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March 24

Robert Mankoff - New Yorker

I want to know if Robert Mankoff, the cartoonist who works for The New Yorker Magazine is related to me. My name is L. [hidden] We are of Jewish Russian descent. How can I get ahold of Robert Mankoff to send him an email? 65.128.176.193 (talk) 01:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I have hidden some of your personal information (we can't confirm who you are, and people who see your name here may spam you) and corrected your formatting. The name Mankoff/Mankov/Mankow/Mankiw/Mankovits etc., is very common. There are several geneological sites, someone here will probably comment with advice shortly. μηδείς (talk) 01:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know where you got that from Medeis. According to this site, Mankoff is very far from common. It says that there were only 217 people with that name living in the USA at the time of the 2000 census. (And there are only 118 Mankov/Mankow/Mankiw/Mankovit's). SteveBaker (talk) 22:01, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You can contact him by email Here. This is a blog of his published by The New Yorker, and there's a link near the bottom that says "E-mail Robert Mankoff" --Jayron32 01:17, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You might find Ancestry.com of interest. Shadowjams (talk) 02:00, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Publicly accessible "microdata" statistics for Europe

Does the EU or any European country have something like https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/public_use_microdata_sample/ ? At least Eurostats seems rather all or nothing [1] and there is no way they would give access to a random guy like me. --82.128.250.221 (talk) 02:37, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Financial innovation and enhancement of productivity

"The primary locus of modern rent-seeking is the overblown financial sector, where burgeoning trade in existing assets has overwhelmed the creation of new wealth..." - Financial Times columnist

I want to evaluate not this particular statement but its kind in an organized manner. Lots of experts point out that the recent rise in finance has not enhanced productivity but instead captured rent.

1. What would productive financial innovation look like? Make available more financing while reducing credit risk to the system? (Any specific examples of recent productive financial innovation that does this?)

2. What isn't productive - we know what that looks like - the trading of credit default swaps in sub-prime mortgages - this risky financial activity was ultimately subsidized by the public because the banks that made the wrong bets were too big to fail.

3. Even with the above being an example of clear rent seeking is it possible to say that was only one slice of the new financial innovation degrades productivity and competitiveness and is rent seeking while most other innovation in finance enhances productivity?

Not creating any arguments, just trying to think about how this issue can be clearly approached in a step by step manner.

Gullabile (talk) 12:05, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

1. Microfinancing.

2. Loan sharking, Ninja loans.

3. Rent seeking is lobbying to obtain public benefits for private purposes, and would seem to be the wrong term to use.DOR (HK) (talk) 06:59, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Generally speaking, productive financial innovation would serve unmet needs or would reduce the costs of financial intermediation. For an example of unmet needs: credit cards have given millions of consumers easy access to credit, made it possible for them to have buying power without carrying large amounts of cash around, and created a convenient payment system for online and telephone transactions, among other advantages. For an example of reduced costs: exchange-traded funds have lower costs than most competing investment vehicles, and are inherently tax-efficient (although ETFs are also an example of an unmet need, since they allow market trading of an investment vehicle whose price derives from the value of the portfolio assets).

People are going to argue over what isn't productive, since any financial innovation that finds a market presumably is filling some need. However, innovations that essentially displace risk to the public sector (arguably the case with your example of banks that are too big to fail), that increase risk or reduce the value of a market segment (e.g., a leveraged buyout that reduces the value of the issuer's outstanding bonds), or that simply take advantage of tax preferences, presumably would be examples of what you are looking for.

I'm not sure I understand your third point. John M Baker (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Pets to keep in a 2 bed flat

Hi all,

I've recently bought a new flat and would like some comapny in the form of a pet. However it is a small-ish (775 sq ft) 2 bedroom flat which keeping a cat or a dog in would probably be a bit cruel. What other options are there? I live in the UK so it would obviously have to be legal here. there are no restrictions on pets as I am the landlord and money/time is no object. Also I don't like spiders! Something that can be let out of it's cage every so often would be cool. Ideas? 80.254.147.164 (talk) 12:26, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Our article on pets might give you a few ideas.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:59, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

That's not too small for a cat. You do have to make sure you get a litter box trained indoor cat though, not one that needs to go out. If you adopt one, make sure it's used to staying indoors. If you raise one from a kitten, you can train it to be an indoor cat. I find cracking a window occasionally, so they get the outdoors scents, is enough for such cats. And you will need to make sure it gets some exercise, say by playing with it with a string. Modern clumping cat litter makes sure they don't stink up the place, provided you dispose of it daily. I also recommend a short-haired cat and daily brushing, to limit cat fur on your clothes and furniture, and prevent hairballs. Feed the cat only dry food for their health and to avoid the wet food stink, and always leave a bowl of fresh water out (a bowl you don't care about, as their saliva will eventually dissolve the finish on ceramics). If you leave for more than a day you need a cat-sitter, more for the cat's mental well-being than physical needs. I recommend declawing the cat, at least the front claws, to avoid them damaging furniture. StuRat (talk) 15:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Declawing is illegal in the UK (except for medical purposes), FYI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.164 (talk) 15:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Then a scratching post is a must. (I wonder if you can take the cat abroad for the operation.) StuRat (talk) 15:43, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

If you do then keep it secret or be prepared for a whole army of protesters to turn up. -- Q Chris (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

When guests come over you can affix a set of adamantium claws to the cat, so the guests can leave all scratched up. :-) 16:47, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Why would you want to take your cat abroad in order to cut the ends of its toes off? And I doubt there are many places in Europe that would be happy to do it. If you don't want claws, don't get a cat. 86.157.148.65 (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

In the previously mentioned declawing article, only the USA is mentioned as allowing the mutilation of your pet in this manner. I think the same goes for the ridiculous modifications Americans make to the ears of some dogs. Astronaut (talk) 17:37, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure every nation in Africa and the rest of the world has decided that putting cats to sleep who scratch up the family and furniture is much better than a procedure which is less traumatic than neutering. StuRat (talk) 17:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

More likely, only Americans thought that there should be cats with no claws. Would you desqueak a mouse, or amputate its tail to discourage climbing? Cats climb, and race about, and scent mark, all using their claws. They pick things up in their paws, and manipulate things with them. They hunt, and defend themselves. Regardless of surgical trauma, which do you think would impact your life more: being sterilised, or having the bottom joints of your fingers and toes amputated? If all you want is a warm furry cushion, get a hot water bottle. 86.157.148.65 (talk) 05:56, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide references for cat saliva dissolving ceramic finishes or for the relative trauma of neutering? 84.209.89.214 (talk) 20:39, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I've seen the finish dissolve myself. As for the relative trauma, look up the recovery time required after each procedure. StuRat (talk) 22:31, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The Finnish don't dissolve. They are highly resistant. μηδείς (talk) 23:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

If it wasn't the Finnish that dissolved, it must have been the Polish. StuRat (talk) 00:50, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

As for other pets, most urinate or defecate wherever they feel like it, so letting them out is likely to make a mess. Goldfish are easy pets to keep, as all you need is 2 bowls, and to feed them and clean their bowls (moving them to the other bowl, which was filled with tap water previously and allowed to sit to let the chlorine outgas over several days). Other fish require more care, like an aquarium with aerator, filter, heater/thermostat, saltwater, etc. (Although personally I find fish offer about as much companionship as a plant, with the only additional interaction being when they move to the surface to eat the food you give them.) StuRat (talk) 15:43, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

More of an issue than size, is whether your flat has access to the outside/garden, and your own lifestyle. All pets take some looking after - food, water, space to sleep, cleaning, occasional vetinary care, etc. Dogs need daily exercise and a place to poop, cats (usually) need access to outside and at least a litter tray, and so on. Also bear in mind their lifespan - you might need to look after the animal for many years. Astronaut (talk) 16:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You, or your descendants. Tortoises are commitments, but double as furniture. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:34, March 24, 2014 (UTC)

Well, they don't ALL need veternarian care. A goldfish, for example, needs no end-of-life care beyond a flush of the toilet followed by a trip to the pet store for a replacement. :-) StuRat (talk) 16:41, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

A goldfish is not a very functional pet. Better to get some kind of little projection screen and play a video loop of a fish swimming back and forth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:28, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Pumpkinseed Sunnies can be caught live with a net in most lakes, and live a decade in a 20-gallon tank. Unlike hedgehogs, which will drown, and are illegal in most states. Either species will alleviate your mealy worm infestation.

