gut flora (which either cause no symptoms at all - or are actually beneficial) - or colds and influenza strains that only cause symptoms like coughing and sneezing which help them to spread.

This is why disesase are most often fatal when they've just crossed a species barrier and have not had time to evolve a behavior that suits the new host. It's notable that in most cases, the fatality rate of diseases naturally DECREASES over time as they evolve to spread more efficiently. Hence the smart money would be on an ebola virus that is less fatal to humans - not more. The big concern is with entirely new diseases (Bird flu, for example) that have not yet fully crossed the species barrier and have therefore not evolved into a less-fatal-to-humans version. SteveBaker (talk) 12:51, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't even require a species barrier. What had been nuisence disseases, or at at least had been controlled, in Europe in the 15th century, depopulated the Americas in the 16th. Disseases like Small Pox, Measels, and Typhus are estimated to have wiped out something like 80-90% of all native peoples in the Americas. Likewise, it is widely suspected that Syphilis was introduced to Europe at the same time. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if a high-morbidity variant did evolve, it wouldn't know that it had a poor long-term strategy, possibly until it was too late for both it and its host species. --ColinFine (talk) 22:43, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

"long-term" in this context means long enough to infect a significant number of people. We're not talking about wiping out the entire host species we're talking about killing the specific host before they pass it on. High-morbidity isn't enough to prevent it spreading, though, it needs to have a short incubation period too. --Tango (talk) 23:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

1819 one cent penny

How much is a 1819 one cent penny worth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrcelica (talk • contribs) 14:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

According to this guy: [13] - an 1817 penny (must be kinda similar to yours) that's been circulated and used could be worth between $5 and $10 depending on condition. If it's in uncirculated ("mint") condition, it could be worth thouands. If you type '1819 penny' or '1819 cent' into eBay.com - you'll see there are coins just like yours at "Buy It Now" prices of around $24 - but right now, there is one on regular auction for $9.99 with not one bid...suggesting that $5 is more likely than $10. SteveBaker (talk) 14:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. If you are from the US want to see an online database about US coins, see http://www.coinfacts.com. Here is your coin, if it's an American coin. Hope this helps. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 19:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The only way to find out what an old coin is really worth is to take it to a coin dealer and see what they offer to pay for it. This will depend greatly on the condition of the coin, i.e. how worn or damaged it is. (Do not try to clean it before taking it in; you can do more damage, and wear is what matters.) Some coins may have a minimum price based on their metal content, but for bronze coins like a penny that won't be worth mentioning. Catalogs may show prices for coins in various conditions, but the dealer's opinion of the condition is what matters, not yours. If you don't like the price offered, you can always try another dealer.

Above, someone gave an answer relating to a different date of coin. Coins made in different years can differ considerably in value even if they are otherwise similar, if they were produced in different quantities. Most US coins also show a mark (or the absence of a mark) to indicate what city they were minted in; coins from different mints in the same year are priced differently. --Anonymous, 20:20 UTC, October 12, 2008.

You didn't read what I wrote. I very carefully checked for that. The blog response was indeed for a coin two years older...but the eBay numbers were for that year - and they don't lie. If anyone wants an 1819 penny - they can easily get one on eBay for $10...yet there are several unsold ones there at that price - so the true value must be less than $10. Worse still, a dealer has to buy at well below that price because he has to make a profit in selling it again. So $5 is almost certainly the most you'll get...unless it's in unusually good condition. This agrees entirely with the blogger who said $5 to $10 for a circulated coin (depending on condition) - but thousands of dollars for one in mint/uncirculated condition. So I don't see that a year or two either way is making any difference to that guy's comments in this case - he's clearly 100% correct in his estimation. SteveBaker (talk) 00:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Industrial experience

Some engineering courses offer the choice of a year of industrial experience as part of the course. How important would you say this? Is it harder to get a job without any experience when you graduate? --RMFan1 (talk) 15:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of experience, plus degree. But be sure that the work experience is in the area in which you want to work, and with a company with a top reputation - so your reference will bear weight. If necessary seek out your own placement, do not blindly rely on the Uni. If you can get to a blue chip firm and do well your CV will be impressive, and interviews will be so much easier to obtain.86.197.169.155 (talk) 15:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)petitmichel

