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September 5

Best methods for maintaining health of feline teeth?

Considering the advance of technology, I'm wondering what the best home methods of maintaining the health of feline teeth might be at the present time. I know there is a finger brush, etc. Is it best to just let the vet deal with it? Viriditas (talk) 03:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly easier. I think they sedate the cat while they're doing it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:50, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

One can get (at least around here in Poland) specially-composed edible chew toys (in shapes of bones or such) the compounds in which help to cleen the feline teeth. Ask at your local pet store or ask your vet. --Ouro (blah blah) 05:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Asking your vet is the best advice provided so far. I would hope that you see a vet whose opinion you trust, so theirs would be the best for you. I recently asked my own vet a similar question. From what I understood, dry food was better since it kept the cats using their teeth by chewing their food. But he said that there was some research that suggested that dry food stuck to cats teeth more and therefore caused more problems due to bacteria being given a home. Dismas|^(talk) 07:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There are proprietary products that claim to help with cats' dental hygiene. This, for example, is a product I have used with our cats; it claims to help keep cats' teeth clean as they eat it, through its texture and shape. NB: this is a link to the manufacturer's website; I can offer no opinion on the claims it makes, and there are probably other products out there that claim to do the same thing if you look. All I can say is that our cats eat them happily when they are offered, so they probably taste OK. Your vet will be able to advise you on what's best for your own cats' teeth, as others have said above. Karenjc 10:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

A web search finds this online guide to cat teeth care. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There are also varieties of dry cat food available commercially that purport to help clean feline teeth. Typically they are formed in largish kibbles and contain a higher than average proportion of vegetable fiber. Several brands are available. My cats like them, but I have not performed any controlled experiments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.21 (talk) 17:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Buttermilk vs yogurt

what is the difference between buttermilk & yogurt and their usage —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.8.252 (talk) 10:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

See buttermilk and yogurt. They are quite different. Dismas|^(talk) 10:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

two-way radio

With two-way radios that are free and don't need a license, like Citizens Band, is there any limits on how long you can broadcast on a channel for, or could you clog up say channel 37 indefinitely? (obviously only in the area where you are using it, not global or whatever) 82.44.55.25 (talk) 12:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article about Citizens' band radio. Radio regulations vary from country to country so we cannot comment specifically without knowing your locality (the UK ?). All regulators may prosecute where excessive transmit power, off channel or interference with other services are reported. Excessive occupation of a frequency would sooner or later lead to complaints from other users. That would constitute interference which might lead to legal action. I don't know of any prescribed usage time limit, but continuous broadcasting is obviously not a permitted "two-way" use. (The article Citizens Band radio in India describes specific local frequency allocations.) Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Tomato Ketchup

Does Heinz ever sell the other 57 varieties? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SoMinxy! (talk • contribs) 20:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's article on Heinz 57, the '57' was chosen for promotional reasons- Heinz was already selling more than 60 different products when they put the '57' on its labels, -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. See snopes.com. --ColinFine (talk) 20:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Plus, they didn't mean 57 varieties of ketchup. It was more like 57 varieties of soup and other products. But as other have pointed out, there never was an explicit list of 57 varieties. SteveBaker (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I always thought it was 57 varieties of tomato that went into the ketchup... until I read snopes a few years ago. -- WORMMЯOW  10:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

September 6

Cake flour vs. self-rising

I got a recipe that calls for the use cake flour, and I honestly thought I had it on hand, but it turns out that I only have the self-rising variety. The store that is within reasonable walking distance from me is now closed, so I can't exactly go out and buy cake flour right now, and I don't want to postpone making the buckle until the next day. So if I decide to use self-rising flour as a substitute for cake flour, will the results be disastrous? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 00:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Not when eaten hot. Perhaps you should not put in the baking powder,to compensate? --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

But when it cools down, will it turn into an inedible consistency, like a rock or something? Also, there's an inconsistency with the recipe, how do you add "approximately 3/4 cup" of "5 1/4 ounces sugar"? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 01:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it's more likely to be crumbly than like a rock. Really, you have to try it & report back. Looking at Cup (unit)#Using volume measures to estimate mass, 3/4 of a cup and 5.25 ounces are roughly the same (i.e. they're giving you two alternatives: weigh the sugar or measure it in a cup). --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Reading this, self-raising flour is (or can be) plain flour with 2% - 5% baking powder added. As I suggested above, just exclude the baking powder from the recipe and they'll probably be fine. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Hopefully all will turn out well... 24.189.87.160 (talk) 01:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Cake flour, traditionally, is rather finer than other types of flour, and the texture may differ slightly as a result, but I am not inclined to anticipate any catastrophy arising from this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.21 (talk) 18:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The recipe panned out exactly as it should, so it turns out that self-rising flour is an acceptable substitute. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 00:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Generally, cake flour is only specified as not being bread flour. Bread flour is 'strong' flour, higher in gluten than cake flour. That can impact the texture, and high-gluten flour can also be less flavoursome than low-gluten flour (apparently). Self-raising flour is cake flour, with raising agent. Plain flour is also cake flour, but without raising agent. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 13:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I have never used anything other than self-raising flour in my cakes. I've always just followed my Be-ro cook book which states self-raising (http://www.be-ro.com/f_insp.htm) - the brand is something of a classic brand in the Uk. ny156uk (talk) 20:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

French commemorative medal.

I have come across a family owned medal with no knowledge of origin. Family has french heritage with service in 1914-18 war. Wording on medal as follows: Raised relief of Louis XV - "LUD.XV.REX.CHRISTIANISS" Reverse side - "ET HABET SUA CASTRA DIANA" with year "MDCCXXV". Considering its condition it would certainly have been struck during 20th century. Can anyone provide reason for medal and likely recipients114.78.95.127 (talk) 08:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The obverse text could be taken from Ovid. Militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra Cupido "Every lover serves as a soldier, and Cupid has his own camp". (Amores 1.9[1]. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The medal was created for Louis XV in 1725, because he liked to hunt as a youth (Diana was the Roman goddess of hunting). Assuming that you don't have the original, it must be a replica, not issued for anything in particular (except to make a bit of money off of people who like to buy historical replicas, presumably). There are other replicas for sale on Ebay and such. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

gasoline drill

How many holes can I do with a tanked up drill to knock in mountaineering spits?--217.194.34.103 (talk) 10:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC) t.i.a.

I think that'll depend on the size of the drill you're using (petrol capacity, rate of fuel consumption), the hardness of the rock you're drilling, and the sharpness of the drill bit. So. anything from 0 to many. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Could you not just bring extra fuel in a Jerrycan ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.167.165.2 (talk) 05:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

If everyone lies...

...who is a liar?--Quest09 (talk) 13:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Everyone. Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 13:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

For further information, see the Scott Adams book, The Way of the Weasel, in which he postulates that everyone lies to everyone, especially to themselves. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

And lie detection gets even more difficult when that happens. Wikiscient (talk) 17:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up: But, what is the purpose of having a word for something that everyone is? What does it mean then to say that "John is a liar"? And why woman say men are all liars, if they are liars too? And why is lying despicable, if everyone does it? --Quest09 (talk) 11:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Everybody lies, but that doesn't mean that everyone lies for the same reasons or to the same extent. Similarly, (nearly) everybody uses drugs, writes, and runs, but not everyone gets labelled a "drug user" or "writer" or "runner" because using those labels means something different than the bare words. See connotation and denotation. Matt Deres (talk) 13:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Orientation of items in dishwashers

Until late last month, I'd never lived in a house with a dishwasher, so I'm rather unfamiliar with some aspects of using it. Why do we always place silverware handle-down, with the business end protruding upward? I do it because I've seen others do it, but I can't see how its orientation makes a difference to the silverware. Note that our dishwasher article says nothing on the subject. Nyttend (talk) 14:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

You get more cutlery in that way. And the business ends are up and out of the basket so that they are thoroughly washed. By the way, it is a good idea to rinse plates, etc.. Helps to prevent rubbish build-up within the machine.95.176.67.194 (talk) 14:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It also means that any liquid residue left on the silverware after the rinse cycle will tend to flow down onto the handle, away from the business end of the cutlery. In a poorly-designed silverware basket, the cutlery may also be left in contact with a small amount of standing liquid at the bottom of the basket, and leaving the pointy end of forks down may cause them to become wedged or jammed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

However, there are also arguments against leaving the pointy end uppermost. [2], [3], [4]. Karenjc 16:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

For larger knives, especially in a dishwasher which isn't completely full, you can compromise by resting them horizontally on a different part of the rack rather than in the little basket. They'll clean as well, but there's much less danger of this sort of accident. Shimgray | talk | 17:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Safety issues aside, I would recommend strongly against using the dishwasher for kitchen knives in any case. Pointy end up or down, one risks the blade striking other items (cutlery or dishes) nicking and dulling the blade. Many types of knife handle don't tolerate long water exposure/immersion and high temperatures well, and repeated trips through the dishwasher may loosen the handle, or open cracks in which microbes can become trapped. As well, a sharp blade may damage protective plastic coatings on the dishwasher's internal metal fittings. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It does depend somewhat on the dishwasher and the nature of the cutlery basket, too. My old dishwasher had a basket with particularly sparse edges, and actually recommended that cutlery should be put in point-up and point-down in roughly equal proportions for the best washing performance. My current dishwasher, conversely, has inbuilt handle-sized holes in the lid of the basket, leaving you no option but to put everything in handle first as it won't fit the other way. ~ mazca ^talk 17:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The benefit to the holes is that they enforce spacing between items, which can be a problem with a normal basket - if you put a handful of spoons or forks of the same pattern in, they're liable to clump together, meaning that the inside "layers" don't wash well. (Handle-down also helps here, in that it's easier to check they're distributed.) Shimgray | talk | 17:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't own a dishwasher, but when I place cutlery on a drying rack I always put it pointy side down. Partially because that's the way my mother taught me and partly out of an ingrained learned instinct not to have a blade pointing outwards, or even visible, when not in use. APL (talk) 19:50, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, of course, snopes has this covered. APL (talk) 19:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I actually read the instruction manual of the new dishwasher we recently acquired, and it said business end down, and don't rinse plates. HiLo48 (talk) 21:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Some of our smaller knives will fit through the holes in the cutlery basket of our current dishwasher, so they have to go in sharp end up, even though it's a bit dangerous. What's best really depends on your particular dishwasher and your particular cutlery. --Anonymous, 05:35 UTC, September 7, 2010.

