The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Some people think I'm god. Now, I admit, I write some decent stories, but I would never claim to be god... I let others do that for me. Soon I shall be the leader of a new religion, and I'll barely have to lift a finger to do it. mattbuck (talk) 02:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree... hypothetically if there were a God it would be a living object, so thus it is not open to opinion who he is. To say God is whoever you want him/her to be is basically saying that I think all white people are actually black because I want them to be. Just saying hypothetically. Croat CanuckSay helloor just talk05:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You say "if there were a God it would be a living object." I think you are assuming too much. God may transcend mere object-ness and therefore may disregard the rules of physics, such as being the same thing to all observers. That said, one can easily doubt that God's nature would be completely dependent on one's wishes, for that would turn the traditional religious question around and say that God has no free will. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 09:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't referring to him as sort of an object limited by physics, merely stating if he exists then he exists as something... whether everpresent or everywhere, he still would be something. And your more talking about a genie I think, than a god, if he is completely dependent on one's wishes and has no free will. Croat CanuckSay helloor just talk18:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It must be pointed out that our article on God is not autobiographical - see the commandments "Thou shalt not have COI" and "Thou shalt not lust after OR" - but has been compiled by humans who never had direct contact with the entity.
The working assumption amongst theists is that God exists in a dimension which is not (or not directly) accessible to us, maybe in a reality where our laws of physics are not applicable, maybe as a purely energetic field. Not surprisingly, unless his / her dimensionality / reality somehow intrudes into our 3D world, little but speculation (ranging from belief to disbelief to apathy) is possible. There are also thinkers who have postulated a non-overlapping magisterium, which may allow the glimpse of a non-rational universe. Atheists, by definition, consider God as they consider Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.
Most Gods - as the comments above indicate - are banished to an existence as omniscient referencedeskopedians. Even then, omniscience has its limits - it is all of science and not more - thus there is no answer to your question. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Although it must be said that there are many conceptions -- or perceptions, if you will -- of God within the Abrahamic faiths. God as described in the Zohar is a lot different than the idea of an old man with a long, flowing beard sitting on a cloud. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Shift left: Let me postulate a - purely hypothetical scientific - answer: "God is a super massive distortion in space-time", annihilating both. As such, the phenomenon is not observable by those outside the divine event horizon, i.e. inside the local continuum.
In cosmological terms, God is the singularity which created the universe. As there was nobody around, it never bothered about garments and was known as "the Naked Singularity".
Of course, neither of these entities, God and Singularity, are directly observable in reality, leading some to the conclusion that neither exist, others deduct that one or the other is real and still others believe both to be manifest.
Unless, and until, you plummet into a conveniently located black hole - available at your favourite cemetery - you may find little opportunity to find an answer to your question.
Here are a couple of short answers from a particular point of view:
* Robert Heinlein: "Thou Art God."
* Meister Eckhart: "The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love."
* Robert Hunter: "Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world..."
* Wavy Gravy: "We are all the same person trying to shake hands with our self."
* Steve Gaskin: "You can't understand God, you can't define God, you can't contain God, but you can be God."
* And finally, from Joseph Campbell: "We want to think about God. God is a thought. God is an idea. But its reference is to something that transcends all thinking. He is beyond being! Beyond the category of being and non-being! Is He or is He not? ...Neither is, nor is not. Every god - Every mythology - Every religion is true in this sense; It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery. "He who thinks he knows, doesn't know." "He who knows that he doesn't know, knows." There is an old story that is still good;
The story of the "quest" - the spiritual quest. That's to say, to find the inward thing, which you basically are. All of these symbols refer to you... Have you been reborn? Have you died to your animal nature and come to life as a human incarnation? You are God in your deepest identity! You are one with the transcendant."
-- Saukkomies12:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Search Engine Spike for Keyword "Interracial"
Can anyone figure out what caused the huge spike in searches for the word "interracial" from late December 2005 to early January 2006? I found the phenomenon using Google Trends but it didn't show any press articles related to the spike. The spike looks like it started on December 21st or 22nd. The spike is huge and it is the only one. 71.243.118.2 (talk) 03:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm guessing wildly, but I would imagine that most weirdness related to Google results is generally related to some sort of search engine optimization (SEO)—that is, some attempt to manipulate Google's results. 'Interracial' is a keyword that frequently appears in searches for specific types of pornography. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Commercially, the liquid contents of eggs (sans the shells) is sold frozen (and often, pre-scrambled). It comes in big plastic bags that are the equivalent of a hundred eggs or so.
Frozen eggs are sold in a variety of forms, including by the individual egg or equivalent (egguivalent?), up to the 100 egg+ BIBs Atlant suggests. You can also get frozen 'whites only'. Matt Deres (talk) 02:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed: "...eggs are available liquid, frozen and dried. Fried and poached eggs are available cooked and ready to serve, as is scrambled egg. Boiled eggs are cooked and ready shelled..." from BritEgg --Tagishsimon(talk)02:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The highest would be martial arts that emphasize tournaments and other forms of full-contact sparring. The lowest depends on your definition of "martial art", but could be exercise-oriented derivatives such as Tai chi chih. --67.185.172.158 (talk) 02:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, in the female bodybuilders YouTube question, you asked whay it had been hard to just search for "female bodybuilders" on YouTube. Well, the reason it's hard is that there are numerous videos of female bodybuilders from people who aren't in the bodybuilding business. So, what's your reply? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to this, there are 55,000 prisoners in France. According to this, the number of escapees from US prisons has been steadily declining and is perhaps around 0.5% per year. So 275 people maybe. This assumes that prison security is as good (or as bad) in France as it is in the USA...but as a first guess, it's not bad. SteveBaker (talk) 00:26, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the UK Prison Service, in the 2005/6 periods, there were two escape targets: no escapes by Category A prisoners, and escapes by other prisoners & remandees less than 0.05% of the prison population. Both targets were met, with zero Cat "A" escapes, and 0.01% escapes of other prisoners. The prison population at the end of the year was 69220, and so we're talking circa 7 escapees. See [3]. I'd guess most are recaptured ... most criminals are not very clever people, and have few resources to call on. --Tagishsimon(talk)01:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When we talk of prison escapes, we're obviously mostly talking about escapes from low security or 'open' prisons. My sister used to be an adult education officer in a British open prison - where trusted prisoners would spend the night in the prison but go out into the community during the day in order to do a regular job. Some were even allowed to drive themselves to and from their places of work. Escape from such places is childishly easy (simply not returning to the prison in the evening, for example) - and as I understand it, those kinds of 'escape' are treated formally as a parole violations or some such - rather than an actual escape. This may explain the discrepancy between the UK numbers and the US figures. However, in neither case are we talking about large numbers of people tunnelling out or vaulting high, barbed-wire fences or whatever. SteveBaker (talk) 07:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK? Extremely infrequently; and more often will occur when the prisoner is being transported (to court, hosptital) than from the prison establishment. There was in 1983 a mass escape from a Northern Ireland jail - see this story. Steve's comments are correct, though the prisoner is said to have absconded, rather than escaped ... see this story, for example - 44 abscondees from a single open prison in a single year. --Tagishsimon(talk)12:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think that number (44 people per year from one open prison) is not uncommon. The place my sister worked at (Ford (HM Prison)) lost 11 people over just one two week period: [4] and our article states that "70 people, including three murderers, absconded in 2006 alone". That's for a prison with less than 600 inmates! So for sure the UK figure of 0.01% can't include open prison 'abscondings' - and the US figure I found DOES include open/low-security prison escapes - so it wouldn't surprise me to find that the actual apples-and-apples number was comparable between the US and UK. SteveBaker (talk) 15:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
quraan kareem is the best book of azure books please try to read it !quraan kareem found in all language"in microsoft word" attach me at ms_7arb_qc@yahoo.com
how would i go about getting a job at Mythbusters?
The first place to contact would be one of the production companies, which are the Discovery channel and Beyond Entertainment. Of course, you would have to be qualified for the work you want to do, and if you have to ask that question, it suggests that you probably don't know enough about it. --Anonymous, 10:35 UTC, December 27, 2007.
Well, you could follow the example of Kari Byron... She became involved in the show after persistently showing up at Hyneman's M5 Industries workshop in a desire to get hired at his company.Dismas|(talk)18:04, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually most anti-dandruff shampoos fight three different types of flaking: dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis, and psoriasis. But 86 is right, you'd have to read the back of the shampoo bottle to find out. I can say pretty confidently though that it's a general guideline to use it every couple of days. --71.117.40.70 (talk) 18:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The composer/arranger is Craig Armstrong. One possible reason you thought it was a piece of classical music lies in its familiarity. mfiles write: "The instrumental interlude in this Love Theme is now very familiar in the UK from its use in promoting the Television coverage of Euro 2004. (Indeed programme makers seem to increasingly view Armstrong's music as a ready source of "soundbites".)" ---Sluzzelintalk23:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A set found in the tomb of Psusennes I measured 38cm[8], 41cm[9], 43cm[10], and 39cm[11] tall. Apparently Psusennes was so poor he could not afford new, and these had been taken from a tomb in Kurna and resused!
