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November 1

F-15 — Vapor trail from single wingtip?

This weekend I observed two F-15s from a park near my house. They made a wide turn overhead at low altitude, each trailing some sort of vapor from a single wingtip (I think, but am not certain, it was the left wing). A few minutes later, I saw them flying on the approach path for the local commercial airport, with no vapor trail evident. A friend who works at the airport later passed along that they had landed for a maintenance issue. My question is, what might the vapor trail have been? Both aircraft were standard military gray, not marked as a demonstration squadron (and definitely not an F-16 with the Thunderbirds), though there was an airshow about 100 miles away that weekend in Rome, GA. The turn was not severe enough for that style of contrail to be a credible explanation, and the vapor was definitely only from a single wingtip — not from both, and not from the aircraft centerline. Any ideas? — Lomn 00:23, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you say "The turn was not severe enough for that style of contrail to be a credible explanation,"? Contrails can and do form when aircraft are in stable level flight. You don't need a turn, even a severe turn. Moriori (talk) 00:28, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because explaining "observed in a turn" suggests severe maneuvering as a possible cause. The day was hot, clear, and dry, and the aircraft were (subjectively) below 1000 feet AGL. Conditions were not suggestive of natural contrails, particularly given the one-wing-only nature coupled with no contrails on the second pass at roughly the same altitude and speed. — Lomn 01:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They may have been simply fuel dumping before landing. --Aspro (talk) 11:25, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At 1 min 36 secs into this video it shows where the venting valve are and during deployment on the F-15. Did the OP witness 'exactly' the same thing? F-15 Eagle - Undefeated Combat Fighter . Atmospheric vapour condensation tends to form nearer the root (closer to the fuselage). This is because the air flows out towards the tip on the underside of the wing and towards the root on the upper side. Hence modern passengers plans having those little wing-lets at the tips to counter act this lose of lift. So the greater adiabatic cooling the more likely condensation will appear nearer to the roots of the wings The cost of an F15 (and crew training) is such, that it is better to dump a few thousands dollars worth of tax payers money in the air, rather than risk making a right mess of the runway. --Aspro (talk) 12:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure; at 1:36 I see a still of a both-wingtips contrail, and I didn't spot a single-wingtip contrail elsewhere (though I just spot-checked the preview window). Fuel dumping was a possibility I considered, but both aircraft were creating the vapor trail; I would have assumed that the fuel dump would only have been for the aircraft actually undergoing the emergency to reduce fire hazard. Perhaps it was the weight limit issue mentioned in the article. — Lomn 14:23, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed and got interrupted before finishing editing. The winglets on modern passenger planes are there to reduce the lose of lift form the higher pressure airflow leaving the tip and getting sucked on to the low pressure area over the top of the wings. On high performance fighters, the wing profile is different. They don't have to produce high lift at low air speeds in level flight (when flying slow the pilot just increases the angle of attack). The profile moves the adiabatic cooling towards the tips. This video is probably a better example as it show that on turn where one wing is contributing more + g the vapour trail is visible on that wing only and when both are contributing then both show trails. They normally have to be close to transonic for this to appear unless the RH is very high.Great Sounding F-15 Eagles Flying In Wales " The Sound Of The USA ". So make up your own mind as to which was which because we were not watching. What we really need is a F15 pilot to say how it dumps fuel to discount wing tip dumping.--Aspro (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not close to being transsonic, nor was humidity very high. Found a picture of one aircraft in question (right wingtip contrail, not left as I was thinking -- outboard side of turn). Local media reports that one of the aircraft was down one engine. Also, it appears that the F15 does have its fuel dump port on that wing, so that appears to be the case (Google searches overwhelmingly showed F-111s lighting off their fuel, so I'd assumed that centerline was the usual location). Thanks for your assistance. — Lomn 21:39, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gymnastic Splits

Is it possible to do/learn splits at the age 31 or 32, or am I planning for hospital stays (lol)? 103.230.104.30 (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible, but there is indeed a loss of flexibility with age. Suggestions are to do non-weight-bearing splits, and/or to have a spotter. That is, you can practice splits while lying down, so that your body weight is not forcing the splits deeper: [1]. This makes injury far less likely. A spotter can also help you up or get medical help, if you do get stuck in a bad position and/or injure yourself. StuRat (talk) 19:02, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Jana Kramer, who's about to turn 33, did several splits in her routine on DWTS last night, so clearly it's possible. Whether it's a good idea or not is going to depend on your physical condition. You should see a doctor ahead of time rather than waiting until after the fact. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Halloween

