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March 5

Binocular Chemicals

I'm doing a science project and I need to know the chemical they coat the prisms and lenses with to make the image look sharper, or whatever. I seriously need help soon! <(^_^)>Pokegeek42 (talk) 00:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at Anti-reflective coating, then ask any additional questions. Edison (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you SOOOOOOO much! You're the best dude! <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 21:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Jeopardy Music

I am having a debate with one of my friends, does the live audience of the show Jeopardy hear the music during Final Jeopardy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.231.197.20 (talk) 03:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Ken Jennings in his book Brainiac talks about how it feels to be hearing the music while actually playing the game. If the players can hear it, obviously the audience can too. --Anonymous, 05:30 UTC, March 5, 2009.

I wouldn't be surprised if they still dub over with a "clean" copy of the music, though. APL (talk) 13:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the audience and players hear all the music while the program is being recorded. The music that the home viewer hears comes from the same source. As User:APL alluded to in his reply above, the music is sent to the recording tape machine or server "clean" by using a mixer so that the levels of all of the studio microphones, video playback devices, music and sound effects can be adjusted and properly mixed. On a show like Jeopardy!, which is recorded "live to tape", post-production editing is only employed to fix mistakes, add graphics and cut the show to the exact duration needed for syndication. --Thomprod (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Canadian Public Company Financial Statements - Data Format

Does anyone know of a good, free, source for Canadian financials in a "data format" like .csv or .xls?

Sedar.com provides the information as .pdfs. I spend a lot of time manually inputing data.

Also, if you can think of another place that I could post this (that might have more Canadians, especially market people), I'd appreciate it. NByz (talk) 05:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are just looking for a template [1] one of these may help. Otherwise, I don't know. Canada's not my turf. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 07:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixing a water distiller

If the original manufacturer has gone out of business, can a plumber fix a domestic water distiller, or is an engineer required? NeonMerlin 09:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the plumber.86.211.110.247 (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)DT

Water distillers generally aren't particularly mechanically complex - I would imagine a competent plumber could fix most faults with one. Certainly a plumber would be my first thought to getting it fixed - the worst that happens is that he says he can't. It does, of course, depend on what's gone wrong with it - if a proprietary part in a distiller from a defunct manufacturer breaks irreparably, it may be very hard to source a replacement. ~ mazca ^t|c 15:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Crime against humanity

When I read that article it immediately seemed to fit Bush's last government. Does anybody else agree? Could Bush be charged with that? 212.219.0.20 (talk) 10:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Please do not use the reference desk as a soapbox. Thanks. 88.112.63.253 (talk) 10:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. This isn't a place to discuss political views or to start a debate. Papercutbiology♫ (talk) 12:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The question seems like a valid one for me - under what circumstances can (ex-)presidents be charged with criminal offenses?

--Mr.K. (talk) 12:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The question asked if Bush's last government compares to a crime against humanity. How many people would agree, and how many people would disagree? Papercutbiology♫ (talk) 12:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In this form "does anybody else agree") it is not an acceptable question. However, the part "could Bush be charged with that" is a legit question. --Mr.K. (talk) 13:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, so I guess it should probably be reworded.Papercutbiology♫ (talk) 13:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It is true that the question as asked doesn't pass the sniff test, but the underlying question is a good one. The "See also" section of the article "War crime" should keep the questioner busy for a good long while. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction only over its signatories, for the most part, though it can decide cases brought to it by the United Nations Security Council. The US is not a signatory. The International Court of Justice adjudicates among UN member states, mostly. The United Nations Security Council can take military action on its own initiative. The recent rulings against Sudanese president Bashir by the ICC show how hard it is to enforce such things even against a relatively feeble state. International law is in flux, and war crimes cases and rulings are receiving a lot of scrutiny and criticism, not least for the issues of partiality your question raises. If you watch television, British television aired an amusing yet incisive satirical look at the issue that's worth watching, The Trial of Tony Blair, in 2007, featuring Blair, not Bush, as is to be expected, but he does get mentioned, also expected. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Leaders are rarely charged or convicted by their own country for crimes against humanity. If you look at the Nuremberg trials and Tokyo trials, both were conducted by conquering powers. Leaders are sometimes held accountable by their own countries during/after revolutions for various reasons/charges (not necessarily crimes against humanity). Benito Mussolini, King Louis XVI, Nicholas II, and Pol Pot come to mind (although these were more of mob actions that real trials). I could be wrong but I don't think the International Criminal Court has ever convicted a single person. Could Bush be charged with a crime against humanity? It's possible, but unlikely. Even if charged, it is even less likely that he would be convicted. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In fairness to the ICC, it has only been around since 2002 and issued its first warrants in 2005; it was 2006 before it got its first indictee. It hasn't really had much time to go about convicting people yet. It's forerunner, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has indicted 148 people since 1994, with 100 proceedings completed and 48 people found guilty by the tribunal and sentenced.- Eron^Talk 01:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

In regards to the ICC, there is some question as to whether the US would surrender its sovereignty to a foreign body. See the article United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court for more information. This is purely speculation on my part, but there might be an ex post facto issue given that the United States has not ratified the ICC treaty. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You might also be interested in the book "United States v. George W. Bush et al." by Elizabeth de la Vega [2]. In it she presents a legal case that Bush and others committed fraud based on Title 18, United States Code, Section 371 [3]. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

No-one so far seems to have mentioned sovereign immunity which has been argued as excluding all proceedings against a head of state for any alleged crimes committed in their official position. This was one of the defences used by Milosevic, if I remember it right, although the court was not impressed. Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, in the US the state is (generally) immune from prosecution, but individual members of the government aren't. If that's correct, then sovereign immunity doesn't help Bush survive a trial for crimes against humanity. --Tango (talk) 01:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There was certainly the considered possibility of Nixon being tried in a domestic court which led to his pardon by Ford. Rmhermen (talk) 13:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

While the question is poorly phrased I think we can answer it without resorting to soapboxing. With the recent ICC arrest warrant against Bashir, the issue of Bush have come up. While numerous people have suggested he should and could potentially be guilty of crimes of some sort [4] [5] [6] they also all agree that the chance of anything actually happening is very remote. Attempts to give the ICC universal jurisdiction failed (due to the opposition of a number of countries including the US) and so the only way countries can be bound is if they either agree to it or the Security Council sends something to the ICC for consideration. As the US has not signed up for the ICC, and seems unlikely to do so any time soon, and the US holds veto power in the Security Council, there's simply no way crimes Bush has allegedly commited are going to be considered any time soon. Nil Einne (talk) 10:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Unemployment

When slavery existed was there any unemployment? If the possibility of slavery still existed today would people try to get a job for many months in vain? 94.196.103.53 (talk) 15:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, people were unemployed, yes, but unemployment insurance didn't begin until 1932.Livewireo (talk) 15:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

One problem with unemployment is that people are neither unconditionally mobile nor downwardly flexible. It takes a lot for someone to pick up and leave their home and go where there might be work. Obligations, like providing for family members, availability of accommodations that meet what the individual considers his/her current minimum standard, language barriers, cultural differences, unpredictable conditions and the like keep people from moving. People will only consider accepting work below their former skill level, experience and pay scale once they have run out of other options. It is not an advisable career move because it creates a break in one's employment track record and basically means starting over in a new career path or from an inferior position if the original career path is resumed. (Women returning to work after caring for a child are often faced with this reality.) Societies that used slave labor did not replace existing jobs with slaves. The employment tiers were created with slaves at the bottom. A disruption in that system might cause a shift toward the bottom. When slavery was abolished in the South many farms failed because of insufficient availability of "cheap labor". The existing system had been based on prices calculated without any payroll costs for the slaves and only minimal expenses in that area. Many plantations closed. So, yes if the existing system were disrupted people would go look for jobs for months until they got desperate enough to accept working and living in conditions like those of slaves. See Human trafficking for present day examples.76.97.245.5 (talk) 16:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Private "safety net" services existed before 1932; that's what the friendly societies were all about. Fortunately for politicians, price-fixing legislation wrecked them. —Tamfang (talk) 19:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You question requires answering, first, "if slavery was legal, could/would unemployed people sell themselves into slavery?"

Given that slavery is selling away some of a person's basic human rights, and each person ordiarily places some value on their liberty, it probably would not happen unless there were absolutely no other option. That is, when comparing slavery against a given Option A, for example, where Option A does not involve permanent bondage, most people would probably choose Option A even if it paid much less, depending on how much they value their own liberty.

In any case, in this part of the world social security and the welfare safety net means that anyone eligible for those benefits (i.e. excluding illegal immigrants) has a viable and more attractive laternative to slavery in any circumstance. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Being an indentured servant would generally be chosen over being a slave wherever possible. --Tango (talk) 01:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There is WORK, and there are the CONDITIONS of LABOR. Work can be done by either voluntary or involuntary labor. Employment is the generally accepted definition for voluntary labor at a predetermined rate of compensation. Conscription is the generally accepted definition of volunatry labor for a government agency without predetermined rates of compensation (the alternative is imprisonment). Inmate work-detail is involuntary labor for a government agency, but the laborers are not classified as slaves. Slave labor is generally viewed as involuntary labor, but their are numerous levels of slavery. Indentured servitude is (today) viewed as voluntary labor for a set period at a predetermined level of compensation, yet a historical review of actual conditions shows that for many who came to North Carolina the period was for life and the compensations was unilaterally adjusted by many "owners" (and servitude often extended to first generation offspring!!!) On the other had, historical review of slavery during the Roman empire reveals that many famous administrators and court officials sold themselves into slavery to provide for their families (spouse and children remained free). Review of labor conflicts during the industrial revolution shows conditions of employment were often more harsh as free labor because of exploitation by employers of an easily replaced resource (not to condone slavery, but slaves were viewed as valuable assets not to be quickly abused or destroyed). Even today, inexperienced talent will often sign contracts that result in economic slavery (until some unscrupulous agent or a family friend acts to free the individual from their self-imposed bondage).

largest rifle

What is the largest standard round fired from a gun that is carried by one individual, not vehicle mounted? I know the .50 caliber has a very large bullet, and some sniper rifles are that size but are there any larger? 65.167.146.130 (talk) 18:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

To understand this issue, you need to learn the difference between caliber and a cartridge (firearms). Simply looking at bore size does not tell the whole story. There are grenade launchers with a much larger than .50-inch bore which are carried by a person, but I don't know if that qualifies as a standard round. .50 BMG is the most powerful one I'm aware of in common usage, but there could be larger ones, once you decide what you mean by "larger". Friday (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

PS. Muzzleloaders and shotguns are commonly available in larger than .50 caliber, but they're nowhere near as powerful as a .50 BMG. Friday (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The Soviet PTRD fires a 14.5x114mm round; that article says that came in a 64.4 g bullet, whereas the heaviest .50 BMG seems to be 52 g. At 17.3 kg a PTRD is certainly man portable, but (with the bipod, sight, and some ammo) you're not going to want to carry it very far by yourself. Bigger still is the Czech RT-20, which fires 20 mm caliber; that article claims a bullet mass of a whopping 100g. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

And beyond that we're into the realm of recoilless rifles like the SPG-9, which is certainly a gun and just about man portable (although no-one is going to be happy at being asked to carry a 60kg gun into battle; in practice you'd use a golf-caddy-like set of wheels). That fires what is essentially a 73mm artillery round. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll see your 73 mm and raise you the 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifle. Which I can tell you first hand is man portable, as I am a man and I have indeed ported it. (With no wheels attached, sadly.) - Eron^Talk 00:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but the CG's rounds seem to be around 3.3 kg, whereas the SPG-9 fires rounds up to 6.9 kg. Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 12:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What boy wouldn't be delighted to find a .551 caliber (13.9 mm) antitank rifle under the Christmas tree? It weighed just 35 pounds (16 kg). Edison (talk) 19:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Undiscovered Tribes

What are the chances that there are undiscovered tribes living somewhere on the planet? BigDunc^Talk 21:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It is difficult to prove a negative, i.e. that there are no more such tribes to be discovered. BrainyBabe (talk) 21:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

And, of course, such encounters can be stage-managed, or even outright faked. Groups can be found, and then "lost", and when found again c. 60 years later, have no memory of the previous encounters, as Sabine Kuegler claims about the Fayu in her memoir of living with them. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Uncontacted peoples may be of interest. --Fullobeans (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Undiscovered by whom? I imagine there are plenty of small groups out there who have had no contact with what we'd call "civilisation" - but it seems unlikely that they'd not be in contact with other groups who are perhaps just on the edge of contact. SteveBaker (talk) 03:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

We seem to know quite a lot about a people listed in that article - surely that means there has been some contact. --Tango (talk) 12:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

In any case, uncontacted is not the same thing as undiscovered. And we need to define what "undiscovered" means. There may be some tribes whose existence is known only to surrounding tribes, not to the world at large. Does that make them "undiscovered"? There could be some tribes that have been discovered by some Westerner, who chose to let them live their lives in peace and not tell anyone about them. Does that make them "undiscovered"? I think it's possible there are undiscovered tribes, in the sense of tribes about which there is zero published information; and I also think any such tribes will be discovered eventually, but when? - who knows, because by definition we have no way of knowing where they are, how many of them there are, etc. They probably don't exist in places like New York City ... but then, you never know. When the Amazon forests are finally all chopped down, we'll probably find lots of previously unsuspected tribes there (that's if there's anyone left on Earth to do the discovering). -- JackofOz (talk) 17:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Does it count if "we" know there are people in a given place but "we" don't know how many tribes they are? —Tamfang (talk) 05:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

March 6

"Jane's Dilemma"

This is a purely hypothetical case. Any relation to real life events is entirely coincidental. Now, talking hypothetically, let us say there's this girl -we'll call her "Jane"- and her older brother -we'll call him "Joe"-. Now, let us say that "Joe" really likes a girl at his school -we'll call her "Jane 2"- and "Joe" doesn't have any courage. At all. "Joe" has never even taken any interest in any girl before. So, "Joe" goes to "Jane" and asks her what he should do, since "Joe" wants to ask "Jane 2" to the prom. "Jane" has no idea what to tell him to raise his confidence. "Jane" is also really angry at "Joe" since this is more a question he should ask his mother, instead of younger sister, who knows absolutely nothing about love, since she's only in the sixth grade. But, "Jane has to answer his question, because "Joe" doesn't want his mother -the only person who knows the correct answer to his question- interfering in his high-school crush. "Jane" also can't ask "Joe's" mother, because then "Joe's" mother would ask why "Jane" needs the answer to this question. I would very much like it if someone could respond, since it would make "Jane" very, very, very, happy. Remember, all this is purely hypothetical, and any relation to real life events is entirely coincidental. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 00:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Hypothetically speaking, I would suggest that "Jane" tell "Joe" to just be brave and ask "Jane 2" to the prom. The worst that can happen is she says "no". Just go up to her sometime when she's on her own and say "Hi, I was wondering, would you like to go to the prom with me?" It's as simple as that! --Tango (talk) 01:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the worst thing that could happen is that Jane #2 could say, very loudly for others to hear, "I wouldn't go to the prom with YOU! You're just a fucking loser!", then laugh obnoxiously in his face, and then proceed to spend the next few weeks with her friends tormenting Joe for nothing more than her own amusement. But, maybe then again she'd just politely say "no"... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

In which case we have to consider Jane#3 through Jane#N. But there isn't really an alternative - all of the sneaking around and the machiavellian planning doesn't really get you very far - and the well-known problems of all teens in soap operas and sappy movies revolves around not getting in there soon enough before Jane#X has agreed to go with Joe#Y (where X=2 though N and Y>1). So - be bold - be early - be presentable - be sickeningly polite - don't do it in front of all of her snotty friends (see Jane#3..N, above). As for the consequences predicted by Jayron#32 - c'est la vie, que sera-sera, Nec Aspera Terrent, Kaphar hunnu bhanda marnu ramro ...and so on. I doubt that Mommy (whom I shall call "Jane#0" for completeness and consistency) would be able to help - since she probably doesn't know Jane#2 and is therefore unable to predict the consequences of the direct approach. SteveBaker (talk) 03:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Your hypothetical Jane could suggest to your hypothetical Joe that he watch this how-to video. :) --98.114.146.46 (talk) 04:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, if Janes 2 thru N all turn Joe down, he could always try asking his sister to the prom :-P Astronaut (talk) 04:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be worse than Jayron's scenario but not worse than taking Jane#0 to the prom! Zain Ebrahim (talk) 12:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Tango was absolutely correct. "Joe" should pick some moment when "Jane 2" is alone, and just ask her. On the other hand, Jayron32 was quite wrong. If "Jane 2" behaved like that, "Joe" would be miles ahead of the game by never having to waste even one more minute thinking about a total loser. -- B00P (talk) 06:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - if "Jane 2" reacts like that, "Joe"'s only mistake was liking her in the first place. If she does torment his about it, he should practice his look of disdain - it's a very useful look, second only to disappointment. --Tango (talk) 12:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Jane should tell Joe that she's just 12 and shouldn't be giving him advice about high school romance. And that maybe he should go see Wikipedia's reference desk because they seem to give that sort of advice. Otherwise, yeah, chicks dig confidence. I heard that in a movie but Jane wouldn't be old enough to get in to see it. --JGGardiner (talk) 11:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. By the way, "Jane" is 11, not 12, and she probably could see that movie since she already watches and reads very, "adult" anime and manga. Another thing, "Jane #N" already has a boyfriend so "Joe" can't ask her out, go figure. I hope "Joe" stops being a big, fucking coward. Frankly, I don't know what he sees in the bitc...uh, girl. I'll tell "Jane" to tell "Joe" what you said. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 00:27, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to confess, I'm lost - there are far too many hypothetical people in this discussion and I've lost track of them... I hope all the Janes, Joes, Jayrons and people with terrible taste in computer games but fantastic taste in numbers live happily ever after! --Tango (talk) 01:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything to suggest Jane 2 is a 'bitc' and personally I'm more dubious of people who use such labels then the people they are labelling. Nil Einne (talk) 10:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I hope that, too. <(^_^)> 76.188.37.208 (talk) 15:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me if Joe really can't ask for help from his father or mother, he should be asking another trusted adult, e.g. a teacher, a school counsellor, a uncle/aunt or even some sort of helpline but not his little sister. If he refuses, well frankly I would suggest Jane politely tell him to sod off since it's not her problem nor something she is able to help him with. It's one thing to ask for help from a sibling, it's another thing to expect it when the sibling is unable to. Nil Einne (talk) 10:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

