Jump to content

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Wikipedia:Reference desk

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 4.243.31.201 (talk) at 03:02, 15 October 2004 (supply ship Argonne). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Shortcut

Template:Rd header

help

what are california pods/chile pasilla? i know it is a food but i don't know what

This page [1] seems to have a good explanation for you. Pasilla is a name given to a number of peppers. The chilaca pepper when dried is a pasilla. In some places the ancho pepper is called the pasilla roja. In Oaxaca there is a pepper that, when smoked and dried is called a pasilla de Oaxaca. Liblamb 18:30, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quillaia

What is Quillaia? It's apparently in my root beer, but beyond that.. [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 06:02, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Our List of food additives says that E number 999 quillaia extract is a humectant. Which leads to the question -why do you need a humectant in a drink? Rmhermen 13:20, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)
I found out more - it is a foaming agent. Also called China bark extract, Murillo bark extract, panama bark extract, quillai extract, Quillaia extract, quillay bark extract, Soapbark extract. So it is a bark, not a root. The World Health Organization[2] says "milled inner bark or of the wood of pruned stems and branches of Quillaja saponaria Molina (family Rosaceae). The term ‘quillaia’ refers to the dried inner bark of the tree, which is a large evergreen with shiny, leathery leaves and a thick bark, native to China and several South American countries, principally Bolivia, Chile, and Peru." It contains a high quantity of saponins and has some use in vaccine preparation. Rmhermen 13:28, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Silent Film Stars

Are there any silent film stars that are still living today besides Anita Page?

This might be stretching the description of "star" somewhat but the Australian actor Bill Kerr (born 1922) is still around and kicking (IMDB gives his latest film role as "Fairy Guide" in the 2003 version of Peter Pan). While IMDB lists his first role as the 1933 Australian film "Harmony Row", I read a while back that he started his film career as a child actor in short films in the silent period. The article also pointed out that he held the record for the longest active film career (70+ years). --Roisterer 01:33, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Just remembered another one: Dickie Moore is 80, and made his debut in 1927. Moore was in the Our Gang comedies of the early 30s and is most famous for being the first person to kiss Shirley Temple on screen. --Roisterer 07:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I ran through the list of "entertainers of the present" in the World Almanac last night, and the oldest one entered still living was Hildegard, the singer, born February 1, 1906. Those born in 1910 or before I spotted were:

  1. Charles Lane (not in Almanac), born January 26, 1905 ()first credit on IMDB in 1931, last in 1995)
  2. Sir John Mills, February 22, 1908
  3. Eddie Albert, April 22, 1908
  4. Luise Rainer, January 12, 1910 (oldest living acting Oscar winner)
  5. Al Lewis, April 30, 1910
  6. Constance Cummings, May 15, 1910
  7. Katherine Dunham, June 22, 1910 (IMDB says June 24, 1909)
  8. Gloria Stuart, July 4, 1910
  9. Kitty Carlisle Hart (tv personality), September 3, 1910
  10. Dame Alicia Markova (dancer), December 1, 1910

Other older living Oscar winners are Karl Malden (March 22, 1912, Jane Wyman (January 4, 1914), Olivia de Havilland (July 1, 1916, her sister Joan Fontaine (October 22, 1917), and Jennifer Jones (July 1, 1916). The oldest entertainer the Almanac listed besides the above was bandleader and composer Mitch Miller, born July 4, 1911. PedanticallySpeaking 16:12, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)


Remembering

  Can a person remember something when they were 1 year old of age or younger?
We ought to be able to point you at a Wikipedia article called Infantile Amnesia, but there doesn't seem to be one. The Amnesia article has a very brief mention of "Childhood amnesia", but IA is the common term used for what mainstream psychology considers the normal inabililty to form or retain memories from early childhood. Putting that phrase into your favourite search engine should bring you to lots of info. At a glance, there seems to be a lot of sites taking issue with the mainstream approach. How about making sense of it all and writing the article for us?! Sharkford 16:36, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

Army Shoulder Cords

What are the guidelines and regulations for wearing the Army Branch Shoulder Cords on the right shoulder. Can't find anything on this.

AR 670-1 only specifies the guidelines for wearing them on the uniform, not for earning them.

These are not aiguilettes, which Staff wear, These are shoulder cords of of the color of every Branch in the Army. The most prevalent is the Infantry (Light Blue).

Please respond to papi539@yahoo.com.

Reserved Words

User func here. In programming languages, I understand that a variable cannot have the same name as a language key word, or reserved word, such as "if" or "while". There would not be enough context for the compiler/interpreter to disambiguate the difference between "if" as syntax-glue and "if" as variable. What I don't fully understand is why an object-oriented language also doesn't allow the methods and properties of objects to use the reserved words. For instance, I have often wanted to create object methods in JavaScript called things like "char" or "int", but the language doesn't allow for it, ("char" and "int" are reserved for future use): 

	var o = new Object;
	o.char = function( ... ) { whatever } // throws a reserved identifier error

Consider, the dot-syntax (or whatever object-syntax is used in the language) should make it clear and unambiguous to the compiler/interpreter that "char" is being used in an "identifying" way and not in a syntactic way. 

	if ( test ) { whatever } // no ambiguity,
	myValue = myObject.if;   //        right?