How come there is no mention of A. B. Smith in the article for the Kennedy Assasination
In the Kennedy assasination articles there is mention of all the films shot of the assasination including the Zapruder film but how come no mention of the film by the man with the Alias A. B. Smith. [12]It seems to be a clearer film that shows the assasination up close. And do we know who this person was and the story behind the film? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.220.2.13 (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If there is information from a reliable, verifiable source that you feel would improve the article, then you can go ahead and add it. If you don't want to do so yourself, you might want to bring it up on the article's discussion page. --LarryMac | Talk18:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is this costume of anything in particular? They're amazing chicken arms, so I presume she didn't make this herself. Is this some character from an anime series or manga book? Or is this a corporate mascot she likes? It's so weird and intriguing. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder how a query dated December 20, which I don't recall seeing here earlier, has ended up at the bottom of the page on December 27? Bielle (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone know of any famous people who have cancer or another terminal illness that will probably die in 2008 in the categories of politics, religion, sports, entertainment, or random? Im not going to lie this information will be used to help me win bragging rights (not money)in a 2008 death pool. This year im probably going to win with Maurice Papon, Benny Parsons, Phil Rizzuto, Tammy Faye Baker, and Lady Bird Johnson. Wikipedia was a great tool for researching my choices last year, so hopefully using the ref. desk will help even more. Thanks for any help you can give me.--ChesterMarcol (talk) 18:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A lovely idea...I would expect that the wonderful Bobby Robson will unfortunately not last much longer. Also if you were to be statistical your best bet is to take a scan of females born around [[1910] and males maybe around 1920, given the average life-span - though I suspect that 'famous' people are disproportionally more likely to live longer (perhaps due to more access to quality healthcare, a high quality of life and more likelihood of working to an older age - all of which tend to increase longevity). I only hope Bobby survives longer, he's been a brilliant asset to english football and always comes across as a genuinely nice man. ny156uk (talk) 23:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well I read an article that Amy Winehouse's resolution for 2008 is to not die... apparently she's been threatened a lot recently. If your really a gambler, Britney Spears perhaps based on how fast her life has gone downhill. You know there haven't been too many rockers die young in recent years, maybe pick one who has a drug habit... Croat CanuckSay helloor just talk23:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the scoring we subract their age from 100 so the younger the better. Also we have to pick 2 people under 50 years old as "suprise picks" so Amy Wnehouse and Brittany Spears would be good candidates for that, although right now I have Vern Troyer penciled in because I can't see a alcoholic little person living very long.--ChesterMarcol (talk) 00:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Really you can't really predict it too much even if the person is an alcholic... because its just like everybody else, anyone could die tomorrow. I think Anna Nicole Smith's death last year caught a lot of people by surprise... With your young ones you gotta go with the rock stars I think, just too many young deaths in that field so you would probably have a higher percentage. Croat CanuckSay helloor just talk02:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hugues Cuénod resides with his life partner, Alfred Augustin, in Switzerland. In January 2007, Cuénod and Augustin signed a civil union after changes in Swiss law which gave same-sex couples many legal benefits of marriage. Yeah, so what, you ask? Well, Cuénod was aged 104 at the time and has since turned 105. After his year-long honeymoon catching up on all those years of enforced celibacy, I'm sure he'll be ready for a good long rest. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
i found this great site today and was wondering if it was related to wikipedia, wikinews ect. If so should it be included in the title page (at the bottom where it links to wikinews and others) thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.151.98 (talk) 20:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. No, this website is not affiliated with Wikipedia or its sister projects and therefore not legible eligible for inclusion among the links on the Main Page. Not all that is called Wiki is that closely related to Wikipedia. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 20:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much anyone with a web site can go out and create a Wiki of their own using the same software that Wikipedia uses. I run several of them - one for my own writings and another for my local classic car club. Hence there are thousands of other 'Wiki' sites - but only the ones listed on the Wikipedia front page are in any way affiliated with Wikipedia. That's not to say that these other sites are not valuable - many of them are - but they don't all follow Wikipedias standards. My own sites (for example) are closed up so that you can't edit them without creating an account - and my personal site doesn't let you create your own account - I have to do it for you. At work, we use a Wiki to store all of our documentation and a lot of administrative stuff too - but that's a Wiki that's locked away behind firewalls where members of the public cannot reach.
Specifically, these Guitar sites that store guitar entablatures ("tabs") are probably illegal since guitar tabs, like printed music are copyright violations - and it's highly unlikely that they have permission from all of the copyright owners.
You took your time to answer him to such an extent <yawn> goodness... I have to check your website(s) out sometime, Steve. Gonna get breakfast now. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:55, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia does have a page List_of_wikis which claims to list 'notable wikis'. However if you look at its talk page Talk:List_of_wikis it explains that you can only add wikis that are notable that have an article on Wikipedia, in other words in order for your wiki to be notable enough for the list, it has to be notable enough to have an article in the first place!. It may be worth reading through the talkpage and reviewing the situation, there may be a way to add it even if it doesn't have an article on Wikipedia. I do believe there used to be a list of wikis on the MediaWiki website www.mediawiki.org (MediaWiki is the software that runs wikis) but I can't seem to find it. Indeed there are various websites that list wikis so you can try a google search. Good luck Rfwoolf (talk) 04:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The original list on MediaWiki was valid in the early days when only relatively few people had Wiki's - but I'd bet that there are at least a hundred thousand Wiki's out there - perhaps even a million of them. Vastly too many to list - and that list would be outdated within seconds of you making it. It's like asking for a list of all of the sites on the Internet - you just can't do it. If this particular guitar site is sufficiently notable (under our guidelines) to be included in the list - then it's also notable enough to have an article. If it is - create a stub and add it to the List of wikis - if it isn't notable enough then please don't look for ways to circumvent the (perfectly reasonable) rules for that list. SteveBaker (talk) 15:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, you make sure that the article you are making follows notability guidelines. If it does, you type in the title of the article that you want to create and press "Go." If no article with that name exists, go down and click the redlink that says "Create this page with your references." It will bring you to the editing page, where you can create and save the article. bibliomaniac1521:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) In the search box top left, type the name of the article that you want to created (be wary not to make any spelling mistakes) and search it. If the search doesn't turn up any article by that name, click the red bold link 'Create new page', and write your article. On the other hand, you can turn to WP:AFC for help or check out the appropriate help section. Have fun! Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 21:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Markings on american football helmets
I've been watching a couple of college football bowl games in the last week or so, and I've noticed that some players have a number of markings on the back of their helmets. They are dots, miniature crests or similar, and each player seem to have a different number of them. Some have none, but many seem to have between 10 and 30 of them on their helmet. They are usually stacked at the lower back of the helmet but sometimes there are so many that they fill the entire back of the helmet and are visible from the front. I fail in googling or searching wikipedia for them, since I can't think of a likely word for them. What are they? What do they signify? Are they used in the NFL, but I just haven't noticed them?
There always seems to be some refdesker knowing the answer to just about any question, so I hope you guys can help me with this one./Kriko (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They are used be some college teams to signify some acheivement like a great catch, touchdown, or a really good play. I dont know if there is any set criteria for recieving one, I would imagine it varies by team. And no they are not used in the NFL.--ChesterMarcol (talk) 23:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The script on the flag is, according to the article, in Thuluth style, but there is no mention of the calligrapher who designed that particular representation of the shahadah. Is it a particular artist's work, or is it a generic example of thuluth calligraphy, like carolingian or other latin calligraphic styles? Steewi (talk) 03:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Vitrit
A diagram in the article on incandescent light bulbs identifies insulation at the base of a lightbulb as "vitrit". What is this stuff? A Google search brings up nothing, other than a site that requires you to pay to access it, which identifies it as a mineral:
Good question. I cannot answer it except to say that I think it should be vitrite, which is a type of very hard glass. Try Googling vitrite and glass.--Shantavira|feed me12:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"The Electrical Engineer" for Oct. 25, 1889 p 322 [16] talks about the "Vitrite Company" as making the insulating glass used in the base of light bulbs. I find a description of the base of the bulb, inside the brass screw-form base, being filled with "vitrite" in pp 68-69 of "Electricity in Mining" By Sydney Ferris Walker, Van Nostrand, New York, 1907, viewable at Google Books [17] . Before vitrite, porcelein was used, and before that plaster of paris, which absorbed moisture and which crumbled from the heat. Vitrite is described in "A Dictionary of Chemistry and the Allied Branches of Other Sciences" By Henry Watts (1869)as another name for vitrinopal, "a matrix of Bohemian pyrope, related to pitchstone, and being 83.72% silica, 3.58% ferric oxide, 7.57% lime, .67% magnesia, and 11.46% water. Unfortunately this adds up to 107%. The 1911 Britannica article on electric lamps [18] calls it "vitrite." Numerous other sources found from Google Book search spell it "vitrite." I have corrected the spelling in the Incandescent light bulb article. Edison (talk) 18:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am an electric lamp collector and I am also researching "vitrite". Although I do not have a definite oxide composition yet, and the one given above is definitely not the type of vitrite used in the caps of electric lamps, I do know that it is a low softening point, high Lead II oxide content glass which possesses high electrical resistivity at moderately high temperatures. Even in electric lamps, at least a couple of different "vitrites" are used. The most commonly seen form looks black, although when broken into pieces, thin slivers appear a pinkey-lilac colour. I have reason to suspect that this form contains Manganese (Oxide), but in which oxidation state is unclear, probably one of the lower ones, II or III, as IV would decompose in the furnace to release oxygen and VI and VII are so unstable they would explode upon heating. Some Asian, (Korean and Japanese) and North American lamps use a blue vitrite with a considerably greater transmittance than the black form which does not need to be smashed into thin slivers to see the transmitted light colour.
So, tentatively, it is a Lead II, (possibly up to 35% by weight PbO), Manganese II/III, Silicon, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium Oxide containing glass with a high electrical resistivety and low softening point which possibly allows the semi-molten material to be "poured" up against the brass cap shells at about 850*C, but I am still unsure how Aluminium Lamp Caps/Bases with Vitrite insulation are fabricated.
I will be continuing to research, and if all avenues seem fruitless, I will try to take some small samples of Vitrite, both the black and blue forms, and some Wood's Glass, (of which there is some conjecture over its composition), it my local University where there is a Auger Electron Probe, an electron microscope set up to measure Auger Electron energies and characteristic X-Ray wavelengths of samples bombarded by its electron beam. Then all will be known and I will post another reply.
Mood Ring Colors Chart
To; All Wikipedians,
I consider it a compliment & am very honored that someone thought well enough of my own "Mood Ring Colors Chart" to post it here in the entry on "Mood Rings". I made a minor edit to it; removing the "= Signs" that went just before the "Mood Colors" as that is supposed to actually be the "Webding" version of that symbol (an "Oval" approximately in the shape of a "Mood Ring") & it just did not transfer over as such in the entry. I suspect, as is often the case- The "Mood Ring" entry on "The Wikipedia" will be edited yet again, to post a more traditional & smaller version of the typical "Mood Ring Colors Chart". For now though, I will enjoy the honor for just a little while (a nice "Holiday Gift") until it is changed again. If anyone is interested in viewing my "Mood Ring Colors Chart" & "The Mood Ring Poem" before it is removed from here- Go to Google & key in the blog-name; sheofmermaids (all lower-case & no spaces), & that should take you right to it! "Happy Holidays" to All!! Dawnofrabbits (talk) 17:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually inclined to delete the colour/mood chart from the article altogether. We clearly state that these rings change colour on a temperature basis and the idea that there is any relationship whatever between body temperature and mood is pseudoscience (especially since the ring is not at body temperature - it's at some temperature between the body and the ambient air). Hence that chart cannot possibly be correct and we should not put incorrect information into the encyclopedia. SteveBaker (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(EC)Thank you so much for that notification. SteveBaker beat me to the removal of the list of colours, but only by seconds. If you are able to adduce any evidence whatsoever for the correlations between colours & states, then please feel free to add the list back; but if not, please do not. --Tagishsimon(talk)18:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the chart is an important part of talking about this subject. Of course it's pseudoscience, but we talk about what astrology and blood types are 'supposed' to mean; why not colors on the mood ring? What's the difference? --Masamage♫18:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As ever, the difference is referencing. There's a long literature for astrology, for the Japanese blood type theory of personality, for the Blood type diet, &c. Mood rings have been here for the last five minutes and have no such basis. Even were we to agree with your argument, the thrust is in the opposite direction, to remove to additional bogus lists, not to keep the one bogus list because there might be others in wikipedia. --Tagishsimon(talk)18:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Um, but I don't think the other lists are bogus. :P I think if you're going to discuss a thing people believe in, you ought to say what they believe about it. And what mood rings "mean" is their entire point--it's all over their marketing and is the only reason people buy them. Despite your joke, they've been around for at least 30 years, and probably longer. That's more than long enough to find a good solid reference about the phenomenon--which I entirely agree we need before it's justifiable. --Masamage♫18:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the "should anyone care" is really the clincher. My local library doesn't appear to have anything on the subject, which rather limits my ability to help. It's unlikely anything on the internet is sufficiently reliable. I'll keep looking around, though, I guess. --Masamage♫18:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
James Fergason joined the Westinghouse Research Laboratories in 1956. He began work on liquid crystals the following year. His initial target was thermal sensors, the kind of thing you could use to check the temperature of water in a pipe-which might be carrying waste water from cooling the reactor in one of the nuclear power plants that Westinghouse was building during this period-without actually having to break open the pipe. The liquid crystals would change color depending on how hot the pipe was.