How widespread was World War II

I was watching the film Destination Gobi earlier today. The film, supposedly based on a true story, featured a group of US Navy sailors in the Gobi desert, trying to return to the sea while evading Japanese spotter planes and horse-mounted patrols. I was quite surprised by the idea that the Japanese army would have any interest in the Gobi desert and it got me thinking... Was there anywhere in the world that was unaffected by World War II? Astronaut (talk) 01:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect Antarctica had nothing going on. Areas of South America as well. 12.216.168.198 (talk) 02:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You'd think, right? But alas. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but there wasn't any actual fighting in Antartica. BTW, I forget the details but there are some pretty nice conspiracy theories that the Third Reich still exists because New Swabia was not conquered, and that Hitler will return some day from his secret base on the Moon. Or something like that. :) And of course there's my own OR that because the Soviet Union and Japan never signed a peace treaty, the war never really ended, and if fighting breaks out, the Axis powers can still win. :) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Just because nobody traded bullets there doesn't mean it didn't play a part in the war... if the Germans expended time and resources on it for military purposes, then I'd say it was part of the war, in the same way that, say, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was part of the war, even though nobody was actually fighting there... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Antarctica is a landing pad for alien space ships, and with his interstellar alliance, Hitler now rules the Inner Earth. Or possibly the outer earth, if you believe space travel is a conspiracy. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Prompted by 98.217's link to New Swabia, I found Participants in World War II and the interesting animation File:Ww2 allied axis.gif. Thanks for your help. Astronaut (talk) 04:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

While there were of course neutral countries even in Europe during the second world war (Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland etc), I think most all countries were effected at least economically by World War 2. Possible exceptions are those that had very little trade or contact with the wars participants. Perhaps Bhutan or somewhere... TastyCakes (talk) 04:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Bhutan was not fully independent at the time; its foreign affairs were in British hands, and Britain was at war. Further, it was bordered by British territory on one side (namely India) and China on the other, and China was also at war. Still, I suspect Bhutan was a lot less affected than many other places. --Anonymous, 06:01 UTC, March 6, 2009.

You might be interested in the Undiscovered Tribes question above. =) --JGGardiner (talk) 10:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Many neutral countries had no armed forces fighting, and were the scenes of no battles, but were likely affected by attacks on commerce (oops, didn't see the neutral flag). They were also the scenes of espionage and foreign intrigue to win them over or to use them as transit routes, or as places of refuge. Edison (talk) 19:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this really copyright infringement

I was watching the film Be Kind Rewind earlier today (I know, two films in one day!). Towards the end the shop is visited by bailiffs claiming the amateur reenactments are a massive copyright infringement. Under the threat of a $3bn fine and a ridiculously long prison sentence, the entire stock of tapes is seized and crushed under a steam roller just moments later. To what extent does copyright extend, and could the copyright infringing material be crushed moments later? If I was to reenact my favourite film starring my friends and using my video camera and not-so-special effects, would the result be a copyright infringement, a parody, a fan-fiction or what? Astronaut (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

A (complete) fan-made re-enactment of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark recieved approval from the writers, but I don't know if there would have been a possible copyright challenge on it. Steewi (talk) 02:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I would think that a shot-for-shot restaging of a film could be considered a copyright violation. It might be possible to seek protection as a parody under fair use, but of course the more faithful the adaptation, the harder it might be to claim parody. That said, Gus Van Sant reshot Psycho (1998 film) almost frame for frame to match Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 original. IANAL, but I believe that the original would still be in copyright after 38 years; it would be interesting to find out if Van Sant had to pay for the rights. - Eron^Talk 02:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I did notice in the credits at the end of Be Kind Rewind, it has a section like "Reenactment approvals and rights" followed by a list of the films they reenacted. Seems they sought approval when making the film, but I assumed that was because they were actually making another hollywood film, with professional actors playing amateur filmmakers. Astronaut (talk) 02:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as the Psycho remake goes, Gus Van Sant didn't pay a cent. Quite the contrary, he was paid for the job. If anyone paid any money for the rights, it was Universal, but since Universal owns the original film, I'm pretty sure they were free to do what they wanted with the property. (Robert Bloch, as the author of the original novel -- or rather, his estate -- possibly got paid, though, depending on what kind of a deal he made when he sold the film rights.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a really murky aspect of copyright law. The standard mantra is that you can copyright expressions, not ideas. (You can patent ideas, but that is different.) But in practice, "expression" often covers a LOT more than the exact frame-by-frame shots, and such things would probably be seen as a court as a derivative work.

Whether they qualify as "parody" is a totally different aspect of copyright/fair use law. It's more specific than most people understand the term "parody" to mean — you have to be parodying the original work, not something else. (So you couldn't parody George Bush with a send-up of King Kong, if that makes sense. You can parody King Kong with a send-up King Kong, and that's it, under the legal definition of "parody.")

Ages ago I heard a whole paper on the various copyright debates about "fan fiction" going back to the 19th century... for the life of me though I can't recall what the punch-line is, other than, "yet again, very murky, not easy to define from legislation alone."

Not very helpful, eh? Welcome to copyright and fair use law... where the courts are basically just making it up as they go along, and nobody really wants to start trying to come up with hard and fast rules... browse through some of the key fair use cases hosted by Stanford's Copyright and Fair Use center and you can see how fairly arbitrary it can be. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the law about copyright - what doesn't ring true is the bailiff's just showing up and doing these bizarre things. In most countries, bailiffs act to enforce decisions of the courts. So in order for this to have happened - there would have had to have been a court case - the outcome of which would have been some kind of ruling. Seizing of the offending material is a possible result - and failing to turn it over might get you in contempt - but I don't think the bailiff is empowered to say "do this or pay that". As for the fate of the tapes - they might be destroyed in due course - but I can't imagine them doing it on the spot - and certainly not with a road roller! But this couldn't possibly happen as a surprise - they would have to have served the store owners with the court papers, held the trial, etc, etc. So nothing here really rings true.

As for the legality or otherwise of your own movie - we're not allowed to give you legal advice here at the WP:RD. SteveBaker (talk) 03:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I realise, of course, the film was in part a parody of the whole MPAA vs pirates thing and reports such as this one about pirate DVDs being crushed. The world is safe though: I have no intention of making my own copy of <favourte film here> - I'm just no good in front of camera. Astronaut (talk) 04:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Various films have been re-made, sometimes with identical shot-for-shot treatment. How the authorities of the day treated them I have no idea, but if you need examples for comparative purposes, you might consider The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 film), the classic of many adapatations of the novel, remade as The Prisoner of Zenda (1952 film), which was judged no match for the original. BrainyBabe (talk) 07:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

General

On which date the 'world Population day' is celebrated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.89.56.18 (talk) 01:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

According to our cunningly-named article World Population Day, it's the eleventh of July. Algebraist 01:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Question

On the bank of which river is Patna located? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.89.56.18 (talk) 01:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

See Patna. Algebraist 01:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

...which says "The modern city of Patna lies on the southern bank of the Ganges. The city also straddles the rivers Kosi, Sone and Gandak.". SteveBaker (talk) 03:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

...and your geography homework will really help you get better grades if you try doing it yourself. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 04:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Music in new Star Trek trailer

I just watched the new trailer for Star Trek (film) and there was some background music. (The link, on YouTube, is here which will probably be deleted soon.) I've searched adtunes and used Google but have been unsuccessful. What is the music? --Blue387 (talk) 07:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you haven't been able to find it, chances are that it's gonna be music that was created just for this movie. BTW, the trailer does not look very promising. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be somewhat unusual. Movie trailers are often produced before the score for actual movie is ready, so they tend to use music from other similar movies. Or so I've read. --Anonymous, 09:05 UTC, March 6, 2009.

That's my impression as well, however I couldn't recognise the music, too, and the original poster couldn't find a title, so I believe my suggestion is warranted, even if the case would be unusual. And Star Trek adventures usually deal with a lot of unusual... ;) --Ouro (blah blah) 09:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It's apparently "Freedom Fighters" by Two Steps From Hell, which is indeed basically just trailer music. It reminded me a lot of the The Da Vinci Code (soundtrack). ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Comparisons of Greek Language and Icelandic Language Wikipedias

Icelandic Wikipedia - 24,000 articles. Icelandic language - 320,000 speakers. 0.075 articles per speaker Greek Wikipedia - 36,343 articles. Greek language - 15,000,000 speakers. 0.00242287 articles per speaker

Icelandic has a ratio of articles to speaker that is more than 30 times than that of Greek.

Now if there's anything that makes me believe in Madison Grant's anthropological theories, it's this sort of thing. Whilst the ancient Greeks may have possessed more Nordic admixture, over the centuries following, they interbred with people from the east and south (such as during the time they were a part of the Ottoman Empire), and gradually became more mongrelised. As such, there are fewer people with the drive to write Wikipedia articles, something requiring a level of academic intelligence. Books such as IQ and Global Inequality lend weight to this idea.

Is my theory worth anything? Should I stop thinking like this? How do I stop thinking like this? Am I paranoid?--UB891UB (talk) 09:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Pardon my bluntness, but what??? You're deriving Wikipedia growth ratio inequalities from genetics? We're not a forum. --Ouro (blah blah) 09:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Tremble, mere mortals, before the intellectual titans known as Manx speakers. While numbering only in the hundreds, they have created over 2,000 articles. Anyhoo, hasn't the theory that the ancient Greeks were all called Olaf been discredited long ago? Fribbler (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with genetics. My own OR suggests that it's more to do the the higher levels of internet usage amongst Icelanders compared to the Greeks. Astronaut (talk) 15:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The ratio of Latin articles to native Latin speakers is infinite. How do you like that? Also, UB891UB, you can stop thinking like by that ceasing to read terrible books, and by recognizing that IQ is objectively meaningless. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that any anthropological theory that uses words such as "mongrelised" to refer to human beings can be safely discarded as crypto-racist garbage. - Eron^Talk 16:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Not even all that crypto, in this instance. Yes, original poster, since you ask, you should stop thinking like that. You stop thinking like that by recognizing and accepting that it's ignorant and stupid, and it's in your best interests to be neither. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

No, you're not paranoid; you're a moron. Assuming your numbers are correct, Greek Wikipedia is 50% larger than the Icelandic version already, but given the relative sizes of the populations, each time one new Icelandic article was written fifty new Greek ones would have to be posted just to keep up. --- And "mongrelized?" Disgusting. B00P (talk) 00:29, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Moron? Whatever happened to "no personal attacks"? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're all wrong. A very large number of articles are written automatically. For example, the articles about nearly every town and city in the USA started off in the English language Wikipedia being automatically generated by a 'bot from USGS and US Census data. That's why so many articles about tiny, boring places are almost identically worded. Of course the auto-generated articles for many places have gradually been hand-edited - and now are quite diverse and interesting.

If just ONE enthusiastic Icelander took the trouble to dig out that bot (and a mere handful of others just like it) - changed it to generate Icelandic instead of English and then set it running - then the icelandic Wikipedia could easily have hundreds of thousands of bot-generated articles. If nobody in Greece could be bothered to do the same thing - then the Greek Wikipedia is going to be missing a bunch of that kind of article. Similar things happened with elements in the periodic table, all manner of simple largely-numerically-based articles. Look at this article on the little city of Cedar Hill in Texas. Do you seriously imagine that a Haitian Creole author took the trouble to write this? Not a chance. It's a 'bot.

Hence, our OP's reasoning is bogus. There is NOTHING that the WP article count has to tell you here.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

SteveBaker has a very good point. My first thought was the difference in climates. Iceland (62.7% is tundra. Lakes and glaciers cover 14.3%; only 23% is vegetated),1,2,3. Compare with Greece,1,2,3,. It is easy to imagine most people spending more time indoors in Iceland, and most people spending more time outdoors in Greece. 152.16.59.190 (talk) 03:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Meta:List of Wikipedias is a useful thing. The depth of both wikis is resonably high which suggests neither is primarily bot created articles. (Haitan on the other hand has a depth of 0.) But while depth may in some instances give an idea of how many articles are bot create, it's far from a great measure (you may find my complaints about its use in the talk page) and it's easily possible either one has a large number of bot created articles. But there are many reasons why the number of articles vary, number of people with internet access, number of people who feel the need to write an article in 'their' language, development status of the country, popularity of wikipedias in their country et al. There are so many variables coming up with crazy theories to explain it is, to be frank, absolutely dumb. To use an example, there are currently 35k articles for the Malay wiki and 100k for the Indonesian. The population difference several times that. But it's unlikely the difference has anything to do with differences in the IQ of Malaysians and Indonesians, but much more to do with the fact Malaysia is more developed with a large percentage of the population with access to the internet (and likely a larger percentage able to donate their time to writing articles). Iceland I suspect has a high internet penetration, as with most nordic countries and they were also I believe quite properous before the total collapse of their economy so you have two reasons right there. And perhaps 152 has a point. Nil Einne (talk) 11:01, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

But what came first and why??

what was the first article published to wikipedia and was it through pure chance or some logic?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.138.179 (talk) 11:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia did not arise by chance. It was deliberately founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. The details are at History of Wikipedia. The oldest surviving edits are listed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. Algebraist 11:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

with all due respect, a truely microsoft answer - factually correct but not answering the question, i understand that wikipedia was a deliberate act, and that link does lead me to beleive that on 17th jan 2001 the first article was 'standard poodle' however i was under the impression that wikipedia was founded 2 days earlier. if that is the case was 'standard poodle' 2 days after founding the first article published. If so that answers the what but not the why. Why, one wonders, when attempting to capture all human knowledge would you start with a poodle?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.138.179 (talk) 11:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What would you start with? Aardvark? Big Bang? Cogito ergo sum? Genesis? Phil Collins? If you're actually planning on compiling the sum of human knowledge, it couldn't matter less what your first article is. But, to give you an actual answer, I don't know; nor do any other editors, seemingly, or it probably would have been added to the History of Wikipedia article. There could be an interview out there somewhere that answers this question, though I for one am too pooped to look for it. --Fullobeans (talk) 11:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the order doesn't matter if you intend to cover everything. Since it takes years to cover everything, the first item will be there for a long time before the last item (especially since there is no last item, since human knowledge is always expanding). So, the first item will have far more impact on setting the reputation of Wikipedia, and human knowledge of that topic would likely be enhanced in the meantime. StuRat (talk) 14:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The earliest edits are lost to the mists of time - the software didn't store everything permanently back then. There are some clues about early articles and some people remember the first few days, but most is gone for good. But basically, people wrote articles on whatever they felt like, pretty similar to how it is now. --Tango (talk) 12:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose the firstarticle was probably published by one of the founders, who knows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monomath (talk • contribs) 12:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

To Monomath, who knows, we know - read the article linked above. Specifically at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles#Earliest surviving edits and other data which quotes Jimbo as saying it was literally "Hello world". And to the OP the oldest known surviving edit is the index page for the letter U, not an article for standard poodle. If you don't count that as an article the article for United States is claimed to have preceeded the U entry. Rmhermen (talk) 12:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Presumably you mean "the article for United States is claimed to have preceded the standard poodle entry", right? – 74  14:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the claim is that the United States article preceeded the article for U which preceeded the poodle article. See Wikipedia:UuU. Rmhermen (talk) 17:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it would seem to me that, if you were talking about the oldest article, you'd lead with "United States" then. Perhaps it confused only me, but saying that "United States" is older than UuU *if* you don't count UuU as an article seems to be a roundabout way of stating the order. To summarize: "United States" has a good claim but little evidence, followed by UuU with a good claim and evidence, and "Standard poodle" is further behind those two. – 74  21:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Most of the original edits would have been tests of the software. Over time, that evolved into well-written articles. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 14:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If God had done her job properly she would have arranged for each child to be born with the sum total of its parents knowledge pre-installed as it were.--(Why has this come out in bold I wonder?)Artjo (talk) 21

59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Because you used semicolons instead of colons. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, learned something then!--Artjo (talk) 07:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I can imagine that world, but it then moves us on to what would all those people do with the sum of all human knowledge? Richard Avery (talk) 10:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Nominate things for deletion?   j/k   – 74  00:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If everybody came pre-programmed with their parent's knowledge we would all be believing that the sun went round the earth. Among other outdated things. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Useless Information

