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March 23

TED talk transcripts

Is there anywhere I can find transcripts for TED Talks? I'm specifically looking for Daniel Dennett's recent "Cute, Sexy, Sweet, Funny" talk. 99.245.16.164 (talk) 14:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

intercourse?

Okay, wiki. My question is wierd, and a little inappropriate but whatever; you should be adult enough to answer. My girlfriend's vagina sometimes has a milky white mucous that is sort of a solid at times, and its sort-of gross. And i'm concerned by what it is. Sometimes during her monthly cycle, she doesn't have it at-all... Generally right after her period all is good, and then random times throughout. Any ideas? Wyrmme (talk) 14:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Smegma?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are concerned, then you should suggest she sees a doctor. There are all kinds of vaginal discharges that are perfectly normal (and vary from woman to woman) and there are some that are signs of disease. We can't reliably tell between them over the internet. --Tango (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, this is clearly a request for medical advice, which is something we cannot provide. The spectrum of possibilities based on your description is endless, and it would irresponsible of us to provide an opinion as to what it is, and perhaps influence an incorrect course of action based on those opinions. The only recommendation that can responsibly be made is that your girlfriend should see a qualified medical professional if she or you are concerned. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

In this situation I'd be concerned about the possibility of me becoming infected with something. I'm surprised this has not occurred to you, and seems like a pretty good reason for her to get a professional opinion. Yup, I think that response is adult enough. Richard Avery (talk) 17:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur that she (and possibly you) will need medical advice, which we cannot provide. She doesn't necessarily need to go to her family doctor, but can instead go to an STD clinic (which, depending on where you live, can go by various names: special clinics, etc.). In preparation for that appointment, you may wish to read vaginal lubrication, sexually transmitted diseases, and vulva. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

This may be something that occurs during ovulation and is not related to anything mentioned here. The wikipedia page on Cervix#Cervical_mucus has more information on why you would only notice it at certain times, but still should typically be once per month. Still definitely consult a medical professional but don't start panicking about STI's before you discount this possibility (because it is something that happens in most women but goes unnoticed). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.255.228.5 (talk) 04:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

silver fish

Today a silver fish was found in my 2yrs. old bed, he has had wing worm on his scalp for about a week, today blood was on his pillow i was wondering if the silver fish is a blood sucker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.84.82 (talk) 16:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Silverfish eat starches and carbohydrates mostly; they are known to be a scourge of libraries for their ability to eat through books. Ringworm is caused by a fungus similar to Jock itch or Athlete's foot. Beyond these basic definitions, we cannot provide medical advice. If you are concerned for your son's health, please seek the advice of a qualified medical professional, in person, and do not look to the opinions of random strangers on the internet to inform ANY course of action related to your son's health. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:46, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Communal Queues

Usually, when in a situation with several tills/what-have-you (such as in a fast-food restaurant or at a bank of cash machines) and several people waiting to use them, people spontaneously form a communal queue (I am aware this is culturally specific: I am speaking from an English point of view).

Now, a few times I've been chivvied out of this queue by some manager or other who directs people to wait behind specific tills. The only times I can recall this happening, the manager has had a non-native accent and so presumably is coming from a slightly different cultural background. I have some theories as to why this would happen, but I was hoping someone knew of studies into this (or could at least provide an outside perspective). Presumably queuing and its impact on business is studied.

Theory 1: Communal queuing is inefficient.

Theory 2: Communal queuing (a)makes, or (b)is believed to make, the queue look longer, and thus puts people off.

In both of these, I assume that a native manager would be swayed by being part of the culture that produces the communal queue, whereas a non-native manager would be more impartial. Although 2 (b) allows for the possibility that a communal queue looks longer to someone not used to them and shorter to a native. I find theory 1 unconvincing, since I do not see how it can be true.

Theory 3: Someone who hasn't grown up with a culture of communal queuing may find the concept strange, 'untidy' or chaotic, and so tries to 'order' the situation by moving people into many separate queues.

Of course, it may just be coincidence (or some sort of bias) that the only times I remember this happening the chivvier had a non-native accent; it doesn't happen very often, so the sample size is small.

So, hoping people can provide some insight :) 79.66.127.79 (talk) 17:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Translation for Americans: "Communal queue" = "common line". StuRat (talk) 21:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

One other possible reason is that the single lineup, or "communal queue" as you put it, takes up a larger area in one place then the manager thinks their layout allows for. Here in Canada, or in my part of it, banks used to have separate lines at each teller window and they all switched around 1980 to the single-lineup system. However, supermarkets still use a separate line for each checkout -- the long narrow space between the main part of the store and the row of checkout counters could not be efficiently used by a single line of people with big carts -- and while many fast-food places I've been to do use a single line, some have a narrow space like the supermarket where it wouldn't work well.

Another reason for separate lines, of course, is when not all the stations are equivalent. For example, one bank teller only does business transactions, one nbank machine has US as well as Canadian money, one checkout counter takes different forms of payment. I don't expect this to apply in the typical fast-food environment, though.

--Anonymous, 20:10 UTC, March 23, 2009.

In queuing theory the single queue for multiple servers gives a shorter waiting time for the customers, especially for varying length of service. It saves being stuck behind one very slow service encounter. It has to be easy to move from the queue to the counter, so a supermarket with trolleys is going to have a bit of a slow down. If you have a giant queue, such as at Customs at an airport, it will be more efficient to have one big rat race rather than lots of smaller ones. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

(Unsourced information follows) I was told in the late 80s by a Operational Researcher I knew who claimed to be one of the national experts on queueing theory in Britain that the combined queue was significantly worse than individual queues both for overall throughput and for the counter staff, in both cases because of the accumulated dead time while the next customer notices that there is a position free and walks to it. But at that time more and more shops and services were introducing the system under pressure from customers. --ColinFine (talk) 21:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

It's important to note that the communal queue is only quicker on average than individual queues. I prefer the latter, as I know all about Poisson processes and the likelihood of persons in certain demographics to write a check which they only start digging for after the total has been presented, on the off chance that they'll save the effort should the total for that full cart of grotesque "foods" come out to zero dollars and zero cents, so I can choose a better line than average. Only the below-average shopper will benefit from optimal queuing. --Sean 21:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so far: some interesting thoughts.

Colin, interesting about that 80s researcher. I'd wondered if there was something of that effect, but surely that would only kick in at a high number of counters? Hmmm. Must consider.

Sean, only the below-average shopper benefits from queuing at all; the strong/loud could probably get served quicker if they just strode to the front :P Communal queuing is fair, which I think is the real motivation behind it (and why it tugs at my heart a little when a manager breaks it up). But I expect other motivations than optimal fairness drive managers. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I seem to remember there is a section in Kate Fox's Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour (ISBN 1857885082) addressing the very British habit of forming single queues (Bill Bryson may have also discussed it in Notes from a Small Island). The sociological issue does indeed seem to be one of fairness. If everyone waits in a a single queue, rather than multiple queues, then no one line will move faster than the other and no one person will gain an advantage or disadvantage over another. This appeals to the British sense of fair play. Foreign visitors to the UK are often amazed that this occurs so frequently. It is the exact opposite of many other cultures, where it is expected that one should try and get in the fastest queue even if it means disadvantaging someone else. Rockpocket 02:07, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Is the motivation to avoid inconveniencing others, or to avoid being frustrated by unexpected holdups (which tend to be alleviated by cashiers' taking customers from the *back* of the affected queue rather than the middle)? —Tamfang (talk) 04:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In what conditions will multiple queues be quicker? Or does Sean mean that common queues are quicker only for the average customer? —Tamfang (talk) 04:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Some queues have another factor. I will happily queue in a 'longer' (more people) queue if I can see that they have small amounts of shopping in comparison to the 1 person who has their bi-annual shop of (seemingly) 10,000 things. The single-queue multi-teller system is ok but personally I think it makes things 'look' slower than several queues. Whether that's the case is largely irrelevent to me - I have, on countless ocassions, put-down some trivial item I was going to buy because the queues just looked too big and my impulse-item was, well, just that - an impulse. Ikea is the worst place for this - you go in, see nothing but think "oh wait i'll get some new tumblers" and then you get there with your 4-pack of glasses and are confronted with 100 people all buying 90% of the contents of their new home. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Coming back to the manager-breaking-up-the-queue aspect of this, it doesn't just affect spontaneous communal queueing. In certain stores I am regularly beckoned and hallooed at by some officious uniformed individual, who has decided that I should move from my chosen till to wait at one that they have chosen for me, presumably on the grounds that the new till has no queue, or a shorter queue. However, being sentient like most shoppers, I am able to assess all the available tills myself without help, and - particularly when alone with a large trolleyload - prefer to find one where a previous customer still has his/her shopping on the conveyor awaiting scanning. I can thus unload at my leisure while their shopping is scanned through, rather use an empty till where each item is scanned as I unload it and they all pile up at the far end before I can get down there to start packing. This suits me, is an efficient use of the till with no dead space between customers, and probably also pleases the bloke with two tins of beans who gets to use the empty till I declined. My response to the chivvying manager is therefore "no thanks, I'm fine where I am", no matter how insistent or grumpy they get (and they do). Perhaps spontaneous queuers could stick to their communal guns? Karenjc 22:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

lots of freetime

because i just got expelled till next january i am being homeschooled and find myself with way too much free time..wat constructive things should i do? (example:learn a new launguage) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.124.175 (talk) 17:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Learning an instrument is fun, walking, photography, volunteering. Try to find a hobby that interests you rather than something you'll quickly get bored of. And don't just spend all your time on the internet >_> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 18:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I think learning a language is a good idea. I found the Pimsleur language tapes to be a good way to get started, and doing the lessons can be pretty addictive and the easiest way I've found to learn to speak a language. They are expensive to buy, though, I would recommend trying to find them in a library or a second hand copy. Less scrupulous souls than ourselves might turn to pirated copies... TastyCakes (talk) 18:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Look for cool science experiments on YouTube and do them at home (following safety procedures, safety glasses, adult supervision, yadda yadda. Then film some of your own. Edison (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Perfect timing, if you are in the northern hemisphere, to learn about food. Plant a garden, harvest it, cook what you can and can what you can't, as the saying goes. Through food you can learn about (almost) everything. Plants means botany, obviously, and you can go deeper into the chemistry of photosynthesis and cell biology if you want to. Finding somewhere to garden might lead you to community gardens and allotments and the history and politics of land tenure and ownership. (Who has access to land? Why?) Read The Omnivore's Dilemma and the The 100-Mile Diet. Gardening and cooking are good practical life skills. Can you sell your surplus? That's the essence of entrepreneurship. Learn basic accounting: the seeds cost X and the produce sold for Y so the profit is Z. How much money does your household spend on food? If you were given that budget for a week, could you handle it responsibly, feed everyone healthily, and still have change for ice cream? (Learn how to make ice cream -- great fun!) Go to your nearest farmers' market and talk to the farmers. If it's practical and mutually agreeable, you might want to visit the farms and see what you can learn by helping out there. (Consider WWOOF.) If not, try interviewing the farmers -- say you are looking at life options and what do they like about farming? Volunteer at a soup kitchen: who in your community goes hungry, and why? (That's politics and citizenship.) On a rainy day, read some old novels, looking at how food was portrayed in pre-supermarket times of scarcity and abundance (you might start with Oliver Twist and Little House on the Prairie.) Keep a blog, in good clear lucid English, and let us know about it, if Wikipedia and the RefDesk has helped you. (That's English covered.) Compare how different religions treat feasting and fasting. Interview some people who, for religious or other reasons, have a very different diet from yours (e.g. Muslims who are halal, or animal rights vegans; respectfully find out what their experiences are like. Challenge yourself to eat a previously taboo food. If you have an artistic bent, make music or video or poetry about what you are learning. Gather together a recipe book(let) of what you have learned to cook, month by month, experiments and accidents and all; illustrate it. Have as a goal a great big thanksgiving feast you prepare for the people you care about, to show them what you have learned and achieved with this opportunity outside of school. Have a delicious creative time! BrainyBabe (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you don't want to be seriously behind by next January - you're absolutely going to have to learn everything on the curriculum between now and then. When you're done with that - teach yourself to program your computer maybe? SteveBaker (talk) 01:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Concur with above answers: learn a new skill, one that will not bore you, and one that could prove useful later in life. A new foreign language is a great option! --Ouro (blah blah) 12:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Studying English language, spelling and grammar would not go amiss based on the presentation of your question. Good written English presentation is likely to be useful when seeking employment in later years. Ensure you are thoroughly adept at "Reading, Riting and Rithmetic". -- SGBailey (talk) 17:21, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to be awkward here, what about either learning a musical instrument (electric guitar?) or a sport? Summer's coming after all (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway) and sports clubs operate independently of the school system. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought of a good one last night: read a book that you've always wanted to read but never had time to do it. Make it a large one. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Reg. Col. B.

Does anyone know what Reg. Col. B. stands for? I have seen it used a number of times in reference to British school masters, so i guess it is or was an institution where masters trained, however I have no idea what Reg. Col. B. stands for. Thanks 79.75.160.165 (talk) 19:14, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You might find the following entry from Hansard helpful - http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1902/may/26/class-iv "In the scheme of registration of teachers which had been devised by the Department there were to be two columns—A and B. In column A were to be the names of those teachers who held the certificate of the Board of Education for employment in the public elementary schools, and in column B the names of all other teachers otherwise qualified." Nanonic (talk) 20:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I've taken Nanonic's reply and created Reg. Col. B. How long it will last before being deleted is another question, but it seems a useful page to me. -- SGBailey (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Who is the most prolific author on Wikipedia?

That is, who has written the most 'featured' articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Polymonia (talk • contribs) 23:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

It's difficult to determine who has written any given article, but we have this page: Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. --Tango (talk) 23:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Also not complete, but see User:Durova/Triple crown winner's circle. Its pretty much a self-nominated award, later confirmed by Durova, but there does appear to be a clear favorite for the most DYK + GA + FA winner. I'll let you read it yourself. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't really prove it though - to qualify for the triple - at level 'N' - you have to have at least N DYK's and N GA's. It's perfectly possible (indeed, rather likely) that people have more than N FA's but much, much fewer DYK and GA's. SteveBaker (talk) 01:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

March 24

Reverse Phone Lookup

I know they exist but if you want a full report you need to pay money. Are there any of these sites that offer complete data free? --Melab±1 ☎ 01:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

For what phone network? Algebraist 01:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Multiple phone networks like [1]. --Melab±1 ☎ 00:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Hectare as a measurement of land

When discussing property (as opposed to geography) the common unit for land area in U.S. customary units is the acre. What is the commonly usage term(s) when describing property/land area in the metric system? The acre article indicates that hectare is commonly used and that statement is confirmed by the Hectare article. However, I'm interested to know if meters-squared or kilometers-squared are also commonly used to describe property. The reason I'm asking is that I've noticed that Lightbot (talk · contribs) routinely add metric conversions in articles that contain acre units, but it seems to prefer m² or km² conversions.

