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October 14

Reverse telephone lookup UK

How do I discover 020 331 53000 ? The number sounds unreal but is revealed by 1471. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

1 digit too many? -- are you looking for [1] and [2] (5 complaints total) where it appears it might be a telemarketer of some sort? Collect (talk) 10:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Number looks ok its a London 0203 number (normally shown as 0203 315 3000) - a google search shows it could be MEM Finance http://www.mem-cf.co.uk/ you could always ring the number! but as it is probably Cold calling it might be best to ignore it. MilborneOne (talk) 10:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Strictly speaking the code for London is 020, and the number should be shown as 020 3315 3000, though this convention is often flouted for 0207 and 0208 numbers, especially those that began life as 01 xxx xxxx, then became 071 xxx xxxx, then 0171 xxx xxxx, and now "officially" 020 7xxx xxxx (likewise for 081 etc). See UK telephone code misconceptions. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Spot on. Thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Labor Relations

When can an employer legally lockout employees from their place of work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.106.129.183 (talk) 12:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

An employer can legally lock up their own premises at any time. That does not rule out the possibility of civil litigation that might arise from breaching an agreement or causing unusual hardship. An example of the latter is when the work premises are a remote hut in Antarctica that is the only heated accommodation within walking distance. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The opposite of the first part of what Cuddlyable3 said is also true. It all depends on the jurisdiction. In plenty of places, labour law is law, and unjustified lock outs are illegal. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 18:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The IP is in the US - and, in many cases, "lockouts" are legal. In fact, most employees are "at will" employees, subject to discharge at any time. Union or other contracts may affect the situation, but I doubt that such is a common occurrence (lockouts during a valid contract term). Collect (talk) 18:42, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

...and our article on this frightening concept is At-will employment, which also lists some exceptions to it, and links to relevant concepts in other countries. 109.155.37.180 (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

We do have the article Lockout (industry). Is there a particular situation or jurisdiction that you are curious about? -- 119.31.126.68 (talk) 12:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Awareness

The Green movement has been constantly bombarding the media with messages of conservation of natural resources in everyday life by individuals. My question is- What is the impact of these messages since the usage of cars has not gone down or the no of people behaving in an eco-conscious manner has not increased or global warming has not been reversed, deforestation is increasing day by day —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.98.0.155 (talk) 13:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I am assuming good faith here. Why do you assume that `people behaving in an eco-conscious manner has not increased?' (OR warning) I suspect you'll find more people cycling to work in the USA in 2010 than did in 1990. Likewise for community gardens, composting, recycling, etc. As for `global warming has not been reversed', the situation we are in today has been brewing for ~200 years, and it is unlikely anything can get us back to pre-industrial revolution atmospheric CO_2 levels anytime soon. (Unsubstantiated claim:) Lastly, I'll point out that while individual habits contribute to environmental problems (especially unnecessary/inefficient use of cars), it's really large organizations that are responsible for the bulk of atmospheric emissions, and changing those practices will likely require legislation, not awareness campaigns. If anyone else wants to fill in some substantiating links here, I'd appreciate it -- SemanticMantis (talk) 14:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

We can't judge how much impact the messages have had, because we don't know what would have happened had the messages not been sent out. The "bombardment" by the "green movement" is, I'm pretty sure, at a lower level than the "bombardment" of advertising by the automobile industry or the producers of consumer goods generally over the same period. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

One easy way to judge the "impact" of the message is the number of "green" products that have been introduced over that period of time. An entire "green" industry has basically appeared out of nowhere in the last 15-20 years, usually at higher prices than the "regular" ("non-green") products. It's certainly an indication of increased consumer consciousness of "green" as a positive category, even at the expense of getting cheaper prices or sometimes more effective products (green cleaning products, in my experience, are pretty subpar compared to the "scorched earth" style chemical products). The impact of the commodification of "green" sentiment is seen especially in sectors like automobiles and manufacturing that are traditionally pretty "dirty", all of whom are racing now to appear environmentally aware and conscious. Now whether this translates into much real-world change in habits other than consumer spending, or whether it actually affects climate change (nobody in the Green movement would likely suggest that this has been the case except in a very minor way, in part because the magnitude of the problem is so great), is another, much harder to measure question. There are also more complicated economic and political factors involved as well. But I do think one can make the case that there has been a definite raise in consciousness about "green" products, and a real and measurable economic impact of that among the middle and upper classes. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It is also a cultural thing. While more people may bike to work now then in 1990 for the US, that is probably not true in China. In fact, I recall a road in China had so much traffic, it had a 3week long traffic jam. Googlemeister (talk) 21:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Percentage of U.S. workers who biked to work in 2000: 0.38%. In 2008: 0.55%. ([3]) That's a 43% increase in eight years -- pretty good if you ask me, although we have a long way to go before we're like Amsterdam. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. While it's true there are a lot more motorised vehicles in China now then there used to be, China as with a number of developing countries has also rapidly urbanised in the past 20 years and their cities are a lot larger. Many of these new city dwellers work in factories where they are often in factory dormotories or housing I believe (going by past discussion) so probably don't bike to work. But quite a few of them must. What about in the past? How many people working in farms etc used to bike to work? The lack of any decent path, closeness to work and other factors may have meant there weren't so many but I don't really know. Nil Einne (talk) 13:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually munfitnessblog.com/will-you-cycle-to-work/ (blacklisted site) & [4] looks like you were probably right (albeit from 1995 to 2005 rather then 1990 to 2010) Nil Einne (talk) 13:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Why does this Bic pen have a white end?

I have come into possession of a Bic Cristal médium ballpoint pen. The pen writes black ink, but the plastic plug in the back end of the pen is not black (as I would expect) but instead opaque and white. Does this mean this pen is special in some way? I remember something when I used to work in a Post Office about possibly white ends on pens meaning they were special somehow (security related?) but I cannot find any reference to it online. Maybe someone who works for Bic could shed some light? 13:15, 14 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.123.15 (talk)

It's what you write with a pen which makes it special. Juliankaufman (talk) 14:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Bic makes identical pens but with white barrels (for promotional advertising), so I would guess that the white end was really intended for one of these and just got placed on your clear barrel by mistake. I suppose it could be some special code, but I've never heard of it. Any Bic employees available? Dbfirs 15:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

What colo(u)r is the cap? In the U.S., the cap and the plug at the end were usually the same colour, related to the colour of the ink inside (medium blue cap and plug: dark blue ink; red: red ink; black: black ink; etc.) —— Shakescene (talk) 17:23, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The plug colour (white) is meaningless. Really. Collect (talk) 17:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It means you have enough time to contemplate the meaning of pen cap colors and to share your observations on Wikipedia. schyler (talk) 19:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Nokia phone / vCard

Someone sent me a vCard from their mobile phone. Is there a menu option within a Nokia 6300 which will store the vCard details as a new contact? thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Celebrity Milkmen

I'm looking for information on milkmen (Uk-based hopefully) who have becomes celebrities. Thanks. Juliankaufman (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Sean Connery[5]? Alansplodge (talk) 16:25, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Freddie Garrity of Freddie and the Dreamers[6] is another (you have to be a certain age to remember that one). Alansplodge (talk) 16:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is rather tenuous, but before he became a U.S. Congressman from Berkeley, California (later to be defeated in the 1970 Democratic primary by Ron Dellums, who's now the retiring Mayor of Oakland), the late Jeffery Cohelan was secretary-treasurer of the milk-drivers' union. (I'm old enough to remember Express Dairies delivering milk from horse-drawn waggons in London, but getting milk delivered to your door in the U.S. now is very much a boutique, specialist choice. I wonder who the youngest celebrity to have worked at this job would be.) —— Shakescene (talk) 16:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I was going to say I presumed Ernie didn't count, but from that article I see that Benny Hill is another example. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Craig Douglas, "known to many as the 'Singing Milkman'". Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

D'oh! I had only remembered the Singing Postman :-) Alansplodge (talk) 08:18, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I have heard that Engelbert Humperdinck was a milkman, though our article doesn't seem to mention it. You may want to investigate further (and I will check later as well). Matt Deres (talk) 18:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Harry Hood (ok, he's fictional, but still...) --Jayron32 22:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

A quick search also turns up Harry Enfield, Jon Anderson and Brian Jacques. Carl Airey is the youngest notable milkman I can find - he apparently started delivering milk after his career in professional football finished. Warofdreams talk 01:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I tried a search of the IMDB biography section for "milkman". There were 22 hits, but 21 of them were false -- either the person had a family member who was a milkman, or they were involved in something with "milkman" in the title, or they played a milkman (in several cases Tevye). The only one who was a milkman himself was Nathan Hale (1910-94), husband of Ruth Hale (playwright and actress). And he has only two acting credits in the IMDB, so I don't think he qualifies as famous unless he was better known in the realm of the stage. Of course, given that "milkman" ends in "-man", it's possible that another term is used for it in some places and maybe there are IMDB biographies that use that instead. --Anonymous, 04:27 UTC, corrected 04:31, October 15, 2010.

Sting worked as a milkman, helping his father. I see the IMDB biography doesn't make that clear. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 07:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

According to this[7], Sting was a bus conductor, a labourer, a tax officer and a teacher. Milkmen often used a school-aged boy to help with the deliveries; not quite a fully fledged milkman though. Alansplodge (talk) 13:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It was mentioned in a documentary I saw on TV around Christmas, possibly the one on "A Winter's Night...Live from Durham Cathedral". AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Mike Tucker, Jazzer, and Harry. We love the Bull! BrainyBabe (talk) 07:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Showing my innocence; I didn't realise until I started researching this question, that "milkman" is slang for a villain who delivers illegal drugs. You live and learn. Alansplodge (talk) 20:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Does that men all the answers here may be useless? Nil Einne (talk) 13:25, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Related dairy drug drama: Glasgow Ice Cream Wars. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Wiggling toes in bed

What would be the cause or reason for someone wiggling their toes (seemingly uncontrollably) before bed? Also, are there any benefits or dangers of doing this?--67.134.239.205 (talk) 19:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

We don't give medical advice, sorry. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

We have an encyclopaedia article on Restless legs syndrome that might be of interest. However, a bunch of unknown Internet people are not a reliable source of personalized medical advice, which is why we can't give you any. Please ask a medical professional instead. Good luck. Karenjc 21:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hypnic jerk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.89.130 (talk) 13:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

October 15

Are those kinds of door-to-door magazine sales scams?