What makes information useless? Is there such a thing as useless information? What i'm getting at is that you hear people being described as 'full of useless information'. But is their actually any PROVEN fact which is not of any use to anyone??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monomath (talk • contribs) 13:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it's meant to be taken that literally. But, generally, it refers to trivia, which can often be quite useful. Tomdobb (talk) 13:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this is normally means useless with respect to their lifestyle and employment. For example a farmer who knew all about vintage computers would be described as full of useless information, but a curator of a museum of computing would not. The same museum curator might be described as full of useless information by his colleagues if it turned out he knew a lot about crop pests. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

i understand the concept of the phrase, and may have worded the question badly. I am asking is there actually any truly useless information. I may even be answering myself when i ask: does anyone NEED to know the sky is blue, for example? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Monomath (talk • contribs) 13:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Very few people probably NEED to know why the sky is blue, but that doesn't mean there's no use for the information. There's a substantial difference between information that is necessary and information that is useful. Tomdobb (talk) 13:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes - exactly. This is a good case in point: Back when I was learning this stuff - I absolutely NEEDED to know why the sky is blue (and more interestingly - why it's not ALWAYS blue). I'm a computer graphics guy and when rendering pictures of the sky (particularly near sunrise and sunset - and when doing bizarre things like viewing it in infra-red or when using night-vision devices) - you need to understand the underlying physics of raleigh scattering and mei scattering or you'll have a very hard time trying to make things look convincing. SteveBaker (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It depends, the Useless Information Society of Great Britain (who publish The Book of Useless Information) define it as any interesting information that will not be used by the general community in an everyday situation - citing for example that Hull City was in 2002 the only team in the English league whose name couldn't be shaded in on a pools coupon whilst idly waiting for the results. Nanonic (talk) 13:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

very few is not the same as no-one, the hull city thing is possibly useless as i cannot envisage any situation where it is needed unless you were compiling a list of the useless! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.138.179 (talk) 13:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you can't envisage such a situation, you need to work on improving your imagination. I myself have encountered that factoid as a quiz question on several occasions. Anything that improves your chances of free beer is certainly useful. Algebraist 14:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose there is information so trivial that it would never appear in any trivia quiz. For example, the name of the pet of a non-notable family, chosen at random. I can't imagine that being of any use. StuRat (talk) 14:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly useful to some people, though not to most. Algebraist 14:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, then make the pet from 1000 years ago. That wouldn't be useful info to anyone still living. StuRat (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What if someone was researching pet-naming conventions of 1,000 years ago? To that person, it might be "useful information." Bus stop (talk) 15:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. In my experience, this kind of trivial information about societies is something historians can't get enough of. Algebraist 17:25, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Very little information gets passed down over a period of time such as 1,000 years. That alone magnifies the value of any little tidbit. Bus stop (talk) 17:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think that some names of pets of nonnotable people who lived more than 1,000 years ago may indeed be useful information. Deor (talk) 04:54, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Using a staple proof from mathematics: Assume some information is strictly useless. That information would then be the perfect answer to this question, thus it would have a use. The contradiction indicates our assumption (that some information is strictly useless) must be false. So no information can be strictly useless in the sense that it would never be of any use. – 74  14:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

"People" being "full of useless information" is being used figuratively. In other words -- its meaning is not nailed down. Sure, there can be "proven" facts that are not of any use to anyone -- why not? Therefore there is such a thing as "useless information," that is, if that is your definition of useless information. As far as "what makes information useless," I think the questioner is defining that in his or her subsequent comments and questions. The questioner is defining "useless information" as that information that is "not of any use to anyone." My own personal definition of useless information, is information that can't be easily accessed when needed. Bus stop (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Your definition confuses me busstop. perhaps useless information is information that is only useful in the context of knowing it for the sake of knowing it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.138.179 (talk) 15:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think knowing something for the sake of knowing it is very useful. You might disagree. I think any information is potentially useful. But I don't think we experience any incentive to store information that we perceive no use for -- potential or otherwise. Bus stop (talk) 15:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

People who say that someone is full of useless information typically mean that the information is useless to them. It's a pejorative, aimed at cutting down someone who is perceived to be better (or to believe they are better) than the speaker. I.e., "You may have three advanced degrees, but it's not like you really know anything useful." - Eron^Talk 15:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

All information that's available has been recorded, somewhere, at some time. There must have been a reason to record it, otherwise it wouldn't have been recorded. But sometimes, people take existing information and extrapolate other information from it. For example, it's common for genealogists to connect living notable people with notable people from the past, such as discovering that GWB was the 17th cousin 9 times removed of Queen Elizabeth I (that's just made up). That would interest some people, so it's useful for them. But if they discovered that GWB was the 19th cousin 15 times removed of some utter nonentity in France in the 12th century, I can't imagine anyone having a use for that fact, by itself. Unless it's to use that connection to trace him further back and discover he's related to Charlemagne, for example. So, even then, that apparently useless information might prove to have that use. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

More closely related than your guess. GWB is the Queen's 13th cousin only twice removed! Rmhermen (talk) 17:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

From a lawyers' magazine a few years ago: A new lawyer opened a sole practice and had no clients whatsoever. So he placed his desk facing out the window, and recorded the number of cars going east and west on the street by his office every hour.(This was before the days of the internet, so he could not just websurf or edit Wikipedia to while away the hours). There was a traffic accident on the street, and he was called and paid as an expert witness on traffic density on that street. So you never can tell. Edison (talk) 18:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course there is useless information. The location of each of the hydrogen atoms in the drop of beer that I just swallowed - to a precision of 1mm - at three minutes past midnight on April the 20th in the year 1234 BC. That is useless. Come on - I can come up with information so utterly trivial that of COURSE there is no use for it. SteveBaker (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Was it just coincidence that you chose Hitler's birthday, Steve? See, we trivia-adepts can find connections anywhere, and then use that information for ... whatever we use it for. Some knowledge is useful simply to know it but not use it for some particular purpose. I have a lot of such information filed away. I rarely share it with anyone, or even tell people I collect it. I just like knowing it. That's a use, because making Jack happy is a very valuable and noble thing. A lot of pure mathematics has absolutely no known practical application. Until such time as an application is discovered - which may be never in some cases - it's apparently useless except as something teachers of pure mathematics require their pupils to know. And it also turns up in text books, thus creating employment for many people. So it has a use after all. The bottom line is: if something is known, some use for that knowledge, no matter how mind-bendingly arcane the use may be, can, or will eventually, be found. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your analysis. You remember Hitler's birthday because you find it interesting and/or useful. (And no - I didn't pick that date for any special reason). You maybe have memorized dozens or even hundreds of birthdays - but I absolutely guarantee you've only memorized the birthdays of people who are notable in some way (or perhaps personal friends and relations of yours). You haven't memorized the useless information of the birthday of the first hundred people who's biographies pop up when you keep hitting Wikipedia's "Random Page" - because even for a trivia pack-rat - some things are just TOO trivial. If your point is that some information isn't useless - then of course I agree. But that's not the question - the question is whether there is useless information - and you have utterly failed to demonstrate that. What about the positions of those hydrogen atoms three millennia ago? Assuming the information were available - would you even attempt to memorize it? Would it ever be interesting? Useful? Hell no...and even if you did find one or two of those positions were interesting 'trivia' talking points - would you need to preserve millions of such positions? Billions? Trillions? Of course not - because that information is useless. SteveBaker (talk)

But such information does NOT exist, and will almost certainly NEVER exist, so you're talking about hypotheticals. If someone did bother to spend the effort and time (not to mention money) to discover the exact positions of those molecules all those years ago, they'd be doing it for a REASON. They couldn't do it on their own; they'd need to involve the assistance of others, who would need to be persuaded there's a glimmer of POINT in such an abstruse exercise. The result they get would serve the PURPOSE of whatever that reason was. Not all information that could, hypothetically, exist, actually exists, so we should be talking about information that does actually exist. Because, until it actually exists, it isn't information. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

We could try and assess this philosophically here and start asking questions like what is usefuleness? What makes something useful? How can we define information in this case? If we say that if information has no use it is useless, then how to we define a "use"? What about unknown information? What about the different kinds of information? What if the information is useless in one form but useful in another, is it still considered useful?

There's also the linguistic assesment: something that is useful implies that it is first useable, so in other words only information that is useable can be useful. Therefore, if some information is not useable, it is not useful.

I also think usefulness is subjective - i.e. its usefulness is dependant on assumptions on other information. For example the information that "cows produce milk" is useful if we consider that "milk is a nutritious and viable food source", which is useful if we consider that "nutrition is important for longevity and survival", and so on. Without those other assumptions, the idea that cows produce milk is suddenly a lot less useful. Rfwoolf (talk) 00:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of the attempt to prove that all numbers are "interesting". We agree that some numbers are "interesting" - PI, for example. Perhaps nice round numbers in base 10 are interesting 1000 for example. So let's separate out all of the numbers into interesting numbers and non-interesting numbers. Now - the very first number on the "non-interesting" number list is "interesting" because it's "the first non-interesting number"...that's certainly an interesting property. So we move it off the non-interesting list and put it onto the interesting list...now, there is a new "first uninteresting number"...and by this process we can make all numbers interesting. Well, no - because if we move that first non-interesting numbers off of the non-interesting list - then it's not interesting anymore - so we have to move it back again. Similar problems come about with "the 1000th uninteresting number". We have to conclude that there is no clear test for "interestingness" with numbers - and the concept of "interestingness" must not be a simple binary thing.

I suspect we could construct a similar un-proof for 'usefulness' in facts. If trivia fanatics pay attention, they'll notice that the first "non-useful" fact is in fact extremely useful in answering the inevitable Trivial Pursuit question "What is the first non-useful fact?"...and off we go again. So 'usefulness' is not a property that you can arbitarily determine - there must be a spectrum of usefulness - ranging from totally useless to utterly valuable.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:12, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It might be useful to an individual that he, per doctor's orders, eats 35 grams of Cheerios for breakfast, but a log of the count of integral Cheerios eaten each day would likely be considered useless trivia. A log of the vehicle license plates seen while driving each day would likely be seen as trivial. Would the information ever be useful to anyone? Edison (talk) 02:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

You might enjoy the story "The Sixth Sally" from Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad. An excerpt is here: [7]. It's worth finding the book and reading the whole story. It is marvelous. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 08:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes - that's very apropos. (I love that book BTW - definitely in the top 10 list of my all-time favorites). SteveBaker (talk) 18:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

PRO: Maybe Tautologies are useless? An information like "Today is Tuesday or today is not Tuesday" is pretty useless. Also doubled information in the same context might be useless, too: "The empty bottle has nothing in it.". CON: My first example is useful as an example for a Tautology. My second example might be useful in Lyrics to express something emotional... CONCLUSION: I think pretty much everything _can_ be used for _something_. Even random Data is of use in Computing for example. But would you call such information, that is of very limited use, "useful"? I wouldn't. --84.57.232.87 (talk) 16:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, one example of a tautology is useful - what about a million examples of tautologies though? There comes a point where further such examples become useless simply because of the vast numbers of them. You can use that sort of defense to justify the value of a few hundred otherwise useless facts - but there are an infinite number of them - and there must come a point at which their utility falls to zero. SteveBaker (talk) 18:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Off tangent, but regarding HS as a container for genetic information (and cognitive data):

"Sure, one example of a homo sapiens is useful - what about a billion examples of homines sapientes though? There comes a point where further such individuals become useless simply because of the vast numbers of them." Of course, I am quoting SB and, of course, you may replace "tautologies" with "planets" or "galaxies". Depending on who you are (homo sapiens) or where you live (planets / galaxies) this one additional unit may make a difference.

Actually, in intermittent and increasingly rare sane moments I doubt if the undersigned additional unit to the humanoid database made any difference... --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It's all completely subjective, of course. Pick up a random stone from the street. Nothing special about it, it's just a stone. Ask the first million people you come across if they want it, and they all say "Thanks, but I have no use for it". It seems pretty clear that it's useless. But ask the 1,000,001st person, and they might say "Ah, that's exactly what I've been looking for". So, a use for it has been found. Thus, it has a use. Same with apparently useless information. It may not interest the vast majority, but someone, somewhere, will want to use it, somehow. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The answer to this question is simple, it's UNKNOWN. To scientifically know if there is useless information, you'll have to gather all the information that exists in the universe, even those that are not written but that exist in the mind of people. Then you'll have to go ask each person in the universe whether each of these information is useless to them or not. If one of all these information is useless to ALL people in the universe, then bingo, the answer to this question is yes, there is useless information. However, this is a Herculean task that is probably impossible to be accomplished. Also, the answer will vary as it can be a 'yes' today and a 'no' tommorow as people are constantly dying and being born, and information are constanly being discovered and lost all the time (for instance, if an information exists only in the mind of a person, and that person die, the information is lost and no more exists, but may be rediscovered by someone else later). Since that question is unanswerable, I would have said it's useless to continue this exaustive but interesting discussion, but then I realise that this question is self-defeating since any useless information that exists, is no more useless as it serves to answer this question itself, meaning the previously useless information is now useful in answering this question. But then, what's the point of the answer to this question? It serves to satisfy the curiosity of the OP. It also helps to make an unknown unknown to become a known unknown (remember the Donald Rumsfeld's quote) for some people. Hence, any useless information is now no more useless, isn't it? --199.198.223.106 (talk) 07:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally discourages trivia, we do exhibit random and unnesecary information on the main page every six hours: Wikipedia:Did you know?. ~AH1^(TCU) 16:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No matter how useless any information might seem to you or me, the Brainspawn need it for their Infosphere. Deor (talk) 20:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

March 7

Making light protest placards

I want to make signs which parody those of the Westboro Baptist Church. We'll print on A3 sheets of paper and stick four together to get A1. The question is what we stick them to which must be strong and stiff but also light enough to be carried for the duration of a parade. Also what can we use to stick the sheets to the boards? ----Seans Potato Business 01:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

1)Foamcore. 2)Spray glue or 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. Edison (talk) 02:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Call your local Green Party office and ask what they use for election signs. It should be a light and recyclable material. Please do recycle - you're trying to improve the world, right? Franamax (talk) 03:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

How about two poster boards stapled to, and on either side of, a balsa wood support ? Beware that high winds make carrying such signs dangerous, no matter how sturdy they are, as they can pull you into the street or get away from you and slam into someone. Also, be careful about the parody, as signs like "God hates fags" are likely to inspire violence, and parody is often lost on the intended audience. StuRat (talk) 15:32, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Corrugated fiberboard or corrugated plastic are possibilities. Either should be available from art suppliers. The latter can also get wet, in case they sprinkle your group of diabolical sinners with Holy Water. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Content

The construction of the signs is boring compared to the content you intend to put on them. I don't suppose you'd care to indulge my curiosity? What *should* such signs say? – 74  02:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Might I suggest "God hates people who use His name to spread Hate" ? StuRat (talk) 20:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I've seen "God hates shellfish". 79.66.56.21 (talk) 20:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI, it's uninspired stuff like 'God loves fags' and 'It's ok to be gay' but also 'Zeus loves Ganymedes' which is pretty neat 'cause Ganymedes is the name of our (LGBT) student association. In any case, thanks for the information guys; a note has been made in my planning file that a trip to an arts store is going to be necessary. We'll go with corrugated plastic and spray-glue and keep the size down to A2. ----Seans Potato Business 22:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI, in my part of the world those ubiquitous corrugated plastic signs advertising the opportunity to become an envelope-stuffing thousandaire are illegal, so art-supply-needing citizens can in good conscience liberate them for their own projects. --Sean 01:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Carefully chosen scripture verses, such as David's "Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women" (2 Samuel 1:26), would be good. Depending on your approach, you might also want "What doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8), or "the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." (Exodus 20:7, Deuteronomy 5:11). Parodies are less effective than direct criticism, but 'God hates figs' (referencing Jesus' cursing of a fig tree in Matthew 21:19, mark 11:13-21 ) is quite a good one. Personally I'd go for the jugular with "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20).