• That's big enough for a chihuahua, who will need a walk around the block daily and a clear path to run in the apartment. A rescue cat that's old or injured may work, although you may not be looking for a 3-legged cat. A tegu lizard will work. They are omnivores, and seek attention if the have been handled well from birth. μηδείς (talk) 16:38, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The image is part of my comment, that's why it is inserted there. Please place your comment either after mine, or at the bottom of the page.

(oops) Per Domesticated_hedgehog#Legality, they are legal in all UK, which is where OP lives. SemanticMantis (talk) 00:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC

I very briefly kept my pig indoors (in a back room) while I was between moves. Do not even briefly keep a pig indoors. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:31, March 24, 2014 (UTC)

Unless your nose doesn't work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:55, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

As far as crap goes, it smells a lot better than dog or cat. Solid, too, cleans up like a breeze. The problem is the rooting. Great when they find a truffle, not fun when they find subfloor. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:16, March 24, 2014 (UTC)

Plenty of cats live indoors without any problems, consider one of the dwarf breeds or hairless ones, or you can get a FIV+ one from a rescue shelter. As for other animals, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils... --TammyMoet (talk) 19:57, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Pets was linked above, but here's a short list of the most popular non-cat-or-dog pets that I'm personally familiar with, along with some brief commentary based on my experience. For a first small apartment pet I'd recommend a budgie. They are inexpensive, easy to care for, and are quite tame. Many owners let them fly about the house for large portions of the day. Unlike many novelty/exotic pets, they are a social creature, and can have interesting interactions with their humans. They can also mimic basic melodies, and (especially males) can learn to say several words.

Canaries and Zebra finches, are also nice birds, that can become reasonably tame, and be allowed to fly about the apartment a few times a week. For mammals, domesticated hedgehogs are popular among those with small living spaces. They are rather docile, cute, and low maintenance. Some domestic rabbits can be litter trained, and hop about without being caged during the day. Some people very much enjoy their domestic rats, and carry them about in a pocket or purse. Iguanas are probably the best first reptile pet, but several years down the road they might become a bit too large for your taste. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

An angry iguana can cut you (and your curtains) up in ways angry cats only dream about. The larger they get, the mellower they get, thankfully. But it takes some patience. Might not be the best starter reptile. Gotta keep them hot, too. That can be a hassle. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:29, March 24, 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I've not known any violent iguanas, but since my experience is limited, I'll defer to yours. I was loathe to suggest e.g. a ball python. Even though they are often kept as pets, they are also very commonly abandoned or sent to "rescue" organizations when the owners loose interest. Terrapins and tortoises carry lots of diseases that humans can catch, and also have high abandonment rates (and are not very rewarding, IMO) ... perhaps no reptile is a good "starter" pet! SemanticMantis (talk) 00:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The claws aren't so bad (assuming you're used to cats), but their bites and whips suck. I'll agree that reptiles aren't good for beginners/barely caring people. That's where my two came from. May have had something to do with the anger. One eventually became quite friendly, but the other stayed as detached as a fish. Birds and reptiles belong in the wild, I think, but it's also not cool to return an ignorant tame one. Overall a bad scene, that reptile market. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:45, March 26, 2014 (UTC)

• Goldfish are very difficult. I knew someone who bought what looked like a 5 gallon carafe. He put an aerator in it, and a nice 2oz fancy goldfish. The aerator caused a current which caused the hapless goldfish to go around in 6-inch circles 40 times a minute. I told him to take out the aerator, the fish would be dead in a few hours. He said no, he had been told it needed oxygen. I said empty half the carafe, so it has the maximum surface area for the water to absorb oxygen, and the fish to gulp when it wanted more. He said my advice would kill the fish. I visited the following day. The fish and apparatus were gone. We never spoke of it again. μηδείς (talk) 22:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• I had a goldfish in a bowl. It had no trouble breathing. They seem to know to gulp air at the surface if they need to. They must also have a low metabolic rate, because they don't seem to need as much oxygen as other fish. And this fish was quite entertaining. Well, not the fish, precisely, but they cat's attempt to kill it, which he finally managed to do, but only by bringing the bowl crashing down on himself from a 6 foot shelf. StuRat (talk) 00:47, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Somebody forgot something. —Tamfang (talk) 01:07, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Fixed further up the page. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

So I'm not declawing a cat, overseas or otherwise. A small lizard might be feasable, although I want to make sure I can care for it properly. I have expensive oak wooden floors so anything that poos on that might not be great - which is basically every animal. I think I mgith just build a robot. (OP) 80.254.147.164 (talk) 11:02, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Iguana poop is definitely some of the slimiest in the animal kingdom. Rabbits are probably the best, as far as scoopability goes. They're just pebbles, and smell like virtually nothing. Any vegetarian mammal is pretty good for that. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:53, March 26, 2014 (UTC)

Stick insects are fairly easy to keep, take little space and don't cost much. They're not that exciting but have a rarity cachet I suppose. Just beware that many species are parthenogenic, which means that even from a single individual you could end up with more insects than you can cope with. When I was a kid, my friend was given a stick insect by the school biology dept (for that precise reason). He took it out of its cage to 'play' with it on the floor, his toddler sister came in, saw it, said "ugh" and stamped on it. --Dweller (talk) 13:07, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I say go for a ball python. Get them when they're about a few weeks old and a foot long, and put them in a 40 gallon breeder and it can stay in there for life. They only get to be about 4-5 feet long and are extremely docile, yet exotic. Feeding is simple if captive bred (1 mouse a wk, at least until they get full grown, then maybe 2 a wk). Clean-up is also simple -- a slotted spoon takes care of refuse, also once a week or so. Fill the water bowl and have a heat lamp, but snakes don't require UV-B. You can take it out and play with it and it's even great for kids -- mine are 8 and 5 and they hold it and carry it around. Costs about $75 and then the cost of the tank setup, and then a mouse or so a week. Can live for 15 yrs plus. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:47, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Tegu lizards aren't small, but they have peg-shaped teeth and mellow as they age and only get to about 5 feet. I have to agree iguanas are problematic. They either die or become hostile. Ball Pythons are either lethargic, or nasty. I decided to euthanize the second one I owned. The first one died of a respiratory infection. My 40-y/o Sister-in-Law's first memory of me (when she was 4) is of me feeding a Ball Python a mouse. It was fun for me at the time, but an embarrassing memory now. μηδείς (talk) 23:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a very misleading characterization: lethargic or nasty. It's like you're criticizing a snake for not being a dog. Snakes are poikilotherms and so are more, sedate, let's say, than a hamster or a dog. But they are by far not, as a species, nasty. In fact, I'd say they are renown for their docility and are one of the most calm and handleable of any household pet. And I think it's laughable that you suggest a tegu while claiming that ball pythons have the potential to be nasty. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 12:58, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Do you then? Is there any chance, while we are at it, that you normally squeeze to death your dinner, Drosenbach, and then swallow it whole? You sound a little partisan. μηδείς (talk) 22:24, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