As compiler design is way above my head, I was just wondering if there was any reason why methods and instance variables are constrained in this way? func(talk) 17:16, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)== Reserved Words ==

Computer languages don't have to have reserved words. For example FORTRAN — or at least FORTRAN as it stood back when it was widely used, I have no idea about newer FORTRAN standards — does not. For example, the following is perfectly good FORTRAN. 

        IF = 7
        FORMAT = 3.17

So, infamously, is 

        DO 10 I = 1.10

Because FORTRAN ignores spaces in variable names, instead of being the top of a loop (as it would be if that period were a comma) this assigns the value 1.10 to the variable DO10I. Charming.

Probably things like this are why most later languages followed Algol in having reserved words instead of FORTRAN's approach.

By the way, the way FORTRAN compilers cope with this is that they first try to parse every statement as an assignment and only try parsing it other ways after that fails. -- Jmabel 17:34, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Note that, in C++ at least, you can refer to members of a class without the "class_name." in some circumstances (inside member functions). Also, constructions like char(x) are valid for casting variable types. So there is potential ambiguity between char() as a cast, and char() as a member function. I don't know about Javascript, but possibly it has something similar. -- DrBob 17:53, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In a nutshell: reserving keywords results in fewer headaches for syntacticians, compiler/interpreter software engineers, maintenance programmers, and others. Reserved keywords make life simpler for all involved.

The long explanation: to generalize on the language-specific examples given Jmabel and DrBob, one important reason why keywords are reserved is to allow the language syntax to be extended without breaking old code. For any given language, it is often possible to write a non-standard compiler or interpreter that allows the use of reserved keywords as variable, method, or attribute names. But when and if the language syntax is extended, it may very well break your code. Reserved keywords are basically the language spec authors' telling you: "These keywords are part of the syntax, which may eventually be extended to use the keywords in new ways. We could say 'use these keywords as variable names at your own risk.' Instead, to make everyone's job easier, we're saying 'thou shalt not use these words as variable names at all.'"

A slight tangent: sometimes new reserved keywords are added to the language. This often does break old code, although the newly reserved keywords will help maintenance programmers quickly find and fix the problem. A real world example: in Python, the keywords as and None are currently part of the syntax according to the latest language spec. They are not yet reserved keywords, though they will be, eventually, by which point maintenance programmers will have to make sure that they aren't using any variables named as or None. • Benc • 00:07, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Tesla Coil as a school project

My school begun with this creativity fair thing... I suggested my group that we made a Tesla Coil, since hey, Tesla DOES deserve any kind of recognition, and it'd be nice to show people how important he was.

The problem is, we need a transformer and I'm not sure what exactly I'm needing here. What should be the power and the output voltage and current? The input must be 220V, and we're not planning to do anything big here. As long as the coil works, and as long as we can make experiments showing the energy transmission through distance (using fluorescent lights, for example), we'd have enough. Though, it'd be nice if the coil was safe enough to put our hand close to it.

Also, i'd like to know if we can put some glass bowl above it to give a plasma lamp effect. I've heard somewhere that these plasma lamps are nothing but a tesla coil with a bowl around, and if this is true, we could make it even more pleasent to the look.

But anyway, about the transformer, my physics teacher hasn't helped much about this aspect since he's having to ask other people, and this takes some time we don't have.

The transformers I could find already (I've asked for 5000V transformers, though this might be either too much or too few, so that's why I'm asking) are being extremely expensive (about 800 bucks), and I was thinking there could be a better option... Is it safe to make our own tranformer? If so, how should we proceed?

Well, that's pretty much what's worrying me right now, since we don't want it to be too expensive, but we do want something interesting.

Any help is appreciate. Thanks in advance. — Kieff | Talk 05:06, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

There's a good article on the subject here, that suggests you can use a flyback transformer from a CRT. I would give it a safety rating of 0/10. If you touch it, it will knock you across the room and possibly kill you. --Heron 08:44, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I was afraid I'd have to end up using a flyback, which is too dangerous. Any other option besides that? — Kieff | Talk 09:00, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
You can also use a pair of MOSFETs to drive the primary, as in this article. I tried this once, but it didn't work for me - I think I wound the secondary wrongly. --Heron 12:40, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

what type of processor?

hi what type of processor can i use to connect to 20connections which are connected to a 12 v motor and to gun aiming target and someother connections like that?how they can be connected and what is the reason to connect that only? - Anonymous

I'm afraid I don't understand what this question is asking. -- Cyrius|✎ 05:59, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sterile Uterus

Is the inside of the uterus sterile? If so, how does it stay sterile if it is open at the cervix? Kusskeeper

No part of the human body is sterile. Mark Richards 23:59, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's true, and the reason it doesn't get full of nasty bugs is that even though it's technically "outside" the body, elements of the immune system such as antibodies and white blood cells are present and functioning there - just as they do in other regions "outside" of the body such as the gut and lungs.
So when a window is open, do you feel the entire house is "outside"? -- Jmabel 19:18, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