My mother's dishwasher has a basket for utensils which makes them lie horizontally instead of vertically. I am thinking now, maybe this might be dangerous and could cause them to dislocate during washing, I had never thought about this before. For normal washing (as I do not own a dishwasher myself either) I place the utensils pointy/spoony end up to dry, because the bottom of my dryer unit tends to gather grime sometimes. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Pretentious

What is considered the most pretentious film ever? With this logic (talk) 20:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that AFI has done a list of 'most pretentious films,' and I searched for "Most pretentious film" and found lots of message boards discussing the subject, but didn't find any film authorities weighing in. There is some general consensus on the best film (Citizen Kane), and the worst film (Plan Nine from Outer Space), but I can't find any good source for a consensus on this question. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The Green Berets (film). Vets walk out of showings and demanded their money back.--Aspro (talk) 20:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Citizen Kane over Casablanca and Vertigo? That's pretty silly. Citizen Kane is one of the best substitutes for a sleeping pill you're likely to find on the big screen. --Trovatore (talk) 20:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Thinks.... confused pretentious with the pretentious of subject matter dealt with by some films ....William Randolph Hearst for example. The film itself was not protentious. --Aspro (talk) 21:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Trovatore, the fact is that Citizen Kane has been showing up in "Best Films of All Time"-type lists forever. You may not agree that it's all that great. But here is not the place to have a discussion about it. Firstly, nothing would change. But more importantly, it's completely irrelevant to the OP's question. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

And neither is your comment because the OP Q is not about greatness but pretentiousness. Born on the Fourth of July (film) was a good antithises --Aspro (talk) 21:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

My vote is for Woody Allen's Interiors. Looie496 (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

People stopped going to the movies in the 70s when a lot of films were like that. 92.28.248.94 (talk) 00:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you guys haven't even touched the surface of pretentiousness. How about My Dinner With Andre, which makes any Woody Allen film look like the Three Stooges? Nothing gets worse than two guys with unlistenable accents chatting over dinner for 2 hours. Andre Gregory: "That reminds me of the time we all decided to perform Hamlet with our bodies smeared with butter". Wallace Shawn: "Oh, that sounds interesting, tell me more." Imagine that for 2 hourse. Unwatchable.--Jayron32 04:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Siskel & Ebert liked it. In fact, if not for them, probably nobody would ever have heard of it. Although it also fit Hitchcock's axiom: "Two people sitting around a table talking is not a movie. Now, if there's a bomb under the table, that's a movie." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course in the Hitchcock version you'd first learn some hint about the bomb about half an hour into the movie, and it'd be another half hour before that hint crystallized into an actual bomb. Hitchcock movies moved like cold molasses. In a few cases, like Vertigo, the payoff was spectacular. But for lots of others — like, say, The Wrong Man, there was really never any payoff to speak of. (Admittedly it's a little unfair to pick on The Wrong Man because it had the almost insuperable handicap of being true, but it's not the only one in the never-pays-off category, just the one I've seen most recently.) --Trovatore (talk) 06:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That's because Hitchcock movies spent time on such worthless endeavours as character development and plot. Now that our brains have been poisoned by the likes of Michael Bay and Joel Schumacher to believe that any film that doesn't have shit blowing up in slow motion around Nicholas Cage and Bruce Willis to be unwatchable; but there was once a time when people actually watched movies because they cared about the characters in them. --Jayron32 06:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm just saying, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. A lot of the really great movies do start a little slow. But so do some really dull ones.

I was appalled, not that long ago, to find that the critics' response to one of my all-time greats, Blade Runner, was that it was too slow. That was ludicrous; it wasn't slow, it was stately.

On the other hand, 2001: A Space Odyssey was just slow. --Trovatore (talk) 06:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least one notorious film authority called that one pretentious. John Simon in The New Leader, 1968: "... a kind of space-Spartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story."(rogerebert.com) ---Sluzzelin talk 06:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

No opinion; I haven't seen it in too long. I don't usually re-watch films that I think are boring. Maybe it would be worth running the experiment — I didn't like Brazil the first time, and now it's one of my favorites. But the reason that I didn't like it the first time was that I thought it was disturbing; I think disturbing changes to interesting more readily than boring does. --Trovatore (talk) 06:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh hey, how about The Breakfast Club as most pretentious? Don't know if the critics have said that, but it works for me. --Trovatore (talk) 07:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the subjectivity of this question, the ambiguity of the term pretentious makes it a very difficult question to even discuss among ourselves (which we shouldn't be doing anyway). Naming My Dinner with André, is an example of directing the word "pretentious" against a certain stereotype of navel-gazing intellectualism. With Interiors, it is also the pretentiousness of trying to be like Ingmar Bergman. While searching a bit, I saw The Passion of the Christ being labeled as pretentious. A completely different type of pompous puffery. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and The Breakfast Club is still another sort. Its populism is its affectation. --Trovatore (talk) 07:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

(Actually, now that I look at it again, I shouldn't have started the sentence with "Yes" — I don't really think that about The Passion of the Christ. I don't know that I'll ever see it again, but I think it was sincere.) --Trovatore (talk) 07:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Aha! There you go! My personal usage of pretentious needn't imply insincerity. Making a sincerely felt claim to undeserved importance can come across as pretentious (and so can having the dialogue spoken in Aramaic). ---Sluzzelin talk 07:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The Aramaic was one of the main reasons I went to see the film. I thought it was an audacious choice and wanted to see it done. Unfortunately I didn't think the actors came across natural when speaking it. On the other hand the Italians that he got to play Romans sounded totally natural, at the expense of anachronistically speaking Church Latin. --Trovatore (talk) 07:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ed Wood's efforts were totally sincere, yet also pretentious, in that he thought they were much better than they were at conveying some kind of social message. You don't have to be on a mega-budget to be pretentious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think I disagree that you can be sincere but pretentious. I certainly do agree you don't need huge production values. (By the way, on the subject of Wood, Plan 9 gets a worse rap than it deserves; it actually does have a couple of interesting things to say, despite the amateurish execution.) --Trovatore (talk) 07:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I've seen worse movies than Plan 9. Wood himself made one or two of them. In fact, the colorized version of Plan 9 is an improvement. You can actually compare the extremely bare bones of his stories with the extremely bare bones of classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still and realize that the difference is in little details like script, acting, direction, and budget. Defining what "pretentious" really means is where this gets slippery. You can go down a checklist of production values as to why a movie is inferior (and Plan 9 has a very long list), but it's harder to do that with "pretentiousness", because there's so much opinion and personal preference involved. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

This subject could perhaps be a section within List of films considered the worst, or perhaps there's enough material for a companion article, List of films considered the most pretentious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Intolerance (film) was widely considered the most ambitious, and possibly pretentious film of its era. Acroterion _(talk) 14:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sluzzelin's got it right. OP needs to define pretentious or else this is just yet another request for opinions, something that we (used to) not do here on the ref desk. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Why does OP need to define it? Go look at a dictionary http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pretentious 124.37.178.244 (talk) 13:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

We've never not done it. It's a pious commonplace, never actually observed. --Trovatore (talk) 08:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, and I haven't done it. But it seems recently that the disclaimer is being blatantly ignored by more and more editors. For those that perhaps haven't noticed it, I will repeat it here: "The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events. Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead.". --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

People are eager to answer questions that are really unanswerable. My guess is that The Green Berets might well be the answer. But as I noted earlier, you can call a movie "worst" based on a checklist of production values; but to call a movie "pretentious" is largely a matter of opinion. I doubt that an internet forum will do anything but provide more opinions. To create an article List of most pretentious films would be difficult to source. You'd have to use a lot of OR just to figure "whose opinion matters". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I may have one correct answer to the OP's question. Mindwalk (1990), is generally criticized as pretentious, even though I don't think it is. However, it appears many disagree, as it has never been released on DVD. Viriditas (talk) 09:32, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The films of Joan Collins would be the place to look. 92.15.20.52 (talk) 17:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

astronauts

what have they not sent anyone to the moon for so long? would it be right to call a shuttle astronaut names for not having been to the moon? Isn't the moon more dangerous? Would they ever put soemone on mars? Is it that the shuttle isnt as good as the saturn five or are they just not able to go to the moon any more? Mocteau (talk) 22:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The Apollo program article presumably would get into more detail, but the bottom line was "the bottom line" - namely, that there was no further interest in public funding of manned missions to the moon. The final three Apollo launches were cancelled, and the government space agencies used the information it had gained from the moon programs to go forward with the earth-centric shuttles and space stations, and robotic explorers to other planets. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

{ec}I think the view being taken is, "been there, done that, got the t-shirt". It costs less to travel to & hang out in the space station than on the lunar surface, and NASA does not have limitless resources. Comparing just these two things, it is far far far far far more sensible to play space station games than lunar landing games. In other news, you should not call anyone names; not big, not clever. Shuttle versus Saturn V is an apples & pears comparison; mostly unhelpful. "They" could go the the moon if they wanted. It's just that they mostly (and with one eye on the budget) don't. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:36, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

That's pretty much it. If you're old enough to recall the space program, once we actually accomplished a few moon landings, it started to become old news and public support plummetted. "We beat the Rooskies", that was the main thing, and then the public said, "Now let's spend our money on useful stuff." Like the Vietnam War. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I hope that last part about the Vietnam War being "useful" was trolling. 95.93.28.118 (talk) 23:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It was irony, and the moon landings were one of the Vietnam War casualties, although there was really a sense that there was nothing else to do on the moon at that time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Moon landings are expensive and logistically demanding and space travel is inherently dangerous. If we discover valuable resources on the moon that are rare on earth we may be able to justify the cost, expense and danger. Exxolon (talk) 02:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The danger is not a good argument at all. Is there anyone here who wouldn't go to the Moon given a 90% chance of coming back safe? --Trovatore (talk) 03:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The real issue is that you are now confusing Space tourism with actual space-based scientific and commercial activities. It turns out that almost anything we could do in space is cheaper, easier, and less dangerous when done by unmanned probes. As technology has progressed, we no longer need to send someone to, say, Mars or the Moon to bring back a chunk of rock to study on earth. We don't even need to bring the chunk back to earth, modern probes are equipped with rather sophisticated equipment which can do all of the necessary analyses on site. What activity beyond "just going for the sake of going" could a human do, at this point, which cannot already be done by unmanned probes (which don't need food, water, entertainment, etc.)? Some of the research going on at the ISS, in terms of long-term survivability of people in space, growing food at zero G, etc. may be useful for future colonization, but as of right now, at the current state of the space program, there's just not a need to put a person on the moon. What would they do when they got there that would make it worth the trip? --Jayron32 05:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm just saying we don't have to think of the risk to astronauts as some sort of deep sacrifice that we should avoid asking of them if we have a way around it. There are plenty of volunteers who would take the risk gladly and thank us for the chance. I'd be one of them if I had anything to contribute up there and could meet the standards. --Trovatore (talk) 05:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"would it be right to call a shuttle astronaut names for not having been to the moon?"

In case you haven't already realised this from the replies above, Mocteau, once the Saturn V rocket was retired, the USA (and everyone else) no longer had any rocket capable of getting astronauts the 240,000 miles to the Moon. In fact, we (humanity) have not since then even been able to get astronauts (whose life support capsules and systems weigh a lot) as far as the 22,000-mile-high Geosynchronous Orbit of most communications satellites. The Shuttle can only get to Low Earth Orbit, no more than about 600 miles up. If the USA (say) decided today to go to the expense of designing and building another Moon-capable rocket system, it would take (I believe it has been estimated) at least 10 years to complete it. So no, it would be quite wrong to insult Shuttle astronauts for not having gone to the Moon - I'm sure they would all love to if they could, but it hasn't been possible for them or anyone else since 1973. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Why would it take us 10 years to build such a rocket? It only took 9 years from blueprints to the moon the first time they did it. Googlemeister (talk) 20:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

There was a national urgency about it that pushed the schedule, sometimes with disastrous results. There would be no such national urgency now, and it would be a project that everyone would want a slice of. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Given the inherent dangers just in the shuttle program and other space programs, the best "name" I can think of to call astronauts and cosmonauts is "heroes". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Why? Is everyone who does something dangerous a hero? Adam Bishop (talk) 12:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

In what may be one of the last remaining personal freedoms, individual people still get to choose their own heroes. I refuse to have heroes imposed on me by others. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The OP's question was "would it be right to call a shuttle astronaut names for not having been to the moon?" As if they had a choice in the matter. I call them heroes. You can call them by whatever names you want. But not "for not having been to the moon", since they have no control over that option. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Death rates for space flights and astronauts are not trivial. On any one space flight you have a 1 in 50 chance of dying. Over your astronaut career that jumps to 1 in 20. Ergo you don't send people into space unless there's a damn good reason to do so - going to the moon for shits and giggles would be a ludicrous idea. Exxolon (talk) 16:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that's total nonsense. As I said above, there's no lack of volunteers (I'd love to be one myself but I'd never make the cut), and they're entitled to make that choice.