This is an informal survey, so anybody who thinks about land in metric feel free to respond. Thank you. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:59, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Hectare is the common unit for the area of agricultural lands. Meters-squared are commonly used for smaller properties. Kilometers squared are used in the case of very large areas like cities. --Omidinist (talk) 04:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

• Also, meters squared are an SI unit and it's common to provide a conversion to a commonly known unit for units people are generally unfamiliar with. Meters are commonly converted to feet and vice verse in articles too to give people with other preferences about units the chance to understand the article.- Mgm|^(talk) 09:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with MacGyver. I've lived in metric my whole life and wouldn't know a hectare if one came over to nibble my bum. I use m² or km², or even square feet when I deal with older folks. Matt Deres (talk) 13:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I've been generally living in metric all my life too, and generally m² or km² seem most natural. Hectares are fine and all, I just get the feeling they were kind of arbitrarily decided on because they're broadly comparable in size to the existing acre unit. Using the SI m² or km² is to be preferred I think, although hectares do seem popular agriculturally. ~ mazca ^t|c 13:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Huh? A hectare is not comparable to an acre: it's about 2.47 acres. And it IS metric: it's the term for 10,000m². Thinking in hectares IS thinking in m²: it's just used for large parcels of land, so you can chop off some of those 0000's. Like using tonne instead of 1,000kg. Gwinva (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Hectares are very much the norm in Canada for agricultural land (though acres are frequently used too). I suspect it's a desire to have a unit of measurement that isn't too different from the acre that used to be used. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:16, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Here in Alberta, I often hear people describe large patches of land in terms of number of sections, which are each a square mile, or quarter sections etc. This is particularly the case in the province's oil industry since most of the leases companies buy are defined by survey numbers using this system. I know this isn't metric, it's a carry over from a system laid out long before metrification in the 1970s, but as with using square feet to describe house areas or pounds to describe weight, it is widely used here. TastyCakes (talk) 14:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget the are used in Indonesia, French-, Portuguese-, Slovakian-, Czech-, Polish-, Dutch- and German-speaking countries—to measure real estate. In Australia we use square meters, but in the past (1960s) it was perches and roods. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

In Germany are is used only in historical documents. They use hectare in agriculture and sq meters [2]/ sq kilometers everywhere else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.97.245.5 (talk) 14:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Do the Aussies use square meters for really large areas of land, such as sheep stations, or is sq km used there? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for all the responses so far. I'd like to pose the question a different way: if you are a resident of the UK, Canada, or Australia (or some other predominantly metric, English speaking country), you look in the real estate section of the Sunday newspaper, and find an advertisement for a new upscale development with spacious lots – would you more likely see the lot size stated as 15,000 square-metres, 1.5 hectares, 160,000 square-feet, or 4 acres? If you saw a farm for sale, would it more likely be listed as 1.5 square-kilometres, 150 hectares, 1,500,000 square-metres, or 375 acres? -- Tcncv (talk) 01:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

In Australia farms and bushfires are measured in hectares, but residential realestate will be in square meters. Internal house sizes may still even now be written as squares an old imperial unit of 100 square feet. FOr a large sheep station they may compare it with the size of a smaller country or state, such as bigger than Belgium or Texas. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

While the largest cattle station is just larger than Belgium, the largest sheep station is only one third that size - and 1/66 the size of Texas. Maybe stations were bigger in the past? Rmhermen (talk) 02:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't speak for agricultural areas, but in Canada, residences and industrial areas are typically measured in square feet these days. I'm 35 and folks even a few years older than me still use imperial measurements almost exclusively for distance and area, so home sellers are wise to use the old ways. As the population changes, that will gradually also change. The folks presiding over companies and stores are often 5-10 years older than me, so it also makes sense for builders and resellers to use imperial. The change there is happening from within, as many designers are my age or younger and design their buildings in mm (yes, mm, not m or cm) and simply convert the drawings to whatever works best for the prospective buyers. Matt Deres (talk) 12:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Here in the UK, people will often use sq feet for the area of apartments, sq yards for the area of their garden, acres for the area of a farm and sq miles for the area of the county. However, the local council and the government agencies will officially record the area of buildings and small plots of land in sq metres, the area of farms in hectares, and larger areas in sq km (often with imperial conversions also shown). Sometimes it's all jumbled up with the planning application saying "the new shopping centre will be 64,000 m² (690,000 sq ft)" and the newspaper reporting the "the new shopping centre will cover 16 acres"; and yet when I've looked for a new apartment I've struggled to find anything telling me how many sq metres it is (this is despite the room dimensions being in both metric and imperial, they only list the floor area in sq feet!). The road to metrication has proven to be long and difficult :-) Astronaut (talk) 13:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

In Alberta (or my part of it, anyway), we generally measure houses in square feet, but I've seen land out in the country described in both acres and hectares. Hectares is more likely to be seen in an official capacity though, whereas acres is more likely in casual conversation. A non-farm property in the country is called an acreage, so that says something right there. Square kilometres I don't really hear for land in the country but I have heard it in the context of the size of a city, or for a park or whatever in a city. Linear distances, though, are almost always in kilometres. (Unless you're old, maybe, but I don't really talk to a lot of middle-aged or older people =P So I almost always hear kilometres.) Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 21:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester

I was wondering if this a joint title or are they two seperate titles. Should the two always be used together ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.79.196 (talk) 11:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

These are separate titles. Cheshire is in England (and Chester is its city). In the past the Earl of Chester held the Welsh border, and in many ways his power matched that of the King.90.0.129.130 (talk) 11:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC)DT

They are separate titles but are traditionally created together. The Earl of Chester is an unusual Earldom in that it isn't hereditary (neither is Prince of Wales) - it ceases to exist if the holder dies. This doesn't usually make any difference because it is given to the heir apparent and when they become monarch the title "merges with the crown" and ceases to exist anyway. It does matter when the Prince of Wales dies before the monarch - the titles have to be recreated for the old Prince's son, rather than being automatically inherited. --Tango (talk) 16:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

lets do this again

it's diet enhances it's defence mechanism. what is it and what is it's defence mechanism. it's a question i need assistance to...first clue is that it's a bird and it oozes out something posonous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.78.238 (talk) 17:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Possibly related to the Hooded Pitohui? --Onorem♠Dil 17:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, yeah. I'd have just told the questioner to google "poisonous bird" (as in, teach a man to fish.) --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Fulmar? --TammyMoet (talk) 18:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd go with fulmars: "Nesting birds and chicks can eject an evil smelling stomach oil up to 2 m, which repels unwanted visitors. It will matt the plumage of avian predators, and can lead to their death." I'm sure there are other answers; e.g. all foods provide energy that a creature can use to defend itself, so it's not a well worded question. There are other animals whose diet enhances their defence mechanism, e.g. poisonous (as opposed to venomous) snakes.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I am going to say a dragon. If it didn't eat fire diamonds it couldn't breath fire. 13:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.121.141.34 (talk)

Was this a riddle? How did you all get to a bird? The first part of the riddle says "It's diet enhances, it's defence mechanism". I was thinking of some kind of dietary supplement which is taken as a defence mechanism...? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

"How did you all get to a bird"? Well, it's usually best, when considering answers to Reference Desk questions, to read the entire question. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Could be a vulture, they puke on enemies and their rancid meat diet probably makes the defense more effective. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 16:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Italian parliament

--Domyinik (talk) 19:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)First at all, hello everyone. I am an Italian wikipedian. For case, I went to the english article about our country, Italy of course. In the right of the page, there is a useful chart (I don't know if it is the right meaning of our word "tabella"). In this chart, you can see a wrong thing: you have writed (I know it is irregular, simply I don't remeber the past :( ) that we italians have got an upper parliament chamber and a lower one, respectively Senato and Camera dei Deputati. WRONG! In Italy there is the perfect bicameralism. In fact, any room has more powerful than the other. You can easly see it watching our page about "Bicameralismo Perfetto" (see in Italian Wikipedia). I have already done an insertion in discussion page, but no one has listened to me. What I have to do? Thank you for answer. Oh, and, by the way, may you tell me if my english seems good?

Your English is understandable, which is good enough for me! (We call those charts "infoboxes", but that's just on Wikipedia, I guess the English for "tabella" would be "table". The past tense for "write" is "written".) You seem to have removed your comment from the discussion page - I suggest you put it back, someone may take a while to respond, but hopefully they will eventually (maybe sooner now you've mentioned it here). It's always good if you can provide a reference - something in English ideally, although it's not strictly necessary (perhaps the Italian Wikipedia article has some good references?). It is a little difficult to fix, actually, because the infobox template assumes there is an upper and lower house - someone will have to edit the template... --Tango (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

(E/CThe "tabella" uses an infobox system that doesn't really allow for two equal houses. You're right that they are considered equal; but this slight inaccuracy doesn't really change much as far as viewers of Italy go (they can always click the links). Someone else can play around with not using the upper_ and lower_house parameters if they want under WP:BB. Your English is pretty understandable, about normal for a second language. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind answers. Now, I will put again my insertion on the discussion page. --Domyinik (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Game Maker Help!!!

Moved to computing desk

British improv game show/trains.

I probably read about this on WP at some point. Perhaps a radio program, that was a mock game show and asked questions about getting from one train station to another, but all the responses were made up.

I'm sure my memory isn't totally correct. Like it was a segment on a show? 205.206.170.1 (talk) 19:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that this is what you're looking for. A hilarious regular segment of the excellent show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, whose presenter sadly died recently... anyone know what's going to happen with it, btw? ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 20:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! :) 205.206.170.1 (talk) 20:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's some information about future programmes, [3] Thank God, I can't imagine Radio 4 without ISIHAC, but there will never be a replacement for Humph and his 'naivety'. Richard Avery (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - this sounds a lot like Mornington Crescent. The main objective of the game is to be the the first player to say "Mornington Crescent"...unless there is an objection on the grounds of elliptical shunting...which there often will be if the huffing rule has been waived - but that rule has been widely misinterpreted since the 1948 World Series fell into disarray following a debatable reverse-play call by the Polish team following a cryptic move to Earls Court via Bank (I think it was Bank...can anyone confirm that?). Anyway - so long as you reach MC by the Northern parallel, you'll score double points under-the-line. Of course if we're talking about the Dollis Hill rule - then all bets are off...well - except for bets made in the currency of the previous year's World Series - which brings us full circle to the Earls Court/Bank debacle of '48. You see how that all works out? SteveBaker (talk) 03:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't Bank, it was Monument, and as the travolator had yet to be constructed the connection between the drain and the District Line was held to be in nip. Of course everyone was playing MacTaggart's interpretation in those days which tended to bring the whole game to a grinding halt - and usually between Liverpool Street and Bromley-by-Bow. Sam Blacketer (talk) 09:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The above is a dab link; the direct one is Mornington Crescent (game). You may also care to read about the BBC Radio 4 presenter Humphrey Littleton, who recently died, and British humour, which nonetheless continues. A quick search will show you there are many versions of the MC rules, but my favourite is Ciphergoth's "There are no rules". BrainyBabe (talk) 07:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There is something deeply appropriate about Mornington Crescent being a dab link. What BrainyBabe has neglected to consider is the play in last year's eastern European regional trials of the Wikipedia-variant rules. In a pivotal game - with all of the Jubilee line open above the bar - an inexperienced player from the youthful Estonian FaceBook team attempted to volley across the Georgian Baker Street play - using Green Park then Victoria(!!!) (yes, crazy - I know) and thought thereby to slide a homer into "Mornington Crescent" - he delivers the two fateful words and walks away from the table to cheers from his teammates, thinking he's sealed the championship. But then...the crusty Georgian team-captain merely coughs politely and calmly - at barely more than a whisper - delivers the classic retort: "Mornington Crescent (street)" - and the crowd goes wild! The Estonians were forced to slink home in disgrace - shaking their heads, muttering ", "...Ah - certainly Mornington Crescent at it's best. SteveBaker (talk) 01:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You'd be better off checking out Humphrey Lyttleton - the Littleton guy seems to have been less popular than the late sainted Humph (and probably less fun at parties). Karenjc 19:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Karenjc! I blush in shame! I see that Samantha is beckoning me towards a strategically placed cupboard, where I shall retire to get out of the limelight. Do knock before you open the door. BrainyBabe (talk) 01:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

"Rabab"/Rubab

were can i find a "rabab" on the web for $200 or less? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.124.175 (talk) 20:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Rhubarb? To grow your own, e.g. here [4]. In a jar try [5] Otherwise try the frozen section at your local farmer's market for a bag of cut stalks or here[6]. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 23:03, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Rebab right? A google search found 3 places selling them for less than US$60. Don't know where you are but eBay might not be a bad idea. 161.222.160.8 (talk) 23:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Or a rubab is something different again.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

What is the standard United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance unit comprised of?

What is the standard United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance unit comprised of?

Specifically, when a recon team is deployed behind enemy lines what is the usual amount of people in any one team and what is the command structure in such a team?

Also what would one expect a team to copnsist of, i.e. mainly privates with a captain or lieutenant as a leader?

What would this team be known as e.g. a squad/unit or fireteam?

Thank you very much 86.168.186.53 (talk) 21:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Article on everything man, everything. Check out United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance 161.222.160.8 (talk) 23:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

grumble comprise is not a fancy synonym for compose grumble grumble —Tamfang (talk) 21:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

USA World Champions??

Haha! I just can't help laughing. If USA is so "good" at certain sports such as baseball, basketball and hockey (and call themselves World Champions in their own country) - why can't they win things like 2009 World Baseball Classic and numerous other Olympics and World Championship events? Sandman30s (talk) 21:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

You probably want to read this part of the World Series article. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:18, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

You probably also want to read the Ref Desk header: "The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions... Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead." There may be an interesting query somewhere there - in fact, we are already talking about the World Baseball Classic over here - but starting your question with "Haha!" isn't really the best wat to find it. - Eron^Talk 22:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec)There is a dicussion elsewhere on the desks that will address why the US does not perform well at the WBC, same argumnets apply to the Olympics. For basketball I refer you to Olympic_basketball#Medal_table. For hockey... who ever said Americans were good at hockey? The best just come to play here because the National Hockey League is where the highest level of competition has been. Oh, almost forgot, All-time Olympic Games medal table. 161.222.160.8 (talk) 22:51, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, US athletes were punished by Olympic rules that prohibited professional athletes from competing, as more athletes in the US were disqualified as "professionals" than in just about any other country. StuRat (talk) 23:33, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The World Baseball Classic doesn't really sample the best baseball players from the US (though it does from most of the other participating countries). This is because Major League franchises that have their star players on $100 million contracts are hardly going to offer them up to play during spring training, and the players themselves are rarely willing to risk the contracts by forcing the issue. If the US team coach really had the freedom to select who he wanted, then its likely that the US would win. Rockpocket 01:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely this applies to all the other countries whose best players play in the US Major League? Algebraist 01:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't apply to Japan and Korea, by and large, as those countries have very strict contracts which prevent their players from moving to the Major Leagues until many years into their careers, possibly beyond their prime. That's why you never see 24 year old Japanese players in the MLB. It does apply, of course, to Latin countries like the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico (okay, not a separate country exactly, but treated as such in the WBC), and there's no way to know whether the US is really better than the Dominicans when they play each other in the WBC because of all the players that don't participate. Here's an interesting link along those lines - which show, by the way, that even if the best players did play, the US would still probably not win - except instead of losing to Asian countries, they'd lose to Latin countries. There are scads of amazing players from Latin America who didn't play in the WBC - just start with Albert Pujols, probably the best player in the majors today. zafiroblue05 | Talk 05:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks for the links ;) And to the person who posted the Olympics medals table - that was not what I was asking... Sandman30s (talk) 09:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't what you were asking, but your assumption that the US doesn't "win things like...numerous other Olympics" is wrong, and that poster added the table to show you that. StuRat (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

March 25

Very, very, very simple English.

I had cause today to dig out some pages from our sister site at the Simplified English Wikipedia (http://simple.wikipedia.org). I'm struck by what seems to be an excessive use of the word 'very'. Take, for example, the introduction to: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper - which is one of their "Very Good Articles"...

"A sniper is a person who has been given special training with sniper rifles, a special type of gun. Snipers are able to shoot at targets which are very far away, or are very small, and hit them accurately when looking through a sniper scope. They are also especially trained to be stealthy. Snipers are hard for the enemy to see when they are hidden or using camouflage.

Experienced hunters often share many of the skills that snipers need to know. The two jobs are very similar. The word "sniper" came from hunting "snipe" - birds that were very hard to see and shoot."

I thought at first that it was just this article - but it seems widespread throughout simple-English Wikipedia - and in any case, this is was a front-page featured article! So it should be amongst the best they have to offer. If you had that much redundancy in a regular-English WP:FAC - you'd get ripped to shreds by the reviewers!