The cavum uteri (inside of the uterus) is practically sterile due to various protective mechanisms. The commensal lactobacilli of the vagina produce lactic acid, and the cervix likewise is hostile to pathogens. Infection of the uterus occurs in endometritis (a rare complication of childbirth), and chlamydia infects the uterus before it can affect the Fallopian tubes to causes salpingitis and pelvic inflammatory disease. JFW | T@lk 16:12, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A Doctor without licenses

In Reference desk on ja.wikipedia, A question was posted and no one knows the answer. please help us. The question is below;

Please tell me a name of a swindler in U.S., who had IQ 200 or 300. He joined the army as a doctor. Although he did not have any medical licenses in fact, he succeeded operations with referencing books. Later he was taken into a court because of arrogation, but he was adjudged not guilty with many supports who had been saved by his operations.

If you know him, answer on this page, I'll translate it into ja. Sketch 15:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It took awhile, but I think I've found him: The US television program The Pretender was based on a 1961 Tony Curtis film The Great Impostor, which in turn was based on "one of the world's greatest impersonators and hoaxters of the 1950's", a guy by the name of "Ferdinand Waldo Demara," (sometimes spelled "Demarra"). Here is an external link. func(talk) 16:56, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Frank Abagnale also pretended to be a doctor - but not in the military. He was the subject of the recent Catch Me If You Can. Rmhermen 21:06, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your researches. I'll show these answers to the first questioner in ja.wp. - Sketch 06:44, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cordell Hull and the Japanese

And the question is?

authors of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge article

Check out the history of that article. Mark Richards 23:59, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If your question has to do with citing the article for a paper, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. If it's purely for interest or other purposes, go to the Samuel Taylor Coleridge article as Mark suggests, and click on the link labeled "history" (it is probably in a tab at the top of the screen, depending on the layout you're viewing us in). Jwrosenzweig 14:10, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Late 19th-Century England Etiquette

Good day,

I've been trying to find the etiquette of late 19-century hand-holding in England. More specifically, I'm looking to find out how a man was to take a women's hand or a woman to take the hand/arm of a man. I have searched books and the internet exhaustively and can find nothing specific in answer to my question.

If you have any answer at all, I would be much appreciative!

Sincerely, Searching

It would be nice to have some articles about prevailing etiquete in different times / places - our current one is kind of weak. Intrigue 17:36, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

differentiation between window xp and linux

You could check out the Windows XP and Linux articles as a start. More specificity would help to avoid a long and complex flamewar! Intrigue 17:36, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You might also check Operating system advocacy. As a group, while Wikipedians probably skew towards open source OS's (partly because many of the early Wikipedians came out of the open source community), most of them are long past operating system flamewars (I hope...) --Robert Merkel 03:08, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

vodka etc - alcohol from potatoes or other complex carbohydrates

Okay, I know that the yeast we use for alcoholic fermentation transforms simple sugars into alcohol. I also know that it cannot do this with complex carbohydrates like starch. That is why when you make beer, you have to malt the barley (to make a long story short, it helps transform the starch in the barley into sugars the yeast can use). So, my question is, some vodka is made from potatoes - how is the potatoe starch made available to the yeast?? ike9898 14:02, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but maybe the complex carbohydrates are first treated by an enzyme that breaks it down into less complex units before the yeast is added?
According to [3] they add either malted grain or enzymes from a packet to break down the potato starch. --Heron 16:28, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Another vodka question

I've seen vodkas made from potatoes, grain, and at least one that was made from grapes. So, what defines vodka? Is there something distinct about the process used to make it? There is a partial answer in the vodka article, but I'm not sure how this is different from clear rum. Why isn't clear rum considered sugarcane vodka? ike9898 14:15, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Vodka#Vodka today explains, A common property of all vodkas, compared to other spirits, is that before any flavouring is added, it is neutralized as far as possible. This is often done by filtering it through charcoal. --jpgordon {gab} 15:41, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Kerberos

Moved from Kerberos (protocol) — Matt 14:36, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can anyone give me some more material about Kerberos Protocal? thanks! ligh@mails.gscas.ac.cn

What butterfly species ?

User Donarreiskofferhas uploaded several butterfly pictures and released them under GFDL. Pictures were taken in a butterfly garden, so they don't have species information. Also it is not known where on the Earth the species are from. Does someone recognize what species they are? I think Image:Butterfly_zwin2.jpg looks a lot like zebra heliconian and Image:Butterfly zwin8.jpg thoas swallowtail. I need other people's estimates. Then the pictures could ideally be used in species articles or genus articles. -Hapsiainen 17:03, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Numbers Design

The numbers we use in the U.S.A. what place were they design at and when? And the naming of the numbers we use in the U.S.A. where were they named at and when?