If you prefer secular slogans, anything which encourages these bigots to go away and mind their own business would be good; be careful not to include anything which could be construed as hate speech, though. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Cruzcampo logo

Is the figure on the Cruzcampo bottle a male or female?.. All my mates are under the impression it's a male due to the lack of breast and the pot belly but I'm whole heartedly for it being a female... Hereś a link to the picture [8]... Cheers 81.35.160.200 (talk) 08:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm with your friends. I don't think we have an article that will help you. But you might want to check out our article on beer goggles. --JGGardiner (talk) 09:54, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think know he is a chap and his name is Gambrinus. Richard Avery (talk) 10:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a guy, dude. I mean, that's male clothing, too. (Of course, this could be a transvestite. Or a transgendered person! But that may be going slightly beyond the scope of the question...) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 11:29, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

But the face and hands are way to effeminate to be a guy... Let alone a guy advertising beer... This [9] is an older version of the logo I just dug up and I'm still convinced it's just a fat women... Probably German judging by the clothes 81.35.160.200 (talk) 14:02, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

That link doesn't load for me. The original figure certainly looks male to me. Perhaps the haircut, which looks roughly like a pageboy, is what's throwing you off. That hairstyle has been in fashion for men at various times in history, most recently popular in the 1950s and 60s. Also, some advertisers feel it is better to portray a "typical customer" than an "idealized customer", as the latter can be a turn-off for those which fall short of the ideal (which is pretty much everyone). Also note that being fat once was the ideal, say a century ago. Thus, they may just have kept an old logo. StuRat (talk) 15:17, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It loads for me, but the hand is certainly not what I'd call effeminate, neither is the thickness of his holding arm. He's holding a glass with a handle, which may be a little too small for his manly hand, so he has to hold it any way he can. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:32, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

She's female. Have a look at the placquet (opening) of her shirt and see how it is constructed so the left side (as worn) wraps UNDER the right side. And that is universal and has been since men wore swords at their left hip and used their left hand to unfasten their coats while reaching for their sword with their right hand. Women didn't have to do that so they decided to arrange their clothing differently from men. 92.20.17.211 (talk) 00:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This is inconclusive as the original / older version [10] does not have this detail of the collar. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 00:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Plus, that's just some lovely urban-legend reasoning, a just-so story. The gendering of which-side-has-the-buttons is a 19th century thing, if I recall. 79.66.56.21 (talk) 15:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

From where I sit, neither side appears to go under the other. —Tamfang (talk) 04:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a man to me. I know what you mean about the face looking feminine, but I think that's just because of the shading and hair style. --Tango (talk) 01:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Ownership of 9-1-1 calls

The "Octomom" recently called 9-1-1 because she temporarily lost one of her children, and the dialog and recording of the call were released here by CNN. In addition to this instance, I've witnessed several instances (at least on TV) where emergency phone calls are made public. My question is: are 9-1-1 (or emergency U.S. phone communication) calls public and how do the media (or anyone) get a hold of them? --99.156.92.12 (talk) 18:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This is generally a state-specific question; many have written laws making some or all of 9-1-1 calls public record, which makes them available for open records requests. Some states have revised or are revisiting this issue in light of increased media interest. – 74  22:17, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for investigating! --99.156.92.12 (talk) 01:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

If I had 6 children, and one went missing, what could possibly be wrong with saying repeatedly, in front of the surviving 5, "OH GOD, OH GOD, I'M GONNA KILL MYSELF" and then giving birth to another litter of eight? Edison (talk) 05:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Having fertility treatments to have additional children when you already have 6 is bizarre behavior to begin with. Don't fertility treatment centers have any standards to eliminate candidates who apparently are just going for a world record ? StuRat (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they do, which is why the doctor who performed the treatment is currently being investigated. --Tango (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that 911 calls are often inappropriately used for "entertainment" by the media. I suppose they think hearing someone's calls to 911 upon finding their family murdered is a good ratings grabber. There certainly should be laws against this. Perhaps they could allow a transcript, but not the actual recordings, anywhere outside of court. StuRat (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Some states do exactly that. However, the media is hardly above producing a "dramatic reenactment" which can actually be *worse* than the original. – 74  00:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Muffin (movie)

Hello,

A few years ago I saw a movie called "Muffin" at about 4am. I've tried to find it on the internet to show my housemates but can't find it. Is there anywhere I can find it on the internet (it's not on YouTube), or at least some info on it?

The plot is that a muffin gets taken around by various charectors in the movie, and it's only about an 1.30 long at most. 144.32.126.15 (talk) 18:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like this 2002 movie. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I was going to go with [11] ...nevermind. :-) SteveBaker (talk) 20:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

1.30 of what units?? —Tamfang (talk) 19:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah thanks!!! 144.32.126.12 (talk) 18:26, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

March 8

Tattoos aging in the short term

Are there visible differences between a tattoo which is recent (say 1-3 years) and one which is around 10 years old due to the passage of time? If so, what are the differences you noticed? I looked up tattoos and aging but most of the resources only discussed longer intervals of time. By the way, I am not planning to get a tattoo myself. I am just curious if you can tell by looking at a tattoo if it is recent or older. 65.190.207.110 (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Google spit out a couple of links you might find interesting [12] [13] [14] They don't give precise data, but do say that there are notable differences. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 08:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The biggest diff I notice is that the bright colors fade rapidly, and the dark colors stay around for life. So, a rainbow ends up with just blue and green parts after a while (and eventually just dark blue). So, knowing this, here's a hint, tattoo the name of your "one true love" in red, because "red is the color of love". It just also happens to be the color that will fade away as soon as the love does. </romantic_skepticism> StuRat (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Bowling too fast in cricket

How fast would someone have to bowl in cricket in order to render the batsman impotent? How about baseball? 86.8.176.85 (talk) 01:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I assume you know that bowlers do not aim for the batsman/batter's crotch. And that crotches are usually well protected in case of inadvertent contact with the ball (no pun intended). The protective device would have to be extraordinarily deficient for such an outcome to occur. But if that were the case, there could be a number of medically undesirable outcomes, not necessarily involving impotency. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

 *ahem* Impotent can also mean helpless/powerless, as in "unable to hit the ball". – 74  02:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha, yeah that's what I was going for. I meant "how fast would the ball have to be bowled so that after bouncing the batsman would be incapable of defending his wicket?" rather than "what velocity of cricket ball will break a batman's genitals beyond repair?". Sorry for any mix-up. 86.8.176.85 (talk) 02:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A baseball can be thrown at speeds up to 100 miles an hour or more (160 km/h), and batters are still capable of hitting it, so the answer must be significantly faster than that (and significantly faster than it would be physically possible to throw). But remember that in baseball, the batter is "impotent", as you say, usually 70% of the time (if you take "impotent" to mean not being able to reach the base safely, because obviously they hit the ball more often and it is caught or thrown to the base before they get there). I have no idea about cricket but from very casual observation the ball seems to be thrown much more slowly, and seems to be hit more often; is there a cricket equivalent of a strikeout? The ball also has to hit the ground first, which would greatly reduce its speed. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The cricket ball doesn't have to hit the ground first; that's just usually the best strategy. See full toss. But you can't put a full toss above the batsman's waist, and there are restrictions on the delivery, about extension of the elbow or something incomprehensible like that, that may make it difficult for bowlers to reach the velocity of MLB pitchers. --Trovatore (talk) 05:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, a pro batter can start his swing when the pitcher is releasing the ball, so the upper limit is probably not very much more than the current top speeds of pitches. Any higher and the batter would have to start swinging while the pitcher is in his wind up. Dismas|^(talk) 03:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sports Illustrated did an excellent article about a year ago on Tim Lincecum and the science of pitching, and cited several studies which indicated that the current upper limit of 100 mph is probably the absolute upper limit the human arm can throw a baseball without literally coming apart at the seams. There have been studies done on the stresses at the joints in a pitchers arm, and if they threw any harder, the materials in the arm literally could not withstand those stresses. So 100 mph is probably a practical upper limit to throwing a baseball, and baseball players do hit these. Seeing as a cricket ball is bowled, and not pitched, it is bound to be going much slower due to the physical limitations placed on the bowling motion, which is fairly innefficient. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed your spelling of Lincecum for ya... Dismas|^(talk) 04:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article says that cricketers can bowl the ball at up to 90mph - so evidently bowling is only a little less efficient than pitching. SteveBaker (talk) 08:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The fastest ball on record evidentally is 100.2 mph from Shoaib Akhtar although this is obviously very rare (Brett Lee's fast ball is 99.9 mph). Types of bowlers in cricket has some info on other very fast bowlers. This compares to possibly 104.8mph for baseball [15] Nil Einne (talk) 09:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

From listening to Test Match Special commentary, it would appear that cricket fast bowlers regularly reach over 90 mph, and so the article needs fixing. However, in cricket the ball actually hits the wicket and bounces most of the time, and it's not necessarily speed that "renders the batsman impotent" but trajectory after pitching. That's why cricket has slow bowlers who are very effective in taking wickets. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes I was going to mention this. If you look at the Shoaib Akhtar article it has a link to the delivery and while I probably should delete it since I suspect it's a copyvio, you can easily find it online. While a decent delivery, it's hardly spectacular. While being able to bowl very fast is obviously an important skill for a fast bowler to have, as the article and the types of bowlers article explains, it's more then just bowling as fast as you can. Nil Einne (talk) 09:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

In a similar vein, a fast ball is not the only effective pitch in baseball, where having the ball move in unexpected directions due to spin and drag after it is released can be more important than its speed. Rmhermen (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not the speed of a cricket ball which makes it impossible to face. A spin bowler will typically bowl at about 50mph, yet the movement of the ball can be unpredictable. A leg spin delivery is particularly hard to read, and can leave a batter looking foolish, if not impotent. In terms of fast delivery (pushing 100mph), an inexperienced batsman would feel rather impotent. A good batter, however, can use the speed to their own advantage (for example, hit boundaries easily). Thus, a good fast bowler will mix their deliveries, a yorker a bouncer, a full toss (etc), hoping to surprise a batsman, or get them in the wrong position (each different delivery requires a different response). The ultimate in impotent batsmen (ie unable to respond) would probably be New Zealander Ewen Chatfield, who was hit by a bouncer in a 1975 test match: his heart stopped and he was only saved by the quick intervention of the English physio: [16]. It was delivery which almost killed him, not speed. Gwinva (talk) 21:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Addit, in reply to AdamBishop: no strikeout in cricket. You can miss the ball as often as you want. You would only be out if: the ball hit your wicket (known as bowled), or your leg before wicket, or you were outside your crease and thus stumped or run out, or if you hit your own wicket with your bat or person, or you obstruct the field, or..... Gwinva (talk) 21:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah the glorious game of Cricket ^_^ 125.21.183.72 (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Who is the First Indian IAS OFFICER

Who is the First Indian IAS OFFICER? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.89.57.87 (talk • contribs)

Google identifies "IAS" as "Institute for Advanced Study," 'International Accreditation Service," Internet Authentication Service," "International Accounting Standards," "International Association of Sedimentologists," "International Association of Scientologists," "International Association of Sufism'" and many other organizations. If you would be so kind as to let us know which of these "Institutes" or "International Associations" or "Services" you had in mind while you were typing, we would be better able to answer your ill-formed question. Edison (talk) 05:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I would guess either Indian Administrative Service or Indian Academy of Sciences - but since the Academy of Sciences doesn't have people called "Officers" and the Administrative Service does - I'll assume the former. In that case, the IAS was formed from the British colonial ICS (Indian Civil Service). But there were Indian officials in the ICS prior to the name change - so I would assume that on the day the name changed, a whole bunch of Indian officials would have become IAS officers at the exact same time - making this a somewhat meaningless question. If our OP is really asking about which Indian first became an officer in the ICS - then that would make more sense. If all of this guesswork is true then the answer is in our article Indian Civil Service: "Gurusaday Dutt was the first Indian to stand first in one of the two parts of the ICS examination, in 1905." - our article on this fellow is quite long and detailed. SteveBaker (talk) 08:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Guys Gym Showers

How come most of the time in men's locker rooms or changing rooms at gyms and other similar places have showers that are all together in one room without separation or curtains for privacy? Are women's changing rooms built the same? Is it simply a matter of conserving money/space? Or is it something else? Stuffs80 (talk) 05:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it's because men are supposed to be less "bashful" than women? Honestly, I have no idea. By the time I got to school, showers were no longer required because of privacy concerns. However, my school's locker room had no curtains to separate the (unused) showers, too. The only public shower I ever had to use was at a hostel in Helsinki, Finland, and that did have curtains. So, I suppose it depends more on the location than anything. --Ericdn (talk) 05:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking, women's changing rooms have individual cubicles for changing clothes and individual shower booths. The less expensive the fitness-club membership, however, the less privacy. When I was in high school, in an era when girls were not permitted to wear trousers to school and we hadn't yet even thought about fighting the good fight for jeans, change areas and showers were usually multi-user and uncurtained. Privacy was not an issue then; supervision was. // BL \\ (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Most of the time, it's simply that if all people are doing is showering, that's not an activity that requires a lot of privacy, especially if that's what everyone else is doing as well. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, the answer probably has more to do with cost than anything. It's cheaper. Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right. --Ericdn (talk) 13:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's both. Extra privacy is unnecessary, and costs more, so they don't provide it. If it didn't cost any more they would probably provide whether it was necessary or not, and if it was necessary they would provide it regardless of cost. --Tango (talk) 13:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Extra privacy is unnecessary? Speak for yourself! :) --Ericdn (talk) 13:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Public showers at swimming pools generally don't have curtains, but many school changeroom showers do. Some people will also wear a towel when they are done showering. ~AH1^(TCU) 16:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

One would expect a person to wear a towel, bathing suit, underwear, or a full set of clothes after showering, unless that person is a nudist or has some other reason to remain nude after drying off. --Ericdn (talk) 16:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

You might expect that, but I wouldn't. Locker rooms are places where it is socially acceptable to be nude. People who don't like it should stay away. --Trovatore (talk) 06:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I would expect it varies a lot depending on what country your talking about and even what part of the country in many cases. Nil Einne (talk) 10:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Lemme put it this way: If we're sharing a locker room and you don't want me to see your form as fashioned by the good Lord, I can respect that — everyone's entitled to his own hangups. But don't you dare object to mine. --Trovatore (talk) 18:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Your original claim was that is universally (you didn't say universally but it was implied) socially acceptable to be nude in locker rooms. My claim is it likely varies from society to society. As for your more recent claim, it's largely irrelevant. You could make the same argument that you should be entilted to go around nude in public but in reality you're likely to be arrested in many countries including most parts of the US. (For that matter, I doubt you were nude when making your PhD defence.) The simple fact is, social acceptance of nudity including in locker rooms almost definitely varies (in some cases religious beliefs may have nothing to do with it) and your apparent idea that it is universally acceptable to be nude in locker rooms is not supported by any references I've seen and common sense suggests it is in fact not the case in quite a number of places and countries. Note that no one has suggested you shouldn't be entitled to go around nude in places where it is acceptable, simply pointed out that it is unlikely to be universally acceptable as you have implied. Nil Einne (talk) 11:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I think another infamous reason is that teenage boys, when given privacy, will tend to masturbate, smoke, drink alcohol, do drugs, etc. (possibly all at the same time). My high school went so far as to remove the doors from the boy's toilet stalls. I don't know about you, but I don't much enjoy an audience when taking a crap (few outside of Catch 22 do). StuRat (talk) 19:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

"teenage boys, when given privacy, will tend to masturbate, smoke, drink alcohol, do drugs, etc. (possibly all at the same time)."   OR?   ;-)   – 74  00:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

ROFL! :) --Ericdn (talk) 00:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I was too busy enjoying all the fine bathroom wall poetry to engage in any of those activities. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

A screen, a carpet and physical exercise

I have seen people on a carpet with squares(?) on it, in front of a screen that instructed them to jump forward, backward etc as a form of physical exercise. I don't know if my description is clear (also my memory of the whole thing is rather vague), but would anybody know what I am talking about - and what is the name for this thing?? Lova Falk (talk) 14:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Dance Dance Revolution. --Tango (talk) 15:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

...and many MANY clones of it! I wonder though whether our OP is thinking of some non-dance software that uses the pad specifically for exercise? I'm not aware of anything like that - but I could easily imagine someone doing it. That said - you do get a pretty good workout from Dance Dance Revolution. SteveBaker (talk) 15:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

There was a company that put out a pad and 2 games/exercise programs waaay before any of the others. It was launched to coincide with some Olympic games (I think it was the ones in Seoul but could have been earlier). The stuff didn't take off and ended up being sold by places like "Big Lots". Because it was a no-name company and they only had those two options people probably didn't want to spend that much money on a dead end product. Maybe someone picked one up at a garage sale somewhere. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 15:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, your OP means Dance dance revolution. Thank you! BTW I know that I am the OP, but what does OP mean? Oblivious Person? Original Puestion-asker? Outrageous Problem-causer? Lova Falk (talk) 16:12, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

"Original Poster". --Tango (talk) 16:23, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The dance pad article discusses some of the different brands/versions, and Comparison of dance video games compares them in a way I don't understand at all. There was also the Nintendo Power Pad, back in the day. --Fullobeans (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Twister, but the 'screen' is a hand-operated spinner. —Tamfang (talk) 04:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Kids in wells

It's a common trope in popular culture to depict huge news-stories centered around kids that fall down wells and get trapped in there for days, while rescuers are desperately trying to get them out (it's a plot point in 12 Monkeys and I seem to recall an entire Simpsons episode where Bart faked being trapped, for instance). Does this actually happen, or is it just an urban legend? Those stories have always seemed fishy to me, because it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to rescue a kid trapped in a well. You just fasten a line to a tree or something, and then a fireman can be lowered down the well and he can get the kid out. I mean, it'd take at most a few hours, not days and days. If it does happen, can anyone give me any examples? Belisarius (talk) 17:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It does happen, see for example Jessica McClure or this or this. Nanonic (talk) 17:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

You are also likely thinking of "well" in a very old-fashioned way. See the first few pictures on the article. Most wells now are drilled. (See the photos from the same article near the bottom on the left.) The pipe on ours, for exmaple, which goes down about 70 feet (24 meters or thereabouts) is only approximately 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter where it comes out of the ground. It is capped, of course, to keep out debris and small animals, and not even a very small child could get trapped in it. However, there are also pipes at 6 inches and 8 inches (15 and 20 cm) where a child could slip down and easily get stuck. I believe that is what happed with Jessica McClure, as linked above. A dug well might be a hole a foot and a half (45 cm) in diameter, but with a pipe of a size similar to those of the drilled wells. The opening of the hole is capped and so is the top of the pipe. If the cap on the hole were to be removed, a small child could easily slip down between the edge of the hole and the pipe insert. // BL \\ (talk) 17:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is a link to Iowa's program for capping wells which mentions another such incident: [17] Rmhermen (talk) 19:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The most famous child down a well (as mentioned above, Jessica McClure), was a media event that changed the way such things are reported. The New York Times ran a retrospective article in 1995 on the impact of live video news, of which this was the first such story. CNN was there, and it made their name. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a moving picture is worth many times that, and a live moving picture makes an emotional connection that goes deeper than logic and lasts well beyond the actual event. 'Everybody in America became godfathers and godmothers of Jessica while this was going on,' Ronald Reagan told Jessica's parents [...] This was before correspondents reported live from the enemy capital while American bombs were falling. Before Saddam Hussein held a surreal press conference with a few of the hundreds of Americans he was holding hostage. Before the nation watched, riveted but powerless, as Los Angeles was looted and burned. Before O. J. Simpson took a slow ride in a white Bronco, and before everyone close to his case had an agent and a book contract. This was uncharted territory just a short time ago." So, in short, children have fallen down wells since time immemorial, but it became a vivid trope when CNN broadcast one live. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little surprised that I'm the one to bring this up since I never saw the show it's based on... The television show Lassie is often (mis?)quoted by people saying something akin to "What's that Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?!". I've never seen the show but I've heard this line used several times for comedic effect. So wells and kids seem to go back farther than Jessica McClure and CNN. Dismas|^(talk) 01:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

See Kathy Fiscus for the archetype. The McClure incident has merely superceded the earlier one in the public consciouness, probably due to the better outcome. B00P (talk) 06:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Kids have always fallen down wells. CNN, by live round-the-clock video coverage, brought one example to public prominence. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Another source was media circus around the adult caver Floyd Collins who was trapped down a mine, and partial inspiration along with Kathy Fiscus for the movie Ace in the Hole (film), itself an influence on the Simpsons. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 14:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Learning to dance

How could I learn to dance? When people go out clubbing it seems as if magic happened and everybody could dance (without taking lessons) besides me. :( I am not interested in salsa, tango or other elaborated styles. I just don't want to be an outsider at the dance-floor.