Is this some kind of deliberate part of simplified English? I fail to see what it achieves since deleting the word "very" seldom makes any difference whatever to the meaning of a sentence - and one of the stated goals of Simple English is to have shorter sentences.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

They want to only use words which everyone knows, which is sure to lead to some repetition, but they could just omit the word, as you suggest, in many cases. There's also another reason to be repetitive, when talking to children, as it helps them to learn those words. I'm not sure if that applies here, though, as I picture the Simplified English Wikipedia aiming at a slightly higher level of English proficiency than this. BTW, I'm curious, why post this here instead of over there ? StuRat (talk) 04:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Then there's Mark Twain's advice (paraphrased): "Whenever you're tempted to use the word 'very', substitute the word 'damn' instead, as in 'damn big', 'damn small', and 'damn pretty'. In the end, your editor will take all those obscenities out, and all will be as it should have been all along.". StuRat (talk) 05:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Mark Twain had the option of using a better word. (But, I'm not disagreeing that there are too many 'very's in that intro. The last two don't seem to contribute anything.) APL (talk) 13:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Their writing guide suggests starting with the Basic English list of 850 words. --JGGardiner (talk) 05:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I would argue the first two uses of very are necessary, the third less and fourth less so. I think one of the problems is the text aims to be simple and therefore there is a need to compensate for the simple words which may not convey your meaning very well and words like very which give emphasis help, but this may have also resulted in an overcompensation. To use an example if you were writing the above in the normal wikipedia you might write "are tiny or at a great distance" and no one would suggest you change it to "are far away, or are small" Nil Einne (talk) 11:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The word "very" is an integral part of the spoken (colloquial) English; however, in scientific writing, the word "very" is to be avoided. Indeed, it provides no additional information. Statements "Target is located far away" and "target is located very far away" convey the same information exactly. "Target is located 800 m away" would be much better. The beginning of the "accuracy" section in the http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper article is excellent: "Most soldiers get training so that they can shoot a target that is 200 metres (656 ft) to 300 metres (984 ft) away and hit it half of the time.[3] Very well trained soldiers, such as the U.S. Marine Corps, can hit a target that is 400 metres (1,312 ft) to 500 metres (1,640 ft) away half of the time.[9] But a sniper is trained to be able to hit a target over 800 metres (2,625 ft) away almost every single time.[10][11]" - that is a proper writing style for conveying factual information (except for "but" which should have been replaced by "however", and "almost every single time" by "in most trials"). Also, "metre" is UK English; US English is "meter". --Dr Dima (talk) 18:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a big difference between "almost every" and "most" (but the word "single" is redundant). --Tango (talk) 18:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

How big? --Dr Dima (talk) 19:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

"Most" means "more than 50%", "almost every" is a little less precise, but I'd say 90% is an absolute minimum, 95% or even 99% is more likely. --Tango (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

At least 25 differenciters. Just because you cannot translate the concepts of connotation, context, approximation, emphasis, etc. into scientific values doesn't mean that they do not exist. Numbers are good in their place, but a paper containing only numbers isn't a paper, scientific or otherwise (we call that "data" instead). – 74  00:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

And 'time' is better than 'trial' for simple.wikipedia, I think. Algebraist 18:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Or "try" (or "time they try" is probably better English). --Tango (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

A very large number of scholarly sources disagree with your statement that "very" should be avoided in scientific writing. – 74  00:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Simple English is more like Simple English for 5 year olds. Instead of being clear, it is condescending. It is an entirely awful endeavor as far as I can tell. It is one thing to encourage straightforward writing that uses only basic grammar and diction, it is something else to write as if everyone has suffered a recent concussion. They also seem to eschew the basic Wiki principle of letting people drill down for more information. Don't know what a "rifle" is? Let them click it! Telling them it is a "special kind of gun" conveys almost no additional information. --140.247.240.69 (talk) 19:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I'm not a particularly strong French speaker, and I certainly wouldn't recognise the word fusil. On the other hand, I do understand Un fusil est un type particulier d'arme, which helps my understanding considerably. I do agree though that specifics are essential, not least because 200m 'translates' well for Western language speakers. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I consider myself quite advanced in English (I could have gone off with terms like prolific, adept, verbose, have a high vocabulary, astute, well-read, well-spoken, etc etc -- but suffice it to say usually my reading skills are better than my writing -- and I imagine my skills aren't that competitive here where many people have degrees in English), and my English skills are probably in the top 5 percentile of my peers ^{again, notwithstanding Wikipedia}. I have an above-average IQ and I am a software developer by profession. And Yet ^{I begin sentences with And}, I still occasionally refer to simple.wikipedia.org - in part because some Wikipedia articles are too complex, don't explain things properly, or simply require too much prior knowledge to digest - especially mathematics and physics articles. Granted, the Simple wikipedia lacks many articles that we have here, yet it remains an invaluable a very important enyclopedia. ^{Go ahead and nitpick my post for English errors, I don't care anymore...} Rfwoolf (talk) 16:36, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a hyphen in 'nit-pick'? ;-) Dmcq (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Pedants' Picnic. Seems you added "And" to the start of the sentence as an afterthought, or to make a point, because you forgot to decapitalise "Yet".  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:06, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

NTSC DVD playable in European movie theatre?

I'm organising a screening of short-films at a small local theatre for my student association. They have the capacity to display movies that are played from a DVD. The location is Netherlands, Europe but one of the DVDs is coming from the USA and is in NTSC format. Is it likely that the proffesional equipment of a movie theatre can deal with this sort of thing? Would they need to flip a switch or would it work automatically? ----Seans Potato Business 17:44, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It's likely but not certain. I suggest you really need to direct this enquiry at them. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Not only do you have to worry about NTSC v. PAL, but also the DVD region code. You should ask the theatre; they might provide the DVD model so you could look up the specifications. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Most newer DVD players can handle different formats. Some machines require you to change a setting or switch. DVD region code bypassing is also now common and legal in most sensible countries. To be sure, you should just try it on the machine beforehand. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

DWI Insurance increase.

My friend recently got pulled over in my car. She was driving I was the passenger and we were both drunk. She got arrested for DWI and my car got towed. My question is in the State of Minnesota is my insurance going to go up? Or hers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.226.154.193 (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Both, probably. I can't speak for how things work in Minnesota, but insurers generally frown on this type of stuff. Tomdobb (talk) 19:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You've shown you have poor judgement in deciding who to allow to drive your car. That will probably increase your premiums. --Tango (talk) 21:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, if this was the UK, to my knowledge there would be no impact on cost of your policy. The offence attaches to the driver (her) not the car or to you. If the police are not taking you to court, I'm not sure I see where the impact on insurance would be. But maybe it's different in the US? --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe Tagishsimon is wrong. Here in the UK the passenger can be fined and get penalty points on their license for "aiding, abetting, or permitting" the driver to drive under the influence. UK insurance companies then look at those penalty points when deciding what premium to charge you. Astronaut (talk) 03:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point. The car was towed by the police, not damaged in an accident, so there is nothing connecting the offence to the car. I was thinking about someone crashing your car while they were drunk, which isn't what the OP is talking about. Sorry! --Tango (talk) 23:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Your insurance company will have no idea your car was impounded, and even if they did they wouldn't know why. Your friend's premium will go up if the insurer obtains her driving record at the next renewal. 161.222.160.8 (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I concur with 161. Unless you were cited for an open intoxicant or a similar violation, your presence in the car actually has no bearing on the situation. Your friend is the driver and she is solely responsible for the operation of the vehicle. Your judgment in allowing her to drive the car is irrelevant. (And candidly, that judgment was probably as best it could be under the circumstances, in that YOU didn't drive). Note: I am a licensed agent in Wisconsin and my current job handles insurance in 43 states throughout the country. My employer would never surcharge your policy in the absence of a violation or an accident in which you were not the operator. This is one area in which industry underwriting guidelines are fairly standard (i.e. underwriting action follows the driver, not the vehicle). Even if your friend had crashed the car, for MOST companies, your rates would not be affected, as you were not the operator.Brewfangrb (talk) 08:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The judgement was best as it could be? The best judgement would have been to call a cab and leave the car behind or a dial a driver (or someone else who wasn't intoxicated) to drive you home. Letting your friend drive drunk with your car is extremely irresposible and extremely selfish (not just for your friend but for the other innocent people who could have been killed by your friend). Getting in to the car with a drunk driver is just plain stupid. And being drunk is not an excuse. If you are unable to make the right decisions when intoxicated to such a level, then I suggest you don't allow yourself to get intoxicated to such a level. I question whether even letting your friend drive instead of you is a smart decision. The only advantage is your less likely to get in trouble with the law and you'll have less on your conscience if the car crashes and kills someone. The disadvantage is perhaps the fine or whatever you would have got is enough to make you wake up and discourage you from doing something so stupid again (which is selfish since you're depriving your friend of that but still) Nil Einne (talk) 06:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Nil. Just looking for an answer to the question not a lecture on the situation. We know it was stupid obviously.

Help Please

How do you put pictures on your user page? <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 19:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Have a look here[7] and see if it helps. Richard Avery (talk) 20:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Be careful about this, however (copied from WP:UP):

Do not include non-free images (copyrighted images lacking a free content license) on your user page or on any subpage thereof (this is official policy and the usual wide user page latitude does not apply, see Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria for details). Non-free images found on a user page (including user talk pages) will be removed (preferably by replacing it with a link to the image) from that page without warning (and, if not used in a Wikipedia article, deleted entirely). There is broad consensus that you should not have any image on your userpage that would bring the project into disrepute (per Jimbo Wales), and you may be asked to remove such images.

~EdGl ★ 00:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

And do remember that Wikipedia isn't like MySpace or FaceBook: playing around with your userpage is fine, but try not to make that sort of thing all you do! There's lots of stuff to be written, formatted and improved in the encyclopedia, which is fun too.

Oh, and consider this the obligatory "careful what personal stuff you put online" warning. Basically, particularly at your age, don't put any personal pictures or details up. I'm sure you knew that, but the gods of the internet make me say it :P 79.66.127.79 (talk) 01:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I know it's not Facebook. I just saw some people had pictures on their pages and I was wondering how they did it, was all. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 21:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you're very responsible, it's more that someone had to give the generic messages and I volunteered myself! Enjoy playing around; setting up things on your userpage is good practice for setting up things in the encyclopedia. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 22:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Why are stores still selling Pentiums?

Why are tech stores such as BestBuy still selling Intel Pentium machines? Were those not superseeded by Intel's Core line of processors years ago? Acceptable (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Pentium D only finished production last August. As there is now a replacement chip for all its market niches (either a Core2 or a Xeon) I'd expect anyone left with a stock of Pentium D systems will be selling them off at a discount to clear. Dog Day Today (talk) 21:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• Not everyone is interested in getting the latest most expensive machines. Why make something obsolete if people still want to buy it? Companies like Microsoft do things wrong. Rush Windows Vista, find out it's flawed then release a new operating system. I'll be waiting until they've perfected it (and until there is an affordable machine to run it on) - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 22:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

It reminds me of how Walmart kept selling vcr cassettes until a few years ago (maybe they still do?), despite it seeming like the DVD had killed the medium. I guess the question is whether the Pentium machines you saw are still being made by Intel or if they're clearing out old stock. I think a lot of people still hold a lot of faith in the pentium brand, perhaps they are not sure they want to kill it off just yet, especially if they can churn out the chips at low prices. TastyCakes (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Pentium Dual Cores are alive and well, and actually great performers for the price. They are only Pentiums in brand, not in architecture (they're based off of Core 2). Intel has probably stopped making Pentium Ds a while ago, since it's probably cheaper to make newer, faster chips with smaller manufacturing processes. 24.6.46.177 (talk) 03:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The Pentium brand name is now used in the place the Celeron brand name was. As mentioned above they are modern chips based off the Core micro architecture.204.16.236.254 (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Manga

Has anyone ever heard of a manga series called "He Is My Master"? <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 21:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't. But we have an article on it He Is My Master --JGGardiner (talk) 22:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

How can a lonesome fella like me find a BOYFRIEND-FREE Girl?

Try going 2 places and just talking 2 girls. REMEMBER the most confident and disinterested looking girl may also be the lonelyest and just coming off/seeming that way. ^_- ( I should know this stuff I am a girl, talking from the heart)

I needed to attract a BOYFRIEND-FREE Girl, by any means necessary, with limited resources. I was afraid to even say Hi to any girl, so I made a simple sign that stated, "I am a (my age then)-Year Old, Single Male, seeking an 18-(my age then)-Year Old, Single Female Companion." I had the sign placed next to me, with an arrow pointing at me, and of course, I stood, or sat, next to the sign. Not only was I not able to attract any girls, but some Bullies (Men and Old Woman) did not approve my method of attraction. Also, I feel that they perceived me as a sweet, weak person, which I was then, but I am much, much saltier now.--Pie merchant (talk) 22:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Try a dating agency. Or a Personal advertisement in a newspaper. --Tango (talk) 23:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Dating agency? Newspaper? Contemporize, man! Here in the future we use online dating services and classified sites like Craigslist. Tomdobb (talk) 23:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Depends what you intend to do with her. Kittybrewster ☎ 00:40, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Sign up for a class in flower arrangement, macramé, embroidery, or some other pursuit favored by people of the female persuasion. Alternatively, ask your barber to make you look like Johnny Depp. Better, get yourself to look like Johnny Depp and then take a class in flower arrangement or whatever. -- Hoary (talk) 00:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I've never really understood why he's thought to be really good looking by women, or at least supposedly is.--Pie merchant (talk) 01:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Go to lots of parties and talk to lots of people?? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Go to funerals for young men. I find that the young woman who cries the most is usually available. :-) StuRat (talk) 05:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Get a life. I've found that it's great to just become an interesting person with a fun hobby. I like photography and travel, I hitch-hiked, and to top it off I shaved my head, and that was a great combination. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

And it's true, you don't really need to be handsome. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, right. You need to be confident while talking to girls. Remember that girls are also looking for guys all the time and girls like confident guys. Get a hobby like some musical instrument, dancing, swimming (Swimming Pool can be a great place to start casual chat, sometimes better than bars and parties, but it would be helpful to check out your shape first). Take part in activities involving both sexes. Talk to lots of people (including guys). According to my experience, girls prefer guys with better social outreach, in terms of friends and contacts etc, but this is nothing strict. Go to parties or clubs. Being handsome although is a bonus, but it is not the only deciding factor. At the end, be sensible, interesting person and act smart (not over the top, be natural). I would recommend to try out the girls whom you see in your real life rather than trying out the social networking sites or online dating sites. It is better in terms of getting experience and having fun (and it works). You might get one or two rejections but not always. Eventually you will get a girl too. Good Luck. - DSachan (talk) 08:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's worth adding that these "boyfriend-UNFREE" girls don'y stay that way for life - they eventually break up, or find someone better. You need to therefore be around these people so that a) you can steal them away from their boyfriends, and b) when the boyfriend gets stolen away by a girl you'll be there to take his now single ex-girlfriend. Bottom line is, to get a girlfriend, you need to be around people. Rfwoolf (talk) 18:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You may wish to check out Rebound (dating) before following that advice too closely! (There are also moral issues involved with trying to break up relationships...) --Tango (talk) 18:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Get off the internet. awesome70.54.192.144 (talk) 09:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Logic problem

May be on the wrong desk.

