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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)

Talk to someone at the Small Business Administration. They will have answers to all your questions. They also have a wonderful series of inexpensive books on starting a small business. Phil_burnstein (talk) 06:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• If you were to selfpublish with the right kind of service, printing the books wouldn't cost anything since most self-publishers use Print-On-Demand Publishing (basically, only print when someone buys, the costs are for the client, you get the profit). Problem is that self-published books are hard to get in stores. The average self-published book sells less than 100 copies -- even less if you don't promote it. You should definitely try a publisher first and remember: "Money flows towards the author". If a publisher wants to make you pay a fee of any kind be careful and get some opinions from other writers. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:49, 30 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 [1] 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)

Not to mention as with most countries, probably laws preventing you from working without a work permit, residency or citizenship. Plus there will also be the existing black marketeers who won't be too happy with you barging in to their territory and who's 'punishment' would like be worse then the authorities. Also whether legal or illegal you'd likely need a resonably high start up capital to actually make much of a profit anyway Nil Einne (talk) 21:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking more of taking advantage of the "services" offered by blackmarket money changers - ie. Exchanging your Euros for their bundles of local currency, then changing it all back into Euros at a bank at the official rate. There's a risk of arrest by the (secret) police, but little risk of "punishment" from gangsters unless you grass on them. Astronaut (talk) 11:32, 30 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)

Maybe try here (http://forums.finalgear.com/top-gear-episode-songs/) - it's pretty comprehensive, if you can remember the Top Gear episode/what happened in that episode it'd be much easier to find, but if it was on 'new' Top Gear that site will surely list it. ny156uk (talk) 21:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, that's a pretty comprehensive list of songs for top gear programs! After some research, i found that it was Opening by Craig Armstrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.230.59 (talk) 00:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As a follow up question, does anyone know where i can get hold of this? (Craig Armstrong - Opening) 86.129.230.59 (talk) 01:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Amazon.com have it as an MP3 download for $0.45 here. SteveBaker (talk) 14:15, 30 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)

There is a web site (Lloyd´s, who should know) which claims that Keith Richards and Richard Claydermann have insured their hands, so it must be possible to cover some of the risks. Somewhat more obscurely, Sir Tom Jones seems to have his chest hair insured for USD 7 mio. Presumably you can insure anything, if the actuarian analysts of the insurance can come up with an affordable premium.

A bit off tangent, there is the condition focal hand dystonia (the etiology seem poorly understood), which has plagued a number of musicians. Our article focal dystonia does mention (without a reference) that surgeons are amongst the risk group. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The only reasonable response by a surgeon who injures his hands would be to go to the Himalayas and seek the Ancient One. It only makes sense. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The OP's question is a reasonable one. Yes, I have known surgeons who take better than average care of their hands. One I know was fond of contact sports, but at a certain point in his medical training or junior career, decided to stop for that reason, to protect his hands or arms from injury. BrainyBabe (talk) 09:24, 31 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 [2], 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)

What a complete dumbass to do that. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 23:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It certainly is a good idea to get in contact with the customs and security areas at your point of entry. It might be possible to let them know in advance that you're travelling with an item that they will consider suspicious. With advance notice and a description of the items you're bringing through (what's in it, how it's constructed, etc.), they are more likely to know how to test it, etc. They may also tell you that it won't be possible to bring it through because of the risk, but at least you'll know in advance. Depending on the sculpture, you might get it under the radar, but it is a risk you would have to calculate. Steewi (talk) 23:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it. If they X-ray it and find balls of scrunched-up tinfoil - they'll certainly want to know what's scrunched up inside - and they'll destroy the sculpture to find that out if they have to. And there is no way they'll offer special testing services if you simply call in advance! SteveBaker (talk) 00:44, 30 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

I wonder if there is a professional association that could help. RJFJR (talk) 16:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes there is. Our article on debt collector (a redirect to debt collection) has an external link for *ACA International, the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals. RJFJR (talk) 16:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

What type of collecting do you want to do? Collecting person to person is fairly easy if you don't mind doing some illegal threatening. Person collecting from a corporation is difficult if you aren't a lawyer. Corporation collecting from a person isn't bad, but you have to adhere very closely to your customer's collection rules. Corporation to corporation, ie wholesaler collecting from retailor, is probably the least stressful because the retailer wants to keep ordering from the wholesaler. To switch from one mode to another has a learning curve which can best be climbed by working for a company using that mode for a while. Phil_burnstein (talk) 06:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

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)

I think I think therefore I might be. Phil_burnstein (talk) 07:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Multiple flowers on a single Sunflower stem?

Wild sunflowers has been growing on my frontyard for the past three years. This year we have one that has 10 flowers on a single stem is this unusaul? Is there a scientific explanation for this?

FYI. I screen phone call if leaving message please mention sunflower. I will be unswering/returning call if you do.

Thank you?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by TNHS1959 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted your number, we're not going to call you. If you want an answer you'll have to check back here. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

There are many sunflower varieties, do you know which you have ? StuRat (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The USDA NRCS says "Unlike domestic varieties, wild sunflowers typically bear multiple flower heads per plant." (source), so no, it's not unusual. I imagine the scientific explanation involves cultivated sunflowers being selectively bred to have the desirable single-flower configuration. --Sean 15:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

help with finding info on a website

I'm in my mid 20's with a well paying job and want to go to law school someday. could someone direct me to a website that has info. on how I can use a 529 or other strategies to save for my own college expenses, not my progeny's ? Thanks, JIM 173.30.14.113 (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A Google search for 529 leads to a wealth of information. However, using your own savings through a 529 plan is not your only option. There are numerous grant and student loan programs out there. I suggest you contact your local college's admissions or financial assistance office and they will likely direct you to information and college financial planning seminars that would give you far more guidance than we could give you here. -- Tcncv (talk) 22:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I happen to be listening to the education portion of Obama's internet town hall right now. Something tells me that education savings and grant programs are going to look very different in the next year.NByz (talk) 00:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Move to a country with affordable public education? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

March 30

Lilian Jackson Braun

Is my favorite author, Lilian Jackson Braun, still writing the "Cat Who...." books? What can you tell me about her life? Is she still living? 24.119.167.82 (talk) 00:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

See Lilian Jackson Braun --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned in the guidelines at the top, please give questions a subject heading. I've added on now. You may also be interested in Cat Who series. It seems the latest book has been delayed and it's currently unclear on when or if it will be published. Lilian Jackson Braun evidentally lives a fairly private and it's not clear if there's any specific reason why it has been delayed. She is rather old, so health problems would be unsurprising. Nil Einne (talk) 05:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Problem with TV

I have a 10 years old tv.when i switch on the tv ..exactly after 8 minuted it gets automatically off. then when i switch it off and on again it doesn't get on . Then after 1 minute when i switch it on it will get on...can anybody have any the idea for this problem.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.244.247 (talk) 04:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is with some component overheating? Have a technician or repairman take a look at it. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it sounds very much like an automatic shutdown when it detects overheating. This could either be due to actual overheating or a faulty temperature sensor. Make sure that nothing is sitting on the TV, and that the vents of the TV are clear, and that it has an airspace on all sides. It may help to put it up on "blocks" if the underside is overheating. Does any part of the case feel hot ? Opening up the case and clearing away any dust and hair accumulation may help, but you should be warned that CRT TVs often contain powerful capacitors, which could be dangerous. You could also leave the case off and aim a fan at the components to see if that helps. However, don't do this is you have children or pets, as this is too dangerous.

If none of this helps, then you can take the TV to a repair shop that gives free estimates. However, the cost to repair a 10 year old TV is likely to exceed it's value. This is especially true if you are in a country which is in the process of switching to digital TV. Analog TVs may continue to be used, with the purchase of a converter box, but the picture won't be as good as a real digital TV. So, if you're in this situation, anything more than a quick cleaning would likely be a bad idea, just buy a new digital TV instead. StuRat (talk) 14:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Leone Lattes

Where can I find a picture of Leone Lattes,a pioneer in forensic medicine? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jennymehdi (talk • contribs) 04:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried google? -mattbuck (Talk) 18:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sewer

I know that to keep track of water consumption, water companies have a guy come by and read the meter. How do they keep track of sewer usage? Black Carrot (talk) 05:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Unless you are bringing into your water-waste vast amounts of liquids from 'off site' your waste-produced volume should be easy to calculate based on your water-use volume. Obviously there'll be some additions from everyday use such as bottled-drinks, cleaning fluids etc. but realistically they shouldn't (normally) account for much (percentage wise) of waste water. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason why your water company needs to keep accurate track of waste water volume? My understanding is that most waste processing fees are apportioned based on an estimated volume per household. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about elsewhere in the world - but here in Texas they take your average winter-time water consumption and use that as the basis of your sewerage charges for the following year. They pick the winter number on the grounds that the summer number is likely to include lawn-watering - which clearly doesn't affect the sewerage charges. SteveBaker (talk) 14:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The two systems I've seen used are a fixed sewage fee per household or making it proportional to water usage. Both would allow someone with massive amount of liquid sewage to take advantage, but this just doesn't tend to happen in residential areas. Commercial areas seem more likely to have this issue, so I wonder if they actually meter sewage in such cases. If they routinely check sewage for chemical composition, metering it might be practical, too. StuRat (talk) 14:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's somewhat unfortunate that they don't meter the sewage, as it removes an economic incentive for people to install greywater reclamation systems. --Sean 15:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

...and then there's Germany where they first encouraged people to install rainwater collection systems and greywater reclamation and then installed secondary meters to calculate their sewage fees more precisely. The second meter costs rental whether they get any water except tap water or not. In many cases this more than offset any incentive payments and tax breaks previously issued. (Your government giveth and then it taketh away. :-)76.97.245.5 (talk) 16:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

sea animal

it belongs to a group of gentle ones yet it posses the characteristics of a violent one what is it? Clue it's a sea animal. assistance please —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.78.199 (talk) 09:26, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure the reference desk is able to answer riddles - especially not poorly-phrased ones like this. Sorry. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

A pissed off dolphin? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Killer whale? Dismas|^(talk) 10:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Man o' War? 152.16.16.75 (talk) 10:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How about Whale shark? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's obviously the sea cucumber, which takes on the guise of the gentle cucumber, but violently ravages innocent plankton with its horrid tentacles. --Sean 15:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Best sentence all week. Kingpomba (talk) 10:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a well-known aquatic prey animal that resembles a predator (as some harmless things wear the colors of something poisonous)? —Tamfang (talk) 22:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

DIMEBAG'S DEATH

Dimebag Darrell (Darrell Lance Abott) of Pantera was said to be shot at a live concert. I just dont know the whole story why such a great guitarist was shot and where was the concert held I a m not even too sure about the date If anybody knows these details, could you please help me out 'coz i worship the man !! thegame (talk) 11:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Dimebag would appear to have the info you're looking for. See Dimebag Darrell#Death. --Onorem♠Dil 11:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

HELPED ME A LOT

PEACE OUT TO GUYS !thegame (talk) 11:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarinet music sheets

To Wikipedia Reference Desk

my name is Darren, I am 14 years old and I am from Australia. I am writing because I would like to ask about sheet music for the Clarinet which is a woodwind instrament. I have been playing the Clarinet for 10 months now and I need a new book with music in it I can play because I finished my first one. It is for beginners and I am better than that now, I would like to play harder music. Do you have webpage on your website with free music I can have or do you have any books I can borrow. The book I really want is to expensive for me until I save up. I play the Clarinet everyday and oneday I want to tralvel to different countrys playing it for people. I like the Clarinet because of it sound and range of notes.

Thankyou for reading Darren Ron <<REMOVED EMAIL ADDRESS>> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.226.240 (talk) 11:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I have removed your email address as people won't respond to it, and also you are liable to get spammed having it on here. Google is your friend in this regard search terms such as "Free clarinet sheet music" would be a good start. Beyond this ebay is a great place to pick up second-hand stuff quite cheapily so old music books etc. Or try second-hand book stores in your local area. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Google spat out this ghit for example. [3] You should go through it with your teacher/instructor, because he/she will know which ones are right for your level and which ones will give you a good base to continue from. Your local library may also have a music section or may be able to order things for you from their library network. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 16:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Making the most with the least

What IT jobs pay the most for the least amount of effort? (with a 4 year degree) 70.171.29.89 (talk) 11:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)yumyum

Pointy-haired boss. DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, see also our article at Pointy-Haired Boss. jeffjon (talk) 14:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you are maintaining a computer system for a smallish company - such that you are the only IT guy - then the better you are at your job - the less work you have to do - and the better appreciated you'll be. If the computer system just hums along without crashing and dying - and the office workers are spam-free and malware-free - and if new updates come along and "just work" because you've tested them...then you'll have very little work to do. This means that the IT guy who has his feet up on the desk, reading the newspaper is the best IT guy you can have. The one who is rushed off his feet trying to keep things together isn't doing so well. Sadly, this means that you have to be very good at what you do in order to be that lazy...and typically, the lazy IT guys are the ones who end up working the hardest! This doesn't work out so well in a large organization. When there is an entire department of IT guys who are doing their jobs very well - then the management can just downsize the IT department until they are all working hard DESPITE getting everything right. SteveBaker (talk) 14:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

And if you are the IT guy at the small company that has everything running smoothly, you would be advised to make yourself look busy, even when you are not, if you expect to get raises. I've found management to be much more impressed with appearances than actually doing a good job. If no viruses attack, for example, they are likely to attribute it to "good luck" instead of the firewall and other preventative measures the IT guy installed. StuRat (talk) 14:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the things you should keep yourself busy with is informing management of how your system works and what upgrades/updates you'd recommend next. It's important that you learn to do that with words and phrases you could cut our from the Sunday paper. That will prevent them from asking for a "mauve database" [4]. Failing to do so is likely to make your work very hard to impossible at regular intervals. BTW: Most good to excellent IT guys love working on difficult problems and get bored with "least amount of effort" routine stuff. Are you sure you chose the right career path?? 76.97.245.5 (talk) 15:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This will also prevent management from making appointments with the nurse for you so you can become a "eunuch programmer" (which presumably will remove an entire category of "distractions" from your work). :-) StuRat (talk) 17:25, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's later than you think...

Do they still teach elementary/primary school students how to tell time on a clock with rotary hands, or is this considered an obsolete skill in the modern world of digital clocks ? StuRat (talk) 15:04, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I could imagine that they still do it. Reading clocks can be an interesting way of teaching other abilities. --Mr.K. (talk) 15:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they still do it. Ask my five-year-old son. And it would never be obsolete anyway, (a) because analogue clocks are not obsolete and never will be; and (b) because understanding the movement of the hands around the dial is fundamental to an understanding of time itself. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if I agree that rotary dial clocks will be in use forever. I picture a downward spiral of fewer people having such clocks, therefore less emphasis placed on teaching kids to read such clocks, therefore fewer people getting these clocks when these kids grow up, etc., until they become completely obsolete. Since this is one of the primary uses of Roman numerals, their use may also decline. I've noticed that new movies are less likely to give the date in Roman numerals, too. The other big use is for outlines, but that seems optional, too.

