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December 13

Is it possible to create a digital currency

Is it possible to create a digital currency with its value based on land? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.160.110.243 (talk) 00:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Not very easily, because money can only be based on something of which ownership can be easily transferred; but in principle it could be done using the same sort of methods that allow Rai stones to be used as money. Looie496 (talk) 00:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What if the new digital currency is only for regional use?

I can't see what difference that would make. Let me note, for what it's worth, that the basic idea here is pretty old: in 1697, the British Parliament actually voted to replace the Bank of England with a "Land Bank" that would issue notes back by land -- but the scheme turned out to be an absurd fiasco (largely because it placed way too high a value on land). Looie496 (talk) 02:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

One of the central problems of economics is the relationship between money and value. Money is the means by which we quantify value. That is, the key issue is "value", that is how much worth people place on something, be it an object, a service, labor, land, etc. Money is the unit of measure we assign to value, but in order to be a good unit of measure, there needs to be some consistent standard of value against which we can measure. If history is any judge, there literally is no universal and permanent standard of value. Compare this to, say, the physical world. A gram is a gram, and a meter is a meter, so we can have a permanent standard that never changes. The meter is the same length every day, because it's based on an immutable quantity (currently, the speed of light in a vacuum). There is no immutable standard of value, so our measurements of value are themselves always pegged to something which is itself of unstable value. There have been many attempts in history to peg the value of currency to something permanent, from the Land Bank scheme noted above to the Gold Standard, and they always fail for failing to realize the central problem: no object, material, or other store of value is capable of maintaining a constant value over time. All value is relative in time and place, and therefore no way of quantifying value can be divorced from the tides of economics, despite the many attempts to do so. In the end, it's why all modern currency is fiat currency. Economists finally came to their senses and realized that money's value is based solely on what the market says its value is; even if we peg the money's value to some external thing, like land or gold, all we're doing is moving the standard from one fickle standard to another. All currency is fiat currency, and always has been, whether it is bits of paper or bits of shiny rocks, or as it is today, mostly entries in computer ledgers. --Jayron32 06:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree with your last sentence. Yes, gold or land change in value, but they always have some intrinsic value, unlike paper money. StuRat (talk) 06:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What is intrinsic value? This is not a flippant question, but gets to the heart of the matter. If gold has intrinsic value, then that intrinsic value should be immutable: being intrinsic would mean it isn't based on people's sense of its value, it would be inherent and internal and contained in the gold itself. We could assign an unchanging number to the "intrinsic value" of gold, and we'd have our permanent standard. Physical quantities are intrinsic; the mass of a proton or the speed of light are intrinsic quantities, there is no intrinsic value to gold: it is worth what the market will bear; exactly what every other economic value is. If it has intrinsic value, we should be able to quantify that value in a permanent way. If not, then you have a strange definition of intrinsic... --Jayron32 07:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps "minimum" would be a clearer term. If the price of gold went too low, we would start making all sorts of things out of it, like electrical wiring, siding on houses, etc. Thus, the price can only go so low. StuRat (talk) 07:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But that's true of paper as well. Don't we make books out of paper? I've got pounds and pounds of paper just lying all around me, and very little of it is money. Indeed, very little of my money is paper: most of my money is an entry in a computer ledger in a bank somewhere. The value of my money has little to do with what it is made out of, or even if it is made out of anything at all. My money exists whether or not I have little pieces of paper saying that it does. I can check on it anytime I want online. --Jayron32 07:41, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The recycle value of money is so low, it may very well cost more to recycle it than it's final value. Not true of gold. And the fiat value of cash means it can all disappear, as it has for people in some places and times. The Western world has kept it's currency relatively stable in recent years, but that period may be coming to an end, based on record debt levels and the inability to solve such problems. StuRat (talk) 17:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

While technically true, I suppose, the intrinsic 'minimum' value of gold – in the sense of what it's worth for purposes other than simply being shiny, or being a repository of notional 'value' – is so small as to be essentially negligible at anything like current prices. The presence of more-abundant, less-expensive alternative metals for most practical applications imposes an effective maximum on gold's intrinsic value as you've chosen to define it. Copper, for instance, can also be used for wiring, or building cladding – and is arguably better at these things than gold under most circumstances – and right now you can buy it for less than $4 per pound. Gold is trading right now around $1700 per ounce, or over $25,000 per pound; its 'intrinsic' value is therefore on the rough order of 0.02% of its nominal value. In terms of the ratio between residual intrinsic value and current market price, precious metals are probably among the worst investments. As stores of value, one would be better off keeping canned hams or cases of hammers and crowbars.

Even if one assumes that gold can't or won't lose all of its 'shiny awesomeness' premium, it's still problematic. In the last decade it's suffered a four- or five-fold swing in its price; since the purchasing power of all the world's currencies hasn't declined that much (or the cost of commodities and goods hasn't risen that much) it's apparent that there is a significant 'speculative' component to the price of gold. (And there's certainly no guarantee that the early-2000s low is any sort of hard floor.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:54, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the recent increase in gold prices is a speculative bubble, it's due to new markets, such as in China and India. Thus, the higher levels may be permanent, unless we find massive new supplies of gold. Also, gold prices will always be higher than copper, since it doesn't tarnish like copper. That's not just an aesthetics issue, it causes the copper to lose electrical conductivity, too. You can coat copper with a lacquer to prevent tarnish, but that will eventually wear off. And, if there's not enough gold to back the money supply, we could use a basket of precious metals and other things. StuRat (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You've missed the whole point of TOAT's discussion regarding the nominal "intrinsic" value of gold. Pretend everything you say about gold being better than copper because it doesn't tarnish is true. (BTW, the copper wires that have been in my parents house for over 60 years? Not tarnishing... but whatever). That doesn't explain the fantastic increase in actual price of gold. The vast majority of the actual price of gold (so much as to make any "utility value" or "intrinsic value" moot) is fiat value, in the sense that it has the value that people believe it to have, with no bearing on what it can be used for. Copper's value is essentially all intrinsic value, it's price is very close to it's utility value. Gold isn't. Here's the kicker: you don't want something really useful to also be currency. Why? Because then speculation drives the cost of it to the point where you don't want to use it for the thing that you need it for. If we used copper as money, it would make copper more valuable as money than as wiring in our houses, and we kinda need it for that purpose. So the think that makes Gold useful as money is that it's value as money comes from not being useful for anything else. Now, here's the kicker: if gold-as-money is only valuable because economics says it is, not because of its utility, then gold's monetary value is purely symbolic. It's value isn't built into the gold, it isn't intrinsic: it's just valuable because it represents wealth. So why do you even need gold? Answer: you don't. Hence fiat currency. Then you need to ask why do you even need a physical thing to represent the wealth; isn't it good enough to just keep track of it all in a trustworthy manner in ledgers somewhere? Yup, which is why that is exactly what we do now. The amount of actual physical currency (called M0 money supply by economists) is so small as to be an insignificant portion of the worldwide economy. Money is just a number, a concept, an abstract representation of value, and really nothing else. --Jayron32 19:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Gold or gold-backed money has a history of thousands of years, while fiat currency has only been universal for the last few decades. That's not much of a track record. When we hit a major depression, I bet you will see the problem with fiat currency. StuRat (talk) 04:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Right, because the gold standard stopped the Great Depression. --Jayron32 14:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It prevented the total collapse of the currency. Deflation was rather modest, actually. And, checking out the graph of historic interest rates, you see that periods of inflation and deflation were rather balanced under the gold standard, whereas, with fiat currency, we've had inflation exclusively (although I expect this all to reverse in the coming economic collapse). StuRat (talk) 01:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