Dear Wikipedia,

I had a random door-to-door magazine salesman arrive at my residence and he was pitching deals about magazines that cost $1.80/issue while showing me lists of magazines I could subscribe to. He appeared college-aged and said that he'd earn 100 communications points if I decided to accept a sale. I told him that I didn't need magazines right now but he told me about how he needed to meet his quota of 20,000 points in 3 weeks soon or else something unfavorable would happen. He claimed to have 16,500 points right at the moment. He then said that it would help a charity (like St. Jude's Hospital) and help him get a vacation to Hawaii, then get into college somehow.

The guy, claimed to be Michael Reynolds, said that he's from southern Ohio and hopes to get into Ohio State sometime. He claimed to be adopted, therefore he couldn't get student loans, since he couldn't find and track down the info about his biological parents. He also said that his adoptive parents are Mormon, after pointing out and commenting about a booklet about Chastity on my coffee table that some of the LDS Missionaries left me weeks ago.

Then he pitched about donating kids' magazines to St. Jude's Children Hospital instead, and I would get a post card from them in 1-10 weeks saying thanks, a biography about a child patient, his/her diagnoses and etc., and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Then I decided to go with the transaction.

He then said that it's $48 for a 2-year subscription to that hospital, so I calculated and that would be 26.66 issues. It was really 24, and when faced with this math disparity, he said that the magazines RANGE from $1.80-$3/issue. It would really be $2/issue for National Geographic for Kids.

Michael was quite friendly and polite and I was so pressured to pay that I told him I was going to post-date the check instead. It's because I have too little in my account right now but after November, I would get my monthly deposit, so I set it at November 2nd. At first, he agreed to it. Then he asked to borrow my phone to call his boss, T. Bradburn, at 770-851-68**. It would only go to voicemail, so he tried twice; same result. When he couldn't reach him, he told me that he'd need permission because checks can't be post-dated without it, so he asked me to put in today's date but promised to hold it until next month, and even invited me to call his boss to ask that the check doesn't get cashed until November.

He also told me that he's a "contestant" who's part of a traveling group in a van that his boss drives, and they stayed at Omaha, quite a bit north from where I live, and he needed to add 2 more magazine subscriptions by tonight at 8:00 Central. (It was about 5:30-6:30 when I dealt with him.)

After I completed the transaction, he gave his most heartfelt thanks, got me to write good comments about him (so he gets another 100 points) and went on his way. I went on my way too because I had an Accounting tutoring session to go to. I think called Bradburn's number again, intending to leave a voice message. He answered this time, and when I explained what happened, who visited, and so forth, once I asked that the check only gets deposited after November starts, he said "Too bad!" and hung up. This was a big red flag.

I thought this over for a little bit, then decided to chase down Michael on my bike and confront him about his boss's treatment of me over the phone. He sounded apologetic and assured me that he'd do his best to personally make sure that the check doesn't get deposited until November, and made some comments about not intending to treat customers disrespectfully and so forth. When I asked about his boss Mr. Bradburn, Mike said that he smokes in his car (he mentioned a van instead earlier...), had a pretty rough childhood, and is like Rocky Balboa. I asked him who I could go to in case the check was deposited too early anyway, and to complain about Mr. Bradburn. He said that Bradburn's boss is David Fussler (or Fussman or Fusser?), and I told him that I'd find out more about him online. Mike was once again apologetic and friendly and we bid each other our farewells.

I wrote down the company name as well and left that at home but I don't remember what it is now. (Acronym is "SSI" - S...... Sales, Inc. I don't know if the first "S" stands for Sunrise, Sunshine, or something about as long as that.)

Did these guys just screw me? Do I have to tell my bank to cancel Check #578 or just give a special request not to register the transaction until November, just in case?

Moreover, what can you find out about these people? And what do you know that I don't, about such traveling young magazine salesmen? (They canvass college towns apparently, because I've had several other visitors like Mike once every half-year or so, but I was able to turn them away in ways that I couldn't turn Mike. But why do they want the college students' business?)

I look forward to your answers. Thank you,

--129.130.32.61 (talk) 00:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

That sure sounds like a scam to me. ♫Mr. R00t ^Talk♫ 00:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. You. Were. Completely. Scammed. Indeed, royally scammed. Let me count the ways: 1) he needs the points 2) its for the kids 3) prices are variable 4) you have to subscribe /now/ not in three weeks (the refusal to accept a post dated cheque) 5) the mobile phone boss who must be approached for permissions but won't pick up 6) the contestant 7) the mobile phone boss who distains your call: we've got the cheque, dummy: you're history 8) the personal apology 9) the boss' rough childhood, FFS. I've probably missed a few, but you get the picture. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

why do they want the college students' business. Because you're that exotic combination of "have some money" + "naïve". There are few ready substitutes for age and the lessons learned from repeated experience. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, Tagish. If I find some info and background on the company, I may report them to the BBB. Now, would I be able to ask my bank to cancel Check #578 once it arrives so it doesn't get debited to the scammers?

By the way, may I please post the boss's full name and phone #? When I was writing the number down, Mike then said the prefix was 158, and I stopped him and told him that phone prefixes cannot start with "1;" they had to be 200 or above, so I looked at his boss's business card and got the correct number. Then Mike claims that he is "sometimes dyslexic like that."

Also, could they commit ID theft with the name, address, routing & account # on my check? How so? And if so, how do I prevent it as soon as I can? --129.130.32.61 (talk) 01:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Not only are you being scammed, the kids doing the selling are in big trouble, too. See www.associatedcontent.com/article/181489/doortodoor_magazine_selling_kids_protecting.html?cat=17 216.93.213.191 (talk) 01:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Call the bank, put a hold on the check. Pretty simple. You seem to be aware that the possibility of it being a scam is exceptionally high. It has scam written all over it. As for possible problems with them having the check info, ask the bank. They'll know pretty well, and since they are the ones who end up having to chase down the funds if they get removed (at least, that's what my bank had to do when someone misused my own check numbers), they'll probably be the ones with the incentive to let you know if something is weird. (E.g. put a hold on your account and get you a new number, which is not very hard.) --Mr.98 (talk) 02:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, YOU are the person who is liable to have to track down funds that get removed. I've had this happen to me; my account number was used by a wireless company to "electronically draft" out of my account. I didn't authorize it, didn't have an account with this company. I told the bank and they told me to call the company and have them return the money! My argument that they had allowed an unauthorized transaction fell on deaf ears; it was my problem. In their eyes, if someone has my account number, they are allowed to draft out of it!

I did call the company and they did return the money (after a few days and a couple of phone calls), so that was less trouble than fighting the bank. And the bank knows that, and they have some of the highest-paid lobbyists there are writing laws in their favor, so who knows what I would have found if the company had refused to return the money?

Given the brazen nature of the people you are dealing with, I would close the account. If you just stop the check, you are depending on too many other people to behave the way we expect them to. These folks are out-of-sight con artists.

Also, just by-the-bye, if you want to contribute to St. Jude's, they take checks in any amount at any time convenient to you -- no part of that money stops off at a magazine company or a salesman's pocket. I tell all phone callers and door-to-door sellers (now that I'm older) that I never respond to solicitations from any of them, because it just encourages them. It does not matter how worthy their cause sounds.

rc (talk) 04:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it may vary state-by-state (and maybe by bank). In California, when someone did all sorts of hijinks with my Wells Fargo checking account, it was a pretty trivial thing for the bank to reverse it (I had to fill out some fraud paperwork) and they didn't hold me liable for any of it except for an overdraft fee that was accrued during the same time period (which I probably could have gotten reversed if I'd had the energy to fight it). --Mr.98 (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is some info on their organization

Hi, I just got back home and therefore had the chance to review the receipt. The company's name is Someday Sales, Inc.. Their address is P.O. Box 574, Arden, NC 28704. The sales agent is read to be Michael R. (as I indicated above) and the "code" is 512. (That could be an employee ID #.) The receipt # is 25983, and some another company's info on the bottom right of the receipt is "(CSI) Currie Systems, Inc. - Huntsville, AL - (256) 704-CURRIE (2877)." I'll be googling Someday Sales to see what more I can learn about them; see if they have any remarks on BBB.org or RipOffReport.com. --70.179.178.5 (talk) 05:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

BBB rating: F. Have you put a hold on the check yet? --Mr.98 (talk) 12:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello, same OP, different IP (thanks to being on the move with my laptop nearly every day.) I have asked my bank to cancel Check #578, and they said it would be a $25 fee; it would, after all, save me $23. And they said that I have to visit the bank and sign a form. I'll be available after 2:20 CST this afternoon so that's exactly what I'll do. --129.130.101.29 (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

BTW the NYT did a good article a few years ago about the mistreatment of employees on magazine crews and the industry's general shadiness.[8] Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Lesson for all of us: never buy anything at the door. Either don't open the door at all, or say "no thanks, I never buy anything at the door". Never let anyone start on their sob story. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

And if you want to give them money, pay in cash and view it as a donation with no reward: don't do it expecting to have gained anything. 109.155.37.180 (talk) 23:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I like letting them do their sob story. It's very satisfying to get them to waste their time like that, for some reason. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Unless it means life or death [9][10]. schyler (talk) 03:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Huh? Do they kill Jehova's Witnesses that doesn't make a sale? --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:25, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, they don't sell anything, in the sense of engaging in monetary transactions. Maybe they'd have better luck if they did try to flog subscriptions to The Watchtower, as they did once upon a time, rather than just have people get them gratis. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I know, I used the term "sale" figuratively. It still doesn't explain what schyler meant with "life and death"-situation. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

And given it was indented as a reply to me, it suggests a monetary exchange with the Jehovah's Witnesses is a life and death situation. Which would, indeed, suggest terrible penalties for Witnesses who don't sell enough feather dusters. 23:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.155.37.180 (talk)