What about something like a Barred Parakeet (aka Lineolated Parakeet) or a Bourke's Parrot, or two? While not looking particularly 'magnificent' as far as parrots go, these have a reputation for being (relatively) quiet, easy-going and gentle birds when tame. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:00, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Sunday Times Rich List

Hi, apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this, I wasn't sure where to go. Does anyone have a subscription to The Times, thereby enabling them to see the 2013 Rich list, for an article? Thanks, Matty.007 17:31, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid not, but the top 20 are listed in this Daily Telegraph article. Alansplodge (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Nope, looks like Johnnie Boden is a mere 24 on the rankings (or was). Thanks, Matty.007 18:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to note, features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlist/2013/live is the page which I would like looking at please]. Thanks, Matty.007 18:46, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Try WP:RX RudolfRed (talk) 21:17, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Matty.007 19:13, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

How do I become a member of a wikiproject?

I have been making maps of empire's lately and I was wanting to join the WikiProject: Maps. But I do not know how I join them. Where and how can I join the WikiProject Maps? Can anyone tell me how? Regards. Kirby (talk) 21:44, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

First step is probably saying hello at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:48, March 24, 2014 (UTC)

Full marks to everyone who has resisted the temptation to offer to draw a map to show directions to the WikiProject. --Dweller (talk) 13:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

March 25

humor & academic journals

Are there any academic journals that aren't about humor or humor-related subjects, but which regularly employ and/or encourage the use of humor in the articles they publish? So, in other words, not a journal about humor, comedy, screenwriting, the psychology of laughter, etc. but, say, a political, philosophical, or sociological kind of journal that's has witty/funny articles. (Not looking for an alternative read, but a venue that "counts" (in the academia sense) for people who maintain blogs that manage high intellectual sophistication and wit/humor). --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  00:15, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The Journal of Irreproducible Results — What, no link? Try:[2] —71.20.250.51 (talk) 05:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC) —Update [06:20, 25 March 2014 (UTC)] Here it is → Journal of Irreproducible Results

Not really a peer-reviewed academic journal of the kind the OP is looking for though, is it? --Viennese Waltz 06:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I Didn't read "peer-reviewed" in the query; anyway, see also: Annals of Improbable Research (or not) —71.20.250.51 (talk) 06:34, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Slate (magazine) "Combines humor and insight in thoughtful analyses of current events and political news" — if that's what you're looking for. The "peer reviewed journals" are about humor — e.g.: HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research by The International Society for Humor Studies.  —71.20.250.51 (talk) 07:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

In the medical sciences (I know, it's outside the scope of the 'humanities' topics you named) the very well-respected (and recently open-access) BMJ publishes many of their most humorous papers in their special Christmas issue. See, for example, Keaney et al. (2013) "The Brady Bunch? New evidence for nominative determinism in patients’ health: retrospective, population based cohort study":

Objective To ascertain whether a name can influence a person’s health, by assessing whether people with the surname “Brady” have an increased prevalence of bradycardia. ...

The results may surprise and delight. See also Smith and Pell's seminal 2003 paper, "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials". Cheers, TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:56, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

No, there isn't any such thing, because being witty and funny isn't something that can be objectively peer reviewed. It also doesn't meet the broad goals of disseminating research, which is what most peer-reviewed journals claim as their mission. As several mention above, many scholarly journals will occasionally publish such pieces as a one-off or in a special issue, e.g. this famous example [3]. This blog tracks humorous papers through NCBI, some of which are intentionally funny, some of which are unintentionally funny - though they come from various journals [4], [5]. Other journals may have a small blurb that is mildly humorous, but those aren't peer reviewed, they are under editorial control. I'm very confused by the question. If one wants to be witty and funny in print, they can write a blog, as you suggest. Why should that be peer reviewed, or "count" for credit in an academic career? I do know of a few researchers who try to "sneak" some humor into every paper, but the paper is still primarily about communicating findings, not about being clever and funny. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:05, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting responses so far. Thanks. @SemanticMantis: - I don't know why these are mutually exclusive. Why wouldn't you be able to perform a serious study, analyze serious results, and take the material that could easily be published in a scholarly journal, but write it in an entertaining way? Why would that make it "count" any less? The peer-review wouldn't be an analysis of its humor unless the humor gets in the way of the other material. The practice isn't unheard of, but typically reserved for those who are already well. One current example of someone who works in both social sciences and humanities and consistently writes using humor/irony is Bruno Latour. But the point is, the journals that publish his work would publish his work regardless. My question is if there's a publication that explicitly values that kind of expression. Communicating findings, as you say, but doing so in such a way. Probably not, I suppose. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  17:09, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is that humor can often mislead people who are reading it literally. Sloppy language of any kind has to be avoided at all costs in scientific writing. If I'm measuring the number of cracked ball-bearings in a factory and I say that I've found a ton of them - are people going to assume that I mean "quite a lot" or are they going to assume that I found approximately 2,240 lbs of them? We have to be careful. Jokes very often rely on exaggeration or confusing contradictions for their effect - and that's the very last thing you want here. "An airline pilot visits his doctor with a urinary tract problem - the doctor asks 'When did you last have sex?' - the man replies '1954'. 'Oh, it's been quite a while then.' says the doctor.'...the pilot checks his watch...'but it's only 2100 now'."...the shift in meaning is what makes the joke work - but that kind of fluidity is precisely what you need to avoid in scientific description. It's possible that (with care), one could fabricate humor into a scientific paper - but it's very, very dangerous - and may simply not be worth the risk.

It does happen though - sometimes in quite prominent ways. The Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper was written by Ralph Alpher and his advisor George Gamow. Hans Bethe was added into the author list even though he played no part in writing it just to make the author list sound like the greek letters alpha, beta and gamma. The paper turned out to be very important and it's often still called "the alphabet paper" and written as "the αβγ paper" in many serious works. Bethe said that should the paper turn out to be incorrect, he'd probably have to change his name to Zacharias!

SteveBaker (talk) 22:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Nature publishes a science fiction story on its inside back page every week. Many of these are humorous to some extent, eg using puns, because it's quite hard to write a serious story in a single page. Here's an example-gadfium 00:01, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The Strings conference proceedings, see e.g.:

Physica 15D (1985) 289-293

Unified String Theories, eds. M. Green and D. Gross, Proc. of Santa Barbara Workshop, Jul. 29 - Aug. 16 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1986) 729-737

Superstrings, cosmology, composite structures, eds. S.J. Gates, Jr. and R.N. Mohapatra, Proc. of Maryland Workshop, March 11-18, 1987 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1987) 585-593

Strings '88, eds. S.J. Gates, Jr., C.R. Preitschopf, and W. Siegel, Proc. of Maryland Workshop, May 24-28, 1988 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1989) 475-483

Strings '89, eds. R. Arnowitt, R. Bryan, M.J. Duff, D. Nanopoulos, and C.N. Pope, College Station, TX, March 13-18, 1989 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1990) 535-549

Strings '90, eds. R. Arnowitt, R. Bryan, M.J. Duff, D. Nanopoulos, and C.N. Pope, College Station, TX, March 13-18 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1991) 523-529

Strings and Symmetries 1991, eds. N. Berkovits, H. Itoyama, K. Schoutens, A. Sevrin, W. Siegel, P. van Nieuwenhuizen, and J. Yamron, Stony Brook, May 20-25 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1992) 593-599

Strings '93, eds. M.B. Halpern, G. Rivlis, and A. Sevrin, Berkeley, CA, May 24-29, 1993 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1995) 485-490

Count Iblis (talk) 01:45, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

One of the punniest authors, Donald Knuth is famous for both his contributions to computing science and his writing. In The Art of Computer Programming he discusses several fast multiplication algorithms, and you find the words,

"Since then, computers have multiplied." (emphasis mine)

In Factoring into Primes there is a remark about running out of time with huge composite numbers, but (paraphrasing) "not out of money; I'm on free idle time, not expensive prime time."