Also, digital display clocks seem better in just about every measurable way. For example, for a given sized face, a digital display clock can be viewed from much farther, as it only needs room to display one number (3-4 digits) for the current time, while a rotary dial clock must have room for 12 numbers (unless we're talking about clocks with no numbers, which present their own problems). This situation becomes even worse for 24-hour clocks. StuRat (talk) 18:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect analog clocks tend to use less power (i.e. batteries last longer) although this may be changing. In any case, they are also IMHO more easily visible in the dark baring backlighting. Also digital clocks and watches have been around for a long time with no evidence of analogs disappearing any time soon plus self-winding high quality mechanical Swiss watches are a major status symbol (Rolex in particular) I don't see that ending any time soon Nil Einne (talk) 05:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

My nieces are still taught on analogue clocks in the UK and they've carried this on in their schools as an easy form of teaching them other base numbering schemes when they're older (My 9 year old niece is learning Octal and Hexadecimal in this way, which frankly astonishes me after what I've previously experienced in British state schooling). Nanonic (talk) 15:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC) They also have charts/worksheets/cards that compare the digital clock time to the time shown on a clock face with hands. BTW this is usually done at K or even pre-K level these days. I'm waiting for when they start to expect kids to know their letters before they start to crawl. Sadly, I don't find that moving things like letter recognition and basic writing skills to pre-elementary school levels is being reflected positively in scholastic aptitude of the general schoolkid population. :-( 76.97.245.5 (talk) 15:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

My 8-year-old child struggled with this concept this year in school. Although she now understands how to tell time on an analog clock, she prefers going into a room that has a digital one because "it's faster". I asked her if she could tell me the time on our faux Grandmother clock the other day, which has Roman numerals on its face. She stated that she couldn't read the numbers, even after I explained that they corresponded to the same digits as a clock with Arabic numerals. Funny how we older folks take some things for granted. --Thomprod (talk) 17:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you then show her how to count the Roman numerals to figure out what each one represents ? More important than learning Roman numerals is learning basic problem solving skills like this. StuRat (talk) 18:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That's somewhat bad, since the position of the hands is important rather than the actual numbering. A fair few clocks in my house don't have numbers, and the ones which are digital are only on radios/other electronic equipment. Digital clocks are just ugly.

Back at school, the maths staff room had a clock where the face was reversed, and thus the hands went backwards. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

My brother gave me a clock that runs backward. Being a math nerd, I'd like to make a new face for it so that zero is at the right. —Tamfang (talk) 18:34, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

How about binary number labels from 0000 to 1100 ? StuRat (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean 0000 to 1011, of course. I was thinking 0 to B. —Tamfang (talk) 19:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That's right, unless you want double labels on 12 o'clock. StuRat (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Now I'm thinking no numerals of any kind, just a zero-mark. —Tamfang (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I hold a newly published grade 4 math textbook and it instructs students on reading time from an analog clock but oddly enough, only has them find the time to the nearest 5 minutes. I guess they'll need to resort to digital methods to get down to minute precision. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.245.46.70 (talk) 18:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

On clocks which only have 12 divisions, figuring out the time to the nearest minute can be a bit tricky. StuRat (talk) 18:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The point being, of course, that you don't need to know the time to the nearest minute. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 19:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That strikes me as an excellent excuse to be late for class. APL (talk) 19:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Not really. You can usually tell time within say ~2 minutes precision which is good enough to avoid being late for clase and no one schedules a class at 12:03 it will either be 12:00 or 12:05 or 12:10 or whatever so it's a pretty lame excuse. Nil Einne (talk) 05:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ. My kid's daily schedule:

 Block 1: 8:10-9:43     
   Skinny A     8:10-8:56
   Skinny B     8:59-9:43
 Block 2: 9:49-11:18
 Block 3:
   A:  Lunch 11:18-11:48   Class 11:48-1:24    
   B:  Class 11:24-11:53   Lunch 11:53-12:23   Class 12:23-1:24
   C:  Class 11:24-12:25   Lunch 12:25-12:55   Class 12:55-1:24
   D:  Class 11:24- 1:00   Lunch 1:00-1:30
 Block 4:   1:30-3:00

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

My hi-skool had 50-minute periods with 4-minute breaks. My bus home was at (say) 3:38. —Tamfang (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

In 1981 a friend remarked that estimating the time until his next appointment was slower with his new digital watch: "now I have to do arithmetic" rather than visually measuring the angle. —Tamfang (talk) 19:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start a RefDesk death pool on analog clocks, roman numerals, and COBOL. --Sean 20:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

As a personal anecdote, I remember that my grade eight French teacher asked my class if everyone could tell time on an analog clock when we began using one to learn how to say times in French. She said that she'd had one or two students who could only read digital in the past. I also remember that students expressed doubt and she reconfirmed that it was true. --JGGardiner (talk) 21:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Although they may teach how to read analog clocks now, I fear that in the future they will not. Just as handwriting is becoming an "obselete" skill, kowtowing to typing, reading these clocks is much harder than reading a digital one. I am a high school senior, and I find it to be an irritability to read an analog clock, it takes more time. Digital clocks are easier, it is as simple as that. The Reader who Writes (talk) 01:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a wind-up digital clock or one that doesn't require power (battery or main)? I don't think I have ever seen one. Until one is made, travellers to and those who live in areas where the supply of electricity (and/or batteries) is inconsistent will still need an analogue clock. I need my wind-up almost every time there is a storm at night. // BL \\ (talk) 01:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No batteries available in your part of the world, then ? :-) But seriously, any place with no source of electricity is unlikely to be able to afford clocks or watches, either. Fortunately, in such places knowing the exact time of the day isn't all that important. StuRat (talk) 02:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Luckily, people in such rural areas with no mains electricity can just tell time by looking at their cel phone. (No joke.) APL (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I haven't carried a watch since first acquiring such a device. —Tamfang (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, check out Digital sundial. Also I think there exist digital Automatic watches. Of course, in an age where a $9 watch will last two or three years before its first battery change, It doesn't seem like a huge issue. APL (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Since classrooms are one of the most common places to find an analog clock, I doubt that the skill, and the teaching thereof, will go away very soon. I can't think of a single classroom that I've been in where there was a digital clock instead of the stereotypical analog one. Dismas|^(talk) 01:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would be ironic if they stopped teaching how to use rotary dial clocks yet still had them in the classrooms. Still, I imagine that whenever the old clocks need to be replaced they will likely switch to newer digital display clocks. StuRat (talk) 02:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

They're a good intro into the teaching of Roman numerals, a necessary skill given that the dates of film and TV productions are still usually given in Roman numerals for some odd reason. They also need to be aware that the number 4 is shown as "IIII" on clock faces, not the more usual "IV". -- JackofOz (talk) 02:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Uhmmm, not always . . . [5]. // BL \\ :-)(talk) 02:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The "IIII" value for 4 is far more obvious than "IV" (which looks like a backwards 6), so I'd expect anyone to be able to figure that out. StuRat (talk) 05:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

For the record, they aren't that hard to learn. My son just turned 3 years old, and he almost has it down. I would say that in a month or two he should have no trouble telling time using a dial clock. I haven't even tried to teach him a digital clock yet... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Argument against digital watches: analogue watches look better. I used to have a digital one, but then I grew up, and now I wear a very heavy, almost thirty-year-old authentic soviet-made Wostok watch. No battery, you have to wind it up by hand at least once daily. And I wanna get an analogue watch if this one ever gets damaged beyond repair. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Another argument: Were it not for analogue watches, we wouldn't have the frequently recurring question about why the hands are stereotypically set at 10:10 in ads and shop windows and "I've been told that this was because Lincoln died at that time and is that really true?" -- JackofOz (talk) 07:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

and by extension, we wouldn't be asked why there isn't an article about this phenomenom. Dismas|^(talk) 07:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

and then have to go on to explain that there used to be one, but it got taken away by raving deletionists. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought they were set at 8:20 because that's when Lincoln died. —Tamfang (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Digital clocks may be a commonplace in the home, but in public spaces they most certainly are not. I'm pretty sure there are no plans to replace the dials of Big Ben with a digital readout any time soon! --TammyMoet (talk) 08:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you joking? Digital clocks are everywhere. I can't remember the last time I went past a bank that didn't have a big one outside. Most drug stores have them too. The only places that have big outdoors analog clocks are either very old buildings (Big Ben, churches, old train stations, etc) or buildings that are trying to look old. (New train stations.)

Indoors, cheap analog clocks are relatively common, but so are digital ones. Especially in situations where the customers needs to precisely know the time. (Airports, train stations, and the like.) Add to that the fact that many digital displays on cash registers, ATMs, and the like will default to showing the time when they're idle, I'll bet you'd find that digital clocks outnumbered analog ones in indoors public places as well. APL (talk) 13:07, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking America, APL? Because I certainly wouldn't consider digital clocks to be everywhere. For that matter, why on earth does each bank need a large digital clock outside? Gwinva (talk) 22:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I am amused by the idea that Big Ben (1859) counts as "very old". I would have thought a "very old" building would have a sundial or an entire analogue astronomical computer. Gandalf61 (talk) 19:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

And I could pedantically point out that bells don't usually have clocks on them except maybe in some kitschmaster's Dalíesque fantasy-nightmare, but that would be ... er, pedantic, so I won't make that point. However, clocks do sometimes have bells in them, and the French word for bell is "cloche", so this post hasn't been a total waste of time. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I am speaking as an American. I've never been to UK or Europe, so maybe analog clocks are more common there. Also, I had in my mind that Big Ben was from the early 1700s, I'm not sure why I thought that, Doesn't matter though, many of the "Very old" buildings I'm thinking of around here of are probably not much older than that anyway. They're "old" compared to digital clocks, anyway. APL (talk) 00:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

And it appears that the BBC reported that Big Ben was going digital. Coincidentally, that report allegedly occured twenty-nine years ago today. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

It'll be a long time (ever?) before analogue clocks are rendered obsolete. Aside from aesthetics (they look so much nicer, and therefore make better home art (on wall) or jewellery (on wrist)), they also show the passage of time in a way digital clocks do not, and are easily read at a distance or a quick glance. (You don't need to see the numbers: the position of the hands is enough.) For this reason, public spaces (schools, stations, swimming pools, court houses etc) all use them. They are reliable and work even when there's a power cut (ok, so digital clocks could have batteries, but most public ones don't). While digital stop watches are almost essential for timing a start-stop event (such as a race), analogue are easier for measuring an event over a time: eg. taking a pulse, or lapping a pool: when you are waiting for the hand to be a position (able to be observed from the corner of your eye), rather than waiting for a number to come up, which requires more concentration. Children shouldn't need to be taught to read analogue clocks at school: if they had one up at home they'd have worked it out already. With moving hands, young children recognise the passing of time before they know numbers, and begin to understand how minutes and hours work before they know maths. Gwinva (talk) 22:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Point of curiosity here: In American English there is a very clear distinction between the words analogue and analog, and it's the latter that's used in contrast with digital. Is that not so in Commonwealth English? --Trovatore (talk) 22:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

No, we would have to resign our citizenship if we ever dared use a word as ugly as analog. (I had to brace myself to type it, and now need a little lie down to recover.) Gwinva (talk) 22:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

So then do you just not make the distinction? I thought the Brits were supposed to be big on making fine linguistic distinctions (and this one isn't even all that fine). --Trovatore (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

How are the words different? To me, analog is just the American way of spelling analogue... I wasn't aware they had different meanings. TastyCakes (talk) 22:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

They're quite different. Analog is an adjective; analogue is a noun. An analogue of x is something that takes x's role in an analogy. Analog measuring instruments don't really have that much to do with analogies, except (as it were) by analogy. --Trovatore (talk) 22:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm then I would say yes, analogue will refer to either of those in British (and Canadian) English. Analogue measuring instruments have to do with the word in that they are a direct representation of what they are measuring. A sundial is an analogue of the time of day, for example, and is hence an analogue device. While the term may now be used to just mean something is not digital, the roots come from such a device being a representation of what is being measured (being directly analogous to it) rather than just a sampling, as a digital device would give. TastyCakes (talk) 23:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Will analog clocks go the way of the slide rule? (I had to learn to use one of those in high school, but that is no longer taught?) — Michael J 22:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

@ StuRat: I have visited many places where batteries were in very short supply and electricity uuncertain: at home I have only the latter problem with which to contend. I can never hear the alarm on a watch, so, without my wind-up, analogue clock, I would miss planes and trains and buses, and perhaps the opening hours of the local pub. Some things are important. // BL \\ (talk) 22:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, nobody's mentioned these two arguments yet, maybe it's time for another old fart to step in :-)

Anecdote One: Many people looking at their analog watches don't really want/need to know exactly what time it is. If they're walking down the hall to their next meeting, which is to start at 10 sharp, a quick glance at the big hand gives them enough information. They don't need to know that it's 9:56:22, and that they have exactly 3 minutes and 38 seconds to get there; rather, the simple observation that the big hand is closer to the 11 than the 12 tells them that they don't need to run.

Anecdote Two: If it's 45 minutes past 9 o'clock, how do you report that? If you learned on an analog clock, you say "quarter to ten", and you learned that from one-quarter of a circle matching up to one quarter of an hour. Ask today's kids that, and you'll get "nine forty-five". ("Quarter to? What's that?")

Couple of minutes later, ask me what time it is again, and if I know that great precision is not required, I'll probably reply "about a quarter to", where today's kid will accurately report, "nine forty-seven", even when it's not needed.

The round clock face is a darn good introduction, and in many cases the /first/ introduction to fractions, even before kids know that they're learning fractions.

Ergo, there's still value in analog clocks.

And, if I've understood part of the previous dialog (dialogue?) correctly, I now know that the watch I once owned which showed the time with an LCD display of two hands, one longer than the other, was a digital analogue of an analog face. Right? --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

"The digital analogue of an analog face". Well done, sir! --Trovatore (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I've often wondered why digital watches ("digit" being a term for "finger") are the ones without hands. Regarding digital watches, though, are they not dying out, to an extent? I remember years ago, probably the 1970s, when a digital watch was the latest Space Age thing a kid, or a smartly-turned-out Young And Up And Coming Executive, could have. Digital watches are in my experience rather dated now - so people will need to read analogue if they want to read their watch. Tonywalton ^Talk 00:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say watches period are dying out, killed by the cell phone. (For our British friends, period means full stop). But look for them to make a nostalgia-based comeback in about five or ten years. --Trovatore (talk) 00:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Never! I hate going anywhere without my watch, and a phone (cell/mobile, call it whatever you like) just won't do. It used to be said that a gentleman isn't fully dressed unless he's carrying a handkerchief. I'd add a watch to that. Re analog/analogue: It's true that -ue is a noun; it's also the case that it's the "British" version of the American adjective analog. We don't go around dropping the -ue from French-sourced words just because they get used as undreamt of parts of speech. Dialogue, monologue, catalogue etc all keep their -ue endings despite becoming used as verbs as well as nouns. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

A couple of years ago I had two watches. Both of the watchbands broke at around the same time. Both were cheap; I could have just bought another watch, but it seemed more responsible to have the band replaced. But that was more trouble, so I didn't get around to it for a while.