No, the gold standard did not prevent any collapse of US currency, which was not going to happen anyways. The reverse, deflation was happening. What remaining on it did was cause the continuing collapse of the banking system, and the continuing collapse of the real economy, massive unemployment and enormous misery and lost production and wealth. It is generally explained backwards, especially in the books of the current dark age of economics since the end of the "Age of Keynes" - but there is really no such thing as a "gold-backed" or "commodity-backed" currency. A gold standard is better thought of as making gold a currency-backed commodity. State intervention into the economy to get people to exchange their intrinsically valuable fiat money for a worthless commodity, gold. :-) It is fiat money which is ancient, dating to Sumeria and Egypt, perhaps before - antecedents which have been seriously argued to be 40,000 years old! - not the gold standard. That fiat money was sometimes measured in weights of metal may be confusing at first. But as Keynes noted, when the state gave itself the right to write the dictionary of money, the age of state money, modern money, had begun, 4000 years ago by his count. And money was never a vague concept, but always a specific one: credit=debt; a relationship, not a thing. Essentially, out of credit, the truly primeval thing, the state created money, which eventually created markets. The reverse of the sequence of the otherwise generally correct German Historical School & most textbook economics. The US dollar's 19th century stability was caused by a rather unique combination of small government, low taxes, unstable finance with frequent panics, more rapid technological progress than today linked with higher private investment, and overall tight fiscal policy, with long deflationary government budget surpluses in peacetime balanced by inflationary deficits during wartime. Not really the gold standard, except to the extent it enforced this regime. John Z (talk) 11:03, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Small bits of land aren't necessarily worthless. You can't really build a house, farm, or building on just, say, 1 square meter, but you could rent it out to somebody who does something more productive with many such lots. For example, solar panels could be put on them, which would work well with gaps in the array here and there for those who refuse to rent out their land parcels at a reasonable rate. However, one thing which makes land less suitable is that it's value depends on it's location, unlike gold (other than tiny variations). StuRat (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You wouldn't, say, offer a specific square meter of land. Instead, you would offer a share of a productive plot of land. So, for example, if the government had title to 1,000,000 hectares of land, it would offer as currency 1,000,000,000 "landbucks", each worth 0.1 hectares of land, but having a landbuck doesn't mean you have title to a specific patch of that land, merely that your landbuck is worth what 0.1 hectare of that land is worth. FWIW, this is basically how mortgage backed securities worked, roughly speaking: you don't own a specific house when you buy such a security, you own a share of a block of mortgages. Even if there were 100 mortgages in the block, and it was divided into 100 shares, each share wouldn't corresponded to any specific mortgage in the block. Same with "land-based" currency. --Jayron32 06:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That would have advantages, but you'd lose the ability to say "See that patch there ? I own that !". Just as with gold purchases, you don't need to have it in your hands, they will store it for you, but there are many who want the tangible asset. Also, if everyone puts their name on their parcel, that's one check on unscrupulous sellers who might otherwise sell the same portion over and over again. StuRat (talk) 07:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's not what money is. Money is not "I'm going to give you this specific thing of worth for some other specific thing of worth". That's barter. Money is a number we give to value, no more and no less. It allows us to exchange goods and services in an abstract way, without having to find someone who wants a specific thing. If I offer you a specific patch of land for, say, a loaf of bread, what if you say "I don't want that patch of land. You can't have the bread" What then? --Jayron32 07:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

One problem with using land as a peg for a currency instead of a commodity like gold is that land is not a uniform commodity. Every little piece of land is unique in terms of location, soil quality, drainage, climate, and other variables. So a square meter here could easily have 100 times the value of a square meter there. Marco polo (talk) 16:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be a one to one pegging (1 unit of currency pegged to a concrete 1 square meter). It could be a share on an amount of land. Each share would be equal. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You could create a fund that invests in land. People could buy and sell shares of this fund through an exchange platform digitally. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But what is the value of the peg if it is never redeemable? To be redeemable, it would have to entitle the bearer to a specific plot of land with the same value as the unit of currency. Otherwise, how is this really different from a fiat currency? Marco polo (talk) 21:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

And you're now within spitting distance of a publicly-traded real estate investment trust. (Though typically REITs hold developed, income-generating land, there's no particular requirement that they do so.)

As Marco Polo and Jayron32 have both alluded to, land makes a lousy currency base because it tends to lack liquidity and fungibility. As an investment vehicle against which a currency could be pegged it's probably even worse, since there are all kinds of problems with valuation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It would also be worthwhile to read Assignat for a cautionary tale about land-backed currencies. eldamorie (talk) 14:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You don't even need to talk about RETIs... or even speculation... just imagine land full of oil before oil was seen as particularly valuable. Now your land's valuable overnight. How would you compared that to currency? Currency's primary value is its sameness. One dollar is equal to one dollar, with almost no exception.

But, probably to the chagrin of a few people here, let me point out that the original IP's one sentence question was about digital currency tied to land, a question almost nobody's bothered actually trying to answer since about the 2nd reply. Shadowjams (talk) 01:03, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. The issues raised apply equally to any currency whether using digital or other media. A digital currency tied to land would have the same problems as any other kind of currency tied to land. Nothing about the digital medium mitigates those problems. Marco polo (talk) 23:50, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

As for whether an all-digital currency would be feasible: a large and growing share of transactions are already carried out electronically, and, in fact, a majority of the money in the United States exists only as number in a computer. As far as what the value is based on...Economists agree that money is what money does. The "value" of money is the value of anything and everything that can be purchased with it. So long as the issuer is trustworthy and the supply remains relatively stable, it doesn't matter what the value is based on. ----Mattmatt1987 (talk) 06:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there a space prob called prog going to pluto in 2016?

==Is there a space prob called prog going to pluto in 2016?== Venustar84 (talk) 03:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What happened when you googled the term? μηδείς (talk) 04:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I was about to ask the same question. So I second that! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

When I did it, I found the same question in Yahoo Questions with the same answers as here. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The OP may have had limited success from Googling "prob". Sometimes spelling is important. HiLo48 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You're probs right about that ;) 163.189.217.40 (talk) 04:39, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually you're most likely both wrong. For me, "Googling" 'space prob' by default just shows results for 'space probe'. For me "Googling" 'pluto space prob' just finds the results for 'pluto space probe' of which New Horizons is mentioned or in most cases the main focus of all 10 results. The first 3 for me are [1] and New Horizons, both highly useful results. Bing gives more or less the same results except they include the results for space probe (i.e. they are showing both), and wikipedia and NASA are reversed and the third result is [2], arguably more useful than [3] from Google. I tried a few other search engines, the only one where it may have been a problem is wikipedia itself where 'space prob' does suggest 'space probe' but 'pluto space prob' does not suggest 'pluto space probe' and the results aren't that useful. Really with most modern general purpose search engines, poor spelling is often not a barrier to searching, particularly not minor errors like 'prob' vs 'probe' and where the resulting search term makes little sense. In fact, it can often be less of a barrier than here. So I don't think we should be discouraging people from helping themselves when they clearly can. Nil Einne (talk) 06:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

So spelling doesn't matter. Now I'm depressed :-( HiLo48 (talk) 06:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

There is a spacecraft headed there, called New Horizons, due in 2015, not 2016, but I suppose you might have heard somebody talking about it say "I've been working on the prog to go to Pluto for several years now...." (where "prog" is an abbrev for the New Horizons program). StuRat (talk) 06:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

==Thank you!== Venustar84 (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

December 15

Children Building Forts

In my experience as a child, and interacting with other children now that I am older, the idea of using furniture, cushions and blankets to build a makeshift shelter, called a 'fort', seems universal. We don't seem to have an article mentioning the phenomenon. Is it indeed universal? Are such things called forts in other countries and regions? Is there historical mention of the activity, e.g., "As a child, the future Mad King Ludwig was fond of building forts"? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Cubby-hole isn't much in itself, but it might have some useful links. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I certainly did it largely out of furniture, but when I got older it included local construction debris nearby my house. Unfortunately I never had a treehouse. Shadowjams (talk) 02:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Is "cubby hole" what you call a "fort" when constructed by a child in Australia, Jack? The article certainly mentions the phenomenon, but doesn't mention the term "fort". In my part of the US, however, a cubby hole is a nook where one places one's jacket, back-pack, and perhaps shoes in the pre-school and kindergarten years, not something you construct or hide in. As for a tree house, we did build forts down the woods of various kinds with scrap lumber. But the idea of a tree house didn't really appeal to me or my friends after one of the Ward boys drove his Big Wheel out of theirs and broke half a dozen bones, missing an entire summer. μηδείς (talk) 02:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I have the same def of cubby-hole here in Detroit as Medeis. As for the tendency for kids to build forts, I'd list "building shelter" as traditionally among one of lifes most important skills, so it's no wonder children want to practice at it. In the current world, our ability to build shelter is less important, but still might save your life if you find yourself lost in the woods some day. StuRat (talk) 02:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Danish children don't build forts but caves (da:hule). See for example http://mads.gemal.dk/blog/221/hulemand which shows an example and says "Alle børn elsker at bygge huler" (All children love to build caves). PrimeHunter (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