• I have a precious thing which I want to send to Toby. I have the perfect box for the job. It is the only lockable box I have. To fasten it, there is a big strong locking ring to which I can attach padlocks. I have a padlock that fits it perfectly. Toby does not have a key to my padlock. I have only one key and am not prepared to send it to Toby or to get it copied. How can I securely get the thing to Toby using my box and padlock? Kittybrewster ☎ 23:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Put the thing in the box, then padlock it. Keeping the key post the box to toby. Toby buys a padlock of his own, attached that padlock too. Keeping his key, he posts the box back to you. You unlock your padlock and remove it, leaving Toby's (and so the box is still secure). Then you post the box back to Toby again, and on receipt he unlocks his padlock and retrieves the thing. Dog Day Today (talk) 23:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the essence of the Three-pass protocol. Algebraist 23:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Would not the Three-pass protocol article protocol benefit from the excellent lay-person's explanation above? --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:35, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably. It's currently sitting at Public-key cryptography#A postal analogy for some reason. Algebraist 23:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This relies on the ring being able to accommodate multiple locks concurrently; such a scheme allows order independent addition and removal of locks, as in the above case (a logical AND function); if you can chain one padlock with another that builds an order independent OR function. If you can have boxes within boxes (where inner boxes can't be touched unless the outer one is unlocked) than you get order dependent operation. Combining these allows you to do all kinds of fun things, wherein the arrangement of locks and boxes (and to whom you give which keys) lets you control the grouping and order of people that can do things: you can make people cooperate, do operations in order, or agree (or veto) things. Dog Day Today (talk) 23:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I like it. Now all the postman can do is steal the box and smash it open. Kittybrewster ☎ 23:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There is the risk of a man in the middle attack, whereby the postman never gives the box to Toby, but returns it to you with the postman's lock on it. You really need a "secure side channel"- e.g. Toby confirms by phone when he receives the box the first time, and if you receive the box back and Toby hasn't received it, then that can't be Toby's lock. Dog Day Today (talk) 00:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As long as you have that secure channel, you can discourage the postman. Buy 20 (airtight) boxes, 20 locks and keys, and 19 fragile vials of flesh eating bacteria. Number each box, and put the precious thing in one box and the bacteria in all the others. On each write a note to the effect that there is a 95% chance that this box contains flesh eating bacteria. Then do the above 3-part exchange with Toby as before. When he receives the boxes the 2nd time, you tell him which is safe (over the secure channel) and he can open it safely. The dishonest postman has to guess, and he has a 95% chance of guessing wrong and being flesh-eaten. Dog Day Today (talk) 00:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I like it. Where do I get the vials? Kittybrewster ☎ 00:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

From Google, naturally. A nice feature of the methods Dog Day Today outlines is that the 'secure side channel' doesn't actually have to be secure against the postman listening in, just against him tampering with the messages (i.e. sending a fake message from Toby saying he's received the box, or a fake message to Toby to make him open the wrong box and get bacteriaed). Algebraist 00:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The three pass approach seems unnecessarily complicated. Why can't the guy simply ship his padlock to you (in an open state) - you lock it onto the box and ship box and padlock back to your friend who has the key and unlocks it. Your padlock is superfluous - there is no question of whether both padlocks will fit onto the hasp - and you only have to risk shipping the precious thing once instead of three times. You might argue that I'm violating the terms of the question (which says that the thing must be shipped "using my box and padlock") - but the third step in the previously suggested solution also requires the third shipping of the box to be done without your padlock. SteveBaker (talk) 01:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Which would be the analogy for Public-key cryptography, if I'm not mistaken. Under that protocol the receiver sends the sender a method of encrypting the data (locking the padlock) in such a way that it can only be opened by the receiver's key. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, SteveBaker's idea is MUCH better, in my opinion. My question is how does either of these methods prevent the postal carrier (or any other man-in-the-middle who may intercept the box) from cutting the lock or stealing the box outright? Presumably, locking the box is simply a theft-deterrent, no? Regardless of the effort taken to secure the box from being opened, it's impossible to ensure it arrives safely and unmolested--aside from physically taking the box to Toby yourself.Brewfangrb (talk) 08:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the point of these postal stories is to be analogous to secure communication protocols, you have to assume that reliable encryption is possible, which is equivalent to the padlock being unbreakable. --Sean 12:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Note that the postal carrier can easily subvert either of these protocols by a man-in-the-middle attack. In the case of the public-key protocol (SteveBaker's) he just replaces the shipped lock with a different one to which he has the key. He can then walk away with the contents of the box or ship it onward to Toby (using Toby's lock, which he retains) after examining and possibly altering the contents. In the case of the three-pass protocol he plays the role of the recipient using his own lock, then (if he wants to send it onward to Toby) plays the role of the sender with Toby. The three-pass protocol is a little more secure against this because there are extra ordering constraints. If Toby can communicate with you by telephone he might complain about not getting the box after you've completed the exchange with the postal carrier and before the postal carrier has started the exchange with Toby. That can't be dismissed as a mere delay in the mail. Or, if you ask Toby to send a handwritten note with his shipment and you know what his handwriting looks like, the postal carrier can't complete the protocol with you without forging the note. -- BenRG (talk) 13:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

If the mailman can't be trusted, couldn't he just steal the package and saw it open in his own good time ? StuRat (talk) 15:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. As was noted, you have to assume that reliable encryption is possible. See anything from Brute force attack to Quantum cryptography for aspects of the state of the art in box making & breaking. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As much $ as you are going to spend on your vials of bacteria and shipping 20 boxes, possible several times wouldn't it be cheaper to just deliver it personally? This seems like spending $3million on a pen that will work in 0g instead of using a pencil. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 16:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to read Space Pen#Uses in the U.S. and Russian space programs before your next use of the pen/pencil analogy. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, perhaps the $3million is an exaggeration, but I will guarantee you that those pens cost more then a pencil, so the general idea still holds true. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 19:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(Sidetrack, sorry.) NASA buys the pens at the same list-price that they're available to the general public for. (Now under $50, I think.) The development was paid for by the owner of the Fisher pen company. It's a good thing, too. Standard pens from that era didn't work well in zero-g, and pencils were considered too dangerous for use (pencil shavings can screw up equipment in zero-g), so the astronauts were using carpenters' wax pencils, which are pretty much worthless. APL (talk) 01:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Plus, using a graphite-based pen in zero-g would be a stupid thing to do. The graphite dust from the pencil would drift through the air and end up getting stuck in some small niche - such as inside a critical switch or something. Graphite is really conductive - so the danger of shorting something out would be a grave risk. Things that create conductive dust of any kind have to be studiously avoided. So these 'pencils' were actually 'grease pencils' that have non-conductive waxy cores and are wrapped in paper that you can progressively peel back to avoid creating wood shavings when you sharpen them...and both the Russians AND the Americans used them. However, if you've ever tried writing with a grease pencil - you'll appreciate the strong desire to use a ballpoint pen! So the story is definitely apochryphal. No, nobody used graphite pencils, no, the Russians weren't super smart - both groups used grease pencils - no, the Americans in NASA didn't spend any significant money on developing a zero-g pen - they paid $50 each. However, it is true that during that first US/Russian linkup in space, the HP pocket calculators that the Americans had with them each had more computing power than the entire Russian spacecraft - which used paper tape sequencers to time things like launch and re-entry timing. There are other similar stories - the $400 hammer for example. This one is true - but consider that the hammer had to be tested over huge temperature ranges - it has interchangeable weights on the head so that the astronaut can carefully control the amount of force being applied - the grip is specially shaped to fit that bulky space-glove and it has to have a tether attachment point. It also has to be stowed in a special case so it doesn't bounce around inside the spacecraft during launch and reentry. I think $400 is cheap considering all of those issues (especially when you consider the cost to get the darned thing into orbit probably exceeds it's cost). SteveBaker (talk) 03:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I know this is probably a hypothetical situation, but here's a more true-life answer: Firstly Toby can cut the lock open. Secondly, the padlocks are usually off-the-shelf types that can be replaced -- all you need to do is tell Toby which padlock or key number to purchase and he/she will be able to open the box upon arrival. Also the box itself might could probably be pried open using a crowbar - depending on whether it needs to remain intact. Also the postal service might xray it to determine its contents which might pose a security risk -- a courier service might be the best option, although they too might xray it, but certain couriers may have a solution for this Rfwoolf (talk) 16:16, 26 March 2009 (UTC).

OK - so first take two quantum entangled padlocks....

:-) SteveBaker (talk) 04:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Use a combination lock, and tell Toby the number by phone. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That is the basic concept of symmetric-key (as opposed to public-key) cryptography. It has the weakness that it requires a trusted channel for key exchange: how do we know that the mailman (who we don't trust with our mail) is not also tapping our phone? Algebraist 08:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesnt matter if you are never using the padlock again. Livewireo (talk) 13:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This right here is why I love the RefDesk. Extra-terrestrial tangents, quantum entanglements, and all. Plasticup ^T/C 18:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - that and that such a question is neatly sandwiched between "I'm pathetic...how do I get a girlfriend?" and a "666 is the number of the beast" question. SteveBaker (talk) 03:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

March 26

whats with the number 666 ??

whats up with the number 666 and the obsession of new kids (especially into metal)to get themselves tattoed with 666 and getting their bands named with a name that has the numbers 666 in some or the other way??? i am the lead guitarist for krodos - my band and i dont have 167 tattoes of the numbe rof the beast on my flesh??? Whats the point? if i am able to play good with a civilized dressing sense and my audience like it, why should i dress like a wannabe? just wanted to pass this message

B E Y O U R S E L F  ! ! ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 6zo6dy6 (talk • contribs) 13:24, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Might be something to do with Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

wo!!!!!! that was something hexa what???? it has a phobia as well???

how can you be scared of a 3 digit number and like it at the same time????

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 6zo6dy6 (talk • contribs) 13:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

They like it because others fear it. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

yeah. may be.

but whatever man, the number of the beast (maiden's song) rox!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 6zo6dy6 (talk • contribs) 13:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. You've found yourself on the reference desks, which is a place for people to ask questions and hopefully get informed, referenced answers. We also work to improve the encyclopedia. It looks like you've mistaken this area for a forum, where you can pass on messages and start general conversations. If you want to generally chat or pass on messages about life, you would do better to find yourself a message board or forum. For example, here is a Google search for metal forums. You might also be interested in Number_of_the_Beast. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 13:36, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The irony here is that 666 is probably a mistranslation - I forget what the modern interpretation of "the number of the beast" is - but I'm pretty sure it's not 666. SteveBaker (talk) 03:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

616 (number) --TammyMoet (talk) 09:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

See Number of the Beast. One theory is that it's an allusion to a Roman Emperor, possibly Nero. Decide for yourself how likely that is. --Dweller (talk) 12:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

everything is cool but what is with naming bands with 666??? just to look cool??

let me tell you, that is not at all cool ! thegame (talk) 13:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Heavy metal covers both a musical genre and a subculture of metalheads. One of the key 'things' about the subculture is non-conformity with the mainstream culture, which includes religion. Metal also tends to concern itself with death, fantasy, apocalypse, demonic beasts, etc. 666 is just part of that. You can, of course, enjoy the music without being part of the subculture, but those who are part of the subculture can be expected to find 'cool' what their subculture finds 'cool'. Just as you do. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

So to be a nonconformist - you all have to name your bands with 666 in the title? That's really conforming to a non-conformist ethic - which is a conformity in my book! SteveBaker (talk)

"...non-conformity with the mainstream culture", as I said. Every subculture conforms with its own culture: that's what makes it a culture. 79.66.98.109 (talk) 12:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Music

Mozart and Batehoven aren't copyright anymore are they? Where can I download all the mp3s of these musicians please? Links would be extra nice 79.75.188.83 (talk) 18:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Their music itself isn't in copyright, but the recorded performances of that music can still be under copyright of the artist or artists who made the recording. Similarly, published arrangements of the music may be in copyright held by the publisher or arranger. - Eron^Talk 18:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC)You are confusing copyright (which attaches to the music score) with performing rights, which attach to the performance. The latter - your MP3s - may well be available in many cases only on commercial terms. HOwever you could do worse that check out the wikipedia comons, which has Mozart MP3s and Ludwig MP3s. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Performing rights are the right to perform something, not the right to restrict the use of recordings of a performance. I believe that falls under copyright. --Tango (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) While the compositions themselves won't be under copyright any more, individual arrangements and recordings might be. I expect you can find some downloadable recordings by googling, eg. Mozart download (the first result there looks hopeful!). --Tango (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Tagishsimon & Tango - Actually you're both kind of right. Copyright protects certain things, from certain acts. So in this case, musical compositions are protected against 6 acts, of which one of the six is performance. Sound recordings are also protected, again against 6 acts, one of which is copying. It's a very subtle distinction but immensely important. But musical performance itself is not "protected" by copyright law. If you make up a song on the spot, sing it aloud, and no one records it or writes it down, there is no federal copyright to that song.

As to the original question, the problem is that although the underlying music is in the public domain, somebody (more accurately, some orchestra) had to play the music and record it. So that sound recording does have copyright protection. Shadowjams (talk) 19:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily an orchestra, Shadowjams. Both Wolfgang and Ludwig wrote a great deal of music for solo piano, for example. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh ok, I guess I'll have to buy them. Thanks for clearing that up for me 79.75.188.83 (talk) 19:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyright on the performance and the publication of that performance on (for example) a vinyl record does expire though - in most countries that's 50 years after the death of the performer and 50 years after publication for the publication right - there must be a ton of old recordings of classical works that are now out of copyright that you could 'rip' into MP3 and give away and copy to your hearts' content. It's not unreasonable to ask why we can't easily find those things online (or perhaps we can?). But when you eliminate the modern performer's copyright - by (for example) using sheet music and performing it yourself - or downloading a free 'MIDI-file' version and playing that on your PC - then there is a TON of free, legally downloadable, music out there - it's just not in MP3 format. SteveBaker (talk) 03:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Last.fm carries a lot of classical composers, including licensed use of the (already very cheap) Naxos-brand recordings of the two composers you name and various others. Just beware of the hideous 'music-box' versions which seem to float to the tops of their example playlists. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Alcohol in the Past

Going by every old movie I’ve watched, prior the 1970’s, whether from Hollywood or Pinewood, everyone is constantly drinking, or being offered, spirits (or occasionally Sherry). It seemed you couldn’t go into a meeting with your bank manager, whatever the time of day, without being offered a glass of scotch (or occasionally Sherry) from an impeccable decanter conveniently located in an attractive cabinet in the office.

My question is, especially to our “older” ref desk members, was this actually the case or solely for artistic purposes? Did people constantly spend the day half-cut?

If the answer was yes, was the cause of the change as simplistic as the cultural change in anti-drink/anti-drink driving campaigns, or was it just a gradual change, perhaps away from what we considered too snobby and upper class?