Not to mention the Knuth reward checks. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Several internet users publish fractal image galleries, often with bits of the underlying math. The "attractive" (in the sense of both "beautiful", and that they are limits of infinitely many initial values) fixed point is a thoroughly abused term.

217.255.149.83 (talk) 10:48, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The axis of evil

Rumsfeld Hadrons

Remodeling the Pentagon After the Events of 2/23/06

How To Kill a Penguin

*-Wars Episode I: The Phantom Anomaly

Nutty Bubbles

Nuttier Bubbles

Count Iblis (talk) 15:36, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

LGBT name question.

Why dont the LGBT name have 2 names for bisexual and 2 for travestite, one for male and another for girl, like it has to homosexuality (gay for males and lesbian for females)?
Or why dont the LGBT name just one name for homosexuality (instead of splitting it betwen male one and female one), like it has for transvertite and bisexual? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.202.254 (talk) 13:05, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

There's quite a lot of etymological discussion, including dozens of proposed variations on the term at our article, which is helpfully located at LGBT --Dweller (talk) 13:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

My question, was something more like, "why this illogical is the most used one?".201.78.202.254 (talk) 13:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Language is not designed by some arbiter of logic and reason. Words pop into existence, have their meanings changed, twisted, duplicated into other words. Words adopted into one social group may spread into other groups - or may become the badge of a niche following. Expecting some kind of ordered system to emerge from this process is asking a lot. It's like expecting the weeds that grow in your back yard to form a neat rectangle symmetrically centered on your lawn! SteveBaker (talk) 13:54, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I take your point, but your last example just made me think of fairy rings, which indeed show an unexpected structure emerging from natural conditions. :) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I specifically chose "rectangle" rather than "ring" because rings do happen naturally and rectangles really don't. But the point here is not that ordered, logical language cannot come about - it's more that it's not inevitable that it should. If the linguistics did happen to be very well-ordered, then we might be surprised and look for a reason, however, if the language is a mess - then we don't really expect to find a clear, simple reason. So, finding a language where (for example) absolutely all words describing a group of people ended with "-ano", that would be tremendously logical - but it would be the a strong suggestion that you're looking at a synthetic language (in this case, Esperanto) - where in English, we get words like that ending in "-ian" (eg christian), but others just with '-an' (eg american) and then others in "-ish" (eg english, spanish). English is a mess precisely because it's a language that's evolved messily. SteveBaker (talk) 22:03, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

¿ "rings do happen naturally and rectangles really don't" ? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:12, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Small point of clarification, gay includes homosexual women and men. Also, some people use terms like bi-man or bi-male to mean a bisexual man, in cases where describing the sex of the person is desirable. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

"Small point of clarification, gay includes homosexual women and men. " I was assuming that it doenst, since GLBT also includes lesbian. So you would have (if gay means both male and female) Homosexual Human|Homosexual Female Human |Bisexual Human |Transexual Human.201.78.202.254 (talk) 16:48, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

In general parlance, the term 'gay' generally includes women. It doesn't always, it's sometimes only used to refer to men, but usually qualification is offered in cases like that (e.g. gay men). Some women who identify in that way may dislike either or even both terms but I think most who identify in that way don't mind being called either. See e.g. the comments here [6]. Nil Einne (talk) 21:34, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, you'd think the team that brought you fuchsia and mauve would have a better term. Gay is positive and economical, Queer is brisk and ironic. LGBT seems to come more from the OCD, ADHD, DMSV-V, ICBM, FUNEX nerdy political and social science wing than the clubbers. μηδείς (talk) 16:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• Note that having some gender-specific words for relationships yet lacking them for other relationships also occurs outside of sexual terms. For example, we have aunts and uncles (gender--specific terms only), cousins (non-gender-specific term only) and siblings/brothers/sisters (both types). StuRat (talk) 17:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

It's kind of like how English has no easy noun to mean "nongender-specific boyfriend or girlfriend". Some terms just never happen and there's no real reason. The language just developed like that. 50.43.148.35 (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Significant other. StuRat (talk) 13:21, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

But again, the language is a mess because it's evolved that way rather than being designed. I guess a non-gender-specific boy/girlfriend is just a "friend" - but the terms boyfriend and girlfriend have slowly gained more specific meanings so that if I were to tell you that I have many friends, you might think I'm a fairly nice guy - but if I tell you that I have many "girlfriends" - then you're immediately thinking I'm some kind of a philanderer. My wife and I don't agree on whether she's still "my girlfriend" now that we're married. Linguistics are a fluid process - and meanings drift slowly over time.

Quite often you can see this drift happening with extreme rapidity. One that I've been noticing in TV adverts here in the USA is that the word "twice" is being aggressively removed from TV ads and being replaced with the extremely ugly "two times". ("Our dish soap is now two times as effective at removing grease"..."Our dogfood has two times the amount of meat"...and so forth) That's really only happened noticeably over the last 12 months - it's gone from something I heard once and thought was weird and ugly - but it's nearly universal now. I really listen out for it because "two times" really grates on my ears - but "twice" is more or less dead already! If this seems surprising, consider that the word "thrice" (meaning "three times") sounds quaint and old-fashioned and you rarely hear it anymore. It looks like "twice" is going the same way. I can't comprehend why that should be - but it's how language works.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:03, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• The use of "Lesbian" in contradistinction to gay, originally meant as sex neutral, was a result of intentionally argued gender politics, not spontaneous generation. This is covered endlessly by Christopher Street Magazine. μηδείς (talk) 23:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Can I further clarify that the 'T' does not stand specifically for 'transvestite', but simply for 'trans', an umbrella classification which has a lot more to do with such serious matters as gender dysphoria than with the recreational wearing of different clothes. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:21, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I disagree - most "offical" definitions include the T as "transgender." Regardless, it seems like the term is constantly evolving. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration's (SAMHSA's) current version is LGBTQI2-S - lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, two-spirit. Justin15w (talk) 19:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow. I'm all for inclusivity and cultural sensitivity and all that, but if it keeps going, they'll have to come up with an abbreviation for that abbreviation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

• The LGBTN question almost scuttled the European Union as far back as 1968, when the French Alliance Quère sued Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands for using the LGBTN initials. The matter was finally settled when the Nightclub Faction of the Alliance Quère accepted an undisclosed payment to drop their claim to the initial N and changed their name to the Club Kids. μηδείς (talk) 20:02, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

unlocking

My nokia c2-05 says phone restricted,undo then says enter restrction code i want to know the code — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.246.55.133 (talk) 13:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Phone unlocking may not be legal and we wouldn't be able to do it for you. That said, there are phone shops on many high streets with signs in the window saying "Phones Unblocked". I couldn't possibly comment on whether you should try one of these. --Viennese Waltz 14:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Our SIM lock article doesn't mention whether unlocking is legal in Zimbabwe (where 77.246.55.133 possibly lives). It's always worth asking the current service provider for the restriction code (if there is a current provider), otherwise try the person who sold you the phone, or a shop as suggested above. Dbfirs 17:27, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Office favor

Not ref desk material. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:03, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My lover's not happy with - ahem - bedroom performance and I was thinking of asking a coworker to assist me, to act as a trainer/coach for certain sexual activities to improve my techniques. Is this a bad idea? Is is perhaps even sexual harrassment to act for such a favor? Ent-Req (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2014 (UTC) Wouldn't it be simpler to ask your lover?--Shantavira|feed me 14:14, 25 March 2014 (UTC) Troll. --Viennese Waltz 14:25, 25 March 2014 (UTC) Wikipedia reference desk cannot offer medical advice. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 17:03, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Anyone who orks cows is more than qualified to help. The Yellow Pages are your friends. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Reference added for the geek-impaired. – I doubt the YP are helpful here either...

Hatted for the wrong reason IMHO – asking for legal rather than medical advice. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:27, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

what is bit coin?

what is Bitcoin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.18.44.48 (talk) 19:06, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

To read our article on this, type "bitcoin" in the search box at the top of the page. If you need further help with a specific question let us know. μηδείς (talk) 19:15, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

For further info, check the article titled Scam. Or Google "bitcoin scam" and you will see plenty of entries. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I've read the article, and I'm not much closer to being able to answer this question than I was after I read it six months ago. All I know for sure is I probably shouldn't touch it. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:31, March 26, 2014 (UTC)

That's a myth, and neither will you grow hair on your palms, Inedible. μηδείς (talk) 02:07, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Let's shoot for a reasonable (and very much simplified!) answer here.

Bitcoin is intended to be a currency - money - like dollar bills. So first we need to understand what a dollar bill is.

A dollar bill is a piece of paper. They cost just a few cents to print - so its inherent worth is almost zero. It has value only because people choose to agree that a dollar bill represents the promise that other people will also treat it as an item of value - this is supposedly acceptable because there is a large pile of gold in Fort Knox, and the government promises that there is enough there should anyone want their paper money turned into gold (that's not true anymore - but it's the idea). There is also a requirement that it's not too easy to make one yourself by forgery. (In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy story, a bunch of people decide to use leaves as currency - which fails for rather obvious reasons!)

OK - so why do you need the piece of paper? Clearly you don't because your net worth is probably just a set of numbers in your banker's computer someplace - and we can buy and sell things using those numbers via credit card companies. I have gone for almost two years now without having a single dollar bill in my wallet...I simply don't need cash anymore. So the dollar bills are now more imaginary than real. We're actually doing all of our buying and selling by telling our banks and credit card companies to move numbers from one place in their computers to another.

Bitcoin actually, formally. replaces the piece of paper with a number...a long string of digits...and also dispenses with Fort Knox. These special bitcoin numbers are chosen as being hard to calculate because they have to have some very special set of mathematical properties. It takes WEEKS for even a very sophisticated computer to calculate a new bitcoin number - but it's very, very easy for a computer to check that some particular number really is a bitcoin and not something someone just typed in at random! You buy things by giving someone the number - possibly via email or something - and they accept it as money, because that's what bitcoin enthusiasts choose to do. Each time you 'spend' your bitcoin, a new number is generated which is your bitcoin number - along with the encrypted number of the person you gave it to. Your original number no longer works as money without the number belonging to that other person being attached to it. Each time the bitcoin is transferred, the number gets bigger - this is called "The transaction chain" and it's a way to ensure that the same bitcoin isn't spent more than once. There is a mechanism to allow you to spend a small fraction of a bitcoin if that's what you need...it's complicated!

Evidently there is lots of complicated computer cryptography involved here - which neither you nor I will ever fully understand...but the upshot is that bitcoins really do work, just like "real" money - and solutions to all of the obvious problems you might imagine you'd have with them have been found.

So - why would anyone trust these bunches of numbers as "money"? Well, that's a very good question - but we don't have to worry too much about it because enough people clearly DO accept them for it to be useful. You can buy and sell things with bitcoin fairly easily - and there are organizations who will accept your bitcoin numbers and give you back actual dollar bills - and you can give them dollar bills and they'll give you back a pile of bitcoins. The value of a bitcoin fluctuates up and down against the dollar just like the UK pound or the yen or the euro. Recently, the exchange rate has been about $400 to $600 equals ONE bitcoin!

Sadly, there have been some difficulties with this new currency - which is a problem because it can make people lose confidence in the system, just as it would be a problem if confidence in some other currency were to change - or if Visa or Mastercard were to have problems. This affects the exchange rate - which fluctuates rather wildly - and also makes some people decide not to accept bitcoin anymore.

You might ask why you should care about bitcoin....why not just use dollars instead? Well, if you are really using actual *paper* dollar bills to buy things - and if your employer pays you in actual paper dollar bills - and if you trust that the US economy isn't about to collapse overnight - then you probably don't care. But if you buy and sell things online - or do international transactions a lot (or if you're a drug dealer or money launderer!) then it becomes a big deal. If I try to buy something from you online, using dollars, then I have to use some kind of agency to do the transaction...my credit card company, or maybe PayPal. But those guys charge either the buyer or the seller (or sometimes both!) for the privilege of transferring the money. Visa and Mastercard charge a few percent off the top of every transaction. If I earn (and spend) $50,000 in a year, most of it in the form of electronic transactions, then I'm probably paying between $1,000 and $4,000 a year just to have my money moved around! Usually, you don't see that cost because the people you're buying stuff from are paying it...but the cost of goods these days is inflated by a couple of percent so that sellers can recoup that credit fee...so you're paying more for goods because of the credit card and debit card transaction fees.

Another reason to use bitcoin rather than dollars is that it's not related to any government and there is no central controlling agency. So if you mistrust governments - then maybe bitcoin is for you! If you live in someplace with a very unstable government, then perhaps bitcoin is a more stable currency than your local currency.

If you use bitcoin, then you can (theoretically) transfer money to other people at ZERO cost! You give them your bitcoin numbers directly. In practice, there is still a small fee *if* you want your transactions to be handled quickly - which goes to some people who handle the bitcoin production in the first place...but it's very small, and you can avoid it if you're not in a hurry.

If you have some bitcoin, you can spend it at an increasing number of places. One fairly famous one is Overstock.com - who'll sell you any of a bazillion different products and let you pay for it with bitcoin. There are even a few employers who will pay their employees in bitcoin.

There are a couple of other "cryptocurrencies" like bitcoin - one is called 'litecoin' and another is 'dogecoin'. Both of those are relative newcomers to the field - and neither of them has the widespread acceptance that bitcoin has developed. However, it's fairly easy to exchange those two currencies with bitcoin as well as dollars - so you can choose.

Personally, I would not recommend that you sink your dollars (pounds, euros, yen, etc) into bitcoin without carefully researching the consequences. It's perfectly possible for the currency to drop in value spectacularly overnight - or to grow to ten times it's present value over a year...both of those things have happened before! Owning bitcoin is like speculating on the stock market...and investing in particularly high-risk stock.

I hope this helps...I'm sure I have made some minor errors here - which I'm sure others will come along and clean up for us.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

You've made a lot of technical errors. It's not actually that complicated and I wish you would learn more about it before you try to "teach" other people.