OH, what a darling link. If you want to see the spitting image of my sister and her sons (although the boys are a little more dolichocephalic given their Russian roots, and now have a sister) do check out this link to exactly what I am thinking about. Perhaps this is all just a matter of the psychology of scale. See the etymology of hobbit, also mentioned below. Perhaps we are all hobbits. μηδείς (talk) 05:17, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Note that while the name may be different, the result is the same. StuRat (talk) 04:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Damn! I've long harboured the belief that Danish kids construct miniature Elsinores and stand on the battlements proclaiming, "At være, eller ikke være, det er spørgsmålet ....".  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:03, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Elsinore is actually the city (went to high school there and lives nearby). The castle is Kronborg but Shakespeare called it Elsinore. Hamlet#Plot handles his mess with a piped link. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, my own OR suspicion is that this is nesting behavior, which is pre-human, and oxytocin-mediated. The two things that most interest me are, is "fort" building as I would call it universal in form among humans, or do some use sheets while other use pillows (or whatever) and what terms are used where for the activity? Do the brits call them forts? Do Californians? Do Enzeders call them lean-tos and build them with bedsheets? Or how about the French? How about tribes inhabiting tropical areas? As for the Danes, I wonder if Tolkien knew about the habbit when he named the hobbit after the Old English Hol-bytla. μηδείς (talk) 05:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

cubby or cubby-house was used as well as fort in Australia, but the materials of choice were rocks, branches, grass and galvanized iron if available, and it would not be built inside a house but in nearby bushland. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:03, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Brit here: not forts although we do a good line in sandcastles. Cubbyholes, in the days when houses had cupboards under the stairs that's where we kept everything from coats to old toys. (We used to call it a glory hole but I understand that that's got an entirely different meaning these days!) Back to the original, I think I used to call it a "hidey-hole". --TammyMoet (talk) 09:47, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Another Brit here - for me growing up it was either a fort or a den, depending on what the game was that was being player. Fort if under attack from friend or sister, den if playing house or something similar... gazhiley 09:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Much of my childhood free time was spent in Epping Forest building "dens" (as in lion's den). Sadly, children here rarely have the freedom for that these days. Alansplodge (talk) 12:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

WHAAOE: see Children's den. Alansplodge (talk) 12:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we call them dens here in the north of England, too, though it's quite a while since I've built one. Dbfirs 17:17, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The Sons of Daniel Boone actually formalized the concept: boys were organized into forts (analogous to a Scout troop) who would build forts in the woods. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:22, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I doff my coon-skin cap to them. StuRat (talk) 18:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I grew up (and still live) in Australia, and our backyard had a "cubby house" (a small, shop bought wooden house on stilts with a ladder to reach it, and approx 2 x 3 x 3m in size) and a "tree house" (a few pieces of wood for sitting in a medium size tree, I think there might have also been some rope involved). Inside the house my brother and I occasionally built forts/bases (we called them both to my memory) out of furniture, sheets, cushions, etc. I'm guessing that depending on the housing densities in wherever people grew up the names might have different meanings (as we've seen to be the case with different countries) HandsomeNick (TALK) (EDITS) 01:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

xkcd strip 219: Blanket Fort calls them blanket forts, which I think you haven't linked yet. – b_jonas 14:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

A pre-made house is a Wendy house. Boys are allowed in if they play nicely Itsmejudith (talk) 09:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That's fine. Wendy houses are for cissies. We never allowed girls in the treehouse, as they have damp hands and don't keep secrets. Wickwack 121.215.132.106 (talk) 16:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

If Wendy houses are for cissies, does that mean forts are for transies? μηδείς (talk) 17:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Just a thought, but if anybody is bored during the Christmas festivites, they could merge all these articles into a single coherent page. Alansplodge (talk) 23:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Do I really want all four tires to wear out simultaneously?

"Conventional wisdom", dating back to the era of cheap rubber and rear-wheel drive cars, calls for rotating tires/tyres regularly, like every 5K or 10K miles or so; this causes them to wear evenly, but all four need to be replaced at once. In a front-wheel-drive world, though, is this really necessary?

Here's a specific scenario: suppose one starts with the factory 50000-mile tires, and drive ~12-15K miles, at which time the fronts and backs are swapped. At 25-30K they're back to evenly worn, but driving continues in this configuration until the fronts are kaput; we note the rear tires thus still have useful tread on them (since they've been neither propelling nor steering the vehicle for 2/3 - 3/4 of their life).

At that point, ONLY the front tires are replaced; and from that time onward, when the back tires are shot TWO new tires are purchased, installed on the front, and the former fronts swapped to the back. The back tires don't wear out nearly as fast as the fronts for the reasons mentioned above, and one doesn't have to shake loose enough cash to buy four tires all at once ever again.

I've read Oversteer, which reinforces my belief that the best tires should go on the front of a FWD car, but that's another topic for another day, please.

What am I failing to consider here? Can someone besides a tire salesman tell me why I might want all four tires to wear out all at once?

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:12, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe the reason for rotating them is so that each tire wears more evenly. That is, the front tires might tend to wear more on one spot, and the rear tires in another. By rotating them, you get more total wear out of each tire. To use an analogy, think of socks. They typically wear out at the toe and heel, on the bottom. With tube socks, however, which can be put on at any rotation, unlike normal socks, you wear out a ring instead of a spot, so they last longer. StuRat (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak to the tube socks analogy, but your statement about tires is correct. Before radials came along, there was a true "rotation" of the 4 tires based on the most vs. the least wear. By rotating them, in total they lasted a lot longer and would wear pretty much evenly - then you would buy 4 new tires. With radials, you "rotate" by swapping back with front. Regardless of the type of tire, once the treads are sufficiently worn, you buy 4 new tires. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Another consideration is that you might want to replace all the tires at once, so your car is off the road the minimum amount of time. If you replace them one at a time, that's 4 times as many trips to the tire shop. StuRat (talk) 16:07, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Replacing them in pairs is a reasonable compromise. I follow the practice outlined by DaHorsesMouth, except that I don't get anywhere near 50000 miles from a tyre of any quality, but roads round here are all corners! Dbfirs 17:14, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Another problem with replacing them at different times is that either the front or rear will be lower than it was designed to be (whichever end has the most wear). This probably isn't enough of a difference to be noticeable, but it might be. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Possibly, but it's only a few millimetres, and loading makes a much bigger difference. Dbfirs 07:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

All good answers, so I won't add to them except to highlight one consideration: since tyres wear unevenly left to right across the tread due to wheel alignment settings (camber and toe) and the law typically measures the minimum tread depth, it may be advisable (RefDesk please correct me) to rotate your tyres left to right as well. Most tyres are unidirectional so this would involve removing your tyres from the wheels and installing them on the side opposite, with wheel balancing to be redone. I haven't seen any references on this point though, so I wonder if I'm completely off point. Our tyre rotation article is basically unreferenced and in a bad state. Zunaid 14:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I was always taught to rotate both front-to-back and side-to-side in a cross pattern:

         Rear                   Front
         Wheel                  Wheel
         Drive                  Drive
 
        █     █                █     █                (front)
        ^\   /^                |┌   ┐|
        | \ / |                | \ / |
        |  X  |                |  X  |
        | / \ |                | / \ |
        |└   ┘|                v/   \v
        █     █                █     █                (rear)

   → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 16:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

For bias-ply tires, that's what I learned also. But radials have their own rules. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I've been told a few times in the past few years the recommended change (for FWD) is to move the part worn rear tyres to the front and fit new on the rear. The reasons seem to be explained on this page from a large tyre fitting company in the UK. Another problem with the cross rotation shown above is that many modern tyres have a rotational direction. To keep this correct the tyres themselves would have to be remounted on the wheels rather then simply moving the wheels around with the tyres still mounted. Astronaut (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

With many modern tires, swapping them from the left to the right side of the car is impossible because it changes the rotation direction from clockwise to counterclockwise or vice-versa. Since modern tires often have tread patterns that are not symmetrical, this is a VERY bad thing! Check that your tires don't have arrows marked on them showing which ones are intended to run on which side. That said, you can still do front-to-back swaps...but the benefits are much reduced as a result. I gave up doing tire rotation a long time ago...mainly because I don't like being hit with a bill for all four tires at once...I'd actually prefer them to wear at different rates. The only concession I do make is that when I do buy new tires, I put them on the front wheels (of my front-wheel-drive car). I get through two or even three sets of front tires before the back ones finally need to be replaced. SteveBaker (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you talk about switching not the tires, but whole wheels. You could, at least in theory, take the tires of the rims and just switch the tires without affecting the direction of rotation. However, in practice this would be fairly labour-intensive, and would probably also require re-balancing of the wheels. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Having driven for over 40 years, I've replaced a lot of tires. Years ago I didn't rotate them very often and either the front or rear would wear out first. I would buy two new ones to replace the worst two. But I've always been happier when I replace all four at the same time, which means that now I am diligent about rotating them so they wear more evenly. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

December 16

Michelin-starred dessert

Look at this image, which shows a dessert selection at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I see no plates in the picture. Do they put the desserts directly onto the tablecloth? JIP | Talk 19:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A silicone mat. Video. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Nouvelle cuisine at it's worst: A truly silly and unattractive presentation, IMHO. At least I'm confident that it achieved it's goal of parting a fool from their money. Shall we smear some mashed potatoes on a dog's back, next ? Or perhaps we should have fun with the Michelin ratings and serve it in the treads of a Michelin tire ? StuRat (talk) 19:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

As a food hygiene matter, plates have edges for a reason. This prevents non-food items placed on the table, like your gloves, from accidentally touching and contaminating the food. StuRat (talk) 19:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This shows the plates used by the restaurant. I'm not sure if any of them appear in the picture above, but it gives you an idea of the effect they're going for. I'd imagine it'd be difficult to get the food safety authorities to agree to using no plates at all. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Really? I thought the effect they were going for is exactly what's shown on Finlay's link above. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant. You can see here that they give a sort of 'edgeless' look. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh dang. I should have actually read the link, shouldn't I. Fools rush in, and all that. Sorry. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:42, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

For your penance, you're required to come up with a nouvelle use of cucumbers. (No, not that, silly.) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:01, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

@ Stu, "mashed potatoes on a dog's back"? Surely you mean peanut butter on the roof of a dog's mouth? μηδείς (talk) 22:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Are photos in Wikipedia all public domain?

Are photos in Wikipedia all public domain? I want to use some of them (often reduced and/or cropped) on the World Chronology pages of my website. http://www.sanityquestpublishing.com/time/tindex.html I will link to the page where I got them if necessary.

Cary Cook — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cary Cook (talk • contribs) 23:24, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Some are public domain. Probably the majority are under copyright, but licensed under some sort of free license that allows you to use them under very liberal terms as long as you apply the same license to any derivative work. Some are used under a claim of fair use and are more problematic to reuse. There's a tag on each photo saying which — just click on the photo and go to its page. --Trovatore (talk) 23:35, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Answered in more detail at User talk:Cary Cook. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

December 17

CoppBob

I'm have no idea where this question should go but I'm going to post this here because this is the closest I could think to a relevant area. My question would require an extreme amount of research and centers around a man who went by the user name of CoppBob. He was on Wikipedia from 2004 to October 2, 2009 and was the claimed age of 88 years old when he last edited, the oldest Wikipedian ever. He said that he lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, got a degree in junior science and political science in 1947 and 1950 respectively, was widowed in 2005, and was living in an independent retirement community by 2008. Before he retired, he has worked as a international labor affairs manager for the Ford Motor Company. At this point he'd be 91, and while possible; the likeliness that he is still alive is only fair because his digital footprint seems to stop around the time he last edited Wikipedia. The main reasons that I want to know is personal curiosity and because I don't want his death to be unknown to the community, some of whom were friends with him and miss him. If you need to relocate this to another forum, please tell me where you plan to put it by messaging me on my talk page. Thank you, --Thebirdlover (talk) 00:15, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

He included an email address in his last edit here: [4]. You could attempt to contact him there. Hopefully either he will answer or somebody will on his behalf (I took over my Dad's email address after he died). Also, since that lists his first and last name, and you have his birth year and city, those should be sufficient for a web search. StuRat (talk) 01:43, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Google is your friend; there are footprints where he states his age as 91. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 02:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Economic multiplier on steroids?

What would happen to the economy if all saved money had to be spent or at least large portions of it. Including corporations i.e. if government made corporation spend most of their money by a certain time or be subject to tax. instead of Keeping billions out of circulation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.71.149.220 (talk) 03:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Massive short term benefit because of the increase in investment, followed by a very delicate economy (due to no-one or no business entity having substantial savings) or a collapse of some kind is my guess. The delicate economy outcome seems more likely to me, despite not having any formal business knowledge whatsoever... HandsomeNick (TALK) (EDITS) 03:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

forgot to mention, depends what % tax you use/used. That would change the balance of what they spent before the taxing vs what they chose to save (despite the taxing). HandsomeNick (TALK) (EDITS) 03:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd expect people and corporations to hide their assets from the taxman any way they could. StuRat (talk) 04:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• "Saved" money is not just sitting as a pile of cash in a vault. Saved money is invested money that is held in he form of stocks and bonds and loans and so forth. Such a tax would be devastating to the economy, a direct attack on that portion of marginal wealth that goes into building new enterprises and starting new businesses. Download George Reisman's college textbook Capitalism as a pdf for free here. μηδείς (talk) 04:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

My economic politics are way to the left of Medeis', but I'd cautiously agree with this. Suppose you want to start a business. Ordinarily, you would go to the bank and ask for a small business loan. The bank provides this money out of its deposits (broadly speaking). When you repay the loan, the interest you pay is used to deliver interest for the bank's investors. The proposed tax would destroy this system. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• For the general idea of increasing the velocity of money by having saved money lose its value over time (taxation would be one possible way of accomplishing this), thus "forcing" people to spend it before it becomes worthless, see, for example, Demurrage (currency), Freigeld, and Wörgl#The Wörgl Experiment. Deor (talk) 13:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

As Medeis suggests above, the premise of the question is wrong. Money that a person or business does not spend itself is spent by whoever they lend it to via a financial intermediary. See Circular flow of income. Duoduoduo (talk) 15:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's more complicated. In a properly working financial system and economy, savings should be converted almost automatically into productive investment by financial intermediaries. However, that assumes that there are attractive investment opportunities available. In fact, what we have throughout the developed world, and increasingly in places like China, is overinvestment in capital which is either producing well below capacity due to a lack of demand or producing near capacity but not very profitably due to prices depressed by a lack of demand. As a result, there is a shortage of attractive investment opportunities, and those with significant assets (the rich, corporations) are sitting on cash, which is not generating a very good return. Because the economy is depressed, those with more modest assets (the middle classes) are also sitting on cash, saving money against a possible job loss or because poor yields compel more aggressive saving for retirement.

Now, this cash admittedly doesn't just sit there. It is invested, but typically in ways that are especially ineffective for stimulating the economy. Not so much at this moment, but in recent years, much of this cash has inflated asset bubbles that have destroyed wealth when they have burst. Especially in Europe but also in the United States, a lot of money has lately been sunk into building up banks' cash reserves to strengthen them against future financial crises. This ends up getting invested in government bonds, which are also a major target for retail investors. (As a result, some have argued that the prices of "safe" (U.S., German) government bonds have been inflated relative to their yields to create a new asset bubble.) Some government spending stimulates the economy, or at least keeps it from shrinking further, by paying for unemployment or healthcare benefits, which indirectly support employment. In the United States, a great deal of government spending goes toward military materiel, logistics, wages and benefits, which again supports employment. Relatively little government spending, in an era when government spending is being demonized, counts as productive investment that might support future job growth. (There is room for productive government investment in infrastructure, but in the United States at least, this is being deferred in the name of austerity.) However, in the current situation, arguably too little of the world's wealth is being invested productively because there is too little effective demand. There are two possible ways to remedy this: 1) penalize savers or wealth holders, perhaps targeted above a certain age-adjusted threshold, to encourage spending and 2) tax wealth to pay for government-funded productive investment in infrastructure and perhaps education. A savings tax, targeted particularly at savings not productively invested, and perhaps targeted above a per-capita threshhold that would rise with age to protect people's retirement funds, could accomplish both goals. Marco polo (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem of a lack of good investment opportunities will only be exacerbated by panic spending to avoid a tax on savings. Instead of spending money wisely on good value items when they need them, and letting the money otherwise stay invested as savings, people will buy high-cost and luxury items that they don't need, jewelry, furs, fancy cars, big houses, expensive meals, etc. For the most part these are not 'capital' items that yield a return like education, or knee replacement bought a few years from now when you can't enjoy driving your fancy sports car any more. There would be a temporary boom in the housing and other high-end industries, followed by lay-offs and closings when all the money had been spent. μηδείς (talk) 17:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

If that were true, then the wealthy (and everyone else) would gravitate toward the smallest possible houses in undesirable areas in order to minimize property taxes. In fact, there's no reason to expect substantially different behavior toward a property tax on financial wealth than one would expect toward the real estate property tax. The wealthy aren't going to spend everything they have to avoid a wealth tax, because they want to retain as much wealth as possible. Incidentally, the same tax could be levied on cars, jewelry, furs, etc, to avoid perverse incentives to convert wealth into tangible forms. Meals costing more than $80 per person or the equivalent in other currencies could be subject to a heavy tax. It's interesting that the people on the right tend to claim that the wealthy can avoid any tax, so there's no point levying the tax, yet other countries do manage to tax the affluent more heavily than the United States, so it clearly is possible. Marco polo (talk) 20:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Obviously in matters like this some people will still make the most rational of decisions. But I really don't find it likely that a spend-it-or-lose-it tax would not encourage many people to splurge on unwise luxury items (the industry for which would boom and then bust, neither good for the economy) when they could otherwise be investing that money for their children's edumacation or the needs of old-age. μηδείς (talk) 21:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

@Marco polo: You suggest that we penalize savers or wealth holders, perhaps targeted above a certain age-adjusted threshold, to encourage spending. But that just encourages people to refrain from lending through intermediaries to those who engage in productive investment, and instead to engage in non-productive spending. And you admit that a lot of investment spending is not fully productive for one reason or another; so where are you going to encourage people to invest more productively? And how are you going to operationalize a savings tax, targeted particularly at savings not productively invested?--how can the government possibly determine what's productively invested and what's not, especially since much productive investment is channeled through financial intermediaries to the companies that actually do the investment spending?

A more effective approach to encouraging productive investment (which I oppose because it would be way too regressive) would be to tax consumption spending instead of saving -- exactly the opposite of what you propose. That would induce some people to channel more of their income to saving rather than consumption, and that saving will end up being spent in a way that, whether highly productively or not, at least will have more of an effect on future jobs than consumption spending would.

And if, as you say, much government spending is not very productive, how would taxing the money away from savers to the government help the situation? By the way, I do think that our (the US's) crumbling infrastructure is a very productive area for government spending. Duoduoduo (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

My argument is not really that there isn't enough productive investment, it's that there aren't enough jobs. As a result, there isn't enough consumer demand. Adding investment in capital goods won't work if those goods can't be profitably employed. The investment will be wasted and jobs won't be added. What is needed is more employment and better-paid employment that will generate more consumer demand. Government spending is not a terrible way to achieve that, but it would be even better if the government spending went to produce infrastructure or promote education in skills in demand that might increase the economy's ability to employ in the future. Marco polo (talk) 20:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Saved money (assuming it's not dollar bills stuffed under the mattress) is "saved" into a bank account - which the bank uses to invest in money-making schemes of one sort or another. So if everyone had to pull their money out of bank accounts and spend it, they'd have to invest in much the same things that the bank would have done. Banks would obviously go out of business overnight because they'd have no money to lend. Then the only way for a business to get money for growth would be to sell shares...but small businesses that don't want to have hoards of investors wouldn't be able to function. Starting a new business would be very difficult indeed. (Not impossible - you'd need to use "crowd funding" like Kickstarter to get money from customers up-front). Buying a house would be utterly impossible because there would be no place to get a mortgage.

It's actually a bit fuzzy what is meant by "Savings" anyway. Under this proposed rule, would buying a gold bar count as "saving"? Converting money into some form of goods that can be sold later is really no different from putting the money into a bank and taking it back out again later.

A titanic question

Could the titanic have stayed a float longer if they had gone in reverse and adjusted passengers /cargo displacement possibly long enough to allow Carpathia to rescue them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.71.149.220 (talk) 04:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The weight of those things would be insignificant compared to the water, but flooding the opposite end might have helped. StuRat (talk) 04:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the weight of water would totally dominate any possible relocation of people and cargo. The vessel weighed 46,000 tons and displaced 52,000 tons.

We know that five of the sixteen "watertight" compartments were flooded to the waterline - so we could guess that maybe a quarter of the ship's displacement was replaced with water...so a back-of-envelope calculation suggests that ten thousand tons of water were inside the ship.

So how could they balance this out? The 3,200 people aboard might maybe (optimistically) average 200lb each - that's 320 tons of people...a drop in the bucket compared to a 46,000 ton ship. Even each person brought twice their own weight in baggage and could haul it the length of the ship, we're still under 1,000 tons that could be quickly relocated. Moving the ships cargo would probably have been impossible with the small cranes aboard - but even if it could be moved, the only place to put it would be on deck - and that would make the ship horribly top-heavy and pose a risk of capsizing. The ship was fuelled with coal - so no chance of pumping fuel around to alter the balance either.

Flooding the compartments at the opposite end of the ship would have increased the stress on the vessel's central structure - making it even more likely to snap in two...you'd have to flood the entire ship to roughly equal depth to keep things on an even keel - and that would just have sunk the whole ship in even less time...albeit it would have gone down in a more horizontal and intact fashion. Even if that were desirable, water was flooding in at the bow through a 15'x5' rent...no pumps could possibly compete with that to keep the ship level...and if they could, they'd have been better deployed in pumping water out of the bow section than pumping it into the stern.

But even if any kind of action like this were possible, it assumes that the crew understood sufficiently what was happening to the vessel. They thought it was unsinkable - so in all likelyhood things would be far too far advanced by the time they would have thought to do something that drastic. SteveBaker (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Did they really think it was unsinkable? I've always assumed that was just marketing hype. It seems to have been known that the ship could stay afloat with 4 compartments flooded, but not 5, and they must have known that 5 compartments being flooded wasn't impossible. --Tango (talk) 01:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Our article says: "...even though countless news stories after the sinking called Titanic unsinkable, prior to the sinking the White Star Line had used the term "designed to be unsinkable", and other pre-sinking publications described the ship as "virtually unsinkable"."...so whether it was hype or not...a lot of people evidently believed it...including the people who decided how many lifeboats to provide! In truth, it wouldn't have sunk if the water wasn't able to over-top the watertight barriers between compartments and if a decent grade of steel had been used to hold the thing together. SteveBaker (talk) 14:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] No, the White Star Company never claimed or assumed that Titanic was "unsinkable"; merely, and correctly, that she was less likely to sink than earlier designs - and indeed she stayed afloat significantly longer than any other ship of the time with that damage would have (bar her sisters, obviously). The "unsinkable" label was a journalistic invention, and was largely promulgated after the sinking because the supposed hubris made a better story. [Context: I'm sitting in an office on Southampton Town Quay, not very far from where Titanic docked - this general topic is quite popular in Southampton to this day.] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

So you're saying that our article is wrong? It has a reference for those statements. SteveBaker (talk) 18:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Even if the weight issues, described above, could be resolved, how long would it have taken such a heavy ship steaming ahead at the time of impact to come to a halt and get up any kind of reasonable reverse speed? --Dweller (talk) 11:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The ship was already at a stop - and the engines had been put into full reverse before the iceburg was struck, so I don't think that would have been a problem. Of course as the ship filled with water, it would become harder and harder to keep it moving at any reasonable speed. SteveBaker (talk) 14:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

From our Titanic article (discussing the sea trials): Over the course of about twelve hours, Titanic was driven at different speeds, her turning ability was tested and a "crash stop" was performed in which the engines were reversed full ahead to full astern, bringing her to a stop in 850 yd (777 m) or 3 minutes and 15 seconds. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 20:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Another Titanic Q: No batteries ?