This work found an extremely popular-and entirely accidental-outlet in the shape of that psychedelic fashion accessory so beloved of 1960s hippies: the mood ring. Today, this type of material, known as cholesteric liquid crystal, is routinely sold in the form of battery checkers. Johnstone, Bob. (1999) We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs and the Forging of the Electronic Age. New York: Basic Books. p. 99.
...but according to Sagert, K.B. (2007) The 1970s.[19] p. 126 the actual ring was invented by Josh Reynolds in 1975. Any "1960s hippies" around who remember wearing a mood ring prior to 1975? The color chart provided with the original rings was:
That date of invention corresponds to my misty water colored memories of days gone by. I thought something rang false when I first read that line above about "1960's hippies". --LarryMac | Talk19:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, my mother says she thought they came in at the very end of the 60s, and that 1975 seems a little late. Either she's wrong or she's providing useful information. X) --Masamage♫23:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, whether or not mood rings are a pseudoscience has nothing to do with whether or not a colour chart should be included. Rather, verifability is what's relevant here. It is indeed forseeable that people would expect to find this information (if it exists - pseudoscience or otherwise) in an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. One obstacle is if there are several sources claiming several different meanings for the colours. If there is no uniform interpretation then we can smuggle in one or more verified interpretations of the colours. Rfwoolf (talk) 04:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WHAT!!!! We aren't in the business of "smuggling" bogus crap into the encyclopedia. That's absolutely not the goal here!
The issue here is that there isn't a 'one true color/mood chart' - there are a bazillion of them. The one listed above and the one that the OP discusses (for example) are wildly different. Which one should be considered 'authoritative'? Since they are all (for sure) utterly bogus there is no rational way to pick between them. We don't have verifiability because the various 'primary sources' don't agree you can't pick and choose which supposedly authoritative source you're going to go with. There can't be a definitive source for something pseudoscientific that people just think up out of their heads - there is no right choice.
If someone comes to Wikipedia to find out what the colours on their mood ring mean, then as an encyclopedia we have an absolute duty to explain that mood rings really only measure temperature and that they in no way measure your mood. Providing people with a 'mood decoder chart' that is just meaningless crap that someone dreamed up in order to sell more trashy rings is NOT the function of an encyclopedia. The only thing we MIGHT consider saying is something like "These rings were originally sold with a chart that purported to tell your mood from the colour of the ring - this chart read as follows: yadda yadda". In that way we are documenting the history of these things and stating a fact about how the rings were originally marketted. THAT is verifiable and truthful and informative/useful. SteveBaker (talk) 15:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Calm the hell down, please. No argument, I agree with what you say, but earlier you would have had us believe that absolutely no chart should be included. If there is a verifiable chart especially from the originally marketed mood rings, then I say we include it, even if we have to put a note explaining that this was the guide from such-and-such a date, which is what you have proposed, and similar to what I had recommended !!! Rfwoolf (talk) 15:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And by the way, I used the word "smuggle" as a sarcasm/exaggeration. I assume you took it literally. Next time I'll put it in inverted commas. Rfwoolf (talk) 15:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who had a mood ring as a kid, and who knows that it is all about the temperature of the ring (I used to rub mine really fast on my sleeve to make it warm so I could appear "happy"), and who is against pseudo-science and all that -- I still think that some form of "colour chart" should be included because the colour chart was part of the *cultural phenomenon*. Even if we all agree that the ring is unscientific, we must also agree that wearing and "decoding" the ring was a HUGE fad and as such, the chart that accompanied the purchase and wearing and understanding of the object is pertainent contextual information. So I think SteveBaker's (latest) suggestion is the one to go with. Saudade714:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Which is kinda what I suggested. Anyway, I'm getting used to everyone either not reading my posts properly, or misinterpreting everything I say (i.e. "smuggling"). To enhance what Saudade7 said, if it's part of popular culture, and it's relevant (which I think it is), depending on the suitability of the source(s) we should definitely try to include (read: smuggle) at least one colour guide in, and by smuggle I mean try put it in, like I said, depending on the suitability of the source, for example the one provided above seems suitable given that it was the originally marketed guide. Rfwoolf (talk) 06:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
December 29
Sound quality and record collecting
I started collecting music at that unfortunate time when audio tapes were considered to be the most convenient way to collect music, and then quickly switched to CDs when the players became affordable. CDs were described as being higher quality than vinyl, so I never bothered collecting records. I bought my first iPod about three years ago and loved it for travel and home. However, there was a noticeable decrease in sound quality over CDs, especially when using headphones, so I've kept up on my CD collecting and avoided music downloads
I understand why MP3s are of lower quality than CDs (due to compression, if I understand correctly), and I've skimmed Analog sound vs. digital sound. Can someone explain to me why a CD is superior in quality, but to some a record still sounds better? I know I'm asking for opinions, but I've been musing on this for over a year now, and I'm thinking of taking the plunge and becoming a record collector. My tastes tend to run toward punk, post-punk, and indie rock, and a lot of these artists did and still do vinyl-only releases. So that's one reason to start collecting at this late date (also, everytime I look at a Big Black or Shellac CD, I feel like Steve Albini is disappointed in me).
Is it too late for me, or is record collecting still worthwhile? I know I'll never own Yesterday and Today with the butcher cover, but Thrill Jockey just released a vinyl-only set of singles that I'd like to get. Are there are any record collectors out there who can recommend a good way to get started?
Back to audio quality for a minute, how come you can sometimes hear that little squeak of the fingers moving on the guitar strings and sometimes you can't? Do record producers edit that out?
Sorry about the length of this question, but as I said I've been considering this for a long time. One last question I suppose I should ask: can anyone recommend a good record player? --Joelmills (talk) 03:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to me that Analog sound vs. digital sound does a pretty good job of touching on the main points. The use of 16-bit amplitude sampling means quantization noise can be audible, thus the use of digital dithering. The 44100 Hz sampling rate means that the highest pitch possible to encode is 22050 Hz, and that with only two sample points. This is at the extreme upper end of human hearing, so it may or may not be audible. But in order to avoid aliasing music that is being digitized is first put through a filter that cuts out anything over 22050 Hz. Since filters must have some roll-off range they necessarily reduce audio in some range below 22050 Hz. Again whether this is audible depends on many factors. All this and more is on that page, so I'm not sure what more to say really. One thing I've thought about is that while the "two sample point" waveforms at 22050 Hz may not matter much, the "rough quantization" of waveforms continues down into more normal pitch ranges. A wave whose frequency is 11025 Hz will be sampled with only four points -- essentially some kind of triangle wave. Now we are well within the range of cymbals and other higher harmonic timbres. Cymbals, bells, and, I've always thought, pipe organs, get a lot of their zing out of having a mass of high frequency inharmonic partialsa all interfering with one another and producing difference tones and all manner of other complex interactions. But if CD-quality digital audio can only devote 4 sample points for a wave at 11025 Hz, can it really capture that super-rich zizzleness you can hear when listening to an acoustic cymbal played without any electronics? Further, what effect does the anti-aliasing filter set at 22050 Hz have on lower pitches? An octave of pitch represents a doubling of Hz, so those cymbal-rich range around 11025 Hz is only an octave below the cutoff at 22050 Hz. I am not sure how good the filters in analog-to-digital converters are these days, but I would not be surprised if lower quality ones, as well as other digital algorithms designed to avoid aliasing might easily result in an overall loss of high-end zingleness.
As for whether vinyl is better than CDs, I'm not sure there is much evidence that anyone can tell much of a difference, except perhaps the rare person with an uncanny ear who listens to music through extremely high-end audio equipment. I would guess that at the playback end of things the largest factor that colors and distorts the sound is one's loudspeakers. If you are not listening through super-fine studio monitors set up just-so, I am skeptical about whether it will make any difference (for example, how many loudspeakers in common use are actually able to sound something at 22050 Hz or above? Not a lot, I think). Furthermore, to do a fair comparison you need source material that is completely identical except that one has been pressed to vinyl and the other to CD. Since Audio mastering methods tend to differ based on what the final form will be, it may be difficult to find a true "apples to apples" comparison. Finally, there is the psychological difference of putting an LP on a turntable and placing the needle down compared to sticking a CD in a CD player. That difference may be the biggest of all in terms of how it ends up sounding.
On guitar fret noise, it has a lot to do with how the guitar is miked and during recording. If the guitarist is playing an acoustic guitar with no electronic pickups or anything then in order to record it the engineers place one or more microphones around -- perhaps one close to the sound hole, perhaps another further back to capture a more ambient sound, perhaps even one nearer the neck to capture fret noise, if they want it. You can do this with electric guitars too, but often the sound of an electric guitar depends mainly on the amp rather than on any sounds near the strings. So it is common to put the mikes up close to the amp's loudspeakers and record that, rather than miking the guitar itself. Miking instruments during recording can be a real art, and there are endless permutations on how one might go about it. That, I think, is the basic reason why on some recordings you can hear fret noise while on others you can't. For more on this general topic, see Microphone practice.