Perhaps you people are looking at this from the wrong way. Who said it was life or death to the salesperson? May be the OP was intending to suggest there's a new policy of killing people who don't join? Nil Einne (talk) 09:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I think Schyler was referring to the recipient's life or death, if you don't sign up to the JWs then your life or death could be different. For me, pure BS. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 11:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I ask if they are from Publisher's Clearing House with my winner's check. They usually just slowly back away as I feign anger and rage about broken promises :-) hydnjo (talk) 19:09, 17 October 2010 (UTC) I know this is off topic, but hahahahaha that's funny hydnjo! 70.241.18.130 (talk) 23:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

best sleeping position

Which sleeping position is scientifically regarded as being the best for getting to sleep and having a good nights sleep? I've tried sleeping on my back but I never go to sleep, I've tried on my front but my face in the pillow makes it difficult to breath, and I've tried sleeping on my side but it is uncomfortable for my male private parts (I'm male btw). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.84.247.143 (talk) 10:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You could try sleeping on your side with a pillow between your legs, to relieve the pressure on your balls. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 11:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thread of the week, already. --Viennese Waltz 11:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You might be interested to read sleeping position.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how lying on your side is uncomfortable in that way, but I would say the back is the best way to sleep, for me at least. I think the best position in which to sleep best is different for everyone, although the article Shantavira linked to may be helpful. Chevymontecarlo 14:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised no one has said this yet but how about with someone on top of or or below you? Nil Einne (talk) 15:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how sleeping on top of someone else, or having someones entire weight on top on you while trying to sleep would be beneficial. Oh wait, is it a sex joke? I'm surprised it took this long for the reference desk lame joke squad to make an appearance. 137.30.164.148 (talk) 19:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The Ref Desk convention is that jokes are in small type, just so that you don't have to puzzle it out ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 20:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Back to the point - try the Recovery position. This version[11] leaves room for the family jewels. Alansplodge (talk) 20:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

October 16

Where to buy U.S.Army Uniform

Where can I buy an U.S.Army Uniform for Parades and so forth. As a Chaplian for Amvets I would like to have an Army Uniform. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.208.20 (talk) 00:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Get yourself a phone book and look up your local surplus store. Or go to an online retailer such as US Cavalry. Dismas|^(talk) 00:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

do not try to mug a marine for his duds. it's likely that would not work out well for you. --Ludwigs2 03:46, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Correct sir, his clothes might not fit you properly, and it would be a Marines uniform in any case. Googlemeister (talk) 16:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

98.17.208.20, as a member of AMVETS, I assume that you are a veteran. By your "Chaplain" mention, are you implying that you are a retired army officer? Do you have access rights to a PX? I understand that there are regulations (10USC771 and 772) which cover the appropriate wearing of uniforms by veterans. Given the nature of your organization, don't you have information officers to help veterans with questions such as this? -- 124.157.218.5 (talk) 07:02, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Jet Putt game

What information is known about the Jet Putt Miniature Golf game produced by Kenner Toys in Cinncinnati Ohio? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Myusernamewho (talk • contribs) 03:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article about the toy company. I find no information on the Jet Putt mini golf game which appears to be from 1960-1970. The name is similar to that of the Jet-Putt-Putt speedboay toy made by Alden Novelty (it's not relevant but here is a picture). Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Habitability

The St Louis Gateway Arch is described as the tallest habitable structure in Missouri. What criteria are used to determine whether a structure is habitable, as the arch was certainly not designed for anyone to live in it? Rojomoke (talk) 16:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

List of tallest buildings and structures in the world defines "habitable" as "frame structures made with floors and walls throughout" (at the bottom of the "Tallest buildings" section); it cites the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat definitions here - that doesn't seem to define "habitable" per se, but does define "Highest occupied floor" - I don't know if "occupied" and "habitable" mean the same. You might like to bring that up on the talk page of that article. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it distinguishes it from radio masts et al which really aren't "habitable" in any sense. Alansplodge (talk) 20:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Why the hate?

Have any of you wondered why there's so much hate in the world? I have a YouTube account. When I started exploring that website, I couldn't believe the amount of hate I saw. I wasn't surprised, but I was taken aback by it. It's also strange as to why YouTube/Google would allow the vile hatred to exist. It's their website. How can you hate someone for something they had no control over? I had no control over being born a black male in Brookyn, New York, United States on June 16, 1986 AD. That's how, where, and when God made me. So, how can someone hate me for something I had no control over? It's really sad. B-Machine (talk) 16:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

You ask a very deep sociological and anthropological question. I'm sure that you could fill many university courses on such a topic. One book that I would recommend for this question is The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. It's a really wide ranging book on what makes us human, but there is a section talking about why humans are so xenophobic, why we do terrible things to each other. Basically, it's a trait that's not unique to humans. Other great apes are also observed to kill other members of the species that aren't in the same tribe. There's an evolutionary pressure to assure that your family members survive, and unrelated individuals, even of the same species, do not. It's written from a scientific standpoint, but it's pretty easy for the lay-person to understand (it's also a bit out of date, being written in 1991, but much of it is still valid). Buddy431 (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

As Darwin noted, nature is red in tooth and claw. You might almost better wonder why there is so much good in the world! And perhaps our Evolution of morality article is a starting point toward one way of understanding this very complex issue (and yes see also Buddy's book, too!:) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:03, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

"Nature red in tooth and claw" is more of a Spencerian sentiment than a Darwinian one, but anyway, the point stands, of course. -- Mr.98 (talk) 21:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Nature is actually fairly peaceful; you won't see a fraction of the violence and bloodshed in nature that you see in human interactions. --Ludwigs2 02:40, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Darwin cited Tennyson's line in Origin somewhere, didn't he...? Can't seem to find that right now, but seem to recall Darwin himself using that line, or one like it, somewhere... WikiDao ☯ (talk) 03:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Nature is filled to the brim with violence and bloodshed - all those predators and parasites gotta eat, you know. What's lacking is immorality and hatred. Matt Deres (talk) 04:02, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Can't find it; I guess I must have been thinking of something else, and made that comment in that state of confusion about it. It is a good point, though, about that notion, "survival of the fittest", not being really the way that Darwin would have put it himself. That phrase certainly gets terribly misused and misunderstood, doesn't it? It was the thought that Darwin held a more complex and profound understanding of things that then led me to make the rest of my comment. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 04:05, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs speaks as if humanity was something separate from nature. It's not. Whatever humans do, that's natural. If humans happen to constitute the most violent and bloodthirsty species, so be it; some species has to be the worst. But I doubt we are. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 04:16, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

sorry jack, humanity reinvents nature as it goes along; do you think there's anything in nature that remotely reflects warfare, or genocide, or rape, or high school bullying? Our blessing and our curse as a species is that we can consider the world in abstract terms and create fabrications that we convince ourselves are real. And from those fabrications springs a world of joy and pain undreamt of by any other species. --Ludwigs2 05:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

• Warfare#Evolutionary psychology: Jane Goodall in 1974 documented what she called a war between groups of wild chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park of Tanzania.
• The challenge of genocide: Genocide, he also notes, is quite common among animal groups – especially in social carnivorous species like lions, wolves, hyenas and ants ...
• Sociobiological theories of rape#Rape as an adaptation among animals: It has long been observed that some animals appear to show behavior resembling rape in humans, such as combining sexual intercourse with violent assault ...
• Dominant Female Mongooses Bully to the Max: Mongoose bullies torture pregnant relatives until victims are forced to leave.

Remote resemblance?-- 124.157.218.5 (talk) 08:24, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Ludwigs2, are you saying that the things you mentioned are examples of humans acting extra-naturally? or super-naturally? or even unnaturally? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

So, you've both just tried to argue that human classification of the acts of animals in terms of human activities means that those activities are factually in the same category. The last place I read that type of argument was in a psych journal article about bestiality, where a subject was explaining how he and his dog were in a mutually committed and consensual relationship because he knew that his dog desired him in the same way that he desired her. Are you sure this is the approach you want to take?

I understand sociobiology, and the discipline does have some interesting things to say. Unfortunately, non-scientists who read sociobiology often make the same mistakes as non-scientists who read Freudian psychology - they assume that low-level inceptive elements determine high-level functioning completely. One can try to define the existence, form, and all the various contents of the internet by referencing the innately biological social vocalizations of Madagascar lemurs and Oklahoma prairie dogs (and I'll confess that lemurs and prairie dogs make more sense than some forums I've seen on the 'net), but one can only do it in such a vastly and grossly distorted way that it becomes effectively meaningless. For the most part, non-scientsts use sociobiology as an excuse from moral cognition (a kind of "look, see? animals do this sometimes, so it must be 'natural'" approach).

• Yes, chimpanzees occasionally fight in small groups, but chimpanzees do not define territory or ideological groups, do not organize different troops together into larger fighting forces, do not programmatically seek out and destroy or subjugate others. They simply fight in groups under certain conditions.
• Yes, social animals will occasionally indulge in drastic breeding strategies (male lions, for instance, will kill or drive off a dominant male from a pride and then kill that male's offspring as well). but no lion would decide that (say) short-maned lions are inferior, and systematically roam the veldt looking for and killing off all short-maned lions.
• Yes, some animals have violent or sneaky forms of sexuality (usually an outgrowth of physical competition between males, or of subordinate males sneaking past dominant males to get at females). But there is no indication that females of these species object to this activity on moral grounds, or that these species have fantasies or fears about such behavior, or that any psychological trauma occurs from such acts, or that these behaviors in any way reflect the conventional understanding of rape used in human societies.
• And yes, lots of animals drive out pregnant females or young males under many circumstances. This is not 'bullying' (a conscious act of tormenting another in order to boost one's own self-esteem), but rather an innate mechanism for population control (groups that drive off excess members will have a higher chance of survival in environments with limited resources, and thus be more likely to pass on their genes).

I mean seriously, folks... the nature of human cognition is that we build overarching conceptual structures that supplant/incorporate whatever inbuilt biological tendencies we have; the essence of moral theory is the investigation into how our inbuilt biological tendencies should be supplanted/incorporated. Rape, warfare, and genocide are all clearly high-level abstract concepts with limited connection to simple biological urges towards sex, self-defence, and genetic inheritance. Are trying to make the argument that rape, war and genocide are morally excusable because of some deeply seated biological mandate? Because that's really the only place this kind of argument can lead, either to moral exculpation for immoral acts or to completely amoral nihilism which claims that anything you 'want' to do is intrinsically moral because of the 'wanting'.

Bit long, that, sorry. --Ludwigs2 18:08, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

You make good points, Ludwigs. I agree in general with what you are saying and with the points Jack et al. are making.

It is not just "biology vs. culture" here, though (although Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents remains worth reading as far as it goes, yes).

There is "good" hard-wired into us, just the same way any other instinct is. See eg. Altruism#Scientific viewpoints: there has been evolutionary pressure for humans to be "good" and that is closely intertwined with cultural pressure toward the same (ie. causality goes both ways, epigenetic behavior is expressed with some plasticity according to cultural environment, etc). WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:51, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's fairly clear that being civilized and accepting other people who are different is the "unnatural" state for humans. It takes a lot of work to get to that state. Even in our modern age, when one would think we'd have ever reason and example of the evils of such tribalisms and bigotries, the sentiments still seem to be extremely prevalent, even if in some countries (e.g. America and Western Europe and a few other places) one isn't supposed to raise them in polite company.