Then I noticed I never really missed having a watch. I mean, when do you not know what time it is? At work you've always got the clock at the lower right of the computer screen. Walking around the city you have your cell phone. Even in the backcountry you have your GPS. And of course there's your cerebral implant. Oops, maybe I'm not supposed to talk about that in public. CODE X42W%: forget what I just said. --Trovatore (talk) 02:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I sure am glad I don't need a watch any more. The ones with metal springy bands always ripped all the hairs out of my wrist, while the leather wrist-bands (or, God-forbid, vinyl), left my skin white and puffy underneath as if I had been wearing a cast. StuRat (talk) 04:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This trend always amuses me. Whenever I see someone fish their phone out of a pocket to check the time, I always imagine that they should have it on a small gold-colored chain. APL (talk) 00:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

When digital watches became available (and cheap), my mother remarked that it had been hard for her to find a reliable mechanical watch, women's models being smaller and therefore more delicate than the other kind. —Tamfang (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• No, analog clocks will not become obsolete. Digital and analog clocks simply use a different method to reach the same conclusion. For one, not teaching children the basics of reading a clock with a face means they'll miss out on skills that help them with fractions and learning digital time later on. (sure they can recite what a digital clock face says, but do they know what it means?) As for watches becoming obsolete in favor of cellphones: codswallop. I have yet to find a reliable cellphone that doesn't die on my after a couple of months. (Also, since I'm not allowed to have a cellphone in the laboratory and since I don't want to use one on the bus on the way home, there's really no need to have one in favor of a simple landline.- 131.211.211.181 (talk) 08:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm simply amazed at the volume of responses to this relatively straightforward Q. Thanks, all. StuRat (talk) 15:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

common blackbird

common blackbird life expectancy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.26.236 (talk) 17:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

According to Common Blackbird: "A Common Blackbird has an average life expectancy of 2.4 years, and, based on data from bird ringing, the oldest recorded age is 21 years and 10 months." --Tango (talk) 17:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

plumbing

Is there a standard water pressure that a house from the US gets from a city water line? I am trying to figure out how to store rainwater for later lawn watering and would like to know what kind of water pressure I would need to get in my system before it will work. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 19:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I doubt the water pressure is standard (although it may be supposed to meet some minimum requirement). This article says that normal water pressure is between 40 to 80 PSI. Less than 40, and running a shower and a dishwasher at the same time can be problematic, whereas pressure over 80 PSI can actually damage appliances. For lawn watering purposes, though, that might still not be enough, depending on the size of your lawn and the type of watering you intend to do. It's my understanding that large sprinkler systems really need a lot of pressure at the source to work properly, whereas a hose and a nozzle will work just fine at 40 PSI. Anyway, I would imagine that a big challenge here would be just gathering enough water from the rain... - Captain Disdain (talk) 20:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not so sure, each 1" of rain translates into 500 gallons of water on a 800 sq ft roof, so as long as your collection method is efficient, you will get a lot of water. I wonder how long you can maintain 60 psi in a standard hose with 500 gallons though. I think I will ask the math guys this one. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

This link says "Sprinkler head manufacturers publish specifications for sprinkler head optimal pressure, throw radius, and discharge flow rate", and gives these example figures:

PSI  Radius in feet
30   38
40   40
50   41
60   42

I don't know if those are typical, but they seem reasonable. Perhaps you could look up such figures for your equipment. --Sean 20:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that info Sean, 30 psi seems a lot more feasible then 60 psi. I will see if that is true with my lawn sprinkler. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What you need to find is somebody with their own well, who therefore has had to deal with pressure cut-in/cut-out switches, and holding tanks and so forth. Me, in other words :-)

In my previous home, the well system was built with a 30/50 switch (on at 30 psi, off at 50), which worked "OK but no better" for normal household stuff. I replaced it with a 40/60 switch, and things worked much better -- the toilet could refill while the washer was running, for instance. However, in my current home, where there is also an in-ground sprinkler system, I have (1) a 50/75 pressure switch, and (2) an oversize holding tank, which I'm guessing is in the 80-90 gallon range.

I don't know what I'm actually throwing (in gallons per minute, say), but the pump can still refill the tank and shut off for a while while the sprinklers are running. And I can easily notice the drop in range (from one head) as the tank drains and refills.

SO, I would conclude that storage capacity is no less important than pressure. --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Instead of sprinklers, I suggest you use soaker hoses (hoses which are capped at the end and have tiny holes along their lengths). They require less pressure to work, but do need to be moved more often. StuRat (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

According to the math guys, I can only get about 7 psi from my tank. For 30psi I would need it to be 70' tall! So I am thinking I will have to try something else. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Folks with wells usually have a pressure tank, with a captive air mass held by a rubber bladder. This is cheaper than a high water tower. A 42 gallon one precharged to 40 pounds sells for $129 (US). Edison (talk) 16:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

outboard motor

What is the gas/oil mix for a 2001 8 hp Johnson outboard motor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harleykem (talk • contribs) 22:26, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Can I suggest calling a Johnson dealer? DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

March 31

Elvis Presley

Can anyone tell me which church Elvis Presley was a choir member of? 117.194.224.138 (talk) 02:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Elvis Presley notes that as a child, his family attended Assemblies of God churches, but does not mention a specific congregation he was a member of. Apparently, also according to our article, the choirs at those churches were a strong musical influence on him. Again, no mention as to whether he sung in any choir himself, just that the church choirs were an early musical influence. You could follow the references for those notes, and see where it takes you! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The Church of the Stranded Preposition ? Or is that the "Stranded Proposition Church of" ? :-) StuRat (talk) 15:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia namespace statistics

From Special:Statistics it looks like about 80% of Wikipedia pages are NONcontent pages. I'm looking for statistics on these pages, and especially for those in the Wikipedia namespace--e.g. total number of characters, number of edits, rate of edits, number of editors, number of new pages created--anything! There are plenty of statistics available focusing on the articles, but what about everything else? Thanks! Jeangoodwin (talk) 03:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

You can find a lot of page statistics with this site: [6] Just plug in the page name you want. It goes up to the last 50000 edits, if I remember correctly. bibliomaniac15 04:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, we have a 'discussion' page paralleling almost every article - so that accounts for 50% right there. Then most users have a user page - AND a user-discussion page. There are quite a few articles in the 'WP:' namespace that are policies and guidelines (and the talk pages that relate to those) - and also WikiProjects and portals that organize special groups of Wikipedians who share a common goal. Quite a few user-talk, article-talk and most of the WP: talk pages get too large and have to be archived regularly - meaning that there can be several pages of talk for each article there. We also have template: and category: pages (with associated talk). The remainder are things like this - the reference desk - which gets archived every few days, regardless of how large they are. In light of all that - I'm surprised that as many as 20% are actual articles - but it's a grey area - many things like portals, templates and categories are as useful and informative as "articles" - but they aren't counted as such. Some people regard this as an alarming statistic - but actually, it merely represents the amount of effort that has to go on "under the hood" to make the system look as good as it does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveBaker (talk • contribs) 14:32, 31 March 2009

Just to clarify: Steve (Not signed: who are you and what have you done with SteveBaker?) is confirming that it would be implasuable to suggest that articles make up any more than 50% because of the talk pages, not that the talk pages currently occupy 50%. What about images? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

gas

Gas in ww1 wasn't very effective so why were people so scared of it? In the films you see them screaming about gas and there are all those posters and artwork depicting gas as an evil unstoppable force. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 08:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think it wasn't very effective? You may be confusing the use of gas in the trenches in WWI - where it was moderately effective at the tactical level, and certainly killed and injured plenty of people - with the resultant paranoia about a repeat performance in WWII, which led to the widespread issue of civilian gasmasks, for example. Please clarify. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

See mustard gas (nasty stuff, now known generically as chemical weapons) and Poison gas in World War I. The use of gas and its devastating, terrifying effects upon the soldiers, especially those in the trenches, was a recurring theme in World War I in art and literature. BrainyBabe (talk) 09:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe gas is very effective as a weapon in combat since it gets out of control once you set it free. --Mr.K. (talk) 12:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, since the inception of time, the goal of war has never been to kill all of your enemies, so we can't judge poisonous gases on that rubric. Likely, a bunch of good well-aimed guns were certainly a better killing device than mustard gas; however the point of war is merely to stop the enemy from trying to kill you. Killing that enemy first is one way to do that, but it has rarely been the primary method. The army that wins is almost always the one that doesn't retreat and in those terms, chemical weapons can be quite effective. The whole point of chemical weapons (and, indeed, of almost any weapon) is to make the enemy not want to fight you at all. After all, if you can scare off the enemy before your side has to fight them, then your soldiers don't die either. Pitched battle is the last way to win a war, not the first... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The goal of war is often to kill all your enemies, from when the Bible says that God told the Israelites to kill everyone in the cities they conquered right up to the genocide in Rwanda. Also, a tactical retreat is often a good strategy, such as Russia's "scorched Earth" retreat from Nazi Germany in WW2, which lengthened German supply lines and brought their troops deep inside Russia just in time for winter, ultimately bringing defeat to the Germans. StuRat (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

In trench warfare, mustard gas was exceedingly effective when it actually ended up in the other guy's trenches. It blistered lungs and caused its victims to drown in their own bodily secretions. That's a nasty way to go - and it scared the pants off of anyone who was in it's way. The trouble was that if the wind shifted, it could be blown back into the lines of the army that released it - and if the wind blew too strongly, it would disperse ineffectively - making it hard to deploy reliably. But as a morale-depleting weapon, it was totally effective. Knowing that such a lethal agent could come rolling into your trenches without any warning...while you slept...no explosions, nothing...that must have been a terrifying prospect. Ratchetting up the tension and stress amongst enemy fighters is always an effective weapon. SteveBaker (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Gas was a dangerous and frightening weapon in that one could not hide from it as one could from bullets. It also forced people to wear heavy and uncomfortable protection. But the main threat in WWI was psychological. Before, battles had been fought away from the public. With the advent of airships and aircraft, bombs and gas were brought to the Home Front. Imagine the panic, first time in history that civilians became targets! Add the inconvenience of carrying gas masks everywhere and the potential of gas was enough to cause damage to the civilian (and military) morale.86.209.31.9 (talk) 15:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)DT

Civilians have been targets throughout history. The idea that they SHOULDN'T be targets is largely only a recent as the twentieth century. It was long a part of warfare to scare the shit out of the citizenry of the nation you were at war with, so they either a) wouldn't get in your way or b) couldn't be enlisted by the government of that country or c) would willingly abandon their old government and swear fealty to you instead. The notion that non-soldiers were somehow "off-limits" is a pretty new idea. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The idea that non-soldiers SHOULD not be targets is not a terribly new one, though not one that any country has shown a lot of care in following systematically. But I agree that the statement that pre-WWI civilians were separate from the threats of war—absolutely not true. Gas has psychological effects, but they aren't related to bringing the war home, they're related to
mass-killing, strange ways of doing it (e.g. non-mechanical), and a painful way to die. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Gas was not ineffective, it was just non-decisive. There is a difference there. It had a number of tactical shortcomings (wind changes, for example), could be easily replicated by all sides, and could be to some degree be defended against. Its introduction did not, outside of the first few times it was used, change the course of war for any particular combatant. (Compare with, say, the atomic bomb and radar in WWII, both of which were fairly decisive in that they conveyed leveraging benefits to those who used them.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

"The idea that they SHOULDN'T be targets is largely only a recent as the twentieth century."
The ban on targeting civilians goes all the way back to when the Amalekites attacked the civilians instead of Moses' army and earned Gods eternal curse. Phil_burnstein (talk) 08:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that's true...you never can tell in works of fiction. SteveBaker (talk) 20:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

A question about copyright

Say, a person John posted his article on a website which does not indicate that its content is released under GFDL. However, the article is later deleted by the website. Now John want to create an article in Wikipedia with the content he wrote earlier, but soon it was tagged as an copyvio case. Since the origial source (the website) is no longer available, how can John prove that he is the original author? (If the article on the web existed, he would be able to edit the page and release it under GFDL).