Bitcoins are not identified by numbers, hard to find or otherwise. The computationally expensive part of Bitcoin is the proof-of-work system that's used to limit any single entity's control of the transaction database. This computation consumes a real-world resource, electricity, and the people who do it are compensated in bitcoin. Though this is called "mining", the bitcoin is not found by the computation; it's awarded by agreement of all Bitcoin users. This reward is automatically halved roughly once every four years, and will eventually go away entirely. The proof of work will still be necessary at that point, but people will have to explicitly pay for it in transaction fees. It's been estimated that the current electrical costs of the miners are on the order of $100,000 per day, or about $1 per transaction. The computational cost auto-adjusts based on the computational power being used, so that real cost could decrease if people lose interest in mining, but it can't go too low or else Bitcoin risks a takeover by someone willing to suddenly invest a lot of computational power.

Once you have a trusted database (which could be maintained by a single trusted party, avoiding the electrical costs, except that Bitcoin proponents don't trust anyone), it's easy to build a digital currency system on top of it. You have 1 bitcoin if there's a record in the database of someone transferring 1 bitcoin to you and no record of your having transferred it to someone else yet. "You" are identified by a public key (or the hash of one), and you prove your identity with a digital signature.

"Bitcoin [...] replaces the piece of paper with a number [...] chosen as being hard to calculate" – no, see above. "You buy things by giving someone the number" – no. The only "number" you could give them would be your private key. That would allow them to spend your bitcoin, but you could still spend it too. The recipient would have to immediately transfer the bitcoin to a new address to be sure it was safe. The way it actually works is that the recipient gives you their address (derived from their public key) and you initiate the transfer. You don't give your private key or any other number to anybody. "my credit card company, or [...] PayPal [...] charge [...] for the privilege of transferring the money" – as I said, Bitcoin transactions have a real cost (currently quite large) that is paid by Bitcoin users either collectively through block-mining awards, or individually through transaction fees. Also, credit card fees pay for fraud protection among other things, while Bitcoin fees pay for waste heat. "There is a mechanism to allow you to spend a small fraction of a bitcoin if that's what you need...it's complicated!" – it's not complicated. Transactions are simply permitted to quote fractions of a bitcoin. -- BenRG (talk) 19:16, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you BenRG for your good exposition, free of patronising assumptions like "complicated computer cryptography involved here - which neither you nor I will ever fully understand". There are more than just "a couple of" of alternative cryptocurrencies; nine are counted as active in the table at Altcoin, which suggests that competitors together represent 30% as much capital as Bitcoin. The way a Bitcoin manifests is by the sequence of time-stamped transactions it has undergone, recorded securely in the "blockchain" which is maintained (like Wikipedia) by a network of volunteers. Anyone can look at the blockchain; right now it is approaching its 300000th block, each block contains multiple transactions and successive hash codes validate its history all the way back to the first "genesis" block "transaction" by Satoshi Nakamoto - whoever he/she was - in 2009. See Bitcoin network. When mentioning Litecoin, be clear that instead of the double-SHA256 hash codes used by the Bitcoin protocol for which a few miners have invested in single-purpose high speed equipment, Litecoin uses a complex memory-intensive scrypt algorithm which encourages broader participation. In either case, mining is competitive activity that is rewarded (unlike Wikipedia) in coin, this being an incentive to miners for maintaining the network. A guide to what the nominally "free" Bitcoin transactions actually cost is found by Googling whoever is your local Bitcoin trader and noting his buy-sell spread for fiat currency. I have seen it around 4%; if dealing then select your trader with care because as last month's closure demonstrated, the risk is greatest at this point. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 22:25, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I fail to see how mutual assumption of ignorance is patronising (sic). Especially when the OP doesn't know what bitcoin is and the topic at hand is computer crypography. It was honestly more patronising to act like Steve was addressing you when you haven't even participated in the conversation yet. 50.43.148.35 (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Bugs has it right. As Steve says - "Bitcoin is intended to be a currency - money - like dollar bills." But even if the intention was that, wishing doesn't make things so, and the weightiest voices have ruled or appear to be about to rule that Bitcoin is not currency. China Rumored to be Shutting Down Bitcoin Sites; Why IRS Ruling that Bitcoin is Property is Fatal to Its Use in Commerce in the US and As Predicted, IRS Deems Bitcoin to be Property, Limiting Its Usefulness in Commercial Transactions . The IRS has ruled that bitcoin is property, not currency. This makes it subject to capital gains taxation and thus "unworkable as a currency" Bitcoin tax ruling. Even more, the problem is what is imho the completely backwards reasoning often given by bitcoin supporters: As Steve summarizes - a "reason to use bitcoin rather than dollars is that it's not related to any government and there is no central controlling agency." Unlike dollars, which are backed by more than pure belief, by a real need to make payments to the US government with dollars, there is no powerful central controlling agency demanding bitcoins, no genuine demand based on anything more than the Greater fool theory. This does not argue for bitcoin as a store of value.John Z (talk) 02:35, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

What's a dollar worth now? 84.209.89.214 (talk) 17:14, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Rebuilding society after EMP

Hi, I was wondering, if a nuclear EMP were to destroy most of electric infrastructure on Earth, how much time would be necessary to rebuild the technology to, for example, 1990s levels — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.141.86.136 (talk) 19:12, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Obviously we can't make such projections, you'd pay millions to a think tank to get a good answer. This novel One Second After gives a concrete projection of the consequences. μηδείς (talk) 19:18, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

You'd pay millions to a think tank for an answer. They're about as qualified as us or authors, as far as untested waters go. I'll e-mail anyone my answer for $20, unless that's unethical. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:10, March 25, 2014 (UTC)

Should we assume you're referring to Nuclear electromagnetic pulse? Don't rule out the possibility that, with a chance to start over, the world's people might decide to take a different approach. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:38, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

After 99.99% of them die in Holodomor or the troubles or the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution? Starvation isn't fun. The German word for to die is Sterben which resulted from the 30 Years' War, in which there was nothing deadlier than mere chaos. μηδείς (talk) 23:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Just so that no one gets the wrong impression from Medeis's little rant: The German word sterben has nothing to do with the Thirty Years' War. It's the English word starve that has specialized in meaning to denote dying by inanition. Old English steorfan simply meant "to die" as well, and none of the Anglo-Saxons had experienced that particular conflict. Deor (talk) 01:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, my fault. War is just fun, fun, fun. Ask the Cambodians, Ugandans, Bosnians. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

See Poe's law. It isn't, Medeis, that you are having fun. It's that you often give sarcastic, snide, or misleading answers to questions, and it's hard to tell the difference between your facetious answers and genuine response to the question. While those of us that know and love you recognize when you are doing so, many others do not. Thus, when you answer the question as you did above, it looks as though your 30 years war answer is "straight", which it clearly is not. --Jayron32 10:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Remind me why we tolerate this behaviour, again? AlexTiefling (talk) 23:17, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I meant it more as a similar geographic distribution of e.g. houses with electricity, running water, amount of cell phones per person etc. Though they would probably have more cell phones than we did in 90s 78.1.185.54 (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