Thanks for the response, Pfly. I took another look at Analog sound vs. digital sound and I understood it better with a second reading. Your example was also helpful. I guess I'm also wondering if people who collect records do it more as a hobby or because they prefer the sound quality. Is there a visceral response to listening to music on vinyl one does not get from a CD? --Joelmills (talk) 13:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As a record collector I can make suppositions :) Although the quality of LP over CD will never be quantifiably better it's the very fact that the sound that comes from vinyl is preferred because it's not better. Vinyl sound is analogue (regardless of the method of recording the original sound) and to some people that sound is more enjoyable than the more accurate and neutral digital sound. Our ears and brain are accustomed to analogue sounds. The cleanliness of CD/Digital is, to be melodramatic, alien to us. This is why some people find extended CD listening sessions tiring. Too much perfection is not always the best way to go. :) Personally I'm more interested in the music than the media, but given a choice, if the clicks and pops were gone I'd prefer to listen to the coloured and analogue sound of vinyl. --WebHamster14:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The audio quality of a CD is essentially perfect. It can produce frequencies from DC to well above the range of human hearing - and it's in perfectly separated stereo which (for headphone listening at least) is also perfect. The number of bits per digital sample produces signal-to-noise ratios well above any previous recording technique - adding 'dither' to that only improves things still further. Analog recordings on tape suffer tape hiss - and in order to reduce the effects of that, some scheme such as Dolby has to be employed to boost the higher frequencies in the recording and to dial them back down again on playback. Vinyl records have all sorts of noise and deck rumble issues and also there is a serious problem with stereo separation and with the dynamic range that can be reproduced that requires these effects to be 'dialled down'. Also the vinyl wears out alarmingly quickly such that the high frequencies in the music are gradually reduced as the record is played more and more often. In every way imaginable, the CD is vastly superior to all previous music distribution media.
So why to people still persist in claiming that the older formats were better?
When you hear an album on CD, you are hearing the sound in it's most original form - but the question is whether you prefer it in it's original form or whether perhaps you like your sound to have been more heavily processed in order to fit within the limitations of older technologies. There is no reason (in principle) why CD's shouldn't be given the same set of recording 'artifacts' as vinyl or tape - but there is a perception on behalf of recording engineers that they must produce the purest version of the original possible. The reason (I suspect) that some audiophiles prefer the vinyl version of a particular recording is probably that they grew up with that version and believe that this is how the music "should" sound. The CD sounds different and faced with a choice between the sound they came to love with the original and this 'different' version, they tend to attribute the problem to some imagined flaw in CD recordings which really isn't there. IMHO, the blame should lie in the laps of the recording engineers. They can process the studio recording to sound any way they like - and perhaps, in the case of nostalgic music, they should consider deliberately inducing some of the kinds of limitations that the vinyl versions had in order to preserve the original feel of the album.
I strongly suspect that some 'audiophiles' also have a wish to stick to the 'old ways' when you could debate endlessly the pro's and con's of one turntable over another and geek-out on what stylus pressure works best with this cartridge versus that. Back in the days when black vinyl was king, you could impress your friends with the awesomeness of your system - the turntable bolted to a half ton concrete block to shield it from room vibrations...that kind of thing. When you have a situation where a $15 CD player produces audio that's essentially identical to what you get out of a $1000 pro-CD player - and both of them produce essentially perfect sound - where does the 'hobby' go from there? These days we're mostly down to arguing about which system has ths shiniest knobs and the whackiest features. The last remaining bastion of sensible audio debate is in the area of speakers and headphones...which, being analog, still have problems.
It all depends on what definition of "better" you are using surely? Is it "better" when it gives more satisfaction, or is it "better" if it has better scientific specs? In my eyes (ears!) it's music so it's better when it sounds nicer regardless of what the figures say or what media it comes on. People forget that "better" is a subjective, rather than objective, term. --WebHamster20:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Whew, there's a lot of good stuff here, so I'll just pop in a few comments as I agree with pretty all that's been printed above. One thing that hasn't been touched on is your assertion that mp3s are necessarily of poorer quality than a CD. For the most part it's undeniably true, but that's because most people record and post their mp3s with a bitrate of 192kbps or even 128kbps, versus a CD's bitrate of 256kbps (sometimes higher) - that chopping off is most of the reason why mp3s sound inferior, at least to my ears. However, there's no reason you can't make mp3s at higher bitrates; I've got several at 320 kbps (created either from a soundboard or some of the higher range CDs). I don't know if the sound on them is better than a CD, but it's surely no worse. Obviously there are also completely lossless audio recording systems like FLAC out there as well.
I recall hearing an interview with Neil Young several years ago where he expressed his preference for vinyl to CD. His reasoning was that he liked the fact that the vinyl was not only imperfect out of the box but would also warp slightly with each playing, meaning that every person's vinyl record was essentially unique. I don't know if I accept that as an argument in favour of vinyl, but that was apparently his opinion on the matter. Matt Deres (talk) 16:04, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, everybody, for all the information. I've thinking of re-ripping my CDs at 192 kbps, since it was originally done at 128. Would a 50 percent increase in the bitrate correspond to a 50 percent increase in file size? My iTunes is already at about 28GB. --Joelmills (talk) 17:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reasonably close to that, yes. Here's a bit of "original research" I just did. I've ripped the same song (ZZ Top's La Grange... hey, it was nearby!) three times leaving all the settings the same except for changes to the sampling rate. Here's what I got:
At 128kbps filesize is 3,625 kB
At 192kbps filesize is 5,437 kB
At 256kbps filesize is 7,250 kB
So, the file size of the 256kbps is exactly twice the size of the 128kbps version, which is what you suggested and what makes intrinsic sense. The 192 is essentially 1.5x the size of the 128, though it's off by a few bytes. More important than file size, though, is whether the higher rips sound better. To each their own, of course, but I don't see the value of having lots of music I don't like the sound of (if you take my meaning). I am by no means a rabid audiophile and I don't even have a proper stereo to speak of, yet even I can tell the difference between, say, a 192 and 256 rip if I'm using headphones and the music warrants it. Matt Deres (talk) 18:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can certainly hear difference between a 128kbps and a 192kbps bitrate version of the same song, but I think there are diminishing returns. The 256 doesn't sound twice as good as the 128 to the human ear and there will be a point where there'll be no discernible difference to the human ear between sampling rates. Do some tests. Take a control song and sample it at various bitrates and work out the best tradeoff in bitrate/quality for your purposes. Exxolon (talk) 02:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When you hear an album on CD, you are hearing the sound in it's most original form -- I'm not sure about this. What is the "original form"? Is it a choir and we're comparing a CD to the unamplified acoustic sound you'd hear with your own ears live? There no way a CD comes anywhere near to that. Or is it a band that has recorded piles of overdubs and added effects and other processing and so on, and then various mixes are made, one of which ends up chosen for the CD, which then is mastered and further processed. It's not clear to me what "original" might even mean in such a case. Another example of how CD audio might differ from whatever the "original" might be is the so-called Loudness war, in which mastering engineers take advantage of the greater dynamic range available on CD to make the whole CD sound louder than other CDs by compressing the audio and boosting overall amplitude. In short, when albums from pre-CD days are released on CD, for example, they are almost never just digitized without processing. They are not "original". ...a related issue -- it is not uncommon to find older albums remastered and released on CD, but with the CD sounding clearly worse than the vinyl -- often flatter, deader, "lifeless", etc. This is embarrassingly common. But it is not because CDs are lifeless compared to vinyl. Rather it is because it is extremely common for "digital remastering" to be done poorly. Pfly (talk) 21:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
why letters are returned unanswered?
I have written the following letter to yahoo question bank, but they say that my letter cannot be delivered to the addressee; here the addressee is yahoo itself. I write letter to yahoo about my opinion about their question-answer-point-vote. My free e-mail address is also yahoo. The situation seems to be like "I don't know who I am". Please given your comments about this situation.I think my letter is a kind of harsh criticsm about the question bank points getting competition.
My dear Yahoo wonderful answers-giving people,
I am an old lady and I con't understand many of the computer jargons and cluttering home page of many web-site including yahoo. There are at least fifty linkings in one home page and once clicked somewhere by mistake, the clicker willbe taken to unknown destination from where nobody can return to his original home. He will wander all the places like a vagbond aimlessly; at least begger gets some money while begging, but the wanderer in the web gets nothing; only frustration to see all unwanting ad and other alluring pictures, which have no meaning except wasting one's precious time.if the time is considered to be precious.
Now about your question and answer session: you speak about many points, level 1, level 2, and level 3 to level infinity.not allowed to level 4,5,5, I don't need any point from you and I am asking question for satisfying my foolish curiosity and create more confusion in a confusing world which to my view is running after the shadows in order to satisfy their momentary sentiment and feelings. In other words, what is the point in getting points in the question answer series?. Let people ask question and let somebody gives any answer she thinks fit. Giving points to people simply create a competition in their minds which on the other hand create tension in the individual to get more points and more points, points, points; so the real thrilling of asking question and aswering question lose its real value. People ask question to get more point and more points. Why don't you throw out this old way of doing things! Internet is not a testing ground as in all other fields, it is a place where people feel free. not to be entangled thmselves with points and points, votes, and votes. Don't follow man made rules and regulation to control the internet! Let freedom prevail! freedom from custom, convention, religion, unwanting testing, points, votes, etc.
I don't know how to respond except that I enjoyed wandering around in your letter. More technical answers are sure to come, but as far as I know, if you click the back arrow at the top left of your browser page, you will return to where you were last. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think we have three separate questions here:
Why did your email to Yahoo get returned? I doubt that the Yahoo "question bank" returned your letter. Almost certainly you sent it to the wrong email address - which is why it was returned to you by the email system. Try re-sending it - but make sure you type the address in exactly right.
What happened when you clicked somewhere by mistake? You probably went to a rather nasty kind of web site (often pornography sites are like this) that some particularly annoying people created that deliberately tries to trap you by opening a confusing number of "pop-up" windows. This can be tough to avoid - and once you are tangled up in one, the simplest answer is usually to turn your computer off and start again! But there are ways to set up most web browsers to avoid thie situation. If you'd care to tell us which version of which browser you use (Internet Explorer 7 perhaps?) then I'm sure someone would be able to offer advice on how to set it up to prevent this situation from happening again in the future.
Why does Yahoo Amswers use a complicated points system? On the Internet, it's often impossible to tell who the smart people are - and who is completely stupid, or who is being deliberately annoying. What Yahoo are attempting to do with Yahoo Answers is to use this points rating scheme to help you figure out which answers are from smart people so you can pay attention to them - and ignore the idiots (of which there are many!). When someone gets an answer, they can award points to the people who gave good answers. In this way, the smarter people will get more points and you'll be able to tell who they are in the future. However, (and I strongly agree with you here) Yahoo messed up the system by allowing themselves to ALSO use it to attract more visitors to the site by giving away 'points' as a kind of status symbol. They give away points for all sorts of strange reasons in an attempt to make their site more popular. Yahoo make money from advertising - so the more times people go there to ask and answer questions, the more money they make - irrespective of whether the answers are good or bad. This turns out to have worked very well for them - Yahoo Answers has become spectacularly popular - despite the undoubted fact that the answers people give out there are mostly AWFUL!