I understand that Wikipedia will not give legal request, hence this is purely an question of my own interest, and I will NOT TAKE IT AS AN LEGAL ADVISE. --Bencmq (talk) 12:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. It seems to me that the hypothetical situation posed isn't clear enough to provide a firm answer. If the original article no longer exists, how is a claim of copyvio going to be sustained? Ultimately, I would expect that the matter, for use in Wikipedia, would boil down to "rewrite the content in copyright-acceptable fashion." This shouldn't be a significant hurdle for the original author. — Lomn 13:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This situation would never come up. Why would anyone slap a copyvio tag on a Wikipedia article if the original article is no longer available? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Content rarely completely "goes away" on the Internet - you could probably find it in a Google cache for months afterwards and beyond that, the Internet Archive probably has an archived copy - probably your ISP keeps a backup too. Certainly it should almost always be possible to prove that the article was once on your personal website. However - that doesn't prove that THAT copy is legally yours - you might have typed it in from a book. In the end, Wikipedia requires you, personally, to attest that the content you are providing is copyright-clean - or at least acceptable under our 'fair use' provisions. If you say it's OK then (in the absence of any evidence to the contrary) we'll take your word for it. If we get sued by the real copyright owner because of it - you should expect to get dragged into the courts because Wikipedia took the article 'in good faith' we'll just be asked rather nicely to remove it and you'll be the one with the million dollar fine! If you made an illegal claim to own the copyright when you don't (which is precisely what you are doing by submitting someone else's work) - then you are committing plagiarism as well as violating copyright - and that's something that the courts get very upset about - so you won't get a nice "takedown" notice - you could be looking at punitive damage awards. SteveBaker (talk) 13:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the terms under which John posted that content on the website. Unless John actually assigns the content, he is still the copyright owner and he can license it in whatever way he wants - including onto Wikipedia under the GFDL. If, however, he assigns the content, then he is no longer the copyright owner and he cannot reproduce it except in accordance with the terms of the agreement he has with the new owner (or with the permission of the new owner). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a legal question. If the author originally owned the content then they can release it as GFDL. Whether the Wikipedia copyright Nazis accept his claim of ownership is entirely up to how he presents it, in my experience. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Travel in South America

What is more dangerous for the traveler, US caucasian man or African American traveling in S America like Colombia. What about the same but in Egypt or certain countries in Africa? --Reticuli88 (talk) 14:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that, statistically speaking, the greatest human risk to any traveller in a South American country will be from inhabitants of that country, rather than any United States citizens they might chance to meet. Likewise for Egyptians in Egypt. If you want information about 'certain countries in Africa', you'll need to be certain as to which ones you mean. And if this answer doesn't answer the question you thought you were asking, you may wish to consider re-phrasing your question. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP may mean who is in more danger when visiting those countries, white or black Americans. I'm not sure about Africa, but in Columbia I think the main danger is from kidnappings for ransom, so if you look like someone wealthy will want you back, you are in more danger. I guess that would make whites more at risk. --Tango (talk) 16:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I meant tango. Was there some incident where a middle eastern man who shot all these Americans but warned the black people first so that they could leave? --Reticuli88 (talk) 17:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This really sounds like an urban legend to me. It wouldn't be the first one. Or even the second. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The ability to pass as a native may offer partial protection from terrorism, kidnapping, and robbery in some countries. If that country has a substantial black population, but not white, then being black may help. In the countries you mentioned (Columbia and Egypt), a light-skinned black may blend in best, while in south and central Africa and some Caribbean islands nations (like Haiti), a dark-skinned black may blend in better. However, if they wear an American flag shirt and speak US English loudly, their skin color isn't going to help much. StuRat (talk) 14:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Item in back issue of signpost

There was an item in the signpost about a philosopher who wrote an article on how traditional methods of judging writing's reliability, such as is it well edited, by an authority, etc don't work for WP. Now I need a reference to that article and I can't find it. Does anyone remember it? (I checked the last couple of months worth of issues in the signpost archive and didn't spot it.) RJFJR (talk) 16:07, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Could it be one of the articles mentioned here? Otherwise, perhaps you might come across it in these search results (although I haven't found anything else yet) --Kateshortforbob 22:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

That's it! Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 02:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Java applets

Does anybody know of any Java applets for geometry that aren't limited to a particular subject (such as, for example, an applet mirroring KSEG - I would, in fact, use KSEG, but my school's computers won't run it)? Lucas Brown (talk) 16:59, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you looked at Category:Free interactive geometry software? BTW wouldn't the Computing or Mathematics reference desks be more appropriate? Dmcq (talk) 17:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Geogebra is one I've used. 94.168.184.16 (talk) 22:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

That looked like George Bra. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

A bra worn by Boy George ? StuRat (talk) 14:34, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Human Eye

Why can the white of the human eye be seen most of the time quite easily, where as in other animals, even the great apes, the colored part of the eye fills the space so no white can be seen, unless the animal strains. Obviously there are exceptions but in most cases this seems to be prevelant, can some one please explain this to me. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.59.90 (talk) 18:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well the white part is called the Sclera. From a quick search online some ponies/horses have 'white' sclera but seems a lot have a black sclera (which presumably makes distinguishing between that and the iris harder). Great question, will add more if I find an answer! Hopefully in the meantime a more sciencey (or clever) wikipedian will be around to help. ny156uk (talk) 20:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This might be of more use than my above (http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8103817) - unfortunately the full article is subscriber only. So this might help (http://www.livescience.com/health/061107_human_eyes.html). ny156uk (talk) 20:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd heard the theory that Ny156uk refers to. From the second article linked:

"According to one idea, called the cooperative eye hypothesis, the distinctive features that help highlight our eyes evolved partly to help us follow each others' gazes when communicating or when cooperating with one another on tasks requiring close contact."

But -- shock horror -- we do not have an article on cooperative eye hypothesis. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

We do now. - Eron^Talk 23:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Hurrah! Thank you. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The white part of the eye can be used to evaluate general health, where a yellow color indicates jaundice and where blood-shot eyes (what, no article ?) can indicate many problems. It might be useful when selecting a mate to be able to evaluate if they are healthy, and therefore "showing the whites of your eyes" could be a way to advertise health. However, I don't know why it would only be evolutionarily advantageous in humans to advertise health to a potential mate in this way, and not also be for other animals. StuRat (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, "don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" only applies to a species which uses guns, so... :-) StuRat (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Identifying a fallacy by name

I would like to label what I believe to be a fallacy by name.

(I've altered the terms below for neutrality)

I have mentioned in an article that 35,000 people have been killed each year on American highways. Another editor has inserted an equally valid and footnoted entry which says that 100,000,000 US motorists were not killed (survive) on the highway each year.

The implication is that since only a tiny number die, it is no big deal. That is, the second statement, coming right on the heels of the first, soundly diminishes the impact.

I'm pretty sure this is a fallacy of some sort, but can't put a label to it.

(For the editorial record, I agree that his statement on number of drivers should go somewhere).

(Also, again for the record, this is not about cars or US driving deaths. It is another subject entirely! I worded it this way for ease of understanding)

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Student7 (talk • contribs) 22:37, 31 March 2009

I don't think that's really a logical falacy. There is no conclusion, certainly not a false one. If you were to conclude that driving on US roads is safe then that's not really falacious, it just depends on your definition of "safe". 0.035% of US motorists die each year, that's a perfectly valid statistic and you can decide for yourself whether you think that makes cars safe enough to use or not. (It would be better to use something like people-miles rather than just people, though - not all of those 100 million people drove the same amount. Also, 100 million seems a bit small - that's less than a third of the population, do two thirds of Americans really go an entire year without getting in a car?) --Tango (talk) 00:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We have an article titled Fallacy and a List of fallacies. This could be an implied Ignoratio elenchi arguement, or more likely could be classified as a simple Red Herring; i.e. an irrelevent fact meant to steer the direction of the arguement off course. He could be Cherry picking statistics which fit his arguement, or perhaps the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Since you have not pointed us to the exact situation, it is hard to tell if any of these, or others, may fit the situation. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If the numbers are true (and they seem pretty reasonable to me) - then it's not a fallacy. What's significant is that people are very bad at comparing probabilities. So an 0.03% chance of dying in a car wreck doesn't get people's attention as much as the vastly smaller probability of dying from a shark attack or being struck by lighting or whatever. Failure to reasonably estimate risks and consequences is a major failing of the human race. SteveBaker (talk) 02:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

And indeed there are whole fields built around trying to make sense of numbers like these... see probabilistic risk assessment, for example. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

True information, presented in a context which twists it into a new relevance:

Ship's log, Monday: "The First Mate was drunk today." Signed, the Captain.

Ship's log, Tuesday: "The Captain was sober today." Signed, the First Mate.

True but twisted. BrainyBabe (talk) 10:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

See Hempel's paradox for a very similar situation. HTH, Robinh (talk) 12:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your input which I have saved.

I am forced to agree that the information, since it draws no conclusion, is (alas) valid. Putting it in perspective is not a crime.

But it should be!  :) Thanks for all your help! Student7 (talk) 13:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• It's just plain bad statistics. When someone dies in a traffic accident, the cause of it is pretty clear. When someone survives, it could be that the accident wasn't severe enough to begin with or because they were lucky to receive medical attention in time. And it IS cherrypicking, because it leaves out the millions of other Americans who aren't even running the risk of dying or who have a near miss accident that isn't even reported. The 100,000 statistic simply isn't relevant.- 131.211.211.181 (talk) 07:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Not so - in fact without that other number - the number of deaths is a fairly meaningless figure. Unless you know how many people were driving - the number of deaths doesn't tell you anything about probabilities or risks or trends or where accidents happen the most - or anything of real importance. So either you need to say X number of people died and Y number of people drove and yet survived - or X number of people died out of a population of (X+Y) who drive. Either way - you need both numbers. SteveBaker (talk) 20:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem with the 35,000 number is that people just don't think in terms of there being billions of people on the planet, which means that many people will die from what seems like the most minor causes imaginable. If 35,000 sounds like an excessive number of car accident deaths in the US, consider the millions of people who die each year as a result of mosquito bites (from subsequent malaria or other diseases). StuRat (talk) 07:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

China ban YouTube?

If China can Ban YouTube (can they really do that?), why can't other countries ban websites selling and/or promoting child pornography. As far as I am aware most civilised nations have criminal codes that punish those who watch, save, publish or share such horrible stuff so why not emulate the Chinese action and ban it before it goes down the wires?92.8.12.135 (talk) 23:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

There are several answers to your question.

First, most countries have the technological capability to "ban" a website as effectively as China can. I.e., not very effectively. Millions of people in China work around the great firewall using a whole range of tools. Internet censorship in China might have more information.

Secondly, I wouldn't know the details, but it's not as if illegal websites are swamping the internet. I've never seen a banner ad tryinng to sell me AK-47s, illegal drugs, -- or illegal pornography. Even if current regulations have not eradicated them, they have at least suppressed them.

Given this, it's difficult to compare Youtube to some illicit underground website. The first has a permanent, prominent location, and it's probably easy to block off all avenues of access to it. The latter probably shift locations and appearance all the time, and it would be difficult for regulators to track them down.

Finally, we have something called civil liberties and freedom of speech in many countries. This means that any attempt to curtail our freedom to read or watch what we want at a technical level must be scrutinised closely. If we allow a government to put in a technical filter that effectively blocks out illegal content, it would not be long before the government is tempted to use the same technology to block out content that it deems illegal, unsavoury, or even just too critical for its liking. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Lots of countries do ban child porn websites. They have to find them first, but once they've done that they can be blocked. Wikipedia was, for a short time, deemed to be a child porn website in the UK and blocked (well, in theory just one page was blocked, but due to technical problems/incompetancies it was more widespread than that). --Tango (talk) 00:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You can find more information on the UK system, which is privately-run, not done by a statutory body; ISPs blacklist sites based on a list compiled by a private body, at Internet Watch Foundation. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 09:28, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: China as an analogy:

1. They don't ban it before it goes down the wires. Rather, they have computers that sit at the juncture points between China and the rest of the internet and provide error messages if you try to go to a banned website. When you visit a website, your computer sends out a signal to a computer somewhere else that says, "hey, give me your website stuff." The computer elsewhere then sends it back to you. In the process of all this sending your "request" and their "response" bounce from computer to computer, router to router. In the Chinese case, one of those routers is set to block certain sites—basically giving error messages in response to your "request." So the other site is still out there—you just can't get to it. There are ways you can try to send your requests down other "paths" —sometimes these work, sometimes they don't.

2. Their system (which is both technical and social) doesn't work perfectly but for most internet users there it works pretty well—it's not completely easy to go around the "Great Firewall" and most won't bother. But like child pornography, though, doesn't work the same way—it's not something a casual internet user would try to look up, you'd only be getting very niche, very dedicated people. So banning child porn from the millions of "normal" browsers is totally pointless—they aren't looking anyway—and those who ARE looking are probably going to know how to be clever about it (or will tell each other).

2. If you knew the URLs of the sites you wanted to ban, you might be able to put said computers (routers) in their way and filter them that way. The problem is that there are lots of paths in and out of most countries. With China it is centralized to a degree not present in the USA, for example.

3. If you knew the URLs of the sites to spreading child pornography, you could almost certainly just have the site taken down at the source and/or person arrested, as child pornography is a crime basically everywhere. China has to use its firewall because talking about Tiananmen Square is not a crime most places. (If you are in China and running said type of website, though, they won't block your site, they'll just shut it down or arrest you).

--98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Also because talking about Tiananmen Square, Zhao Ziyang or the Dalai Lama is not per se illegal in China either: the government just prefers that people aren't reminded about any of it by the internet. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The laws are quite flexible. It's not like the law says, "can't talk about Tianamen Square," but the laws do give the government broad reach over speech, which does occasionally come down to the government declaring someone an agigator or something like that an arresting them. It's a little more than "just prefers"—they do use real legal force at different levels (individuals, but also at the ISP level). --140.247.241.244 (talk) 17:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Administrative, not legal per se. Most of these rules are made through administrative orders which are really really dodgy from a strict legal perspective and would, in a country with a well-developed administrative law system, be challenged and thrown out for having very little basis in legislation. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Mmm, my understanding, which I do not claim to be rigorous, is that these fall under generalized national security formulations. Every country has limits on what it considers to be shouting fire in a crowded theater — where the line is drawn is almost never clear from the laws themselves. The Chinese government seems to set that bar pretty low (though even there it is complicated—they do allow certain types of dissent and criticism, and the internet on the whole, even in China, is far less regulated than, say, broadcast media). --140.247.248.90 (talk) 15:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Temperatures at F1 Grand Prixs

What are the hottest and coldest air and track temperatures of any F1 Grands Prix? Is there a temperature limit whereby if the track temperature is lower than the limit then the Grand Prix cannot go ahead because the tarmac wont have enough grip? 86.177.120.23 (talk) 23:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The F1 season is structured so that all of the races take place in summer temperatures or relatively mild temperatures. It is therefore extremely rare for the outside temperature to be below 15 degrees (C), not a level that would cause any trouble. Heavy rain or fog are more of a problem and have been known to stop races. The coldest Grand Prix was likely the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix, won by Gilles Villeneuve, which was run in Montreal in the fall at temperatures barely above freezing. It was uncomfortable for drivers and spectators, but the problem of grip did not seem to be major (our article barely has any information, but a google search should be more fruitful as this race has been written about extensively). A true winter Grand Prix could be another matter, but, with advance knowledge, the tire manufacturer(s) would likely design a compound that works under the conditions; actual ice would be a problem, though, as it is for highway driving.

As for maximum temperatures, the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, won by Keke Rosberg, was run in temperatures well above 40. Conditions were brutal for the pilots and motors, but grip was a problem largely because the track surface was disintegrating; it would likely not have been the case with a proper surface. If the Bahrain or Abu Dhabi Grand Prix were run at the height of summer, one could face similar problems, but again, grip could be dealt with by ensuring a proper track surfacing and adjusting the compound for the tires for that particular race.--Xuxl (talk) 18:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Pilots? Drivers, surely. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Well they do operate vehicles faster then small aircraft... 65.121.141.34 (talk) 13:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. Once in a while, some of my native French vocabulary slips into my English prose. --Xuxl (talk) 14:03, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

April 1

Why are TV commercials telecine'd?

This is one of my pet peeves. If you ever watch commercial TV in the United States, probably >75% of the ads are shot at 24 fps (film/cinema speed) and then pulled down to the 30 fps nominal framerate that NTSC TV uses. I was particularly amused/bemused by an ad for an HDTV that advertised a "blisteringly" fast refresh rate, but the telecine process made the motion on the simulated screenshot of the TV look very jerky. So my question is why do they do that? Is it cost (film cameras are cheap), artistic license (the movie-like motion could be construed as more artistic or cinematic and therefore "better"), or some other reason? 4.242.235.216 (talk) 01:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Most TV dramas are shot on film (or were until recently, more are using digital video now). Film is considered to give a more stylish upmarket appearance (partly this is historical because of the relative status of film and TV, and partly because it was better able to capture light differences and because the grain was considered to be aesthetically pleasing). Many directors and directors of photography still prefer to use film, because it's what they're used to and it feels more sophisticated than using video. Also, film can be more easily scaled to run internationally in countries with different TV systems, and in cinemas - since many TV commercials are now shown worldwide in territories with both PAL and NTSC, filming for American TV would restrict the usefulness of commercials.[7][8] --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 09:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Since the 1930's it has been possible to show a 24 frame per second movie on 30 frame per second TV with one second of the movie filling one second of TV. They do not have to speed up or slow down the movie. The pitch of music would change dramatically, as would the pitch of voices if there were a one frame of movie per frame of TV lockstep such as you describe. Europe sometimes does use the lockstep approach and change 24 frames/sec to 25 frames per sec, with a semitone of pitch change. Edison (talk) 05:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, in the 1930's - until perhaps the late 1980's - the technology was a 'telecine' machine - which is basically a regular cine projector pointed into a regular TV camera with some optics in the way to get the focus right. So what you got was a rather jerky version of the original where 18 of the 24 film frames every second were displayed for one TV frame each and the other 6 were each displayed twice. This was sometimes "fixed" by using longer persistance in the TV camera - resulting in a smeary rather than jerky image. These days, we can use digital techniques to interpolate the two frame smoothly - that's because of the way that MPEG video compression works by analyzing the motion in the image and separating foreground from background and such. This goes a long way to explain why film footage used to look very different from raw camera footage on TV...but these days, you don't have to put up with that if you don't want to. SteveBaker (talk) 13:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Lenticel's law

I have a political science major friend who always stumped me on debates so I made a "law" that will stump her. Here are its clauses:

• Lenticel's law says that Lenticel's argument is always right.
• Lenticel's law is a valid argument because Lenticel's law says so.
• Lenticel's law exist because Lenticel's law says so.

I'm curious on what fallacies does my "law" violate since my friend always calls it invalid or fallacious.--Lenticel ^(talk) 04:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

They're all simple circular logic. bibliomaniac15 04:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay now I know why she's annoyed when I bring it up.--Lenticel ^(talk) 04:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course, WP has an article on Lenticel's law. Well, almost. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a popular version of your law, Lenticel:

Rule 1: Lenticel is always right

Rule 2: Should Lenticel ever be wrong, Rule 1 automatically applies.

I don't know who first came up with this set of two rules, but variations can be found in the articles on Stew Leonard's (replace "Lenticel" with "the customer") and Larry Wall (replace "Lenticel" with "Larry Wall"). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not really the same - in the original formulation, Lenticel's law can simply be false with no adverse consequences. Then it does not say it's always right (which is just as well, because it isn't) - if it's false then it doesn't say that it is a valid argument - so it's OK that it's not - and if it exists only because it says so - and it's false then it doesn't even have to exist (although it can if that helps). So we have perfectly satisfactory, non-paradoxical argument that Lenticel's law is simply false. The "more popular version" is a little more painful since the second clause says that if it's wrong then it's right. However, if it IS wrong then it may be wrong about that too...so we still don't really have a problem. Anyway - for our OP to succeed against impossible debating skills will require a very complete knowledge of Gödel's theorem - nothing is guaranteed to toss a spanner in the works of any serious debate to quite the degree that Godel can. For the intelligent layman - I recommend reading Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. SteveBaker (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You can't replace Lenticel, it's against the law :P--Lenticel ^(talk) 15:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of papal infallibility: the popes claim that, in certain matters, they are incapable of error, so anything they say on such matters is automatically right. They claim that this authority is not man-made but divine, which lets them off the hook of circular reasoning. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

So the obvious question is, how well did that work when there were 2 different popes at the same time? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 13:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The official church position is that there have never been two popes simultaneously; rather, all but one simultaneous pope claimants were antipopes. As such, they don't have papal infallibility. Is it something of a cop-out? Sure, but it makes sense within the context. — Lomn 14:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, Papal infallibility is a comparatively recent innovation. There hasn't been a widely supported antipope since the doctrine was announced, nor had there been for some considerable time previously. The last big unseating of antipopes was at the Council of Constance, which also put forward the conciliar doctrine, stating that the Pope is not infallible or the ultimate authority, but is subject to the authority of an ecumenical council. Sadly, this doctrine fell by the wayside during the counter-Reformation. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Manager to be or not

i have applied for a position of a manager with a travel company (call centre). what are the quality they will look for and what questions probably? anyone ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 15:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Read the role profile/job details on the job application - it is the best resource for finding what a company want from you. Beyond that the generic stuff is - confidence, clear evidence of preparation/consideration of your responses, positive attitude etc. Managers should show an ability to be able to people-manage and also be able to delegate/organise workloads across multiple individuals. ny156uk (talk) 17:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how much help it will be, but we do have an article on Management. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Dr Pepper

The can on Dr Pepper says that it is made up of 23 different flavors or something like that, but I can't seem to find any info on what those flavors would be. Does anyone know this, and would they please share their wisdom on the subject? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to specific the "flavors" (which refers to a specific class of chemicals; if derived synthetically they are labeled as "aritificial" if not then they are labeled "natural" but the chemicals are the same either way). In fact, you almost never do—that's part of the trade secret that allows them to keep making the drink and having it taste distinct from others. (Long long long after a patent on it would have expired.) --140.247.241.244 (talk) 19:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nobody seems to know, but more information can be found here and here. Viriditas (talk) 04:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Any judges on our board?

This question does not seek legal advice; rather, I'm after an opinion that requires judicial/courtroom experience.

My community has had an ongoing feud with a local business owner. Last year, he prevailed in District court, but the community took the case to the Court of Appeals, who have just reversed the District court ruling.

I have just read the Opinion, 15 pages of legalese, and am absolutely blown away by the tone of the writing. "The District court erred when it said...", "The District court erred again when it said...", and so on, and so on -- very many times. If I were the judge in said District court, I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public given the tonguelashing I've just taken, albeit indirectly.

Is that kind of language -- which seems forceful to the point of rebuking -- just the standard way in which such Opinions are normally (or perhaps even required to be) delivered? Or is it really a slapping up of the DC judge? When he gets his annual performance appraisal, will the 75 repetitions of "The District Court erred when..." count against him somehow?

I know I'm asking for opinions. Hopefully, one or two among us will know if this typical or not. Thanks! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no connection to the legal community, but it seems to me that if the court of appeals were to rule differently from the District Court, it could only do so on a few grounds:

1. Evidence had come to light that was not availible to the District Court
2. The District Court screwed up

What other grounds would there be for voiding the rulings of a different court? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Appeals courts rarely impugn a lower court's decisions on questions of fact, unless there's some manifest absurdity. Almost always, they will look at the lower court's errors on questions of law.

You are right that a lower court decision would often be overturned on errors of law (i.e. they "screwed up"). New evidence coming to light can also mean a fresh trial, though in that case the appeals court would not say the District Court "erred".

Not sure if there is a more formal process in the US, but in Australia having one of your decisions overturned is embarassing to the judge, and in the judicial community everyone is keeping tabs on each other's statistics in terms of decisions upheld or overturned on appeal. The potential embarassment is usually enough to keep a judge on his toes.

Repeatedly using "the lower court erred" is a standard, though not particularly friendly way to phrase the judgment. Without context, I would guess that it means the higher court sees the errors as straight forward errors - and not simply a difficult and ambiguous point on which they tend to disagree.

(And no, I'm not a judge.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

April 2

Guanabenz

Are there any studies on useing Guanabenz in horses ? I would like to know what the life of the drug is and can you give a second dose if the drug wears off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussycutter (talk • contribs) 05:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This might be helpful:

"Guanabenz was administered at 0.2 and 0.04 mg/kg by rapid IV injection to two horses. Initial concentrations of parent guanabenz were approximately 120 ng/ml for the high dose and 50 ng/ml for the low dose. Serum concentrations of guanabenz dropped rapidly, with an extremely rapid distribution half-life (approximately 2.5 minutes), followed by a much slower elimination half-life...Consistent with these interpretations, the apparent Vd_ss was 5.72 L/kg after administration at 0.04 mg/kg and 3.76 L/kg after 0.2 mg/kg. The relatively low serum concentrations of guanabenz found 1 hour after administration are representative of the difficulties racing chemists have in detecting guanabenz in postrace blood or serum samples after its administration at clinically effective doses."

Whether this drug is safe or efficacious in horses, in a first or subsequent dose, is a question that should be addressed to a vet. Rockpocket 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Rigid sleep cycle

Every weekday I get up at a set time. I usually wake up 1 to 2 minutes before my alarm, which shows that I have a very accurate internal clock. On the weekends I want to sleep in; I want to get more sleep than I do on weekdays. But I'd even settle for the same amount of sleep. Inevitably, I get less. I stay up late on the weekends and I'm not willing to change that. The problem is that I wake up at exactly the same time as I do on weekdays. Well, if I stay up very late, I might wake up a half hour to 45 minutes later than usual but that's about the limit, no matter what time I get to bed. To give you an example, If I go to bed at 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday, I wake up at 7:30 a.m. because I normally wake up on weekdays at 7:00 a.m. That 4 hours of sleep hurts. My clock is so rigid. Anyone have any suggestions? 70.19.64.161 (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds to me that you want to disrupt your internal clock - perhaps you could do this by either varying the times you go to bed and set your alarm during the week, or by getting some thick curtains for the weekend, in case the light level is a factor in the time you wake. Alternatively, you could live with the shorter nighttime sleep at the weekends and take a siesta. Warofdreams talk 12:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

A very appropriate name for a person commenting on this question. Unfortunately I do not nap. I just lie there awake, so siestas are out. I have a nice dark bedroom so nothing to change on that score. As for varying my weekday wakeup times, you think setting my alarm for 6:30 some days, 7:00 on others and 7:15 on others in a random pattern would make my overarching internal clock become less rigid, such that it would allow me to sleep later on the weekends? I am really loath the set my alarm earlier. I set it as late as I can to make it to work on time. I would be willing to do it if I had some evidence (a link to a study or article or example) which showed that this is effective. Thanks for the reply. 70.19.64.161 (talk) 13:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I have a very similar sleep cycle to you, and sadly, all I can do is live with it. I haven't found an answer that works. I can either have a regular sleep cycle with the disadvantages you describe, or completely irregular sleep and exhaustion while waking. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's any consolation to you, studies have shown that changing wake-up times between work days and week-ends is a leading cause of insomnia and other sleep problems. The fact that you automatically wake up at the same time on week-ends even if you don't need to is a sign of health, not of disfunction. Continually adjusting sleep patterns is what tends to create serious problems. Now, I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, etc. --Xuxl (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above, from personal experience. An aim is to try to sleep the same hours every night. Many factors override that aim, but it is a worthwhile goal, to try to always return to. It can probably be adjusted over the long term, but it is probably not a good thing when it varies a lot over the short term. Again -- just my personal thoughts on the matter. Bus stop (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Have a baby. This simple piece of advice will make you crave every last second of available sleep time, while interrupting your rigid clock nice and randomly.

Oh, And they're cute. --Dweller (talk) 14:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

They are also expensive, and there is something like a 9 month waiting list. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, you can get them at a discount at Costco, and the waiting list is negotiable, but I do take your point. --Dweller (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

But placing your order is more fun than you might expect! SteveBaker (talk) 20:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

When I was in my teens and twenties, and even into my early thirties, I had a similarly rigid wake-up time. It didn't matter how late I went to bed, although, like you, I might wake up 30 minutes later if I had a very late night. There was nothing I could do about it. My solution was to accept it and to give up on staying up late, because, for me, it was more important to be rested and able to enjoy the entire weekend than to stay up late one night and then suffer the rest of the weekend (and/or Monday). Ironically, now that I am somewhat older and not much interested in nightlife, I have gained the ability to sleep later. Marco polo (talk) 01:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I really appreciate the replies from everyone. Despite that no solution was offered, I knew there might not be one. The fact that a bunch of smart people couldn't offer a solution is an answer all on its own. 70.19.64.161 (talk) 01:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, go back to sleep on the weekend and enjoy the sleeping in. If you need to sleep more and you lie in bed with your eyes closed in a dark, quiet room, and you can rid your mind of worry over the fact that you are awake and not asleep, you are likely to nod off eventually. "I just lie there awake" is sometimes followed by "and then when the alarm went off I woke up feeling exhausted." One may have periods of sleep without being aware of them. Edison (talk) 05:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Serial Killers

Presently, what is the percentage of the human population are serial killers? What percentage are caught/exposed? What percentage are still out there, undiscovered? --Reticuli88 (talk) 13:08, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, we can't know how many people are 'undiscovered' examples of anything, because they're undiscovered. The short answer is that virtually no-one is a serial killer; in any random population sample, it's overwhelmingly likely that 0% will be serial killers. If any significant proportion of the population were serial killers, the murder rate would be much higher than it is, with more killings attributable to this cause. As it is, most murder victims are the victims of one-off attacks by people close to them. The signficance of the serial killer phenomenon is greatly exaggerated in the media, and has gradually been becoming so since the time of the Jack the Ripper killings. Modern detective drama, both in print and on the screen, strongly reinforce this perceptual bias. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• We could guestimate the amount of undiscovered serial killers, since although they are undiscovered, their victims are not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 15:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Unless you had some compelling reason for attributing a set of murders to a single perpetrator, I'm not sure how you could use the murder rate to estimate the number of undiscovered serial killers. Bear in mind that even apparently reliable evidence of connection between crimes can be spurious. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:40, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree that it's impossible to guestimate the number of serial killers based solely on the number of unsolved murders on the books, since not every unsolved murder is a serial killing. But the "active serial killer" estimates floating around the internet do seem to be based in more serious research. Trends tend to emerge when there's a serial killer at work; consistency in method of killing, choice of victims, disposal of bodies, etc. all raise some red flags for law enforcement, although it may take a while for the flags to go up if the killer moves around a lot. Sure, there's speculation involved, but my guess is that it's a lot easier to accurately attribute a murder to a serial killer than it is to then accurately profile that killer, hence the tendency of serial killers to remain at large long enough to, well, earn their "serial." There's also a tendency to downplay all but the most major serial killing investigations, since they tend to freak people out and make the police look bad if they go on unsolved. So we, the public, only really hear about the front-page arrests and the Phantom of Heilbronn-style muck-ups. There are plenty of ongoing investigations of serial killers who are "known" to law enforcement, but not to the rest of us. Some of them are, doubtless, false alarms, but some of them, doubtless, are not. --Fullobeans (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I would guess about 1 in every 3 million people in the world population is a serial killer, given it's very rare nature and how many killings we can ascribe to them. 173.52.36.16 (talk) 15:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

On Killing has some statistics in it about how many people are estimated to be "natural born killers"—not the same thing as a serial killer, but someone who lacks certain apparently normal reactions to killing other people. (I don't have it on hand, otherwise I'd look them up myself) It's not a very big percentage. Take some small percentage of that who are actually serial killers. --140.247.248.90 (talk) 15:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to the know odds of me knowing/meeting someone that was a serial killer but didn't know it. --Reticuli88 (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Very, very slim. The odds would be greater if you're exceptionally gregarious, sell weapons for a living, or are Ann Rule. --Fullobeans (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I found an estimate. According to this link, which cites an FBI study but doesn't link to it, there are 20 to 50 serial killers active at any given time (presumably in the United States). The population of the US is 306 million, so that's around 1 in 8,750,000, or .000011% of the population. In other words, if you introduced yourself to every single person in the state of New Jersey, odds would be good that you would meet one serial killer. --Fullobeans (talk) 19:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In New Jersey, I would expect you would meet more than one! Rmhermen (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds similar to the number of anvils and pianos killing people by falling on their heads, or even the number of Killer Robots From Outer Space currently active. Yet on U.S tv and in novels, people are constantly being slain by serial killers. Edison (talk) 05:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the majority or homicide victims are killed by their friends, family, and loved ones, but that's rather depressing to think about. Serial killers spice things up a bit, and allow people to use fun words like "evil" instead of just meditating bleakly on human nature. Some more statistics: only 16% of American serial killers since 1800 have been female, so yours odds of meeting one are better if you mostly fraternize with men. White men would be your best bet, especially in the 25-34 age range. And serial killings are much more common in industrialized nations and are becoming more so, so if you're worried about this, now might be the time to make that move to Madagascar. Note that deaths by anvil and piano may be higher in developing nations. --Fullobeans (talk) 06:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If you are seeking to meet a serial killer, Madagascar would seem to be one place to go. Sadly, the 2009 Malagasy political crisis has so far led to over 130 deaths. In one incident alone:

In the latest clashes heavily armed security forces opened fire on anti-government demonstrators marching on the presidential palace on Saturday 7 February. "Around 50 people were killed and around 1,000 have been wounded," Claude Rakotondranja, National President of the Malagasy Red Cross, told IRIN. -- UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

It seems reasonable to believe that some (many?) of those thousand subsequently died, and that some (few?) of the soldiers doing the shooting killed more than one each. However, we do not normally consider such troops (or, indeed, executioners) to be serial killers, because they are not normally legally culpable of homicide. They did it because they were paid to, because society finds it necessary for someone to perform those functions. Nonetheless, those people go to sleep each night knowing that they have been the proximate cause of another person's death. If you really want to meet some serial killers, shake the hand of the politicians who order troops to fire indiscriminately into crowds of demonstrators. Take Islam Karimov, president of Uzbekistan, and his role in the Andijan massacre five years ago. Or those who ordered the post-election massacre in 2001 in Zanzibar (see the Human Rights Watch report). And then, not politicians but leaders: e.g. the "donkeys leading lions" of World War I -- commanding officers who endlessly ordered men to go "over the top" and walk into German machine gun fire. Finally -- although I understand face-to-face interviews are tricky to arrange -- have a chat with Osama bin Ladin. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Dual licensing of GFDL and CC-BY-NC-ND?

Currently we are facing a dispute of copyright licensing of a very popular Chinese website Baidu Baike(owned by Search Engine Baidu, and it's more or less similar to Wikipedia). It claims to release content under "GFDL and CC-BY-NC-ND 2.5". Obviously these two licensing systems are not compatible with each other. Furthermore, any edit made to existing article is a copyvio against No derivatives. Should Wikipedia accept content from Baidu Baike, take it as that all the content is released under the GFDL? --Ben.MQ (talk) 15:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This should probably be at the helpdesk, but yes. For dual licencing, policy is we only require one licence to be free, or it certainly is on commons. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Are Gambling Winnings taxable in the UK

I live in the UK (London, to be precise). Say I took my life savings, put them on Red on Roulette and won. Assuming my life savings are above the income tax threshold of about 5K do I have to pay tax on the winnings, or are they mine to keep as I haven't got them through 'work'. I know gifts are taxable to stop blatent tax dodges, but how about gambling?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.155.146 (talk) 15:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't give legal advice, which this is arguably a request for. However, I believe that winnings are taxable, but I'm not sure if income tax is the right tax. You might consider asking HM Revenue and Customs. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In the US you have to pay a tax on gambling winnings. If it is over a certain amount, they get you the forms right there in the casino. Otherwise you have to declare it on your end of year tax documents. I suspect something similar would apply in the UK. Governments hate to miss out on an opportunity for a tax.65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If it helps I can state for the record I have no intention of acting out the scenario I describe above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.155.146 (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, you would only have to pay tax on any interest accrued from your winnings. Since the tax was removed from horse racing, there are no taxes that I am aware of on gambling in the UK - only licensee's are taxed (currently at 15%). All gambling, betting and lotteries are VAT exempt too. Nanonic (talk) 16:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In the UK, gambling winnings are generally not taxable[9] (unlike in the USA[10]). I can't find a specific statement on the HMRC website except that premium bond winnings are not taxable[11]. The general principle in the UK is that even professional gambling winnings aren't taxable, but running a gambling business (e.g. a bookmaker) is[12]. Allowing gambling winnings to be taxable in the USA means that gambling losses are tax deductable[13]. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(after EC)Not all jurisdictions tax gambling and lottery winnings - for example, they are tax-free in Canada. I've dug around on the HM Revenue and Customs web site and I can't find a definitive statement that gambling winnings are free from all forms of tax, although this document notes they are exempt from capital gains:

"Winnings from betting (including pool betting or lotteries or games with prizes) are not chargeable gains, and rights to winnings obtained by participating in any pool betting or lottery or game with prizes are not chargeable assets. For example, a gain or loss realised on the purchase of a share in the winnings of a ticket which has drawn a horse in a sweepstake is outside the scope of the tax."

This page lists forms of taxable and non-taxable income in the UK. Gambling and lottery winnings are not listed; it suggests contacting your local tax office if you have income that isn't listed and want to know how to declare it.

As to governments missing an opportunity to tax, they do tax those who operate lotteries, casinos, and other forms of betting. So while they may not tax the money people win at gambling, they certainly tax the money people lose - which is a much greater amount! - Eron^Talk 16:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I thought that when gambling in the UK (at least on things like horse-racing) you could choose to pay tax on your stake - and have tax-free winnings or pay no tax on the stake and pay the tax on all of the winnings - if you win. That may be horribly out of date though. SteveBaker (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the old way SteveBaker, but yeah that did previously exist. The history of gambling in the Uk is quite interesting. I watched a tv show some time ago on BBC Four (great channel) and they were discussing old rules about betting-shops. They weren't allowed to make them places to 'be' so they were banned from having padded-chairs, or from providing refreshments/toilets for customers things like that - basically the idea was that they could exist ut that people shouldn't be enticed to spend their afternoons in them. These days the rules have relaxed a lot - as any visit to BetFred would attest (my local city centre one has arm chairs, countless tvs, food and drinks (though not alcohol I don't believe). ny156uk (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes - I recall those old-style betting shops. Very spartan indeed. It's a shame about the choice on how to pay tax on horseracing - it was kinda like the government was taking the bet with you! SteveBaker (talk) 20:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking, gambling winnings are not taxable as income because a gambling win is a windfall gain - it is not income that can be tied back to some activity undertaken to produce income - i.e. it's a fruit without a tree.

Gambling winnings are taxable only when there's a special tax on them --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, I fairly often win in poker tournaments at my local casino, and despite the winnings being fairly decent in size, I have never been taxed on them... Certainly the lottery doesn't get taxed as I know a friend of a friend who won a 7 figure sum... So it's unlikely that these two individual companies (camelot and my local casino) have some abilty to pay out cash without paying tax, so I would imagine it's the same for all gambling... Gazhiley (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not very convincing, it's entirely possible for the government to expect you to keep track of your winnings yourself, and pay taxes on them annually. (Note: I have no idea at all how the UK does things, only that Gazhiley's apparent line of logic would probably get him into trouble if he lived in USA.) APL (talk) 00:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Cheers everyone, lots of good stuff here. It would appear they are not (now all I need to do is become a poker great, and the world will be my tax-free oyster!) but I'm tempted to contact my tax office to check anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.155.146 (talk) 10:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

As long as you don't become a poker great in my neck of the woods as I'm trying to do that! Mind you, feel free while you are "learning to play" to play at my locals as I like newbies - always a good source of income! hehe Gazhiley (talk) 10:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Photographing without a lens

It should be theoretically entirely possible to take a picture with a DSLR without a lens in place. But what will the picture look like? From my intuition, I think it will be kind-of a realistic photograph, but so hopelessly out of focus and unsharp it will be difficult to recognise anything in it. Is this assumption correct? JIP | Talk 19:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes - every pixel in the image would be the average of the colors of all of the objects in front of the camera - so your picture would be all one exact same color. But that's with an "infinite" aperture. If there is even a reasonably large hole in front of the image plane - then some kind of focussing can happen. In the limit, a pinhole camera can theoretically produce infinitely sharp images without a lens. SteveBaker (talk) 20:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Having tried this with my camera (hoping it might help me identify where the 'muck' was on my lens) I can confirm that my photo just came out pure grey - though if i pointed it at a light it was lighter (amazingly enough) - no focus, no shading - it is kinda how I imagine being very blind is. ny156uk (talk) 20:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Take a 35mm rectangle of blank paper and hold it up—what you see on the paper will be roughly what the picture would look like. In other words, usually a featureless white rectangle. But if a shadow falls across part of the paper, for example, the same shadow would show up in the picture taken by the DSLR, and if you held the paper/camera in the beam of a slide projector then you would get some approximation to the image on the slide. -- BenRG (talk) 00:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

LaGuardia Airport

I'm going on vacation to New York City, and a friend told me that the best view I'll get of the city might be on the plane coming in. We're landing at LaGuardia, and the wind is supposed to be from the east. We'll be coming in from the north, north-west direction. I would like to know which side of the plane I should sit on to get the view. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 21:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It depends whether you want to view the terrain to the west-southwest (WSW) of LaGuardia Airport or the terrain to the east-northeast (ENE) of LaGuardia airport. Bus stop (talk) 22:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It depends on how the plane flies over Manhattan, which is most likely the view you want to see. If you arrive at night, it'll look pretty no matter which side you're on. ~EdGl ★ 22:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to see Manhattan, which is west-southwest, I believe. So with the wind from the east, would that be on the left or right? Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

What does the wind have to do with anything? How does wind direction figure into the equation? Bus stop (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the way the wind is blowing will probably determine which runway they'll use, and in which direction. Pilots seem to prefer to land into the wind. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I see, OK. I don't know about that. Bus stop (talk) 22:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Beats me, but if you should miss it, you can also get nice views from a lot of spots in Brooklyn and New Jersey. The best thing to do would be to befriend people who live in tall buildings with roof access, but if that's too much effort, you could just walk across some bridges, wander around Hoboken, or take a Circle Line cruise (never been, but people seem to like them). On a clear day, the view from the Whitestone Bridge or Triborough Bridge can be stunning. --Fullobeans (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

When I fly into LaGuardia from Chicago, the usual flight path is eastward to the southern tip of Manhattan, then northeastward up the East River to the Westchester County area, then a U-turn to cross Long Island Sound and land from the northeast. (So sitting on the left side of the plane provides the good views of Manhattan.) I don't know what the flight path from the northwest is, but if you just barrel in across Westchester and the Sound, the right side of the plane should give you the better view. Deor (talk) 01:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The flight path that Deor describes would be consistent with a wind out of the west or southwest. It is not surprising that this is his/her usual flight path, since the prevailing wind in New York is from the west or southwest. However, if you are flying tomorrow, there is a good chance that the wind will be out of the east or southeast. In this case, the best seat to see Manhattan will be on the right side of the plane. As you fly east-southeast toward Runway 13, it's obvious (if you look at a map) that Manhattan will be to your right. Your most likely approach will be southward over the Hudson River to the Bronx, at which point your plane will bank to the left, offering your right-window seat a view of Midtown Manhattan from the north. As you descend over Harlem and then over the East River, you will have a view of Midtown Manhattan from the Northeast in the last minute or two before you land. Marco polo (talk) 01:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I did a little more research on this, and it seems as though the most likely approach to LGA with an easterly wind would actually be that you would fly over Westchester County and across the Bronx and the East River. If you are flying tomorrow, the clouds will probably be low, and you probably won't be able to see anything yet, but if you are below the clouds, you will see the skyline of Manhattan in the distance to your right. You will then fly across Queens toward JFK Airport at an altitude of maybe 4000 feet. At that point, you will bank to the right and fly toward New York Harbor, gradually descending to around 2000 feet. Over the harbor, from which you should have a stunning view of Lower Manhattan if the ceiling is above 2,000 feet, you will bank to the right again and fly up the Hudson the entire length of Manhattan, which will be to the right of the plane. Again, you have to hope that the ceiling is above 2,000 feet in order to see anything. Finally, once you reach the George Washington Bridge, you would bank to the right again and descend rapidly toward the LGA runway, with the view of Manhattan from the north that I've described above, again from the right side of the plane. If the cloud ceiling is low, it is only during that final ascent that you will have any view. The weather forecast for tomorrow suggests a low ceiling. Marco polo (talk) 02:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Not to worry - the view that you'll get going into Manhattan from the upper level of the Quensboro Bridge (100 years old 2 days ago) will do quite nicely. B00P (talk) 06:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This might be a common enough question that the airline could just tell you outright. --Sean 13:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Rod Blagojevich

In the BBC link here [14] about Rod Blagojevich and his corruption charges, it states that "Illinois senators voted 59-0 to remove him from power in January." I know for a fact that Illinois only has two senators, as that is all each state has. Where did all the other 57 votes come from? Thanks, The Reader who Writes (talk) 23:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(2 ecs)I haven't read the story, or heard of it, but it might refer to Illinois' state senate. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 23:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's talking about the state senate. The US government does not have the power to impeach anyone in state government. 49 out of 50 US states have a bicameral legislature like the Congress, with a House and a Senate. --Anonymous, 00:12 UTC, April 3, 2009.