...which touches another topic: cell phones running on African children's blood. Only a side topic, though. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:58, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I understand that an EMP could destroy or damage electrical equipment within its field of effect, a certain geographic area. but how would it destroy all electrical equipment in the world? That would seem to call for lots of explosions worldwide. Would the US , China, or the Russkies deliberately destroy their own electrical equipment? It seems unlikely that there would be a global EMP war with tit-fot-tat EMPs without it escalating to actual nuclear strikes on industrial, military and population targets. If one industrial country were left largely unaffected, they would have quite a boom time supplying new equipment and parts. In any event, a generator or motor, transformer or circuit breaker which had damaged insulation and controls could likely be rewound or repaired and placed back in operation. Equipment which was stored without being connected in a circuit would be less effected. You would not be starting from the stone age. Many parts would be usable. A stored spool of wire might still have continuity and effective insulation, and the iron cores of electromagnetic equipment might be fine. Poles, towers, high voltage conductors, bus bars and insulators in the power grid might still be usable even if they flashed over from a momentary overvoltage,although the related article mentions insulators being damaged in some cases, and lines falling, It does not say every conductor and insulator was destroyed. Integrated circuits might be destroyed. Some systems in industry and military were "hardened" to reduce susceptibility to EMP, with surge suppressors and optoisolation. Equipment stored in a steel cabinet in a storeroom might be sufficiently shielded to survive. I've read a couple of books where unexplained extraterrestrial technology or sheer magic eliminates our present technology, and the complete elimination of electrical technology by EMP smacks of this. That said, it would not take but a small portion of control circuitry, generators, underground transmission cables and transformers being fried to cause a widespread and prolonged blackout, and even a weeks or months long urban blackout or region-wide would create chaos and misery. The article on the "One second after" book speaks of 90% of the US population dying in one year without electricity, which seems plausible, or 80% in one small town where there was some effective leadership, and 50% in midwestern farming areas. The Amish would be able to feed themselves and others, but might not cope well with marauders. The book apparently says people will die without air conditioning, which sounds funny to one who grew up in a hot climate without it. Looking the other way, life did not change that dramatically in a positive way in the decade after urban and rural areas first got electric distribution, and in rural areas in my grandparents' time many lived without electricity. Edison (talk) 17:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed answer :) Yeah, I agree now that a NEMP wouldn't quite destroy a lot of technology obviously, so it would be definitely possible to rebuild the society to its today's levels of technology if people still want to do it, I was just wondering how long could it take. 90% of people dying is however extremely far-fetched IMO. Consider places like Sarajevo during the 90s war or Grozny a few years ago; most people lived without access to electricity, clean water and heating (even though these are colder climates than the average for USA for example, especially Chechnya), and yet there were much fewer casualties. Also massive LOL at people dying without A/C of course, accomodation to a new climate lasts only a month at most (I can't find the article, but I read it on Wikipedia a few weeks ago), and I've been living in >35°C during summer and under -10°C during winter all my life with only central heating. 78.1.185.54 (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

You are not addressing the fact that a large portion of Americans don't even know how to cook, let alone have wells or livestock or even gardens in their yard. People in areas like Chechnya and Bosnia during there wars had already been living at 1900 levels. They knew of, but did not depend on automobiles, telephones, electricity, etc. Most of the coastal US is about 2-3 days away from being without food, and the number of americans who wouldn't even know how to clean a fish or bake a cake is amazing. Once any good propportion of the population is starving, you will have theft turning to riots turning to civil war. Over the winter, survivors will be burning down infrastructure like power poles for heat. There's simply no provision for replacing the powerlines and transformers and such that would be destroyed by an EMP attack. I recommend the same book above for details. It also references congressional reports. μηδείς (talk) 19:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I can't speak for Chechnya but I'm from Croatia and have relatives in Bosnia. I can assure you, even before 1990s nobody there lived at 1900 levels. Arguably, during ex-Yugoslavia there were several times fewer automobiles than today, but practically everyone had electricity and telephones except in very small villages. I can definitely believe that fewer Americans know how to cook though, although these days I think the % of those who can cook over here isn't great either. If I had to estimate, I'd say that living standards of ex-YU during communism were perhaps 30 years behind the U.S., FWIW. 78.1.185.54 (talk) 21:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

On another thought, you definitely bring up a valid point about livestock. I wonder what proportion of American meat and vegetables comes from small farms compared to Europe. 78.1.185.54 (talk) 21:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

"Levels" might not be the best word. But closer to wells and iceboxes than hot-tubs and ipads? How many Croatians during the last war were on lipitor, valium, and insulin? μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Probably a similar proportion as Americans. And yes, iPads are pretty ubiquituous nowadays. As for wells and iceboxes, I wouldn't know, I haven't seen a well my entire life except for TV ;) 78.1.185.54 (talk) 23:12, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

A hot tub may be a good source of emergency drinking water and small electronics like iPads that are not plugged in could survive. None of the meds mentioned cause death if withdrawn in most cases and rates of type 2 diabetes have been known drop dramatically in wartime due food shortage. Most of the food we buy is not refrigerated. The big factors will be clean water food and fuel. Our article on Nuclear electromagnetic pulse says many, if not most, motor vehicles will survive. Roads and railway track will be unaffected, though traffic lights and signaling systems could be badly damaged. How well society will organize to overcome the obstacles is hard to predict, Hurricane Sandy was handled better than Katrina, though most people survived both. EMP effects would be worse some respects, but not so much in others. --agr (talk) 23:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

God help those poor souls with only their parents' hot tub to drink. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:42, March 26, 2014 (UTC)

But the roads will still be flat, and iPads will be a good source of your daily allowance of lithium. μηδείς (talk) 02:05, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

March 26

NPR pledge drives

I'm wondering how the production of the radio programs for National Public Radio works. Let's take a show like Marketplace for instance. It generally has a running time of 30 minutes when you factor in breaks for station identification and such. But during the pledge drives, there's only maybe 20 minutes of content (maybe less, I haven't timed it) with the rest taken up by the pledge drive. So, what happens at other NPR stations? Is the pledge drive held during the same time period at all NPR stations across the country? If so, then I guess the makers of the shows like Marketplace would know that during the pledge drive weeks that they only need to create 20 minutes of content and not 30. Or are all the shows produced as 30 minute shows and the local NPR affiliate just puts their pledge drive over one of the stories and then expects people to either not realize they're missing part of the show or be able to find it online?

And then what about when the affiliates say that the pledge drive was shortened or took a break for a day because of "sponsors like you" or some such thing? On Monday of this week, my local NPR station took the day off from the pledge drive because of this. So if the pledge drives are synched up across all the affiliates, meaning they all happen the same weeks, do those other affiliates also have these days off? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 10:10, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, such shows are divided into "segments", and in stations not running the pledge drive at that time simply run the full program, while stations having the drive that day run their local "pledge drive" over such segments. For the news programs, they would likely program some of the "fluffier" segments during those pledge drive times. Some stations have, for example, "pre-pledge-drive" periods where they will allow listeners to "buy back" some time during the upcoming drive week by pledging early, so they play the full programming. Here is an example of a station that allows listeners to "buy out" of the pledge drive time, giving them access to the full programming online for a $45 donation. --Jayron32 13:49, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!! Dismas|^(talk) 20:11, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that something similar is done with PBS TV shows. There many of the kids shows have a little extra bit that can be cut out for pledge drives. Angelina Ballerina has a segment where they show real ballet students, Arthur has a segment with artist Marc Brown showing how he does the cartooning, Curious George has a segment with kids talking about the episode and what they would do in George's place, and Jakers! has the author talking with a bunch of kids about his childhood in Ireland. StuRat (talk) 01:52, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

March 27

A nineteenth century town in Prussia is now in Poland

In 1815 ther was a town in east Prussia named "Noblin." I believe it is now in Poland. What is its Polish name?

I believe that would actually be Nöblin (with an umlaut) - now the village of Lublino in Poland. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:55, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

March 28

TTC buses code e.g. 54A, 54E fares or metropasses

What do you need in order to get on the 54A bus on Lawrence Ave? Is metropass enough or do I need more than that? Please and Thanks.