Some places to start:

Thank you for giving me that information but I still don't know where or when the numbers we use in the U.S.A. were design. Plus I don't know where or when the naming of the numbers we use in the U.S.A. happened. --anon

The set of numbers used throughout the Western world and much of the rest of the world as well (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) are ultimately derived from Hindi numerals which came to us by way of Arabic numerals. You can find very detailed information for each of the digits: 0 (number), 1 (number), 2 (number), 3 (number), 4 (number), 5 (number), 6 (number), 7 (number), 8 (number), and 9 (number). func(talk) 19:13, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Generating a sine wave in a circuit

On a circuit, how do I generate a sine wave output signal using basic electronic components? — Kieff | Talk 06:28, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

How basic do you want the components to be? -- Cyrius|✎ 16:29, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I dunno, nothing too expensive. It'll probably involve an IC, so I'd like to know where can I get it as well. — Kieff | Talk 17:31, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
Here's one based on a crystal and two transistors; this one uses a 555 timer IC and a filter IC, but is more versatile and conceptually simpler. You could order the components from somewhere like Digikey. -- DrBob 19:48, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The reason I want this is to produce a sine sound wave output. Here's a thought: the AC mains are sine waves. Is it possible to make use of this fact to produce a sine sound wave? How should I proceed then? Is it possible to make a circuit to decrease\increase the output frequency using this method? — Kieff | Talk 20:05, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
You could use mains, but it'll be pretty boring (a 50Hz or 60Hz hum), and could be quite dangerous. Shifting the frequency would not be easy at all. You could use your computer's soundcard to output sine waves with a simple program like this one. -- DrBob 19:18, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Looking for an completed banner image

Hey, im looking a complete image that i've seen on a Wikipedia page: Triple J, by Chuq. It's a banner that has a the front part cut off it, and i was hoping that someone may know or have the full banner. It's for a project im doing on Double J.


Thanks!

Nia-maria

Pumice

Would it be possible to construct a boat or other seaworthy craft, using pumice or some similar rock? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 23:00, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I suppose so. Remember that the density of the building material is largely irrelevant (ships are, after all, made of steel). Numerous caissons, and the mulberry harbours are/were built from concrete, and all floated very nicely thankyou. But stone/concrete are rather inflexible, so a large vessel made from them is liable to snap in heavy sea conditions. John Fader
More bizarrely, various civil engineering organisations sponsor annual concrete canoe competitions in which various university teams design, build a race concrete canoes. See for example [4] -- Solipsist 06:50, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, I was thinking of how practical it might be, to make some sort of floating raft or platform, made from a latticework of (something. bamboo?) that would use pumice or some other buoyant stone for the joints.... In other words, pumice, like any other rock, wouldn't be especially convenient for such use, right? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 04:23, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Then again, the more I think about that, the more it occurs to me that one might as well ditch the pumice altogether and make a bamboo raft. Of course, some enterprising wikipedian ought to make that concrete canoe article. [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 07:32, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

difference betweeen indian american and britain english.

hello, i am intrested in knowing about the quality of english as an language,my concerns are which is the standard english language spoken, is it britain english or american english?,because i heard about u.k english is considered as the standard english used in world, and american english is the slangest english,i just want to know that is that true.It would be great if you tell me where do indian english lie in all the three. hemant. you can mail me on khardehemant@rediffmail.com

Are you trying to start a flame war? ;-) Both UK and US English enjoy wide currency throughout the world. In many nations like India, UK English tends to be the "flavor" (or "flavour") of English taught. I'm not going to respond to your question regarding "quality", as it is obviously a very subjective matter of opinion. I will say this, however: I love listening to Indians speaking English, they give the language a beautiful lilt. Here is something interesting. func(talk) 14:16, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
See American and British English differences. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 16:36, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
See also Indian English. The dialect article has some discussion that is probably relevant. As far as I can tell, you can't really state scientifically that one dialect is actually of higher quality than another. If you meant "quality" in terms of properties of the language and not in terms of which is "better", I would recommend reading the articles for American English and British English (and also just English language).
From strictly personal experience, I can tell you that American English definitely seems (at least officially) to be more open to accepting slang terms than, say, French, but I don't know if anyone has ever done a detailed analysis of British and American slang. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 17:16, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
And no English is significantly more slangy than some of what is spoken in the East End of London. -- Jmabel 06:23, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Homeopathy

What is homeopathy ? Jeanettesundby

See homeopathy. HTH, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 16:06, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
Meelar, you're too quick :-) JFW | T@lk 16:08, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Also see Emperor's New Clothes. True homeopathically diluted preparations are so demonstrably only water used as placebo that public acceptance can only be maintained by attacking those who dare to state the obvious. Alteripse 16:27, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mathematical congresses

What happened on the 5th international maths congress in Cambridge? I'm interested in B. Russel-related informations particularly. Gubbubu 16:26, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gubbubu 16:26, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[5] lists the 5th International Congresses of Mathematicians held at Cambridge, England in (1912), but I found only tidbits on Bertrand Russell being there ([6]), maybe an email to one of the contacts at [7] might help? -Wikibob | Talk 12:01, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)

norway

You might start at Norway, though it would really help if you asked us a specific question! -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 17:58, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Windows error / MS-DOS multiple hard disks

Okay, I have a bit of a problem. The problem is this: My 3 year old Dell Dimension 4800 (256mb RAM, 2 hard drives totaling 100 gb, Nvidia GeForce 2, Windows XP service pack 1 (upgrade from WinMe)) has died on me. Whenever I boot Windows and try to log on, it loads my saved prefs and then logs off before it's even done logging on. I am now running it off of a DOS boot disk made on a Windows 95 Compaq Presario 2200 from 1997. Unfortunately, DOS refuses to recognize the second hard drive on the Dell, or its CD-ROM/RW/DVD-ROM drive (E and D drives, respectively.) So, I have two questions:

1. Is my WinXP error a known bug, and if so, how can I fix it?

2. How does one add drives to DOS when running off a boot disk?

Thanks --216.195.195.211 18:53, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

1. who knows. Something is corrupt, a reinstall of XP will fix it.
2. here's the scenario - when compaq made your winME machine, they put a FAT32 volume as the boot drive. Then you updated ME to XP, and the drive remained fat32. Then you added the second drive, and formatted it, and XP made it NTFS. Now you've emergency-booted back to win95. win95 understands fat32, but not NTFS, so you can see the boot disk, but not the other one. The only solution to that is to boot into winNT, win2000, or winXP. The reason you can't see the CD drive is that win95 doesn't automatically mount them - you need to find the (device specific) driver file (usually a .SYS file) and install it (in config.sys) and then run mscdex with the appropriate options. All rather complicated. Better, you need a winXP boot disk, or (best) a bootable winXP install disk.
- John Fader
There are actually TWO computers involved here. I am now emergency booting DOS 7.1, which can read NTFS and should solve my problem. My intent here was mostly to discover if anyone had seen this problem before. 208.193.132.253 17:18, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC) (I am the original poster, school comps)

What do you actually want to do? I assume: 1. You want to recover the data on the second drive. 2. You want to repair WinXP. Reinstalling XP will solve both problems. If for some reason you can't do this, using a CD based version of Linux (like Knoppox) would allow you to read the NTFS drive (but not write to it) so you could recover the data to the first drive (assuming you have space) and then format the drive to FAT32 or whatever. You could use the opportunity to install Linux if the problem is that you don't have and don't want to buy winXP. Mark Richards 17:01, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Linux is a good idea, but I'd rather not screw with multibooting right now. I think at this point I'm just gonna either hire a repairman or take out the NTFS drive and reinstall XP, then reinstall the NTFS drive. Thanks all! 208.193.132.253 17:18, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think Mark means use Knoppix to boot the PC - it will automatically detect all your drives, and allow you to read them. If you have a copy of winXP, then the best thing is to reinstall. Intrigue 17:51, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yep, that's what I'm gonna do if I can just find my XP cd... 208.193.132.253 16:32, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Title of a cockroach adventure game

I remember some years ago of playing a demo game where you were a cockroach. I think the story resembled something like Kafka's The Metamorphosis, but being specific about turning into a cockroach, but I'm not sure about this.

All I remember is that the game was point-and-click based (you had to guide the cockroach around), and the backgorunds were realistic. I remember there were nasty places, like a dead rat full of maggots or a rotten pizza.

Anyone know the title of such game? Thanks — Kieff | Talk 20:04, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

  • I remember reading about such a game and grumbling because my computer didn't meet the minimum requirements. I think it was called "Bad Mojo". [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 20:10, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)
    • Yes!! That's the game! Thank you very much :D — Kieff | Talk 20:29, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

I wrote a brief article at Bad Mojo. Intrigue 23:28, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rather coincidentally, this game is being re-released for some reason [8] Cvaneg 18:48, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Caloric value of an apple

I was wondering today how many calories are contained in an apple of average weight. I looked at Nutritional information about the apple, but it didn't really help. Anyone have a rough figure? 147.9.159.224 04:11, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It says it right there - 59 k-calories/100 grams. (in nutrion, a "calorie" is a what is called a "kilocalorie" in every other area of science). Therefore, a mediuam sized (138 g) apple has 81 calories (kilocalories). →Raul654 04:20, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
Per Calorie, a nutritional Calorie - capital C - is a kilocalorie. Capital-C Calories are normally used in North America, where "kilocalorie" is not used outside science classrooms. Sharkford 20:35, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)

First Monterey International Pop Festival

I found the following in the article namespace (First Monterey International Pop Festival), but it probably belongs here. If anyone answers it should probably cc'ed by email, as I doubt he would find it here otherwise. andy 07:31, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not here by mistake. I'm trying to hunt down any information I can find about Scott McKenzie, who was at the Festival and who gave the world "San Francisco", the Festival's antum. I spelled anthum wrong but am unable to backspace to fix it. Anyway, I am totally consumed by the Festival and the stars who made it great. I'm also trying to link up with information on the new Mamas & Papas who briefly prformed in the 90s with Scott McKenzie. I'm hoping there is an album I can buy with him in the group. I hope that one day this space will be completely filled in with all kinds of news and photos of the Festival. I can't wait. I can be reached at my email address, <jcp1144@yahoo.com>. Thanks for letting me sit here typing in lieu of reading fascinating anecdotes on the Festival. --24.26.204.142 05:12, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
That article is under Monterey Pop Festival. Adam Bishop 21:50, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible to build a cable SCART to SVHS?

(output)VCR-SCART to (input)SVHS capture card on PC.