Here on the Wikipedia reference desks, we don't use points systems of any kind. There are no incentives to post answers when you don't know what you're talking about - and this is fine because Wikipedia is supported by donations - not by advertising, so we collect more donations when we simply offer people the service they need and they become grateful as a result. While we have MUCH fewer people using our service, the quality of the answers here is vastly better because we take pride in producing the right answers rather than caring about the number of people who come here.
Regarding the question about returning to the original site when you by unintentionally clicked a link, the back arrow, generally located on the top left of your browser window, is supposed to bring you back, as stated by Julia Rossi. However, this does not always work, especially if you've clicked some advert, which wants you to study their stuff instead of returning. The thing to do then is to open your browsing history. If you're using Firefox, there is a tiny black downwards pointing arrow just next to the green "back" arrow. When you click the little black arrow, you get a drop-down menu which allows you to back-track the path that led you to wherever you are. It used to be similar in internet explorer. but for some reason Microsoft have redesigned the interface in their latest version of IE, and I'm not sure where they've hidden the browsing history this time (I only use IE as a check when a site behaves weirdly)Oops. Double checked, and it hasn't moved much. A little black arrow just to the right of the pair of blue arrows.
To avoid clutter, I recommend using firefox with add-ons such as FlashBlock and Adblock. When I occationally browse using someone else's PC, I'm amazed how people are able to put up with all the visual noise. --NorwegianBluetalk20:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I might be presuming too much here, but I think that someone who has trouble finding and using the "Back" arrow is not likely to be installing Firefox with FlashBlock and AdBlock, however much that information might be useful to some of the rest of us. :-) Bielle (talk) 05:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the OP is having a hard time finding the back button - I think she accidentally clicked on some site (as I said, these are typically porn sites) where several dozens of popped-up windows appear which come up without banners (hence no 'back button') and which have an 'onClose' method that simply opens another window. Such things are hard to get rid of and even if you can find the original back-button, clicking on it doesn't help you any. Most browsers have a way to turn off the JavaScript events that allow those things to happen - and that's the right course of action here. SteveBaker (talk) 19:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I want to buy a HDV camcorder like the Canon HV20 but I have a Standard-definition television set. My question is could I view content from that camcorder on my TV? The reason I want to buy a HDV camcorder is, down the line I will get a HDTV but want to preserve my memories for now on digital video. I can live with viewing the video I shoot for now as 'standard' on my TV. I am concerned I might not be able to view it at all. Please help!!! Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.171.183 (talk) 08:50, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes you will be able to watch it, but you probably need the composite video cables (yellow, red, white) to view your video. --n1yaNt11:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do modeling guitar amps and solid state make all guitars sound the same?
This is worry I have. I'm wondering if all guitars sound the same through modeling amps. I don't have a modeling amp myself, but I do have 2 solid state Crate practice amps. I can't afford to buy and maintain a real tube. So what is the case? MalwareSmarts (talk) 16:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think I remember you asking this before. The tone of an electric guitar comes from the guitar and the amp. So, they will sound different through just about any amp. About the only way you're going to have them sound the same is if you drench them in so many effects that the sound isn't very recognizable anymore. If you're worried, try this- assuming your guitar has multiple pickups, try switching between them on any given amp. You should be able to hear the difference. Friday(talk)17:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see. This is just a big worry I have and when I have questions like this, I tend to ask them a million times. My guitar does have multiple pickups, it is an HSS set up. The humbucker sounds kind of weird clean, I can't really describe it, but the single coils get me the tone I want for clean. So all guitars will sound different through all amps unless you go nuts with the effects? MalwareSmarts (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, yeah. There may be some exceptions- if another guitar had the same pickup as yours and a similar body, it might sound a lot like it. Another thing you may notice is that in addition to different tone, some will be louder than others. I've got a fairly hot Seymour Duncan in the bridge position on my main electric, and it's much higher output than the other two pickups. This means it distorts more easily and generally comes out louder. If you don't have or don't use a "lead channel" on your amp, switching to a hotter pickup is another way to make your leads stand out. Friday(talk)17:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Does that mean a Fat Strat would sound similar to my Yamaha Pacifica? What about if I plugged in a regular Fender/Squier Stratocaster and then plugged in a Stratocopy? What difference would my amp make? It's a Crate Flexwave FW15R. MalwareSmarts (talk) 17:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly can't guess whether two guitars I haven't heard would sound similar. The best way to know is to head down to your local guitar shop and play whichever ones you're curious about. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Friday(talk)00:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sports, specifically biathlon: Qualifying for the biathlon show in Gelsenkirchen
How do the athletes qualify for the "show"? Are they invited? Or does whoever is leading the World Cup og World Championship automatically qualify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.97.233.168 (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Does this mean, in the strictest sense, that the question was answered? I suppose the OP was waiting for a positive answer so I'd say yes. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Probably. But suppose we're uncomplicated, cold-calculating, logically and straight-thinking beings that do not read between the lines? --Ouro (blah blah) 14:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think this may be tough to do - there were hundreds of dancers and all sorts of other performers. It's remotely possible that a letter to the organising committee might get you a list - but they might well refuse on the grounds that these were schoolkids or something - and it's quite likely that even they do not have a complete list anymore. I seriously doubt that it's possible to get such a complete list. SteveBaker (talk) 19:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd second SteveBaker's doubts though - these are surnames/personal data, they might not be so eager to submit them to any random person that asks (although you could have good grounds to ask for it, I don't know). You're welcome to try your best, probably, though. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is probably a dictionary of some sort judging by the black tabs on the edges of the pages. Hence its use as a banner online at Wiktionary. There, you can use the Wiktionary which is an "online" (i.e. non-paper or bound) dictionary. But I suspect you already know this ;) Saudade715:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Many would say that all religions are "fiction based". If you mean merely religions where the book came first, at least as far as those other than the author(s) are concerned, one that comes to mind is Lafayette's creation in a book I would prefer not to give any more publicity than is essential. Bielle (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It also depends on where you draw the line. Dyanetics (a religion started as result of a bet between L. Ron Hubbard and some other science fiction writers at a drunken convention meeting that went wildly wrong when the author of the fiction started to believe in it himself) has reached the status where you'd pretty much have to say it was a religion - but I doubt that any strong beliefs truly arise from Jediism or Matrixism or whatever. Those may suggest attitudes to the world - but they don't really imply any new beliefs in the way the universe works or whether there is a god or not. Most Christians would probably agree that much of the material in the old testament of the Bible is fiction. Only the most extreme believe in the literal truth of stories like Noah's Ark. So on those grounds, the Bible is for the most part a work of fiction. But whether something is fact or fiction is a matter of belief in the first place. Those who do believe in the literal truth of the bible would not describe it as a work of fiction where those of us who have actually read the darned thing find it hard to believe that it is anything other than fiction. So how do you count? I might justifiably argue that from an Atheist position, absolutely 100% of religions are based on works of fiction - because if they were grounded in truth, then one would have to believe in them. However, even if you are a religious believer, you've pretty much gotta say that all of the religions EXCEPT YOURS are based on works of fiction. I don't think we can come up with a clear answer to this.
If you are asking about RECENT religions (Jediism, Matrixism - and some of the more fanatical Klingon enthusiasts) - then it's hard to imagine that anyone really believes in them because they know, deep down, that the author of their "holy scripture" is a well known personality - who may well still be alive to assert that his writings are not meant to be taken seriously.
I don't think your points about Christianity are technically correct. Christians made the Bible, not the other way 'round; whether it's fiction or not is irrelevant to the question so far as I can see. Jediism, on the other hand, is directly based on a couple of movies, so it clearly falls into the category the questioner is inquiring about. I'm not a student of religious studies, but my gut tells me that most religions are based in something the same way - the belief comes first, then the holy text gets written down to both explain it and solidify it. When things are the other way around (Jediism and Matrixism) we get something that's not a religion in any real sense. As you mention, Scientology is the tough case - it is based on fiction, but has become religion in its own right.
Folks who've decided to worship Thor again (for instance) are, I think, closer to the fiction-based group than the "true" religion group, but there's obviously a judgment call there. How many fiction based 'religions' are there? I have no idea, but I think most recognized religions wouldn't qualify anyway as the fiction came later. Matt Deres (talk) 15:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What, dear 66.211, if we were to tackle the question from the other end, i.e. What religions are based solely on fact? I guess many will find a suitable answer to this. What is left over, must be fictional by definition... --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think so. Buddha's teachings, for example, do not contain a great deal of what we'd traditionally call 'fact' or 'fiction', but is rather closer to a philosophy of ethics. I'd hesitate to call his Noble Eightfold Path a fact, per se, but it's certainly not fiction either. The idea that a religion is supposed to have a bunch of fairy tales and wild stories taken as "fact" is a very Western idea. I suppose that is why so many Western scientists are atheists - they're taught to question baseless assertions and Christianity has a pile of them. So far as I know, the trend to atheism in scientists is much less pronounced in the East; perhaps that's because those religions are taught as what they are: symbological constructs designed to teach a lesson, not fantasy stories masquerading as history. Matt Deres (talk) 00:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just bought this board game called "Oshi". I had a good time playing it, and decided to check what Wikipedia has to say about it. However, seems like we don't have an article about Oshi yet. I was surprised, because the instructions sheet tells that this is actually an ancient Japanese game - as I quote:
When Goddess Amaterasu gifted the first emperor of Japan with the sanshu no jungi, or Imperial Regalia, she also passed along a piece of her wisdom in the form of a game called Oshi, or Push. Oshi taught the emperor and his court that influence was power, but to use caution, because choosing unwisely can defeat even the most powerful.