Oh, it would be different if it were the sort of "volunteer" that you get in wartime, where someone has to charge the machine gun nest, and you do it so your buddy doesn't have to. But I don't think it's that at all. I'd gladly do it at a 2% risk of my life, and not out of any sense of duty, but because I genuinely wanted to.

So if you think it's not worth the tax dollars to send people up there, fine, I'll listen to that argument. But don't give me any nonsense about the risk. --Trovatore (talk) 08:23, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Does that mean that on average, a career astronaut only goes into space 2.5 times total? Googlemeister (talk) 18:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Info is from Space accidents and incidents. Obviously the statistical sample is rather small, but that is the current rate based on accidents so far. Exxolon (talk) 18:26, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Ray Mears

I have been watching a collection of the television shows that Mr Mears has made, and I have two questions that seem to have not been answered in the shows, firstly and most importantly; RM cooks alot of food in a traditional method by digging a hold underneath his camp fire, placing food in the hole, often wrapped in leaves then covered with either coals and soil or soil and coals, this then cooks the food. One can come back later, dig up the food and it is beautifully cooked. I agreed with him that this may be a very tasty way of cooking with natural flavours, but, I am sure any one who has watched his shows or tried this themselves will agree, and want this answered too. How do you stop from getting sand in your food? This can be very unpleasant as I am sure alot of people have experienced this at some stage, sand on food, even just a grain or two can be very unpleasant. How does he evade this when cooking directly on the flames, or when buried beneath the fire? secondly, and very much as an aside, how does one go about nominating some one for a knighthood? RM surely is in need of this, he has done wonders for preserving ancient methods of cooking food, ancient foods themselves, and methods of using natural materials for survival. Alot can be learned from him in the modern age especially now days when we are trying to be quote unquote green. We all need to start making better use of our natural resources, apparently, and I feel he is a forrunner in this field and deserves some sort of recognition for this. So to summerize, how do you stop from getting sand in your food when doing traditional cooking, and how would one go about nominating some one for a knight hood? Sir Ray Mears, nice ring to it huh? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.145 (talk) 23:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

To nominate someone for a knighthood, you simply write to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street (some awards, such as those to military and diplomatic services are handled instead by the relevant secretary of state). It looks like Ray Mears hasn't been awarded a lower class of honour (e.g. OBE, CBE), which you'd generally expect to be awarded before a knighthood. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 00:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Wrap the food in big leaves, or perhaps paper or cloth. If someone is worthy of a knighthood for being paid to read out someone else's script about "done wonders for preserving ancient methods of cooking food" then about half the population of Britain have done things of equal merit and deserve a knighthood too. 92.28.248.94 (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you thinking of an Earth oven? This is still used in some cultures on special occasions, I don't think RM had anything to do with that. Guides to setting one up, like a hāngi should help with any problems you have. Nil Einne (talk) 08:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

One cannot avoid the grit. Look at skeletal remains of those that ate such a diet and they have heavily worn teeth.Some people even make a study of the wear. [5]Here are some images (not all at once now, or you might crash the site) [6] --Aspro (talk) 08:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ray Mears isn't that great. I used to like his shows, but after they killed and deer and skinned it for no purpose other than killing a deer and skinning it I hated the man. I mean sure killing to eat is one thing, but killing a poor innocent creature just to say "hi folks at home here's what a dead deer looks like" it's disgusting and no respect for nature. Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 13:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Knowing how to skin a deer is pretty important if you're going to eat it, use the skin for clothing, etc, and Ray Mears teaches how to cook a variety of game, as well as how to make useful things from bits and pieces of them. DuncanHill (talk) 16:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Of the people who watch it, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will be in a situation where they need or find a use for such information. Unless they are by choice into guns and blood sports. 92.28.242.240 (talk) 09:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Some of us are interested in how our ancestors lived, and how indigenous people around the world live. Knowledge does not need to have an immediate utilitarian value to be of importance. Almost nobody will ever need to know where Washington was born, or the different flavours of quarks, but that is no argument against educating people about them. I have to say the post abut the deer was somewhat disingenuous, as Mears doesn't kill animals to say "this is what a dead deer looks like" - he'll demonstrate ancient hunting techniques, preparation, cooking, etc, and talk about the importance of the animal to the societies which depend upon it. DuncanHill (talk) 09:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

September 7

fatal auto accidents

I am trying to find a comparison of the percentage of national motor cycle fatal accidents compared to the total number of motor cycle accidents and the percentage of national auto fatal accidents compared to the total number of auto accidents. can you help? thank you for your time and consideration. (e-mail address removed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.66.240 (talk) 02:10, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm - from Motorcycle_safety#Accident_rates - "Motorcycles have a higher fatality rate per unit of distance travelled when compared with automobiles. According to the NHTSA, in 2006 18.06 cars out of 100,000 ended up in fatal crashes. The rate for motorcycles is 55.82 per 100,000.[1] In 2004, figures from the UK Department for Transport indicated that motorcycles have 16 times the rate of serious injuries per 100 million vehicle kilometers compared to cars, and double the rate of bicycles.[2]" Exxolon (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Check that link - Motorcycle_safety#Accident_rates - more useful info there. Exxolon (talk) 02:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

A recent edition of this http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd/episodes/player radio programme - the 03/09/10 one - includes discussion of some pitfalls about interpreting transport accident statistics and would be worth listening to. 92.15.12.116 (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I am trying to identify a documentary I once saw as a child

I am looking for help identifying a nature documentary I saw when I was a child (mid-'90s). It follows the communal life of a particular group of orangutans in the wild (but maybe gorillas or chimps??).

Unfortunately, I can only remember one scene -- but if you saw it, you too would never forget it:

One of the orangutans is an infant, and he is being raised by his mother or perhaps his aunt. She carries him around piggy-back style, like most orangutans do. But the weird thing is, he never outgrows this, even as he grows into a large adolescent. He never permits her to put him down -- in fact, now he can force her to carry him. Then she gets polio. Carrying him saps her of her strength, and she dies. Without her, he too dies.

Thank you for your help. I've also asked this question on www.vark.com, and also at National Geographic and orangutan and nature documentary (I know that the reference desk frowns on re-posting, but I figure this is different since it's multiple article talk pages rather than multiple reference desks). Thanks. 160.39.220.66 (talk) 08:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Jane Goodall was filming chimps with her husband in Gombe around 1966 when polio struck. She kept her own child in a cage so that the chimps would not eat him. Maybe its on youtube.--Aspro (talk) 09:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds a bit like Flint, maybe? Wikiscient (talk) 14:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't help with your question, but for future reference, you should note that individual talk pages are intended solely for discussing their articles, not for discussion or questions about the topic. Good luck with finding your answer. Rojomoke (talk) 10:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Try searching on youtube for keywords, its likely someone has uploaded it Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 13:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you remember anything more to narrow it down? Was there a presenter on-screen? Was the presenter or voice-over male or female? Did they have a British accent? Was it David Attenborough? I'm not sure if British nature documentaries are re-dubbed in American accents for that audience. 92.15.12.116 (talk) 15:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

In general, they aren't- we Americans associate British accents with high intelligence, so we like them in our documentaries. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your help. It was so long ago. I can only remember that the presenter was not on-screen. Nothing else! 160.39.220.66 (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It couldn't have been orangs because they don't live communally. Other than that I don't know. The idea of a mother gorilla carrying around a full-grown adult male creates a pretty ridiculous image in my mind, though. Looie496 (talk) 22:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Where do you live? In most of the world humans do live communally Nil Einne (talk) 14:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Huh? Oh, I get it. Orang = man in Malay. 81.131.42.80 (talk) 19:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I see in Orangutan Island they "are raised to go against their normal nature to form a society and live together in a cooperative society". There are three other orangutan documentaries or TV shows listed in the "see also" section. The Disenchanted Forest claims that they have culture, and "a rich and complex society of elders and peers provides the young with critical knowledge that is necessary for their survival". This would seem to contradict Orangutan Island's claim that they don't naturally cooperate. I'm not sure which bunch of nature-fetishists is lying, quite possibly both. 81.131.42.80 (talk) 19:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

maritime flags

The Scottish Red Ensign

can you tell me if a Scotish ensign flag is legal witch has a St Andrews flag in the corner of a red background as apost to the Red Ensign witch has a Union Jack in the corner with a red background —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lornforth (talk • contribs) 09:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

According to our article the flag shown here - which I assume is what you mean - was used by the Royal Scots Navy prior to the Acts of Union 1707. According to this site, which sells them, "it is still used unofficially by private citizens for use on water". So, its use is presumably not illegal. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I gather that one of the major reasons why the Scottish Red Ensign has been (recently) adopted is that the Scottish flag (just the white diagonal cross/saltire on a blue field) is virtually identical to the letter 'M' flag in the International maritime signal flags. The alternate meaning of the flag is "My vessel is stopped and making no way through the water", which is very confusing (and illegal in many waters) when flown from a vessel underway. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Striking up a conversation sitting / standing up

The probability that a complete stranger strikes a conversation with you in a café or pub is much higher if you are standing that if you are seating, Why? Is it everywhere like that?--Quest09 (talk) 11:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

No, and yes. In Australian pubs, you'll certainly have strangers talk to you if you're alone (unless you're putting out "fuck off" vibes, which people often do without being aware of it). I agree that it's more likely to happen to standing people than to sitting people - although that depends on whether you're sitting at the bar or at a table. A person sitting at a bar is more likely to attract another single person for interlocutory purposes (and, who knows, if the conditions are right, maybe other purposes), than a person sitting at a table away from the bar. A standing person looking like they need to be taken home and looked after will probably be offered exactly that sooner or later (we are a very hospitable people). It also depends to a degree on what type of pub it is.