I'm not much of a dancer myself, but I imagine learning a specific dancing style, like salsa, would help. Most dancing I see on the rare occasions I go to clubs is very simple - as long as you have a basic sense of rhythm you'll be fine. Any kind of dance lessons should help you with that. However, before you try that, you may want to try having a couple more drinks before going to the dance floor - it may just be that you are too self-concious. --Tango (talk) 19:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot of dance studios teach social dancing. The important thing is "dance like nobody's watching"; it's easier, though, if you know a few steps so it looks like you're doing something more than wiggling your body in rhythm. (Though that also works!) --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Dance Dance Revolution? (I'm not entirely joking). SteveBaker (talk) 23:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

JPGordon is correct. A lot of dance studios have classes designed for people who are a bit shy on the dance floor. Classes are often called something like "Dancing for pleasure" (don't get this mixed up with pole-dancing though), "social dance", "Finding your inner dancer" or something like that. Much of it is just learning to find the strong beat and being comfortable enough with it and your body to move it smoothly. This, of course, is easier said than done.

If this isn't your thing, then asking a friend who knows a bit about it to help you in private can be useful. Dancing alone is less worrying than dancing in front of everybody. Of course, according to Hollywood, it probably means you'd end up dating whoever you ask to help, but it's less likely in the real world. :) Steewi (talk) 01:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

And of course, in a club, most other people will likely to be too tipsy to care what your dancing looks like. And usually (in my experience, anyway), it will be packed enough that you won't have room to do much more than "wiggling your body in rhythm." I'm not much of a dancer or social animal either, and I was terrified the first time I went to a club (I got dragged along by my friends), but it turned out I looked stupider not dancing at all than dancing badly. So the bottom line is not to worry too much. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 03:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, don't dance in those clubs. I mean, de gustibus and all, but really, there's so much better available. My personal passion is swing (East Coast and Lindy Hop, but West Coast is also a fine dance though the music is kind of weak). The demise of the Second Swing Era has been greatly exaggerated — you can find it in any decent-sized urban area in the US and Canada, and lots of places in Europe, and there are always new young people getting into it, so it's not going anywhere. --Trovatore (talk) 07:32, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Stimulated pork...

My question is about a US$250 million project called "Main Street Signage including Gateways, Way Finding & Displays" in Orange, NJ. Is this an approved part of the US economic stimulus package ? This site says they will only employ 5 people: [18]. Needless to say, $50 million per job seems excessive. So, is this a mind-boggling piece of pork, or is there some justification for spending so much money (over a dollar per US taxpayer and $7,600 per resident of Orange) on road signs in one small town ? Can anyone find a breakdown of the items which total this sum ? StuRat (talk) 20:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No idea about a reliable source, but with most of these things it's important to find out who's saying it and why. Two things that came to mind here: The place you linked looks to be somewhere in the Newark area. That would still sound like "Where?" to me if I hadn't had the displeasure of taking a couple of planes routed via the airport there. Now I could think of a long list of "if" conditions that would making pouring millions into anything making changing planes there more sufferable a worthwhile endeavor. Tourism is a part of the US economy that took a big hit during the previous administration. There's a poll where foreign visitors ranked countries they had been to. While the US ranked among the top for "people" and "sights" it ranked somewhere near the very bottom when it came to entering the country. Millions spent making foreign visitors think US = yeah! instead of Newark = groan could cause more money than that to flow in. Second there is hopefully going to be a snowball effect from most items in the stimulus package. So the city hires 5 government officials that will probably start off by getting an office equipped, then hiring a couple of companies to study what should be done (- which will then in turn get their offices equipped.) They may decide on programmable signage which means they'll need programmers (- who survive on lots of coke, coffee and pizzas :) They may want multi-lingual signs and may need translators (- yes, here, here, slobber!) etc.. Plus such budget labels rarely tell the whole story. Lots of little projects get thrown into the pot when funds are available. I contracted for a "tunnel construction office" which it turned out was building a bridge. A technical workshop I attended was financed out of a pot labeled "women in agriculture" among others. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 03:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Does anyone else have any info on this ? StuRat (talk) 01:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Copyright of tv footage

How long till it is in the public domain? I'm interested particularly in George VI coronation footage which is 1937, I believe. Thanks for any help. --217.227.87.60 (talk) 20:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

According to this, TV broadcasts are covered for 50 years and Films are covered for 70 years. But copyright law is tricky and you really should consult an expert because we're not allowed to give legal advice here on Wikipedia's Ref.Desks. SteveBaker (talk) 22:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) According to our article: "Copyright in broadcasts subsists for 50 years from the making of the broadcast if the broadcast is made in an EEA country." So it would be public domain. There is one possible exception to that - it might be Crown copyright (which lasts forever) if was somehow official footage made by the crown, but I don't think it was (I think the BBC owned the copyright). --Tango (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

There's copyright in the film as a work, copyright in the actual broadcast, and there may be an argument for performer's rights. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

WP does have its very own Media Copyright Questions page, where someone may be able to tell you more, or point you in the right direction. Gwinva (talk) 06:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

if I recall. 79.66.56.21

An urban legend - "if I recall". Please provide the provenance for your insipid response to the Cruzcampo question above. I find these self-opinionated and sardonic responses to be distasteful, arrogant and unhelpful to the OP. Is he or she to accept your supercilious answer as informed, reliable, helpful, or a load of bullshit? Please advise, but please, give us an informed and referenced answer, and not something you may have just recalled. Thankyou in anticipation. 92.9.235.173 (talk) 22:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure. It's a picture of Gambrinus. That should suffice. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 23:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This:[19]? Bus stop (talk) 23:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed it would be better if 79.66.56.21 had given a reference for discounting the origin given for the different direction of fastening. But it would be better still if 92.20.17.211 had given a reference for the claimed origin. Indeed, if 79.66.56.21 had said "I don't believe that story. Please give a reference', this would have been unexceptionable.

I haven't found an authoritative reference either, but the two discussions I have found ([20] and [21]) agree that the conventions did not become standardised until the 19th century. They both give several reasons which have been advanced, including the one suggested here, but are dubious about them all. I am dubious for the same reasons as I am dubious about many supposed origins of phrases (see http://worldwidewords.org, passim): an ingenious theory about how something could have arisen is not even close to an assertion that it did arise in that way - especially if there is a significant gap of time between the supposed origin and the first recorded instance of the explicandum. --ColinFine (talk) 23:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed the theory I've heard most commonly is the maid thing. I've never heard the sword theory before. And I would have to agree with ColinFine here, it's hypocritical to get annoyed with someone's unreferenced recollection when they were responding to your unreferenced recollection Nil Einne (talk) 10:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested that you read it as self-opinionated and sardonic. It was intended as neither. The OP gave a rather nice urban-legendy just-so story for why buttons are the way they are, and I felt my response was more likely to lead them to consider and think than starting a whole thing on the complicated and unclear history of the practice, which I felt would hijack the thread. The only bit that was 'if I recall' was the 19th century comment; it could have been early 20th, but I was fairly sure it was 19th. I see others confirm it was 19th. I als#o thought this had been covered enough in these places that someone else was quite capable of providing more info if asked for. 79.66.56.21 (talk)

March 9

Suze Who?

OK, I don't have cable, I've never heard her speak, (more importantly) have never heard her be spoken to, and I see no pronounciation guide in our article. So, how is Suze Orman's first name properly pronounced? Two options are: SOO-zee, like Susie with a trendy spelling; or one-syllable Sooz, like snooze without the N, which would tend toward "Sue Zorman"? --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

SOO-zee, according to YouTube and a video on her website — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

And how about Suze Randall? —Tamfang (talk) 04:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, but on Peepshow Big Suze is Big Sooz. TastyCakes (talk) 16:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

GFDL

I created the article Decretum de Judaeis from Nostra Aetate. What should I put in Talk:Decretum de Judaeis to indicate that the text is a licensed copy of GFDL material ? Thank you. ADM (talk) 07:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You should check out Wikipedia:Help Desk for this. But what do you mean? If the content was taken from another source with a GFDL license, a link and mention in the talk page should be fine. The help desk would be able to give further advice. If the content is solely your own work, there's no need to do anything. By adding it to the article, you have already released it under the GFDL as the edit window says. Finally, if the content came from somewhere else where it is not released under the GFDL, what we really need is an email from the copyright holder confirming they've released it under the GFDL to WP:OTRS Nil Einne (talk) 10:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ungraded school system

Are there any ungraded school systems in the USA?

From 1964 to 1970 Broadview, MT had an ungraded school system. Clifford Clyde Rylander (1922-1972) was the superintendent. Traditional grades 1-12 existed only in the form of a home room. Social activities occurred relative to the home room (age group). Academic activities occurred at the skill level of the student.

(Example: in 1967-68, a 21 year old student was accepted at Broadview, after being expelled from other schools in the county. He was offered the opportunity to complete high school on condition of good conduct and completion of courses assigned, which he did. Upon arrival at the school he could read only at the third grade level. At 6'5", he was seated in the third grade reading class. Before the end of the year he had progressed to the eigth grade reading class.)

(Example: 1968 high school graduation in MT required a minimum number of credit hours of instruction with a core set of classes - subject matter. A set of senior students had completed all core classes by the end of their junior year. To achieve the total number of credit hours, two college level classes had to be created for these students: spherical trig and Tudor lit).

The superintendent had noted as early as 1960 that schools were providing "social promotions" and many graduates could not read on an eigth grade level. Rather than complain, the adversity was turned into an opportunity to excel. The superintendent had learned this lesson while serving in the personal body guard company of General Douglas McArthur during WWII. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Buffalojmp (talk • contribs) 11:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You might find something through Multiage education links. Rmhermen (talk) 17:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

SFNN

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING NETWORK! Would anybody be interested in submitting and receiving information.An exchange of information on any and every subject. Fluter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.86.15.15 (talk) 15:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are attempting to promote your website or service on the Wikipedia reference desk, you should know that the Wikipedia Ninja's will sneak into your house at dead of night and stick {{fact}} tags on everything you own. Don't say we didn't warn you! SteveBaker (talk) 18:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No web site,no service,just an exchange of free information submitted and received! Exactly what wikepedia is doing! P.S. I live in a tent! Fluter.

Further warning. Those {{fact}} tags are two faced. The other side says . I wish you luck trying to find a reliable source tht says that your toothbrush belongs to you - without using Original Research. Phil_burnstein (talk) 15:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

P.S. SteveBaker and I have just given you information worthy of the name of your NETWORK. What do we get? (Please answer on our talk pages.) Phil_burnstein (talk) 15:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Sad Panda

Is there a name for being sad all of the time, for never being content or happy with one's current situation and always having a bad outlook on life; to feel as though life is not worth living but not wanting to die either, and being trapped in a state of perpetual unhappiness? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 15:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, many millions suffer the same. Can't give medical advice, but my doctor sorted me out quite quickly. As I understand it most depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. Check with your doctor soon as.90.9.209.171 (talk) 15:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)DT

You may wish to read about clinical depression, as the previous poster alludes to. We cannot give medical advice. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Also of interest is our article on dysthymia.--droptone (talk) 16:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Marriage? Zing! TastyCakes (talk) 16:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Stop sticking things in other pandas' ears! (Sorry, not helpful, I know.) Adam Bishop (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I must be missing the cultural reference. What do pandas have to do with this? Why is it entitled "Sad Panda?" Bus stop (talk) 17:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It's from South Park's Sexual Harassment Panda episode. Sexual harassment makes this mascot a "Sad Panda". Fribbler (talk) 17:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that. Bus stop (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I've had / current have what you might call clinical depression, and while I can't give medical advice I would say that it does usually pass with time, but if you feel like there is absolutely no hope please do see a doctor as there are many treatments which may help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 20:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it often does pass with time. A good hard workout stimulates the system and pumps lots of good things into the system. But, generally, the unassisted route is, I suggest, much harder than having help. And I have tried both. (If it is any consolation depression tends to be associated with intelligence.)86.200.4.246 (talk) 15:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)DT

Realism. --79.79.129.5 (talk) 22:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

How many pens does it take?

I've just been watching President Barack Obama signing new legislation regarding stem cell research. When actually signing the bill, he appeared to use several different pens to sign his name. Why was it done in that way? Astronaut (talk) 16:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Product placement? (Just joking -- I hope.) BrainyBabe (talk) 16:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at the first question in this FAQ:[22]. It seems they give the pens away to supporters of the bill being signed. Fribbler (talk) 16:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Here's another link discussing the topic. --LarryMac | Talk 16:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I need help!

okay, what is the best way to ask a girl to prom? i have been trying for about a MONTH to try and have failed to do anything. I don't want to ask my mom cuz she'll give me a bunch of stuff i don't need to ask. What do i do? PS: Sorry if this is a weird question, but i REALLY don't want to ask my parents.  Buffered Input Output 16:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a specific girl or girls you have in mind, or do you just want to ask any girl at all? The best way is to say "Hey ________. Do you want to go to the prom with me?" Be confident in it. Women don't really like it when guys look all sheepish and talk at their feet. Look her in the eye and ask her straight up. If she already has a date, she'll tell you. If she doesn't, she'll probably say yes. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Uh you wouldn't happen to be User:Pokegeek42's brother would you? In any case, I suggest you read the responses to Pokegeeks question above Nil Einne (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

This is getting to be far too common a line of questioning. Maybe it's time we created Wikipedia:Reference desk/Dating. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It really is a simple as walking up to her (preferably when she's alone, but this isn't essential) and saying "Do you want to go to the prom with me?" There is nothing more to it than that. If she says "no", then move on, it's not the end of the world. --Tango (talk) 18:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That's right. If you're not yet even trying, but still at the stage of trying to try, it seems to me you have a strong fear of rejection. Put that to one side. It's not a personal rejection of you forever if she says "No, thanks". You'll feel much better after you've asked her, even if she does politely decline. If she's rude about it, then she was possibly never worth asking out in the first place, but at least you'll know. And she may just say "Oh, yes, I was hoping you'd ask me". -- JackofOz (talk) 19:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Additionally, being asked to the prom, even if its by someone you don't like, is the kind of thing that inflates most teenage girls' egos for anywhere between six months and eighty years. Just be polite, mature, and confident when you approach her, and even if she gives you an awkward "No," you'll have made her feel good about herself. --Fullobeans (talk) 19:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The elaborate schemes some highschool guys come up with are usually reserved for very long term relationships, so don't feel like you have to one up guys that are getting "Go to the prom with me?" in skywriting or rose petals all over the girls bedroom with a teddy bear that asks the question. Most highschool girls will accept just a question, especially if you have shown interest in them before. Like everyone has said, be confident and don't fear the rejection. Livewireo (talk) 20:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

My advice would be to just ask. As a girl, I appreciate when people come forward and are themselves as appose to putting on an act, thinking up elaborate plans to "accidentally" bump into me in the hallway etc. The answer will either be yes or no (in my case I always answer no to guys, but I'm kind about it) but at least you tried. Of course, if you think you're going to get laughed at by her for even thinking you have a shot with her then she's probably not the one for you, and you should ask someone nicer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 20:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As has already been mentioned, these questions often come up and I always want to know what happens. So (although I'm sure it's not proper RefDesk policy) it'd be great if you could post the result.91.111.86.221 (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree - knowing how the story ends is always nice! --Tango (talk) 00:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Speaking as a former hopeless high school dweeb who has since figured out how to get hot chicks to go on dates with him, I'd like to emphasize that "would you like to go to the prom with me?" should probably not be the first words you ever speak to her. Laying the groundwork with "would you mind passing me the pickles?" and similar non-threatening banter that reassures her you're a reasonably normal fellow will go a long way towards putting you on her list of persons she wouldn't mind spending an evening with if asked. --Sean 01:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There is likely a girl at your school who would agree to go to prom with you, if you simply said, "Hey, how's it going? Would you like to go to prom with me?" She may not be the very most popular, rich, and attractive girl at the school. You might find interesting "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters" by Jean Shepherd, page 318.They talk about random stuff, like some friend or family member, then he asks if she is going, then she asks who he is going with, they both admit having no firm plans, then he up and asks her. You could do worse. [23] Edison (talk) 23:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, Edison, considering the outcome, I'm not sure that Shepherd's story is the best guide to the prom experience (though I have a similar story of my own, even though I had previously read Shepherd's work and should have known better, which I will spare the ref-desk readers). Deor (talk) 00:52, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Not the least.you asking her this question as quickly is directly proportionate to her asking you (i mean quickly)" can i hold it please" not the hand i mean..so be quick or be dead... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 18:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

If you can ask on the last day, you can ask a few days earlier. Pretend to yourself that it is the last day. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Aviation

What is TRAN (TRAN Aircraft, TRAN Crew)? And aviation acronym. --79.237.134.130 (talk) 19:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The FAA website (http://www.gps.tc.faa.gov/glossary.html#sectT) lists TRANS as an acronym for Transition, although the commercial context (TranAir, etc.) suggests Transportation. Livewireo (talk) 20:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(If so, that would be an abbreviation. An acronym is a kind of abbreviation in which each letter is the initial of several component words, not a shortened form of one word.) -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:25, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

This is right, thank you. Me no english gud. Livewireo (talk) 13:33, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

March 10

Stranded on a desert island

It's a common plot point for books and movies- a plane or a ship crashes in the middle of the ocean and a group or a single survivor finds themselves the next morning on some tiny island where they are the only inhabitants. They survive there for years until they manage to flag down a passing ship. Are there any historical accounts of something similar to this actually taking place? Nadando (talk) 08:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Alexander Selkirk is a famous one although not quite the same thing. Also look at Category:Castaways. JMiall₰ 08:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There's an almost-substantiated theory that Amelia Earhardt crash-landed on a Pacific atoll and survived there for some time, although she didn't do so well in the "flagging down a passing ship" department. --Fullobeans (talk) 09:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

One reason this doesn't happen often is that, if the island were habitable, it would be inhabited. There may be an exception for islands which are marginally habitable for a small number of people. Thus, a small group of survivors might be able to live there for a while, but the island couldn't support a permanent population. In modern times, some habitable islands are not inhabited because they have been made into nature preserves. However, the islands on TV shows like Lost and Gilligan's Island seemed to be large and quite habitable, which would mean they would have large populations. StuRat (talk) 16:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There are of course exception to the "if habitable, someone would already be there" idea; Pitcairn Island was shown to be capable of suppoting a sizable population, but before these folks showed up it had no human presence. Of course, it's also one of the most remote islands in the world, so there's the difficulty of getting there, but it was a "habitable", yet "uninhabited" island. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Norfolk Island is another good example of a very habitable island that was utterly devoid of human life when James Cook discovered it in 1774. There had been earlier habitation in the 14th-15th centuries, but only a few generations, and the reason they left remains a mystery because it fully supports human existence. Norfolk Island even supplied the early colony of New South Wales with grain and vegetables. Lord Howe Island is another example. It was discovered in 1788 and there's no evidence of any prior human habitation at all. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have said "all known habitable islands are likely to be occupied". Since those counterexamples were only "discovered" sometime in the 1700s, and few people, if any, knew they were there before then, there wasn't much of an opportunity for them to be inhabited. However, since all habitable islands are certainly known by now (and probably by a century ago), the logic that "all habitable islands will be occupied" is more true now than it was then. (I remember that part of the opening song on Gilligan's Island said that it was an "uncharted desert isle". However, I can't imagine an island of that size being uncharted today.) StuRat (talk) 21:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Both were known and discovered (and actually once supported human life) before their current inhabitants found them, at that later time when they were thus uninhabited. There was evidence of human habitation of Pitcairn until the 1400's or so, IIRC. Be careful not to use "discovered" to mean "found by white Europeans", in that sense. Polynesian peoples likely tripped over nearly every rock between the Phillipines and the Galapagos, but not every one, even the habitable ones, were continuously inhabited from their likely prehistoric discovery until modern times. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 23:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That's why I put quotation marks around "discovered". I did say "few people", too. There are some rather isolated islands which may have been found by a few people in ancient times, but their location was not recorded in a way that anyone could use to reliably find them again (I recall Pitcairn Island having this issue specifically). Thus, when people in their tribe were thinking they needed a new place to live, that island may not have been a candidate, since they only had a vague recollection of where it was. StuRat (talk) 16:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I saw a documentary (I believe it was called something like "The Real Treasure Island") in which they say the Selkirk example was the closest to an actual "lone survivor on a desert island" story to be confirmed, and even that isn't quite the same because his ship wasn't wrecked, he asked the crew to drop him off because he thought that it would be wrecked (which it was). There have, however, been numerous examples of multiple survivors being marooned on islands after a wreck or whatever (the Bounty being the most famous), but seldom for years and years. Wasn't JFK marooned like this for a few days in World War 2? There are also the Japanese soldiers that stayed in the pacific islands until decades after the war was over, not knowing it was all over. TastyCakes (talk) 19:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That is Kennedy Island. But JFK was not alone, and it was really close to Gizo, Solomon Islands a town. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Here is the article about Japanese holdouts. TastyCakes (talk) 20:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Castaway Hut in the North Of Antipodes Island, 2009

There's Marguerite de La Rocque (discovered here on the ref desk a few months ago) who spent a few years on her own marooned off the coast of Quebec. In the early history of sub-antarctic exploration/settlement/whaling shiploads were so regularly becoming marooned on various islands, the NZ government set up a string of "castaway depots" supplied with food, equipment and clothing. Gwinva (talk) 21:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC) Feeling inspired, I've now created Castaway depot. Do drop in. Gwinva (talk) 00:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

When you see shows like Survivorman - (not the crappy knock-off where there is a camera crew there) - you can see that even a survival expert who's done this a dozen times before - can have a very hard time in this kind of situation. On the show, the guy manages it for a week - but you can tell that he isn't living 'sustainably' on the land - he's often starving, dehydrated and often sick at the end of the week. So I think that there may have been many instances of people getting stranded like this - but simply not surviving to tell the tale. You'd have to be exceedingly lucky to find a place where an ill-equipped, unskilled survivor could keep going for months to years. For most of us, I think it would be more like Survivor Man than Survivorman. SteveBaker (talk) 00:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

See also the 1969 TV series The New People. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 02:13, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, Gilligan's Island. TastyCakes (talk) 14:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

See, generally, castaways, and Category:Castaways. Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope addressed this question in 2005 ("Not necessarily Lost: Are there actual cases of castaways who have been rescued?"). BrainyBabe (talk) 20:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Banking in West Virginia

I am aware that there are several major banks that avoid the state of West Virginia, though the surrounding states are in their footprint (two examples are PNC Bank and Bank of America). It is my understanding from talking to a banking person that West Virginia's banking laws are too business-unfriendly. Can anyone give me more information about the specifics of this that would lead these banks to avoid the state? I simply cannot find the information online. Magog the Ogre (talk) 10:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Not an answer, but Wells Fargo also avoids WV despite banking in Virginia proper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.167.146.130 (talk) 15:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a commercial site, but offers a summary of some West Virginia laws which may help answer your question. It says that the state forbids cash advances from some lenders, caps interest rates, and outlaws all loans over $45,000. Karenjc 23:11, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Mountaineering boots

Can I use combat boots instead of mountaineering boots? They are much cheaper...--Mr.K. (talk) 12:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Use them for what? Should we assume that you will be using them for mountaineering? If so, I'd go with the mountaineering boots as they're purpose built. Unless you don't intend on doing a lot of serious mountaineering, in which case, you may be able to get by with the combat boots. Dismas|^(talk) 12:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I meant for mountaineering.

Mountaineering boots have stiff soles and shafts to give support when climbing whilst combat boots are flexible, to allow normal walking and running. Of course, crampons can`t be used with combat boots and thermal insulation is poor. As Dismas says, it depends on the grade (or class, depending on the system) of the route you are planning. If you are joining a club they may have boots for hire. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Original research: While I wouldn't use combat boots in place of mountaineering boots, they can usually replace hiking boots for most purposes. - Eron^Talk 00:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Argentineans/Anglo Argentineans incorporated into British regiments in World War One.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this? Anglo Argentines are Argentineans who can claim British/English ancestry.Argentina was never a proper colony but there were english people there from about 1850 due to trade and construction amongst other reasons,i believe.It could have occurred because of the serious losses of life/widening the net for recruiting of soldiers or perhaps because of an english contact.It would probably have been very discreet since Argentina claimed neutrality as a country.PedroBlanco (talk) 19:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There were a number of volunteers who are listed in Activities of the British community in Argentina during the great war 1914-1919, perhaps your local library can get hold of a copy. example page. Nanonic (talk) 19:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Windmills

I have a science project, and I need some help. We need to figure out a way to improve windmills. Make them better. Produce more energy, more sturdy, stuff like that. Only, the problem is, I don't know HOW to do any of these things. If anyone does, please tell me, since other websites don't help one fucking bit. I'm going to pieces. I really need some help please! <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 20:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The best way I can think of to improve the output of a windmill is to build it out of stronger but lighter materials. That would improve both strength (taller tower = more wind) and efficiency (easier to spin blades). The problem is that such materials usually drive the costs of building the windmill higher. Maybe take a look at Titanium and Carbon Fiber to start. 65.167.146.130 (talk) 20:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

For a project you could try to vary thw shape of the blades. you will need to have a power meter to measure the output of the generator attached to the windmill. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Since wind speeds are normally higher, farther up, putting the windmill on a long mast (or on the top of a hill), is a good approach. Having a mechanism to rotate the windmill into the wind would also help, but most windmills already have this. Perhaps putting solar panels on the blades and mast could also help, as that would allow electricity to be produced when it's bright, but windless. StuRat (talk) 20:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Would more blades help? Astronaut (talk) 22:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

No. Most modern turbines have 3 blades because that is most efficient. Too many and you get excessive turbulence, and extra weight, which reduce power generation. --Tango (talk) 00:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I know, but perhaps a good science project would be to show that is true through experimentation. Astronaut (talk) 13:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, it was a rhetorical question! Sorry! --Tango (talk) 13:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Look at our article Wind Farm. It has everything you want and more. Phil_burnstein (talk) 22:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Better lubricants would reduce friction and improve efficiency. Better gearing could improve mechanical advantage and improve energy transfer. Just a couple of more ideas. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

What kind of project is this? Is it the kind where you have to write up things you found written elsewhere, combined with thinky thoughts? Or is it the kind where you need to do some experiments as well? I'm pretty sure lots of us could offer advice and guidance either way, but we can be extra helpful if you tell us more about what you need to do. Unless you already have all the help you need :) 79.66.56.21 (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine any easy way to improve on the big commercial windmills that are out there. We have to imagine that they've already thought, calculated, simulated, etc and that they have the best compromise of efficiency, logevity and cost that modern engineering can produce. I don't think that we're going to come up with anything to improve the best that there is in that realm. On the other hand, there has been a rash of people selling 'urban' windmills that are so horrifically inefficient that in some cases the electronics needed to run them consumes more electricity than they actually produce! Much of the problem is that people don't situate them sensibly - but that's not the only problem. So perhaps you can fulfill your assignment by looking at some of those TERRIBLE windmills and doing what you can to suggest improvements. Anyway - you might like to skim scoraigwind.com - they are all about build-it-yourself windmills and they have tons and tons of good advice and links. Scroll down to "ROOFTOP MADNESS CONTINUES..." - and you'll find plenty of windmills that you could easily improve upon! Also, read the stuff relating to "The Warwick Urban Wind Trial Project" - that's a study on actual urban windmills that describes the problem. From what I see, the biggest thing that could be done to improve these contraptions would be to provide expertise to home owners to help them situate their shiney new windmills in the best possible way. Good luck! It sounds like a fun project. SteveBaker (talk) 23:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Beyond the physical characteristics of the windmill, there might be improvements found in placement and orientation to maximize what wind is available. B00P (talk) 03:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

To improve energy output it would help if you could adjust your Transmission (mechanics) to suit the wind speed. If it doesn't have to be practical you could try windmills stalking around on computer controlled tripods to always be at an optimum position of wind flow. Otherwise I'd go with Steve's suggestion, sounds like he's nailed it as usual. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 05:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

First, the specific project is this: "Practical Technology Project". We have to find a product that's been around a while, it has to do with earth/space science, and we have to improve it in some way. Don't ask me how windmills are earth/space science, my scinece teacher told us it was a good idea. Then, we have to get a sheet of paper, write down the product, the problem that we're improving, the improvement, the effect of the improvement, and the drawback the improvement will have. We also have to make a scaled drawing of the improved product. To make things worse, he's making us work in groups of four, but that's beside the point. Here's an example he gave us:

LIGHT BULB
 A)Product: Light Bulb
 B)Problem: Does not last very long, only a few hours
 C)Improvement: Tungsten was used as filament and light bulb lasted many more hours
 D)Effect: People had more time to work and were not hampered by dawn to dusk work hours
 E)Drawback: Cost of electricity and bulb itself increased;tungsten is not plentiful

I really think a project like this is a waste of time. And personally, I think our economy needs more improving than products that work just fine and don't need improving. But, thanks for your help, anyway. Maybe he'll just decide on the easy way out and give all of us "Fs" since that what he normally gives us anyway. But, besides that, this is a fun project. You guys are a big help. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 15:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a sad statement. Improving existing technology is probably 99% of what scientists and technologists do. It's exceedingly rare to work on a genuinely new thing. In my l-o-n-g career (I'm in my 50's) - this has happened only twice (mind you, one of them was on the team that invented the CD-ROM - that was a good one!) This project is EXACTLY the kind of thing you'll be doing out in the real world - and you'll be doing it in teams because hardly any real projects are one-person processes. Improving lightbulbs and windmills is exactly the kind of activity that will save our planet...don't knock it...it's important stuff! SteveBaker (talk) 00:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You might also want to pay attention to what the energy produced by the windmill is used to accomplish. Since the generation, transmission, storage, and usage of electricity can be inefficient, you could likely improve efficiency by direct mechanical transmission of energy, instead. For example, if the windmill is used to generate electricity, which is then used to drive a water pump to fill a water tower, you may be able to drive the water pump directly from the windmill, instead, to improve efficiency. However, this would only work if the windmill and water tower were next to each other. StuRat (talk) 16:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

What products in particular are you referring to? There is vast interest in improving 'light bulbs' (used loosely to mean anything you can screw in to a socket to give you light) and windmills both historically and at this very moment (indeed probably more so now then 20 years ago), for reasons of efficiency, longevity etc. (I'm not commenting on whether I think the assignment is a good thing) Nil Einne (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Particular products that have to do with earth/space science. A light bulb isn't earth/space science, so he gave us that example so we couldn't copy it. Binoculars, seismographs, y'know, anything that can be used for earth or space. He didn't give us any more to work with than I already told you. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 23:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I found this interesting: [24] It is entitled "Why do wind turbines have three narrow blades, but ceiling fans have five wide blades?" in Scientific American magazine. Bus stop (talk) 01:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

From my experience, most ceiling fans have 3 blades anyway e.g. [25] while it has a few 4 or 5 blade ones I've never seen them in real life. Things may be different in the US but definitely it's not universally true that most ceiling fans have 4 or 5 blades... Nil Einne (talk) 10:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've had an idea for some years now about making a windmill with no moving parts using ions. Recently I read a news article about a computer cooling fan based on the same principle. I'm not sure if one of those was ever built - spewing lots of ions into your computer sounds like a very bad idea to me - and I'm not sure if my idea would work, let alone be an improvement (it would save maintenance, perhaps, the bane of wind turbines, or perhaps not if it just needed constant cleaning). 81.131.9.25 (talk) 03:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

new years day

where in the past the year was considered to start in the middle of March, would diaries and such like have started on that day, or would people have counted the whole of march as the beginning or end of the year, to make it easier for them? And how might the new year have been celebrated, back in the 16th century? 148.197.114.165 (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Consider this question: Were pre-printed diaries available back in the 16th century? I strongly suspect they were not, and anyone keeping a diary would do so on blank paper or in a blank notebook. ie. they could start their diary on any day they wanted to. Astronaut (talk) 22:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Often, the old year and the new year would be written together, such as "10 March 1645/1646", to avoid any ambiguity near the time of the year change. I've seen various styles of this technique used, but, unfortunately, the sources I have are probably too vague and hard-to-find to list here. --Ericdn (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Samuel Pepys's Diary is a good example. Weepy.Moyer (talk) 07:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Last names

Is there an article about people whose first name is also their last name? Like John John, for example.--Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 22:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Durand Durand from the film Barbarella? Astronaut (talk) 22:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

An example would be Sirhan Sirhan, although, I don't see a list or category linked on that article for such names. Dismas|^(talk) 22:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking more of real-life people and why their parents name them like that. I recall seeing someone on the news named like that, but I can't remember exactly who... --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 22:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

William Carlos Williams is one close example, and my dad had an uncle who had the same first and last name (in the interest of privacy, I will decline to name the name, but it is a semi-common french first and last name.) Other than being a rather trivial curiosity, I'm not sure we need an article about such an event, per WP:IINFO, just being a mildly interesting coincidence is not much to build a Wikipedia article on. I also knew a Germaine Jermaine once, but she married into that name. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

We need a Latin or Greek name for it. Then maybe we could even find sources on the phenomenon. Edison (talk) 23:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Jerome K. Jerome is another example. And I know of a Kelsey Kelsey IRL - an accident of marriage. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

How about James James? Also, do Boutros Boutros Ghali and Eric Djemba Djemba count? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I used to know a guy called Brian O'Brian - everyone called him "Bob". SteveBaker (talk) 23:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems that there's actually quite a few 'folks so nice, they named them twice' out there - see William Williams, Robert Roberts, Edward Edwards, Richard Richards (and probably loads more)... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

And there's Neville Neville, the father of footballer brothers Gary Neville and Phil Neville. Astronaut (talk) 01:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This Herbert [26] and this Herman [[27]] aren't alone either. None of them seems to be notable, though.76.97.245.5 (talk) 05:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

There is the comedian Ahmed Ahmed - I think this is less unusual for Muslim names, I know Nasser Nasser is an Associated Press photographer, and I'm sure I've seen Muhammad Muhammad as well. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe some Arabs only have one name. However, to "fit in" with Western standards, where a first and last name is required, they just use their only name as both. StuRat (talk) 16:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a South African TV presenter called Scott Scott Rfwoolf (talk) 09:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I seem to remember handling a book by Sherwood H. Sherwood. —Tamfang (talk) 23:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Or the fictional character Major Major Major Major? --Mr.K. (talk) 10:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If you widen your terms a little, to allow the possessive S and the dropping of the preceeding consonant, you will find plenty of David Davis. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

French actor Noël-Noël is another one. It's also a relatively common practice in Italy. (Oops, I though I was logged in) --Xuxl (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Does Boutros Boutros-Ghali count? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

An English-Latin online translator says "repeat name" would be "revolvo nomen". There should be some technical term like "revolvonominality" to describe Sirhan Sirhan and Major Major.Any Latin scholars out there? Edison (talk) 20:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I propose didymonymy. Deor (talk) 01:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Richmal Crompton introduced a bit-part character called Jameson Jameson, too. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There's the A. A. Milne poem about "James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree [who] took great care of his Mother, though he was only three." BrainyBabe (talk) 18:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What kind of plane is this?

[28] From this Boston Big Picture article. 67.169.118.47 (talk) 23:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

From the context, I'd guess that it's a C-130J Super Hercules - but I count about 120 guys in there - and the C-130 is only rated to haul less than 96 people...but maybe it's some beefed-up varient or other. SteveBaker (talk) 23:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a C-17 Globemaster III. This photo is a good match. Our article claims it's only rated for 102 passengers, but Boeing states it can seat "80 on 8 pallets, plus 54 passengers on sidewall seats". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Not anymore it doesn't. Good ID. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

March 11

A game?

There's a game played by bunch of people (ie, employees on a meeting with the boss) and the objective is to shout a chosen word (most likely it's gonna be a profane one) as loud as possible. What's the name of it (the game)? Kurtelacić (talk) 01:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

See penis game. ~EdGl (talk) 01:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It's called "Trolling for unemployment." B00P (talk) 03:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Also there is " Bogies" from Dick and Dom in da Bungalow —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 08:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

When I was at school (in the UK) the word and game was "bollocks!". Assuming this "bogies!" is the same basic idea, I'd suggest it's basically "bollocks!" cleaned up for childrens' TV. 93.97.184.230 (talk) 08:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone! I know it's a bit stupid question, but I was curious. Kurtelacić (talk) 15:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

You'll never learn if you don't ask! :) --Ericdn (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The version in my high school was called a "fuck-wave" Steewi (talk) 23:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Who is this?

[29] I hope the link works... Dismas|^(talk) 10:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That's Elizabeth Kucinich. A google image search confirms this (poor Dennis has been cropped out of the picture). Fribbler (talk) 12:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is the original image. That guy should write a book. --Sean 12:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Lucky guy! If I'd have known that he had such a hottie of a wife, I'd have campaigned for him just so we'd see more of her in the press! Dismas|^(talk) 12:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Yea, judging from Sean's pic, lucky Dennis has a nice peace there. StuRat (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I see your wife of house of representatives guy and raise you one prime minister of the Ukraine. Nanonic (talk) 16:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Forget elected representatives. Let's kick it old school, monarchy style. Fribbler (talk) 16:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Old school? How about her? Adam Bishop (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Italian Minister for Equal Opportunity for the win. --Sean 20:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we close this as "resolved" :-) Fribbler (talk) 23:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

"Resolved, that Dennis Kucinich has one hot wife...". StuRat (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

This has to be one of my favourite Wiki questions ever - the responses in this must be the geek verion of surfing for porn! I feel almost compelled to search wiki for even hotter women of authority... hehe and btw before anyone takes offence I meen geek in a fun way, and definately class myself in that description! Gazhiley (talk) 10:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

And then there is Daisy Tourné, Minister of the Interior in the Uruguayan government, whose photo in the shower appeared on Facebook. More info on the Spanish Wikipedia here. She's a psychologist by training, and says "There is nothing more natural than a woman in the shower", i.e. without makeup or hair styling. Before you get too excited, she's 57, the photo shows her face and arms only, and she says it was a beach shower, used to wash off salt and sand. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

International private credit

Are there banks out there that provide credits for private persons independent of the location? Or is it just reserved for business entities?--Mr.K. (talk) 10:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are asking here. In almost every part of the world there will be a bank willing to loan you money. Are you asking if there are banks who will provide loans for people who move around a lot? DJ Clayworth (talk) 13:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I think he's asking if there are banks that will lend money to people that aren't resident in the same country as the bank is based. I'm not sure of the answer - you may need to have some assets in that country in order to reduce the risk to the bank. --Tango (talk) 13:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I meant applying for a loan in a country where I am not resident, but has lower interest rate.--Mr.K. (talk) 16:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are just doing it for the interest rate, it won't work particularly well - interest rates are generally done by currency, not country. If you want to borrow in a foreign country and spend in your home country you will need to exchange the currencies and the exchange rates take interest rates into account removing any significant opportunity for profit. --Tango (talk) 16:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

There are other advantages. In some countries banks are more willing to lend money than in others. Anyway, does any bank lend to non-resident citizens?

Banks will generally only lend to people or entities who are within their countries (and other jurisdictions) of operation; they need to run credit checks on prospective lendees, and may need to pursue defaulters through the courts (both of which are very difficult when the bank has no presence where it's money is going). In addition, most developed countries have complex regulations regarding lending (including know-your-customer restrictions) that make such arrangements very difficult. Merchant banks will make large loans to wealthy individuals and may well conduct the business in a country where the person isn't resident. So for example tax exile who is legally resident in the Cayman Islands and who in practice splits their time between Monaco and lengthy travel might take out a loan (to buy a new yacht, for example) in London (under English law); a merchant bank is willing to do this because the sum (and so potential profits) are so large that it's worthwhile launching international litigation and collections in the event of default. That's true for loans of millions of dollars, but not for tens or hundreds of thousands. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the problems for ordinary people in Iceland recently are due to them borrowing in foreign currency at cheaper interest rates than the high Icelandic central bank rate[30]. However I'm not sure if this money is borrowed via Icelandic banks (or Icelandic subsidiaries of foreign banks) rather than from overseas. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Do employer have to explain why they rejected a candidate?

Normally you just get a "thanks, but no thanks letter", but what if the candidate calls back? What if the candidate believes he was discriminated? Does the employer have at least to explain to some third party why he rejected a candidate?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 11:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Potentially. The best bet to get an explanation of why you (or whoever) was rejected for a role is to call and ask for some advice on how you could have been better - be it by having more experience, more clear evidence of your suitability etc. etc. Once your get into claims of discrimination then things get more in the realms of legal things, and usually on the ref-desk people don't speculate about the law. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

In America, I don't think there's any such requirement and by breaking down the specific reasons an employer chose not hire you, they open themselves up to potential litigation. In fact, I don't even think an employer is required to tell you that you have been rejected. Although, this may vary from place to place. Tomdobb (talk) 12:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

An exception is many government jobs, where they often have objective standards (level of education, GPA, scores in standardized tests). This is designed to protect those doing the hiring from charges of nepotism and discrimination. StuRat (talk) 15:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• I had a run of job interviews a while back and it is increasingly common for employers to not even let you know you have been rejected. It might not be legally required, but it's good manners to reward your candidates with a clear answer, even if it's just a simple "sorry, we picked someone else". - Mgm|^(talk) 13:44, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That makes good business sense though - you can never fully reject an applicant until the guy who beat him accepts the job and actually shows up to work on the first day. We recently had a guy accept a job with us - then he simply didn't turn up to work on the agreed day. We couldn't reach him by phone - and it was only by coincidence that we found that he'd accepted a job with a competitor. So you don't want to tell the 'losers' that they lost because you may need to give them the job after all - and nobody likes finding out that they were your second choice. Sure it's not so good for the people who don't make the cut - but that's life. SteveBaker (talk) 00:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

How many real reason are there for applicants really being rejected, and how many polite excuses could be presented? You possess the stated credentials for the job, but someone else had a)a better grade point average or b) graduated from a better school, or c) had better work experience, or d)is a friend or relative of someone in a position of power at the company, or e)you seemed like someone we would not want to work with, or f)you had bad table manners at the lunch, or g)you told a joke we found offensive or h)you got a wierd score on the psych test or i)your Facebook/Myspace page was offensive or or j)you were late for the interview, or k)your application was full of misspellings and bad grammar, or l)your credit rating is bad; If you can't manage your business, why would we let you manage ours? m)one of your references ratted you out, or n)you were one of N applicants who seemed like they would do fine, and we just picked one at random, unfortunately not you, or o)You lied on your resume about your education or experience, or p)you are fat or ugly, or q)you are too old, or r)you are the wrong race/national origin/religion or s)you are the wrong gender or t)you seem to be of the wrong sexual orientation. The employer would be unlikely to admit to p, q, r, s or t because you might sue them. On interview forms I have seen at a large company, there are ratings the interviewer can put down, but they are not usually conveyed back to the applicant. If the applicant has good communication skills, he should be able to tell from the tone of the questions what the interviewer sees as his strengths and weaknesses. Edison (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe that in the UK if they store any assessments or reasons on computer then you can put in a data protection request and they should reveal this. Certain organisations are exempt from data protection requests and they will remove any information pertaining to other people. -- Q Chris (talk) 16:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

A problem with giving a person a less than favourable review is that it opens the employer to a potential legal action. Thus references are always written in a positive light. The potential employer than has to "read between the lines" or, most usually, ring the ex-employer for a candid, non-attributable opinion.86.197.46.218 (talk) 16:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)DT

Normally, employers should take care when describing the requirements for a job, when colleges are fighting each other, and when promoting or dismissing people. Otherwise anti-discrimination laws won't avoid that a disabled black lesbian woman with children gets her job applications rejected one after the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 18:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that they're obliged to tell you, but it's considered good form to be able to tell a rejected candidate some things to improve upon if they want to be considered for similar positions should they ask. It's a good practive if you're just getting into the job market to follow up like that. If they won't tell you, then they probably just had someone more qualified, even if you matched the criteria. Steewi (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I have also heard/read possibly apocryphal stories of followup notes by rejected applicant finalists resulting in a job offer when the first choice fell through, e.g. the employer was so impressed by the tone of the "I'm sorry I was not selected for the position. I look forward to the opportunity to apply for other positions in your firm, and would appreciate any advice you could give me in being a more successful applicant" that they decided to offer it to that person rather than re-advertise and start from the beginning. Though I agree that employers don't have to tell any particular applicant anything.. - BanyanTree 08:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

True. But it's a bit of an odd development that candidates are these days often not informed even that they didn't get the job, let alone why. It's in line with applications not necessarily being acknowledged. This varies from place to place, of course, but there's certainly a strong trend in these directions. It's odd, because often a job requires an ability to interact with the general public or with customers/members/clients, in a courteous and professional manner, and one would have thought that the employers would model exactly the same courtesy to their prospective employees. But then, if I apply for a job and my application is not acknowledged, or I'm not informed of the outcome of the process, and I have to ring up and check these things myself, I figure they're not the professional organisation they claimed to be, and I wouldn't want to work for them anyway. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:28, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Live forever

Theoretically, how might a person go about trying to live forever? And I don't mean in photos or poetry. -jonty —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

See Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. --Tango (talk) 13:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

(After edit conflict.)

Live as healthily as you can, and hope for a scientific breakthrough before you die.

That's probably the best answer you're going to get, but Cryonics might also interest you. APL (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

There's always vampirism. Tomdobb (talk) 13:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• If you're particularly evil and don't mind killing people you could try Horcruxes (don't click the link if you don't want to know details about the ending of the Harry Potter series) - Mgm|^(talk) 13:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• Most biological components could eventually be replaced, but not the brain, for obvious reasons. I'd therefore say that moving your intelligence into a computer would be the only way to "live forever", as any biological system will eventually break down. Computers break down, too, but your intelligence could be backed up (and restored on another computer when needed). As already stated, staying healthy so you live long enough for this to be possible is also important, as is making enough money to afford it. StuRat (talk) 15:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

  Moving your conciousness to a new clone every so often would work too (a la the Asgard in Stargate). --Tango (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

In addition to living as healthily as possible and hoping for a scientific breakthrough, you yourself could become a scientist and try to help achieve said breakthrough. 65.167.146.130 (talk) 17:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If your talents don't lie in that direction, you could become a billionaire and hire scientists. —Tamfang (talk) 21:33, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the primary goals of some forms of Taoism is to discover the secrets to longevity and through it, eternal life. Many religions have a theory of eternal life, but most of them do not include life on this plane of existence. Steewi (talk) 00:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Or you could be reincarnated. Apparently everyone that believes they will be, is. And if you believe that, you can claim to believe in reincarnation, knowing that it will become true because you believe in it. 148.197.114.165 (talk) 19:14, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect behaivour or mailicious code?

Moved to computer desk

Other people finding out what my address.

Is there any way for other people to find out my home address if they have my full name and my landline phone number? Kim —Preceding unsigned comment added by Louisekim23 (talk • contribs) 18:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. You can slow them down by getting a mobile phone and not registering it to your home address, but if they are determined they can find out where it is at any moment. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 18:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're in the USA then just your landline phone number is enough, there are plenty of reverse number lookup services available online and whitepages etc. Nanonic (talk) 18:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the country, but in many countries such information is publically available. For example, the website White Pages has a "reverse lookup" feature, which allows you to learn a telephone subscriber's address from the name and phone number. If you don't want this information to be made public, consider getting a private listing, often called an "unlisted number". To do so, talk to your phone company. --Ericdn (talk) 18:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Often the landline phone number isn't even needed. Given a full name and a general location it is usually possible to track down the address (with sufficient effort). This doesn't necessarily apply for common names ("John Smith") or people who go out of their way to remain anonymous (no credit cards, public records, etc.). The biggest protection you are likely to have is that no one is particularly interested in tracking you down—if that is not true then you should be taking serious precautions with your information. – 74  18:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

While it probably still technically is possible to live one's life in an industrialized country these days without accumnulating public records, the question has to be asked: why? Extreme paranoia before the fact? Not only would remaining totally anonymous require quite a bit of work, but, especially outside the U.S., it might be next to impossible, if not illegal, in some places. --Ericdn (talk) 19:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. If no one is interested in violating my privacy, why should I worry about protecting privacy rights? – 74  19:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Certainly, things such as identity theft are cause for concern, but if one has to live in fear because of potential threats posed by people reverse-searching the White Pages, then society has crumbled more than my worst nightmares. --Ericdn (talk) 19:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe public reverse lookup phone directories are forbidden here in NZ by the privacy act Nil Einne (talk) 20:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

According to Reverse telephone directory#Australia, reverse directories are not allowed to be made public in Australia. Unfortunately, there's no information on the page about New Zealand (maybe you could add the information?), but, from what you just posted here, it looks like both New Zealand and Australia have similar laws in this regard. --Ericdn (talk) 20:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

On a hunch, I put my own landline phone number into Google and it gave me my name, address, etc. I am in the U.S. Tried it with my neighbor too, and his number worked as well. The Reader who Writes (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure it's safe to say it will work with each American (whether for other countries, I don't know) telephone subscriber who doesn't have an unlisted number. An interesting note - Google Russia doesn't have this feature, even for American numbers. Since Google automatically presents the country-appropriate version of its page based on IP address, I'm unable to access the American Google to see what the results look like for myself. --Ericdn (talk) 22:33, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't work for UK or German phone numbers (tried on the respective Google). BTW, google.com will redirect you. If you really want Google (US) then go to google.us (or google.ru/google.de/google.co.uk etc)195.128.250.247 (talk) 23:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada's Google doesn't work either. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 23:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but to me it seems as simple as looking in the White Pages (paper). Your name and number will pinpoint your entry, and there's your address. Unless it's unlisted, in which case you won't be in the book at all. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if you're unlisted, you're not invisible. There are databases that use public records such as license plate and voting registrations to match names to addresses. These are used by police, collections agencies, journalists and others who need to track people down. I'm talking about the U.S.; other countries may be different. But if you live in the U.S., it's very, very difficult to disappear. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Right! In fact, I just received my vehicle registration renewal notice and it has a box I would need to check to "opt-out" of the DMV making my information public. I live in Wisconsin and our progressive history tends to make lots of information freely available. Frankly, if you want to stretch things, there is everything a private detective can locate or what you could find using a public records search via the internet. In fact, the Wisconsin court system (and probably, that of other states) puts practically everything online that involves legal action (except that which is sealed by judicial order or involves minors).Brewfangrb (talk) 09:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

March 12

Human isolation

What's the longest time any person has spent without human contact? 86.8.176.85 (talk) 02:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It depends on exactly what you mean by human contact, but Simeon Stylites has to rank -- I have to say it -- right up there.

In more recent times, and more fully isolated too, there is Juana Maria. I've never heard of her story until I tried googling on "marooned", "alone", and "years" in response to this query, so thanks!

I was going to mention Hiroo Onoda as well, but on reading the article, I see that he wasn't actually alone for most of his time on the island. So I won't do that after all. --Anonymous, 03:55 UTC, March 12, 2009.

There's also the wide world of feral children, of which the most relevant examples would probably be the Cambodian jungle girl, Kaspar Hauser, Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc, and Oxana Malaya. I doubt any of them would win the "longest time without human contact" award, but some of them, at the time of their "discovery," had spent the majority of their lives without human contact. Theoretically, the award would probably go to one of the many Christian hermits who booked solo desert vacations back in the early days of Christianity. Some of the more famous ones are Mary of Egypt, John of Egypt, and Anthony the Great, but the hermity-est hermits may be Barsanuphius of Palestine, who allegedly spent 50 years in seclusion, and Onuphrius, who claimed 70. The problem with the stories of the early saints is that it's hard to differentiate fact from legend. Additionally, many hermits were actively sought out by pilgrims (a la Stylites), so not all of them were actually devoid of human interaction. --Fullobeans (talk) 05:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Longest time alone? Possibly some castaways, see Category:Castaways. Out of touch with humanity? Bush and Blair. Cheap shot, I know. BrainyBabe (talk) 06:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous mentioned one, but there were other Japanese holdouts after World War Two. Teruo Nakamura seems to have lived on his own from 1956 to 1974, though he may have had contact with other people (he left another small group of Japanese). --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

basics

wat r the basics for autocad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wwffww (talk • contribs) 09:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Some promising google hits. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Lots of time spent learning. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Looping sounds

Whenever a sound loops quickly, I feel... weird, like I'm panicking. Does anyone know what this effect is called? To make a sound loop, play a piece of music and (if you're on Vista) suspend audiodg.exe. The audio buffer won't refill and you'll get a looping sound. Or, get a scratched CD and play it - it will loop. --wj32 ^t/c 10:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

People have varying degrees of being affected by repeated stimuli. That ranges from no effect to pleasure all the way to migraine or seizure on the far end of the spectrum. The effect is more pronounced/better studied for light effects. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolution (music) might be of interest. --Fullobeans (talk) 17:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

history

dear sir

i would like to know the following: we always talk about the roman empire and then we think of them as italians. but if you read your articles there is a big or overwhelming greek influence in the roman empire. could you please clarify the matter how does the greeks fit into tne roman empire.

thank you

edwin de jongh —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hajlom (talk • contribs) 11:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a vast amount of material on Wikipedia related to the Roman empire. Indeed, so much it's hard to know where to start. The influence of Greece was huge, particularly in the cultural sphere. The Romans were greatly impressed by the civilisation of Classical Greece, with its art, literature, and rhetoric providing models for Roman culture, and its science and philosophy crucial to Roman thought. You could look at Education in Ancient Rome, Roman art, Roman Empire#Culture, Rhetoric#The History of Rhetoric in Western Civilization, Culture of ancient Rome, History of science in Classical Antiquity#Roman Empire, Latin literature, Koine Greek, Roman Greece, Byzantine Greece, Byzantine Empire. Are you interested in the Greek influence in a particular field (e.g. in Roman art, politics, science, society, language, culture, education, historiography...)? --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Classical antiquity might be a good place to start, providing a quick overview of how the chronology of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome fits together. Warofdreams talk 15:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Just as a point of interest the Romans were not Italian. Italy was only formed in the late 19th century largely due to a "freedom fighter" called Garibaldi.90.9.213.74 (talk) 15:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)DT

"Italy" doesn't just mean "the modern country of Italy", it also refers to the Italian Peninsula, the Italian Language, and the native peoples of the area, collectively the Italians. The term English "Italian" dates to c.1400 (ref), hundreds of years before the foundation of the country of Italy. Its Latin cognate Italic dates "from the historic period before the Roman Empire." So it's perfectly reasonable (if a bit imprecise) to call the inhabitants of ancient Rome "italian"; "italic" would be marginally clearer. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 16:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

It's also probably obvious, but possibly worth mentioning, that if you dropped a bunch of modern Italians in the Wayback Machine and sent them to Ancient Rome, they'd have about as much in common with the residents as a horseshoe has with a cockatoo. They might have similar noses, though. -- Fullobeans (talk) 17:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The Romans were the ancestors of most modern-day Italians, and they referred to their country as Italia, just as modern Italians do, though at the time Italia was a province of the Roman Empire rather than an independent country. Maltelauridsbrigge pointed out some of the important connections between Greek culture and the Roman Empire. One other thing to point out is that, while Latin was the main language of business and government in the western part of the Roman Empire (including Italy), Greek was the language of business and government of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, which was the wealthier part of the Empire. The culture of the eastern empire was thoroughly Hellenistic. So you could speak of the Greco-Roman Empire. Marco polo (talk) 00:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Conventions

Hi I'm thinking of going to this convention in April. This would be my first convention, but I am a really shy person and I would like some advice on what it will be like, I'll be going alone. What is the general atmosphere of these conventions? Are they crowded with lots of people or is it a very open and free kind of event. Are photographs usually allowed? How long are signing sessions do you get to spend with each star? Thank you for your help.

Photographs: it varies - some restrict photos to certain times (to avoid annoying flashing during speeches), some altogether (so they can sell you photos). Shyness: it's a SF convention, not a Vogue afterparty - you'll be pleasantly surprised at how high up the social-functioning scale you'll be. Is it crowded: that just depends on how well it sells; I would think anything with Summer Glau appearing in it is likely to be popular. Signing sessions: it varies; they try to gauge how popular a given person will be (see my earlier about Summer Glau) and set the time accordingly (some stars are happier than others to do lengthy signing/photo/smalltalk sessions). How long with star: at the signing thing you'll get a minute maybe. Some celebs (mostly the redshirt type you have to pretend to remember) will mix at the bar afterward; I expect they'll just put Summer Glau back into her cryogenic tank afterward, so probably not her :) 87.115.143.223 (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The couple I've been to have been fairly crowded - lots of VERY friendly people. It's easy to chat with them because right at the outset, you know you have at least one thing in common (whatever the subject of the convention is) - and you have the perfect opener for conversations ("Soooo....Which movie/episode/character did you like best/least/first?", "Did you get any autographs yet?", etc). So even a shy person can have fun. I'm not much one for collecting photos or autographs - so I don't know about that part. SteveBaker (talk) 18:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Can't tell you about your particular convention. One piece of advice though: wear very comfortable shoes and clothing. If you go autograph hunting you might have to stand in line for a couple of hours. That "killer outfit" may start feeling as though it's going to kill you. Also, think of one question you most want to have answered. Write down a keyword for it on a card and keep that in your pocket. That way you won't be as likely to forget it if you get the jitters. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 08:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Another tip: if you're lucky enough to get to spend any time smalltalking with the stars, don't just come out with something banal like how much you love their work, what your favourite film of theirs is, and so on. They hear that stuff literally all day long. Try and ask them something off-the-wall that will engage their interest, preferably something that has nothing at all to do with their work. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, I had a quick look at that website and was struck by the fact that they're selling a "gold ticket" for the not insubstantial sum of £150, and regular tickets for "only" £78. But nowhere on the site does it explain what you get for the additional £72. Be careful before you part with your money. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

prepaid credit card

In the UK can prepaid credit cards be bought in the shops without giving any address details or anything, just paying the money and receiving the card? 194.80.240.66 (talk) 12:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

as far as I am aware yes. Certainly the ones that I've seen advertised (a popular UK radio show that talks about all things sport was advertising their own recently) seem to give the impression that no address was required - the above mentionned radio advert cheekily advertised their card as a way of keeping your mistress secret from your wife as there would be no communcation or statements sent to your home address, and no credit checks made in order to open it... This would be due to there being no risk to them as you can't physically spend what isn't on the card, and thus it is not a form of borrowing... Gazhiley (talk) 13:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

You would usually have to give an address to the company that your phone number is registered with/you bought your phone from, though. It's just that they won't mail statements. The prepaid cards you can then buy at a store like a pack of chewing gum. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 14:37, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

really? why would they need to know where your phone is registered? And what has your phone number got to do with buying a prepaid card? I'm not trying to be awkward just don't understand the need for it... Gazhiley (talk) 14:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I think they may be confusing pre-paid credit cards with mobile phone top-up cards/vouchers. Nanonic (talk) 15:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops. Yes, misread it. Cold didn't just make my head only feel like a bag stuffed full of straw. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 04:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

In primitive olden days, when people used to earn money before spending it (how delightfully quaint!), there used to be something similar to a pre-paid credit card. Our ancient forefathers used to call it cash. 88.112.63.253 (talk) 06:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have heard of this cash and once went to the trouble to obtain some. In the process of completing a purchase from an online retailer named after a former rainforest, I tried inserting the cash into various of my computer's orifices. Alas, the cash did not work as well as I had been led to believe. BrainyBabe (talk) 07:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

God damn modern technology... I remember the days when you could insert cash into a computer, but now the cash drive has been replaced by bluetooth, usb pens, wifi etc... how I long for the good old days... ;-) Gazhiley (talk) 09:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah! I fully understand your confusion. Computers still use cash - it's just spelled cache in these modern times. If you are using it online - you'll be needing web cache instead. Anyway - if this still confuses you, just fold up some of your bigger cache items - pop them off to me in an envelope and I'll be happy to deal with them for you. SteveBaker (talk) 11:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I am happy with POP, but I am not sure what this "enevelope" is - some sort of container, maybe ? Gandalf61 (talk) 13:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

March 13

Friday the 13th superstition around the world

Which countries around the world have the superstition around Friday the 13th? The article mentions some countries, such as the US, UK and Netherlands. I'd be interested to know if it has a foothold in Africa, Asia, South America... --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Triskaidekaphobia has some info on fear of the number 13 in general. There was an episode of "Stuff You Should Know" from How Stuff Works that aired around Feb 13 that was fairly informative (don't have a link, sorry). Tomdobb (talk) 13:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Abdication letter.

I was looking at this letter - it was posted with an unrelated question over on the computing desk (someone wanted to know what font it was written in, of all things!). It's the letter used by King Edward of Britain, abdicating the throne. A resignation letter, if you like - but from one of the most important jobs in the world at the time.

I'm struck by how...um...scruffy it is...for such an earth-shattering document. Just a regular sheet of headed notepaper with nothing more than a crest on the top - typewritten and signed. I'm surprised it's not on some kind of fancy parchment, hand written in gorgeous calligraphy with a big wax seal and ribbons and such. Was it done in some terrible hurry - or in a place where such niceities would have been unavailable?

Secondly - if you actually read it - he goes to some pains to explain that he's not only resigning his own claim to the throne - but also that of all his descendents - in perpetuity! That's not very nice! Did he even have the right to do that? (Well, evidently so because at the moment he signed it, he was the king - but it seems wrong to me). I recall that he abdicated 'in favor of his brother' - but did that cut someone else out of a shot at the throne? Weren't they just the teensiest bit upset about that?

SteveBaker (talk) 12:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Edward didn't have the right to abdicate for himself, let alone for his descendents. The succession to the British crown is controlled by the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707, and can only be altered by further act of parliament. The Statute of Westminster 1931 extended this requirement to a requirement that the act be passed by all commonwealth parliaments. Thus from a legal point of view that letter was just Edward's request that the UK parliament pass His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 (and other parliaments pass similar acts). I assume this is why the letter is worded as a declaration of determination and desire rather than as an executive order.

In any case, Edward had no children at the time of his abdication or later, so this never became much of an issue. Algebraist 12:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)Nope, he didn't "cut someone else out of a shot at the throne"...his younger brother Albert (George VI) was the next in line to the throne. References to his brother were probably to end any rumours that the Duke of York (Prince Albert) should be skipped due to incompatability (he had a stammer). The letter is indeed rather "scruffy" however bear in mind that the entire Instrument of Abdication (the "letter") was not legally binding. Edward remained the monarch until he gave his royal assent to the Declaration of Abdication act of 1936. The Instrument of Abdication is really only hot air but you have to remember abdication has no precedent in the United Kingdom. Another thing that sticks in my mind is the fact that the younger brothers also signed. This also indicated their acceptance of Albert assuming the throne. Also, the document was signed at Fort Belvedere and not Buckingham Palace (Interesting side note: The calligraphers at Buckingham have been made redundant as of the year 2000! Knighthoods are now printed!). Edward's descendants had to be excluded or they could have (at some later point) claimed to be the rightful monarchs... As you rightly said, Edward couldn't resign his descendants claim to the throne by merely by signing the Instrument of Abdication. Parliament included this condition in section three of the Abdication Act (see here). Hope that helped, ;) --Cameron* 13:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree that the younger brothers "indicated their acceptance of Albert assuming the throne" by signing the Instrument, as the question of the immediate succession is not mentioned in it. According to the text of the Instrument they are merely signing as witnesses. In general I suppose the main reason for excluding his own descendants from future succession is to prevent the possibility of someone turning later to claim the throne, say on the death of George VI. After all, Edward was (presumably) still perfectly capable of producing offspring in the future, even if not through Wallis. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(back to the first, scruffiness, question) - I don't think anyone is proud of this kind of instrument, so they just get the job done in a workmanlike fashion and move along. Compared with Nixon's resignation letter, Eddie's letter is positively gushing. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Her Majesty's reduced circumstances

Have any recent British monarchs publicly discussed their opinions on not having any of the power they would have had in earlier times? --Sean 13:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There haven't really been any "recent monarchs": there is the current one, Her Maj, and the previous chappie, who died almost 60 years ago, when the world was a different place. If you mean the former, ask for her by name or title; if you mean the latter, he was Emperor of India and King of Ireland (!!!) and a lot has changed since then. But British monarchs have been having their powers curtailed since that nasty King John upset the barons, and they had to have a picnic on the Thames to sort it all out. If they got too uppity, they ran the risk of losing their heads. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

prepaid (anonymous) credit card II

How can it be possible that in some country repeatedly assaulted by terrorism (UK, US or whatever), is it still possible to have anonymous funds? Isn't it a huge security flaw? --Mr.K. (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is, but remember that you still need to have bought the prepaid card in the first place. To make the card really useful, the potential terrorist would need to have a substantial fund on the card which would need to have come from somewhere. Also, since prepaid cards are usually aimed at people who have difficulty getting credit and usually have an upper limit, trying to buy a prepaid card with £10,000 on it is bound to bring unwelcome attention. Astronaut (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How is it any more of a security risk than cash itself? --140.247.250.160 (talk) 19:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Please help..ANYBODY

How and where do i find the information about the people who fled Burma (now Myanmar), to be precise Rangoon the capital during the aerial raids in the second world war, as i did try everywhere to find some information about my Grand parents during that time...Anyone?please help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 17:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Operation Dracula gives some background. Rmhermen (talk) 18:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Herman but did they have any kind of attendence or counting system of the people registered and where they were deported by the occupying british army.???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 18:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have that the wrong way around. Burma was a British colony that was captured and occupied by the Japanese. The British recaptured it only near the end of the war. Our articles on Operation Dracula, Burma Campaign and Japanese conquest of Burma do not discuss bombing of the city. The Yangon article simply says "Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II." Most of this damage appears to have been from when the British burnt the city port and oil terminal when they retreated from the Japanese attack. The city was retaken from the Japanese by the British forces without much fighting. Rmhermen (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

forgive my ignorance though the main question does remain unanswered.Thanks again mate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 18:29, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure that Rangoon faced an heavy bombing campaign like many German or Japanese cities. There was a Japanese air raid directed at the dockyards during their attack which killed 2000 civilians, many of whom had come out to watch it[31], there is a mention of a Allied air raid on the docks on 8th November 1943 which destroyed an important pagoda and an Allied air attack on Japanese positions south of the city during the British recapture which accidently killed some of their own paratroopers. This link gives a personal history and mentions some refugees from Burma who fled the Japanese. [This link mentions the flood of refugees who fled the Japanese attack, leaving the city mainly empty when they arrived. Certainly not an orderly process. Were your grandparents Burmese or Europeans or Chinese or Japanese? Would they have fled the city to the Japanese side (Japanese during the British recapture or some Burmese during the Japanese capture) or to the British side (Europeans, some Chinese? and some Burmese during the Japanese capture - many of whom would have tried to get to India) Some Chinese troops retreated to India and later tried to get back to China with high casualty rates. Rmhermen (talk) 18:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." - Benjamin Franklin

I've no idea if it was correct in Benjamin's time but is it now? AFAIK in today's society you get absolutely nothing even if theoretically you knew absolutely everything. It's all a bureaucratic process that holds formality over reality. Am I correct or not? Is the quote applicable or not? 94.196.142.45 (talk) 18:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It depends. Applicable knowledge is valuable. Inapplicable knowledge is of questionable value. Bus stop (talk) 18:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Scottish Prime Minister

I was wondering, does anyone know who the first Scottish Prime Minister of the UK was? I assume it can't be Gordon Brown, but can't think of anyone else... How about other PMs born outside England? Have their been any born outside the British Isles? TastyCakes (talk) 19:17, 13 March 2009 (UTC)