Or do some people, perhaps old public school executives in the city, still have a selection of alcohol to hand in their offices? Personally, I think it would be much more enjoyable if we could have a glass of scotch to hand whilst the consultants drone on in the conference room. 84.13.65.216 (talk) 22:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as having alcohol in the work place, I think it is much rarer now at large companies in North America but still quite common at small companies, like the one I work at. I have friends that work for Imperial Oil (the Canadian subsidiary of ExxonMobil) who would never have alcohol in the workplace and I believe it is against company rules to drink during lunch hour. Thankfully my workplace is not nearly this strict, and indeed has beer in the company fridges, but it is only special occasions (well a Friday at least) when people have a drink or two at lunch time or at the end of the day. I think a lot of corporate cultures have drifted away from daily "low level" drinking, but I think corporate "binge drinking", where work colleagues go out after work and drink excessively, is as high if not higher than "back in the day", which is perhaps not a healthy development. Or perhaps we just can't handle our liquor as well any more. This is all analogy, I'm sure there are some drinking rate stats out there somewhere. TastyCakes (talk) 22:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Possibly relevant (in that issues in one would, I imagine, affect the other): Three-martini lunch. 94.168.184.16 (talk) 22:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not just work-place drinking I was thinking of, more the sort of “casual drinking” where if you had a visitor (at home or in the office), the first thing you would ask him was “Would you care for a drink?” and bring out the spirits. This seems to have disappeared the same as “would you care for a cigarette”, but I don’t see the huge cultural change against drinking as opposed to smoking. 84.13.65.216 (talk) 22:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The Three-martini lunch article provides a compelling list of reasons for the diminution of workplace and lunchtime alcohol. From my own observation, it was a real thing, at least up to the 1970s in the UK, at least in the sector I was familiar with then. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I remember even up into the early 90’s (in the UK, in my sector), having the odd pint at lunch time was considered fine, but I wouldn’t dream of doing that now. Not sure it stopped because Jimmy Carter changed the US tax laws though. 84.13.65.216 (talk) 23:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

My experience was that, through the 70s and the early 80s, the aforementioned "three-martini lunch" was still very common. There were very highly placed executives from whom you could expect no sense after 2:00 p.m. Some of them worked a long and hard morning in compensation but others did not. Many companies were still running "fat" with long-time employees bascially doing nothing. Then everything changed in the economy, and that was the biggest factor eliminating almost all alcohol during work hours or associated with work days. If you were going to keep you job in the new "lean machines" then you had to be better at it the everyone around you. Seldom is excellence found in heavy drinkers, and even to be known to "take strong spirits" on a regular basis was unhealthy for your corporate longevity. I worked in publishing in Canada in the early 70s. A sales rep would set up in a motel outside some small town and send out the message that he was open for business. That meant an free bar and his new books on display. After about 2 days, he would move on to the next group of towns and repeat his "book call". Nothing like that happens now, or not anywhere head office can hear about it. The changes in the driving laws are also a significant factor in the general disassociation between employment and alcohol. I still offer a guest in my home a drink at any time after 4:00 or so, and to guests coming for lunch or dinner. I am not very often taken up on the offer, however, except before and during dinners. The commonest reason for saying no is "Thanks anyway, but I am driving". // BL \\ (talk) 23:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no experience with this in business, but I once spent six months on United Nations duty in a small (and getting smaller!) European country. The work required various negotiations with various armed men regarding ceasefire lines, safe lines, removal of land mines, etc. And every negotiation began with the refrain "First, we drink," typically accompanied by the appearance of an old two-litre pop bottle filled with something homemade. The invariable presence of weaponry made the whole situation... interesting. - Eron^Talk 23:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

OK then, I'm older so I'm eligible. I understand your question and can attest to the commonplace of being offered alcohol in almost every lawyer's office since the 50's - coincidence - I think not! No attractive cabinet however, always from the attorney's desk drawer and always scotch. The last time that it happened to me was the last time that I was at my lawyer's office (a new guy as it turns out, the last one died). - post Y2K. The one outstanding exception was when I was there with my (now-ex) wife! -hydnjo (talk) 23:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm in my 50's and I can't recall any time I've been offered booze in a business setting...except, in the last few years working in the computer games business - where company-funded free beer (during 'happy hour' once every a week or two - often with Pizza or whatever) is a common perk. But one (or at most two) beers just before heading home on a Friday is a far cry from the TV & movie portrayal of non-stop hard liquor consumption. I think I've never worked for a company that didn't have a 'zero-tolerance' rule over alcohol on the premises outside of company-sponsored special events. SteveBaker (talk) 03:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

We still have a collection of unopened liquor bottles that used to be given as X-mas gifts - at the company. Offering a drink to visitors we used to get the occasional takers and would open a bottle for them. (And dump the rest after a while.) That last happened about 10 years ago. The alcohol gifts ceased at around the same time. It's not just changed in the US. One of my aunt's neighbors in Germany is a painter. They used to drink beer during work. People who had workmen in the house used to get beer for them. Now they'd offer soft drinks or coffee. Public awareness changed attitudes toward workplace drinking. Binge drinking (particularly among kids) seems to be what happens now. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 03:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't exist in the 70's so nothing to say about that, but product placement might lead to more alcohol drinking in these situations in movies than in real life. (Though it seems from the above comments that there was actually a higher level of consumption back then.) Jørgen (talk) 03:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch to represent as being on topic, but a few years ago it was reported that social drinkers make more money. The implication being, of course, that workers continue to build beneficial business relationships over booze. TastyCakes (talk) 04:35, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

From a quick glance at the article, it looks like a case of mistaking correlation for causation to me. It appears that reseachers found social drinkers on average earn more but this doesn't prove that the drinking is the cause of the higher earnings. It's possible those who earn more are more easily able to afford to be social drinkers. Also, while I presume they've tried to account for other factors (even if not mentioned at all in the summary) like differing occupations of people who are usually social drinkers vs not, it easily possible there's something they missed Nil Einne (talk) 07:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That's true, there are some causation vs correlation issues that don't seem to be addressed in the full report, which is here. From personal observation, though, I would say that coworkers that don't do anything with their colleagues out of work tend to get isolated socially, which can be very detrimental (depending on the person's job and the nature of the workplace). Drinking is a very common component of what a lot of people do to socialize, and while there are of course other social activities that work-mates can engage in, it doesn't strike me as beyond belief that shunning the "bar scene" cuts out a lot of opportunities to "bond" with your work mates, at least in Western culture. TastyCakes (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I had assumed that drinking at work went out when massive lawsuits came in. If your boss gets you drunk and then you go and nail your scrotum to the wall, that's a lawsuit just waiting to happen, isn't it ? StuRat (talk) 08:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Culture is a factor, of course. The British company I worked at in the eighties had a bar on site, even though nuclear materials were being handled frequently. Lunchtime pub visits were also common. However things became stricter into the nineties. During the same period I visited an Italian factory where wine was the standard drink served in the cafeteria at lunchtime. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

March 27

Wikipedia Destroyed. How Many Months to Rebuild?

Someone just posed this thought question to me and I'm interested in what Ref-Deskers think. If Wikipedia were wiped, leaving only the technology, how long would it take to rebuild to a level equivalent to current? Would our collective memory of what Wikipedia contained be the blueprint? Would certain articles never reappear because their authors don't care to do the work over again? Or would articles be better the second time? My estimate is five years. 67.164.163.15 (talk) 01:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I take it we're assuming something has magically destroyed every trace of Wikipedia but left the rest of civilization standing? What with the backups, the forks, the database dumps, the CDs, the printed articles, and so on, any realistic Wikipedia-eradicating event would also take out civilization as we know it. Algebraist 01:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting enough thought experiment. If Wikipedia & all forks & derivatives are taken out by, lets call it a Sanger-SmartBomb: Wikipedia's what, eight or so years old. I vaguely recall it had about 250k articles on it in March 2005. It has 1.8M now. Umm. I'd say somewhere between 18 & 24 months to rebuild. I'm assuming there we would benefit from the return of many who have left us, and from many newbies, since the news would be sufficiently shocking. And the relatively short time is because we all have a much firmer clue about what we are doing and how best we can go about doing it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Where 1.8M=2.8M. Algebraist 01:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yup. That sort of 2am maths.--Tagishsimon (talk) 01:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

WP "wiped, leaving only the technology" leaves lots of variables. Unless those variable are defined as Algebraist suggests there is no answer. -hydnjo (talk) 01:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The question isn't whether something like that could happen, or how something like that could happen, but rather if something like that happened, what would the scenario of the aftermath be like? I hope the original questioner will tell me if I am right, wrong, or in between about that. Bus stop (talk) 01:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Right. 67.164.163.15 (talk) 04:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Although I'd hope that this wasn't possible, haven't the dumps been stalled for months now? Are there official backups for the various projects? How often are they taken? 72.200.101.17 (talk) 01:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The dumps should be at least daily with NO backlog. Given that bit of advice from me, the dumps and the preservation of those archives should be in the hands of folks who have expertise in this field. They have an entire field of study about this that we can only speculate about. Please be doing it right, lots of folks have volunteered lots of keystrokes to get us here! -hydnjo (talk) 02:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha! Daily you say. We haven't had a publicly available full history dump of enwiki in over 2 years. No small part of that is that the (inefficient) dump process wants ~9 months to assemble the 2 TB of data and any database connectivity error in that time fries the fragile dumper. Fixing the dump architecture is supposed to be a major goal for this year. There are eight or so realtime mirrors setup, so a single hardware failure can't kill the system, but we'd be in a really bad place if a meteor hit the Florida data center. Dragons flight (talk) 05:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot. I think that it would take longer to rebuild than to build it in the first place. Why? Because we myriads of contributors have done so with the expectation of, well you know. Destroying all of that effort would result in some folks redoubling their individual effort and some saying "screw it". Your guess is as good as mine and mine no better than your's. -hydnjo (talk) 02:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

And your guess plus my guess is better than nothing. Thanks. 67.164.163.15 (talk) 04:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The public dumps are stalled. The servers are backed up privately daily, however. Just like any good website should do. (or any computer user, for that matter) Xclamation point 03:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Granting the premise (which is certainly far fetched!) - then we have the tension between "Oh no - I couldn't face doing all of that work again - I give up!" versus "We did it before - we can do it again - but we can learn from our mistakes - this time it'll be bigger and better!"...but actually, I think that's the biggest problem: There would be an awful tendency for the organizers and the movers-and-shakers of Wiki-land to go with: "We'll do it right this time!" and spend an eternity on arguing about these 'improvements' - with the market wide-open, there would be splinter-groups forming rival Wiki-based encyclopedias.

(Interrupting SteveBaker briefly) Yep -- see Second-system effect. --Anonymous, 09:50 UTC, March 26, 2009.

There are many big businesses who would give a lot to own something like this - and many have tried and failed. The advertising revenues from one of the ten most visited websites on the planet could rival Google - so you can imagine that without a free Wikipedia to compete against, there would be massive efforts to fill the void with non-free or quasi-free alternatives. Obviously we can't know what would happen - this is pure speculation - but I feel that the loss of inertia coupled with the bickering and in-fighting and commercial pressures would kill the effort stone dead and I'd be quite surprised if it would ever return from the grave in anything like it's present form. Fortunately - there is no conceivable means for Wikipedia to 'go away' entirely because it's mirrored in hundreds or perhaps thousands of places and even a major catastrophy could be fixed up in a day or two. SteveBaker (talk) 03:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Good discussion of the second part of the question, thanks. I prefer to think that enough people would recognize the danger of splintering into factions, and that few of the original contributors would support a non-free or quasi-free model with their volunteer labor. Also, yes, very glad that such a scenario is so unlikely. Original thought question was more broad- how long would it take to rebuild the internet if the only thing left was infrastructure, no data. 67.164.163.15 (talk) 05:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right. Without the inertia provided by a large existing project, all the people who disagree on basic points of policy (Should we have advertising? To what extent should content have to be free? Which subjects merit coverage? Which people should be allowed to edit? Should some guy with a funny name have quasi-GodKing status?) would have little to hold them together. The community would splinter into policy- or personality-based factions, and Wikipedia's market share would be taken up by a large number of competing projects. If I know anything about splinter groups, many of them would spend a lot of time bickering over who was the true heir to Wikipedia. Algebraist 03:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I tend to think that those that wasted the most time doing anything but writing articles would find themselves playing second fiddle to whoever managed to just get down to business. Some would wait, reserve commitment for whoever emerged as frontrunner in the first several months. Mainstream media would report on it, so it would be common knowledge who was winning. 67.164.163.15 (talk) 05:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

If the WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN rules held, it would be an opportunity for fans of U.S. or British grammar and terminology to run around and "tag" article by using "Color" versus "colour," or calling a grain product "corn" versus Maize, thereby forever after requiring that country's preference to prevail in the article to the first disambiguating edit (unless the article is clearly related to one country(language group) or the other. See Press-up, an exercise known in some countries as a "pushup" for an example of the strong feeling about one's favored term appearing in an article. Edison (talk) 04:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's that kind of world. Thanks for the comments. 67.164.163.15 (talk) 05:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Smoking Gun?

What is this reference to? --KingLeian (talk) 05:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That you have just walked in on somebody holding a gun with smoke coming out of it, and a dead body on the floor... A "smoking gun" is thus clear evidence that a crime has been committed. See Smoking gun, strangely enough... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• Not only that, it's usually conclusive proof of who committed the crime, unless the supposed smoking gun is actually a Red herring. - 131.211.211.226 (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• And, of course, in your average bad movie, the innocent bystander must stumble upon a murder, then pick up the smoking gun so he can be found that way when the police arrive and arrest him for murder. Or, if the victim was stabbed, the bystander must pick up the knife, and thrust it into each of the wounds to ensure that this is indeed the murder weapons and matches the wounds, while this is all caught on video tape (but not the actual murder, of course). :-) StuRat (talk) 15:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• Depending on context, it could also be a reference to the website of the same name. 161.181.53.10 (talk) 17:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This term was used a great deal in the investigation leading to the resignation of Richard Nixon as U.S. president in 1974, as in "We've heard of several questionable actions, but there is no smoking gun which could lead to impeachment." Then the necessary evidence was uncovered and he resigned to avoid being removed from office.It was a recording from June 23, 1972, in which he showed he was aware of the coverup of a politically motivated breakin at the Watergate Building Democratic headquarters, and that he helped plan the coverup from the beginning. It can be heard here. Nixon withheld this for 2 years, and had to resign a week after he was forced to hand it over to the prosecutor. More recently presidents have been more careful not to leave evidence hanging around, with the occasional exception such as a stained blue dress which Clinton was sorry to see in the hands of the prosecutor. Edison (talk) 20:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

General officers from Norwich University

This question was also asked here, on the Humanities Desk. Please do not multi-post. --Anonymous, 09:55 UTC, March 26, 2009.

German babies

I vaguely remember that some years ago, the German govt launched a scheme to promote the birth rate, where they gave women money for having babies and mentioned it to someone in conversation. She's a German citizen, who's not lived in Germany for some years and who happens to be pregnant.

So, a few questions:

• Is the scheme still going?
• Is it for babies born in Germany or babies born to German women?
• Is it claimable for babies born in the past few years? (She has older children, too)

Any help in English useful - my German is practically non-existent and I don't think she's very internet savvy for reading stuff herself. --Dweller (talk) 10:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I remember some racist paroles from a mainstream party in Germany like "Kinder statt Inder" what means actually "more children less Indians", as the government where discussing about inmigration from India or investing in their own children to close an age gap. I don't know if they had implemented any such policy or if it has worked.

Anyway, it is unprobable that any goverment provides social services to any national not living in the home-country.--80.58.205.37 (talk) 12:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

But not impossible - for example, the UK government pays a basic pension to nationals living overseas who have contributed national insurance payments during their working life. Warofdreams talk 15:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear. It's not services, it was a cash lump sum. Quite a substantial one, IIRC. --Dweller (talk) 12:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Try [8], [9] and [10]. All resources are in German and neither apply to people living outside Germany. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 12:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Germany has de:Kindergeld. That is a subsidy paid to help families raise kids. It depends on the number and age of the children and is paid to German nationals living in Germany. Since 2007 they also have a de:Elterngeld which is paid to parents of small children and is probably what OP heard of. There's also a de:Kinderzuschlag which is paid to low income families and for single parents there's de:Unterhaltsvorschuss. A tax deduction granted to parents is a de:Kinderfreibetrag. The umbrella term for all benefits for families with children is de:Familienleistungsausgleich. None of these is available to Germans living abroad. Raising children in Germany is nevertheless considered to be very expensive and a financial burden. The government encourages people to have children to keep the age pyramid from tipping over. Among other things their national pension scheme depends on it. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 13:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all. Very useful, esp 76.97.24.5's contribution. Cheers, --Dweller (talk) 13:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

So, if I understand correctly, these resources are restricted to German nationals in Germany. This would seem to exclude the many immigrants there -- according to Demographics of Germany, 9% of the population, for whom citizenship was notoriously elusive, and who often have larger families than the indigenous population. (Turks in Germany are the largest ethnic minority, and most are still Gastarbeiter, "guestworkers", with limited rights.) On the face of it, it seems like money for white babies. Is this policy deliberately racist, or only so by accident, or am I missing something here? BrainyBabe (talk) 12:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You didn't understand the issue correctly (the given explanations were lacking in details), the Kindergeld also applies to foreigners living legally with proper authorisation in Germany. "In Deutschland wohnende Ausländer, [...], können Kindergeld erhalten, wenn sie eine gültige Niederlassungserlaubnis oder bestimmte Formen der Aufenthaltserlaubnis besitzen.". Flamarande (talk) 13:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Micro management

Is it important to micro manage employees or let use their own head sometimes? which is better..thanksin advance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 12:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

If you look at our article on micromanagement, you can see that it is a pejorative term, and it is unlikely that anyone would claim to micromanage employees. Warofdreams talk 12:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Although one very successful entrepreneur like Steve Jobs is considered to be an extreme micromanager, I suspect it doesn't work well in most cases.--80.58.205.37 (talk) 12:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are working on improving your management techniques, there is an important rule to learn: don't learn your management techniques from random people asked on the internet. There are plenty of courses and books on how to manage, almost all of which are better than the Wikipedia reference desk. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