When is Haloween? – 00:00 31/10/2016 or 00:00 01/11/2016? 103.230.104.30 (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hallowe'en is the eve of All Hallows (All Saints' Day). All Saints' Day is 1 November, the "eve" (which here means the day before) is 31 October. 86.147.210.2 (talk) 18:39, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The related Day of the Dead starts October 31, but extends until November 2. StuRat (talk) 20:57, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Winning in Florida and North Carolina: Does it ensure the victory beyond any reasonable doubt?

HOTmag (talk) 21:00, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If won by Hillary, yes, but not if won by Trump, since he is farther behind in the rest of the states. See [2]. Specifically, using those numbers, Clinton has 258 of 270 electoral votes locked up, and the 15 and 29 electoral votes from North Carolina and Florida, respectively, would put her over by 32 electoral votes. Thus, for Trump to win, if he lost those states, he would need to win every other toss-up state listed (8 full states and 2 half-states), and also 32 electoral votes from Hillary states (meaning either California or 2 or more of those states). On the other hand, for Hillary to win, if she lost those states, all she would have to do beyond winning what she is currently projected to win, is to get 12 electoral votes from toss up states. Georgia or Ohio would do it alone, or any 2 of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Iowa or Wisconsin. (New Hampshire would only provide enough electoral votes in combo with Wisconsin or Arizona, or we would need 2 or more additional toss-up states.) StuRat (talk) 21:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See 270 To Win where you can play with the electoral college yourself. It's fun if you like that sort of thing. Herostratus (talk) 21:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As for Clinton, you are right. As for the trumpet, if he wins in Florida and North Carolina, then he will probably win in all of the other toss up states, according to the projection in this map. That's why I mentioned FA [FL] and NC only. HOTmag (talk) 21:35, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(FL is Florida's postal abbrev.) That site seems to have divided most of the toss-up states from my source between Trump and Hillary, such that Hillary already has 32 more electoral votes than she needs to win. Nevada is the only other state they didn't call yet. So, that supports my assertion that winning those states in no way ensures a Trump victory overall. StuRat (talk) 23:48, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you really want to research all the various scenarios and winning conditions for the candidates based on the best currently available data, then you should check out FiveThirtyEight.com, which has the analytics to answer this, and many more questions. They have an analytic called "Tipping Point Chance" as you can see here which is a decent metric for the importance of each state in terms of "tipping" the election from one candidate to another. According to them, Florida is indeed the single most important state, but North Carolina is fourth on the list. The second most important state is either Pennsylvania or Michigan. It should be noted also that based on their metrics, and who is currently projected to take each state, Trump would need Florida, North Carolina, and at least one other sizable state, and still keep all of the states he currently has the lead in. --Jayron 32 12:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like you missed out the link indicated in my last response. HOTmag (talk) 13:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So I did. Mea culpa. --Jayron 32 01:42, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wrap Speed Animated Wallpaper

I'm unable to find a wrap speed animated wallpaper that starts from a normal motion to the wrap speed motion. 103.230.105.9 (talk) 23:53, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean warp speed? See Warp drive for the fictional concept. AllBestFaith (talk) 00:41, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll bet you're right. I didn't know what the OP was talking about until you proposed that. StuRat (talk) 03:42, 2 November 2016 (UTC) [reply]

For warp speed, that would probably mean Star Trek theme, although Star Wars has the similar "hyperspace". Some other sci-fi franchises use wormholes for their FTL travel.