But I can't recall such conversations happening in cafes at all, no matter whether you're standing waiting to be served, or sitting waiting to be served, or sitting eating. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Probably a personal space issue. Conversations between standing and sitting people can be awkward and it's considered rude to sit down with someone without an invite. If you are standing, people will move past and around you and this gives more opportunities for casual conversation. Exxolon (talk) 11:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

During my travels, some of my best and most memorable encounters have come from sitting/standing at the bar (or the counter of a diner). It is a great way to meet people whether locals or fellow travellers. Astronaut (talk) 12:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

If your sitting your likely eating or reading or doing something and don't want to be disturbed. If your standing your just loitering and doing nothing, so people feel better for disturbing you. Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 13:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The British Social Anthropologist Kate Fox has studied such behavioural phenomena extensively, particularly in the context of British pubs, and mentions this particular one in (at least) two of her works; Watching the English and the more concise and directly relevant (to this topic) Passport to the Pub. There is (she has observed) an extensive unwritten etiquette to behaviour in pubs, which most regular pub-goers unconsciously follow without being consciously aware of most of it most of the time. One element is that a person standing at or near the bar is signalling openness to uninvited conversational approaches, particularly if alone, and standing couples (in the relationship sense) or larger groupings are approachable if not obviously engaged in close personal conversation; however, sitting at a table, particularly as a couple, indicates a desire not to be so approached unless a clear signal (such as themselves addressing someone else) is made. Obviously there is a good deal more to this and many other similar matters in the books. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I can highly reccommend Watching the English. A great read and not the dry academic text you might expect from an anthropologist. Astronaut (talk) 09:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Staragte

When is Stargate Universe comming back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Half charged (talk • contribs) 13:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Stargate Universe says September 28, 2010 for America. Vimescarrot (talk) 14:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Muslim prayer room in World Trade Center

Was there a Muslim Prayer room in the destroyed WTC tower 2? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.99.194.169 (talk) 16:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be common knowledge that there were something like a half dozen chapels and prayer rooms in WTC, one of which was a Muslim prayer room, but I've not been able to find any definitive evidence or good sources about it. I'd think it quite likely, though. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

So, they possibly also destroyed some Coran left in the Muslim prayer room? --Quest09 (talk) 17:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure they would have no problem justifying having caused that "collateral damage". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

There's that seemingly non-human "they" being associated with mainstream Islam again. Before Hitler, most of Europe's wars (and there were lots of them) involved almost everybody on both sides praying for and doing things in the name of the Christian God while fighting and killing one another and destroying each others' property. I can guarantee that millions of Bibles would have been destroyed in the process. Those who overtly choose the path of killing others in war are usually quite irrational, and don't really care whose religious icons become collateral damage. The other side, "they", are sub-human, so it doesn't matter. HiLo48 (talk) 18:10, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think "they" in the above referred to the perpetrators of 9/11, whom I for one do not associate with "mainstream Islam". Rojomoke (talk) 18:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "they" means the perpetrators. I have known a number of Muslims, and in general I find them to be kind and gentle. The 9/11 guys did nothing but give Islam a bad name, or a big black eye, to put it mildly. Every religion gets embraced by evil people from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I know that was hyperbole, but really? Millions of Bibles? Adam Bishop (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

How many do you think were destroyed in the Bombing of Hamburg in World War II? It looks like about a quarter million houses were destroyed, plus who knows how many apartments. Add a few bookstores, libraries, churches, and maybe the odd Bible storage warehouse, and you can probably get up to a million pretty easily, just from the firebombing of a few major metropolitan areas. It's a pretty common book in Europe, after all. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose, but Hilo did specify "before Hitler". Adam Bishop (talk) 02:21, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit, I was also wondering about the mechanism through which war destroyed so many bibles. There would really only be a 300-400 year window where there were enough bibles to destroy without destroying all of them. That's about 5,000 war-destroyed bibles per year for four hundred years.

But I assumed it was hyperbole and resisted the urge to be the first person to bring it up. APL (talk) 03:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Not only is it quite likely that the 9/11 terrorists destroyed at least one Koran, but they also killed quite a few Muslim Americans. You see, they were bad people. By the way- as a bonus answer to the question you didn't ask- this year, a major Muslim holiday happens to fall on September 11. When you see your Muslim neighbors gathering with their families and friends for a big celebration, they actually aren't celebrating the fact that 9 bad people murdered their co-religionists and their countrymen. But I'll bet someone will claim that they are. Watch your favorite politician, and see if he or she tries to misrepresent these celebrations, and then ask yourself whether you're buying into an anti-Muslim hysteria that's just some cynical politician's vote grab. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The best solution to counter that kind of hysteria is to educate oneself; for example, to ask a Muslim to talk about his/her religion, about what Ramadan is about, etc. Not to argue back about things, but just to listen and try to understand where they're coming from. Muslims believe just as strongly in their faith as Christians and Jews and so forth do in theirs, and no religion has a monopoly on the truth. Good relations involve considering the possibility that others might be onto something that you've overlooked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't Ramadan end on the 10th? Adam Bishop (talk) 02:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe for those who rely on calculated moon phases generally Ramadan will end at sunset of September 8 or September 9 depending on location (or if they use Mecca or their home country as their reference). Muslims will therefore celebrate on the night of September 8/9 and the day of September 9/10. However Eid ul-Fitr celebrations may last more then a day although some may scale back their celebrations this year in the US [7]. For those who rely on sighting of the moon I think it's possible Ramadan may end at sunset of September 10 and therefore the first full day of celebrations will be September 11 but I suspect it's not particularly likely in the US given it's geographical location Nil Einne (talk) 07:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

FYI the moon is over 31 hours old by now. It was sighted in South Africa this evening so we are celebrating Eid tomorrow 10 September as is most of the world. I don't think anyone is having it on the 11th; the moon phase is such that Eid would either be today or tomorrow in any part of the world. But this is getting seriously off-topic. Eid Mubarak to all, I'll catch up with all things WP on Saturday. Zunaid 17:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

More detail: the prayer room was on the 17th floor of WTC2. There were about 60 Muslim victims. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

on my screen sometimes it says radio is logged in /available.

Does that mean that anyone can log in on my emails or use my laptop . As you may gather I know very little about IT but this is a niggle in the back of my mind @btinternet.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.139.101 (talk) 16:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC) email address removed to prevent possible spamming - responses will appear on this page. Richard Avery (talk) 18:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Almost certainly not (though it's hard to be sure with so little information about what the message is and what is producing it). You can think of logging into a system like unlocking a door: if your car is unlocked that doesn't mean that people can get into your house. But I have no idea what it would mean to say "radio is logged in". --ColinFine (talk) 19:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That message is probably referring to a wireless Internet card in your computer. HP computers often display little popups with similar messages when they start up. If the message bothers you and you want to be sure you are immune from intrusion, turn on Windows Firewall, or disable your network wireless card in the Windows Device Manager. If you need followup information, please tell us what version of Windows you are running, and the manufacturer and model number of the computer you have. Also, for future computer questions you should probably utilize the Computing Reference Desk — this is the Miscellaneous desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Heat

I want to make a small heating element. Would a 9v battery and flat piece of metal be good enough? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 16:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

If you are aiming at a high operating temperature you need something like Nichrome. Using a resistor of the value that will give you the Watt per second that you need, is probably easier for low temperature -see section "wire wound". If the 9 v you're thinking of is a PP3 it wont have much puff. Try a high drain alkalines like these.[8]. What are you trying to do?--Aspro (talk) 17:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

A "flat piece of metal" would indeed create heat, but all at once when it short-circuits the battery. As Aspro points out, you need a material of sufficiently high resistance that the energy is not all dissipated at once (which might have an unfortunate effect on the battery and those in the immediate neighborhood). Acroterion _(talk) 22:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"style"

(Moved here from the Science desk)

what is the "style" of the chair found here

http://www.amazon.com/Rio-Brands-BRN-Promo-Chair/dp/B000VQHR7W/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=garden&qid=1283888946&sr=1-9 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomjohnson357 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

A Folding chair. ny156uk (talk) 20:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a Folding Lawn Chair. Buddy431 (talk) 21:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a folding lawn chair. I've had these from time to time. They're pretty flimsy, but their light weight allows for easy transport to ball games and such. If the OP is looking for something more specific info, that might be a challenge. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

As the title of the referenced page suggests, furniture like that is often called "web furniture" (in this case, a "web chair") because of the webbing used. Also "patio furniture". Which I can't say without thinking of an old joke: "What's Irish and stands around in your back yard?" "Paddy O'Furniture!" —Steve Summit (talk) 22:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Oy! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:28, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

3

Whats the deal with 3s? Like, people like things in 3s. And say "things come in 3s". Do they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Evlwty (talk • contribs) 22:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The article 3 (number) might provide some insight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. Two can be as bad as one; it's the loneliest number since the number one. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Women, I hear, can come in threes, but men generally are only good for one at a time. --Jayron32 23:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

One thing that does come in threes a lot is boss fights in video games. Specifically, you'll have to destroy three vital parts, or hit the difficult-to-reach weak point three times, or...anyway, I'm sure this was commented on in an article somewhere on the Internet. I was going to link to it, but Googling just turns up a lot of video games with "3" in the title... Vimescarrot (talk) 00:27, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

See Rule of three (writing). It suggests to me that things coming in threes in real life are just more memorable than things coming in, say, ones (because everything comes in ones, how boring). Paul (Stansifer) 01:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Three Is a Magic Number: "Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity. You get three as a magic number. The past and the present and the future. Faith and Hope and Charity, The heart and the brain and the body Give you three as a magic number...A man and a woman had a little baby. Yes, they did. They had three in the family. That's a magic number." 75.41.110.200 (talk) 06:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"Just Molly and me / And baby makes three / We're happy in My Blue Heaven." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of which, there's Trinity. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The threes cluttered up our nursery rhymes and kids stories - blind mice, bears, little pigs, musketeers, stooges. And wise men seem to come in threes. HiLo48 (talk) 07:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Three Happiness restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown district. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Wedges are basically triangular and from splitting wood for clubs and canoos to rocks for obelisks and pyramids have been very useful for ages. Neither a square chip of rock nor a round pebble could achieve the same tasks. So there is a long tradition of interest in triangular objects. 99.11.160.111 (talk) 08:11, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

See Benford's law. Actually, there are more things in twos or ones than threes, but three is more unusual so you note and remember it. 92.28.242.240 (talk) 09:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Good speech writers know the rule of three very well. Listen to your politicians. They'll often repeat similar things three times to add emphasis. Astronaut (talk) 10:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

And good answers often come in three sentences. See above. Bye! Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I can't find the article now, but we used to have one on the "comic triple", which is two straight lines followed by a joke. There is also the triple take, and I can't find that article either. And in lawsuits you can have treble damages. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

DOing research for a Wikipedia article

I recently asked this at the help desk and received a rather unhelpful boilerplate response including a link to a page that didnt answer my question at all, so I'll ask it again here as an overall knowledge-question. I wish to contribute some content to an existing WIkipedia article. I have some books on the topic that I'd like to use as sources. Should I read all the way through the books (cover-to-cover) and then skim back to find the facts and put them where there supposed to be, or just skim the relevant paragraphs in the book and put the facts in with a citation. I know ideally I should do the former but these are rather long books and my time is limited. PS: I am not at all interested in creating an account, and have one (unused) should the need for one ever arise. 76.235.111.140 (talk) 23:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

So long as the facts you add are useful to people's understanding of the article's subject, it does not matter whether you read and revisit, or merely pick out nuggets. Articles can, absolutely, be built piecemeal, sentence by sentence. Bottom line: whichever you prefer. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

You need to understand what you are writing about. If you are confident that you understand the topic adequately to be sure that you are putting valid information into the article, without reading the whole book, then okay. Looie496 (talk) 01:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

September 8

which fish is this?

Can somebody look at this image and tell me what fish is this? http://j.imagehost.org/view/0099/muru_fish --117.204.88.187 (talk) 02:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I spotted a couple of references to "muru fish" as a type of fish eaten in India, but they all left the scientific name blank. Looie496 (talk) 05:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I was watching a show...

Dinner With the Band and they were making a dish with butternut squash. It was uncooked and they were slicing it and the knives were going through like butter, easily slicing right through with little effort. Meanwhile, every time I've ever made butternut squash it very tough and difficult to cut when raw. So what the hell version of butternut squash was this? It looked exactly like the kind they have in my local supermarket, but it's obviously not, or they did something to it. It wasn't cooked though.--162.84.161.15 (talk) 06:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

No way. Even at the restaurant with razor-blade-sharp knives, it takes some work to get through those suckers. Unless they were horrifically overripe, those were cooked. → ROUX ₪ 06:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Ginsu knives? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It is sometimes confusing, but TV shows reflect reality. They have a reality that is all their own - one that communicates. Doubtless the cooking was ancilliary to the story. Thus a struggle to cut a squash would detract from the story. So soften the squash.Froggie34 (talk) 08:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Even 'reality' shows aren't above substituting a staged shot when the real shot didn't go as planned. They may have prepared the food like you would expect, complete with awkward wrestling with the squash and then substituted a scene shot afterward with cooked squash or fake squash or whatever.

I can't think of a way to verify that though.