As for the internet, it gives people masks. Once hidden behind such masks, people are often eager and willing to do things they wouldn't do if there was some accountability involved. As for YouTube/Google — they will remove posts if they are flagged enough times, but it's a huge problem. Hundreds of thousands of comments are being posted every day — how can they review them all? Should they rely on "dumb" word blacklists? People will just find ways around those and always have. Should they try and make some sort of "authenticated" identification that requires all users to have their "real" identities confirmed and displayed? You'd probably kill the site outright if you tried. It's a non-trivial problem to imagine an effective speech police over so many millions of people, even if one doesn't worry about the problem of deciding what types of speech are to be allowed, how the borderline cases will be handled, and so on. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the answer is simple: stupid parents produce children who hate various groups. Either explicitly or using subtle means, parents convey to children that they should hold negative feelings to other groups of people—be they the disabled, those of different sexual orientation, those of different religion/no religion at all, those of different nationality etc. Children are disadvantaged in life by their parents inculcating in them negative attitudes, and this is especially so in times when the society in question is trending towards greater open-mindedness in these matters. I think it could be said that America at this time is as fair-handed as it has ever been. At times like these the stupidity of disliking people for irrelevant facts about them is especially stark. My point though is that the origin of the prejudice goes back to the parents, or at least to a narrow, insular society that a child was brought up in. A narrow, insular society can be counteracted by parents who speak out about it—so it still comes back to parenting skills that leave much to be desired. Bus stop (talk) 12:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Blaming an endless stream of parents hardly seems to account for the cross-cultural, transhistorical nature of the phenomena. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Mr.98 - parents are products of their society and more likely a mechanism of transfer, not its source. It is very debatable what power a parent has to "speak openly" about the narrow society that they have to bring up their kids in. Most parents want their children to be happy and successful within societal norms whatever they may be (and even if they are unhappy about the nature of these norms themselves, very few parents would be willing to raise their children in a way which would alienate them to those around them). Having said that, "hate" is an ideological construct and as such is almost never perceived as wholly negative by people who hold these feelings (hate crimes are usually seen as acts of self-defense by those who commit them, everywhere in the world). I suppose sociologically we always need something to hate for a great variety of reasons, and if you took out the human tendency to hate out of the equation, most politicians would be out of their jobs. In addition (and especially when it comes to the Internet), what you call "hate" is also just a very pragmatic solution for people to explain to themselves why their opinion is different from other people's. In other words, hateful comments save a whole lot of energy which would otherwise be invested in broadening one's views, and they also nicely play into the western norms of our society which teaches us that not only are we all allowed to our opinions (which paradoxically is often interpreted to entail the right to ignore everyone else's) no matter how ignorant we may be - but also that freedom is actually defined as the ability to stay that way as long as possible. In other words, "freedom of speech" is defined as "freedom of talking crap" in the 21st century. Which then puts us back to square one as all you can then do is ignore them and find friends who are more like you, therefore becoming a bit like them. Timbouctou 14:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Within almost all species, there is a sense of "us" and "them" with "us" generally fighting "them" (even found in migratory birds, ants, bees, almost all wildlife) so why should humans be different? I suspect it is far more innate than "taught" despite the popular song from South Pacific. It is likely simply a survival system in the long run. Even babies seem to distinguish on this basis - a tad frightening to those who think that it is "taught." Collect (talk) 17:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's not use the word "taught." Let's use the word "conveyed"—it's more vague. Parents don't sit their children down at a blackboard and teach them to be prejudiced. But such a key attribute of personality in the modern world is hardly chosen by accident. Parents have the responsibility to take a stand on the issue of how others are regarded. It is not only a modern parenting responsibility. It has been in the consciousness of humanity for countless generations. Nor can all types of people who are different from the identity of parents and other people with significant input into the lives of the children be lumped together. Parents (and other people with significant input) can certainly be accepting of one grouping of people and disdainful of another. These issues are acute elements in the thinking processes of parents (in their own lives as adults, and apart from their roles as parents). Especially in the modern world, if they want their children to be free of such hindrances as prejudices against various other groups of people—they have to clearly articulate a message conveying the wrongness of such attitudes. The failure to take a stand against prejudice can be interpreted by children as equating to the condoning of it. Bus stop (talk) 17:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

We are not Dr. Spock. What we have to deal with is actual innate qualities which have a possible survival benefit. Nothing to do with any preaching at all, alas. Collect (talk) 20:46, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not "preaching". Those free of prejudices fare better in the modern world. You mention survival benefits. In the modern world the advantage is given to those who function with an open mind to all people. It sounds preachy but I think it is a clear fact.

The OP's question was primarily a wondering aloud as to why anyone would possibly harbor a negative sentiment about him based on particulars that are irrelevant to any of the forms of expression that that hatred may manifest itself as. I am sure that the OP does nothing to provoke such sentiments, therefore it is a very good question, even though hard to answer. My response is to focus squarely on the parents and the general upbringing of such an individual that is a vector of unfounded hate or any negative expressions even of a milder nature. Bus stop (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

@Bus stop, see the article Martyr which probably has something for whichever is your belief system. Their unpleasant fates dispel the naive hope that "Those free of prejudices fare better in the modern world". A parent teaching the famed Beatitudes of the christian persuasion would be wrong to pretend that the various rewards they mention are promised in this modern world. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Cuddlyable3—I don't know that I have a "belief system." But you and others are not responding to the OP's question. Most of you are speaking of violence. The OP mentions online hatred. These are sentiments. These are not wounds to the body. Why are so many of you focussing on violence? The OP mentions no bloodshed. The question posed concerns why anyone would hate anyone for utterly irrelevant reasons. I think my answer is so obvious that maybe you can't see it: These people learned this from their parents. Or, their parents failed to deter them from thinking this way. Certainly our society contains negative tendencies about how members of one "group" regard members of another "group" (however one defines "group"). But good parenting might involve taking a proactive stance in order to anticipate that the child might fall into such a trap, and providing the child with the wise advice that avoidance of the trap of negatively stereotyping and stigmatizing others will pay off in the long term for the child if the child learns to stand up for open-mindedness in such matters. Bus stop (talk) 16:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

As noted - social differentiation occurs in almost all species, and , within the human species, on all inhabited continents, over all eras, regardless of any other factors one could check. Thus it is clear that there is no parental fault for innate factors. Collect (talk) 22:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course there is. Cultural factors are passed down from parents (and grandparents, and many others) to children. Humans are perfectly capable of education, are they not? Education is also indoctrination. When children are indoctrinated not to hate, such indoctrination offsets any factors tending to turn children into bigots. I fail to see why you are so content to accept the negative without recognizing the all-too-real human capacity to regard all people open-mindedly. When children are taught this, they tend to carry it with them all through life. I don't think parents should be let off the hook if they choose to raise their kids in any way that bypasses the addressing of issues of how to relate to people who fit into categories that seem different from the category that you fit into. There is a cultural solution to a problem and parents are to blame if they fail to avail themselves of the solution. It is very simple—the world would be a better place if people were accepting of people unlike themselves. Bus stop (talk) 22:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The world might be a better place if stuff that is innate were not innate. Alas - that is pretty much impossible. Studies of animals show that parents have zero to do with all this, and such studies as have been made of human infants seem solid that what is true for animals is true for humans. Not really a debateable topic here, though. Collect (talk) 22:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Nature vs. nurture. Well, it's a combination of the two. But what it comes down to is whether one develops a conscience, or empathy for others; or whether their view of life is narcissistic and uncaring. I don't think kids are born with a conscience; it has to be taught. But it helps if the parents also have that trait, or it's kind of hard to teach their kids about it. Since you reference animals, there is little doubt that a dog raised with meanness is more likely to be mean, and a dog raised with love is more likely to be gentle. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The gentle dog still sniffs that tree. Right now, the psych studies are strongly on the side of "nature." Collect (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thus absolving parents of all responsibility. How convenient. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

An overstatement. But Teuber won compared to Skinner in the end. We can "teach" some stuff -- but the basis for "social differentiation" remains innate. We can try to raise a boy as a girl (noted Johns-Hopkins failure) but the result showed innate beats hormones and teaching. David Reimer Collect (talk) 23:21, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Who said anything about raising a boy as a girl? Bus stop (talk) 23:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Bugs raised the old "nature v. nurture" argument. The argument was pretty much settled years ago - nature is a very strong force. The sex example - where a Johns Hopkins researcher fudged data to make "nurture" seem more important was quite inconveniently exposed as fudging facts - is one splendid example. I commend you to read up on Teuber's work in physiological psychology, and the current opinions regarding Skinner's work on behavioural psychology. Also the work done on human infants and cognition of differences between people. And, of course, the myriad studies on identical twins raised separately. Collect (talk) 00:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The Nature versus nurture article says, "The concept embodied in the phrase has been criticized for its binary simplification of two tightly interwoven parameters" and that criticism is valid in my view. Most interesting things about humans are some complex combination of both "nature" and "nurture". As is this issue. There are many "environmental" factors involved in the OP's question. There are also a lot of "heritable" issues. There are complex checks and balances and interplays of forces within and between these two sets of factors. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The part which I dealt with above is the issue of "social differentiation" which decidedly appears to be innate. Clearly calculus is "taught" but seeing people as "us" or "them" is far too basic in animal nature (even for "gentle dogs"). Collect (talk) 00:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

People are routinely raised to be accepting of people of other races. Unfortunately not all people are raised this way. That is all I was talking about. Bus stop (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Fully agree with that, Bus Stop. There are a range of "biological" issues that come into play in this general discussion, though, too.