I just saw a TV prog which said they had to keep boilers going for electricity. Didn't they have batteries good for a few hours ? StuRat (talk) 04:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Our article doesn't make mention of any batteries, but rather states that the Titanic had six steam-driven electric generators (see Titanic#Engines.2C_boilers_and_generators). Someguy1221 (talk) 06:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think batteries at the time would have been much help. They might have been able to power the radio for a bit longer, but they would never have been able to store enough electricity for the lights and other electrical systems. See history of the battery. --Tango (talk) 15:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It would certainly be possible to have sufficient batteries to run emergency lights for a few hours, but running pumps might be more demanding. StuRat (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It would be now, certainly. The Titanic sank 100 years ago, though... --Tango (talk) 20:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Lead-acid batteries were around then, right ? StuRat (talk) 20:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but in 1915, Thomas Edison pointed out the danger of chlorine gas being generated in submarines as a result of the lead storage batteries being flooded with sea water. See USS F-4 (SS-23) which was wrecked for this very reason in the same year. That's a three years too late for the Titanic (sank in 1912) - but it's possible that enough was known of the chemistry to make them wish to avoid large quantities of seemingly unnecessary lead-acid batteries on board a passenger ship. Had they had them, I'm sure that clouds of chlorine gas wafting through the ship would have made matters much worse! SteveBaker (talk) 20:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure it's enough chlorine gas to be a risk on a ship that can just open the windows to ventilate ? StuRat (talk) 01:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Erm, I have no deep understanding of these issues, but wouldn't the area most affected by such a potential gassing be the engine room, and if so, would I be right in assuming that on most ships, including Titanic, it would be poorly ventilated at best, and not an area you'd want to evacuate? --Dweller (talk) 11:06, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

If the batteries would have been stored above the waterline, you're probably right...but on a passenger ship, space above the waterline is a valuable resource and those kinds of engineering things would likely have been kept down below the level where you could open a window. It's not clear to me whether the hypothetical number of batteries they'd have needed would have generated enough chlorine gas to be a problem...but it's an interesting thought. SteveBaker (talk) 14:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Even motor cars didn't have batteries in 1912. Alansplodge (talk) 13:24, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No, but submarines evidently did (United States F class submarine says diesel/electric submarines had them at least as early as 1909)...so it's not entirely unreasonable that a modern ocean liner might also have considered having them. However, as I said, they may have known enough about the salt-water ingress problem to decide not to do it. Of course they didn't expect the ship to sink - so the issues of all of the steam generators failing at once may not have been something they thought was likely, so batteries - whether available or not - would not have been seen as necessary. But if they did think about it - then they might well have been put off doing it by the thought that "we'll only need them if the ship is in trouble - and that's exactly the time when they might get seawater in them and flood the ship with chlorine gas". SteveBaker (talk) 14:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You'd definitely need to find room for them above the waterline. StuRat (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Electric cars sure did. StuRat (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

restored cars - how well do they drive?

I've seen cars from 40 or more years ago restored and they look very nice. How well do they drive? Close to the way they drove when new? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:40, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but cars of that era often drove like boats, even when new. StuRat (talk) 04:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The best-driving car I've ever had was a '73. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

My 1973 Mercury Marquis (bigger than the Grand Marquis is now) certainly handled like a boat. StuRat (talk) 05:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

To list some specifics, a car from the early 1970's may have been rear-wheel drive, with some 70% of the weight in front, bias-ply tires, a rather pathetic, overly-soft suspension, and a length that really requires an additional pair of wheels to support it in the middle. :-) StuRat (talk) 06:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It was rear-wheel drive. It came with bias ply tires but the first time I changed them I went to radials. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

What model ? StuRat (talk) 06:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

A Pontiac LeMans. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

If a vehicle is restored to very high level using a so-called rotisserie restoration, all perishable parts are likely to be replaced and the vehicle is going to drive almost identically to how it did when new. The only part which cannot easily be restored to like-new conditions is the chassis (especially in unibody cars). Overtime chassis flex weakens the metal itself and while there are ways to resolve this, I don't believe it is frequently done. This is likely to be the only noticeable difference between a new car and a expertly restored example and even this isn't likely to be noticed except under very aggressive driving or over a very bumpy road. Of course many restorations aren't up to this standard and include only things like new paint, an engine rebuild and new shock absorbers or struts. While this is will freshen up how a vehicle drives, subtle things like the old springs and rubber suspension bushings will provide a different feel than they did when new. --Daniel(talk) 19:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "restored". A good restoration can bring a car back to factory condition. In fact, at some car shows, they'll deduct points when a car is restored to better than factory condition because that's an all-too-common thing. So, a good restoration is (effectively) a brand new car. HOWEVER, it's a brand new 1970's era car. There is no doubt that cars have improved immensely over the years. I have a '63 Mini - and let me list some of it's trickier points:

1. The drivers seat has only two positions - no back adjustment whatever.
2. Despite being the "Hot Hatchback" of it's era, it has a 12 second 0-60 time and top speed is 72mph. That's not atypical of cars of that era.
3. The gearbox doesn't have synchromesh on 1st gear so you have to remember not to downshift into 1st as you come to a stoplight until you're completely stationary.
4. There is no rev limiter of any kind - if you over cook it, the engine blows up.
5. It leaks oil. They did that when brand new too.
6. It overheats in Texas summers.
7. Seatbelts were optional extras - and the guy who bought mine from new didn't buy them. No airbags either.
8. No ABS...which is kinda OK because the drum brakes are so pathetic that you're not going to manage to lock them. You really do have to plan in advance to stop and keep a very respectable distance back from the car in front because you know that he DOES have disk brakes and ABS!
9. The windshield washer doesn't have a motor - you pump it via the knob on the dashboard.
10. The electrical system sucks. Any moisture and something shorts out. There are only two fuses for the entire car - so when you accidentally short something minor out - EVERYTHING goes out.
11. No power steering, no power brake assist. Even though it's a light car, it takes arm muscles to turn it at low speeds.
12. No radio (another optional extra).
13. Very dim headlamps.
14. Needs maintenance every 1,000 miles and oil changes every 3,000 (if it hasn't all leaked out before then!).
15. That said, it's more fun to drive than a modern MINI Cooper - it handles like the six time Monty-Carlo rally winner that it always was.

These are the standards by which 1960's and early 1970's cars were built.

That said, many people don't "restore" old cars - they rebuild them. In some cases, almost nothing is left of the original. Someone can take a Model T Ford and turn it into a hotrod...I'm not sure I'd call that "restoration" - but when that's done, you've probably got a fully modern car with an old-style body shell. If it's done well, you'll have a decent engine, ABS and all of those things. The only concern I'd have is that you now have a one-of-a-kind car that's never been crash-tested or undergone hundreds of thousands of miles of road tests...so I'd be quite concerned about safety and (to a lesser extent) reliability.

SteveBaker (talk) 19:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Steve: and why would someone want to drive such a thing? And I am afraid it's even more expensive than a present day Mini (which is an amazing car, specially regarding the driving experience). OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't drive it much. But it's a hell of a lot of fun (more so than a modern MINI) - and here in Texas, you get attention from everyone around you all the time! That said, driving under the speed limit on freeways in the smallest car you've ever seen in your life is just a tad scarey. Hence I stick to 50mph back-roads and mostly only drive it to car shows and club meetings and such. Cost is much less than a modern MINI. A bottom-of-the-range modern MINI Cooper comes in at about $20,000 here in the USA. I paid $2,000 for my (then unrestored) '63 Mini - and I probably spent $3,000 on restoring it - but lots of 'sweat equity'. You can buy a nicely restored example for maybe $15,000 and a reliable/drivable one that won't win competitions for around $8,000 - so they are significantly less than a brand new modern MINI. Most restored cars are worth less than new modern equivalents...unless they are really top-of-the-line show cars...but those are rarely (if ever) actually driven (the derogatory term "garage queen" would be used here!). SteveBaker (talk) 20:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

For point 3 above, you could always double declutch. More impressive still is the Heel-and-toe gearchange (ie double declutching while applying the footbrake), Alansplodge (talk) 01:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The OP must be delighted to receive information about the screen washer on one particular car that someone idolizes. A 1963 Mini is however not «the smallest car you have ever seen in your life» to any of the thousands who have seen such cars as the Peel P50 or Messeschmitt KR200. DreadRed (talk) 09:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

A 63 Mini is NOT a typical car of the time back then either - it is and was rubbish. A cheap and nasty car produced by a second rate manuafctuer for low socio-economic folk in a depressed economy, ie Britain. I had a 64 Holden (Australian version of GM car roughly equivalent to a Chevrolet - the dirt cheap line in the GM range - but smaller. Let's compare it:-

1. The drivers seat was continously adjustable.
2. It made no claims to be a hot performer, but the top speed was about 90 MPH.
3. The gearbox didn't have synchromesh on 1st gear but the engine doesn't really need it. 2nd will pull strongly from walking pace. But all synchro was an optional extra, about $15 as I recall.
4. There is no explicit rev limiter, however valve bounce over 6000 RPM and mainfold design meant that you really had to try very hard to damage the engine.
5. None of them ever leaked oil - that's just one of the Mini's well known quirks.
6. It never overheated in any Australian summer, just as hot if not hotter than Texas.
7. No Seatbelts and no airbags - no mass produced cars had them then.
8. No power brakes in standard model - but with good drums you don't need power assistance. It was not difficult to lock all 4 wheels, as yes, no ABS back then. Disk brakes with power assist were an optional extra as I recall.
9. The windshield washer was electric but it was an optional extra.
10. The electrical system was solid - never any trouble until the cars were really old.
11. No power steering, but it didn't need it - turning was quite light. Power steering was an optional extra though.
12. Radio standard. Extremely good sound quality and long range on AM - much better than modern radios.
13. Good bright headlamps.
14. Needed servicing and oil changes every 3,000 miles. All cars had 3000 mile service intervals back then as the old type oil degraded. If you run an old 1960's but reasonable condition car on modern oil, you need only change it each 12,000 miles or so.
15. That said, it did have the typical wallowy GM handling. They weren't supposed to, but some dealers would at extra cost fit "Police configuration" with a lot less body roll. I read somewhere that GM engineers knew as much about suspension and handling as anybody, but their CEO had decreed that body roll was good as it supposedly frightened young inexperienced drivers from pushing it to its limits (did't work with me). Wickwack 121.215.132.106 (talk) 16:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Donations

There appears to be a problem with the bar that pops up to inform users of wikipedia donations. What it is, is that it won't stop. It doesn't normally appear for this long. It was here since November. Any help? 92.0.110.196 (talk) 18:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It goes away when you make a donation! SteveBaker (talk) 19:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Or if you click the little [X] button. It's not a problem, it's just our annual fundraiser - it isn't cheap to keep a top website running. --Tango (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

BTW 92, you're mistaken about how long the donation banner normally appears. Since ~2007 it always starts in about early to mid November and goes to the end of the year or the beginning of next year (usually after the original fundraising period ends, there remains a thank you banner which still links to the donation page), lasting a total of 45-60 days. See [5], Meta:Fundraising 2009/Timeline, Meta:Fundraising 2008, Meta:Fundraising 2007/Report (actually begun in October!). 2005 had 3 fund raisers I think and 2006 only last about a month so they were the last time it was different. This particular year was actually the second latest starting time since 2007 (2011 began one day later) and of course we're still a while away from ending, in fact we're not even that many days more than the short 2006 period. Nil Einne (talk) 06:41, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Santa's elves

Odin riding Sleipnir

What was the first story involving elves and Santa's workshop? 216.93.234.239 (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

See Christmas elf. Marco polo (talk) 19:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 19:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that article doesn't make a lot of sense. It claims that the origin was an unpublished manuscript from the 1850s without explaining how that manuscript had any influence. According to this site, the first mention of Santa's elves was an anonymous poem published in Harper's Weekly in 1857. Marco polo (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• All of these notions of Father Christmas originate with the bearded and hooded Odin in Norse mythology riding his flying eight-legged steed Slepnir--think eight-reindeer sleigh. The Christmas tree with its star on top represents the world tree with its (pole) star on top about which the sky rotates. It's all based on prehistoric and actually quite sophisticated pagan legends. See also, the Finnic Kalevala, with Väinämöinen and his magic flying sleigh, and other story collections from the north. As for the elves, they would have originated with Odin' Dwarves, who were craftsmen. μηδείς (talk) 21:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Reference please, Medeis. Alansplodge (talk) 23:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Odin#Santa_Claus, allegedly. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That is highly unlikely, since we have a gap of several centuries between the Odin myth being current to the modern Santa Claus myth. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Medeis's Santa (right) is holding the most dangerous looking toy that I've ever seen. Is that for the naughty children? Alansplodge (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Your incredulity doesn't, frankly, mean diddly to me. The Siberian legend of the sky father who bestows his blessing through the dwelling's smoke-hole on the night of the winter solistice is well documented. μηδείς (talk) 02:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I was taking more notice of the fact he's riding Slepnir backwards, apparently he isn't in any rush to spread Christmas cheer. (Unless of course he is riding it the right way - not impossible seeing it already has 8 legs...) HandsomeNick (TALK) (EDITS) 04:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

His feet seem to be pointing the right way in the stirrups - I think he's just twisted around to look behind him. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Our article Santa Claus suggests it came from Sinterklaas. The article on Sinterklaas suggests the concept is associated with Saint Nicholas with a possible connection to Odin. Either way, it seems clear it was not a direct change from Odin to Santa Claus which may partially be a source of any confusion. Nil Einne (talk) 05:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

BTW as for Father Christmas, our article suggests a connection to Wōden (Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic counterpart of Odin). It notes the traditional association was with 'adult feasting and drinking'. The gift giving, chimney etc stuff came when Father Christmas merged with Sinterklaas/Saint Nicholas so the connection between the tradition of Father Christmas and Odin seems more teneous. There is perhaps the connection between Wōden and Odin but that's not so simple, if I understand the earlier articles and Wōdanaz correctly, Wōden and Odin developed from Wōdanaz somewhat seperately and in fact Wōden predated Odin anyway. In other words, while it may be accurate to say the concept of Santa Claus partially originated from Odin, it's possibly not correct to say 'All of these notions of Father Christmas originate .... Odin' as it seems possible or even likely some of the more traditional notions of Father Christmas had other sources like Wōden which did not originate from Odin but as concurrent or earlier developments. I'm not even sure if it's entirely correct to say all of the gift giving part originated with Odin since it's unclear to me that there is consensus that the gift giving associated with Saint Nicholas definitely originated from Odin or it was potentially another independent development which merged with the myths of Odin rewarding children. Nil Einne (talk) 06:14, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Our articles in particular Sinterklaas suggest at least part of the tradition of the elves may originate from Zwarte Piet which itself may originate from Huginn and Muninn of Odin. See also Christmas gift-bringer. Nil Einne (talk) 08:09, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Then, of course, there was Saint Nicholas, who gave gifts to children to celebrate Christmas, and was later combined with other legends to create Santa Claus. Note that "Saint" is "Santa" in Spanish and "Nicholas" is "Niclaus", or just "Claus", in German. StuRat (talk) 00:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Then, of course, there was Obama's elf. HiLo48 (talk) 16:14, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

@ Nil, you seem, if I understand you, to be slightly misinterpreting what you read at Wōdanaz. English Woden and Norse Odin (I am not going to bother with strict orthography) are merely the same word for the same deity passed down within each group since the time they were all one Proto-Germanic people before they spread out over NW Europe. There was no borrowing involved. And the linguistic reconstruction *Wōdanaz is merely the way those people pronounced that name back when they were one unitary people in the Proto-Germanic Urheimat. It wasn't that, say, the English borrowed *Wōdanaz as Woden at one point and the Norse as Odin at another. There's an unbroken cultural transmission, just as the PG word *stanaz evolved into stone in English, and Stein in German. English didn't borrow the word from German, nor the reverse, nor either from Proto Germanic. The differences in times noted in the article are differences in times of written attestation. The word was being spoken (and slowly changed according to each language's sound laws) continuously

That being said, the timeline goes back to an old traditional Siberian sky god worshipped during the prehistorical period by hunter gatherers we'd associate with the ancestors of the Uralic peoples, The Altaic peoples, the Yukaghir people and so forth, who fished and hunted reindeer. The god was associated with the world tree, which was how they explained what held up the celestial axis about which the sky revolved, with the North Star which sat at its crown, and with a yearly blessing of fortune and fertility shone down the smokehole on the family as he flew through the sky on a magic sled or steed. (Such legends were recorded from indigenous pagan people of Siberia in the 19th century.) At some point circa 1-2,000 BC this god got merged with the Norse mythology, With Wotanaz replacing Tiwaz, the original Norse version of the PIE Zeus/Dyaus Pita. (This may have to do with the merger of a Finnic and a PIE substrate resulting in the Æsir–Vanir War.) When the Germans were Christianized, the yule time Woden worship became co-opted as "Father Christmas", a Christian figure of dubious relation to the Christ child, and still carrying all the trappings of Woden. Eventually this was concept was further Christianized by having the memory of a 'historical' Saint Nicholas (who had nothing to do with reindeer, or chimneys, or pine trees, or the North Pole, or flying through the night sky on the solstice) take on the garb of Father Christmas. Voilà: Santa Claus. μηδείς (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

How is Father Christmas pre the merger with Santa Claus Christian? I thought he was just the personification of the feast. The green man could well be related but I don't see a relationship with Grim. Unless you have a good source. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:46, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I am a little confused by your question. Are you asking how father christmas was christian before he was syncreticized with St Nicholas? He was obviously a continuation of Folk belief that had evolved from memories of Odin to being associated with christmas in the way the easter bunny and easter eggs became symbolic of easter, We should have an article on the creation of christian pseudosaints (father christmas, santa muerte) and other saints like the various nymphs that have become this or that virgin of the waters. My own study has been in the study of the relations of the Siberian peoples along the lines of Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic and Michael Fortescue's Uralo-Siberian. Those groups have the hooded and bearded shaman who flies to the star at the top of the world tree on the solstice and who shines down fortune through the smoke holes in their tents and lodges. As for father christmas (the name associates him with christianity) in the middle ages, I have no especial knowledge beyond that he's an Odin been coopted by the church. What interests me is that pagan neolithic tribes across siberia share a wise magical skygod with a flying eight-somethinged conveyance who travels up the tree at the center of the earth and to the pole star at its top, to shine down the year's blessings through people's chimneys. μηδείς (talk) 12:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say there was any borrowing, in fact I don't get the relation of your long borrowing/word discussions to my post at all. What I did say was that the original Father Christmas in England may have originated from Wōden not Odin. These may have originated from the same god, but they were held by seperate groups of people (who had the same ancestors) and evidentally diverged enough that we have separate articles. There was likely some cross cultural connection even after the divergence but since Wōden apparently arose first and remained Wōden among certain groups, it wouldn't be accurate to say Father Christmas involved from Odin when it arose from Wōden. Note that you said all Father Christmas arose from Odin not all Father Christmas arose from Wōdanaz. Your comment on stanaz seems to reenforce my point. If you were to say the name Stonehenge originates partially the word Stein, it would not be accurate. Per our article it partially originates from stān which I presume from your comment originated from stanaz. Stein developed concurrently with stone from the same original word (with I presume largely the same meaning), but it doesn't mean any word containing stone originated from Stein. Nil Einne (talk) 14:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

December 18

Help with printing a document.

On the forum on The Thing fansite, Outpost 31, someone has created a DVD insert booklet [6] for the The Thing DVD. In the instructions for printing it off they said to "print the odd pages first (1,3,5), then turn those same sheets over and print the even pages (2,4,6) on the backs". So if I messed around with the settings on my printer so I can print on both side of the page, will that help ? 80.254.146.140 (talk) 12:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That site won't load for me. In general, if your printer supports double-sided printing (most do, but some don't), then yes, you can probably fiddle the settings to print the whole thing in one go. The instructions seem to be phrased for folks without the ability to print on both sides. If you find the pages don't look right, try again but tell the printer to flip on the other axis of the sheets. The default is probably to flip on the short axis. Matt Deres (talk) 13:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Another option is just to give up on the idea of two-sided prints, and print one-sided instead. If they placed the page numbers on alternating corners, that will be a bit ugly, but, on the other hand, if you have thin paper, a double-sided print may not look good, due to seeing the print from the far side thru the paper. Single-sided printing is certainly harder to mess up, too. StuRat (talk) 20:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That's not really an option if the end result is meant to be folded together to make a booklet, which is what's wanted here. Printing single sided will make the booklet form out of order. It pretty much has to be double-sided so that when you fold the printed pages in half, you'll get something you can flip through. Matt Deres (talk) 13:35, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

furniture marked "D.G. Conrad, Parker Kans"

I have a cabinet with this marking. The stripper said it was made to be taken apart for transport on a covered wagon. He also said it was made between 1810 and 1850. This is a Christmas gift for my mother and any historical information on this furniture would be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:5B0:28FF:1EF0:0:0:0:37 (talk) 16:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The city of Parker, Kansas was not built until 1888. [7] Rmhermen (talk) 17:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps that's the name and location of one of the owners, not the manufacturer. StuRat (talk) 19:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Or possibly the name of the retailer? Alansplodge (talk) 00:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Possibly, but it would be unusual for a retailer to put their name and location on something decades after is was made. StuRat (talk) 00:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Optical illusion in "Final Fantasy" logo

When I just glance at this sideways, before I completely resolve it, I see an illusion of — what exactly? I'm not sure. I'm sort of thinking maybe Greek columns or something? It's hard to pin down because it goes away as soon as I get a good look at it.

Anyone know whether this is intentional, and if so what it's intended to evoke? --Trovatore (talk) 19:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Massive vertical columns tend to invoke stability, so it's an odd choice for a video game, more like what I'd expect from a bank or insurance company. StuRat (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

December 19

DEFINITION OF "MOLESTING"

'I NOTICED that under this subject, you do not have the lighter form of molesting mentioned, which is unusual for Wiki. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/molest Please check out this link and see the definition not referring to sexual conduct.

Thank you, dropdeadfair Bold text'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dropdeadfair (talk • contribs) 00:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, Dropdeadfair, that's because Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --Jayron32 00:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

See our sister project, Wiktionary for the dictionary definition: Wikt:molest. StuRat (talk) 00:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

As indicated in EO,[8] it originally meant merely to bother, vex, annoy, etc. EO says the connotation of abuse originated around the 1950s. My guess is that it was a euphemism. And like many euphemisms, that once-marginal usage has become the dominant usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

What % of body mass are you lifting during pull-ups?

Assuming one is a healthy, average male, what percentage of one's body weight is one pulling when doing pull-ups? For example, if one weights 170 lbs, are the pull-ups equivalent to lifting 170 lbs on a pull-down lat bar exercise? Are you also lifting the weight of your arms when doing pulls ups? Acceptable (talk) 04:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind you're using your arms for both activities. So to make the activities more equivalent, it would seem reasonable to subtract the weight of your arms from the weight you're lifing on that pull-down bar. How much your arms might weigh, that's a separate question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the weight of your body below the elbows, your pulling force must include a force to accelerate that mass, calculable as F = ma. DreadRed (talk) 08:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Searching for bio of H Lee Wainwright

When I type his name, H Lee Wainwright, into my search engine (Google), the first 3-4 pages are all about him, but I can't find his background history and Wikipedia has no information on him when I execute a search. Why is that? I read that he recently won an award from NASA, but still no historical or any information about him in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.182.66 (talk) 15:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The usual answer to this kind of question is either "because he is not notable" or "because nobody has written an article yet". If you think he is notable (and I observe that most of the first page of Google results I get are closely associated with him, and so not acceptable to establish notability), then by all means request an article at WP:RA, or try writing one yourself (but read WP:YFA before you start). --ColinFine (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)