Not having seen the scene in question were they using heavy knives and taking advantage of the blade's momentum? People can get surprising results by swinging heavy blades like they were cleavers. (In fact, sometimes they surprise themselves and need to go to a hospital.)APL (talk) 15:37, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

A properly sharpened knife works MUCH better than a dull one; if you've ever handled a properly maintained chef's knife, it makes a WORLD of difference. It really can cut through really tough food quite amazingly. --Jayron32 02:20, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

US legislation regarding religious hatred ?

Dove World Outreach Center's plans to hold "International Burn a Qu'ran Day" have attracted widespread criticism. However, as far as I can tell from what I have read, the only legal offence that has been discussed in relation to this event is that they will be breaking a local fire prevention ordinance that prohibits the "open burning of books", for which they could be fined. In the UK, anyone who attempted to organise a public burning of the Qu'ran (or of any religious text) would risk being charged under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, which says "A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred". Is there no similar legislation in the US ? Gandalf61 (talk) 13:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

See our bit on hate speech in the United States. Basically, the First Amendment means that the answer to your question is "no". If they're not specifically inciting imminent violence (and they're probably not), then the free expression in question is likely protected. — Lomn 13:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

You may also be interested in this article; I'm sure many other sites are also addressing the question. — Lomn 13:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

There's no crime against being an utter fucking moron. General Petraeus also noted that it would probably be harmful to the troops. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

That said, this goes beyond self-contained moronishness (and as a counter-example, it is often illegal not to wear a seat belt -- a clear case of legislating against personal moronity); it has the clear potential to incite violence somewhere -- just not imminently among the people actually at the event. As I understand it, the US is really fairly unusual in leaving this sort of thing legal, so I think it deserves a little more than a "there's no crime in..." brush-off. — Lomn 00:32, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Part of the rationale behind free speech is "there is no antiseptic like the light of day", in that not only are good ideas allowed to flourish in an environment of freedom, but the truly bad ideas become rather obviously bad. This event is no exception; it's much better to let the idiots of the world self-identify in this way. It makes it so much easier to keep track of them. --Jayron32 02:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Virgins

What percentage of people in Western Civilization die as virgins? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ar4u664 (talk • contribs) 13:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that this is something that could be measured very well since medically speaking, this is not something you can determine during an autopsy for either gender. Googlemeister (talk) 14:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to make a wild assumption here about your age and status and link you to succeedsocially.com.--178.167.133.77 (talk) 16:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

[9] Apparently about 4% of US adults (ages 20-59) reported that they've never had sex. Presumably the number who die in that condition is similar. Buddy431 (talk) 21:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

While the page you linked is titled "4% of the Adult Americans Die Virgin!", it reports on a survey which found that 96% of adults questioned indicated that they have had sex at least once. Presumable the raw data would have to be linked to actuarial tables via the respondents' ages to properly estimate what fraction of people die as virgins. The page also claimed, without blinking an eye, "The average number of a lifetime female sexual partner for men was seven, while women had on average four male partners during their lifetime." So who are those men having sex with?

In Estimating Number of Lifetime Sexual Partners: Men and Women Do It Differently - Statistical Data Included, a 1999 paper from The Journal of Sex Research, the authors address the question of why men typically report having an average of two to four times as many opposite sex lifetime sex partners as do women. They say that, contrary to the consensus amongst researchers that this is due to intentional misreporting, it is actually due to differing strategies used in answering the question, with women more likely to count by enumerating partners, a method associated with under counting, and men more likely to give rough estimates, a method associated with over counting. -- ToE^T 16:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

the truly perfect pitching performance

How long has a MLB pitcher managed to throw only strikes from the start of the game? I know that a perfect game involves no batters reaching base, but how many innings have had only strikes thrown? Googlemeister (talk) 15:12, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Answering a slightly different, but hopefully still interesting, question, the fewest pitches thrown in a complete game was 58 by Charley Barrett in 1944. Addie Joss threw a complete game in 74 pitches, the lowest pitch count for a perfect game. A great many "strike-only" innings have been thrown, as balls hit into play are counted as strikes. We also have an article on Major League Baseball pitchers who have struck out three batters on nine pitches. — Lomn 16:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

As I recall, Larsen's perfect game was 97 pitches. I think he only got to 3 balls on a batter or two. (Nowadays, if he had 3 more pitches, he'd have been lifted.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

(ec)There are no official records kept on pitches as such. Many teams do keep such records nowadays, for evaluation of their pitchers, and you might find some of that info by googling, but it would be anecdotal and recent. The record for strikeouts in a 9-inning game is 20, which has happened several times and I don't think any of them were no-hitters. The record for strikeouts at the start of game (as of 2007) was 9, set in 1884, and the modern record is 8. The overall record for consecutive strikeouts in any span in a game (as of 2007) was 10. You're really not likely to see a pitcher throw nothing but strikes, because if he stays in the strike zone he's going to get hit and eventually relieved. Pitchers mix up the pitch style, speed and placement; a lot of strikeouts are achieved by getting the batter to swing at something that's outside the strike zone, but that doesn't always work and the pitch is likely to be called a "ball". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:22, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

In question #3 in this column from 1984, Cecil Adams scolded the very idea of trying to rank perfect games by number of pitches or the like. "The number of pitches thrown during a perfect game is no more relevant than the number of brush strokes used to paint the Mona Lisa." Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

A stat like that says maybe as much about the ineptitude of the opposition on that day, as the skill of the pitcher. I'm sure if Roger Clemens in his prime were to face a little league team, he could well throw 81 consecutive strikes. However, if a pitcher gets significantly above 100 pitches, he typically starts to tire and becomes more vulnerable. Bert Blyleven ridicules the pitch count thing by saying, "What happens when you get above 100? Do you explode?" Well, too often the answer is yes. Having said that, the question is, What is the highest quantity of pitches thrown in a perfect game (where known - the earliest known is Joss)? Turns out, it's David Wells, at 120, fittingly against the Twins. I suspect Bert had some mixed emotions about that one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

So there is no instances where an MLB pitcher has gone through more then 1 straight inning throwing nothing but strikes because those stats are not kept? Baseball loves stats, and I figured they would have had this one. A complete game in just 58 pitches is pretty impressive though. Googlemeister (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

There is apparently no known instance. I'm impressed that anyone even had that stat from 1944. But I have trouble believing it's the definitive record, as for example the shortest game ever pitched was under an hour, and the pitch count had to be very low in that one - I think they had a train to catch and they were literally swinging at everything. Consider that we don't even know the pitch counts for perfect games prior to the one tossed by Joss, and that Retrosheet has play-by-play only for certain years, and no pitch counts (except maybe for perfect games). So this info must not be easy to find. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's the box score for that 1944 game: [10] Retrosheet doesn't have the play-by-play yet, and there's nothing there about pitch counts, but that doesn't prove anything. He did throw a 2-hitter and the game only went 75 minutes, so that tells us something. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

While baseball does track an absurd number of statistics, I think you're looking for significance where there simply may not be any. Here's another list of 3-pitch innings (naturally, all strikes). Note, however, that one could also have two consecutive innings of "just strikes" if you follow a perfect 3-strikeout inning with one that goes single-single-double-homer-single-flyout-doubleplay. Still (potentially) all strikes, but wholly underwhelming -- and as such, not tracked to the degree that one finds it highlighted as a feat of note. — Lomn 18:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I mention it just because it's possible that some discussants may not be aware of it: Any pitch at which the batter swings is a strike, regardless of its location or of whether the batter connects or puts it in play in fair territory. Some of the above comments seemed to me to suggest, though I don't know that that was the intention, that a perfect game consisting of nothing but strikes would necessarily consist of nothing but strikeouts. --Trovatore (talk) 18:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, you could have 27 consecutive fly balls to the warning track, or even leaping saves of potential home runs (as with Buehrle's 9th inning) and you would have the minimum possible number of pitches, 27 - all strikes, and every one of them tempting the manager to yank the pitcher, especially if the game was close or scoreless. (Actually, that's pretty close to Bill Veeck's description of Bobo Holloman's no-hitter, although it wasn't a perfect game.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Bert Blyleven might want to talk to Dave Dravecky, and Joel Zumaya, whose arms did explode, pretty much. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Ouch. I recall the Dravecky footage vividly. Ouch. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:50, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, but that had nothing to do with pitch count — that was cancer. Or at least cancer-ish. The Dave Dravecky and desmoid tumor articles appear to contradict one another on that point. Possibilities appear to be: (1) the articles assume different definitions of cancer; (2) the articles assume different definitions of desmoid tumor; (3) one or both of the articles is factually wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 00:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't Know .....

Is there anyone who knows that why on all the advertisements and also even if we go into and watch showrooms, why time is always set on 10.10 . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.228.59.66 (talk) 17:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This was asked some months ago. I don't recall if there was a specific answer. But as to why analog clocks are typically set on 10:10 or 8:20, as they have been for countless decades, I've always assumed it was because it made the clocks look symmetrical and attractive, and you could see the hour and minute hands clearly. Now, why they would continue to take that approach for a digital clock, can only be attributed to the "we've always done it that way" mindset. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

We used to have a page on 10:08, but it got deleted. Some of it can be found under User:LarryMac/10:08. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I was supposed to work on that. Ooops. --LarryMac | Talk 11:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Snopes has this to say about it. Basically, it looks nice. Matt Deres (talk) 02:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

See also Aug 2006, Nov 2006, Jan 2007, July 2007, Nov 2007, and Feb 2010. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this was one of the deletionists' finest hours. There was also a deletion discussion, but this suggests that the deletion discussion has itself been deleted. --Viennese Waltz 06:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't know why it's red there. Anyway, I found the discussion here. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Malformed URL, that's why. Only just noticed it. Thanks for the link. --Viennese Waltz 10:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Analogue clocks are set to 10:10 because it appears as though the hands are 'smiling', creating a more malleable mindset in the buyer. This carried over to displays of digital clocks via grandfathering. → ROUX ₪ 03:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Please don't just make up stuff you think sounds good and post it as fact. Matt Deres (talk) 13:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Please don't be a total jerk. Please also don't assume that just because you have no idea what you're talking about, nobody else does either. google answers another site snopes. Perhaps you would like to try again without embarrassing yourself? → ROUX ₪ 14:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah that was uncalled for Matt Deres. The resemblance to a smile may not be the only reason why 10:10 is used but it is certainly one of the reasons. --Viennese Waltz 14:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I'll note that Roux's answer would have been better had he provided the references in the first place -- and Matt Deres had already linked Snopes in his answer above -- and that I don't see a phrase resembling "malleable mindset" on any of the three pages linked. — Lomn 15:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Try setting an analoge clock to 20 to 4 and see the sad face that results.Froggie34 (talk) 07:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but then you've got the dope-heads giggling. Matt Deres (talk) 13:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

??? 3:40 isn't the same thing as 4:20... Googlemeister (talk) 13:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Who said that it was? And to be pedantic 20 to 4 does not give an exact angle. I can't be bothered to work it out but about 19 minutes to would give a more central pair of hands. Wonder how long it will be before this tired old subject comes back to haunt us?Froggie34 (talk) 14:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Um, Matt Deres said it was. You're right though, it should really be 10:08 rather than 10:10. --Viennese Waltz 14:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I said it was what? Froggie mentioned pointing the hands to 4:20 and I linked to the article about the dope meme; I'm not sure why Googlemeister brought up 3:40 at all. Perhaps he was picturing the "sad" face and forgot what Froggie had actually written and instead had figured that he probably really meant "twenty to". An analogue clock at 4:20 would have the hands nearly on top of one another. Matt Deres (talk) 17:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