Collect: social differentiation → role theory, which is perhaps not what you meant? In any case – social, familial, peer-group, etc., environments can have complex effects on how the underlying biologically-encoded "behavioral phenotypes" of a human being get expressed and developed. There are many different "levels" of this on which different kinds of explanations are at least partially valid and informative. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 01:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I have a feeling that some people are attracted to belief systems that tell them they are genetically superior to others. Also, people don't like feeling that their ancestors ever did anything wrong, and believing that blacks or Jews deserved poor treatment in the past absolves racists of any of that ancestral guilt. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Bugs said above that he believes that "kids aren't born with a conscience, it has to be taught." I wanted to point out that Conscience is both innate and "learned". It's sort of like Language that way, actually. And in that sense, one need not teach "conscience" any more than one needs to teach language, but there is a similar variety of results when one does. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 16:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Babies are born needing a great deal, so naturally they are self-centered. Being other-centered, giving and loving, have to be taught. They are not inherent. Neither is language. The capacity for both of those things is there, but they have to be learned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Bugs, I know it is a lot of reading, but I would really recommend most of the Language article (and it's good readin';). I think my analogy between language and conscience is a good one, and is something I have in fact given a lot of thought to. And I'd like to discuss that further with you and others here from time to time, perhaps. The analogy I am making would be clearer with an understanding first of all the thought and work that has been put into understanding Language, so if you get a chance... Regards, WikiDao ☯ (talk) 16:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The point I'm making is that while you are born with the capacity to learn Hindi, French, Mandarin and Swahili, you're not going to know those languages inherently, they have to be learned. Likewise, while you born with the capacity to both love and hate, you are not born with the specific behaviors, they have to be learned. And the idea that parents play no role in this learning is as ludicrous as would be the idea that parents play no role in kids learning language. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Note that my comments to others in this thread above already agree with that – but note also that I am saying it is all very complex. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course it's complex. We are not flatworms. (Most of us aren't anyway.) I'm reminded of these two quotes:

"To me, nature is spiders eating insects, big animals eating little animals, big fish eating little fish... basically, nature is a gigantic restaurant." -- Woody Allen in Love and Death

"I'm sure we all agree we should love our fellow man. I know there are people that do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that! -- Tom Lehrer introduction to "National Brotherhood Week"

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, sure. I guess I was thinking of Language (and, by analogy, conscience) as "complex" in the sense of the usage of eg. Pinker, Chomsky, etc... WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the entire hate thing has to do with many people's narrowmindedness. Some people are narrow minded and refuse to see anything but what they want, leading to them not liking things that are different. That's my opinion. 70.241.18.130 (talk) 13:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Globalisation

.there is a huge section on Globalisation and the impact on the bigger picture as a whole, yet it fails to narrow the scope on the manager who ultimately is in the forefront. I am looking for how the cultural differences are a huge barrier in managing global companies. what impact does this have on global management with regards to culture, employee behaviour,management style and the organisational change.41.182.156.252 (talk) 08:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

.the next question I have to think about and is also very difficult to find is what varies ways can a company enter the foreign market and indicate the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. I am not seeking for someone to give this to me on a silver platter, but rather point me in the correct direction. 41.182.156.252 (talk) 08:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

.the other area of expertize is trying to determine what risk is involved when a company enters a foreign country. This is a broad stroke scenio based question, yet one that is not easy to grasp as countries situations change the end result. what I'm looking for is the one size fits all kinda answere.41.182.156.252 (talk) 08:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

my last question is based on south africa and the scene is described as a norwegian company that intends to manufacture fish products to sell throughout africa. what i'm looking for is the legal implications and aspects of such a venture and what must be taken into consideration by the company and the manager when thinking of dealing with the African market.41.182.156.252 (talk) 08:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

i am not a university nor a colleage studen. I am 46 years old and am the general manager of two hotels. I work for the largest hotel group in Africa and am a long distant student looking to gain a bigger insite in Globalisation and knowing its strengths and weaknesses, I am better able to master where we can visualize the next location. We are all students, yet some sit and listen to the preach, others live, feel, touch and smell the class. the class is more on the outside of 4 walls and how you apply it, will make a difference. please help so that I am better able to address issues close to home. Economisation is bliss for the same race and culture that created and was the root cause for africa to be in this mess in the first place. first through slavery, then appartheid and we will be suffering this redicule for many more years if we do not do something to catch up.Guide me on the correct path so that i may collect my own data. I do not have books, we do not have the most up to date library and the books were donations from hayday.

Questions reformatted to separate them. --ColinFine (talk) 13:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The way to answer this is to go through the notes you wrote in class, as well as the textbook that was assigned to you, and try to formulate an answer. A large part of education is learning to think critically about the information that you have been taught in class, and provide your own answers to these questions. It is quite likely that this question was already answered for you in the lecture in class, either in bits and pieces, or explicitly. --Jayron32 23:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Tabs

I just watched a DVD commentary in which the answer to the question "how did they make you look 25 years younger in this scene" was "tabs". (At least, it sounded like "tabs"; no subtitles or closed captioning were available.) But the tabs disambiguation page doesn't list anything for making actors look younger, and a Google search doesn't easily turn up some kind of stage cosmetic technique, either. What the heck are "tabs" in this context? Red Act (talk) 23:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Tab (soft drink) maybe? It would help to know what the DVD was. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The DVD was Fringe, season 2, disk 4. In the episode "Peter," John Noble, who has quite wrinkly facial skin, was made to look as if he had much smoother skin, in order to play a roughly 25-year-younger version of his character. In the audio commentary for that episode, John Noble says he was made to look younger by using "tabs." John Noble is Australian, so it's conceivable that it's an Australian meaning for the word. But Fringe is currently produced in the U.S., so the make-up department would presumably mainly consist of Americans. Red Act (talk) 03:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe tabs means small tabs of tape behind the ears? Just a WAG, but one common way of getting rid of wringles is to pull the facial skin back behind the ears, making it taught. this google search turns up plenty of links to the product. --Jayron32 03:34, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

None of the first ten hits in that Google search uses the word "tab", and that remains true even if I add the word "tab" to the search. Nevertheless, that does seem like a quite reasonable guess. I could totally see John Noble's make up person saying "I'm just going to put a tab here and a tab there", as a shortcut for the more verbose "I'm just going to put a tab of tape here and a tab of tape there", which could lead John Noble to think that the name of the stuff was "tabs", especially since he's used to picking up weird words the Yanks use that are different from what he would call things back home in Australia. And that's quite interesting that they actually use tape like that. Thanks. Red Act (talk) 04:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I "taut" I taw the wrong word being used. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"Tab" is also a common contraction of "tablet", which of course could imply almost anything. —— Shakescene (talk) 17:01, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

October 17

What is the meaning of gretl's logo?

gretl's logo

I'm curious of what the meaning of gretl's logo is. Does anyone know the answer? --Merry Rabbit 04:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Πrate (talk • contribs)

Is that a picture of Gretel? --Jayron32 04:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

That would seem the most common association in English to something that sounds like "Gretel" and pictures a young girl. Though there may be some obscure reference to some other Margaret in the illustration that I am unaware of. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 04:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I found the larger picture (showing Hansel and more of the forest too), but couldn't identify its creator. Tineye only gave me three results, none of which led me to the illustrator. ---Sluzzelin talk 04:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The story of Hansel and Gretel is particularly significant for economics. Hansel represents the the dedicated but innocent small investor trying to find his way to financial security through the tangled forest of stock market choices, while Gretel is the less sophisticated investor trying to follow his lead intelligently. The evil witch (of course) represents major wall street firms, offering promises of sweet rewards for investments but delivering investors into dangerous situations. The whole story is an allegory for libertarian dreams of financial independence from the oppressive interference of government (represented by the father/woodsman who tossed Hansel and Gretel into the forest in the first place) and from the pernicious misrepresentations of large corporate firms. and that line of bull was a whole lot of fun; can I do it again? --Ludwigs2 05:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

lol, cool by me! :D WikiDao ☯ (talk) 06:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Surely the preceding learnèd commentator has missed one of the most striking elements in the Gretel metaphor, briefly epitomized as "the Revolution devours her children" (see Georges Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, Ernst Röhm, Night of the Long Knives, Moscow Trials, Leon Trotsky, etc.) The witch, representing venture capital, predatory lenders or Internet giants, fattens up Hansel and Gretel (archtypes of daring but naïve start-up entrepreneurs exploring new frontiers) not for their own long-term benefit, but to assure herself of fatter proceeds from the dismemberment and assimilation of their expanded remains, otherwise known as "making a killing on the market". As with many such schemes, its success depends upon both a differential schedule of needs (the children need to eat as much as possible as soon as possible to avoid starvation, while the witch can afford to defer her gratification) and an imbalance of knowledge (it is essential that the children's knowledge—like that of a small borrower, a retail consumer or a lottery-ticket buyer—be highly imperfect and selectively incomplete). The recondite econometrics of this process (see South Sea Bubble and Financial crisis of 2007-2010) require the sophisticated tools provided by gretl. ¶ The logo's graphic representation of this dichotomy is, of course, the contrast between Gretel's snow-white apron and the blood-red dress underneath (see, e.g., Snow White and Rose Red); note also her supplicatory posture driven by pressing, immediate hunger (cf. The Taming of the Shrew). —— Shakescene (talk) 07:25, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Antelope powder

Is antelope powder (a baking ingredient, I believe) suitable for vegetarians? Is it actually made from antelopes or parts thereof? Bobby P Chambers (talk) 12:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

This refers to it also as 'Mark Cream Powder', while this says "Baking powder component, add 1 part sodium bicarb to 2 parts Antelope." I haven't found any other information. --ColinFine (talk) 13:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I suspect this is antelope horn powder, used in Chinese medicine, in which case it is not vegetarian.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I have strong doubts about that. Why would it be used in baking? Particular in the quantities and industrial purposes that it's being sold in the quantities above and in UK and NZ (there's also Davis Trading). That sort of stuff (horn powder) is unlikely to be cheap. Edit: Also this from 1944 [12] mentions antelope powder. In the same vein I doubt it is made from antelopes. This doesn't mean it's not derived from an animal source although I would suspect it's not. I would suggest emailing someone perhaps bakemarkKluman & Balter (who were the only one I could find an email address for) is your best bet to find out what it is. Antelope may just be a brand. (Given the 1944 starting to have my doubts.) Nil Einne (talk) 09:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Why would you doubt it was a brand, based on that? Lots of things sold by brandname in 1944, and the list in that advert even includes some. It could even have been some cheap ingredient(s) sold as a miracle product for a high mark-up: we can't tell without more information, but that would hardly be unusual for 1944. 109.155.37.180 (talk) 13:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems unlikely to me any brand name which has survived thorough time to refer to something like that is so poorly known. Note that in the 1944 thing most of the brand names are clearly indicated as brand names and I actually recognise the names as well (although acto only barely) although I'm not sure if puffin pastry is a brand name (I suspect it's just a colloquialism for puff pastry). Nil Einne (talk) 16:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of emailing the UK site but something occurred to me. If you add it to baking soda that must mean it's some sort of acidic component i.e. a substitute for cream of tartar to make Baking powder. Sure enough a search finds [13]. That still doesn't explain precisely what it is although it's possible from that it is a brand name. Interesting enough it seem the Adansonia digitata which is one of the baobab trees is one of the original sources of cream of tartar and antelopes eat fruits and leaves from the tree. However that doesn't seem to help since it's not grown in New Zealand and I don't think imports from those parts of Africa were significant during WW2. There is a related tree in Australia but other then the fact Australia is not New Zealand, it also doesn't produce cream of tartar (the fruit are acidic but so are lemons so I don't know if they produce anything suitable). Baking powder does mention sodium pyrophosphate was used in the US during WW2 and is evidentally still used sometimes nowdays so it's possible antelope powder is that although I can't find any evidence for it and it doesn't explain the name. (Also reading baking powder more carefully as well as Acid salt, it seems Monocalcium phosphate or possibly Calcium dihydrogen phosphate for example is a better substitute for cream of tartar.) Perhaps Roux can shed some light? Nil Einne (talk) 16:58, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Antelope powder is a branded product from Thermphos. It is basically Disodium pyrophosphate (SAPP) and is often listed as E450. See Product sheet for Antelope powder. Thermphos produces a range of baking leaveners with exciting names like Cougar, Springbok, Gazelle, none of which contain any animal products, regards 94.194.98.168 (talk) 11:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The word BUILDING

Dear All

Why we call " BUILDING " when its already " BUILT " /

Can any one answer this ?