A Metropass is enough. As you see on that page, the only TTC routes where an extra fare is charged are

• downtown express buses (only routes 141–145)
• buses operating outside Toronto (it doesn't clearly say so, but that means only when actually traveling outside Toronto)

The 54A and 54E do not go outside Toronto in any case, and neither one is a downtown express, so regular fares apply. (If you weren't using a pass, the regular cash fare or ticket/token fare would also apply, but I can't find anything on the web site that actually says so; apparently they think it's obvious.) --50.100.193.30 (talk) 03:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

help with a ? (9*9)

What is 9*9= ? look for all all poss. answer for math, text lango,to street lango -- Sidnee2727 (talk · contribs) 08:46, 28 March 2014‎ (UTC)‎

In Microsoft Excel, the * sign means multiply, so the answer would be 81, unless that's too obvious. Alansplodge (talk) 12:31, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

And in Fortran, Cobol, and just about any standard language I can think of. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:08, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I would guess not in Lisp. —Tamfang (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

In APL, 9*9 would mean 9⁹, which is 387420489.

As a regular expression in awk, Perl, grep, sed, and various other languages and programs, 9*9 matches zero or more 9's followed by a 9, which is equivalent to one or more 9's, i.e. 9, 99, 999, 9999 etc.

As a wildcard expression in UNIX shells and some other environments, 9*9 matches anything treated as a single component that starts with 9 and ends with another 9, i.e. 99, 9ABCD9, 96069, 9****9, etc. (but not just 9).

--50.100.193.30 (talk) 06:24, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

* redirects to asterisk which shows some possibilities which could apply to 9*9 in certain contexts. The most common in computers is multiplication where it's used because the characters in 9×9 and 9·9 are not on keyboards or in ASCII. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:06, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The PLATO keyboard had ⟨×⟩, but it printed as ⟨≠⟩. —Tamfang (talk) 18:51, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Is there some emoticon that uses that format? --Jayron32 13:10, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I changed title to be useful. StuRat (talk) 13:13, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that for very large values of 9 it can be equal to 100. Count Iblis (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Box 9 on the W2

What's up with that? 50.43.148.35 (talk) 18:36, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

According to this source, it's for advances on an employee's earned income tax credit. However, according to this IRS source, box 9 is to be left blank. This IRS source explains the mystery: Earned income credit advances were abolished in 2010. The box most likely still remains on the W-2 because renumbering the boxes would create more difficulty (for software meant to handle these forms, for example) than leaving a blank numbered box. Marco polo (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting...I wish that advance on EITC still existed :( 50.43.148.35 (talk) 19:48, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

March 29

Why are news organizations blurring the images they post on their websites?

Lately, I've noted that many images on the websites of news organizations are unsharp. Obviously, journalists with $10,000+ super duper DSLR cameras are not all such incompetent photographers that they cannot take reasonably sharp images. An image posted on the BBC's website today was large enough (pixelwise) that it allowed for approximate deblurring, see here. As I explain there, there is an artifact in the image that suggests that the image has been deliberately modified.

But what is unclear to me is why they want to blur their images. Is there some copyright issue here? Count Iblis (talk) 03:44, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The photograph appears to be taken from a moving aircraft, through a window, through weather, of moving sea, using unknown photographic equipment. I don't think that translates into deep insights about what photographers can do.

"Enhancing" will introduce artifacts that aren't there - an image processing algorithm that displays information that isn't in the original image is necessarily making it up. Try "deblurring" some pictures of clouds and see if you'll find writings from the gods in there. 88.112.50.121 (talk) 12:24, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Military Reconnaissance satellite pictures of possible wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are being released by countries such as China, France and Thailand whose exact survellance capabilities are usually kept secret. It is likely that any images released to the press are first processed by the national authority to avoid revealing the raw resolution obtained. Once an image is digitized in a compressed format, such as JPEG in the OP's example, there is little extra detail that can be extracted by Unsharp masking or Richardson-Lucy deconvolution methods of image enhancement. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 16:03, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

This depends on the level of compression. As long as the image is severely blurred compared to the pixel resolution, you can extract hidden details. Note that unsharp masking is not going to help here, because this only enhances the contrast of the small scale features that are already visible in the original picture. Richardson-Lucy deconvolution is able to recover the small scale details that are now hidden in longer scale structures due to the blurring (these details are not lost, they are still present in the image, albeit degraded to some extent due to noise and the finite image resolution). The fact that there is always noise will prevent perfect deblurring even if you have exact knowledge of the point spread function. E.g. a perfect isolated point can have become an isolated disk that an unsharp mask can make smaller. But two nearby points will lead to two disks that are merged. The unsharp mask then won't resolve the two separate point anymore, it will simply enhance the contrast of the edge of the visible structure. Deconvolution, in contrast, can restore the orginal image to a good approximation. Count Iblis (talk) 18:01, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with 88 here, while I have no idea what other photographs you're talking about here, it sounds a lot like you're reading way too much in this particular photograph considering what we do know about it. Note that the BBC source says it's from a journalist. This doesn't rule out the source being a press photographer (since they would usually be called journalists in a lose sense), but there still seems to be great interest in this story among the press which likely means that there's a great deal of competition to get on the search planes. I'm fairly sure the S&R people on the planes themselves don't want the distraction of journalists and press photographers so there's a fair chance only a few of the flights carry journalists of any sort. So it's hardly surprising given the competition etc that some media organisations only get to send one person one the flights and this person is generally someone more in the writing field than in the photography field. While most journalists would probably be a better photographer than the average person, their expertise is generally likely to be a lot less than a professional photographer and considering all the other conditions outlined... Nil Einne (talk) 01:35, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm just a regular Joe with a regular job, but that "suspicious artifact" seems like a wheel. And sometimes that just ain't enough to keep a man like me interested. Of course, maybe you're right when you tell me I'm wrong... InedibleHulk (talk) 16:31, March 29, 2014 (UTC)

Also looks like a mouse cursor indicating zoom - you know, a magnifying glass with a + or - in the middle. A bit of "deblurring" should cheerfully turn that into a wheel. Are we looking at a snapshot of a shaky cell phone video being edited in Photoshop? 88.112.50.121 (talk) 19:28, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Salmon spawning

Salmon smolt born and raised in a hatchery are released and then travel to the ocean and eventually (hopefully) return to fresh water to spawn. How does this hatchery born salmon know where to return? That is, surely it does not return to the hatchery; and unlike its natural born cousin, it does not have the born instinct of 'place of birth' to return to complete its life cycle. So I wonder, how does that hatchery born adult salmon know the place of origin to which it must return to spawn?184.167.254.25 (talk) 14:00, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

NPR just mentioned this in a story a few days ago. Dismas|^(talk) 14:12, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The amazing abilities of Pacific salmon to migrate long distances from the ocean to their natal streams for spawning have been investigated intensively since 1950's, but there are still many mysteries because of difficulties to follow their whole life cycle and to wait their sole reproductive timing for several years. This field study demonstrates that coho salmon imprint to and utilize chemical cues for homing. See also. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 15:34, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Skyler rose

what is a skyler rose? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.82.122.63 (talk) 01:05, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Where did you see a reference to it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:23, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Skyler Rose is the name of a Canadian woman wrestler. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 01:56, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Skyler is a name and the only meaning of "Skyler rose" appears to be people. There are images of the wrestler at commons:Category:Skyler Rose. Skyler Rose Samuels is an unrelated actress. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:00, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Cell phone rings in TV ads ?

I hear many common ringtones, at low volume, playing during US TV ads, where there is no phone shown in the ad. Are they using those to get our attention ? Can anyone verify this ? StuRat (talk) 01:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)