So, if this is an ancient game, we should definitely have an article about it. But I just can't confirm the veracity of these claims, as all sources seem to be websites selling or reviewing this game I bought. Could someone help me discover whether Oshi is really that special/ancient or just a modern creation? Thanks. Húsönd03:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think its fair to say the claims are not accurate, since I think we would be aware if there was verifiable existence of a Goddess gifting anything to anyone. I guess the question is whether or not the game is a verifiable part of Japanese mythology. I can't find any source suggesting it is. Rockpocket03:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Board Game Geek says that Oshi was "inspired by" the story of the goddess Amaterasu giving a game to the Emperor Jimmu around 700 BC- not that this is the actual game that was given. In other words, in order to give the game some kind of image of being ancient and mystical, the developers probably picked a Japanese-sounding name out of the air (Oshi means "Push") and then looked for an instance of an ancient lost game legend that they could tack on to it to give it some credibility. However, the game itself (minus possibly bogus history) would make an interesting article - and I encourage you to write it. SteveBaker (talk) 08:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Edvald Boasson Hagen gives Rudsbygd as the place of birth of this Norwegian cyclist. But this "city" has no article either here or in nn. and no. wikis, and "Rudsbygd" only appears in the cyclist's article. So I'm guessing the article is wrong or that the name of the town has been mistyped. Does anyone know the true spelling of the name? -- Danilot (talk) 14:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They and they give Rudsbygd too. From my Googling I'd say that the name of the place is okay, but I don't know Norwegian well enough to tell you how small or insignificant it is that it doesn't have its own page. Hope this helps. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 14:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ive been searching forever for a public domain photo of a M14 rifle for use in the m14 article. Ive searched all of the US militarys websites for a decent one. Can anyone tell me were to get a good photo of one. BonesBrigade17:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(The OP is asking for PUBLIC DOMAIN photos - the ones you find on Google Images are probably not.) But the photo currently attached to our M14 article is in the public domain: Image:M1A NM.jpg - what's the problem with that? There are a bunch more M14's in WikiCommons: [21]SteveBaker (talk) 19:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Google image search that Nricardo provided only returns images hosted on servers in the .mil top-level domain: the United States military. Since the U.S. Department of Defense is a government agency, their images are public domain. (One must be cautious of non-DOD images being hosted on DOD servers, but as a first approximation restricting the search to .mil domains is likely to return a sample highly enriched in public domain material.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I remember hearing about a 50 metre sprint event at a high level of competition but now I wonder if I was hearing things. The topic of the reference was that the athlete would only take a breath or two before finishing the race. Does anyone know if this event exists and at what level? Thanks in advance. Julia Rossi (talk) 22:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When driving a car with a traditional manual transmission with wet shoes, the left foot squeaks every time it goes to depress the clutch pedal. Is there any driving technique one can use to reduce the amount of squeaking? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 23:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there usually a mat on the floor of every car. Rub your shoes on that mat, it will significantly dry out your sole. Now there will be significantly less sqeaking --n1yaNt(~Cpt. Obvious~) 00:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes the mats do not do a good enough job of absorbing water and I, for example, have rubber mats on top of my normal carpet mats. As well, the wet shoes will transfer water onto the pedals. So regardless of having a dry shoe, the pedals will still squeak. Acceptable (talk) 02:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt there is a driving technique. Cover the pedal in something ... glue a bit of carpet or fabric to it. Come on, Acceptable. Wet rubber pedal pad versus wet sole of shoe ... how much help do you really need to come up with a solution to that problem? --Tagishsimon(talk)03:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Beware! It's illegal to drive without shoes in some US states. (I happen to know it's legal in Texas - but not in some other states). It's really rather dangerous to drive when your clutch-foot might slip. The way most people stop at junctions, if your foot should happen to slip off of the clutch, you'll probably wind up jumping out into traffic coming from the sides and that can kill you. (Of course you SHOULD have the car in neutral with the handbrake set - but not many people get that right). I strongly recommend vigorously rubbing your foot on the floor mat to get it reasonably dry before setting off. SteveBaker (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Back in '94 someone researched the legality-of-barefoot-driving question for alt.folklore.urban and was unable to find a single US state where it was unambiguously illegal to drive a car barefoot. There was at least one where it was illegal to drive a motorcycle barefoot, and at least one other where it was suggested that a police officer might have discretion to cite you if he personally thought it was unsafe, but none oops, I should be careful here -- none that this person found; there were a few states he couldn't get an answer from where the explicit language of statute banned barefoot driving of an automobile. See here. I would be interested to know whether this has changed.
My personal non-warrantied opinion is that, provided you don't have anything pointy rolling around where your pedals are, barefoot driving is probably safer than shod driving, because you have better sensation of the pedals. --Trovatore (talk) 00:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you people ever walk around barefeet? I don't really see how barefeet is more prone to slippage to damp shoes when your feet are sufficiently roughened up, providing plenty of friction. --antilivedT | C | G08:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Approximately how much would it cost for a ride in a gondola in Venice? Obviously one can assume that the cost is partially dependent on the duration of the trip, so please assume a median length trip. Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 23:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The first book of the series His Dark Materials was made into a movie called The Golden Compass. But what about the second and third books of His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass? Will they be ever made into movies? Bowei Huang (talk) 00:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This would be better addressed to the Entertainment reference desk. I believe that all three books were to be turned into movies. According to this interview with Chris Weitz [26] the script for the second movie was already underway back in March of this year. SteveBaker (talk) 01:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it says it would be made if the Golden Compass does really well. Having a first draft of a script doesn't mean a whole lot in Hollywood. --Panoptik (talk) 01:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A story in Entertainment Weekly made it sound a bit more dubious, as The Golden Compass did okay but not nearly as well as people had hoped it would. So maybe. Personally I wouldn't hold my breath over it—I wouldn't be surprised if it fell through, there isn't a ton of momentum behind it at this point. --Panoptik (talk) 01:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True, but you have to admit that the ending to the book is a bit of a downer. I'm not surprised they edited the film to end on a different note. GeeJo(t)⁄(c) • 17:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(posting also here, because the user seems to operate via a dynamic IP) I do not have Zac Efron's e-mail address. As I have written at the Reference Desk, the best way to contact him would be through his agent. This website seems to provide some information, but I wouldn't know anything whether the info is reliable. Good luck though. --Ouro (blah blah) 13:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course if you mean some other "Zac Efron" other than the person that Ouro seems to be referring to, you'll have to give us more info. I for one, have never heard of anyone named Zac Efron. Dismas|(talk)15:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Me neither, actually. Bear with me, I do not watch TV nor do I listen to mainstream radio or watch mainstream cinema - I thought the original poster was referring to Zac Efron the oh-so-cute actor. --Ouro (blah blah) 19:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Difficult google search. Not. Meanwhile I'm going to guess that the original questioner thought that people who know of a Zac Efron might answer, and those that do not would keep quiet. That's the normal way: know the answer: say something. Do not know the answer: do not say anything. See also pedant & churlish. --Tagishsimon(talk)20:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
However, many (most?) questions posted here aren't things with a simple answer, but pose a problem to be solved, an answer to be found or what not. In an ideal situation, both sides can benefit from the discussion. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unfamiliar bird: identification required
I know how much we all like trying to identify mysterious things in photos; and having had success at finding out various rare makes of car from photos I have posted here, I'm now going to offer an unusual bird which appears to have taken up residence in our garden. Please see here for a photo montage, which shows a full-length rear view with various garden items providing a measure of scale, a close-up front view and a couple of side/rear views with the head in vision. I believe it is a partridge of some sort, and initially assumed Perdix perdix, the commonest type found in Britain. Our village, in SE England, is surrounded by fields of various types, including those which grey partridges favour for their nests; so perhaps it has just got a bit lost. Now, however, looking again at its rather long tail and its wing and back markings, I am not so sure. As well as its genus and species, I would love confirmation of its sex and developmental stage: I think it looks like a juvenile. If it's going to be living with us, we might as well get to know it a bit better! Incidentally, it is extremely tame, and has even shown signs of wanting to wander into our house. Thanks for any help! Hassocks5489 (talk) 13:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, and what is so odd about a partridge in a pear tree in this season? Look foreward to some milking, dancing, leaping, piping and drumming folks in your garden and have a Happy New Year :)--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am almost certain that it is a juvenile female pheasant, Phasianus colchicus. Maybe you have some local shoots where they raise pheasants. They can become quite tame if you are patient and provide regular food. Unfortunately it will probably desert you in the spring when she hears a male calling - unless he is in your garden as well! Richard Avery (talk) 13:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly looks like all the pheasants around here (Austria, just down the road from your place). There is a good picture in the German Wikipedia under lemma Fasan of an avian couple of the species. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
←Ah yes, that looks right. I didn't even think of the possibility of a pheasant! I've looked at those pictures and a few more on Google Images, and she certainly matches them in appearance (especially the long grey toes). There are indeed pheasant shoots in the next village and the surrounding area — in fact, the prize at one Christmas pub quiz I went to a few years ago in that village was a brace of freshly shot (male) pheasants. Incidentally, with reference to Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM's observation on this subject, the funny thing is that we do have a pear tree in our garden, and our visitor first arrived on ... yes, the first day of Christmas (26 December). I haven't seen any geese a-laying yet today, though! Hassocks5489 (talk) 16:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A question about something I thought...
I'm just wondering something...is there something like a multi-instrumental player I can download from somewhere? Let me explain...I'm talking about a program that I can play different instrumental tunes, like I can click an instrument from a selection list, and then I can click buttons that sound like the instrument I selected, like they can sound like piano keys, trumpet sounds, guitar strums, and other instrumental sounds. Or a downloadable program that can play sounds of life. like I can click buttons to a heartbeat, wind blowing, and other sounds. Are there such programs like this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs) 14:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are really two parts to this - firstly the format that the music is in and secondly the way that these various instrument sounds are provided. You obviously can't use MP3 types of music because the instruments are all mixed together and we can't extract which notes each one was playing. So what you need is a music format that stores what notes were played by each instrument - not what they sounded like. For that, there are really two choices: MIDI (or technically, MIDIfile) or various kinds of 'MOD' file. Either of those would do just fine for your needs.
For the sounds of the instruments, there are again two possibilities:
With MIDI, the instrument sounds (called 'patches') are loaded up separately from the music - tied together by numbers - so if the MIDI music says that the 'lead' line of the music is played on instrument number 12 and if the patch file says instrument number 12 is an electric guitar - then the lead will be played on electric guitar - but if the patch file puts a church organ on instrument number 12 - then the lead will be played on an organ. To enable standard MIDI files to "sound right" when played on different people's machines, there is a standard set of patches called 'General MIDI' that follows some kind of standard as to which instruments are assigned to which numbers. This isn't entirely successful because different players may choose different kinds of electric guitar sound for that patch - so the music doesn't sound exactly the same everywhere - just kinda-sorta the same. However, you can change that by loading up your own set of patches - and some MIDI replay software will allow you to switch the patches around so you can experiment in the way you want. However, making up your own 'patches' is often tricky - and sometimes impossible - so for you to play the sounds you want, MIDI isn't the way to go.
With MOD (and it's MANY derivatives) the instrument sounds are stored as little audio clips inside the MOD file itself - which gets around the General MIDI issue by storing exactly the sounds the music needs right there inside the file. This means that a MOD file always sounds exactly the same no matter who is playing it. (The downside is that MOD files are a little bigger than MIDI - but both are vastly smaller than MP3's so it hardly matters). However, MOD players always let you switch sounds around and even load your own as 'WAV' files - so if you want the lead line in some music played on your doorbell with the backing track played by dog barks - you can do exactly that!
So I think you should be looking for a MOD player. These programs are generally (for historical reasons) called 'Trackers' - and our article on them provides lots of links to suitable software. Tracker software generally have a mode where you can play notes on your computer keyboard as if it were a piano - that would also solve your issue of wanting to experiment with wind sounds and such.
Both MIDI and MOD music can be found in vast quantities all over the Internet (Just do a Google search) - some of it is illegal because the music is copyrighted - but lots of the files are of out-of-copyright classical music or amateur musicians who just want to get their stuff out there and don't care about copyrights.
I recently read that we are building in this country 40,000 oil rigs (or tapping 40,000) oil wells per year. First of all how and where are they finding so many oil wells and if so why is this not enough to rely on our own supplies rather thatn on foreign oil wells/supplies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.120.70.241 (talk) 16:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's the number of wells drilled, not the number of successful wells. The reason our vast number (more than 500,000) of producing oil wells do not provide our needs is that each well averages about 10 barrels per well per day. Compare a Saudi Arabian well, averaging about 5000 barrels per well per day. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 16:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For 2005, about 42,000 wells were drilled [28], but 38,000 were development wells in existing fields; only 3,400 were new exploratory wells. And that is the total for both oil and natural gas. Of the 42,000, only 10,000 were successful oil wells, and of that total, only 429 were new exploratory discoveries. And don't forget that even as these new discoveries are made, other fields play out or become uneconomic. The net result is that oil production in the United States has been declining since 1970, and this decline is virtually certain to continue. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 16:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Put another way, the United States had a limited amount of oil in the ground when it started pumping oil in the late 1800s. It used up most of this oil and most of its big oil fields by the 1970s. Since then, the United States has had to drill more and more wells to get at smaller and smaller remaining pockets of oil. This is how oil production can decline even though so many oil wells are being drilled. Marco polo (talk) 17:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the second part of your question (would this let the US rely on it's own supplies?) the answer is a very definite "No!" if the US relied on it's own reserves, they'd be pumped dry in two years! If you'd like more details - we've answered this several times before - I put my previous answers together on my own Wiki page.
For a chart of US oil production, consumption, and imports over the past 50 years and showing the production decline, go here. (Disclaimer, the chart is from the Energy Information Administration, but the page is my own). Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 17:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How is it known how much the US has of oil(in reference to the statement made above about the limited amount it started out with in the 1800's and then used up by the 1970's)to pump? Could there possibly wells in parts untapped that could produce viable oil wells in the United States that haven't been looked or discovered before? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.126.143.69 (talk) 21:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly there can be, and indeed are, undiscovered oil fields in the US. That's what those 429 discovery wells in 2005 found. It's just that the US is by far the most explored territory on earth - so the likelihood of finding anything big is remote. The only reasonably possible locations are the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, offshore California, and parts of Alaska. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 21:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The probability is small that the oil community has overlooked a possible location of oil in the US or its continental shelf. Enough is known about the geology of the US and the geology of oil-bearing strata to be able to make well informed estimates. See also Oil reserves#United States. All that that leaves you is the fact that as the price rises, it will become profitable to attack previously unpromising sources, such as tar sands. But you;d be clutching at straws if you were to think this would have any very great impact on the central problem: that there is massive imbalance in production & consumption. --Tagishsimon(talk)21:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But still they don't know everything that is underground, they make educated guesses from promising sources (chemicals that bubble to surface tip them off to drill and explore) but it is still a mystery, is it not to know all that is underground and what resources may still remain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.126.143.69 (talk) 22:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Depends whether or not you trust the assertion made in Oil reserves#United States: "With over 2.3 million wells having been drilled in the US since 1949,[12] there are very few undrilled areas left where another supergiant oil field could remain undiscovered." They make educated guesses based on a mass of geological and empirical data - from the drillings, from seismic surveys &c &c. To all intent & purpose, they do know what's under your feet, and it ain't undiscovered oil (of any real magnitude), nor is it a mystery. --Tagishsimon(talk)23:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind that many of those wells may be shallow and low-output wells. I know that there are a lot of natural-gas wells in northern Ohio, for instance, which is hardly a fossil-fuel hotbed, but they're generally small-scale operations. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As an aside, NW Ohio and NE Indiana were indeed hotbeds of oil production late in the 19th Century - the Trenton Oil Field, discovered in 1887, is essentially fully depleted today, but it helped give birth to Marathon Oil Company (headquartered in Findlay), as well as Standard of Ohio (Sohio, now part of BP). Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 00:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, if there were still oil wells that were much deeper they might not be easily detected by the traditional means such as geological surveys, drillings, and seismic surveys? Is that possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.126.143.69 (talk) 01:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible. But as indicated by several posts above, very unlikely in the US for anything sizeable except in those few areas I mentioned. Most onshore US basins have been explored to the basement. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 02:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How to find out impact factor of a specific journal?
While updating categories and info in articles on journals on Wiki, I decided to add their impact factor, and looked on related websites, but I couldn't find what I would expect - either a ranked list of all journals in a discipline, or a search engine where I could put in the name of the journal and get its rank (the best I could find was 2004 Top 10 from here). Perhaps I am missing something obvious? Btw: I can't access this, and this interesting tool seems to be down too (main page online but I get 404 on search results).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that the Journal Citation Reports are published by a private company, and you need to have a subscription to get a hold of recent impact factors. If you're at a university or other major institutional library then you may have access to impact factor information through the ISI Web of Science. For what it's worth, this page has links to impact factor lists for the years from 1999 to 2005, inclusive. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rocking back and forth
In films psycologically disturbed people are often portrayed with their knees tucked under their chin and rocking back and forth, is there a name for this in real life? And what is the purpose of the rocking motion as a natural coping mechanism? thanks, RobertsZ (talk) 18:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Stereotypy is the closest term I'm aware of - it covere more than rocking back and forth - also hand flipping and other repetitive movements. I don't think there is a purpose to it - it's a result of a brain abnormality. SteveBaker (talk) 19:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to have the rather prosaic name "Body-rocking" [29].
Unlike Steve, I'm sure it does have a purpose; I don't know what that purpose might be. It is a commonplace behaviour in the 6-12 month phase of an infant's life, according to a brief google search. Biological systems tend not to be profligate in expending energy; I think we could perhaps search a little harder for cause before we dismiss it. And whereas it may also be a stereotype, the study I cited notes in its abstract that "when compared with college students who engage in habitual body-rocking, persons with mental retardation engage in more body-rocking than college students". --Tagishsimon(talk)19:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"self-comforting mechanism" and body-rocking "seem[s] to increase with boredom, tension, or frustration, and it appears that the movements are self-stimulatory and sometimes pleasurable. The root causes are unknown." [30] --Tagishsimon(talk)19:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is a result of brain abnormality at all but is a response to some kind of stress, the extreme boredom that comes from being stuck in an instutution for example. You sometimes see it in animals in a zoo. Theresa Knott | The otter sank19:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Redundant occupations in the US that continue to employ people.
I just had an e-mail from a friend in the US that told a story about a "Grocery Store Bagger". The story is unimportant to this question - but I live in the UK where we don't have paid assistants in our stores to bag our purchases - we do it ourselves. But that called to mind the many times I have visited the US and have always been amused to find a very helpful - usually older - person in the airport arrivals area, who inserted dollar bills into an automated luggage trolley dispenser on my behalf, handed me the trolley, collected the "fee" from me and expected - and got - a tip for his trouble. I have never visited another country on my extensive travels that employed such people - unnecessarily in my opinion - doing work that could be done by myself - or by the automated system like the luggage trolley dispenser. Is this practice common throughout US stores and airports and if so, isn't it a burden on the wage bills involved? After all, the trolley assistants I encountered were working air-side (pre-Customs and Passport Control) so must have been authorised to be there. Thanks and Happy New Year from Scotland. 81.145.241.123 (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well in Tesco and other stores they offer bag-packing service for you if you would like it. I suspect there is a difference in the US as they have a more tip-based service culture (whereas in the uk we don't so much) and as long as there is enough 'demand' for them in the airport they will continue. Certainly i agree it is a somewhat unrequired job, but we have 'greeters' in Uk stores and they serve little purpose more than saying hello and we also used to have ticket-men on the buses until someone figured we could do that job with just a driver taking tickets. ny156uk (talk) 22:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not every store in the U.S. has baggers. "Discount" grocery stores will often lack them, along with the selection, attractive displays and level of service of the regular supermarkets. But most Americans are willing to pay an extra few cents on the dollar for the advantages of a "nice" grocery store, including baggers. I heard from a friend who works in international retail that one of the reasons Wal-Mart failed in Germany is because German consumers demand deep-discount practices, and even Wal-Mart -- which would be considered lower-end retail in the U.S. -- was too upscale for German tastes. (I'd answer your question, but I've never used a luggage-cart dispenser. My luggage has wheels.) -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You know, it never occurred to me that those airport baggage trolley guys were actually employed by the airport - I always thought they were just trying to scrape a living by getting your luggage (and therefore you as well) into their mate's taxi and off to their mate's mate's hotel. Astronaut (talk) 02:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure about the airport question, but speaking as someone who briefly held a bagging job as a kid I can vouch for the fact that baggers are required to do a lot besides bagging. Usually this seems to include cleaning, customer surface, sometimes restocking, and generally odd jobs. It also helps speed up the transaction in stores and makes a huge number of jobs. --S.dedalus (talk) 03:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In South Africa where labour is comparitively cheaper and unemployment at a rediculous rate of allegedly 25-40% (depending on what you count as 'employed') there are typically people at the supermarket checkouts that bag your goods for you as the cashier scans them. There is no tip required - I have never ever ever heard about or seen anybody tipping them, so as far as I know they are employed, but, I would think that they do a variety of other jobs as well, such as shelve-stocking. I also know that in such supermarkets it isn't uncommon for the bag-packing person to not be present - it seems to be an on-and-off type of thing. At the airport in Johannesburg (South Africa) there are people that help you with luggage in exchange for tips. Although they are not employed, the airports had to start to regulate such things because of security issues (crime) as well as competition and in-fighting between these kinds of hawkers. As a result they are required to wear bibs (throw-over illuminated shirts) and possibly tags. In South Africa if you park somewhere say out on the side of a road in a high-traffic place you are likely to find car-minders. These are poor unemployed people that want to watch over your car to ensure that nobody breaks in or steals your car (Realistically if a car-thief did try to steal the car they could just bribe off the attendant, considering the tips are normally the equivalent of $1, you could just pay them about $20-$50 to get them to disappear). Again, this became regulated in certain areas, where they still work for tips, but are regulated, have to wear bibs, carry a name tag, and the number of guards are limited. I know all of this doesn't really answer your question, but if you really were interested in this type of thing I thought it might help to tell you some anecdotes relevant to South Africa :P Rfwoolf (talk) 07:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We used to have car minders in Malaysia but they have AFAIK largely disappeared I guess due to government crackdowns. They weren't an entirely voluntary exercise of course, if you didn't tip them there was always the risk they would scratch your car or let the air out of the tires (of course this may not have been that common since it's obviously something likely to result in police complaints and them being kicked out of the area). Bag packers similarly do exist although they are not always there and often it's just the checkout person. In NZ bagpackers are AFAIK fairly rare, it's often just the checkout person. N.B. Bus conductors have also disappeared from Malaysian buses Nil Einne (talk) 10:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just thought I'd mention that as an American, I've never once seen a bagger at a grocery store tipped for bagging groceries. As for why this job exists, they do, as mentioned, do more than just bag groceries. They stock shelves and such as well. It's common in the South for the baggers to also push your grocery cart out to the parking lot and load your purchases into your vehicle for you. This is nice for older customers or those who have a baby in their arms but as a 20-30 something old male without children, I always told them that I didn't need assistance. More than once, I got the idea that they could be reprimanded for allowing a customer to carry their own bags. Dismas|(talk)15:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a correlation between the price of wine and its taste quality?