For the curious, Nebraska is the exception with a unicameral legislature; see Nebraska Legislature. – 74  02:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that little kernel of knowledge. StuRat (talk) 07:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

In many states, the lower house is called the Assembly rather than the House of Representatives. --Trovatore (talk) 02:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying, in parts of the U.S., some assembly is required? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

April 3

Largest jackpot in Asia

In the article lottery, records of the largest prizes in the world, Europe and other countries are mentioned. I wonder, what is the largest ever won in Asia? Several weeks ago, a prize won in a Philippine-based lottery was worth a little over $7,000,000 but I assume there are prizes in other countries that are even larger. 202.69.188.72 (talk) 04:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't know about Asia, but the Spanish Lottery a few years ago had a jackpot of £186,000,000 ($360 million US), and no-one won it, so the Spanish government took it.--KageTora (talk) 10:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds pretty much like the Spanish Christmas Lottery. Yes the prizes are quite large but they're usually split. 202.69.188.72 (talk) 10:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Michael Caine Joke

On the Tonight Show a few days ago Michael Caine was on and he told a joke, saying the audience wouldn't get it but if we were British we'd be rolling in the aisles. Well, sure enough I didn't get it. I'm guessing it has something to do with an idiom I'm not familiar with as a Yank. Anyway, can someone explain this joke? It went something like this:

Guy knocks on the door of a friend; the wife opens the door and he says "is john around?" She bursts into tears saying "john died not two minutes ago; just keeled over; it was his heart I think." The man then says "that's horrible but before he died, did he say anything about a pot of brown paint?"—70.19.64.161 (talk) 04:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm British, yes it is hilarious!--88.109.57.209 (talk) 06:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's a funny joke. I think it is based on the premise that English men are very particular about things they have lent to others and the the worst crime is not to return anything borrowed. The visitor is clearly more concerned about the return of his paint than the por guy's death. Like all jokes - when you dissect it it dies! 86.4.190.210 (talk) 06:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(I'm British too.) Personally I read it as that the two men had previously agreed that John would lend the other guy his pot of paint and the other guy is now coming round to pick it up. He still wants the paint and is now wondering where it is. It also says something about the British obsession with DIY. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

For me, it says something about British frugality and focus. Is very funny too, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep - it works for me too. I don't know about "VERY" funny - but it's definitely a joke. Somehow, it helps that the paint is brown...I don't know why. SteveBaker (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Because it's so uninteresting, I'd imagine. The joke gets it humor from the contrast of the banal returning of the object and the shock of death. So you increase the humor by making the object to be return very uninteresting... brown paint is pretty uninteresting. (Notice that the humor disappears if you make the object something valuable or sentimental.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a difference between American sensibilities and British sensibilities as concerns the banal object? I doubt if British views on death are different from American views on death. Is a pot of brown paint viewed differently in the two settings? Bus stop (talk) 14:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No - I doubt the color of the paint makes much difference to the translatability...but perhaps the banality of brown paint exceeds that of more vibrant colors. I think British people are more inclined to make jokes about death than Americans...but it's very difficult to generalize. Contrast the episode of Fawlty Towers where a resident in a small hotel dies with Weekend at Bernie's. SteveBaker (talk) 14:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I 'get' the joke, guess i'd have to see it being told (most jokes don't work for me when read - must not have a very funny internal narration), but don't think this is a particularly 'great' joke. (oh and I'm English) 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that the joke is only funny when coming from a down-at-earth, vaguely working-class geezer (however much that image may be divorced from reality) like Caine. Give it to someone foppish like Hugh Grant or bourgeois like John Cleese and it just wouldn't work. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Also the nature of the joke could be changed totally, making it a non-PC mean spiritedA joke if you start it "A Scotsman knocks....". If you made it an Irishman (Paddy) you would have to change the punchline, maybe to "so do you think he will be able to help me paint the ceiling tomorrow". If it was an American you would have him saying "that's terrible, but the important thing is had he found Jesus?". -- Q Chris (talk) 12:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

"If it was an American you would have him saying "that's terrible, but the important thing is had he found Jesus?"". LOL. See, that I get. :) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If it was an American you would have him saying, "that's horrible but before he died, did he say anything about a pot of red, white, and blue paint?" Bus stop (talk) 13:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so I guess I get it now. The pot of brown paint, which I thought was a specific reference to something I'm not familiar with, could have been any mundane borrowed item, a pair of plyers and so on. I was focused on it being something more involved.—70.19.64.161 (talk) 11:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There are a great many jokes that don't translate. One that came up at work a while ago (I'm a Brit living in Texas BTW) was: "What do you call a Lada Cabrio? A skip!". Sadly, almost none of the actual words in this joke translate into American. Firstly, the "Lada" brand of uber-crappy cars does not exist in the US - so you have to change it to "Hyundai" or "Kia" or something - and they don't call cars with retractable roofs "Cabrios" - so we have to change that to "Convertible" - and the large container full of trash is a "Dumpster" not a "Skip". So finally, you arrive at "What do you call a Hyundai Convertible? A dumpster!"...but somehow, it's lost something. Part of the trouble is that 'dumpster' refers to the rectangular trash containers that have lids as well as the trapezoidal ones that don't - and that's a critical part of the joke - if you happen to be thinking of the kind of dumpster that has a lid - the joke completely fails. So there really isn't really a good way to translate it perfectly. SteveBaker (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

But I think I should be able to share the humor in any joke, if I am provided with sufficient background information. Bus stop (talk) 13:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No, no. The American version of the Caine joke would be "... that's horrible but before he died, did he say anything about my golf clubs?" (Or possibly "an electric drill.") B00P (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I would have gone with belt sander. (Obscure reference to when Homer Simpson borrowed Ned Flanders' belt sander.) --Blue387 (talk) 20:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

That reminds me of a story my mum frequently tells at family gatherings: her father died several years ago, and after the funeral, while speaking to his brother, she asked if there were any of my grandfather's things his brother would like to keep, thinking he might want one of her father's Bibles, as the family was quite religious, and my grandfather had been a church elder. Her uncle thought for a minute, and then replied: "Well, I wouldn't mind his ladders, if you don't want them." --Kateshortforbob 20:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The joke works because the guy is behaving so incredibly insensitively, something we would hope would never happen in real life. But it's not unknown. The father of a friend of mine died, and various old friends arrived spontaneously to comfort his widow. But one person who turned up was someone she'd never seen before. She asked him who he was, and he said he'd had various business dealings with her husband, and was owed some money, and could he please have it back. She set the dogs on him. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

A woman I know was 19 at her father's funeral, when her uncle asked her whether she was thinking of getting married soon. I guess he was trying to make conversation... -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

From the wording of the joke as told, we don't really know that the reference to a "pot of brown paint" has anything to do with anything loaned, or about to be loaned, as two people have suggested. The one person who said they were British and found the joke "hilarious," didn't explain what they found to be hilarious. Bus stop (talk) 22:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Stupid question : Why would you loan (or borrow) a consumable like paint? APL (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

My grandparents,like everyone around them had their house painted dark green and brown.They were seen as hard wearing, respectable colours.The old oil based woodpaint used to blister in the sun.It was not uncommon to buy a small pot of paint to touch up these blisters rather than completely repaint.As child I was often sent to "pop" the blisters then repaint the marks.It would be quite feasible to lend a small pot of paint to a neighbour as every house was painted the same colour.hotclaws 00:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

One thing that doesn't translate is that the paint is in a "pot". In the US a pot is for cooking and paint comes in cans. So, that line left me wondering why anyone would put paint in a cooking pot. How about my take on the joke: "I'm sorry to hear that John's dead, but now that your plans are clear for the weekend, would you like to go out ?". Don't like that one ? How about "I'm sorry to hear that John's dead, do you need me to go dig a hole out back ?". StuRat (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that that show (the Tonight Show, with Michael Caine as a guest on it), aired on April first. Could this be an April Fool's joke, perpetrated by Michael Caine and/or others? There might not be any British understanding of the circumstances any different from an American understanding, and no one so far has convincingly named what the "joke" is. I don't think there is any joke. But it was apparently told to an American audience, all (or most) of whom attributed their failure to "get" the joke to the introductory note that only a British recipient of this joke would be "rolling in the aisles." Bus stop (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Cuban peso exchange rate outside Cuba

Yahoo Finance indicates that 1 Cuban national peso is worth one USD. Is this the exchange rate one can actually get on the peso outside Cuba? Does it help to do the exchange in Canada, given that Canada has no trade sanctions against Cuba? NeonMerlin 07:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• As I understand it, the US has a trade sanction against Cuba. It does not exchange products or services (no doubt there are exceptions), but I have no actual evidence that currency is included in such sanctions. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The article on Cuban peso gives links to 3 currency conversion sites.

Yahoo Finance 1 CAD (Canadian dollar) = 0.8057 CUP (Cuban Pesos)[15]

xe.com - 1 CAD = 21.3514 CUP[16]

oanda.com 1 CAD = 18.49998 Cuban Peso[17]

The second and third seem to be actual rates for exchange/currency trading, while the first is the official Cuban rate (see also Cuban government website). Most Canadian and UK high-street banks seem not to quote rates for CUP (e.g. [18][19]) but will probably give them if asked. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 11:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So, according to the Cuban government, the Cuban dollar is worth one US dollar, while in reality it's only worth about a nickel (isn't communism fun ?). I wonder what actually happens when you walk into a bank in Cuba and say you want the official exchange rate. I assume they'd have no problem with it if you gave them dollars, but I can't see them honoring that absurd rate if you give them Cuban pesos and ask for an equal number of dollars. StuRat (talk) 07:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Lotteries

In national and state lotteries, is there usually a clause that the winner has to be a citizen or resident of that particular territory? In other words, could a tourist buy the winning ticket and leave the territory with the winnings? Has this ever happened, for large amounts? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

According to these guessters[20], the answer to your middle question is Yes but there may be taxes. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure this just happened - an American won money in a Canadian lottery. I can't find any news about it though... Adam Bishop (talk) 09:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If the conditions say only residents then a tourist could only win by cheating (difficult with a cheque to cash and no bank account), or by entering through a friend who is resident. If the lottery is open then, of course, anyone can enter and win. But there are many scams that appear to offer a lottery, and do not!86.200.2.89 (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)DT

In Ontario, Canada, both national and provincial lotteries are administered by the OLG. Their web site goes into this subject at http://www.olg.ca/lotteries/guide/international_residents.jsp:

• Some countries do not allow OLG to mail cheques for lottery winnings. ...
• OLG will not mail cheques for lottery winnings to the U.S.
• Prizes over $250,000 must be collected in person... in Toronto.

That last rule applies to Canadians too. Because of scams about pretended lottery wins, they also point out that they don't use agents to contact winners, they don't collect fees up front, and no Canadian taxes are payable on wins.

--Anonymous, 22:16 UTC, April 3, 2009.

It seems rather counter-productive for a lottery to exclude foreigners, as they are the only way it's even possible for the lottery to bring money into the territory. Otherwise, any money won by citizens of the territory is offset by all the money lost by those who play. In other words, they just move money around, and don't create any wealth at all. At least if you take in more money from foreigners than you pay out, then your territory can increase it's wealth, at the expense of the surrounding territories, of course. StuRat (talk) 06:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, but I don't think that's usually the purpose of the lottery, is it? Casinos are designed to draw people in, but lotteries generally aren't; they're more like a sin tax on the locals to fund schools and stuff like that. Matt Deres (talk) 12:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if the term "sin tax" applies here, as that's a term used to describe a tax placed on something to discourage it, like tobacco and alcohol, with additional tax revenues as a side benefit. In the case of a lottery, though, they only care about the revenue, and actually encourage the "sin" (gambling), by government-funded advertising. I've often seen gambling sold to the public as a way to increase wealth, especially when first trying to legalize or subsidize a new project. StuRat (talk) 15:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps not sin tax; I believe the usual phrase is 'a tax on the stupid'. When the National Lottery was first launched in the UK, a great deal was made of the percentage of takings that would be used for charity, but I don't think I heard anyone claim it would increase wealth. 86.151.238.242 (talk) 21:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Astrology

What star sign is someone born July 24th? The zodiac aricle [[21] says July 17 – August 16 but that's differnt from other sources I've found. Is there a standard? That you 79.76.240.82 (talk) 11:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No. Basically they tend to say you are 'born in the cusp' - the dates for the Signs of the Zodiac change depending on the source from where you get them. They're usually around the same time, and I would expect a 24th July person to be a Leo but not necessarily the case. I am 23rd August and some star-signs put me as Leo and others as Virgo. Given that it is gibberish anyways (in my eyes) i've never really been surprised by the inconsistency of it all 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The dates you quoted are not the start and end dates normally used, but they weren't intended to mean that either. Leo (astrology) tells us that Leo starts "roughly on 23 July" and ends "roughly on 23 August". These dates can only be given roughly in a book, encyclopedia, magazine or newspaper, or website, because the precise moment when the sign changes (a) changes from year to year and (b) is almost never midnight. People born within a day or two of the change-over date really need to consult an ephemeris (or someone with astrological skills/knowledge) to determine exactly which sign the Sun was in at the moment of their birth (and because the sign can change at any time of the day or night, the most accurate birth time you can find, to the nearest minute if possible, will help you pin it down). The location and time zone of your birth, and whether or not daylight saving was in force at that time, are also important factors in this calculation. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Translatability or otherwise of humour

Following on from the brown paint...

What would be the criteria for the most universal of humour? Would it necessarily be childish or slapstick? Imagine a line of people, starting with you, and then each of your same-sex ancestors (e.g. mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, g-g-m, etc.), stretching out ad infinitem. What sort of joke could you tell that could be passed back through the chain while keeping its humour? No cultural references, because those change too quickly. No puns, obviously, or anything that depends on word-play, because langauge evolves. Are we restricted to Chaucerian fart jokes? I suppose this could be widened to humour beyond jokes; suggestions welcome. (NB I am not asking for an endless lists of jokes here but criteria by which we could assemble such a list. A relevant example might help your case.) And, related to this, when explorers contact previously unknown people (either in the Age of Exploration or more recently in Papua New Guinea), what commonalities of humour have they observed? Let the fun begin! BrainyBabe (talk) 16:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Slapstick. How else would you be able to cross language barriers? Everyone likes seeing someone trip over MedicRoo (talk) 17:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If you check out World's funniest joke, I think the Sherlock Holmes joke would go as far back as there are detectives. At the point where detectives become obscure, some quick-thinking ancestor of yours could change it to a joke about a famous brilliant logical philosopher, and then it could go back thousands of years and still retain at least some of its humor. The baby joke and the Doctor joke could also go pretty far back.

Basically, I think any joke that depends on a setup and then an ironic twist would probably work as far back as the setup still makes sense. APL (talk) 18:14, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I know that there are examples of Greek tragic plays, perhaps there are some existing examples of comedies as well? Maybe a trip to the library is in order... 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There are dozens of surviving Greek comedies. The regular jokes are kind of weird, but the satires of philosophers or politicians are still as great as anything now; you usually need to study a bit of background first, though. (Ancient Roman comedy is also funny, but then the Romans were a lot more like us than the Greeks, I would say.) Adam Bishop (talk) 20:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think humor is too subjective to find a common thread amoung each form of humor that could make every single person laugh. The kind of people that enjoy Monty Python may not even crack a smile when they watch Larry the Cable Guy. Livewireo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC).