And you will learn all the latest new management buzzwords which the consultants coin for common sense practices, thus convincing us all they are management gurus and we should pay them millions. :-) StuRat (talk) 15:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

There has been an important paradigm shift towards micromanagement and granularity, whereby employees should be encouraged to think outside the cardboard box. - 161.181.53.10 (talk) 17:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The management technique that's sweeping the computer software industry right now is Scrum (development) - it is simply astoundingly effective - and the engineering teams love it. It is completely and utterly 100% the opposite of micromanagment. Managers get to give the teams goals over a 2 to 4 week 'sprint' and then the system agressively keeps them out of the engineering team's hair - except to track the teams own estimate of the progress to completion. The system (for example) allows managers to come to the teams daily 'scrum' meeting - but the sytems' rules state that they are not allowed to speak. The improvements in productivity and reliability of getting work completed within sensible timescales is STUNNING. I know many engineers who now actively ask at job interviews whether the job will be scrum-managed and many will walk away if it's not. It's tremendously empowering for the engineers - and productivity improvements are typically immediate - providing the system is followed as it's designed and not messed about with by nervous managers. The system thrives on weird and wonderful techniques - such as the requirement that all engineering tasks are broken down into chunks of no more than two days - which are written down on standard post-it notes using a fat-nibbed 'sharpie' marker and stuck onto a whiteboard in the corridor. The sheer difficulty of writing anything legible that way forces you to write no more than about three words - plus the time estimate in hours and your initials! If you change your mind and stick and unstick the note more than a couple of times, it falls off the wall. All of this is a vital part of the system!! Where I work, management though it was scruffy and hard for them to track - so they procured a piece of software to replace the post-it notes with a nice, streamlined computer system. The scrum system produced hardly any benefits - then, when we tried switching to the scruffy post-it's system (you should buy shares in 3M!) productivity jumped up and has stayed that way ever since! I've yet to hear of any company that uses Scrum properly ever reverting to something else...it's that good. Managers actually seem to like it too - the nature of the system prevents slackers from being unproductive - because it is their peer group who keep track of them and apply pressure. While managers can't 'steer' events on a daily or even weekly basis - the much greater predictability and honest tracking of progress towards goals gives them a more solid basis for longer range strategizing than they'd otherwise have. It's a very odd scheme - but it works like magic - you should definitely give it a serious try if you possibly can. Oh - and while you can take courses in scrum managment - you can instead pick it up in 10 minutes from someone who'se worked with it (heck, I'll even explain it in detail if you want)...there are no books to buy and no expensive "guru's" involved - it's "OpenSourced" and all you need to get started are industrial-sized boxes of post-it notes in about 3 colors - plus some chunky-tipped sharpie markers and some large white-boards...it helps for one person to have access to a spreadsheet program to compute the daily 'burn down' graph - but you can do that by hand if need-be. SteveBaker (talk) 03:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's ask some simple questions. If the boss feels that he must stand over the workers and micromanage because they're not competent to handle things on their own, why did he hire them in the first place? And if he's essentially doing their jobs as well as his own, why did he hire anyone - he could be saving their salaries.

The best manager I ever had saw it as his job not to make me work, but to allow me to work. He made sure that I had all the resources that I needed, ran interference for me, and stayed out of my hair. He did the same for everyone he was supervising. We'd just check in with him from time to time. Of course he only put people on his projects who he believed knew what they were doing. We did, and we worked better and faster without the pressure.

B00P (talk) 04:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem isn't necessarily with the 'boss' who recruited you - it's his replacement who had nothing to do with it! But I strongly disapprove of the word "boss" - it implies a master/slave relationship. I regard my management team as a resource like HR or IT - they are there to enable the workers to do their work. It's the workers who make the money - and management, HR and IT are there to make sure that nothing prevents them from doing that...those ancilliary departments are a drain on resources so if they aren't helping the process - they are a drag on it. The managers I work with mostly earn less than I do - and I use them as a resource. When I need more equipment, more staff (or fewer staff), training, or to smooth out some 'office politics' issue - then I use the management team to do that for me. They set broad goals - but hopefully they're doing that by using the marketting team to figure out what the customer wants - and passing on the results to the engineering team. We work as equals. It's not a matter of them telling us what to do - as telling us what is needed. SteveBaker (talk) 12:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Cars that can reach an illegal speed

Why do most goverments tolerate that most cars can reach a speed that is actually illegal? Wouldn't it be easier to regulate that factories must not produce any car that can surpass the maximal speed limit? --80.58.205.37 (talk) 12:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure where you are, but in the U.S. there are states that have no maximum speed limit. Tomdobb (talk) 12:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I take that back. Montana briefly had no speed limit, but has since instituted one. Tomdobb (talk) 12:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, the only country that I know that has some roads without speed limit is Germany. However, even then you have to adapt your speed to the conditions of the road.--80.58.205.37 (talk) 12:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)So, why is it possible to sell something that cannot be used legally? Nowadays it should be relatively easy to limit the speed electronically.--80.58.205.37 (talk) 12:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Because there may be times where it is acceptable to exceed the speed limit, for whatever reason. Livewireo (talk) 13:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

And even if you could limit the maximum speed, it's likely that people will find a way to override any limitations. Not to mention that most cars on the road aren't new, which would mean all new cars would be limited to say 60mph, while a 10 year old car zips past them at 80mph. It just doesn't seem very practical. Tomdobb (talk) 13:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The Northern Territory of Australia has no formal speed limit on roads outside cities and towns, but drivers still have to drive responsibly in the circumstances. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

NT Speed limit has been 130kph on the open road for 2 years. An electric motorbike was featured in silicon chip magazine that was speed limit to 100kph. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 04:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, PW. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I sure am glad that cars weren't made this way while the national pretend speed limit of 55mph was in force!

Seriously, besides the various practical problems, many of which should occur to you as you drive down the road, motorists would not stand for it. Any politician that proposed this would never be reelected again. His career would be over. People would not be happy with the government crippling their cars. That's in the USA anyway, perhaps people of other, less car-centric, nations would be willing to go for it. APL (talk) 13:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

How would they sell cars that could only pokey along at 46 miles per hour? And what would they name the car -- the new Buick Laggard? Bus stop (talk) 13:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In most countries, you can drive as fast as you like on private roads. Which is one of the many reasons why the police don't come rushing in to interrupt Formula One races. So your purchase of a fast car can be justified not only for use in foreign jurisdictions without speed limits, but potentially on some patch of road (or off-road, I suppose) that doesn't belong to the government. A friend of mine, who was being an idiotic teenager, only esacped police prosecution for dangerous driving (he turned the car over, while 2 policemen were watching, by reversing and turning at maximum speed) because he did it in a shopping centre carpark (ie private road) and the police had no jurisdiction unless the shopping centre wished to press charges, which they did not. --Dweller (talk) 13:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I wonder how they manage the legalities for races that include public roads, like the astonishing annual spectacle that is the Monaco Grand Prix. Must be fun for the lawyers. --Dweller (talk) 13:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The roads are closed for the Monaco Grand Prix, so speed limits don't apply. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That said, a lot of cars were built in the 1990s with an automatic warning sounding everytime the driver exceeded a preset speed limit. So you could drive let's say 140 km/h, but with an excessively bothersome electronic beep sounding in your ear. I believe this feature was largely discontinued because of driver complaints, and the fact that there was no evidence that it contributed to road safety in any manner. --Xuxl (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

There are two ways to limit car speeds:

1) Limit the engine size. This would result in a car with little high-end acceleration, making highway entrance ramps dangerous. People probably wouldn't buy these cars unless prices were slashed so much that they could afford to put a real engine in them.

2) Electronic limitation. Adding this to new cars would cause sales of new cars to plummet, to where they would need to slash prices to sell them. People would then use those savings to pay to have the electronic limitation removed, whether legally or not. One possibility is a car with an optional electronic limitation, so the driver can override the setting if the car somehow is detecting the wrong speed limit, or if the driver just wants to speed. Also note that having cars limited to the speed limits would ultimately force the government to set more reasonable limits. The "all highways are limited to X speed, all residential roads are limited to Y speed, and all exit and entrance ramps are limited to Z speed" approach is stupid enough now, but if people were really constrained to those speeds it would be unacceptable. How straight the road is, how many potholes the roads has, how wide the lanes are, how many stops are forced on the road, etc., should all be used to determine a reasonable speed limit. Note that this means that speed limits should start out high on new or rebuilt roads, and slowly be reduced as the road deteriorates. In the case of exit and entrance ramps, I've actually seen speed limits that were too high, when the ramp has a kink in it that will force cars off the road at those speeds. If people were relying on the electronic speed limitation of their car rather than their own judgment, I'd expect a lot of accidents in these places. StuRat (talk) 15:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why having cars electronicly limited is going to make people rely on the electronic speed limitation anymore then posted and enforced speed limits already do. Note that no one has suggested cars be limited to the maximum for each road (which would be an incredibly complicated and expensive thing to implement), just close to the highest speed limit (e.g. in NZ this is 100 km/h) Nil Einne (talk) 06:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

People are lazy. Watching for speed limit signs and watching the speedometer requires an effort, while relying on the car to limit their speed does not. StuRat (talk) 13:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

In some jurisdictions Tachographs are prescribed for certain types of vehicles like buses or trucks. It would probably be quite difficult to enforce legislation prescribing that all private vehicles use this. --Mr.K. (talk) 16:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In addition to what others have stated, laws can change. As National Maximum Speed Law indicates, the US speed limit used to be 55mph. Later they raised it to 65mph and finally repealed the national speed limit. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

If you really think about it, pretty much anything sold can be used in an illegal way. I imagine there's a general feeling that it's simply not practical to try to change this. Many auto makers have a gentleman's agreement to limit top speeds to around 155mph. Friday (talk) 17:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Several U.S. states are considering installing Traffic enforcement camera which would detect speeding cars and photograph the vehicle, driver, and license plate, so that speeding tickets could be automatically sent out. The prospect of this causes great consternation and unhappiness among lead-footed drivers. In some large cities, almost every car presently goes far over the speed limit ifit is physically possible given traffic conditions, and a driver going at the limit gets honked at and unfriendly finger waves. Authorities might wish to ticket selectively for the motorists considerably above the limit, or they could go for maximum revenue and ticket all clocking enough above the limit to exceed the limit plus the inaccuracy of the speed measuring unit. Some civil libertarians also worry that the cameras could be used to track their movements even when below the legal speed limit. Edison (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Another problem could be that they don't want to totally clog the traffic courts, which if they are giving a ticket to almost every driver is bound to happen. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised the US hasn't got around to installing speed cameras yet. They've been part of Australian driving life for years, mainly in the capital cities. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

See also governor (device), though doesn't go into much depth with regard to vehicles. Many (most?) tractor-trailers in Ontario have governors in them to limit speed to slightly above highway speed limits (100 km/h; the governor is set for 105 or 110, I believe). Could the same be done for cars? Of course. Should the same be done for cars? Not at all; the most dangerous areas for speeding are not the highways and freeways; they're the suburban roads near parks and schools and stuff. Going 120% of the speed limit in a school zone is much more dangerous to human life than doing 120% of the limit on the highway and speed limiters can't take that into account. Matt Deres (talk) 20:50, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Though there's no great justification for making cars that go twice the speed limit. Just because something wouldn't be perfect doesn't mean it wouldn't be better. I have a hard time thinking of reasons that cars should be made that go, say, 120mph. (As for those who worry about enforcement—all you need to do is make the penalty high enough and enforcement is not an issue. If having an un-governed car carries with it thousands of dollars in fines, then 99% of people who might be tempted to do such a thing would probably not do it. As for traffic courts, just ratchet up the price of the tickets, use it to pay for more judges, etc. All of this can be handled economically using a modified supply/demand sort of model.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

"All you need to do is make the penalty high enough and enforcement is not an issue". No. This has been tried many times, such as in England hundreds of years ago when they had the death penalty for even the pettiest of crimes. Guess what, there were still petty crimes. Similarly with the war on drugs, where we've had life in prison or even the death penalty, but this hasn't stopped illegal drugs, has it ? For another example, there was Prohibition. If you pass incredibly unpopular laws like this one, then people will ignore them. And ticket price increases just have the effect of making cars unaffordable to the poor (and maybe middle-class), as they won't be able to pay the inevitable speed-trap tickets, while the rich will go on driving whatever speed they like and just pay the trivial (to them) fines. StuRat (talk) 03:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually it only make driving unaffordable to the stupid poor and maybe middle class. While I'm not advocating it, realisticly if governors are compulsory and the fines extensive most people are just going to drive cars with them. Prohibition etc may cause numerous problems, but in reality it does work for the majority of people regardless of whether they agree with it. For example, in a number of Asian countries with extreme penalties for drug use and distribution, while they still have drug problems their drug usage profiles is quite different from in countries with much weaker penalties, in particular a far smaller pecentage of the population has ever tried even low-core drugs (like marijuana) and they are a lot less widely available. Social acceptance of course also has a lot to do with it. This doesn't mean prohibition or governors or whatever is a good idea, as I've said there are numeroues problems, but simply that the idea that the majority aren't able to adapt to strict laws is false. The crime example doesn't work here because we're talking about a small percentage of people, not a majority. The bigger questions are ones related to fairness, human rights etc Nil Einne (talk) 06:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Most German cars for the mass-market are artificially limited to 155mph, there's a reason but I forget the detail. The problem with ANY limit of this manner is simply - the vast majority of deaths involving automobiles occur on roads that have maximum speeds under the national speed limit (30/40/60mph zones in the Uk) so being limited to the maximum of 70 (the uppermost road speed limit in the UK) may not do much to reduce deaths. It's an interesting question as it is a case of balancing regulation/rules and 'freedom'. ny156uk (talk) 00:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Cars sold in Japan are also required to be speed-limited to (I believe) 140mph. There was a section on TopGear a while back about a Japanese car that uses it's GPS system to detect when it's at a race-track and automatically disables the speed limiter while it's there! SteveBaker (talk) 03:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that modern cars and roads are just too good. The major highways have all kinds of safety features and almost every car sold today is capable of being driven safely at well in excess of the posted speed limit when the highway is wide, smooth and straight. Problems arise when the driver has to deal with other road users - cars coming the other way, joining the road every few metres, bicycles, pedestrians, plus all manner of country specific hazards (eg. thousands of mopeds in Thailand, cows in India, kangaroos in Australia, donkey pulled carts, etc.) No matter what the car's capabilities, it is the responsibility of the driver to drive at a speed suitable to the conditions prevalent at the time. Astronaut (talk) 09:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem goes beyond that though. It's not speed - it's inappropriate speed. Speed limits are set (in part) to fit with the oldest car with the worst brakes in the worst weather conditions - being driven by the worst driver. Driving at 90mph in a well-maintained, modern car on a dry road in clear daylight - is a LOT safer than the canonical "little old lady" in a 40 year old pickup truck (with no weight over the rear wheels) in icy/foggy conditions, with the windows misted up and the sun shining right into her eyes. Hence, the speed limits are unrealistically low for most people - and they drive over that limit. If police spent more time pulling over:

• tail-gaters (ie people not obeying the "3 second rule").
• people who cut in front of you and leave you with insufficient stopping distance (thereby making YOU inadvertently break the 3 second rule).
• the people who weave in and out of traffic.

...and less time stopping one car out of the 200 nearby who were all cruising along at a uniform 10mph over the limit - then the roads would be vastly safer places. On a 100 mile, well paved, dead straight desert road, in a car that can handle it - with no other traffic of any kind of civilisation in sight and a driver who has been trained to drive that fast - driving at 140mph is not dangerous at all.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

For the question of why cars can go 200 kmh at all, they are built so that they aren't going to go their top speed all the time. You don't travel at your top speed on foot all the time, do you? Of course not, that would be bad for you. It would be bad for the car's engine too. If the car is going only half as fast as it can possibly go, there will be less damage to the engine. I don't know if that has anything to do with speed limits, though. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Re SteveBaker: "Speed limits are set (in part) to fit with the oldest car with the worst brakes in the worst weather conditions - being driven by the worst driver." If that were truly the case the speed limit in residential areas should be well below 5 km/h; as that would be a reasonable speed to allow pedestrians to survive (or at least outrun!) a car with bad brakes and a very bad driver. Arnoutf (talk) 08:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

We tried that, and lost

In response to:

"Several U.S. states are considering installing Traffic enforcement camera which would detect speeding cars and photograph the vehicle, driver, and license plate, so that speeding tickets could be automatically sent out." by User:Edison

City of Minneapolis did that with "running a red light" cameras. At a number of historically accident-prone intersections, the camera would switch on when the signal went from green to yellow, and take about 4-6 seconds of video. Survived the court challenges ONLY in those cases where blatent error caused an accident and a law officer had to be called to the scene. In other cases, because the cameras were not able to get hi-res pictures of the driver's face, it crashed and burned because the mailed ticket went to the owner of the vehicle, who then promptly claimed he wasn't driving at the time.

In response to the argument, "Owners (not drivers) are responsible for parking tickets", the counter-argument had something to do with one being a civil offense and the other being criminal. I don't recall all the details, but in the end, the cameras had to be turned off.

In other words, it's not quite as simple as that. --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:22, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually in the Netherlands speeding violations are ticketed through automated cameras. Speed violations below 35 Km/h (55 mph) are fined as a civil offense (and is considered the responsibility of the car owner- don't lend your car to maniacs ;-); above 35k/h speed violation can also be criminal (i.e. license taken away; or other punishment). The latter cannot be done with cameras, exactly because it needs to be proven the owner was the driver. Arnoutf (talk) 08:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Question about prisoners

I watched the movies SWAT the other day and had a question. If you are not familiar with the movie, allow me to lay out the premise. A high priority prisoner is captured and yells at TV cameras that he will pay $100 million to anyone who gets him out. The SWAT team is supposed to deliver him to a federal prison somewhere a couple hours away by car. In reality, because of all the chaos one would expect to be associated with that $100 million offer, would it have been permissible for the army to be responsible for his transport instead? I can't think of any criminals in the US who would be able to rescue him from a Bradley APC and throw in a few Humvees to help out, there would be no way he would escape.

I guess the question I am asking is: Is it permissible in the US for the military to transport prisoners who are in police custody within the US proper? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 14:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In most Western jurisdictions, there is a provision for the military to "act in support of civilian power", at the latter's request. This is usually invoked in the case of natural disasters, but it can be used to deal with civil unrest, crowd control for large gatherings, etc. Depending on how cumbersome it is to invoke, one could see a case such as the one you describe triggering its application. --Xuxl (talk) 14:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

See Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the power of the US military in such situations. It would be highly unlikely that the military would be used under those circumstances: the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service have substantial resources and would be responsible in such circumstances. So it's just Hollywood. Note, however, that the National Guard is exempt, as it's nominally under state control.Acroterion _(talk) 15:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

See, EG. Military Aid to the Civil Power; Also, the National Guards are under the control of the State Governor, however they are easily "Federalized" (Transfer of command to the President). 76.117.247.55 (talk) 15:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

In the 1934 criminalJohn Dillinger was being held prisoner in the Crown Poin,t Indiana jail. The National Guard had machine guns] set up around the jail to prevent escape or rescue by outsiders. Nevertheless, starting by using a carved wooden gun to disarm a guard and get out of his cell, Dillinger escaped in the sheriff's car with the deputy sheriff as a hostage, accompanied by another escapee and armed with Thompson submachine guns he seized in the jail. He left 30 guards and jail personnel locked in the cells, after taking their weapons and money. Years ago, the Kentucky National Guard was once called to the Kentucky State Prison to fire machine guns at a dining hall where prisoner were barricaded. National Guard forces have been called to prisons several times to put down prisoner revolts. They serve as state militia rather than federal forces, and in general are not acting as law enforcement officers to arrest people, but as providers of deadly force. The U.S. Marines was called to Alcatraz prison in 1946 to put down a prisoner revolt. Edison (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

See the the use of the U.S. Army against the Bonus Army in Washington, D.C. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

And it is not clear if the U.S. Army Air Corps were flying the planes that dropped the bombs during the 1921 Tulsa race riot. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 00:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see there is a legal issue if the police demand they do this - in peacetime, military personnel fall under the same rule of law as the rest of us. SteveBaker (talk) 03:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

A question about God

The more I read and hear about religious fundamentalism in all its forms, the more confused I become. I was raised in a particularly "strong" faith which I don't practise any more - but I DO believe in the existence of a Godlike power (I actually think the word God doesn't do the entity nearly enough justice, believing as I do that God (in my personal vision) is capable of anything and everything imaginable and unimaginable). But my question about religious fundamentalism is this - given that all fundamentalists believe as I do (I think), that there is an all powerful presence behind all human (and other non-human) behaviour and activity, why can't they as mere humans, and thus God's playthings, accept God's absolute power absolutely, and let that power have his/her/its way with us without interference. Why can't they and we just trust in God to do what God wants to do, and live our lives as fully and peacefully and fruitfully as possible, within the constraints of common human decency, without trying to constantly gainsay what God wants to happen? Sorry, maybe I haven't worded this well, but I would appreciate some guidance here. Thanks. Themoreiknowthemoreiknowidontknow. (talk) 15:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Their religious text tell them to kill anyone who doesn't abide to their rules for one thing. chandler · 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah!, isn't religion a wonderful thing!--88.109.57.209 (talk) 15:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Depending on if the religion believes in free will, the members may either feel that they should do what God wants them to do, or that they are powerless not to do what God forces them to do. In either case, religious fundamentalists seem to think that God wants them to spread hatred and violence against infidels, foreigners, those who perform abortions, homosexuals, anyone who disagrees with their political views, etc. StuRat (talk) 15:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps they think God wants them to kill people and blow themselves up and that by doing so they are doing his will? TastyCakes (talk) 15:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

As with many of the above replies, although perhaps in less inflammatory tones, they may believe that what God wants to happen includes the things they are doing. As Sturat says, free will is an important part of some religions. This implies that humans can choose not to do what God wants them to do; therefore a human who knows what God wants people to do can choose to do so. And if this includes encouraging others to do what God wants them to do, they will do that. And if they know that what God wants them to do includes violence and profanity, they will do that too.

And if there is no free will, and God has hir way with us in an all-powerful way, then clearly God wanted all of these things said and done. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 15:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Why should they believe in peaceful non-intervention just because you do? Kittybrewster ☎ 15:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Most religious organizations are Hierarchical organizations. The topic lends itself to developing it this direction because you already have a God (or gods) on top and most religions have added a layer between them and their followers to communicate the supreme beings wishes. This way they keep their society from being ripped apart by maniacs who e.g. go on killing sprees because they claim god told them to. Those "interpreters of the divine will" then also have to explain bad things that happen. If their explanations are not accepted by the congregation the followers might wander off to other religions or form a sect within the same faith. Since that would weaken or destroy the power of those at the top they have a vested interest in preventing that from happening. BTW. God wants them to tell us what He wants to happen. It's not as though they're making it up. ;-) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 15:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Was there a question asked? Can anybody restate the original question of this section? Bus stop (talk) 15:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Can't we all just get along? --Sean 16:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Look for the question mark - read the sentence before it. Then read the surrounding sentences for context. I fear restating it, since the context reveals a lot of what they actually want to understand. 79.66.127.79 (talk) 19:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a good opportunity to not only restate the question but also to ask the original questioner if you have restated it correctly? Bus stop (talk) 05:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

If the question is why people don't always do exactly what they believe their god says, I'd say the biggest factor is purely human stubbornness. Why doesn't everyone obey the law and all authority? Because it interferes with their personal life, because it's difficult, because it requires them to put forth effort they would rather not put forth. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 02:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to understand why. But it's clearly the case. As a believer, you are running the risk of a literally infinite amount of the most horrific torture imagineable if you don't do what God says. Why would you ever step even a millimeter out of line? Yet so-called believers routinely commit adultery, covet their neigbors stuff, steal ballpoint pens from the stationary cupboard and so on. If you even thought it was REMOTELY possible that what you have here is your honest-to-goodness old-testament god - then on balance wouldn't you keep to the straight and narrow in order to avoid the infinite amount of infinite pain and instead get the infinite wonderfulness of heaven? This dichotomy leads me to believe that all religious people are either liars about their beliefs (secretly believing it's all untrue) - or they are certifiably insane. I'm not sure which it is...but it's hard to explain their behaviors in any other way. SteveBaker (talk) 02:58, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Note to SteveBaker: The "old-testament god" never says anything about visiting an "infinite amount of infinite pain" on anyone. That stuff is New Testament - "wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matt 8.12; 13:43; 24:51; 25.30 and Luke 13.28 and the "lake of fire and brimstone" (Rev 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). B00P (talk) 05:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

SteveBaker, you appear to be suffering from confirmation bias, as well as a stereotyped view of believers. Christians (and many other theistic believers) believe in divine forgiveness. Doing what's right is encouraged, but if we fall away, we can repent and be forgiven. The doctrine of original sin (which I'm not expecting you to agree with, obviously) holds that people are inevitably sinful; but most theologies provide a way out of this through the operation of divine mercy. Have you ever tried considering views of religious behaviour based on prizing virtues such as mercy and forgiveness, or the emulation of exemplary characters, rather than fear of retribution? AlexTiefling (talk) 10:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

car chases

In the US there are a lot of programs involving car chases on TV, but those who are being chased are usually in a pretty typical car. I have never seen one with say a Porsche or a Ferrari. This is likely due to the relative rarity of those cars. My question is, do the state troopers or local police departments have any vehicles capable of keeping pace with such a car? The standard Crown Vic PI is limited to 130 mph (OR), do they have special cars for such situations, or would they have to give up the pursuit part and try a roadblock instead? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 19:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I know the state police in Pennsylvania do. I forget what the model is though. I imagine many state police forces also have a "fast car" but most municipal forces (besides LAPD) do not. Tomdobb (talk) 19:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

They often call these cars interceptors - I've seen models of Crown Vics with that designation.. also Dodge Chargers are common cop cars there days, and those in highway use often feature the Hemi V8. I've seen cop Ford Mustangs as well. But I imagine their general tactic does not involved chasing the car down when possible- there are more effective ways with radios and roadblocks. See also car chase. Friday (talk) 19:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

(double ec!) Occasionally you'll see chases involving those types of super-high end cars, and you're right, the troopers are quickly outdistanced. However radios and roadblocks allow the police force to stay ahead of the car, even if individual officers are left behind. Not to mention that your typical police helicopter has a top speed of ~140 mph and isn't limited by traffic or the curves of your typical road network. Plasticup ^T/C 19:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the interceptor type is PI, which is the run of the mill cop car. At least I have never seen a cop Crown vic without it being PI 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The UK series Police Interceptors might be of interest. It follows the elite police interceptor team of the Essex police force. They drive high powered Subaru Imprezas (which can develop up to 300 bhp!) and Mitsubishi Evos (up to 400 bhp!) - quite a lot more powerful than standard police cars. Exxolon (talk) 22:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The point is...with all racing other than drag-races...it's not about straight line speed. Handling matters too...and it doesn't matter how well your car handles if you aren't good at driving the thing...and hardly anyone is. I've been on a police driver training course - they emphasise that there are many cars that they can't catch on a straight, open road - so they don't - in those cases, they radio ahead and get a roadblock set up. But for all other situations, you can't drive at 140+ mph through even the lightest traffic - and certainly not around corners - and at that point, the cops rely on their superior training - and even the humble Crown Vic does pretty good. The problem turns out not to be catching the guy - it's managing to catch him before he kills someone by driving beyond what the rest of the traffic can cope with. At the Kilgore, TX police academy - they have a 'pursuit' course - I thought I got a pretty good time in my race-tuned twin-turbo MINI Cooper'S (definitely no slouch in the twisties)...but was a bit humbled when the instructor beat my time...in a badly worn out Crown Vic...IN REVERSE GEAR. <sigh> SteveBaker (talk) 02:50, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Plus the cops might well kill somebody too: there's no rule saying that pedestrians can't attempt to cross streets after the baddie has whizzed past at twice the speed limit but before the fuzz has arrived at even 2.1 times the speed limit. Plus if they catch up with the bad guy everybody will be so excited that somebody is likely to do something very stupid indeed: see the relevant part of Blink. All in all car chases are a very bad idea in the real world, as opposed to the excellent editing, hidden gadgetry, timed explosions, etc., that make up Jason Bourne's world. -- Hoary (talk) 08:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - a large part of the police training is about avoiding the "Red Mist" phenomenon where you get so caught up in the competitive nature of a car chase that you don't consider that your pursuit of the miscreant is actually what's making him drive so fast and taking such enormous risks. Therefore, as a cop, you may be causing trouble rather than preventing it. Backing off and letting a helicopter unit unobtrusively tail him to his destination is often the better way. The police (at least, the police who are trained in Kilgore, Texas!) are well aware of these issues. An actual high-speed car chase is a method of last resort. SteveBaker (talk) 12:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Download

Is there any place where I can download music videos free (not itunes)? 86.45.153.76 (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Like a pirate website? Chaosandwalls (talk) 23:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

MusicJesus? I don't think that's for download, however. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:34, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Well of course. Youtube, for one. But if you've heard of Wikipedia you've probably heard of Youtube, so most likely you're looking for something else. Then what are you looking for? Which music, which file format, which resolution/quality? -- Hoary (talk) 07:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Bittorrent —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 08:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Jamendo --71.112.83.100 (talk) 08:26, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

March 28

IIT

Moved to Computing

Questions about a hypothetical new recipie book

The idea is that the book will contain low cost recipies mostly useing a small range of simple ingredients, to be targeted mostly at people in socioeconomic groups D and E, but I am still having a bit of trouble finding out much of the information needed to work out details of the organisation. Therefore I have created a short list of questions that still need to be answered, and am hoping some people might be nice enough to provide answers to as many of them as possible.

1 How much would it cost to have thousands of copies of a quite small book printed?

2 How many copies might it sell, how many do other similar books sell?

3 Where can I find out how many people visit various shops, both locally and nationaly, and if possible get some idea how many of them are within the target market?

4 How much of the profits would the shops take for themselves?

5 How are sales of the book likely to vary through the year?

6 What else do I need to know, that I have forgotten to ask?

7 148.197.114.165 (talk) 16:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Well do you want to self-publish your book? Pretty much all books you see in bookstores are published through professional publishers, and to get one of those you're probably going to need an agent. Typically you don't pay the agent if they select your book, they take a 15% commission instead. After the publisher takes there cut, author royalties are typically 15% to 20% of sales. This site seems to give a pretty good overview of what most people face. TastyCakes (talk) 17:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I would locate a publisher just starting out, who is trying to build a catalogue. There are several new ones, who offer no advances, but pay royalties once all the expenses are met. --80.176.225.249 (talk) 19:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually someone else is dealing with all the printing and stuff, they've just sent me to do a bit of research on sales and such like. i think it's being arranged to pay a company to print the books, and I just wanted to check to make sure we've got the best price. I was told Amazon.co.uk had statistics on book sales, and mysupermarket.co.uk statistics on the popularity of supermarkets, but I haven't been able to find anything like that there. Are there any other sites that do provide such information? 148.197.114.165 (talk) 11:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

How much sales will vary during the year is largely dependent on what type of recipes your book contains, and, in particular, which recipe is shown on the cover. If you have a Christmas-themed meal on the cover, you might expect 90% of your yearly sales in the 2 months before Christmas (and some stores may refuse to carry it at other times of the year). If you have something far more general, like a tuna casserole, on the cover, then sales could be expected to be more even. StuRat (talk) 15:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Four Merger Scenarios

What would the resulting market cap, revenues, and global reach & size of these four merger scenarios:

• Google and Yahoo:

    Google-------Yahoo
             |
             |
         Yahoogle

• Microsoft and Apple

    Microsoft-------Apple
                |
                |
         Microsoft Apple

• GE and IBM:

    GE-------IBM
         |
         |
  GE International

• Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, GE, and IBM:

    Google     Yahoo    Microsoft    Apple    General Electric    IBM
      |          |          |          |             |             |
      |          |          |          |             |             |
      +----------+----------+----------+-------------+-------------+
                                  |
                       American Super Corporation

--Melab±1 ☎ 18:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, obviously, the "American Super Corperation" would be rich enough to buy the universe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chaosandwalls (talk • contribs) 20:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You forgot Google + Amazon --> Googlezon (see also EPIC 2014) ~EdGl ★ 20:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

United States antitrust law. Rmhermen (talk) 21:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft could take over Apple any time it wanted to - but it can't afford the risk of being labelled an illegal monopoly. So I don't think that can happen. SteveBaker (talk) 21:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess such a merger would have to be approved by the United States Department of Commerce, right? I think if Microsoft could make moves for taking over Yahoo, they could do similarly to Apple, especially since Apple focuses on hardware rather than software (as Microsoft and Yahoo do) reducing monopoly concerns. If Apple were to be bought by Sony, that would be another matter. However, I think Microsoft is probably more likely to avoid buying Apple because it views Apple's stocks as overvalued. It could stretch its money further on other companies, especially in the current buyer's market. Besides, it would almost certainly have to acquire it through a hostile takeover, which may or may not be possible depending on how much stock is owned by people's vigorously opposed to such a deal. TastyCakes (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not asking about anything related to antitrust. And I'm talking about mergers not if they could buy out the other. And I'm looking for how all the companies could work together, like I read on one blog that

“ Were they to merge, it's not just that the corporate cultures would be hard to blend. It's more like there's nothing there to mesh. Microsoft could never make an iPod; Apple could never make products based entirely around the model of working with other products made by third parties. ”

Also, I'm asking what each of the scenarios' resulting global reach, market cap, and revenue would be (answers like "The Apple-Microsoft scenario would result in market cap bigger than ExxonMobil." or "The Apple-Microsoft scenario would have a market cap of over a trillion dollars.", responses regarding outcomes like those.) --Melab±1 ☎ 22:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Well you can go to the pages of the companies and add up their market caps for an approximate answer. Since Apple is given as $80B and Microsoft is given as $170B, a merged company would be about $250B, well below ExxonMobil's $390B. TastyCakes (talk) 23:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah if you're really looking for a numerical answer, you can do it as quickly. Revenues you can simply combine in the short term. Over the long, groups that compete will be merged, typically resulting in lower revenues but higher profits.

As for market cap, you can't simply combine them. The market will have to estimate the potential profitability of the combined entity, then risk-weight and discount them to present value, taking into account the other components of capital structure (namely: debt). That will yield the new market cap. If, for example, the combined entity will produce similar revenues, but with a wider profit margin (due to decreased competitiveness) market cap will be higher than the sum of the two.

As for 'size', that is typically measured as either market cap, revenue, employees or assets. The latter three can be simply summed in the short term, but employees and assets will likely fall significantly post-merger.

And for global reach... it's difficult to choose a metric that captures that idea.

And lastly, in regards to the meshing of corporate culture or core competencies, 'never' is a long time.NByz (talk) 04:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's talk a bit about when mergers make sense and when they don't. A good merger should help both companies. For example, one automotive company with a good line of trucks, but few cars, and one with cars, but no trucks. It wouldn't make as much sense for two companies which both make trucks to merge, due to self competition, but might if, for example, one has good products, but is low on cash, while another has poor products, but deep pockets. It also wouldn't make much sense for a company that makes cars to merge with one that makes crackers, as there's very little in common between them. Unfortunately we have often seen, in the past, mergers between companies which have nothing to gain from it; say companies which make entirely different products, so they can't be merged effectively. They usually end up being split up in just a few years, frequently at a loss. The Google merger with YouTube made sense, as Google needed to add on-line video to their product line. A Google merger with Yahoo seems less beneficial (too much overlap), as does a GE and IBM merger (too little overlap). The Microsoft/Apple merger sounds like a disaster, as many of the Apple customers absolutely hate Microsoft and would likely defect to Linux or anything else non-MS after a merger. StuRat (talk) 14:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's make lots of money

A recent trip to Tallinn, Estonia made me wonder whether it's possible to make a profit solely by exchanging currency back and forth. So far, I have thought of exchanging one currency to another. For the sake of simplicity, I assume here only Finland and the Euro and Estonia and the Estonian kroon. The buying rate of a foreign currency at a specific place is always higher than the selling rate at the same place, otherwise I could make a profit simply by standing at the same spot and exchanging money back and forth. There are then three possible permutations of the rates:

1.

1. Buy EUR (Estonia)
2. Sell EUR (Estonia)
3. Buy EEK (Finland)
4. Sell EEK (Finland)

2.

1. Buy EUR (Estonia)
2. Buy EEK (Finland)
3. Sell EUR (Estonia)
4. Sell EEK (Finland)

3.

1. Buy EUR (Estonia)
2. Buy EEK (Finland)
3. Sell EEK (Finland)
4. Sell EUR (Estonia)

(Without loss of generality, I assume Finland (EUR) and Estonia (EEK) are interchangeable.)

Given the first set of rates, I could make a profit simply by keeping travelling to Estonia and exchanging money at different terminals. But with the other two, I don't think making a profit is possible, only that I can make less of a loss by exchanging money at different terminals.

So I have two questions:

1. Is my math correct?
2. Is there any place in the world where the first set of rates (where is it possible to make a profit) would actually happen?

JIP | Talk 20:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

What you describe is called Arbitrage; where there is free flow of money then that generally equalises things so that the profits to be made from the differential are less than the transaction costs. Where there isn't free flow of money (which these days only applies to those few currencies that aren't freely exchangeable, such as those of North Korea or Zimbabwe) then there is money to be made exploiting the differential between the official rate and the street rate (but that's black marketeering, and those are the same kinds of countries that are particularly harsh on black marketeers). There is money to be made in temporal arbitrage, exploiting temporary changes in the relative rates of currency exchange (generally using real-time market data feeds and high-speed, often semi-automated, trading systems). 87.114.147.43 (talk) 21:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

See Foreign exchange market and Forex scam. -Arch dude (talk) 21:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I should clarify that when I say "there is money to be made in temporal currency arbitrage" this really means "money to be made by specialist traders and merchant banks' currency trading operations" (and not, as Arch dude's links show, by you and I) and this is a risky business indeed (one might just plain call it gambling). 87.114.147.43 (talk) 00:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully understand the list because I don't see any rates or calculations. I can tell you that, in high-volume locations (places with an internet connection to the forex market), currencies are always traded in pairs. (see [11] for common ones). Sometimes currency traders perform "Triangular arbitrage" if, for example, the ratio of (A/B * B/C) is not equal to (A/C). Most arbitrage of this type, however, is done by ultra-fast bank computer programs, so individual traders are unable to take advantage of it.

If you're talking about actually exchanging physical currency on the street, it's possible. Moneychangers will chart a "spread" (essentially a variable fee) over the "ultra-fast forex market" rate when you exchange money. If you're in a small, tourist town, and a money-changing shop is set up right in the middle of the tourist district, it's likely charging a large spread. If you show up with a bunch of money and charge a smaller spread, you can pocket that amount.

The problem with the scheme, is it necessarily makes you a currency speculator; you're now exposed to changes in the value of the money that you hold. Unless you know about where currency markets are going, this simply exposes you to variability without any expected return. NByz (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I ended up saying pretty much what 87. did. NByz (talk) 00:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but you used more impressive sounding words :)

The key part is that "unless you know about where currency markets are going", which is another way of saying "unless you're moving such vast sums around that you can change where the currency markets are going" (and if that's true, and you're asking financial questions on Wikipedia, that would explain a lot about the world economy). 87.114.147.43 (talk) 01:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Staying legal, I think it would be very difficult for normal people like you or I to make a profit from foreign exchange in the short term. The biggest obstacle for the normal person is that banks like to give different rates for buying or selling, and also like to charge commission on top. With a longer term view however, it might be possible to make a profit. For example: Suppose the Euro is going down relative to the Kroon, you could buy Kroons and wait for the exchange rate to get a lot worse, then change it all back and get more Euros than you started with despite the bank's charges. Of course there is the risk the exchange rate won't cooperate and you will end up making a loss.

If you prepared to do something illegal, you could find somewhere with a currency exchange blackmarket and lax currency regulations. The profits could be large, but there is a significant risk of getting into serious legal trouble. Unfortunately, such countries usually have strict currency regulations limiting how much you can change back at the bank, how much currency you can carry, and sometimes rules insisting that you spend a minimum amount per day in the local economy.

Astronaut (talk) 03:19, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Instrumental Music

Does anyone know the name/artist of the instrumental music as the very start of the F1 qualifying show here? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j6b9y/Formula_1_2009_The_Australian_Grand_Prix_Qualifying/

Thanks in advance. 86.129.223.0 (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean the violins right from the start (I've no idea to be honest), or the theme the BBC has used for it's F1 coverage since ... forever, which comes into play from around 1min 5secs? Astronaut (talk) 02:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, i meant that violins right at the start. I've heard before on Top Gear and really liked it and wondered if i could listen to it in full? 86.166.72.217 (talk) 11:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The Top Gear theme music is Jessica (The Allman Brothers Band song). The Formula 1 theme is called 'Motor Sport' it's a special 'arrangement' of the bass line from Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' from the album 'Rumours'. There is an MP3 of it here. SteveBaker (talk) 15:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Mmm. I meant the violin instrumental music at the very start, not the theme tune to F1 on the BBC, not the theme tune to Top Gear. 86.166.72.217 (talk) 17:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Surgeons and broken hands

Suppose if a surgeon broke his/her hand in a skiing accident, will all of the appointments of that surgeon be postponed until the surgeon's hand heals? If so, does that mean that surgeons need to take take of their hands and arms better than perhaps their clinical counterparts, such as medical dermatologists?

Consequently, does this mean that surgeons need to employ lifestyle adaptations in order to take care of their arms and hands? Acceptable (talk) 23:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Surgeons very often practise as part of a larger group, so their colleages would take up the slack. If that generates a backlog then they might defer non-urgent stuff and offload other stuff to other medical groups. Patients would only wait to be treated by that surgeon if they chose (which would only be the case for elective stuff like boob jobs) or in the incredibly rare case that a given surgeon is the only one who can (or will) perform a given procedure. Anyway, surgeons in a given area (and for specialists, in a given field) all know one another (they go to the same conferences and play golf together) so they'd have no difficulty finding someone to do their work while they're unable. I know several surgeons, and none takes especially good care of their hands. 87.114.147.43 (talk) 00:19, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that manual dexterity is not the most important attribute of a surgeon. His medical judgement and eyesight are of more importance in my opinion. Richard Avery (talk) 08:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Also note that the vast majority of jobs would be negatively affected by a broken hand. StuRat (talk) 13:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Also note that most people don't break their hands. We are talking about a reasonably low probability event, and one that everyone would like to avoid. I don't expect that surgeons are more worried about it than you or I. Plasticup ^T/C 17:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Cosmetic Dermatologist Salary

On average in the United States, how much more does a cosmetic dermatologist make in comparison to a non-cosmetic dermatologist? Acceptable (talk) 23:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Your regular (non-cosmetic) dermatologist makes about $230,000, but that varies considerably depending on where you are in the United States. Cosmetic dermatologists have an even wider range of salaries. Some make much less because they are little more than glorified nurses with a $10,000 laser machines whereas highly specialized plastic surgeons in L.A. are going to make much much more. Cosmetic dermatology is neither well defined nor well regulated. Plasticup ^T/C 17:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

March 29

Going through customs when arriving on the USA, x-rays and metals.

I've been planning a vacation on the US this year, and I'm going to be visiting this friend of mine. I'm hoping to bring with me a couple of sculptures as gifts, but I'm worried about how they will go through customs. The sculptures will be made out of a steel wire skeleton, tin foil for padding and a layer of epoxy on top of it for the final hard crust. I've been wondering what kind of problems that could be at customs.

I suppose one could hide drugs and other crap inside a sculpture in such a fashion, and the densely packed tin foil might look very suspiciously opaque on the x-rays... I don't know much about that, but I do know that I don't want these guys cracking open my handcraft in an unsuccessful search for cocaine or something of the sort. That'd be absolutely terrible!

So, can anyone shed any light on this sort of thing? I have no idea where else to look for this info. There may be better ways to bring it with me, I suppose, but I don't know them. Either way, if there's a huge risk involved, I might even make them entirely of epoxy, or just cast them in some sort of resin (which would be a waste of money and time, since they're supposed to be unique).

Any information on this is much appreciated. Cheers! — Kieff | Talk 04:43, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The obvious place to look is here [12], the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Support page, but curiously in the 665 'frequently asked questions' there is nothing that comes close to you query. I would suggest accessing this site and placing your query there. When it comes to interfacing with the Customs Department in any country it is much better to get your information from the most reliable source, which may not be some random passing strangers. Richard Avery (talk) 08:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

You might also call your local airport and ask how their security will treat you, and if you should reserve extra time for the security check, if they have any packing instructions (they may want to unwrap the objects easily), etc.

Once upon a time I took a small server computer on a plane. Security took me to a back room, where they vacuumed air and dust from inside the computer, and fed the stuff to a chemical analyzer to look for traces of anything nasty. This was pre-9/11 though, I don't know if they would allow that at all any more...

Or you could just FedEx the sculptures. Those guys know what to do. 88.112.62.225 (talk) 11:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - I agree 100%. They are going to treat these objects with the greatest possible suspicion - at the very least, you can expect to be held up in customs for HOURS while they decide what to do - I would be quite surprised if your sculptures made it through customs intact. FedEx is the answer...no question. SteveBaker (talk) 14:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A few people advised checking with your local (non-US) security, but I can pretty much guarantee that they won't know the answer. Airport security puts a very low value on the detection of drugs. As a security screener once told me, "drugs don't blow up planes". They leave the narcotics work for the foreign customs agency because really, if the drugs are leaving their country it's not their problem. As for slipping it in under the radar, I suggest shipping it independent of your flight. The US government doesn't have the capability to search every piece of cargo, and unless they have reason to suspect the sender/recipient the chances of it even being looked at are very low. Alternatively, you could just break a leg. Plasticup ^T/C 17:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thinking of becoming a self employed debt collector

I have recently been made redundant from my Control Control (Debt Collection) job, which I held for the past 10 years.

I am now thinking of becoming a self employed debt collector. Do you think it is a good idea, taking into consideration the recession etc?

Ideally, I would not like to come face to face with the customer(s) and would prefer to do the collection from home, using the telephone, reminder letters, email and fax etc.

Please advice if that would be a profitable business area & what things I need to take into consideration when starting up.

Finally, how would I be able to get a list of customers to chase payment from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.214.68 (talk) 08:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Be aware that in many locations there are laws against debt collector harassment, which can include things like contacting their employer or relatives in an attempt to get payment. When you were working for a company, they would take on the job of defending anyone who ran afoul of the law, but you would have to make your own arrangements now. Also, if you use your home phone number, street address, and e-mail address, you can expect to get some abuse via those media. You could formerly leave the job behind when you go home, but not any more. StuRat (talk) 13:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

So far as I know - in the UK you need to be licenced... or work for a criminal!! But I don't think you can really expect not to have to face up to some very unpleasant people and situations.86.197.174.237 (talk) 15:19, 29 March 2009 (UTC)DT

Do you know his name??

I'm looking for the name of a famous philosopher who speculated that nothing can be proven. I can't remember much about him other than he experienced lots of lucid dreams which made him believe that he could never truly know if he was dreaming or awake, and he questioned existence and truth. He's from before the 19th century I think. Many many thanks Teliccts3 (talk) 09:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

See Dream argument, probably René Descartes but I might just have dreamt that. Actually I don't remember any of my dreams so it might just be a false memory. Is this really a way to learn anything abut the world? Dmcq (talk) 10:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes that's the one, thank you Teliccts3 (talk) 11:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)