OK, I am not talking about some of the grease solvents that are sold as wine in downmarket stores for pennies per litre - but I have just read an article on expensive wines with examples that have sold at auction in excess of £100,000 per bottle. I buy wines at less than £10 per bottle (and some a lot cheaper than that), and find most of them perfectly palatable. Anything more expensive and the taste is spoiled by the hole in my pocket. But I regularly see wines in some of the better restaurants and wine-shops I visit at over £100 per bottle. I would never spend that much, even if I could afford to do so, but can't help wondering whether those people that do buy them can actually taste the quality they are paying for - or are they just happy to be buying the exclusivity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.241.123 (talk) 22:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is yes, but with caveats: a decent wine in short supply will have premium value distinct from its taste quality. I suspect it is a combination of "taste quality" and limited supply which leads to the £100 wines. And there will also be an element of confusion introduced by wines which may be classed as Veblen good, for which peoples' preference for buying them increases as a direct function of their price. Finally the whole taste thing is somewhat subjective, the mass marketplace ill-informed ... recipe for a complex pricing algorithm. I'd speculate that few people who are attracted to wine as a Veblen good have palettes sufficient to be able to discriminate. --Tagishsimon(talk)23:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The issues in your question of value, cachet, taste are all covered by Tagishsimon but to reflect a bit more – artifact value and wine as artifact can conflict with expecting it will taste great too. Great tasting is not necessarily the same as a taste having the expected nuances of flavours to do with a particular bottling from a specific region, year, and/or maker that get it lots of ticks from wine educated buffs. Even old rare wines can fail the taste test which they might have passed if they'd been younger. There's some debate about the best year to open a collectable(ible?) wine. There's also a hint that more expensive wines don't have as much preservative in them, but it's new year and sori not to have links for you today. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're asking two different questions. There is some correlation between price and quality. I only know a little about the German whites, and the better (sweeter) wines are scarcer and therefore more expensive. They're scarcer because they pick those grapes later, and there aren't so many grapes left by then. They pick the bulk of the grapes well before the frost; it gets cold there, and it would be risky to wait. The upshot of this is that they produce a range of wines across the price spectrum in proportion to the number of bottles at each price they can expect to sell, and the high-end stuff is almost always better. By "better" I mean smoother, more complex, more aromatic, tastier in general. You can sometimes find a kabinett that is just wonderful, but usually not, and you can find an auslese that tastes like after-shave with a spritz, but usually not.
Your other question has been well answered, whether connoisseurs can taste the difference. But I would add that if you are perfectly happy with 10-pound wines, then you shouldn't spend more. One wine is only better than another if you like it better; wine quality is 100% subjective. Me, I'm dying to try a real Sauternes, but I refuse to spend that much, even though I know it'll be worth it. --Milkbreath (talk) 04:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
January 1
How to be a YouTuber's friend when s/he denied me to be her/his friend on YouTube?
I try to request to be a friend on a YouTuber's Channel but she denied
me. I add her too many times but it doesn't work. I want to watch an
private video that she upload as a public video, but she made it a
private video. I'm not a criminal. I don't really bother her. I don't do stalking at her. I don't harass her. I don't invade her privacy. What should I do?
Note: When asking, please don't say "She don't want to see that video."
or "Get a new account". I want to see the video. I don't want excuses.
You well know that you are asking a near unanswerable question:
1. If the decision rests entirely with her, then she will take whatever decisions she wants, as her caprice takes her.
2. If it's possible to hack through YouTube's access control mechanisms, we don;t know how and if we did, would not tell you.
I suggest you should accept her decision with good grace, since to persist will be harassment. I note your "I don't want excuses" comment. Sadly the rest of the world is mostly unmoved by whatever tantrum will arise out of you reading an answer that displeases you. Happy new year. --Tagishsimon(talk)00:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You make and submit the video in the normal way, and then send a message to the person in question. Which bit are you asking about: 1) how to make video 2) how to post video 3) how to send a message to her? --Tagishsimon(talk)00:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you just send some friendly messages first. Be her friend through messages and then send the invite. If she isn't letting you be her friend on youtube, thats because she doesn't know you yet, or she doesn't want you to watch the video.--Dlo2012 (talk) 00:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tunnel of love
I can't find any info regarding the tunnel of love as in the metal state of feeling like you are in a tunnel when you enter a love relationship with someone such that you begin to loose the ability to interact with others on anything but on a distant level as if waiving to them from the deck of a boat as it moves alongside the dock and away. The feeling that suddenly there is for all personal matters only one other person in the world. 71.100.3.166 (talk) 05:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article from New Scientist (#REDIRECT [[31]]) implies that first love and obsessive compulsice disorder are related (although not the same thing). The article links to the study's authors' website, which may have further information. Steewi (talk) 00:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Painting a guitar
I have a Fender Stratocaster that I'd like to paint. Currently it's just a boring black color. I like the black that's there as a background but I want to paint on some nice flame patterns. I'm wondering if I need to strip the current coat that's already there? And what kind of paint would I use? Bellum et Pax (talk) 08:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Depends what the current finish is, but if it's non-reactive, a short cut is to wipe the area with a dry cloth, then a light degreaser like meths (try it on a unseen part of the guitar first to test), then use an oil based paint such as enamel or car touchup paint. Spray can with stencil would work, too. The good thing about paint is you can just paint out what you don't like. Try googling paint electric guitar though some of these are about re-painting the whole thing. Julia Rossi (talk) 09:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In Australia, what is the maximum number of hours a person can legally work without having a lunch/dinner/half-hour whatever break? How long does my shift have to be before I'm legally allowed a break? --Candy-Panda (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I assume that either:
the ATU directly
an ATU representative at your place of employment
an advisor at your school (Belmont High ?)
should be able to give an answer to this question. There is also a stack of wikipedians from Down Under, but they may be snoozing at 3:30 AM, suffering from hang over / hanging upside down on this planet :) Gee (so) long from an antipodian, --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:36, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure there is one. I googled a few different topics and sites that would seem to have that kind of stuff don't mention anything about it. For example, this site is for new immigrants looking for work, but it says nothing about work breaks, despite quite a bit of detail about wages, etc. According to some other sites, Australians have the longest work hours in the world (averaged over the year), so stop reading this page and get back to the grindstone already! Matt Deres (talk) 19:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rumour always had it that it was 5 hours, but no one I know has ever checked. If you're having a problem with your employer, you might wish to talk to your union rep (if you have one) or contact the union through their website for advice. If it is appropriate, discussing when you can take your breaks with your boss might be productive, but I imagine you might have already done so. Another option you could discuss with your boss if you want to take more breaks than you are entitled to is to take more scheduled breaks, but they would be unpaid. Steewi (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is that why I like bats so much! Here's a workers' hotline: 1300 362 223 that offers "free telephone advice for workplace issues" found on the Your Rights at Work website [32]. Maybe a lot ofAussies don't either know their rights, or they're the most in debt thru mortgages etc on this planet and just own that grindstone! Hope it helps : ) Julia Rossi (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These kinds of rights are often not covered by workplace legislation, but rather in your AWA or other document that covers things like your salary, etc. For example, my collective agreement states that I cannot be required to work for more than 5 hours without a 30 minute break, or for more than 10 hours on a single day, but that doesn't mean that I *can't* do so (although doing so would generally mean my supervisor has to talk with me and tell me to try to avoid doing so). I would suggest first digging up your AWA/contract/whatever, looking through that, and if that fails then I second the suggestion to contact your union representative, or the union itself. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 01:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is, I had worked a 5 1/2 hour shift (5:30pm - 11pm) one time and got a half hour break, but when I worked a 5 hour shift (11:30pm - 4:30pm) yesterday I didn't get a break. So I guess it has to be more than 5 hours. Cheers everyone and happy new year. :) --Candy-Panda (talk) 05:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Man with One Name
A bit of research for a writing project of mine. Is it possible in the United Kingdom for a person to change their name (by deed poll etc.) to remove their surname? That is, to be on record (barring birth certificate) as having only a given name and nothing else? If not, does the law differ in any other Anglophone country? GeeJo(t)⁄(c) • 17:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A site in the internet [33], then search for "mononym", of unknown reliability states "however, an online discussion implies that, at least in the U.S. and U.K., there is no legal requirement that a person have more than a single name".
Presumably there must be regulation that your name consists of writable characters. If it were "4 spaces", followed by a "-", followed by "6 spaces", you would have to repeat your name 5 times when in a noisy pub :) --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which newspaper changed its name to The Guardian in 1959, Duncan. If it was a recent story, it'll be on Grauniad Unlimited somewhere ... do you remember enough of the vocabulary of the story to mount an effective search? --Tagishsimon(talk)23:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This may be totally irrelevant to you, but last year I happened to be listening to Penn Jillette's short lived radio show and he mentioned that his magician chum, Teller legally changed his name as such, and now possesses one of the few United States passports issued in a single name. Their website seems to confirm this, though Teller was actually his birth surname, rather than his given name, I don't see why that would make a difference. I wonder who the other single name passport holders are? Rockpocket03:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FCC ruling on cable company deals with apartment complexes?
I heard on the news about a new FCC ruling which said cable companies could no longer make exclusive deals with apartment complexes and that all existing deals are void. My apartment complex still has such a deal. Is it a rule or a proposed rule? If it's a proposed rule, what has to happen before it becomes a rule?Skydiver156969 (talk) 20:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First off, the FCC must have one of the crappiest websites around. They appear to have made such a ruling on November 13 2007 [34] which comes into effect 60 days after [35], so that'll be Saturday 12 January 2008, or nearest offer. "The Commission prohibits the enforcement or execution of existing exclusivity clauses and the execution of new ones by MVPDs subject to section 628 of the Communications Act." [36]. The commission "should take action to address exclusivity clauses entered into by DBS providers, private cable operators, and other MVPDs who are not subject to Section 628." (ibid). Section 628 is here, on page 294. --Tagishsimon(talk)20:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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