(Tangentially related anecdote) In a previous job, I used to give sales presentations for a large Silicon Valley technology company (despite being an engineer, and ill-suited to any form of public speaking). Many of these presentations were to groups of Chinese or Japanese businessmen. For these we engaged the help of a couple of translators, who simultaneously translated what I said into a microphone (the visitors had headphones). My standard bit had a few mild jokes peppered in there, and these played (as the saying has it) pretty well in Peoria. Most of these were language, or pun, based, and with hindsight I should have been more surprised that the visitors laughed at them that I was. One day, once I was done, I chatted with one of the translators (to help improve my performance; not all all because she was phenomenally cute) and I asked her how her buddy (they took turns) had successfully translated my joke (which she'd never heard previously). "Oh", she replied, "she just said 'he made a joke'". I was crushed. So I switched to something more direct. As it was a safety critical product, the new joke was "It's our company policy not to kill our customers..." (translator queried "kill"?; wait for translation) "until they pay our bill" (hopefully genuine laughter). Later boss of customers gives brief talk, says "it's OUR company policy not to kill our customers ... at all!" (big smile). Success. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 22:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Did that actually happen to you or are you repeating a story you heard somewhere? I'd swear I've heard that story before. Have you posted it before, maybe? Matt Deres (talk) 12:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess I may have posted it in answer to another ref desk query a year or two ago, but I don't really remember. Frankly I don't think it's that good a story, and it's a sad indictment of my life that its one of the stories I have that's worth repeating. It'd be really sad if there was some other poor soul who is also going around with no better story than this. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I would bet that gender reversal jokes or age reversal jokes would play to any audience, unless you find a place where there are no differences between the genders. When telling this joke to a caveman, pretend you are a big, brave caveman going to hunt a dangerous beast, then you turn over a rock and are so scared at the bug you see there that you emit a high-pitched scream, drop your weapon, and run away with your arms flailing. This would be funny because that's behavior normally associated with a little girl, not a brave man. StuRat (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that follows at all. The adult/child element is much more transferable than the male/female part, though. It's not that different cultures don't observe gender differences, but that what those differences are can be highly culturally specific. The role of women in ancient Babylon was quite different to late-classical Greece, for example. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Do any other forms of life "get" jokes? Do any other forms of life "laugh?" Does a dog, a cat, a chimpanzee or a gorilla or any other non-human creature have a "sense of humor?" Bus stop (talk) 01:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Search Engines

I am a student in southern California and during a recent homework exercise my classmates and I have noticed that when searching for a phrase or name in pretty much any search engine (yahoo, msn, and google) that wikipedia is almost always the 1st result. We were wondering why this is. Has Wikipedia been ranked by something as the best site to go to for information. Is it random. Please let us know..

Thanks so much

DAndra —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.147.243 (talk) 18:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Google uses the PageRank scheme for deciding search-result ordering. That's mostly based on the quality (and quantity) of inbound links to page (generally from other websites). So if lots of pages, from all around the Web link to a given word to a given page, that pushes that page up the ranking (if done deliberately then that's called Google bomb). One reason Wikipedia articles are highly ranked is because they're generic introductions to things. So if someone is writing about Australia, they could link to Wikipedia's Australia article, or to a website of the government of Australia, or to one of a number of "visit Australia" or "history of Australia" websites; generally if you want to give people a good intro to Australia, the Wikipedia article is the best of that lot. Secondly it's noncommercial, so people worrying about promoting a given company (like those Australian tourism sites) can link to Wikipedia instead, and know they won't be criticised for promoting some company or other. You might think "why don't other encyclopedias, like Encarta and Britannica, get high links too?" - the main reason is that they either limit access to some or all of their content on a given subject to paying customers (which makes it a useless link for most people) or they simply don't have an article on the subject - Wikipedia as many times as many articles, so if you're thinking about anything even slightly obscure, like a manga or some work of a minor composer or an odd kind of screwdriver then it's likely only Wikipedia will have an article on it. Note that Wikipedia generally isn't the top ranked entry for any current company or person that has a decent web presence - search for "Microsoft" or "Richard Dawkins" or "New York Times" and you get their own sites before Wikipedia's article. Now there are also rumours that search engines give Wikipedia articles a boost, because they feel that searchers who get that are going to be happier (and happy searchers make for happy search engine operators). And lastly I'd like to think that Wikipedia articles deserve to be the top link in many cases, that they're the first thing (and often the best thing) you'd want to read about on a given subject. Britannica like to quack on about how great they say their quality supposedly is, but that doesn't explain why people preferentially choose to read the Wikipedia article over even their free offering's version. Lastly, here's an experiment for you and your classmates - try to find a Google search term for which Wikipdia is the top entry but which you'd think it was entirely inappropriate to be there (that is, to find one which Google ranked highly, but got that rank significantly wrong). 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally teachers sometimes seem to set this test to their students as part of an effort to claim the students are gullible fools who believe any old rubbish they read on Facebook or whatever, and that real facts can be found only in dusty textbooks written by dusty people (like the teachers). Luckily such claims are easily falsified - if Google's rank of Wikipedia is too high, what would be a better simple introduction to the subject for the layman? Also you might want to look at Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There's also the fact that Wikipedia abuses the nofollow tag, thereby benefiting from incoming links without giving anything back. This breaks the functionality of the web. Indeed, for this reason Wikipedia probably shouldn't even be considered a "website" at all. --88.109.193.248 (talk) 10:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

2008/09 newfoundland budget

What are the positive and negative sides of the budget in terms of poverty concerns —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.0.142 (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't do your homework, I suggest you go to the relevant pages (Fiscal Spending or the like) and seek out the information there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.116.239 (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a strange question for homework, I'd think, but we also prefer to avoid matters of opinion. —Tamfang (talk) 03:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

which way?

hi I am on treadgold street in notting hill can anybody tell me how to get to elgin crescent please? My phone runs out of memory loading streetmap! :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by DirectionsPlease (talk • contribs) 23:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Head east; you'll come to Clarendon Road (which runs N/S); head south (right). Elgin Crescent is one of several crescents that rise NE from Clarendon (Cornwall and Blenheim Crescents are to the north of it, Landsdown rise to the south). You're about 1/2 mile. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

great thanks very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DirectionsPlease (talk • contribs) 23:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, this is a new use for the Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 00:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that was pretty awesome. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's too late but here is a Google Maps view of the directions you could have taken. If you drag the little yellow man on the route, you will get a street view of where you were. --199.198.223.106 (talk) 01:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

April 4

6-on-3

Has any team scored while being short three players in a hockey match (5-on-3 + pulled goalie)? Kurtelacić (talk) 00:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd be very surprised if it's never happened in the NHL (with an empty net, it just takes a lucky shot down the ice), but I don't know of an instance. A Google search on the two phrases "empty net" and "six on three" turns up one fairly recent instance in US college hockey: Chad Kolarik of Michigan did it on October 14, 2006, as part of a 7-5 win over Connecticut. --Anonymous, edited 01:11 UTC, April 4, 2009.

Thank you a lot :) Kurtelacić (talk) 12:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Zulu War Campaign Game

Does anyone know of any games that deal with the Zulu War? I have heard rumours that Total War has a few scenarios, but I am not sure which version. Empires Total War might be the one. Can anyone confirm this before I buy it?--KageTora (talk) 11:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

This game may be of interest to you. Our articles on the Total War series don't seem to indicate any Zulu-themed campaigns. Matt Deres (talk) 12:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Academics

I am from India... studying in the Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Madras.

As you might have heard, this is a very prestigious institution in our country, requiring years of preparation and hard work to get into, and once in, provides high quality education to its students. Getting here is like a dream for many children here...

However, on a global scale, the IITs are ranked, by most surveys, pretty low... not even in the top 100s. Despite it being the most preferred institution for a billion people, i feel it doesn't quite get the recognition it deserves. Being a student here, i know what's going on here as well as in other colleges, but despite the high standards, its not quite in the league of the big guns as per most surveys, say compared to NUS (National University of Singapore), which is ranked in the top 20 in most surveys. I tell you, any person from India will go to NUS if and only if he doesn't get a branch of his choice in any of the premier IITs. The cream of the country come here, but on a global scale, its just not there!

I just wanted an explanation on this... Wondering out loud where we are going wrong...Rkr1991 (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It will depend on the survey. Most surveys are made with relevance to the proximity of their readers. A BBC survey, for example, will rate British universities higher, purely because it is more relevant to British people. Similarly, an American survey will rate American universities higher. It's got nothing to do with what the universities are doing wrong or doing right. It's just a simple fact. Be happy you are in a prestigious university and don't worry about whether it is Number Whatever in the world.--KageTora (talk) 18:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd take any ranking with a large amoung of salt, apparently I go to one of the best in the country and the world and I find that slightly disturbing. I was looking at this website which is cited on the Imperial College page for where it finds out it is 5th in the world, and the terrible typing errors on the page where it explains how the ranks were worked out so it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence. Then looking at their criteria it looks like establishments are ranked based on survey of academics asking them to say which university they think is best, only 6000 odd people responded and it although there was weighting it respondents could only reply once and not their own institution, so maybe the your institute just wasn't rated very often, 50% of the final score was based on this and another very similar type of question. Then there is another 10% based on 'international factors', on the IIT page it explains that there are not many international students or faculty the and considering the [brain drain] gives other institutions more points in these areas. These factors are a bit unfair because as you said they are preferred establishments in India because they fall at the hurdle of not being as well known in the rest of world, and when they are known given they might not be the number 1 of the people being asked. However, the article on IITs says that they fall on not having internationally recognised research, the ranking systems do use citations by faculty so if the work that is being done isn't being cited by as many people as work by other establishments that's another (arguably important) reason that they are not as highly ranked.

If you really wanted to go up the ranks, I'd imagine getting a better PR dept for the institute would help and they go on a global drive to get themselves more recognised. But, does it matter that much? I understand there is an issue of pride in your alma mater but as you said they are the prefered establishments of a billion people that's pretty good, and the fact that the brain drain exists mean that you're coming out with an internationally recognised degree that puts you in good stead to compete with people around the world for jobs so in reality must be ranked as high as if you went to any other establishment.MedicRoo (talk) 18:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Does it matter that much? Yes, it does — for lots of practical reasons. The higher ranked a place is, the more respect and importance it conveys if you graduate from it, the more people of higher calibre who want to go there to learn or teach, the more money it generally is able to raise, and so forth. These things do matter in material ways for those who attend said institutions. Rankings matter a lot — Harvard wouldn't be Harvard, for example, if people didn't understand that "Harvard" means at or close to #1. (Are the ranking accurate, sensible? An entirely different question. I suspect in most cases not. Harvard is an excellent example — there are plenty better places to get an undergraduate education in the world. But if Harvard wasn't in the top 5 then people would cry and whine and discount the rating system in question. Ratings very quickly start to be a mirror of expectations... which is the tail wagging the dog.) All that being said, if you are not planning to leave India, then all that matters is the respect it conveys within India. In the USA I doubt most people could name any educational institution in India; but the same goes for China and most of Europe as well. --140.247.250.235 (talk) 19:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The IITs are fairly new and need to build up their reputations. Despite India being huge the IITs taken all together are probably only the same size as one of the multi site US state universities. See for instance the highly regarded University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University that another person from India was asking about just a few questions after you below. They show what builds prestige and fame. You can't have loads of Nobel prizes for instance without a bit of history. Dmcq (talk) 09:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Those universities I mentioned aren't one of the multi-site universities in the US state university system. See California State University for a huge example of that. Dmcq (talk) 09:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

dreaming while under anasthesia

does anyone dream while under anasthesia, such as during an operation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.237.252 (talk) 17:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I personally have some recollections of dreams while being anaesthetised, and a sizeable amount of people claim to have had NDEs, so I would say yes.--KageTora (talk) 18:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Are Penn and Cornell Good Universities?

Dear Sirs and Madams,

Recently, I have been blessed with the good fortune of being accepted into both the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University in the USA. Coming from India, not many people have heard of these two, of what I think, excellent universities. From a Western point of view, especially from an American point of view, are these two universities considered "excellent" universities? If not, I will choose to attend a local university and save the 50k a year.

Secondly, in terms of reputation, which of these two are better? I realize that they are located in two geographically diverse locations, but only in terms of reputation, which is better in pre-med education and will help me get a job later, hopefully in the States if I can get a Visa.

Many thanks, 99.240.175.185 (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

In unofficial, off the top of my head rankings, both of the schools would be among the best (among the top 20 or so) schools in the US. There are probably more precise rankings on the university's articles, and rankings vary by subject, but they may very well be worth 50k a year. (However, cost of living at either wouldn't be cheap, due to their locations, just something to keep in mind if you don't have a scholarship.) AlexiusHoratius 20:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed, living costs can vary a lot, and be eyewatering for some places (hello Stanford). The dean of admissions for a given school will generally have (and often post on their part of the University's website) an estimate of the living costs for students living near the school. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:08, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Both are excellent schools, both highly regarded, and both members of the Ivy League. I don't know about rankings for undergrad, but for medical school (if you chose to go onto medical school at the same institution) Penn seems to be ranked very highly ([22], [23], [24]). While I would assume that a school with a good medical school would do pre-med well, I frankly don't know for a fact that that's true. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Both are excellent schools. In terms of differences, which may help making a decision, you probably want to visit each campus. Cornell is also a part of the SUNY system, besides being an private Ivy League school (certain programs are state funded, like the Agriculture program, I think) and is, IIRC, the largest of the Ivy League schools. Its in a fairly rural part of upstate New York, in a little town called Ithaca, New York. The only city of any size nearby is Syracuse, New York, and that's not even that close, or all that large. Penn, on the other hand, is downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and so has all the ammeneties (and drawbacks) of living in one of the largest cities in America. So, both are good schools, but both are VERY DIFFERENT places to go to school.--Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

April 5

Most Presitgious Oxford College

What is the most prestigious constituent college of Oxford University - the Oxford equivalent of Cambridge's Trinity College? Acceptable (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

See Norrington Table --199.198.223.106 (talk) 01:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

When was the sandwich invented?

When was the sandwich invented? Not the term "sandwich" itself, but the actual food item. - Vikramkr (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Popular myth has it that it was invented by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich; the article has a section called "The Sandwich", which mentions an alternate candidate for the creator. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I have read this, although I find it hard to believe that a simple food item such as a sandwich came to existence in the 1700's. - Vikramkr (talk) 06:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Just like America being "discovered" by some Viking (despite the natives) and Machu Picchu being discovered by Hiram Bingham, whoever claims the honor first (usually) gets the credit. This says the earl copied the idea from the Greeks and Turks, and that it is "a culinary practice of ancient origins", i.e. nobody knows. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)