Textual Analysis

Pl help me giving me a lead for referencing on "textual analysis as a qualitative method". I appreciate material/references that can explain the process of doing this in relation to mental health,education,sociology especially "how to do this" is also another struggle. Thank you much in advance for help/suggestions. malathi

If you are looking for qualitive text analysis methods, you might want to look at http://www.eblong.com/zarf/markov/ (specifically, it's about Markov chain analysis). →Raul654 21:38, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Religious food laws

Does Wikipedia have an article on religious food laws, eg no beef for Hindus, no pork for Muslims, kosher foods for Jews, etc? Some quick searching didn't turn anything up. I think it could be an interesting article if written by the right person, but I want to make sure there's not something like this already out there before I put it on Requested Articles. Garrett Albright 21:44, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Japanese transliteration

Can someone give me パジェロ in Romaji please? Thanks. Chameleon 13:42, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

パジェロ is pajero in Hepburn rōmaji. See for example [9] Gdr 15:07, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)
I know it means pajero, but is that the exact transliteration of パジェロ according to the Hepburn system? It seems rather exact. I was expecting something like "pa ji ye lo". Chameleon 15:20, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it's exact. See the Hepburn article. ジェ for je is an example of "extended katakana", used to represent sounds not found in native Japanese but needed to write words imported from other languages. Gdr 15:56, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)
Ah OK, great, thanks a lot. It's for this page, if you're curious. Chameleon 16:29, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Was Demomotus really a presocratic Greek philosopher?

I recently came across an article about Demomotus. According to the article, he was a presocratic Greek philosopher. The article doesn't provide any references however, and it was written by a single user who has only contributed for one day. I also couldn't find anything about Demomotus on google, except for content that (apparently) is mirrored from Wikipedia. I also can't find any references in the index of Plato's complete works, who (according to the article) was influenced by him.

Can anyone who knows more about the subject confirm that this article is not a hoax? Sietse 15:32, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This has a funny odor to it. A verbatim copy of this is here, although it is hard to say which came first as that has zero info about it. I suspect that site merely copied the WP article without attribution, but it could be the other way around. In any case, this article is in serious need of cleanup and verification. I added a note to Talk:Pre-Socratic philosophy asking for folks more knowledgeable in the area to look at it. older≠wiser 16:02, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)
This article appears to be entirely bogus. There is no mention of the subject in the online Britannica, xreferplus or The Times digital archive 1785-1985. I added a "disputed" tag. --Heron 16:45, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I took the liberty of placing this on Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion. It is complete nonsense. func(talk) 16:57, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Okay, so it really is a hoax. Thank you all for your assistance. Sietse 17:14, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

WORK CITED PAGE

I need to list a document from your web site. I have searched but can't seem to find date of article or any other information for MLA format. The article is Mary Kay Letourneau and I used yahoo as the search engine. It's the first article listed on the yahoo search results. Can you help?? My paper is due tomorrow and I need to do a Work Cited Page.

My e-mail address is jvolz@rider.edu.

Thank you.

I've mailed a pointer to Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia Sietse 16:51, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Television Markets

Do we have pages anywhere that list the counties in each television market? PedanticallySpeaking 17:01, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

What glacier is this?

A Big Glacier

Can anyone tell me what glacier this is? I think it might be the Muir Glacier, but I'm not sure. I do know that the cruise ship spent a lot of time letting people look at it. - RedWordSmith 17:51, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


  • Was there another glacier, quite dirty, immediately perpendicular to it? When we were at Glacier Bay last summer, the cruise stopped for quite a while where both the Grand Pacific glacier (the dirty one) and the Margerie Glacier (the clean one, which I think yours might be the picture of) were. Margerie was calving frequently, which is why we stopped there. --jpgordon {gab} 19:02, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Not sure, I think it's possible. I'll look through my album a bit more; I do know that it was calving; a family member who got a picture of some of the calving think's it's the Margerie glacier as well. - RedWordSmith 18:31, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

list of advertising slogans

Randomness

I'm sure I've been told before that a computer cannot generate a truly random number. Am I just misremembering? If not, why is it not possible? I've looked at our article on randomness which hasn't helped. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 02:46, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

You are not 'misremembering'. Any random number generation program that you write will have a predetermined logic, which you will encode. Hence, the numbers generated can't be truly 'random' (i.e. they have causal dependencies). Such numbers are usually called pseudo-random numbers. There are some attempts to generate random numbers using the entropy in the environment. But, the question whether anything in nature can be random leads to the philosophical question Deterministic universe or non-deterministic universe?. -- Sundar 03:07, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
You should check Pseudo-random number and Pseudorandom number generator. I think they might answer your questions — Kieff | Talk 03:01, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

It's very hard for a digital computer to generate random numbers (let's not say impossible), and most 'random number generators' are deterministic pseudo random number lists, seeded with a number picked from an analogue source (like key presses, or the voltage on an analogue input line). That is to say that if you know all the variables going on, you can predict what numbers a computer will generate. In the old days this was exploited by computer games, notably Elite for the BBC micro, which had a huge number of planets and descriptions. They weren't stored, but were randomly generated they were always the same because the random number generator was always seeded with the same value, and so always generated the same random universe. Computers are essentially deterministic - they do what they are told (exactly what they are told), and knowing the initial circumstances, they can never surprise us. Mark Richards 03:07, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A point often missed is that, in most of the common, day to day tasks in which a personal computer would need a "random" number, true "randomness" usually isn't needed. Determining how a villain should move in a video game or which "random quote of the day" should be selected doesn't require what a mathematician or computer scientist would strictly consider a "random" number. The general idea behind pseudo-random numbers is to take a "seed" value, (often the date or time in seconds, milliseconds, or "ticks"), and perform a pre-set calculation upon it. The value produced is usually "random enough" for all but the most serious of mathematical or scientific calculations. func(talk) 03:53, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'd also like to point out that people are no better at coming up with random numbers. For example, if you were to ask a large group of people to come up with 10 random numbers between 1 and 10, the number of sequences they give you that have the same digit more than twice in a row will be far out of line with what would be expected in a truly random distribution, since it feels intuitively "less random". Cvaneg 17:30, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
A very good point. The US Army once perform an experiment, in which it had typists try to bang out random sequences, for crytographic purposes. They discovered that it really wasn't possible: there was a tendency for a left hand key to follow a right hand key to follow a left hand key, etc.; and for most of the keys to be on the home row. The difficulties of creating a true random number sequence (one not generated by a "deterministic algorithm") is one of the reasons why the world's only truly unbreakable encrytion scheme is almost never used in practice, the One-time pad. func(talk) 17:51, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You might also want to look up Hardware random number generator. — Matt 11:22, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for those. The idea of seeding from a date or other constantly shifting seed is interesting. And the stuff about Elite being seeded by the same number each time, what a good idea. I can see now I didn't look closely enough at the see also section of randomness. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 19:35, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Wrong arrows?

I've been told that the arrows in the images I've done for Lever are in wrong positions and directions. Can anyone verify so I can make the proper changes? — Kieff | Talk 03:00, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

They look okay to me. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
They look good to me as well. You've got them coming from the center of gravity, where else would they go? Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 14:27, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'd be curious to know who said they were in the wrong position. There is no discussion at the article's talk page. func(talk) 14:41, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I would have put the arrows labelled "output" on the other side of the beam. A nicer font would be good too. Gdr 15:08, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
But the output force isn't in that direction. -- Cyrius|✎ 15:15, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Huh? How did what I wrote imply that I would have changed the direction of the arrows as well as their position? Gdr 15:48, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
Sorry, misread. -- Cyrius|✎ 21:03, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I would also argue that the "output" arrows should have their bases on the lever and be pointing away from it; not to change their direction but to make it clear that the resultant force is emerging from the lever, as it were. This would seem more intuitive to me. Sharkford 15:59, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
I agree with Sharkford. The directions are certainly correct, but vectors are usually drawn with their tails at the point of application and their heads at the opposite end (e.g. this picture), which is not the way you have drawn them. I would not go as far as to say that you are wrong - just slightly unconventional. --Heron 16:05, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ok, I've changed them. Also, changed the font. Hope that's better now :P. Thanks everyone — Kieff | Talk 22:51, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Name and location of a monument

What's the name and location of a monument that is a huge concrete(?) arch? — Kieff | Talk 06:08, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

That is the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, Missouri. It's made of steel. I doubt concrete could support itself like that. →Raul654 06:28, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
Well the article says the first 300ft (or the bottom half) of the Gateway Arch is reinforced concrete clad in stainless steel, so it is at least partly concrete.
There is also the Persian vault at Ctesiphon - not really a monument but built around 200AD from just mud bricks, stands at 110ft high and is one of the oldest arches in the world. There is a better picture here. -- Solipsist 07:02, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks you two. The Gateway Arch was what I was looking for. Ahh, I always thought it was a beautiful thing, but never had a clue of where that was. — Kieff | Talk 07:07, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
Sends Raul654 back to remedial reinforced concrete 101. Tsk tsk tsk. --Tagishsimon

How Do I quote from Wikipedia?

Hello, I want to quote a therm from wikipedia how should I do in it APA style? Where can I find necessery information such as author, year, etc? Thank you very much in advance.

Cez

This is explained in Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Good luck! Sietse 11:00, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is encyclopedia available off-line?

Congratulations to the folks who created, maintain and contribute to wikipedia. I find the content of this encyclopedia absolutely terrific and there is nothing else to my knowledge that match it elsewhere. My question is: is there any way to download the entire wikipedia article library or is it available in a dvd so that someone could use it in a location where internet is not available? This encyclopedia is simply phenomenal.

Thanks, on behalf of all the thousands of contributors, for your compliments. The idea of a wiki, of course, is that anyone can "create, maintain and contribute to wikipedia" - so feel free to help! It is possible to download Wikipedia: see Wikipedia:Database download and http://download.wikimedia.org/. --Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 02:02, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Mandrakesoft are intending to produce a DVD containing the English and French Wikipedias sometime in 2005. -- Arwel 13:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thank for the info. I tried to download at the site: http://download.wikimedia.org/ at the "IMAGE AND UPLOADED FILES English wikipedia images and files 20040609_upload.tar.aa but I get an error message that the site is not available. Any special reason?

If you want to download articles you should have tried under the heading raw database dumps and pick the language of the wikipedia you want. Why the link you clicked didn't work, I don't know. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 13:51, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

How Can I Change The Drive Letter On My HD and CD ROM?

Since upgrading to Windows XP the drive letters on my HDs and CD Roms are not as they were when I had Windows 98. I would like to change the drive letters, with the exception of C of course, so that they make sense to me.

Thanks so much for your help. 

                               Ross Lambourn.
                               <email address removed>

Try this: Inside explorer rt-click on MyComputer and then choose Manage. A new window appears where you should choose disk managament Then a list of drive appears and right click over the partition you want to change and select "change disk drive letter" Good luck

John Kerry- Right wing?

Hi there. I am doing a print journalism course in college and i have to give a seminar on John Kerry's position on the political compass. I was wondering if John Kerry is right wing or left wing, and why he is considered this? Also, if you could provide me with some places i could find out more about this. Thank you so much my email address is naomi_b86@hotmail.com Naomi Klein

Surely not the Naomi Klein, hahah.
Well, Kerry is centre-right, but in the right-wing American political stage he is liable to get labelled far left, as Bush recently called him. Chameleon 18:39, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What Chameleon is alluding to is that, if Kerry was a politician in most western European countries and retained the same views, they would probably be perceived approximately as "center-right" in those countries. Other Western countries are generally more statist than the US.--Robert Merkel 20:42, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Hmm. I would say that Kerry is left of center. Whether one would actually call him "left-wing" at any time later than the mid-1970s is another matter. Probably the Republicans would like to paint him so. As a person who considers himself to be on the left, I can say is there is a lot of space between John Kerry and myself, and there is still quite a bit of space to my left. However, I doubt you could find an American who shares Kerry's politics and would describe him/herself as "on the right", even the center-right. I would strongly suggest that you read Left-right politics and possibly political spectrum. -- Jmabel|Talk 19:02, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

It depends entirely on your perspective, and indeed, the whole left/right thing is really not that helpful in modern politics. To the extent that we can say at all, Kerry is probably to the left of Bush on most issues, while both are to the right of virtually every other developed world politician. Intrigue 20:37, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"The whole left/right thing is really not that helpful in modern politics" only because we are given a choice between centre-right and a bit further right across the Western world these days. Real politics can only happen in the streets now.
I've read a bit more about Kerry now, and it seems that although on key economic issues he is centre-right, he is more progressive on some social issues, and was even relatively radical as a young man. There is more difference than I thought between him and Bush, almost enough to make it worth voting. Chameleon 21:58, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

peter minshall

i am interested in obtaining a video clip on the 1996 olympic opening and closing ceremony. the person peter was a trinidadian artist who created ths costumes for this event and i am doing a speech in class on him. please advise how and where i can obtain a copy of this. this is really important to me. thanks

nadia

Have you tried asking at a university library, or your state's research library? They often have this kind of thing, and if they don't they'll probably know where to get it.--Robert Merkel 20:04, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Food Spoilage

I've always been told that certain foods like shellfish and dairy products are more prone to spoilage than other foods like beef, but why is that? Also, if you were to take a piece of spoiled food and cook it to a point where you've killed all the bacteria and microorganisms, could you then eat it with little fear of food poisoning? Cvaneg 18:56, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Food spoilage is caused by bacteria, different bacteria thrive in different environments. Presumably those that like shellfish grow faster than those that like fish.

The answer to you second question is a definite no. When a person is infected by bacteria, there is an incubation time of days or even weeks until they become ill. During this time the bacteria are growing inside them. But food poisoning happens much too fast for that to be the case. There is no incubation time, eating bad food will generally make you ill almost straight away. So obviosly something else is going on and the very name tells you what it is. Bacteria growing inside food produce toxins. You are literally poisoned when you eat the food. Heat will kill the bacteria but will not necessarily destroy the toxins that have already been produced. botulism is the classic example of a very powerful toxin. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 22:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

P.s see our article Foodborne illness for details on this. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 22:18, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

supply ship Argonne

I am the owner of a vase made from a gun shell, it has been machined so that it curves in towards the base, and decorated with a rose and the name Argonne 1918. It is a fired shell, and has a large and small 8 stamped on the bottom and some words I can't read. This "vase" must have taken hours to do, as it not only has the words and rose on it, the bottom portion has been shaped to represent leaves all around, and around the words is what I would call punched work...and the top rim of the vase is crimped. Years ago (over 40) I used to read encyclopedias just because I read everything, and in an obscure/also outdated then encyclopedia I read something about the supply ship Argonne fighting an air battle, or possibly it was the last battle of the Argonne, and I am mistaken about what I was reading after all this time...at any rate it was mentioned that the machinists made vases from the fired shells, to commemorate the end of either the battle aboard the ship or the forest. I have not been able to locate any thing like this since and would really like to know more about the history of the vase. Since if nothing else this vase and the other one that isn't nearly as elaborate were probably done at the same time there is some kind of historical value, if not monetary. Could you give me some kind of idea where to look for more information?

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous&oldid=6589811"