Regards

Chinnu

E-mail address removed; please don't post personal information here. Albacore (talk) 15:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lionchinnu (talk • contribs) 15:33, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

This question would be better for the Language Ref Desk, but here is an answer: there are many words in English that have the same structure: a dwelling, a covering, a coating, a filling. Formally these are called deverbal gerunds. Looie496 (talk) 18:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Dwelling doesn't really fit the same pattern as building since "dwelt" doesn't fit what it currently is doing. Basically, the structure doesn't dwell, the people in it do. You would say a building is built but you wouldn't say a dwelling is dwelt. Dismas|^(talk) 18:37, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Mainly because 'dwell' is intransitive to begin with; a house could be said to be 'dwelled in'. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:13, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

You'll notice that (in American usage, anyway) a building is generally a large-scale structure - apartment buildings, corporate office buildings, etc. you'll rarely hear a house (or an outhouse, or a chicken coop) referred to as a 'building'; they are usually referred to as 'structures'. that leads me to think that building is likely a shortened form of 'building project' - some structure that takes a long time and a lot of effort to build is a 'building project' on a 'building site' for all of the time it's being built, and people get used to calling it a 'building' for short. --Ludwigs2 19:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Ingenious, Ludwig, but completely wrong. The OED gives as its second meaning for 'building' "That which is built: a structure, edifice; now, a structure of the nature of a house, built where it is to stand", with examples from 1290. The basic answer to the original question is that '-ing' is more general than just being used to form action nouns. To quote the OED again, (s.v. 'ing'): "forming verbal derivatives, originally abstract nouns of action, but subsequently developed in various directions, ... sometimes they became concrete ... ". Looie is quite right to mentions "covering" ,"coating" and "filling" as parallels, even if "dwelling" isn't.

A more general answer is, because languages develop the way they do, and not the way some tidy-minded people think they should. While you can often describe a process that has happened in language change, you usually cannot say why a particular change has happened, or has not happened in some cases. --ColinFine (talk) 20:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The OP asks about building used as a noun meaning "a built structure", but its other use as a gerund is also correct: The building of houses requires craftsmen. While the question implies that there is no word for that which has been built, one hears a jargon use of build in software engineering as a noun meaning a compiled version of a complex software product. I have replaced the question title for easier reference and hope you don't mind.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Mazuma Mobile

what is their business case? wtf do they do with old mobile phones? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.240.57 (talk) 19:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

They recondition them (clean them, blank the memories, perhaps change the batteries) and re-sell them in developing markets like Africa, India, and SE Asia. Many developing countries have very limited wired phone infrastructure, but burgeoning wireless telephony (it's often much cheaper to provide wireless, particularly in dense urban centres) so demand for affordable handsets is high. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

They're not terribly forthcoming on their website, but it does say that they "aim to reuse over 95% of the mobile phones received in various developing markets" (ref). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no Wikipedia article about Mazuma Mobile but their website is here. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

October 18

A study of the use of water for irrigation in the Rio Grande del Norte

I'm looking for this report, apparently in Senate Document No. 229 (1898). Is it anywhere online? 149.169.125.146 (talk) 02:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Google Books seems to have it online, but from here in Canada it won't give full view, so you can't just read it. Perhaps it's different if you are in the US. --Anonymous, 03:56 UTC, October 18, 2010.

Authentic?

http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=469058 24.189.87.160 (talk) 03:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The sales blurb says yes, plus EIL is a reputable online music store and I think they would be careful not to sell fakes. --Viennese Waltz 07:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

To dispel your doubt about the provenance of the Freddie Mercury document there are three questions: 1) Who received the document as a gift from FM ? 2) Is there a Jacky Smith who will explain how she verifies the document ? 3) Does JS stand to profit from the sale ? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The second and third of those questions are red herrings. Jacky Smith is a well known name in the Queen fan community and it is entirely reasonable that she should be the one to authenticate the item. --Viennese Waltz 08:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Look, I only asked about the authenticity of the site just out of sheer curiosity, since I tripped upon it by accident. I figured that if those handwritten lyrics were genuinely Freddie's that there would be at least a big deal about it in the media, and they wouldn't just go onsale on some random website. I mean, imagine (no pun intended) if it was handwritten lyrics from John Lennon, you'd hear about it on the news, you wouldn't discover them for the first time on a website that you had never heard of before, right? I'm just suspicious as to how those items, if they are indeed genuine, ended up for sale with no fanfare. It's not like it's an autograph, which is far more common to find than handwritten lyrics. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not that big of a deal, really. It's not something you would expect CNN to clear their schedules for, put it that way. There is a large and well established secondary market in rock and pop memorabilia and this is just part of that. As for the website, as I said before EIL is a reputable and well known dealer in second hand music and related ephemera who have been trading for many years. --Viennese Waltz 09:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

@Viennese Waltz, none of my 3 questions are red herrings. I expect you are right when you (whoever you really are) confirm that Jacky Smith is a name known to Queen fans, but that was not my question. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The reason I called them red herrings is because, as she is a name known to Queen fans, there is no need for her to explain how she verifies the document. The fact that she has attached her name to it is sufficient verification. --Viennese Waltz 14:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It is sufficient for you. It does not explain who is making money out of something alleged to have been a gift. Provenance (see article) of an object is established by tracing the whole history of the object. Do you know where it has been for 32 years, 14 of them while FM was alive? If it were my money, I would settle for nothing less than seeing a signed statement from Jacky Smith confirming how she came to know about the document, and what is her part, if any, in the sale. (The seller claims to have a letter but I haven't seen it.) Sorry but "someone on Wikipedia says JS is a really cool fan of Queen so someone mentioning her name proves it's true" doesn't cut it for me. Please check the meaning of a Red herring (idiom) which has a connotation of intention to mislead. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ninjas being farmers or what

Everyone at school (and the public in general) always say that ninjas were farmers who assassinate their feudal samurai lords out of hatred of them, for revenge, etcetera. But then my history teacher says that ninjas are more likely to be former samurai or a coveted samurai class trained to be skilled assassins, rather than rebelling farmers. The website http://www.tvtropes.org clarifies this as well. I know that "former samurai" would be Ronins, so what would ninjas be? Are the extreme assassin extremists of the feudal era former farmers or a secretive samurai class? You tell me. 64.75.158.195 (talk) 09:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Um have you read ninja? It seems to be a decent article with plenty of references. It looks like the simple answer would be no one really knows since there aren't really that many good contempory sources, somewhat reflecting their secretive nature, but a whole lot of myth and legend. Nil Einne (talk) 10:48, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Terms associated with London

Can you guys help me come up with any more terms and names related to London, England, Great Britain/the United Kingdom, and just British speech in general? The reason being because my comic story has the protagonist and antagonist heading toward London in order to find and fight each other, and they'll be spending quite a bit of time doing the finding part.

So far, the list of terms that I have are the following:

For places: Parliament (British government), Big Ben (the clock tower), Palace of Westminster (where Big Ben is), Scotland Yard (police force), Court of King's Bench (royal court?), Piccadily Circus (downtown), Scarisbrick Hall (?), House of Commons (?), St. Paul's Cathedral.

For speech: bobbits (cops), barister (lawyer), greetings young fellow/old chap, have a spot of tea, curfew, care for some [food item]?, I say, do tell - is it?, no dawdling now. If there are names for those double-decker buses and black taxicabs, please tell me. 64.75.158.195 (talk) 10:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Big Ben is the bell, not the tower. I believe that Westminster clock tower is the correct term. Googlemeister (talk) 15:57, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

St Stephen's Tower is also used, and it is bobbies not 'bobbits', and barrister, not 'barister',

Give us a clue as to era/time period, please. The speech you've given is really dated. Modern London speech seems to be a cross between Jamaican patois and New York street gangs. Really, whenever I go to London these days I hardly ever hear native English spoken. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I was about to suggest the same thing, Tammy. Granted, I've never been to England but I doubt many people say things like "greetings young fellow" much anymore. Others I would add to the list would be The Tube, London Eye, that big gherkin looking building, and doddle. Dismas|^(talk) 10:58, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Is "doddle" particularly British? If so, someone should add it here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

As a US American, I had never heard it before I started watching Top Gear. Additionally, they use "rubbish" quite a bit and I hear that very rarely here in the US. Dismas|^(talk) 08:15, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added "doddle" to this list. "Rubbish!", for "nonsense!", seems to be mentioned in the Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, cited here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The British slang for a police officer is booby, not bobbit. And we Cockneys call a bus a bus and a taxi a taxi. Note also that the type of language used will depend on the characters' social standing, especially if it's set pre-20th century. As Dismas points out, many of the expression you cite are very dated. And Scarisbrick Hall (which I had never heard of) is about 200 miles from London. I suggest you read some books set in London to get more of a feel for the place.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

You mean bobby, of course, and this is dated as well. If it was ever commonly used, it certainly isn't now. --Viennese Waltz 11:28, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Strictly speaking Big Ben is the largest bell in the tower (the one that strikes the hours), not the tower itself, nor (a more common misconception) the clock. (Though of course it wouldn't necessarily be wrong for fictional characters to use the name in these ways.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

And Parliament is certainly not the same thing as the Government. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Assuming your setting is contemporary, you could mention bendy buses, Boris bikes, Oyster cards and the DLR. Modern landmarks include Docklands and Canary Wharf tube station, the Olympic Stadium, the new Wembley Stadium, St Pancras railway station, the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court at the British Museum, Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe - see Architecture of London for more. Our articles on British slang and rhyming slang may also help you. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