No.. Froggie said 20 to 4, not 20 after 4. Also, you gonna retract your nonsense above? → ROUX ₪ 18:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction and no. Did you read the stuff you linked to? The first site says nothing about the "smile" and the third site is the Snopes article I already linked to, which also says nothing about the smile. The second site mentions the smile and then dismisses it in favour of the more obvious framing of the trademark angle. I'm sorry if I came off as brusque, but we're here to provide references; if you're posting an informed opinion, you need to frame it as such so that the questioner understands what bits are conjecture and which are not - if you'd said "I think..." or "It seems to me like..." then I wouldn't have said anything. Matt Deres (talk) 20:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's the thing about playing the "I'm going to be dishonest about what a reference says and hope that Roux is too lazy to respond" game: you will lose. Quote: " The consensus of opinion (confirmed by Timex) is that clock and watch hands in advertisements are typically set at 10:10 so that the company's logo will be well-displayed. In addition, this position of the hands resembles a smile." Quote: "Manufacturers want you to see their product 'smiling' at you!" Those are both from the first link I provided, which you claim, intriguingly, "says nothing about the "smile""--your words, not mine. Shall I continue? Very well then. Quote: "he answer is probably quite simply that it looks better, aesthetically and practically, as the clock has a 'smile' on its face (not just a marketing gimmick, it really does look better than a 'down turned mouth' at 8.20) and, as others have said, because it keeps the hands clear of signatures and other subsidiary dials". Quote: ""I too have heard the 'smile' theory, which makes some sense from the emotional marketing perspective. Equally likely is the fact that most manufacturer's trademarks are just above the center pipe, and having the hands at 10:10 causes your eye to naturally follow to the trough, thus bringing your view right to the trademark." Which is rather a far cry from 'dismissing' the smile theory, unlike what you claimed. Do you want more? Oh good. Quote: "downward pointing hands are now seen as undesirable because they make the timepiece appear to frown" -- that would be Snopes, which you also claimed had nothing to say about it.

So, be as brusque as you like. But what you don't get to do is be rude when you don't know what you're talking about. Oh, and lying about what sources say? That is just not acceptable anywhere on WP. → ROUX ₪ 18:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Dimensions of Temple of Venus Genetrix

I have search all the articles on the Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Julius Caesar but cannot find the dimensions of the temple. Could you tell me what are the length and width dimensions of the Temple of Venus Genetrix?70.255.80.243 (talk) 19:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

According to page 94 of The architecture of Roman temples: the republic to the middle empire by John W. Stamper: "It measured 23 meters wide by 33 meters long (78 by 112 Roman feet). This excluded the speaker's platform, which was added by Octavian and increased the podium size to 29.50 meters wide by 39 meters long (100 by 132 Roman feet)." Looie496 (talk) 19:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Waving on boats

Is there any reason why people on boats wave to other people on boats? Historical? Psychological? Practical? Thanks! Aaadddaaammm (talk) 19:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I once watched the white fish fleet leave harbour in Aberdeen Scotland one late Sunday evening a few years ago. It seemed that no boat could leave harbour until the church bells signalled midnight had passed for superstition/religious/custom or luck reasons. And there were literally hundreds of folk there waving off their husbands, brothers, sons, lovers etc., etc., as they left for their perilous 2 weeks at sea, leaving behind them their alternate crew colleagues who would enjoy their 2 week off-duty sojourn. But it also turned out that many of the wives and girlfriends were making sure that their "loved" ones were actually leaving port so that they (the ladies) could relax in the arms of said alternate crew members without fear of said "loved" ones discovering their infidelities. No one seemed to care that everyone knew what was going on but I guess it was a question of what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't need to grieve over. I am sure there will be many other reasons but this one is my abiding memory. 92.30.199.74 (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't believe it. How many did you interview on oath? Or are you just repeating what a bloke in the pub told you? 92.15.20.52 (talk) 21:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I realize this is totally speculative, but maybe they just wave because they're having a good time? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it is simply to acknowledge and recognise each others' presence - they are having the same experience of being in a particular place at a particular time, which may become important to share later, for instance if there is an accident or some other unusual occurrence. There is often the same acknowledgement of others when hikers or walkers meet or pass each other in isolated places on land. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed similar things anytime two people meet who are using atypical vehicles (i.e. not cars). Bus drivers, for example, seem to always wave at each other, despite the fact they cross each other's paths very regularly. Motorcycle drivers do it as well. I've always assumed it was a kind of communal cohesion kind of thing, where you're acknowledging your shared experience. It may even be that people are just generally friendly and use even as flimsy an excuse as this to reach out to their "friends they haven't met". Matt Deres (talk) 02:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Public transit drivers do this in lieu of "Hey Jo, how's your day going?" that you might find in an office-based workplace. I think people on boats do this to be "Hey, I'm on a boat and it is awesome and I am including you in my awesome world. → ROUX ₪ 03:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Driving Instructors do it too - as one myself I spend half my lessons waving to other Instructors... Tis just a way of aknowledging people in the same situation as yourself I suppose - the same is probably true for boat folk... gazhiley.co.uk 08:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree entirely - I live by the Canal du Midi and tour boats loaded with day trippers pass regularly. Always the occupants wave and smile. It seems to be 'I'm having a great and exciting time please acknowledge and smile back'. Have to say that most residents simply ignore what, for them, is an everyday, routine occurance. Until, perhaps, they find themselves on a tour whilst on their holiday? Incidentally I have not noticed coach passengers waving. They seem almost morose by comparison.Froggie34 (talk) 07:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's just plain camaraderie. The feeling that "I'm doing something that I enjoy that a lot of society doesn't, and I see you feel the same way". Dog walkers do the same with a nod, unusual car drivers do it to each other (VW Beetles and Land Rovers I've seen quite a few times). -- WORMMЯOW  10:44, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

They're excited because they're on a boat! Also, people with baby carriages always seem to acknowledge each other too, as if having a baby is some kind of secret club. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the interesting replies. I hadn't thought about the phenomenon in other situations (like bus drivers), but those observations help a lot in getting a handle on it. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 16:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Ferrari Post-production Test drive.

I just watched a fascinating Sky Anytime documentary showing the entire manufacture, assembly and post production test-drive of a typical 200,000 Euro sports car at Ferrari's factory and test-circuit in Northern Italy. In closing, the commentator said each car took about 2/3 months of expert construction and a waiting time per customer of 2 years. My question is, each car was shown being put through its paces on Ferrari's own private test track adjacent to the factory, and also on the open road in that region - so would a set of "test" tyres be used during said road tests, or would the customer take delivery of his/her car with it wearing the same tyres used during the road tests? Thanks. 92.30.199.74 (talk) 19:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC).

I would venture to guess that new t(y)ires would be put on the car, as the test t(y)ires would have been shredded by the testing. → ROUX ₪ 03:21, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

They probably keep separate 'testing' tyres at the factory/test centre, and then fit different ones when they are transported for delivery, as Roux says, the test tyres would probably too damaged to be used safely. Chevymontecarlo - alt 14:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

September 9

What is "WANTYNU"?

I've seen the word WANTYNU used in some EMS blogs, but have no idea what is stands for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NYPATROL (talk • contribs) 04:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

They are, among other things, a company that makes oxygen tank keys, from what I can tell. See [11]. It appears to derive from the phrase "We ain't nothing till you need us" (according to the website I linked). It appears to be an acronym derived from a bit of EMS culture, implying that EMS people tend to be poorly regarded up until they actually save one's life. --Jayron32 04:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you find the print date for a dollar bill by its serial number?

Well, basically what the title says: Is it possible to determine when a dollar bill was issued based on its serial number? I know you can find out where its printed, but I'd like to know as exactly as possible when a certain bill was issued. Asav (talk) 06:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The article on Bureau of Engraving and Printing has some links to other places that might provide an answer, unless there's some security issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't destroyed bills get their serial numbers re-used? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 03:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, BB, sent the BEP an email a couple of days ago, but haven't received an answer yet. I was hoping there were some collectors or such out there who could point me in the right direction. As for serial numbers being reused, as in EP's question, I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen, at least not within the same series. Asav (talk) 06:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Tongue drum

Tongue drum is a redirect to slit drum, but that article contains no reference to tongue drums. Is a tongue drum actually a kind of slit drum, or is it a different beast? See here for a brief description of the tongue drum. --Viennese Waltz 08:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

They're synonymous. "Slit drum" is used more often in scholarly literature of musicology or music anthropology. Functionally, "tongue drum" is perhaps more descriptive, as the tongues are the resonating parts (while "slit" refers to the removed material). The tongues are also called "lips" sometimes, but I've never encountered the usage of "lip drum". Traditionally the term "slit drum" is more frequent than "tongue drum". ---Sluzzelin talk 10:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Come to think of it, they might not be completely synonymous. Tongue drum might be a subset of slit drum, as you already hinted at. Instruments with only one slit, such as this example from Vanuatu, don't really have tongues at all, so it would be misleading to call them 'tongue drums'. Technically, a wood block is a slit drum too, but not a tongue drum. Hmm ... ---Sluzzelin talk 11:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

After looking around a bit more, I stand by my claim that slit drum is found far more frequently in literature than "tongue drum", even when discussing multi-pitched, multi-tongued instruments such as the teponaztli. The term tongue drum is more specific (excluding uni-slits) but despite its potential usefulness just hasn't gained traction in academia. The term is often found in the context of DIY instrument-making, music therapy, new-age spiritualism, and to a lesser extent in marketing of percussion instrument manufacturers. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:25, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Have you quite finished? ;) Seriously, thanks very much for the most helpful answers. --Viennese Waltz 11:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Mid-air collisions over major cities

The news of a near miss over London last year got me thinking. Has there ever been a mid-air collision over a major city; one that resulted in flaming debris raining down into the streets below? I know the September 11 attacks might qualify, but that was a deliberate act of terrorism and not the kind of accident/air traffic control error I am asking about. Astronaut (talk) 09:48, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

See our article 1993 Auckland mid-air collision for one example that also shut down a major motorway at rush hour Mhicaoidh (talk) 09:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Aeroméxico Flight 498 hit a Piper Archer and fell into a residential neighbourhood in Cerritos, California, killing 15 people and injuring a further 8. Golden West Airlines Flight 261 scattered debris over a residential area, but no-one on the ground was injured. Lastly (I think that's all, at least for commercial airliners) there's the 1960 New York air disaster, in which a DC-8 struck a Super Constellation over New York, killing six people (and I assume a dog) in Park Slope, Brooklyn. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 11:23, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

If barrage balloons count, I would expect at least a couple of German fighters during the early 1940s to have qualified for this, but our article does not actually mention if these balloons actually downed any aircraft at all, so perhaps they were only a psychological ploy. Also, as part of an act of warfare, it might not exactly meet your accident/error criteria. Googlemeister (talk) 13:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Depends on what is a major city, but there is the Stockport air disaster in the 1960s although nobody on the ground was killed. MilborneOne (talk) 14:41, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Regarding barrage balloons, I'm trying to find a good source, but I have found numbers like 24 piloted enemy aircraft and 278 missiles destroyed by barrage balloons, and at least 40 Allied aircraft as well. This is just WWII; I've not seen numbers for WWI yet. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not a mid-air collision, but Pan Am Flight 103 made a mess of Lockerbie, where eleven residents were killed.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:48, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The 2007 Phoenix news helicopter collision occurred over a park downtown. 68.104.175.130 (talk) 15:01, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

• Stockport wasn't a mid-air collision; Lockerbie wasn't and isn't a major city. --John (talk) 19:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not a mid-air collision, but the B-25 Empire State Building crash killed 11 people in the Empire State Building. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 04:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

But the question was about collisions that were mid-airs. --Anon, 15:20 UTC, September 10, 2010.

Correct, that crash would be classified as controlled flight into terrain I expect. Googlemeister (talk) 16:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I had a vague recollection of a news story about two planes colliding over New York City, and the one I was probably thinking of was in December of 1960. List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft has a lot of entries, and if you look for "collide" you can probably isolate some crashes that would be of interest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

EST

I read the EST but I am confused. When do the clocks change again? Do they go forward or back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by No money back, no guarantee (talk • contribs) 13:27, 9 September 2010 (UTC) This editor has been blocked for abusing multiple accounts. Franamax (talk) 22:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"Spring forward, fall back" is the old reminder saying. It varies between North America and Europe. See Daylight saving time for more info, but in the U.S. it's currently the first Saturday night / Sunday morning in November. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

If by EST you mean the same timezone of New York City, then that date is Nov 7 this year. Googlemeister (talk) 13:31, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

By EST do you mean European Summer Time? The information given there is quite clear: the clocks go back on 31 October. The dates of clock adjustments vary from one country to another.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

If you mean Eastern Standard Time (but not the American and I don't only mean US one) then from Time in Australia the answer appears to be first Sunday of October, in those places that actually observe Daylight Saving Time. The clocks go forward on that date Nil Einne (talk) 18:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I would just ask most posters to topics like this to think a little more globally. Many large countries have EST. I still don't know which one our questioner was referring to. Most countries DON'T have fall. I DO know where Baseball Bugs is from. ;-) HiLo48 (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

All countries have fall. Not all of them call it that. The majority of native English speakers, however, do call it that. --Trovatore (talk) 21:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The majority of native English speakers = the USA, most others call it Autumn and think fall is an Americanism! MilborneOne (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, the majority of native English speakers are from the US. Therefore it would behoove Commonwealth speakers to desist from referring to their specific usages as "international". You can't have "international" without the majority. --Trovatore (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Just curious. What percentage of US residents would have Spanish as their native language? HiLo48 (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

So, a (not overwhelming) majority who live in a single country are more "international" than a (substantial) minority who come from several many countries? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 23:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Didn't say that. My point is certainly not that American English counts as "international". It's that the term is too often used to mean specifically "other than American", and this is incorrect and unjust. Commonwealth English is also not "international English"; it's just the English used in some nations. --Trovatore (talk) 23:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the OP won't be back, at least not under that user ID, because he's been indef'd for block evasion. But if anyone wants to know when their clocks roll back, there is no shortage of sources of that info. If all else fails, watch the Saturday evening news as you get into October, because they nearly always say, "Don't forget, turn your clocks forward/back." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not that I'm defending the use of international (which you appear to have been the first to bring up in this discussion) but who gives a damn about native speakers? They have no more rights then non native speakers. I would also note that for a number of countries, even though they may technically have autumn/fall/whatever, it's largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Nil Einne (talk) 07:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "fall" vs. "autumn", EO states that "fall" is indeed primarily an American usage.[12][13] "Autumn" is still used in the USA, but perhaps more often in a poetic sense, although "spring forward, autumn back" doesn't have quite the same ring to it. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

But don't forget that "fall" as a word for autumn was first used in the UK in the 16th century. Ref: Oxford Dictionary of Etymology (not entymology!). Richard Avery (talk) 07:53, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Except there was no UK then... AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Increasingly off topic I know, but then where would the pleasure be in a Ref Desk discussion? I recommend a glance at our not entirely satisfactory article on Season to see how even the notion of fall/autumn and spring aren't global Mhicaoidh (talk) 09:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

soccer world cup shots on goal

What is the highest number of shots on goal for both teams combined that resulted in a 0-0 tie during a world cup game? Googlemeister (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

That question is unanswerable. Football is not like some other sports in that it is not obsessed with statistics. No official records for numbers of shots on goal are kept, they are the domain of TV broadcasters, who obviously have details of only a tiny percentage of the thousands of World Cup games that have been played since 1930. --Viennese Waltz 13:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Do they record saves by the GK? Googlemeister (talk) 15:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

No, afraid not. The only officially recorded statistics are on things like the score (obviously), the scorers, bookings, sendings off and so on. By the way, and just for your information, the term GK is never used, only "goalkeeper". --Viennese Waltz 15:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

According to the Guardian ([14]), shots on goal have been officially recorded at the World Cup since 2002. The Guardian figures pre-2002 are generally just the number of goals scored, and it's not obvious why in a few instances they've given a higher - or even a lower - figure for shots on goal. Warofdreams talk 16:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Higher - some of the shots on goal were saved. Lower - one or more goals were scored not from a shot on goal: e.g. from shots off-target but deflected into the goal, from non-shot own-goals by defenders, possibly even from the goalkeeper accidentally throwing the ball into his own net (see Gary Sprake). 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC).

The FIFA statistics on the 2010 World Cup finals are here - showing that there were seven 0-0 draws in the finals - and the information on shots is here. They suggest that, of those seven, the match between Paraguay and Japan had the most shots on goal - 20 - the next highest being the match between Portugal and Brazil which had 8. There's a report on the game here, which certainly doesn't suggest a game of high drama. The wealth of statistics on the FIFA site suggests that football is rapidly catching up with other sports in terms of the number of useless statistics collected. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not useless for sports gamblers... Googlemeister (talk) 18:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe Opta Sports keep statistics like this going back quite some way, but they're not available to anyone. One of their staff was dispensing various historical World Cup statistics on Twitter throughout the 2010 finals. If you sign up and ask he might be able to tell you. His username is OptaJoe. --Iae (talk) 21:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

age

Why do some small animals live ages like parrots 60 years or queen ants 30 years, but big animals like dogs only 15 years, when humans live 100 years —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bffmff34 (talk • contribs) 13:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Because 30 years in humans is different to 30 years in dogs. See Aging in dogs. Chevymontecarlo - alt 14:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The question-asker understands that dogs age faster, he is asking why. APL (talk) 14:45, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Because a creature's longevity is not dependent upon its size or mass.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

So what is it dependent on, then? --Viennese Waltz 15:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Though there does seem on the surface anyways, to be at least some correlation between longevity and average size in mammals anyways. I don't know if these correlations apply with birds or insects though. Googlemeister (talk) 15:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Actually, that's not entirely true: within a given class, larger creatures do tend to have longer lives. speaking in terms of evolution, though, there are a few related theories. I think r/K selection theory might be an appropriate place to begin. that theory says that longevity and birthrate are inversely related, based on whether parents pour all of their energies into producing huge quantities of offspring (the 'breed and die' behavior of salmon or the large brood sizes of field mice), or pour all their energy into raising, teaching, and caring for a small number of offspring (as in Elephants, dolphins, and humans). the former species tend to be short-lived and the latter long-lived. Dogs are somewhere in the middle on that scale - social animals with medium sized broods that do some care and training of offspring. --Ludwigs2 15:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit mis-guided in my opinion to compare humans to, for example, ants. Humans have the ability to control much of their surroundings. We also have people devoted to improving and maintaining our health. Ants don't have that. Dismas|^(talk) 19:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Not to de-rail too much, but ants DO control their environments quite a bit, probably more than any other non-human animal. They can modify heat and humidity of the nest, and also have workers that maintain sanitation. They store food, grow fungus, and tend aphids. They have division of labor, and specialists for certain tasks. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so maybe ants aren't the best example. But you get my point. They can't control things as much as we can. No animal can. We have advantages that other animals do not. Dismas|^(talk) 23:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"Control" is not really the right variable here. What you mean is, "humans have found ways to stay alive longer." Which is probably true, and why humans are not a great example to compare to wild animals. Humans living in "wild" conditions do not live as long as humans with steady food supplies, freedom from predators, good habitats, medical care, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ludwig is onto it. The simple answer is that "Mother Nature", i.e. evolution, made these creatures the way they are, for a variety of reasons. Someone brought up whales. A lot of whales consume tiny creatures called krill. You'd think krill would be extinct, at the rate the whales gobble them up. But they aren't, presumably because nearly all their energy goes towards reproduction - kind of like the tribbles of the ocean. So a lot of them get eaten, but enough of them survive to reproduce and replenish or expand their net population. Longevity is not really an issue for krill - perpetuation of the species is the issue. This rule applies in general to prey and predators. There are a number of endangered species of whales, because evolution did not require whales to be prolific, so more of their energy could go towards size and longevity. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Natural selection can favor different life-spans in different contexts. However, the general physiology of an organism places constraints on what a species can do. Species cannot generally be long-lived, and still produce many offspring with high survival rates (see Darwinian_Demon). The general concepts at play outlined by Ludwig and Baseball Bugs are discussed by Life_history_theory, though our article could use some expansion. Also, prolific species with short life-spans are not any less susceptible to being endangered; see all the insects and spiders listed here: IUCN_Red_List_endangered_species_(Animalia), SemanticMantis (talk) 01:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Do various mammals (perhaps excluding humans) live roughly the same number of heartbeats? I believe Isaac Asimov once wrote about this. It may be a measure of their metabolic rate. A mouse (500-700 beats per minute) might live a short span of time (perhaps 2 years as a pet) compared to an elephant (perhaps 28 beats per minute, perhaps 60-70 years in captivity) . (Milage may vary). The mouse would have about 6 x 10<exp> 8</exp> heartbeats, while the elephant would have about 9 x 10<exp>8</exp> heartbeats in a lifetime. Edison (talk) 05:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

But humans live roughly as long as elephants and usually have a resting heart rate of 60-70 bpm. Cats have a heart rate of 120-140 and only live 12-14 years. It is probably a rough correlation, but probably not anything to bet the farm on. Googlemeister (talk) 14:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Ingredient in a receipe

I would like to know the name of the ingredient Rachael Ray used im place of honey. It was in an episode last week. It is like honey, but does not cause an effect on blood sugars and I think she waid it was produced in Mexico. Can you help me with that. Thank you, Patreicia Bennett —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.54.192.38 (talk) 21:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen that episode, but from your description, it sounds like she was talking about agave nectar. It's sweeter than sugar, but it can still influence your blood sugar content - just less because you use less (if that makes sense). Matt Deres (talk) 23:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and here's a discussion from WebMD about the use of diabetes and agave - apparently also in response to a Rachel Ray show. The stuff on there is mostly opinion, but it seems that some folks are sceptical about agave's good reputation. If you're concerned from a diabetes perspective, the ADA, has this page regarding it, which implies that it's better than sugar, but still something of a concern (it suggests using sugar substitutes like Splenda instead). Matt Deres (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems like avage nectar's low glycemic index and high sweetness are just results of it being high in fructose. I doubt it's much different than high fructose corn syrup. Paul (Stansifer) 04:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

September 10

Legal age for getting a tattoo??

I swear I see kids that are like 13 with tattoos?!? Isn't there a legal age that you have to be to get a tattoo? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just out of the ordinary.Battleaxe9872 ^Talk 00:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I found a list of United States tattoo laws, by state. If you're not in my country, I'll let someone else take theirs. Most states do require you to be 18 to get tattooed, or at least to have parents' permission. But (a) it isn't hard to find a shady acquaintance with a tattoo tool who will give a poor-quality tattoo even if you're underage, and (b) I've personally known 13-year-olds whose parents gave them permission. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 01:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

18 in the UK, too. 128.232.131.58 (talk) 01:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Could it have been a stick-on fake tattoo? Astronaut (talk) 08:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

My friend got a tattoo at age 12, because her family owned a tattoo shop. Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 14:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Someone I know gave themselves a (small) tattoo using a compass needle and fountain pen ink when they were about 15. Equisetum (talk | email | contributions) 20:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Workmen and traffic

(Legal question not legal advice)

Today, while walking in Bristol, UK, I noticed workmen working on the road. The road was closed to one lane and one of the workmen was controlling the traffic, stopping one direction with the "stop" hand gesture (hand risen, fingers closed and pointing skyward), while allowing the other direction to use the one lane by beckoning them on with the other hand.

Strictly speaking, would a driver be committing an offence if s/he disregarded the workman's hand gesture to stop and drove through the open lane? As far as I know, surey only police officers, traffic wardens and lollipop men/ladies are allowed to direct traffic.

nb. I'm aware workmen can control traffic using Stop/Go revolving signs, and temporary traffic lights, but surely workmen can't just use hand gestures. At least, not in a legally binding way on motorists. Sam 01:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs)

If you were driving you would probably see and understand just WHY the traffic was being stopped, almost certainly because it was dangerous for the workmen to have moving vehicles nearby at that point in time.--85.211.231.161 (talk) 06:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

If you decided not to heed the indications of the workman I think you would be, at minimum, guilty of careless driving and failing to show due consideration to other road users. Depending on the actual conditions you could be guilty of dangerous driving. I can't understand why you think an indicating hand is any different from a 'proper' sign. If you came upon an accident where a member of the public was directing traffic by hand to prevent further damage presumably you would be equally annoyed. It is not necessarily legally binding but is an understanding between the workman and reasonable drivers. Richard Avery (talk) 07:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you misunderstand. I wasn't annoyed, I was just wondering from a legal standpoint. The Highway Code mentions that police officer, traffic officers, and lollipop ladies/men have the power to control traffic, while temporary road signs and traffic lights can do the same. I was wondering if workmen without those things still have a power to control traffic or whether it was just an understanding between motorist and workman, and thus whether a driver who flouted the workman would be liable to as severe punishment as someone who ran a red light, ignored a police-man's orders etc. I imagine there is no specific offense 'ignoring a workman', but that one could be prosecuted under a more general offense, such as 'driving without due care and attention'. Sam 11:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs)

I can't speak for the U.K., (or even all of the U.S., for that matter), but the law in Pennsylvania is that road construction crews authorized by the state Department of Transportation — whether they are state employees or contractors hired by the state — have the authority to control traffic as needed, and you can be charged with "violating a work zone" if you do not heed them. Also, if you commit any other offenses in a work zone, the fines are double what they normally are. — Michael J 13:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In the interests of gender equality, is there a gender neutral term for "workmen". Work-person perhaps? Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 14:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Worker, as in construction worker. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 14:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

American Conscription during World War 2

Were American men subject to the draft during World War 2 if they had already served in and been unconditionally discharged fron the U.S. military prior to the war? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.38.65 (talk) 02:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

According to Conscription in the United States, ALL men age 18 to 64 were compelled to register for the draft as World War II approached, and that men up to age 45 were actually drafted. If that's literally true, without qualification, then the answer to your question is YES. As a practical matter, someone serving in WWI would likely have been in their 40s by the time WWII was gearing up, and I would think it unlikely that guys of that age were put into the front lines, but anything's possible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:08, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In WWII in Britain all men up to 60 (I think) had to register. Those not in exempt occupations (miners, police, etc.) were then liable to be 'called up'. As more and more men were needed so older men were called. My father, born 1901, just managed to stay ahead of the call-up; but he was a part-time Air Raid Warden instead. He stood watches several nights each week in addition to his day job as a butcher. Very tiring! And dangerous.Froggie34 (talk) 14:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

This page says "The National Service (Armed Forces) Act made all able men between the ages of 18 and 41 liable for conscription; as part of the legislation it was decided that single men would be called to war before married men. Men aged 20 to 23 were required to register on 21 October 1939 - the start of a long and drawn-out process of registration by age group, which only saw 40-year-olds registering in June 1941." Older men could volunteer for the Home Service Battalions and many over-40s had obligations as reservists. In 1942, older civilian men could also be obliged to do part-time work in Civil Defence or the Home Guard[15]. Alansplodge (talk) 18:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Backdoor Entry

Is anal intercourse a real life phenomenon or does it only exist in imagination of second rate porno writers. Is it even possible ? I say that because human anus, unlike vagina which is designed to accommodate an external object, is vastly different anatomically, is clearly not meant for inserting objects, and a thing as large as human penis is especially painful experience for the taker. Of course gays have no other option, but how they are able to do it ? Thanks  Jon Ascton  (talk) 06:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

May I recommend "Anal Pleasure and Health: A Guide for Men and Women" (my emphasis), by Jack Morin, PhD (no relation), published by Down There Press, San Francisco. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 06:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Down There Press? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 09:18, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

[16] and Joani Blank suggest the name was probably intentional. Nil Einne (talk) 10:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

A simple Google search would turn up a great deal of photographic and videographic evidence that answers your question, as well as numerous sites with detailed advice on how people go about the act. Do the numerous (108) references in the article not convince you that it is possible? On a side note, for someone who appears to be totally naive about anal intercourse, why do you make the assumption that it is an especially painful experience? Brammers (talk/c) 07:36, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, when Farrah Fawcett died, it was from anal cancer, which most of us don't hear about every day; and some news reports, while trying to avoid getting too far into TMI territory, reported that this cancer is often correlated with anal intercourse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Love the title for this question. BTW, I would assume that lubrication cuts pain out of the equation, no? And Bugs, wouldn't most gay dudes die from anal cancer? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 09:17, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't know. I'm just reporting what the news sources said at the time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

What news sources would that be, hopefully not any that we accept as RS on Wikipedia? The claim of a connection sounds completely ridiculous. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the point is not the act per se, but rather the potential for infection with human papillomavirus (HPV). The anal cancer article suggests that HPV is strongly implicated. Of course the act can't transmit the virus unless one partner is already infected. --Trovatore (talk) 18:32, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

What the heck newspaper do you read that speculates on what kind of sex acts might have contributing to someone's death? APL (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't recall the specific source, but there are many google hits. This page include's a doctor's blog on the general subject, not drawing inferences about Farrah directly:[17] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

'Cuts out'? Doubt it. Our article has plenty of discussions of pain, none of them suggest lubrication is always going to completely eliminate the pain. Of course it's likely to reduce it. I saw a anecdotal discussion once, I thought it was in our article talk page but can't find it where it was suggested for many even when both partners are experienced and careful the initial penetration is usually at least somewhat painful. (Generally speaking most discussions I've read suggest what is realisticly common sense, use lubrication, go carefully and slowly, communicate and if it gets to painful, stop.) BTW, it's obviously not true that 'gays have no other option'. As our various articles I'm quite sure mention, there are gay men who don't enjoy anal sex either as the receiving or penetrating partner and they do clearly find other options which work for them. On the other hand, there are surely some heterosexual men who do enjoy being pegged. Talking in absolutes when it comes to anything involving humans rarely works. Nil Einne (talk) 11:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

And as for Jon pointing out that assholes aren't meant to have objects inserted inside of them, that also brings to mind another thing... I've heard a lot about how the elasticity can be worn out due to being repeatedly entered, even in some extreme cases requiring some to wear diapers due to anal leakage. Is this true or urban myth? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 09:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The article has a section on it. Anal_sex#Physical_damage. Brammers (talk/c) 09:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

As for 'gays have no other option' (presumably meaning gay men), there are certainly other options. For example, intercrural sex, oral sex and frot, not to mention many other activities that people often classify under 'foreplay', although they can be fun in themselves too. Anal sex isn't the only option for gay men, and penetrative sex is not, in general, the only way to have a fun sexy time. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 12:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I would still loathe being a gay dude, since I would not like having things go up my ass, and vice-versa. I'd be miserable in being limited to the kinds of sex I could have. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 00:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Jon, I'm trying to assume good faith here, but I don't understand how you can ask if it is "even possible" when you acknowledge that gays "are able to do it" and then link to a thoroughly referenced article on the topic, while still expressing doubts as to the possibility of existence. This isn't like ghosts or little green men... we have pictures... and movies. Matt Deres (talk) 13:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't wish to be vulgar here, but I've taken dumps which were far larger than the average human penis. It certainly wasn't painful, so "a thing as large as human penis is especially painful experience for the taker" isn't true. Original research of course. 124.37.178.244 (talk) 14:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That could probably be promoted to Fundamental Research.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

sun

When in the next sola ellipse in the uk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Threesfours (talk • contribs) 13:42, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The next full solar eclipse in the UK will be in 2090. There will be partial eclipses before then though. See List of solar eclipses visible from the United Kingdom 1000–2090 AD#The twenty first century (2001 - 2090 AD). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Bausch & Lomb Soothe PF

Will Bausch & Lomb's dry eye product 'Soothe PF' be discontinued soon because of their new 'Soothe XH' product? --Endlessdan (talk) 13:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Why not contact them direct, and ask ?Froggie34 (talk) 14:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

My doctor says they are, they cannot comment per their 1800 #. Thanks anyway. --Endlessdan (talk) 14:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

cadillac seville gas tank and sending unit

WHAT CAR AND YEAR HAS THE SAME GAS TANK AND SENDING UNIT AS THE 1976 CADILLAC SEVILLE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.254.84.31 (talk) 13:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Please do not type in capitals; it is considered shouting. Chevymontecarlo 14:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

When a recipe just says "mustard seed," should I use whole or ground?

The recipe is here. Just seeing the phrase "mustard seed" instead of "mustard powder" made me think it meant whole seeds, but this recipe is for a sauce that is smooth so I think they may mean ground mustard seed. Is there a common naming convention to distinguish the two? Thanks. mislih 15:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That recipe isn't going to give a smooth sauce unless you blend it (as it actually says). I would take mustard seed to mean whole seeds -- many Asian recipes call for them. A well-written recipe will specify ground mustard if that's what it means. Looie496 (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

September 11

ALL CAPS

Not sure if this is a computing, humamities, language or other question. As a regular here on the reference desks I see my fair share of posts all in caps, and have on occasion reminded them that shouting is not necessary. I'm curious though: on every keyboard I've ever used lower case is the normal situation and I have either has to hold down the shift key or press caps lock to get the all caps effect. So why do some posters press extra keys to type in all caps even though it makes their post look different from everyone elses, more difficult to read, and having seen other all caps posts attracting criticism for shouting? Astronaut (talk) 00:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Several reasons that I've seen/deduced:

• The user is an asshole who believes what they have to say is a lot more important, profound, urgent, and thought-provoking than any of the other mindless crap that's in the way.
• The user is an attention whore.
• The user is not an asshole, but still thinks their question is urgent and needs to be answered straightaway. (This may be accompanied by capitalizing only part of the question.)
• The user forgets that their capslock is on and somehow doesn't notice, OR the user is too lazy to turn capslock off.
• (The only legitimate excuse:) The user is a senior citizen who has trouble seeing what they are typing. These people should probably be congratulated for embracing technology!
• Along with the lack of punctuation that normally comes with shouting, some shout to hide their embarrassing lack of grammar skills.

Xenon54 (talk) 00:46, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

SOME PEOPLE JUST WANT TO WIND YOU UP, Astronaut. IT'S PERSONAL ;) --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I doubt the posters who do so have "seen other all caps posts attracting criticism for shouting". My experience is that all-caps writing is something that inexperienced web-users do, or people parodying inexperienced web-users. Presumably they think it makes their writing stand out more, and attracts attention (which it does): they haven't learnt that the attention will be negative, and they do not know netiquette. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 00:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)