Note that such a wallpaper would be essentially playing a repeating movie clip, unlike many animations which are far simpler. Therefore, it may negatively affect system performance. StuRat (talk) 03:42, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's no particular reason that this needs to be a video. Star field simulations are fairly trivial to implement and don't require a lot of computing resources, since only a relatively small percentage of pixels need to be touched. Star field screen savers existed back in the 1980s using standard consumer class computers of that era. They simply drew each star individually and updated the position of each star in real time. I've written a couple myself and the per-star computation is quite trivial. The limiting factor of course is how many stars you want to depict. I would guess that many animated wallpapers, and certainly many if not most screensavers, are far more computationally expensive. CodeTalker (talk) 02:22, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Those simulate constant speed motion, but the "going to warp speed" part means the stars need to move faster and faster, and then instantly become lines, or something similar. There might be a way to do that with a vector graphics approach, but it will need more processing power than just dots on the screen. StuRat (talk) 03:38, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Going faster doesn't matter, it will use exactly the same resources regardless of the speed -- you just draw the stars farther away from their previous position in each frame. The frame rate doesn't increase. Depending on the available graphics hardware and software, drawing lines is not much more expensive than drawing circles and might even be cheaper. On almost any modern computer, line drawing would be handled by the graphics card and wouldn't use any of the main CPU. Even in the unlikely case that there is no hardware line drawing support, there are very efficient line drawing algorithms, such as Bresenham's line algorithm, which doesn't even require any multiplications. CodeTalker (talk) 14:19, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you draw the "stars" moved farther in each frame, with the same frame rate, that won't look like smooth motion. You will need to keep the distance constant and up the frame rate, to make it look smooth, and that does increase processing costs. Lines could actually be drawn using fewer resources, since the frame rate can be lower, but you can't go directly from slow moving "stars" to lines, you need a transition between them, with fast moving "stars". StuRat (talk) 16:32, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how such a variable frame rate technique could work for a star field simulation, or what the benefit would be. No matter what your simulated speed is, even during the "slow" part, the stars at the edge of the screen are moving much faster (on the screen) than the ones near the center of the screen, so you always have the problem of low frame rate producing non-smooth motion. The distance each star moves cannot be constant, because stars at different positions move a different amount (on screen) each frame. Normally one uses a constant frame rate, say 60 fps, sufficient to produce the desired effect through the whole animation. Do you have a citation suggesting a benefit for using a variable frame rate in this kind of animation? CodeTalker (talk) 21:47, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here "constant distance" means constant at each location on the screen. To see the problem with showing a fast moving object at a low frame rate, just view sports on a 1080p screen, at 24 fps, without any interpolation. 60 fps should be enough, but it's not necessary when the motion is slow, or after we go to lines, so it's using up more resources than are needed. And if we are talking about using an animated GIF, I don't believe you can reliably get 60 fps out of those. From our article: "Internet Explorer slows down GIFs if the frame-rate is 20 frames per second or higher and Microsoft reports that Google Chrome and Safari also slow down some GIF animations." So, that leaves us with a proper video format, which uses up more resources, especially when full screen and at 60 fps. StuRat (talk) 17:15, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please fasten your seat belts. AllBestFaith (talk) 17:33, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's an animated GIF. It doesn't start from normal motion, though. StuRat (talk) 03:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here is something that is not the desired animated wallpaper file type [3] 103.230.105.6 (talk) 08:38, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

November 2

Road Bike Inner Tube

I have a road bike with tyres that take a 700 x 23c inner tube but I can only inner tubes for the range 18c - 25c. When I put this in my tyre, it ends up either not fitting in the tyre, if it's inflated enough, or I can only fit it in by sort of folding it over itself, which is surely going to lead to it pinching and just bursting when I go over a bump. What do I do about this? I'm a bit new to bike maintenance! Thanks! 90.217.76.135 (talk) 18:12, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

DO you have the manufacturer and model number of your tyre? If you know that, we may be able to help you locate the correct inner tube. Alternately, if the bike has "factory" tyres and rims, we may be able to find what kind of inner tube the bike manufacturer uses. --Jayron 32 18:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Vittoria Rubino 3 Rigid Tyre Black/Black 700x23mm. Is that what you need? Thanks for your help! 2A02:C7D:A0E:4100:304C:98D4:707F:396C (talk) 18:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

According to this forum thread (a posting from some poor chap who has had his bike stolen), these tyres should be OK with standard 700x18/25 SV42mm tubes. The "SV42mm" is just the size of the valve, that shouldn't be critical. Vittoria themselves do a 700x18/23 tube, which might be a closer fit than the more generic type. Tevildo (talk) 23:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also have you looked at videos and tutorials for putting an inner tube in? I can say when I've tried, even when things are the right size getting it in without pinching anything etc can be difficult when you're new to it. It's probably not going to be as easy as professionals make it look, and you may very well think it's not fitting properly when it is and you're just not quite getting it right. Nil Einne (talk) 01:27, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That should be exactly the right tube for that size wheel, so I'm not quite why you're having problems with it. The thing I normally do to get an easy good fit is to put a little bit of air in the inner, so it starts to get, well, wheel shaped, then put it in the outer tyre, before putting the whole thing on the rim as one unit, and inflating completely. Never had any problems that way, and gets the job done in <5 min. Fgf10 (talk) 07:41, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

November 3

Transgender behaviors in other mammals?

Obviously transgender behavior is well documented, and an undeniable aspect of human behavior. What, if any evidence is there of other animals displaying behaviors that would suggest some sort of rebellion or attitude that would be consistent with a gender queer or transgender interests? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.229.145.52 (talk) 14:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean by "transgender behavior", but we have an article on Homosexual behavior in animals. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:03, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cows have a 21 day Estrous cycle. Contradicting the information in the article Cattle that "Mounting is a playful behaviour shown by calves of both sexes and by bulls but not by cows" dairy herders report that an individual cow will show signs of being in heat by mounting behaviour towards other cows in the herd. AllBestFaith (talk) 15:22, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've adjusted that article. I would have said that the behaviour is not common in full-grown cows. Bellowing is the most obvious sign that they are on heat. Dbfirs 08:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That behavior is common in freemartin cows. From our article: "Freemartinism is the normal outcome of mixed-sex twins in all cattle species that have been studied, and it also occurs occasionally in other mammals including sheep, goats and pigs." But this is more of the animal equivalent to intersex individuals than transgender. StuRat (talk) 15:37, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(I hope you don't mind me broadening the Q to all animals.) There is a cuttlefish where some males will change their coloration to that of females, on the side facing the other males, in order to sneak past the males and get at the females: [4]. The side facing the females remains looking typically male.

Some animals can actually change their sex, too. See Sex_change#In_animals. StuRat (talk) 15:32, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) There's a concept called Sequential hermaphroditism, which is when some animals can change sexes during their lives. It should be noted that gender is not the same concept as sex. Gender is a psychological construct, sex is a biological one; I'm not quite sure how one can analyze the psychology of, say, a clownfish to determine what its gender is. However, they can change sex. --Jayron 32 15:36, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly transgenderism, but immature salmon which have not yet journeyed to the sea, where they attain adult size and become sexually dimorphic, are known as parr. Basically they appear sexually immature to adult males, yet in some places as many as 20% of the immature males produce sperm. They are not attacked by mature males, but they sneak in and fertilize the eggs that females lay only in nests protected by adult males. See precocious parr and Shampoo (film). μηδείς (talk) 03:14, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly actual transgenderism: Male scorpionflies will sometimes pretend to be females in order to attract a male and steal his nuptial gift for his own use [5]. Now, this is not any sort of "rebellion" or rejection of gender norms - it is a clearly advantageous behavior geared toward survival and reproduction. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that analogy holds up. Transgender people are not putting on an artifice. They are not "pretending" to be a different gender. --Jayron 32 11:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ref please, substantiating that no one claiming to be is transgender is ever pretending.There are various reasons someone might take on a gender role for a time. (Certainly "No True Transgender" is pretending.)Edison (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You may be confusing transgenderism with transvestism. (I was my French teacher as a witch, as well as Tom Baker as Doctor Who in highschool.) This was a matter of clothing, not gender identity, or the desire for full or partial gender reassignment.

Private fostering

I'm not even sure if that's the right name, or if this is the right desk.

Fostering is an ancient practice; every society has some way of taking care of children when the parents can't. I know about baby farming and wetnurses too; although our articles imply they're historic, they continue under other guises (unlike fosterage, which is dead and buried). In the past half-century or so, in rich countries, fostering has become more and more overseen - if not run - by the state (as opposed to charities, often religious-based). With the exception of kinship care, fostering is official and bureaucratised. The British government requires anyone (except for tightly defined close family) to register, if taking care of a child for more than a few days. Some of this legislation came about in the wake of the murder of Victoria Climbié in 2000. That case brought to public attention the practice of raising a child not one's own, without going through child services.

There is another whole subset, not mentioned in Foster care in the United Kingdom. I've found it very difficult to get information, precisely because it was (or is?) "under the radar". What I understand is that babies were given by their African parents into the care of rural white English families. If the parents were students (usually of medicine or nursing), when they graduated, they reclaimed their children and returned home, often Nigeria. If the parents were working, they came to visit on the weekends; when they had achieved stability of job and housing in the UK, they eventually took the children back to raise themselves. The parents paid, not very much, for this foster care, and there's no implication that they were unmarried or stigmatised. I've come across two brief BFI interviews, "Fostering Nigerian Children" (1965) and "Foster Mother to Eleven Children" (1970), that made me curious. In both these clips, the interviewer clearly believes the caregivers' assertion that they are not in this for the money. (Wife: I've spent all my husband's bank balance on this. Husband: It's a form of practical Christianity.) Each unrelated clip depicts a set-up of about a dozen children, from babies to young schoolchildren.

Can anyone find written information on this phenomenon, whether memoirs, anecdotes, or scholarly studies? Presumably some of these children remember their experiences, and have reflected on them as adults? And some of them may be well-connected in Nigeria (or whatever their home country is), given that their parents were afforded such educational opportunities in the 1960s. What ramifications can be traced down the generations? Did it happen in other countries? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:34, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not a memoir directly, but fostering was common and expected in Colonial America, and is discussed in works like John Demos's work on Plymouth Colony titled A Little Commonwealth. It might be a good place to start your research. --Jayron 32 11:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I referred only to the earlier material in order to distance this type of fostering from it. I'm seeking to find out about this C20 black urban African/white rural England set-up, and situations closely related to it. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see. This article deals with early 21st century situation. Does it help? This one also is from the early 21st century. It seems to be broadly about what you are seeking. --Jayron 32 17:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Open Democracy report is distressing but but only mentions private arrangements in passing. The Guardian article, however, is spot on. But I've then googled the names of the writer and the lawyer she interviews, and it leads to nothing else substantial. Surely some academic has investigated voluntary fostering? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 20:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

November 4

Why do rail inspectors punch tickets?

Why do ticket inspectors on trains punch a hole in the tickets they've looked at, or sometimes scribbble on them? How does it help anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amisom (talk • contribs) 13:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It prevents multiple people from sharing the same ticket. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How? The inspector will obviously ask a group each to show their tickets. If they were passing it between them they'd notice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amisom (talk • contribs) 13:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Imagine we're both a train, but we only have one ticket. I hide in the toilet when the rail inspector comes by. You show your ticket and let him know that he'll have to check mine later when I'm out of the toilet. Now, if he didn't punch it or write on it, you would be able to hand me your ticket after the rail inspector leaves and I could then show him your ticket as if it was my own. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:38, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We have Ticket punch. Bus stop (talk) 13:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Plus, many train tickets are "open" - although they're only valid for one or two journeys, they don't force you to use a particular train. If the ticket isn't punched, what stops me buying an open return - which gives you one outbound and one return journey, but which is valid for 30 days - and just showing it every day for a month? Smurrayinchester 15:23, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Also, the ticket punch sometimes doubles as a stamp. It marks the date and the train number, so if for example you want a refund because your train is late, the ticket office can check whether you were actually on the train you claimed.) Smurrayinchester 15:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another reason is that some tickets need to be "validated" before use - typically a multi-use urban commuter ticket. This is usually done by a platform machine, which the passenger uses for themself. An unvalidated ticket isn't valid and would be treated like a ticket inspector as not having a ticket. Validating ensures that the passenger "consumes" one ride from the ticket for each journey and sometimes also that the starting station is recorded, to allow checking of distance on exit (speed of checking usually limits this to automatic systems).

As to why punches are used, rather than stamps, then they're fairly cheap and very reliable. Most cut notches from the edge, rather than punching a hole, as this is mechanically easier and much easier to keep sharp. I have a pair of 1930s ticket clippers which are still in fine working order, although I know they've been sharpened a couple of times at least. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also related are the common practices of cancelling stamps and tearing of ticket stubs. The practice in general prevents multiple uses of an item designed for single use. --Jayron 32 17:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, even more relevant to the question is the image at right. You can see that there are two kinds of punched tickets here. On the left are multi-use tickets, each punch invalidates one use so the conductors can keep track of when the ticket has no more "uses". On the right are tickets that can be used for the entire train system, where the punches indicate data about the trip; that way the conductor knows when a passenger is supposed to get on, and get off, and how much fare was paid. It should be noted that many public transportation systems have gone all-electronic, using some form of "fare card" instead of punch tickets or tokens as was done in the past. The Washington Metro has had fare cards since 1977, and most other transit systems in the U.S. made the transition to them by the late 1990s/early 2000s. In the UK, they've had the Oyster card since 2003, though they are transitioning to more modern payment systems. --Jayron 32 17:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And the Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit (and Metro-North?) are behind and still make holes in tickets. There's no fare control barrier and few right-of-way fences so this is required. Stations are usually far apart compared to a subway (though they still don't always have enough time to check every new passenger between before the next stop so their priority is to keep the cheatable station pairs the less popular/useful ones). The Metrocard was phased-in in the 90s and tokens stopped working in 2003. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:15, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

November 6

What do you call this car part?

In the typical car, presumably all of the lights for the dashboard indicators are the same, and they're made distinguishable by means of a piece of glass or plastic that sits in front of the light source, letting light through only in a specific pattern; for example, a gaspump-shaped hole is cut in a spot so that it enables the driver to see the light that comes on when the fuel tank is nearly empty. What do you call this piece of glass or plastic? I've discovered a bizarre error in my car: the your-trunk-is-open light came on when the trunk was shut-and-locked and the engine experiencing difficulty, and a technician at a car parts store confirmed my suspicion that this was actually the check engine light. When I speak with the mechanic about fixing the problem that prompted the light to come on, I'd like to say "Someone misinstalled the [part name] so that it shows..." instead of "Someone misinstalled the part that lets the lights through so that it shows..." Nyttend (talk) 04:59, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There may well be an industry-specific term (which I too would be interested to learn), but if you were to say to me, as a non-mechanic, "instrument panel template" I'd understand what you meant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.130.104 (talk) 09:56, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Lens" is the technical term. See, for example, this catalogue entry. Incidentally, it's more likely that the wiring is wrong rather than the lens (unless it's obviously upside-down or something like that). Tevildo (talk) 10:23, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's right-side-up. I'll say "Not sure if there's a wiring mistake, or the lens is wrong, but..." Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 11:58, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Birdhouse?

http://i63.tinypic.com/4vmnwk.jpg

What is that structure? Looks like a birdhouse, but why would the villagers build a birdhouse in the middle of the village?

212.96.33.44 (talk) 10:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a pigeon house or dovecote. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:47, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! 212.96.33.44 (talk) 12:01, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly designed by a graphic artist who knows nothing about breeding doves for food. Looking at images of real dovecots will make it obvious why this one wouldn't work - you have to have access to the inside to harvest the young birds which were used as a food supply. Sticking it high up on a narrow pole wouldn't work! Wymspen (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it works! For the doves. μηδείς (talk) 18:43, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Old factory

This video called The Wonderful World of Tupperware from 1964 was like watching an old version of How It's Made. Can you give me more videos that show old factories and production lines making items from start to finish? Anything pre 1975 is okay. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.141.200.24 (talk) 12:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Am I the first one to notice that this is a battle between, the trumpeter's wife, and the trumpet?

I really want to know the answer, which I don't know yet. HOTmag (talk) 18:56, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 187: / Line 187: @@
 This video called [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EYWJSsw_Nc The Wonderful World of Tupperware] from 1964 was like watching an old version of [[How It's Made]]. Can you give me more videos that show old factories and production lines making items from start to finish? Anything pre 1975 is okay. Thanks  <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/125.141.200.24|125.141.200.24]] ([[User talk:125.141.200.24#top|talk]]) 12:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
+== Am I the first one to notice that this is a battle between, the [http://www.tvinsider.com/article/1979/rerun-bill-clinton-on-arsenio-hall trumpeter's] wife, and the [http://fusion.net/story/174515/donald-trump-president-oprah-interview trumpet]? ==
+I really want to know the answer, which I don't know yet. [[User:HOTmag|HOTmag]] ([[User talk:HOTmag|talk]]) 18:56, 6 November 2016 (UTC)