A Londoner here: "Bobby" is very rarely used now; "copper", "plod", "the Old Bill" or just "the Bill" are more common slang terms. A Barrister is a lawyer who argues a case in court, a soliciter does the background work but can't speak in court. The most famous criminal court is The Old Bailey. Sorry, I've never heard of Scarisbrick Hall. Have a look at this[14] for more famous places. A proper London taxi is often called a Black Cab, regardless of what colour it is. A bus IS called a bus UNLESS it's a long-distance one, which is called a "coach". Alansplodge (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

What you say about Barristers was once true, but the Barrister/Solicitor distinction is more blurred now. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

D'oh! However, if one was ever arrested (not speaking from experience you understand), one would ask to see a soliciter and not a barrister. Have I got that right? Alansplodge (talk) 15:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Except for the spelling of 'solicitor'. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

...and barista. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a confusing post, Ghmyrtle, unless you're having a little joke. You are aware of the difference between a barista and a barrister, are you not? Alan did not mispell 'barrister', and did not use the word 'barista' at all. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

! Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Small text. Small joke. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Your idea of London speech seems to be firmly rooted in the 1930s. To get yourself up to speed, can I suggest listening to some modern British films. For underworld London speech, you can't do better than Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. For middle-of-the-road folk, a good one is Shaun of the Dead. For the speech of more affluent Londoners, try Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill (film) or Bridget Jones's Diary (film). Or get on a plane and see for yourself! Alansplodge (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Cor blimey, me old chinas! Aincha never been learned to tawk proper? A right carry on and no mistake! DuncanHill (talk) 15:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned this guide to modern London. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

As a more general answer (and the original question related to Britain as a whole, not just London), the questioner may find useful information in the articles on British English, American and British English differences, List of British words not widely used in the United States, various articles linked from those pages, and indeed Category:American and British English differences. (Not that I necessarily assume that the questioner is from the US, but the differences may still be illuminating.) Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could forget all the above advice and stick with your original fantasy version of London and the UK - it would be a hoot. Alansplodge (talk) 16:57, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

In addition to British English, referred to above, see also Mockney and Estuary English for more terms actually used in London. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:19, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

When Gregory Benford published a short story set in Cambridge (I believe it was later expanded into Timescape), he had never been the city. The result was laughable to anybody who knew Cambridge: putting things in all the wrong places, and referring to them in terms which didn't make sense. If you wish your story to be taken at all seriously on this side of the pond than that was, you are going to have to do a lot more homework than asking some random people on the internet for suggestions. --ColinFine (talk) 21:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The OP put a question mark after House of Commons. That's the lower house of our legislature, roughly equivalent to the US House of Representatives. Just make sure you don't have skunks and raccoons running around the English countryside. Rojomoke (talk) 23:11, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Convincing someone they shouldn't listen to a psychic

Hello. This weekend my girlfriend, her mother and aunt saw a psychic. The psychic told them several major things (some good, some bad) and the group took these news items to heart. They believe what the psychic said whole-heartedly and in some cases are worried about when her prediction will come to fruition (as in family illnesses and a death). When they told me about what was predicted by the psychic, like any rational person I rolled my eyes and told them to move away from the television because the game was on. Now they are upset with me. So how do I convince them that psychics are phoneys? Is there perhaps a good analogy that I can give my girlfriend? I've tried 'a fool and her money are soon parted' but that only made her more upset... But seriously - what's a good angle, analogy or reasoning that can help them screw their heads on a little tighter? If not fully convincing them, at least having them think twice that maybe this is all a bit silly. Thank you in advance. --Endlessdan (talk) 12:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It depends. How much money is at stake? (Is the psychic charging an enormous fee?) How specific are the predictions? If they are mere possibilities, can the consideration of those possibilities have any value? Bus stop (talk) 12:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

They've just spent about $80 this past Sunday. I don't believe they have any follow up sessions scheduled but still. The main predictions involved a family member passing soon and a member of the family and the aunt having a health scare. There was also more vague and general predictions (someone being pregnant, change of job, etc) but none they have taken as seriously as the health predictions. --Endlessdan (talk) 12:47, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Get a book on bunko schemes. That said, there are people who truly believe - but know enough to avoid financial schemes (which is where the serious money changes hands). Collect (talk) 13:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a handy list of arguments here albeit in the context of a site providing arguments against the skeptics. Your question and comment makes me wonder: why is it so important to you to have them believe whatever it is you happen to believe? And boy does your technique suck. You have "rolled my eyes and told them to move away from the television" and deployed the "fool and her money" argument. Did you stop even for a second and think before you tried those two. You have in a literal sense said to them "you are stupid, you should believe what I believe, your opinion is of less concern than that I get to see the next ball game on TV". And this to a bunch of people who, for better or worse reasons, are occupied with thinking about illness and death. Sadly you come across as some sort of conceited pig, and for that reason, unlikely to convince anyone of anything. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

But it's the MLB playoffs! Googlemeister (talk) 14:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Tell them you went to a different psychic and they told you to ignore the first one because they must have had a migraine. Matt Deres (talk) 13:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like good advice. Another approach would be to pull a Groucho Marx on her and ask, "What's the capital of South Dakota?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Buy a copy of Derren Brown's book Tricks of the Mind if it's available in the States, and lend it to them. It has a useful summary of the techniques and tricks used by self-styled psychics to produce their readings, and the mechanisms by which people convince themselves that what they are being told is special and relevant to them. (He is also comfortingly rude about the sort of person who takes money from grieving relatives in exchange for "messages from their loved ones" from the great beyond, which pleases me.) At the very least, get your girlfriend to read Confirmation bias, and refer her back to it each time she tries to link an event to what she was told by this person. If no money was involved I would agree with Tagishsimon - people are entitled to believe in anything they like without harassment, so long as it doesn't harm them or inspire them to harm others, and telling them their beliefs are stupid and irrational is neither tactful nor effective. However, it is frustrating to watch people you love being frightened unnecessarily by doom-laden ramblings for which there is not a scrap of hard evidence, and being relieved of hard cash for the privilege. Karenjc 14:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

One of the main techniques used is Cold reading. If you can persuade them that this is how psychics really do it, I suspect (hope) that explanation will be better than an analogy. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

She loves you, doesn't she? Use that love as your leverage. Explain, forcefully and without apology, that the concept of fortune-telling is offensive to your "belief system" and that it is not to be discussed in your presence ever again, "for the good of the relationship". She must be convinced that you are deadly serious, and why shouldn't you be? You have every right to make this request. It will put the ball squarely in her court. Two things will happen. First, she will stop offending you with the spectacle of her credulity. Second, she will begin to worry that her expensive new habit is endangering her relationship, and she will reassess the wisdom of her priorities. She may possibly do her own research and confirm what a part of her mind has no doubt suspected all along: that fortune-telling is a crock. But more likely, she will just lose interest gradually. To repeat: The best you can do here is stand your ground, push this nonsense out of your field of vision, leave the relationship intact, and provide your girlfriend with an incentive to seek her own enlightenment. LANTZY^TALK 12:13, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Whilst you're at it, you might as well chain her to the kitchen sink and have done with it. Clearly it is not her place to have an opinion of her own. FFS. Which century are we in? Whereas we can probably all agree that psychics are charlatans, all this alpha male stuff cannot be allowed to pass without censure. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Teen Runaways?

When children run away from home, they do it for a reason. Why do so many children and young people run away? Also, why to runaways on soap operas always bolt out the door without preparation? It does't make sense. Surely the people who write the scripts must know that they would find it very, very difficult to survive on the streets without any food, water, money, means of shelter, blankets etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TearStainedCowgirl (talk • contribs) 13:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Children and teenagers are given to impulsive behaviour. They may be even less likely to consider the difficulties of living on the street than scriptwriters. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Our article on this, Runaway (dependent), is shamefully short. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Lots of unbelievable things happen on soap operas and the like. My favourite unbelievable thing is on cop shows, where two or more detectives are in the police station, standing in a group talking about the state of play of a particular case, when suddenly out of nowhere some member of the public walks up and joins in the conversation. The response ought to be "How did you get in here, sir/ma'am?". But no, they're engaged in conversation about the case, as if they have a perfect right to be there. And when they've had their say, they turn and walk away, still unescorted. Remember, this is inside a police station where they're investigating homicide, rape, fraud, and other heinous crimes, and where the public cannot just walk in and wander around willy-nilly like it was a department store. They have security doors. You have to know the combination, which you don't know because you're not a police officer based at that station. You have to be escorted by someone in authority if you're going to get inside at all; and once inside, you still don't get to wander around all by yourself, looking at whatever you want to. Everyone knows this. Yet, we're all supposed to pretend we don't know this while watching these shows. It really makes a mockery of all the technical advisers they have for these shows. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow. There's got to be some reason you just said all that, Jack, I just know there's got to be. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a response to the original poster questioning the veracity of a fictional script. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

That much seems clear. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I've seen old kinescope footage of the Dallas, Texas, police station from late November of 1963, in which Oswald's eventual murderer, Jack Ruby, was captured on camera wandering around the station unescorted. He was kind of a "police groupie", they knew who he was and thought nothing of it. Needless to say, police station security is a lot tighter now. But that handicaps the scriptwriters, so they pretend that it's still possible for someone to wander in off the street and provide crucial evidence out of the blue. It's always funny to see someone ask why a fictional story doesn't match reality. Like with Superman, where people will say, "Yeh, I'll accept that a man can fly; but how come nobody recognizes him when he wears glasses?" College students used to ask Noel Neill that question, and her answer was, "Because I wanted to keep my job!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

A lot of kids have good reasons for running away. There's a lot of people out there who shouldn't have had kids. Violent, paranoid, drug-addicted, mentally unstable, etc. people. You'd run away too if you had to live with one of those people. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

No doubt. The OP's question seemed to be more about fictional runaways, as in soap operas. But I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of runaways actually do just take off without any preparation, as Tagish suggests. And they run no small risk of something bad happening to them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There are two parts to this question. The first is: "When children run away from home, they do it for a reason. Why do so many children and young people run away?"

The Runaway (dependent) article, linked to by Comet above, has this (sourced) answer to that question: "Current studies suggest that the primary cause of youth homelessness is family dysfunction in the form of parental neglect, physical or sexual abuse, family substance abuse, and family violence." WikiDao ☯ (talk) 23:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Title for head of small company

What are some titles for the head of a company with say, less than 5 employees? I think titles like "CEO" or even "President" can sound overblown for a small operation. (I am asking generally, not for a particular company or role I have in mind) 198.161.238.19 (talk) 14:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

President sounds overblown for anything less than the Board of Trade. DuncanHill (talk) 14:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Director? --TammyMoet (talk) 14:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking Managing director, though that seems to be more UK English. "Managing director" suggests a shop-floor role, which is, to my mind, less overblown for a small company. The US English equivalent is CEO, so if 198.161 is in the US they'll need to keep searching...! TFOWR 14:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

e/c Can depend also if they're the owner, or running it for someone else. In the former case Director is common, in the latter case it would tend to be something like General Manager. I think there's a lot of variation though. --jjron (talk) 14:21, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

If the company builds bridges, you can declare yourself Pontifex Maximus Googlemeister (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC).