Im going to be studying Electrical/Electronic Engineering and I know I should look to ensure that the courses are accredited by the appropriate institutions such as the IEE and IET. Some are only accredited by one of these. How important is this? --RMFan1 (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Vital.86.197.171.254 (talk) 14:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)petitmichel

England football colours

Why do England not play in their traditional strip of white shirts and black shorts ?86.197.169.155 (talk) 15:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)DT

Possibly you were watching an away match against a team who also wore white? -mattbuck (Talk) 15:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

According to our article, entitled England national football team, the away colours are red shirts, white shorts and red socks. Photos on the 2010 Wold Cup portal certainly show them wearing these colours in some matches. Their "home" colour in the group matches (but not normally) seems to be all white. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It is common for teams to wear different colour shorts to avoid a kit clash. Traditionally England tend to wear white shirt, blue shorts, white socks. If the team they are playing against wears blue-shorts (or has a sufficiently blue strip) they may choose to wear white-shorts to help prevent a clash. Personally i've never seen England where black shorts before (I can only recall England games from about 1990 onwards). Nowadays the teams will often wear their 'away' shirt regardless of whether there is a clash - this is apparently due to kit-sponsorship agreements that say the shirt will be worn x% of games (some teams will ocassionally play a season in a league where there are no teams that 'clash' with them. Norwich City springs to mind as a club that probably doesn't clash with many other teams home kit). 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I understand about changing to avoid a clash. But I can't remember when England last wore their traditional colours. If they have changed to all white - when and why ? After all Wales still wear red and Scotland blue and white, so why not England's white and black ?86.197.171.254 (talk) 14:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)DT

When have England ever worn black shorts? I've never seen it - only every dark blue (or white). This page seems to confirm that: http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamUnif/Colours/1954-74.html and http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamUnif/Colours/1974-date.html ny156uk (talk) 15:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

To answer the second part of the Q: The last time they wore white-blue-white (which seems to be most common) was August 2008 vs Czech Republic. It seems they haven't stopped wearing it - they just wear all white to avoid clashes. ny156uk (talk) 15:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Wa-Hoo Rules

When playing the game of Wa-Hoo, and you land on the apponets marble, when is that move complete. Is it complete once you place your marble in thier hole and remove your finger from your marble. Or is it a completed move after they place the apponets marble back into thier starting place.

And can you role again after roling a 1....just like you do a 6. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coffee304 (talk • contribs) 16:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

See Wahoo (board game) for more information. Cheers! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I have a question...

I like DVDs. ANd I like DVD menus. I always wanted to see how a DVD's menu is like. I just saw Saw IV's DVD menu and it looked like a side view of John Kramer lying on a flat table with his throat slit. I was wondering if there is a site where I can see descriptions of DVD menus of movies. So, does anyone know of some sites like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs) 18:53, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I have not heard of one. Do a search on a popular search engine. 92.4.229.8 (talk) 22:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You might try some of the results from this google search. --Joe^Talk_Work 22:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

October 13

nervous

i am not usually the guy that gets nervous around girls but there is this one girl that does make me nervous. i dont even like her but i freeze up everytime i see her. why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.230.88.227 (talk • contribs) 02:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Is she a basilisk? Plasticup ^T/C 03:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Doubleplus loldongs for that one CL — 04:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This is because you have caught "the gay" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.213.141.241 (talk • contribs) 06:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like she's got your number, buddy. (in the "has you figured out" sense.) Avoid her at all costs or marry her, my advice. Darkspots (talk) 08:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well usually to be nervous about something you want to impress (or at least not embarrass yourself infront of) someone. It may be that her personality is such that you subconciously (spelling) feel you need to impress them. Some people have an air of authority, or perhaps have traits you aspire to and thus makes you want to be seen in a favourable light in their eyes. Certainly doesn't have to mean you like her in a sexual/partner sense, but it could be that her personality is such that it triggers your nervousness. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

thanks 194.221.133.226, you were the only one that actually said something useful. You other guys should find a different hobby because advisement is not your thing.

The reference desk isn't really intended for advice, it's intended for helping people find answers to factual questions - you're lucky you got any help at all. Try an agony aunt next time. --Tango (talk) 19:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

cop

what is the etymology of the word cop, when refering to a police officer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.115.175.247 (talk) 11:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This source says that it's from the Old French 'caper,' meaning, 'to seize.' It's cited from the Oxford English Dictionary, which is pretty much the ultimate reliable source for English word origins. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 12:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I was always under the impression "Cop" came from the Latin cupare meaning to catch, though I wouldn't know where to look for a reference. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 12:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Old French probably comes from the Latin, so you're both right. In fact, Wiktionary says "From Latin and Old French capere ('to capture')." --Tango (talk) 12:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

One could start by checking a Latin dictionary for the existence of a verb cupare. I don't see it. —Tamfang (talk) 00:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary says that the french capere is from the latin capio from the proto-indo-european kap. Nanonic (talk) 01:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

In England "Cop" is an considered to be an Americanized short-form of "Copper" - which still fits with a derivation from the French 'caper'. SteveBaker (talk

I have been told that it originated in the UK. When filing a report, the officer used it as shorthand for "constable on patrol."

Police code

what does the america police code 10-75 mean? is it a murder, a rape ect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.115.175.247 (talk) 13:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

"In contact with", according to Ten-code and this. But this google search returns some sources that say "Domestic problem". Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

10-codes are not, as often suspected, universal between police departments. There are a few that have become so common as to be somewhat universal (10-4, 10-20) but most of the time you will find a WIDE variation in 10 codes. The article Ten-code has lots of information on the codes; there is a national standard, but many local jurisdictions ignore these and have developed their own codes. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

10-4. Edison (talk) 05:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

A level questions

I did 4 AS levels and dropped 1 of them (chemistry) at A2. Thus I am taking 3 full A levels. I am thinking of taking a gap year before I go to university.

So firstly i would like to know whether it is possible for me in this gap year to take chemistry A2 considering that they have now changed the specification? I dont know if the examining board still offers exams in the old spec but regardless my school does not offer to teach it anymore so I cannot lern the old A2 spec. Is it possible for me to learn the new A2 spec and then that can combine with my old AS to form a whole A level

Secondly, is it possible for me to take a whole A level (AS and A2) in one year. Im not asking whether I will be able to cope or whether my school will allow me, just whether the examining boards allow someone to be registered to take the AS and A2 in one year

Thank you very much --217.65.49.34 (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Your school will be better able to answer those questions that we can. I think exam boards usually offer both specs for only the first year when changing an A-level, so you may not be able to take the old spec exams next year. Whether you can combine new and old, I have no idea, it will probably depend on what they've changed. Taking a whole A-level in one year is probably possible - often you can take exams in both January and the summer so you may be able to do the AS in January and the A2 in the summer. You really need to ask your school, though, they're the experts. --Tango (talk) 15:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

World's safest city and capital city.

What is the world's safest city? I'm looking, specifically, for a city that has at least 50,000 habitants and also the lowest amount of crime in the world. Additionally, as a related question, what is the world's safest capital city? Thank you in advance, and apologies if asking two questions is not allowed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by XxCutexXxGirlxX (talk • contribs) 17:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

According to this source, the answer to both questions is the city of Luxembourg. Marco polo (talk) 17:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

No, the article only reported results for 215 cities. Luxembourg may be the right answer for capitals -- though I would expect the Vatican City to rank very highly -- but for cities with over 50,000 population, there are thousands and thousands of them in the world. I would be surprised if anyone has compared crime statistics on so many cities. Such comparisons may also be unreliable because police in different countries are unlikely to tabulate crimes according to the same standards. --Anonymous, 03:25 UTC, October 14, 2008.

Bear in mind tat you are required to wear nappies, to make it safe for those who are of average height. Luxembourg is a protected biotope for the endangered species of EU garden gnomes. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

That's going a bit far, don't you think? Please redact that. Darkspots (talk) 21:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Vatican City has a relatively high crime rate. The reason for this is the fact that VC has an extremely high number of annual visitors per capita (on account of lots of people visiting but the population being only about 900) and this means that if only a few tourists commit relatively small criminal acts like nicking a pencil from the gift shop the crime rate may be relatively high. --Joe^Talk_Work 22:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Missing dates

In The Crown of the Crusader Kings, Huey, Dewey and Louie inform Scrooge McDuck that the crown would return as legal property of the Knights Templar on October 13 1582, however there never was an October 13 1582, so the crown does not belong to them. Surely this cannot be how things really happen? I would imagine it would be considered that in this case, it would be done as soon as that date had passed. Or are there really agreements that rely on a specific calendar date existing, not just having passed? JIP | Talk 20:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you really asking for scrupulous historical accuracy and internal logic from a Disney comic book?!? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

See Gregorian calendar#Adoption, where it's explained that only in "Spain, Portugal, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and most of Italy" was there no 13 October 1582. Where were these Templars hanging out at the time? Deor (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You really want to get technical? Okay, I'm warning you...

Contracts/agreements can be voided based on a legal impossibility - but in the case of a date, it is likely that this would be a losing effort. Say, for instance, a person forgot which month had 31 days and wrote "Sept. 31" - which has happened, I'm sure. This is not a legal impossibility in the same way that, "Mickey Mouse being elected President of Australia" would be. It is a dating impossibility, it's true, but I don't think the date's absence wuld matter. A judge would simply rule on what the intent was.

Now, I'm not in possession of the comic book, so I'm not privvy to what the intent was of this agreement, but I seriously doubt it was made *after* the agreed-upon changing of the calendar. Therefore, it would fall more under the lines of a delay that does not cause the contract to cease, only delays it; like, say, a contract to begin a building in March, but an unusually bad winter makes the foundation not able to be laid till April.

Even if it had been after, the next possible date is almost certainly the one which would be used, becuase of a few other little details.

However, if there were supposed to be something very special about that particular date, then it could be argued that if it didn't happen, then the transfer wouldn't occur. A Friday the 13th could do it, if that was the intent - say, for instance, they wanted it to be symbolic of that date in particular. So, there is still that chance.

Note that I am not concerned about giving you legal advice because I seriously doubt you are either a member of the Knights Templar, nor are you a cartoon duck. :-)Somebody or his brother (talk) 00:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

When the British Empire adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, the law had specific provisions covering things like contracts that referred to dates. Basically the rule was that the date in the contract referred to the same "natural day" that it would have meant without the change. If the Catholic countries that converted in October 1582 used the same sort of rule, the specified date of October 13 would simply be interpreted as meaning October 23 New Style. --Anonymous, 03:33 UTC, October 14 N.S., 2008.

Note also that the Templars never controlled the crusader crown (if by that the crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem is meant); nor were there any Templars in 1582. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the writers nominated a specific date in order to lend credibility and plausibility to the story for those who did not dig beneath the surface (i.e. most kids). But they deliberately chose what they believed was a non-existent date so they couldn't be accused of deliberately misleading their readers that this was a true story. Joan Lindsay did a similar thing when she set Picnic at Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day, Saturday 14 February 1900. It sounds real enough, until one discovers that 14 February 1900 was in fact a Wednesday. The Mickey Mouse writers perhaps did not realise that 13 October 1582 was a non-existent date only in certain countries, not everywhere, so their plan was foiled by their crass ineptitude in failing to research the piecemeal adoption of the Gregorian calendar. If only they'd read our article first. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I know that the story wasn't entirely historically accurate, but it is still based on real historical details. Anyway, I have to take issue at the term "Mickey Mouse writers". I don't know how the situation is in Australia, but I get the feeling that in the United States, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are mixed up with each other, even though they were both invented there. The situation here in Europe, especially Finland, is entirely different. Relative to the size of our population, we read Donald Duck much more than the people who invented him do, and are very aware of the difference between the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck universes (even though they sometimes - very rarely - mix). The story in question was written and drawn by Don Rosa, an American comic artist, who has written and drawn tens of Donald Duck stories but not one single Mickey Mouse story. JIP | Talk 18:11, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, there's always Mickey Mouse writers. Gwinva (talk) 00:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

We've had at least one Mickey Mouse as Prime Minister of Australia, and I'm sure that when we become a republic with a president, this tradition will continue. (Sorry if that's an insult to Mickey.) -- JackofOz (talk) 02:53, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

judgement

in the Bible which individuals judged God? please give the scripture passages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.130.176.18 (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe there's someone out there that can nail this in one, but do you remember any more context than that? Old or New Testament at least? Darkspots (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, Jesus, who is God-as-man (see Gospel of John, Chapter 1), was tried by the Sanhedrin, and sentenced by Pilate. Direct human judgement of God there. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

(econ)Job (not Steve) tried it on the advice of friends in the OT. In the NT from some theological points of view, Pontius Pilate judged God. You can also google these things for references. Is this bible college exam time? In that case, we don't do your homework for you but we're happy to help when you've made an effort and get stuck. Cheers, Julia Rossi (talk) 22:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

good from tragedy

in the bible what scriptures sight incredible good coming out of unspeakable tragedies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.130.176.18 (talk) 21:33, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The Jesus story comes to mind. Any karmic themes of pay now play later also originate from Old Testament times onwards, expressed more in the lamenting Psalms. In the NT, there's the parable of the rich man and the leper (Luke 16:19-31) for example. Cheers, Julia Rossi (talk) 21:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Jesus dying on the cross? You know, the leader of the entire religion is sacrificed so that, in doing so, we can all live in the presence of God for eternity? That's about a big as it gets. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking of Joseph getting sold down the river into Egypt, which led to his saving his entire tribe. I bet there are dozens more...Darkspots (talk) 22:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Genesis 50:20 would be the exact reference for that, but also Romand 8:28 for a general statement that good can come out of bad. But, yes, there are many, really.Somebody or his brother (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

A Mac virus

Apple say that there is no virus for Macs, which makes sense because they are only 2% of the computer market and so there is not much point for someone to make a virus for it. Software companies create viruses and put them on websites where you can download software illegaly, claiming that this is their software. This discourages people trying to download software illegally, as they dont want viruses.

Why doesn't Microsoft just their people to create a virus for Macs as this would be one less thing Apple could advertise? - obviously, Microsoft would do this secretly.

Also, what happens if a Mac downloads a Windows-only virus, does the virus just not work?

Thanks.92.4.229.8 (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

What a wonderful and coherent set of ideas. We should pass them on to MS at once and credit you of course ;) hydnjo talk 23:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I konw, I'm a geneous. LOL92.4.229.8 (talk) 23:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Because Microsoft is a good corporate citizen which only believes in beating the competition fair and square, with better software, not underhanded tricks. As for the second question, it's the wrong file format. --Sean 00:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

For sufficiently wide Values of "Fair". See:Criticism of Microsoft.

I think that a better answer is that the risk and consequences of being caught are just too high. --24.2.176.64 (talk) 00:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks.92.4.229.8 (talk) 00:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that'd be horrible on the company's image if they were discovered. Useight (talk) 00:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

So, we shouldn't do it in case we get caught? Oh yeah, good ol' American corporate culture that! hydnjo talk 00:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, I forgot about this "good corporate citizen which only believes in beating the competition fair and square"  :( hydnjo talk 00:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Whilst perhaps purposeful virus-distribution does occur by software companies, if they get caught their reputation/company would be pretty much ruined (consumer confidence wise) - that will limit the number who take that risk. Incidently - Macs are capable of getting viruses, but as you suggest there are fewer about for Macs. Why? I suspect the market-share reason is a factor, but the operating system's basis is quite widely used so it may also be down to good programming and a more secure operating system in general. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If we are really talking about a virus as opposed to other kinds of malware - then the real reason viruses don't take a hold in Mac and Linux communities is that the virus can't spread fast enough. Consider an old-fashioned email virus. Somehow it infects your computer - it looks at your addressbook and emails itself to all of your friends...they get infected and the cycle continues. Well, if it's a Windows virus then the odds are good that 95% of the addresses in your address book are other Windows PC's. So if there are 100 addresses in a typical persons book then: 1 virus becomes 95 viruses which becomes 95x95 which becomes 95x95x95...and within about four or five cycles, it's infected a million computers. On the other hand, a Mac virus will be lucky to find even a couple of other Mac's in the address book - so one computer infects two which infects four which infects 8...but even after four cycles, it's only hit 16 machines...not a million. So even if there were Mac or Linux viruses - they'd spread so slowly that we'd easily be able to deal with them.

A second reason is "biodiversity" - just as in the natural world, if every animal in a population is closely related to the same original animal - then a disease that affects one of them will take down the entire herd. But when there is plenty of genetic diversity, the population does much better. The same principle applies with computer virus attacks: A huge percentage of Windows users are using just two versions: XP and Vista - and nearly everyone is still stuck in the 1980's with 32 bit versions of those OS's. You can easily write a virus that runs on both of those OS's - exploiting different loopholes in each where no common mechanism exists. But lots of Mac's are not even running on x86 CPU's and in the Linux world, there are at least a hundred fifferent distributions - two different mainstream windowing systems and dozens of lesser known ones. There are 32 bit systems, 64 bit systems, things that don't use x86 architecture processors at all. There are a dozen different email clients. It's really tough to write a virus that exploits whatever loopholes there are in more than a tiny percentage of those systems. So the "biodiversity" of the non-Windows world does it a lot of good.

A third reason is that increasingly, malware is spreading with a purpose. It's no longer enough for a virus to pop up that sends stupid messages to all of your friends - these days, it's going to install "botnet" software onto the PC and use it to distribute Spam or to launch denial-of-service attacks or something. That's a business - not some random loser wasting people's time for some sick thrill. Businesses make rational business decisions - even when they are part of some evil spamming empire. For those guys - there simply aren't enough Mac's and Linux boxes to be worth attacking.

There are many other technical reasons why Mac and Linux boxes are relatively secure too.

SteveBaker (talk) 09:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't get complacent if you run a Linux box, though. From the bad guys' perspective they might represent more effort per node acquired, but if they can take one it's quite a prize, precisely because of the power and flexibility of the OS. They can use it as a base to attack lots and lots of Windows machines.

As I understand it, Ubuntu by default has no dangerous services listening (such as sshd, telnetd, ftpd, or httpd); you have to turn these on explicitly, and hopefully if you do you know what you're doing. That's a major obstacle to attackers, and a good reason to pick that distro if you're not a security expert. But you should still be cautious -- I use iptables on top of not having the services listening, and I'm very chary of installing any software that doesn't come from the Ubuntu servers. --Trovatore (talk) 03:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It's also possible, under Linux, to seriously screw up your WINE install with windows-based Malware. Not a tragedy, as the WINE registry is a lot easier to manually edit than a real windows one, but still a major pain in the neck to fix without hosing your applications.

Come to think of it, I usually give my WINE install read/write access to my home directory, so I suppose a particularly nasty windows virus could still delete all the files on my Linux install, but as Steve notes, those sorts of ultra-nasties are mostly a thing of the past now. APL (talk) 04:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Is WINE actually usable these days? The last time I played with it (years ago) it didn't work very well. --Trovatore (talk) 04:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

October 14

Buying wine/liquor online to ship to British Columbia

This is a slightly odd question, but I'm trying to buy a bottle of Port online for my brother's 21st birthday in BC, Canada.

This appears to be very hard. From what I can tell, no alcohol can be shipped from one province in Canada to another; (possibly) no alcohol can be shipped into BC from anywhere at all; and there don't appear to be any online stores in BC itself, as far as I can tell from Google.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks! — Sam 02:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe just go to a shop... 03:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.229.8 (talk)

In Ontario, I believe the Liquor Control Board of Ontario does all the importing, and they will do specialty importing. I bet the BC Liquor Stores will do it. Yup... here's the link! good luck -- Flyguy649 ^talk 03:56, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Transplanting Swahili Maritime Practice to Haiti

Much has been made of the South-South trade revolution. Supposedly developing nations are no longer so dependent on the health of developed economies because the up and coming are trading so much with each other. It's this paradigm that got me thinking when I looked back on the problems I saw in poor countries. In Haiti, the infrastructure cripples the country. Despite being a small island, it takes nine hours to reach the northern second city from the capitol by bus. The nine hours on the road eliminates an entire day. A person must leave in the morning so they do not arrive in the highly dangerous street of Port-au-Prince at night. A city south of the capitol is harder to reach. The roads to the second city are awful, forcing buses to go slowly and circuitously, but to get to the southeastern tip city of Jeremie requires thirteen hours on a bus in good conditions. During the bad season, the awful road may be impassable. The road is so bad I'm sure autos plying the route have to change parts (suspension, etc.) every 6-12 months, making autos more expensive on top of the wince-inducing cost of imported gas. There are ferries to Jeremie but the boats are over packed and prone to disaster. Jeremie is nicknamed the "lost city" because the options for getting there are so unattractive.

In Tanzania and Kenya, I found the roads were terrible. However, along the coast, there continues the centuries old tradition of moving people and goods by dhow. I suspect the Swahili coast is the most robust pre-industrial maritime economy in the world. The dhows are still built on beach shipyards by hand power.

I think in a country with as much coastline as inland, Haiti would benefit from the centuries of low-tech maritime expertise from the Swahili coast. If the Haitian coast has robust dhow traffic, then I see wonderful cost savings in the logistics of commerce, and hopefully a rise in the standard of living.

Do you think a program that pays enough craftspeople and mariners from the Swahili coast to start a beach shipyard in Haiti will work? Are there any other "south-south" humanitarian collaborations of this variety? (Not state aid projects from developing countries to another to grease deals.)

Lotsofissues (talk) 09:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a great idea and I think it will work if enough time is taken at the start to let the Haitians and Africans meet each other, understand what each party can get out of the project, and hammer out the details together. The only thing I've ever heard of that was similar was not in developing countries but in southern Europe, where Italian grappa makers advised Portuguese brandy makers on marketing. A similar peer-to-peer concept though. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

About nwo conspiracy

WHen NWO conspiracty believers people, say that the world will have just one governament. They are talking about (examples): 1- All countries merging with the united states and the united states becoming a very very big country or like all countries merging with germany and germany changing their name and few rules???
2- All countries merging together becoming a new country called "world" (a example of a name)???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.0.240.4 (talk) 17:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

These guys are conspiracy theorists, so they don't really need any kind of rationale. Every time I've heard this talked about it's not been about countries merging, it's been about a supra-national government taking over the powers of national governments. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

We have an article with a section of this: New World Order (conspiracy theory)#Postulated implementations. Since it's just a conspiracy theory, there probably isn't any more information available than what's in the article - conspiracy theories change quickly to keep up with new counter-arguments and there is no central body with an official version (there's a joke there somewhere) of the theory so different theorists will have different ideas about what's supposed to be going on. --Tango (talk) 17:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Intelligent analysis of a conspiracy theory? Perish the thought. fnord Obviously there is nothing here of concern to analyze. — Lomn 18:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The thing about conspiracy theories, and indeed with many similar types of irrational thought, is that it works backwards. In general, the conspiracy theory starts with the belief in the truth of the conspiracy, then seeks out ways to make the availible evidence fit. If it is shown, through more normal rigorous means, that the conspiracy does not exist, such counterarguements are dismissed, as the a priori belief in the truth of the conspiracy does not allow for the possibility that the conspiracy does not in fact exist. Basically, it is pointless to attempt to "disprove" a conspiracy theory to anyone who believes in it because their belief exists outside of evidence anyways. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no Cabal.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Loudest valve of the heart

Which valve of the human heart will create the loudest noise when closed? I'm guessing it's the left atrioventricular valve because the left atrium is the strongest, therefore it will close that valve with the most force. Am I right? Danke. ITGSEETest (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

First, the left atrium is not particularly "strong" - you might be thinking of the left ventricle. Nevertheless, this would still implicate the left atriventricular valve (i.e. the mitral valve). However, loudness is a tricky thing - it's not always related to amplitude, and the perception of loudness is very dependent on frequency (which varies from valve to valve). --Scray (talk) 03:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The Heart sounds article may help, and I should have said before that the loudness of the sounds also depends on where across the precordium you are listening. --Scray (talk) 03:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Electronic items taken into Cuba.

We are thinking of taking a holiday to Cuba next year (we live in the UK) and have been browsing Wikitravel and a few brochures. One brochure warns us not to take electronic items with us as Customs Officers will confiscate them on our arrival and not return them when we leave. 2 questions if I may : 1. Why is that? 2. What exactly do they mean by Electronic Items? Are they talking about mobile phones, MP3 players, DVD portable players or what? Thanks. 92.22.113.53 (talk) 21:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I heard that the first offical/legal personal computers went on sale in Cuba about 6 months ago - they were selling for 10x the national average annual income. So from a US perspective - a personal computer is costing them about a half million dollars. The temptation for the customs officers - if they can get away with it - must be overwhelming. I would imagine that just about anything with batteries in it would qualify as "Electronic"...so I doubt that anything like that is safe. I can't imagine the folks at Wikitravel lying to you...so you should take this as being the truth...don't do it! SteveBaker (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

October 15

Sweating Problem

First of all I want to ask you not to take this off because you consider it a health question. Its just sweating. If somebody tells me to go buy some medicine for it, it's not like I'm actually going to do it.

Okay...now to the question. I have been having a major underarm sweating problem for a couple of years now. I seem to only sweat when I'm feeling uncomfortable or insecure. Like right now as I'm typing this at home I'm perfectly dry, but the minute I get on the bus to go to school I start sweating. Or the other day I had to go set up a bank account and as I was sitting there it felt like a rainstorm just happened in my armpits. What's up with this? I have always been very shy and don't feel comfortable talking to anyone other than my immediate family. Is it because I am nervous or what? Any ideas on how to solve it? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 00:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Nervousness can cause a sweat reaction. If you have a significant problem with public nervousness, the problem might be addressed by addressing your public nervousness issue (with a counsellor, psychologist or qualified practitioner). If it is the smell that is the problem, there are some measures that can be taken to reduce the smell (diet, different types of deodorant/antiperspirant, and so on). It may be that you have over-active sweat-glands. A visit to your doctor is the best bet for finding more information about that. Also, the clothing you wear can have an impact on your sweating. If you wear a lot of synthetic clothing that doesn't breathe well, it encourages sweating. Natural fibres, such as cotton or linen, allow your pores to work more effectively, which might reduce the need for your body to sweat. Steewi (talk) 01:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of deodorants, this is an opportunity to share a tip with fellow sufferers. Anything scented can give me a rash, and for many years I couldn't control odor without pain, until I hit on a simple solution (literally!). "Body odor" is from bacteria that live in sweat, not sweat itself. I fill a cheap spray-bottle with common rubbing alcohol and spritz the pitz each morning. —Tamfang (talk) 03:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

2Pac performing even after death?

How did 2pac manage to get featured onto songs like Playa Cardz Right, even 12 years after his death?--203.124.2.26 (talk) 02:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

They took songs that he recorded before he died and gave them a beat, or stuck them into other songs. He was quite prolific when it came to writing and recording, as the number of posthumous albums indicates. bibliomaniac15 02:48, 15 October 2008 (UTC)