I've known of companies with as few as 2 or 3 employees in which the guy running it calls himself the "President", the presumed purpose being to hide the small size of the company. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

HR guy here. First thing to note is that there really isn't any sort of regulations for job titles. Industry conventions exist so that people from different companies can have an idea of what the other guy does when they meet, but there's a huge amount of latitude between industries. (The old joke about "Director of Sanitation" - aka "janitor" - comes to mind) For a small business it's most common to just start with "Owner" and then title the rest according to duty. So whereas a larger operation might have a Sales & Marketing Manager, a Key Accounts Specialist, a Market Researcher, etc. your small business would just have "John Smith - Sales" and perhaps "Jane Doe - Inventory (or Supply or Warehouse, etc)." Anyone under them would be the "(Duty) Assistant". That gives you a 3 level organization structure, which is going to be enough for pretty much anything under 50 employees. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've worked for more than one small company in Canada, including one with under 5 employees. In each case the person in charge was called the president. To me it seems like the normal title in such cases. --Anonymous, 11:10 UTC, October 19, 2010.

I too have worked for a small company before (~20 employees) and the owners titled themselves President and Vice President. They never really mentioned these titles though since it was a small town and everyone who was doing business with them, already knew that they both co-owned it. They also paid themselves the same salary. The only differences were in the titles. Dismas|^(talk) 11:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Submarine trains

Why don't we have submarine trains? They require no tunnels nor tracks, and can give a smooth ride unaffected by surface storms. The port facilities could be either an elevator with a water-lock seal or a winch and ramp to the surface. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but if you're not using a track how is your train a train and what makes it different from a submarine? Are you thinking of some sort underwater multiple occupant cablecar? Or a bus which drives along the sea/river/whatever bed? Nil Einne (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine that submarines have similar fuel efficiency to surface boats. --Sean 16:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Here are several reasons why submarine trains would not be cost-effective:

1. These would be submarines similar in many ways to any other submarine. They are very expensive to build because of the need for the hull to withstand water pressure beneath the surface. They would be much more expensive if designed to carry a given number of passengers than a surface vessel designed to carry the same number of passengers.

2. Because water exerts drag on entire exterior of a submarine but only on the part of the hull of a surface vessel that is below water, a submarine requires more fuel to travel at a comparable speed than a surface vessel of the same volume and is therefore considerably more expensive to propel. The complexities of submarine ventilation would add further to the cost of operation.

3. Submarines would require considerably more fuel than a surface vessel of the same size in order to cover the same distance. Submarines are slower than surface vessels of the same volume at the same rate of fuel consumption. So submarines will take longer than surface vessels of the same volume to reach their destination at a given rate of fuel consumption. Why would passengers pay more for a longer journey?

4. As it is, surface vessels generally cannot compete with air carriers on price. How could submarines, if they are even more expensive than surface vessels and have the added unpleasantness of no fresh air or daylight?

5. If your idea is for an object that is heavier than water (despite the air inside the "train") that would travel along the ocean floor, then you are mistaken that it would not need tracks or some kind of roadway. In fact, the ocean surface can be just as rocky, steep, and otherwise unsuitable for passage as a terrestrial wilderness. A vehicle traveling along the ocean floor would require the creation of an expensive track. This would add further to the cost-prohibitiveness of such a mode of transport.

Marco polo (talk) 16:25, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps because it's a bit tricky if they break down. Alansplodge (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of submarine trains, just not submersible trains. For the reasons given above, running a train through water is one or maybe two orders of magnitude more expensive than running one on land. It is, however, practical and affordable to run a dry railway system through a body of water by running it through an immersed tube (which mostly sits on top of the sea floor or river floor). Consider for example the Drogden Tunnel, the Marmaray system, and the Transbay Tube (better info here). Constructing these isn't outrageously expensive (build big concrete things, drop them on the sea floor, join them up, pump out the water) and with that done you can run a regular electric railway through them, with very little special equipment. When something breaks, a man with a spanner walks down to it and whacks it. Keeping a big dumb still concrete thing watertight is fairly easy. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but if you want to move passengers significant distances, you are still going to need an expensive ventilation system. Googlemeister (talk) 19:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Immersed tubes make economic sense when they will carry a high volume of traffic a relatively short distance (say, less than 50 km). However, their cost is considerable. In current dollars, the Transbay Tube cost about $830 million to build. At 5.7 km, that works out to nearly $150 million per km. Let's say we wanted to build an immersible tube from North America to Europe. Assuming that construction costs per km will be similar (probably a bad assumption considering that building an immersible tube at such great depths and so far from land would probably be many times greater per km), the cost of such a tube from easternmost Newfoundland to westernmost France would be around $540 billion. However, immersible tubes that are structurally sound at depths of 80 meters below the surface would probably not be sound at 3000 meters below the surface, requiring much more expensive tube segments, and a much greater expense involved in immersing and connecting the segments at great depth thousands of kilometers from land. Then there is the expensive ventilation system mentioned by Googlemeister. These added costs would push the cost of such an immersible tube easily into the trillions of dollars. And a train running through such a tunnel, even a high-speed train, would involve at least 14 hours of travel in a dark tunnel, plus 7 additional hours to the tunnel from New York, and 2 more hours from the tunnel to Paris, for a total journey of 23 hours. It's hard to imagine that the costs of operating the train and paying off construction of the tube would permit a fare that could compete with a much faster flight. (Not to mention that the United States can't seem to build a true high-speed train line from New York to Boston, much less to Newfoundland or across the Atlantic.) Marco polo (talk) 19:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on merchant submarines. Their primary advantage is either blockade running or diving under arctic ice. -- 119.31.121.84 (talk) 00:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

OP here. Thank you for some answers.

• @Nil Einne, by "train" I mean a variable number of carriages chained together. They would have cylindrical cross section and not run on a track nor touch the sea bed. I envisage the train as self powered diesel-electric with a locomotive at the front.
• @Sean, I suggest that fuel efficiency would be better than a surface boat because of less turbulence due to streamlined shape. When a fish or a marine mammal wishes to travel a long distance it doesn't swim on the surface, does it?
• @Marco polo, 1) I do not propose that the train should submerge to great depth. The hull design and cost would be similar to that of an aeroplane. 2) & 3) See my answer to Sean about streamlined shaping that I believe can be very efficient. The train cross-section and consequent drag is virtually constant while the capacity can be varied by the number of carriages, unlike a surface ship. I agree that there is the complication of supplying air to passengers which I envisage to be stored under pressure and refilled via snorkel. The train is quickly adaptable to transport freight and/or passengers in comfort by selecting carriages, unlike ships or aeroplanes. There is no reason passenger amenities and ticket price cannot compete with aeroplanes. 5) See my answer to Nil Einne.
• @Alansplodge, safety measures can include fail-safe flotation devices, double hull wall, and a standby tow train for rescue.
• @Finlay McWalter & Marco polo, I made clear that I am not considering tunnel installations or anything that would need sea-bed infrastructure.
• @Googlemeister, see my comment above about air supply. The cost of a compressor, air tank, snorkel and regulators doesn't seem insurmountable, and would not be necessary for freight carriages.
• @119.31.121.84, it seems that merchant submarines have been seriously considered but not yet submarine trains. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

From Merchant_submarine#Soviet_Union under "World War II": A first project (Project 605) envisaged a sub that would be basically a towed barge, connected to a standard sub. This idea was discarded due to difficulties with the towing. The closest thing to a "train at sea" is an ocean going tugboat, and they typically tow their barge a long distance behind them so that the thrust from the propellers doesn't impinge on the tow. So the cars of your "submarine train" will have to have independent buoyancy control, and, if carrying passengers, life support. -- 124.157.218.5 (talk) 12:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

BILL BOOK

WHAT IS A BILL BOOK ??__ COULDN'T FINT IT NEWHER AND THIS IS MY TERM PAPER PROJECT SO PLZ HELP ME OUT —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raul 91devil (talk • contribs) 15:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Raul 91, please use capitals and bold sparingly. "A book in which a person keeps an account of his notes, bills, bills of exchange, etc., thus showing all that he issues and receives." 1 Second result on a google search.--84.13.201.22 (talk) 16:19, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Please help "connect"

Hi everyone. i think this was asked probably many a times earlier.From a callcenter background applying for a job in telecom,how do i convince that i was managing people who served people and foresee doing the same and so the job is no different but just the product we sell.. does this answer somehow make sence , if asked or checked for relevance or qualifying criteria. can anyone help me with this please.? any suggestion would be helpful and i thank you in anticipation —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 18:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the way to present this is that on your CV, when listing the previous job, you focus on what your tasks and responsibilities were, rather than on the product you sell. (You should be doing this anyway.) The new hiring manager will see that you managed X people and achieved Y, and will be able to draw their own conclusions. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

In your job application provide names and telephone numbers of former workmates who can vouch for you. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

State of Michigan - Transportation addition needed....

As I was reading an WIKI article about the State of Michigan I came across a subcategory listing "Ferries" under Transporation. Please note that there is a ferry system of transportation that is not listed. The "Lake Express" now travels from Milwaukee to Muskegon. It is a high speed ferry that will carry passengers & their vehicles. It ruins from early Spring through late Fall. I believe it is actually owned by the Lubar Company based out of Milwaukee. it has been running this ferry service since 2004. You can look up Lake Express on any search engine. Let me know if you need additional information.

Kurt Lundgren Sailinalong (talk) 18:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC) Myrtle Beach, SC

Note: Message reformatted and email address removed for editor's protection from possible spam. Looie496 (talk) 18:25, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anybody can edit, even you; so feel free to add this information to the article (with a reference). Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

arts and crafts architecture

What is the difference between an arts and crafts home and a craftsman bungalow? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.136.27.13 (talk) 22:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's article on American Craftsman, they are very closely related: the Arts and Crafts Movement has its origins in Britain, and American Craftsman movement grew from that. One difference the article mentions is that while Arts and Crafts tended to be for the very wealthy in Britain, the American Craftsman movement was also concerned with the middle class, especially in the Bungalow style you mention. Thanks for asking this question! I recognize the picture; I learned several things I didn't know while reading those articles. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs)