Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

Popularity of IE 5 for Macintosh

I'm looking to find the percentage of Mac users on the internet who use IE 5 (vs. Safari vs. Firefox vs. various versions of Netscape, etc). Does anyone have any idea where I might find this info? I can find IE 5 usage overall, but lumping IE 5 for PC and IE 5 for Mac together is rather misleading, since IE 5 for PC wasn't as much of a ball of bugs as IE 5 for Mac.

Thanks :)

Some websites provide a breakdown of browser types by name and platform. Maybe you should try them. Can't give you an example right now. -- Toytoy 01:56, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

Most sites don't correlate the data though. I couldn't find any that did, anyway, with a little googling. --Fastfission 05:23, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is very little reliable data, but one of my oft-visited sites has done six browser polls over the years, showing the popularity of the mac browsers over the last 5 years. Howerver -- this is a mac-power-user site; one could guess that rate of adoption of firefox, safari etc is faster than the whole mac user base and then there is a whole plethora of other effects.

In thelatest poll IE5 got a neglible amount of votes (0.4%)

macosxhints browser wars #6

— Sverdrup 08:05, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Music list from Rollcage Stage 2 on PC

Hi, Can anyone supply me with a track list (music, that is, not racetrack) from the PC videogame Rollcage Stage 2? I know two of the tracks on it - track 2 is Control by MKL and track 3 is Surrender by MKL. Also, the music on the PC is not the same as on the Playstation version, which was used as the basis for the album "Rollcage Stage 2: the soundtrack"

Thanks Noodhoog 23:30, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Millimeter waves"

In my copy of New Scientist's 100 things to do before you die suppliment, it discusses "millimeter waves" as being rather like a real version of the "x-ray goggles" that used to be advertised in magazines. It says merely that they are between infrared and microwaves in wave length, they pass through clothing and reflect of anything contain water. It goes on to say that law enforcement agencies use "millimeter wave cameras" which can frisk people from a distance.

What are these? Do we have an aricle on them? I trust New Scientist, but haven't heard of this before... — Asbestos | Talk 00:18, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh wait, found the article Terahertz radiation, which is obviously what NS was talking about. They only mention technologies under development, though. Does any technology using these waves currently exit, as the New Scientist claims? — Asbestos | Talk 00:21, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard of any application which exploits the electromagnetic spectrum at these frequencies. It would be quite an innovation though I think. I'm sort of curious about the sorts of transitions that this would cause in the water molecule which would prevent it from "passing" through it. I might ask around and get back to you if I find something useful; it does sound quite neat! Thanks for sharing it with the reference desk. --HappyCamper 04:06, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Termite /Ground water connection

Is it true that there is abundant ground water wherever termite colonies are sighted? Also, how deep can termites go below ground level to seek moisture? -A.H.Khan,India

I don't know, but I wouldn't have thought there was much ground water where these termite mounds in the Northern Territory, Australia, are present. --Robert Merkel 11:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is a curious question. As far as I know, where there is water at all, there are immense amounts of it (it's not like you find a liter here, a liter there). If you're looking for water, you might start at the aquifer article.
If this curiousity has arisen from anything to do with pesticides and their use in killing termites, there are some things you should realize:

1. Pesticides are poisons - it's a bad idea to use poison anywhere.
2. If poison is expelled anywhere, even at the surface (as opposed to underground), that poison will wind up in the water supply.
3. Some termites have colonies going deep underground - that's closer to the water and undoubtedly sort of like a funnel.

Any other information you need I'll wager you can attain through the termites article. ¦ Reisio 18:56, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fast

I need to go fast, really, really fast. What is the best thing? Speed demon 03:13, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Try the Principle of relativity. Doesn't even require you do anything, lots of fun. --W(t) 03:15, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

Better yet, try Heim theory! --HappyCamper 08:48, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The galaxy is already rotating you at a speed of some 220 km/sec by itself, how much faster do you want to go? --Fastfission 05:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The galaxy itself is moving 300-600 km/s. Superm401 | Talk 00:16, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Isn't it also rotating too? Does that mean that it's going even faster than this speed? --HappyCamper 00:22, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed an ambiguity in the question. Perhaps these answers have all been entirely off-base, in which case I hope this helps: If you want to fast, the best thing is to refrain from eating. If you need to go and truly, truly fast, you have several options based on how you define the practice. Depending upon your religious tradition, it may mean only abstaining from meat, or, in the extreme, avoiding even water. Since these have increasing risks to health, perhaps the best thing is to have a loose definition of what it means to really, really fast.--Joel 22:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Computer-to-computer wireless internet sharing

Let's say a friend I both have iBooks with AirPort Extreme cards. One of us has connection to a wireless router; the other cannot connect directly to the router for whatever reason. Is there any way I could use the fact that I can initiate a Computer-to-Computer connection with his computer to "share" the connection to the wireless router? (that is, port the wireless router connection through the computer-to-computer interface) --Fastfission 05:26, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have you tried logging into that router to see if it has blocked a port which your computer needs to connect to it? --HappyCamper 08:44, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's not a specific problem with a particular router, I am just wondering if this particular thing I want to do can be done. --Fastfission 17:35, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To connect wirelessly from one computer to another, you would put both wi-fi cards in "ad hoc" mode, as opposed to "access point" mode. However, putting your friend's card in that mode would cut off his link to the wireless router. So in answer to your question: no. If you got the machines talking via ad-hoc mode, and if he had a separate connection to the router (via wire, or perhaps a second wi-fi card, if such a thing is supported) then I think he should be able to share his internet connection to you. But I can't say I've tried this so I can't promise. Sharkford 20:27, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

That's very interesting. Is there a specific technical reason relating to the way the cards work that one can't do both at the same time? --Fastfission 05:25, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, um, I dunno. The trivial answer is that, in every instance I've seen, the choice between ad-hoc and infrastructure modes has been either/or in the card's configuration. As I understand it, there are differences in the low-level protocol that the card is using. But could both modes be supported concurrently, in theory, from one antenna? Would this require multiple sets of circuitry on the card or could it be done in the driver or firmware? I have no clue. I am aware that there is ongoing resentment in the open-source/free-OS community that many card vendors are not releasing their drivers' source code; this is apparently because many wi-fi cards use "software controlled radios" so that tinkering with the software could cause the cards to transmit on the wrong frequencies or at excessive power, which would violate the cards' regulatory compliance. So there is reason to believe that with access to the software the cards could be made to do a lot more than they do, but hobbyists and hackers have a hard time getting the tools to do it. Sharkford 14:47, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

Wiki suitable for translation?

Hi, I'm looking to translate my site, and have many volunteers. I figured the best means of translation is a Wiki (with registered users only) but am undecided on what to use.

Mediawiki is not great because you cannot simultaeneously view the original and translate.

Is there any Wiki created with translation in mind, or suitable for translation? Or is there a relatively simple hack that I could use on the Mediawiki software?

Thanks,--Stepheno 11:27, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It shouldn't be too involved to modify the HTML and/or CSS to show the textarea for editing and the (pre)view of the article so you can see both simultaneously.
Are you sure this would be necessary? Couldn't you just provide the source documents online and have people submit their translations by email, public ftp, etc.? How many documents are we talking about? What exactly is the purpose of your site? ¦ Reisio 19:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have you seen multilingual advice and "How To Write On Multilingual Pages" ? They are running the OddMuse software. --DavidCary 17:44, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Papua New Guinea Constitution and Bougainville

I'm trying to find online references to two documents relevant to the recent conflict resolution in Papua new Guinea and Bougainville. Specifically, I'd like to be able to find the PNG constitutional amendment Part XIV (Bougainville Government and Bougainville Referendum) of the National Constitution. There is also a new 'Organic Law on Peace-Building in Bougainville". Extensive googling has not helped me find the docs. Thanks if you can help. - anon -

Hmmm. The Parliament of New Guinea's website is "under construction...". Yes, in 2005. Have you tried Paclii, the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute?

If that doesn't work, you've got two options; you can bother your local research library, or bother your nearest PNG diplomatic representation, though if I may get cynical for a moment I'd expect the research library to be a lot more efficient... --Robert Merkel 02:04, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright and self-made audiobooks

I have read most of the Wikipedia articles relating to copyright and I still am not clear on what exactly is copyrighted when you make an "artifact"--be it a book, a Word file, an mp3 file, or what have you. Specifically, I want to know what the status is if I wanted to record myself reading a book that is currently in copyright. Since I have created a new artifact, what kind of rights do I have to distribute it?

And a follow-up question: If the issue is that I'm quoting the text verbatim, what if I instead used the text as a sort of inspiration, a la Wizard People, Dear Reader? Or is there any clear answer at all at this point? Mjklin 12:37, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)

Generally speaking, as I understand it, when you create a work using another work, you only receive copyright claims over the amount of "creativity" you put into it. This "creativity" is a pretty vague notion, and many decades ago the bar for this was lowered to almost nothing (a famous case involving a circus poster or something like that). If I pee on a canvas, that is an act of "creativity". However creativity can be trumped by other creativity -- if I pee on an image of Mickey Mouse, that would likely not be judged as adding enough "creativity" to the mix to warrant a trumping of Disney's copyright claims. However, in that case, I could probably try to claim it was some sort of satire or criticism, which might get me off the hook. But Disney would probably sue, unless I was at MoMA, in which case I'd have more likelihood of being judged "creative" by the courts. These things, as you can probably see, are a bit idiosyncratic, in part because the terms are very vague (and are based on 18th century notions of "the author", which, applied to people peeing on Mickey Mouse, seem to become a little stretched).

It seems unlikely to me that simply reading a copyrighted text out loud, however creatively or uniquely, would give you copyright claims that would trump the original claims on the text by the author. Without permission given by the author, I am fairly sure you would have no right to distribute it. If, however, you had permission to use that copyright, you would be entitled to a copyright on your recorded version of it — that is, you would have rights to the audio content, though not the informational (textual) content which lay beneath it.

As for inspiration, that is more tricky. A court would likely look at how much new "creative input" ("creativity" here is a relatively moving target, legally) you had put into this. So J.K. Rowling is fine basing much of Harry Potter on ideas and concepts originally put forward by Tolkien (whose works are still under copyright). (Of course Tolkien's work is based on previous cultural contributions as well, but the bulk of them are not held under copyright). If, however, you created a character called "Gary Potter", who was a young Wizard at "Smogwort's" who had all sorts of similarly "inspired" adventures, you'd probably get sued for infringement, and lose. Unless you were doing it as a clear parody, which is why MAD Magazine can do just the above (though I'm betting they've had their share of lawsuits).

With the example you give above, the soundtrack itself would probably be labeled as original enough, however any copies of it which were synced with the movie (and potentially even broadcast to an audience with the movie, though I don't know about that for sure) without authorisation would put its authors in a vulnerable position. They'd have to claim it was a parody and fell under fair use, but I don't know if that would hold water in court (and the act of going to court over it would likely be prohibitively expensive).

A book I found useful for making sense of copyright law and licenses was Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture. He has a major POV to push (that current copyright law is seriously buggered), but it is pretty informative in general as well about the limitations and history of these things. It is available for download for free at the link above, and is a very quick read (I skimmed over the whole thing in an afternoon). Another quick read on the topic of copyright law is James Boyle's Shamans, Software, and Spleens. I'm pretty sure that one isn't available online, though.

Hope that helps a bit. I'm not a lawyer in the slightest, so don't take my word on any of this, it is just based on a course I took on intellectual property, and a few books, two of which are cited above. --Fastfission 13:11, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

With regards to your inspiration question, you may want to look at The Wind Done Gone (the story of Gone with the Wind told from the perspective of a slave) for which the estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Houghton Mifflin. That ended with a settlement, so no new precedent was set, but depending on the work you'd like to borrow from, and depending on how much you intend on borrowing, there is some risk of a lawsuit. Our fan fiction article actually reports on the various stances of individual intellectual property holders on derivative works (J.K. Rowling being one of the more accepting ones). --CVaneg 22:25, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One additional note: one of the difficulties with IP law, as I understand it, is it has less to do with neat systems of rules or even precedent than it does a case-by-case scenario of "what will hold up in court". Which means that results can vary pretty widely, and a lot of it depends on who decides to try and sue or not. With a copyright, it's not a matter of you applying for a copyright so much as it is someone asserting a copyright (unlike patents, which have their own different complications) --Fastfission 04:27, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree with most of what was above. Though IANAL, I'm almost positive reading a copyrighted text is forming a derivative work, which can not be distributed without permission from the original copyright holder. Superm401 | Talk 00:11, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

While you are correct in stating that an audiobook recording would be a derivative work, our own article on that topic (which was probably still not written by lawyers) states that the creator of such work, (at least in the US) is only entitled to the changes s/he made. In this case the sound of the recording would be yours, but the informational content would still belong to the original author as Fastfission points out above. Note that the original author has no claim over your recording, so for it to be distributed you would actually need both artists permission. Also consider that movie producers have to pay to option various books, videogames, and other works. There would be no need to do that if you were free to distrbute derivative works without permission. --CVaneg 00:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A useful metaphor is that of a painting. If I do an original painting, I can claim copyright holdings over it. If someone else took a picture of it and put a moustache over the main character, they would be creating a derivative work, but they would only be able to claim credit over the moustache. If they distributed it without getting a license from me first, I could sue them for infringing my copyright over the rest of the painting, but not the moustache. The more you change the balance of creativity/derivativeness, the more that line slides. At the other extreme, my "original painting" was probably done in the style of many other artists, inspired by a whole host of cultural effects, etc., many of which might still be under copyright. However unless the derivativeness was extremely explicit, I'd probably be in the clear. "Creativity" is a moving target here, and "derivativeness" is not a simple yes/no problem most of the time. --Fastfission 20:19, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Word Origins: Jiffy

In most dictionary sources the origin of the word "jiffy" is listed as unknown. However a few sources mention the possible link to Yiddish. Where can I search to confirm or rebut this possible link? If "jiffy" does indeed have a Yiddish origin, where can I find the original word's meaning?

Thank you very much. Friend from Florida

The problem here is that the word "jiffy" is old; if an etymology hasn't been found by now, you're not likely to be able to look one up. (Some sources suggest thieves cant, incidentally). Earliest sources are the late eighteenth century - 1785. The word is slang, meaning that the earliest citations recorded are probably a good bit later than when it came into use, and so it's very hard to determine anything about its origins.

However, an interesting detail is that the first recorded appearance of the word was in Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, which was written by a German from a set of German stories. As such, it's a good working guess that the term came from German.

I cracked my whip, away we went, helter skelter, and in six jiffies I found myself and all my retinue safe and in good spirits just at the rock of Gibraltar.

(At this point, I start speculating). There isn't an obvious word in German to use as the source. However, Yiddish produces a lot of odd slang terms, and is quite common in Germany and points east; the author came from Hanover, and was telling stories that possibly came from a man who'd lived in Germany, Russia and the Balkans. It's not too wild a step to guess that an odd term, not known in English or German, would be Yiddish. But this certainly isn't definite; it could be Russian, or Turkish, or simply a piece of English slang no-one wrote down before.

This is speculation, though; as for what word it would have come from, that I don't know. Did any of the dictionaries mentioning a Yiddish source give a possible origin? Shimgray 14:38, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. Some other possible origins are "a corrupt form of gliff" (a glimpse or glance), or from the French vif (which is "sharp", google tells me). I wouldn't put much confidence in any of them specifically. Shimgray 15:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On the track of the Yiddish speculation: "gich" means "quick". The translator could have changed "ch" to "f" in analogy to "achtern" -> "after" and "lachen" -> "laugh". — Sebastian (talk) 18:21, 2005 Jun 16 (UTC)

Need literary source of illustration of "wonderful moo-moo bird"

I am trying to find the source fairy tale or fable that was used to generate the illustration of the "wonderful moo-moo bird" in the 1930's art poster by Jaro Hess of "The Land of Make Believe". Glassylady

Widespread Panic

I was just writing to let you know that whoever is writing your information for you is obviously biased to a few things. I'm an avid Widespread fan and there are somethings in the information giving that I would like to see the sources for what was written. Like critics who apparently say they lack improvisational skills?? I'm not being an asshole fan, I'm just a music lover, and a musician and I like a lot of bands, like moe., phish, the dead..etc. They seem to all have pretty fair write ups and nothing negative, but you guys make the rules. I guess just I'm asking for a fair write up. But anyway thank you guys a lot for all the information on this site you guys do a great job, thanks so much

Peace Kevin

e-mail: <email removed>

Kevin go to the page in question, click the "edit this page" link and rewrite the article so that it is to your liking. Anyone can edit a page here. If you think something is biased or unfare just go ahead and fix it.Cool or what? Note however that people will edit your words too, and will do so without mercy. Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 23:44, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Kevin, in addition to the above, keep in mind that a fair write up does not mean not writing anything negative about a topic. Check out the WP:NPOV policy. - Taxman ^Talk 15:41, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Album Sales

If Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album is the number 2 best selling album of all time worldwide, what album is number 1?

According to this page at the Guinness Book Of World Records site, it's Michael Jackson's Thriller, with some 51 million copies sold Noodhoog 03:03, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gmail

I opened my Gmail this morning and was greeted by the screen you see here (edit:the image has been deleted as the issue is resolved). It looked fine yesterday and I can't remember downloading anything suspicious. Can anyone explain what happened or tell me if there's more people with this issue? - Mgm|^(talk) 04:47, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

I assume you did the obvious thing of clearing out the cache and reloading the page, and in that fails, rebooting the computer, yes? Those are the first things I would do in general if something weird like that happens. Beyond that, I don't have any other specific thoughts, except, "Whoa." GMail uses a lot of javascript (and perhaps some applets? I don't know), so if that got downloaded screwy one time I could imagine it creating display madness. --Fastfission 05:11, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, did you try checking your font settings? Alphax ^τεχ 05:20, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Of course, I didn't try all of that; I should've. I was in a hurry to leave for work, but I assume font settings don't change over night either. The only thing that changed was that my father added 300MB memory to the machine... I'll go and check it all tonight. Thanks! - Mgm|^(talk) 07:41, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Is your inbox fixed now? --HappyCamper 23:35, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, it is, all by itself without any intervention. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:41, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Now that it's over, can the image be deleted? -- Sundar (talk · contribs) 09:11, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Molecular migration

You know how you can't store petrol and you can't seal off drugs properly, allowing sniffer dogs to detect the cocaine strapped to your body? Because the molecules are small enough to get through the containing medium.

How come alcoholic drinks don't lose their alcoholicness? Ethanol is pretty darn small. Is it because the ethanol is dissolved in water? And how come water doesn't evaporate from a steel container when petrol does - petrol is a much bigger molecule?

What article talks about molecules migrating through their containers? Josh Parris ✉ 05:37, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your amazement should evaporate when you rememember (1) how few molecules it takes to provide a scent, and (2) that ethanol molecules are several times heavier than water molecules, so it doesn't preferentially evaporate out of solution. For many things, evaporation of 0.0001 percent a day is more than enough to provide an odor, yet it would take 3 years to lose 1% of the substance. alteripse 11:20, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This topic is highly related to diffusion, vapor pressure, Raoult's law, and mixtures. --HappyCamper 13:02, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not to be too pedantic, but ethanol does evaporate prefferentially from anything less potent than everclear, due to its comparatively weak hydrogen bonding. See distilled beverage. I think that we're able to store gasoline pretty effectively (especially in systems like the Prius has), but for very small species like hydrogen stored long-term at high pressure, diffusion through container walls can become a major effect.--Joel 01:35, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Interesting that Everclear is 95% alcohol...you cannot distill a mixture of water and alcohol to a higher percentage of purity because water and alcohol form an azeotrope at these proportions. --HappyCamper 00:59, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Giving money in foreign aid

Where can I find in impartial source on where the US ranks in aid-giving nations?

• O'Reilly states: "The US gives far and away more tax money to foreign countries than anyone"
• Franken replies: "Japan gives more. Not per capita. More."
• Coulter replies: "U.S. gave $37.8 billion out of a total $108.5 billion in foreign aid from the world's major countries - notable for being more than three times the amount from the next largest donor, the Netherlands, clocking in at $12.2 billion."

Personally I have a bias to whatever Franken says, but I wouldn'yt mind seeing where everybody's getting their figures from.

As much as I love Al Franken, I'm inclined to say that they all skew their numbers to support their position. Coulter seems to get her numbers from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In particular, the numbers found here under the first excel file labeled Tables 1 to 14. She uses TAB03e Total Net Flows by DAC Country, which records the total amount of money from a country both from the government and private donors. TAB01e which just records governmental money would also seem to support O'Reilly's position. I'm not sure where Franken gets his numbers, but he's usually pretty good about referencing his sources, so it wouldn't hurt to look it up. I should point out that all this is coming from a single source whose data collection methods I am unfamiliar with, so it's entirely possible there is a better way to calculate these numbers. In further defense of my fellow bleeding heart liberals, it's worth noting that on a per capita basis the US is definitely on the low end. Bruce Bartlett in the National Review Online complains that the most generous countries are riding on the US coatails with regard to defense so they can afford to be generous. Even taking that into consideration, countries that maintain an active defense program like the United Kingdom are around .30%, or double of the US contribution. I imagine that this hasn't been made that much clearer, but unfortunately that's how things tend to be. --CVaneg 18:10, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think I've found a basis for Franken's claim. If you look at the same excel file TAB04e "Net Official Development Assistance by DAC Country" from 1992-2000 Japan was the largest contributor in terms of dollar amount. --CVaneg 19:54, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also to be borne in mind is what this aid is. Don't assume it all goes unconditionally to poor needy people. Some aid goes to military allies. Some aid goes to needy countries in return for control over economic policy. — Chameleon 12:42, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fractal Brownian Motion

I have been stuck on this for a while. What is maximum likelihood function for fractal brownian motion? It is related to brownian motion and gaussian distributions. I am also looking for the original paper where this is derived. Thanks in advance! --HappyCamper 12:58, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If fractal brownian motion is the same as a Lévy flight then try Lévy distribution. Gandalf61 14:53, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...I don't think that's what I'm looking for. The sequence should be normally distributed, but somehow it's autocorrelation decreases exponentially... --HappyCamper 20:38, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Standard scale" in the law

"(a) to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale,"

This comes from the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. What does it mean?--anonym

Rather than stipulate a fixed size of fine in every act, which would then have to go and be corrected for inflation every now and again, the idea is that you have a central scale, which will say "Level 3 - £xxxx to £yyyy", and various pieces of legislation refer to this. This means you only have to update one thing, rather than a wide range of laws, to keep it current. (A lot of old laws stipulate explicitly that they would result in a fine of £2, or something - this is to avoid that happening)

It's similar to, for example, government pay scales - there's a single scale, and jobs are linked to "class AF3" rather than being advertised at "£12-14,000" (or whatever) and then negotiated individually for raises.

Some poking reveals that "Many fines are fixed by reference to the "standard scale". The scale has 5 levels, each corresponding to a certain amount. This means that the level of fines can be updated by changing the value of each level, without the need to amend the legislation relating to each separate offence. The current values of the standard scale can be found in Archbold or the inside front cover of Stones." [1] - Level 5 seems to be £5,000; anything higher would be given as a value.

Those books aren't available to me just now, but they should be available through a decent-sized UK library. Shimgray 13:29, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Aha - Level 3 is £1,000 and Level 4 is £2,500. Shimgray 13:40, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What are the risks of Genetically Modified Foods?

WHat are the risks of GM food? Could the herbicide get into weeds? Could the pesticide somehow get into the pests? I need in depth information on these subjects ASAP please. Thank you for your time :)

Try genetically modified organism, genetically modified food, Ecological impact of transgenic plants. Allergies is one concern. Rmhermen 19:15, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Also remember that this tends to be a slightly contentious issue. You should read everything with a critical eye (moreso than usual), and see what people are saying on the talk pages to understand any bias that may exist. --CVaneg 19:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are no demonstrated health risks to eating genetically modified food. The most rational fears are related to the global economic consequences for traditional agriculture, and the potential reduction of biodiversity in favor of a few "optimized" food species. Of course, when people are hoping for a way out of the Malthusian bind, we always imagine some order of magnitude step up in our food supply rather than a reduction of our needs and intakes. It's hard not to wonder if this isn't it. We pays our money and we takes our choice... alteripse 20:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Prince Charles Question

Hello, My name is Kenneth H. Young from Canada. I would like to know if HRH Prince Charles was on a military maneuver in Gagetown, NB. Canada in 1971 called excursive, Running Jump II.

Thank you in advance.

Kenneth H. Young <address deleted>

As far as I can tell, he wasn't in Canada in 1971, however, according to the May 1st, 1975 Globe and Mail and the April 29th 1975 London Times, while serving on the HMS Hermes, he went on a royal tour of Canada in April/May of 1975, including a trip to Winnipeg and the Northwest Territories, and afterwards he did participate in a 3-week Royal Marines commando training operation in Gagetown. I don't know what the operation was called. I think this would be a bit too late for HRH to be affected by the Agent Purple fiasco, if that's what you're curious about. Hope this helps. --Robojames 14:36, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

19th century artist - S. Wilhite

I have a watercolor, signed S. Wilhite. The painting came into my family's posession when purchasing a home and some of its contents in 1954. The home had been owned by a NYC socialite, and the contents were of the highest quality.

We have always been curious about this small watercolor of a sailing ship, signed "S. Wilhite".

Any assistance you can offer will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you, Dan Baker

I couldn't find much on this artist. If you want the painting appraised, your best bet is to contact an appraiser. But if you merely want information on the painting; without providing a picture of the painting, you may have to identify it yourself. Try to identify the origin/type of ths ship by looking at the [rigging] and for signal flags. You can also look at the Peabody Essex Museum archives to get an idea of what era/style the painting is in. You can also consult books on maritime art at your library; The Dictionary of Sea Painters of Europe and America by EHH Archibald may be a good place to start.

Hope this helps. --Robojames 15:54, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Scientology -- Leader? Who is in charge?

Scientology -- Leader? Who is in charge?Who is the leader of the Church of Scientology? If there is not one head, then what is the system by which it is run? By a board? By a president/manager/CEO? What are the names of these people? What is their history?

If you go to the Church of Scientology article, it says that David Miscavige is the chairman of the Religious Technology Center and the de facto leader of the church. --CVaneg 22:56, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Green radioactivity

In a lot of b-movies radioactive substances are glowing green. Where does the choice of colour come from? From an early movie or maybe a comic book? --EnSamulili 22:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Well, early movies were black and white, so probably not from there. Uranium glows green, however -- perhaps it's from that? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 02:06, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Easy. The most familiar type of radioactivity to most people in the first half of the 20th century was a radium watch dial, which was always green. Add the connotations of illness that green carries and Hollywoord never needed any other color. alteripse 02:49, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Radioactive materials, including uranium, do not glow unless they're on fire. The colour that you see is emitted by a phosphorescent material which glows when struck by the radiation. The earliest luminous watch dials used a mixture of radium as the radioactive element and zinc sulphide as the phosphor, which glows green. Modern equivalents use radioactive tritium, which can be mixed with phosphors of almost any colour. --Heron 20:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can't very intensely radioactive materials cause the surrounding air to glow through Cherenkov radiation? Nickptar 20:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, the surrounding water, since air has too great a light speed for Cherekov and is too poor a coolant for safe storage. Some movies, particularly Star Trek, show radiation as blue for this reason, and in keeping with a nuclear-friendly, pro-modernity message. In response to earlier posts, some uranium substances are fluorescent. Uranium glass is a fluorescent green color that resembles B-movie depictions of radiation almost as much as radium dials, and has probably led to a conflation of radioactivity with fluorescence. Another example is potassium uranyl sulfate, made famous by by Henri Becquerel.--Joel 22:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I want to just second alteripse's assessment. From the 1880s through the 1930s, "radiation" meant radium (uranium is not very radioactive in its natural state, most people did not care about it) -- think Madame Curie. The ability for just a very tiny bit of it to glow was a very potent metaphor for the early ideas of what "atomic power" would be (which had nothing to do with fission, mind you). --Fastfission 20:23, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looking for help building props

I am looking for a blueprint to build an easy replica of an old west jail. Maybe not even a blueprint - simply plans to show me how to go about it.

I would have thought an old photograph was the way to go. If this is for a play or a movie, then looking at other movies might be a good idea. They may not be accurate, but will create the right feel. DJ Clayworth 17:37, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are demonyms translated?

For example, people from Monterrey are called regiomontanos in Spanish. Is there an equivalent of this word or any other of this type in English?--Fito 02:36, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

As I see it, demonyms are themselves borne of a lack of a single standing or official method of description. Instead of saying "una persona de Monterrey", in Spanish you'd say regiomontano. It's approximately the same in English; instead of "a person from Monterrey", you can say Monterreyite or Monterreyer, etc., it just looks/sounds funnier due to the "ey" ending. I believe the similarity of (indeed, just the existence of) the Spanish Wikipedia article on the matter supports this notion.
I am nowhere near a master of Spanish, but regiomontano seems to me like something derived from olden times or an old word or name (as the Spanish article notes) or even just something illogical that was made up and stuck, instead of basically taking "Monterrey" and adding an appropriate suffix/prefix to make it a demonym. If that is the case, I think the English Monterreyer would remain an accurate translation of the intended meaning of regiomontano (a person from Monterrey), but not necessarily the literal/historical meaning (which is largely academic in the realm of translation anyways).
The entire issue can be avoided by merely sticking with regiomontano, which does after all use letters of the Latin family and can easily be read by most inhabitants of the western world (and is truly more accurate). You could say, for example:

"...people from Monterrey are called regiomontanos..."

What you would have to worry about is translation to languages like Russian, Chinese & Hebrew, which use very different characters; for which I would suggest disregarding the demonym and just translating "a person from Monterrey"—but mentioning the word in its native tongue/written form, imo, should always be done. ¦ Reisio 12:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ok, thanks a million!--Fito 16:55, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

"Regiomontano" is a Latin calque for Spanish Monterrey; both mean "king's mountain" (compare Königsberg and Regiomontanus). Gdr 21:24, 2005 Jun 16 (UTC)

Syllaeum

Where exactly is Syllaeum located (in modern terms)? The Battle of Syllaeum article didn't clarify this.Yuber^(talk) 04:12, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hard to say. The article suggests it's in the Sea of Marmara, which is usefully small, but a quick check of the atlas didn't show anything. However, given the timeframe, this isn't surprising - even if the place is still there, it'll have been renamed a few times.

I've looked at various online map sites, but none seem to have anything useful. Possibly a detailed gazetteer might, but possibly not if it's no longer there. Shimgray 05:15, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if this helps, but the Sea of Marmara is also known as the Sea of Propontis or Propontis. Flcelloguy Give me a note! d.c. al fine? ^Desk 14:39, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anyone knows exactly where the battle took place...Warren Treadgold's "A History of the Byzantine State and Society" says it was off the coast of Anatolia (presumably in the Aegean Sea, then). Adam Bishop 22:43, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Aegean does seem a bit far afield, though, in the context of a fleet besieging Constantinople. Hmm. Perhaps they were blockading the Dardanelles? Shimgray 23:02, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, it was a rather large invasion of the empire, both by sea and by land, and this battle involved a lot more than a siege of Constantinople. I guess the siege was already over and the Arabs were being chased back through the Aegean. I wish I was better at giving sources for articles I wrote that long ago, because I'd like to know where I got that information from...I'll see if I can find anything better and hopefully fix it. Adam Bishop 23:28, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Volume controls

So, I'm pretty sure I remember this period in my life where I typically left iTunes running pretty much all the time on my iMac, and turned the volume all the way down on my external speakers when I wanted some quiet. Nowadays, however, when I turn the volume all the way down on my external speakers, I can still hear the music, so I turn down the volume through the system preferences, but I can still hear the music when a loud song is playing, so I have to also turn down the volume through the iTunes program itself. My question is: does anybody know of a setting I can change so that I can just use the external speaker volume control? Why do I need three volume controls? Tuf-Kat 05:43, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Well, this happened to me as well, and I found out the little volume wheel on my headphones was just getting stuck. But maybe your case is different. Perhaps it has something to do with linear and logarithmic volume controls? Linear controls would surely get to mute, but bad adjusted logarithmic volume controls (like my sister's stereo) tend to leave the volume above zero even when on the minimum setting. — Kieff | Talk 10:10, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Did Winston Churchill have an extra finger or toe?

I can't find any evidence that would support such a claim. Wikipedia thought so, I removed his name from the list of polydactyl of ppl 2 months ago. I seek confirmation. If he didn't, then we spread misinfo. here for 14 months.

lots of issues | leave me a message 09:47, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not that this answers your main question, but truthfully, we've probably been spreading misinfo longer than that, and will probably continue to do so in the future. However, the beauty of Wikipedia is that it is continually evolving and (hopefully) getting better. This also speaks to the importance of multiple sources whenever you're doing actual research. --CVaneg 17:25, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

General Musharraf's address

I read Nicholas Kristof's column in The New York Times about Pakistan and wanted to write General Musharraf a letter. I can't find a mailing address for him on-line. Can anyone help?

Haven't found anything for Musharraf directly, but these might help you (credit to Ezra Klein:

• His Excellency Mr. Jehangir Karamat ambassador AT embassyofpakistan DOT org
• Mr Mohammad Sadiq is Deputy Chief of Mission and assists the Ambassador in the overall functioning of the Embassy. He deals with both political and administrative issues. dcmsadiq AT embassyofpakistan DOT org
• Mr Aslam Khan is Minister (Political) and deals with political issues minpol AT embassyofpakistan DOT org
• Mr Shahid Ahmed is Counsellor Community Affairs and deals with the Pakistani community in the United States. shahidahmed AT embassyofpakistan DOT org
• Brig Shafqaat Ahmed is the Defence & Military Attache of the Pakistan Embassy. da AT embassyofpakistan DOT org
• Mr Ashraf Hayat is the Minister (Trade) and deals with Pakistan-US trade issues. commercialsection AT embassyofpakistan DOT org & compk AT rcn DOT com
• Mrs Talat Waseem is the Press Minister and Media Spokesperson of the Embassy pressinfodiv AT embassyofpakistan DOT org

• • You might want to wait a couple of days because he's in new Zealand on a state visit until Monday. Lisiate 00:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you want to use snail mail, if you write to Musharraf care of the Pakistani embassy it'll probably get there (in the sense of reaching his office, it's highly unlikely that he'll personally read it, let alone reply). Contact details for the Pakistani embassy in the US are on the [CIA World Factbook page on Pakistan http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/pk.html]; if you're not American look it up in the phone book of your national capital. --Robert Merkel 02:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Department Stores

Hello:

In reference to the Department Store web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_department_stores

I live in Southern California. What ever happened to the following stores?:

• Treasury Stores
• JJ Newbury
• Kress
• White Front
• Ole's Hardware Store
• Builders Emporium Hardware Store
• Home Base
• Builders Square Hardware Store
• Tru-Value Hardware

Thank you for the time and consideration, R. Dewey Mullins e-mail: <address removed>

• Interesting list. Let's see. White Front was shuttered in the '70s so that the owners could concentrate on their other chain, Toys 'R' Us. Kress was liquidated in 1980, but left an impressive architectural heritage. Tru-Value is still around -- it's a cooperative (kinda like Ace, perhaps?) Builder's Square was driven out by Home Depot in the late '90s. Others? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:23, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Builder's Square was once a division of Kmart, which doesn't bode well for where this story is going. In 1997, the Builder's Square division was bought by Hechinger, another home improvement retailer that also operated Home Quarters. Note the past tense. In 1999, Hechinger filed for Chapter 11 protection. Later that year, it went into liquidation. While searching, I found this liquidation client list, and another entry on your list, HomeBase, shows up.

HomeBase went through financial trouble, liquidated half its stores, renamed itself "House2Home" while changing its focus to decorating, and went completely out of business in November 2001, placing partial blame on September's terrorist attacks [2] (<-- magazine article put online by Google?!). -- Cyrius|✎ 13:42, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sir William Stapleton

Is there any reference to Sir William Stapleton of Thurlsbeg, Co Tipperary, Ireland, serving with the Irish Confederates during Cromwell's Invasion of Ireland in 1649?

He was in Newgate prison in London for murdering an English officer, and was pardoned by King Charles II and sent to Montserrat. Stapleton later became Governor of Montserrat, and then Governor of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean from 1672 to 1685. He lived on the island of Nevis and built the largest mansion in the colony, and his family retained several sugar estates until the late 19th century. He was probably the best Governor the colony ever had, and distinguised himself in battle in the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1666/7. I am thinking of writing a book about him and I reside in Nevis.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Vincent K. Hubbard <address removed>

• Sadly there isn't an article on him at the moment. Perhaps you'd like to start one? Lisiate 01:29, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Coprimes in base

I know I could probably work this out but it's hard and I'm lazy :'(

I was just thinking

1/prime produces an irrational number in base 10 - except where 'prime' is a coprime of 10. Is it so that in other bases, 1/prime produces an irrational number except where 'prime' is a coprime of the base?

$ Have considered this, by definition 1 over a coprime of the base cannot equal an irrational number... shamed :(

--Zegnar

Don't say that - It's a common mistake. If you have a rational number, then the reciprocal of it will always be a rational number. (Of course, we don't count 0 as a rational number for this discussion here). Irrational numbers are numbers which do not have repeating decimals. --HappyCamper 23:34, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

HappyCamer is right. The reciprocal of a rational number is always rational. From context, you seem to be meaning a non-terminating decimal when you refer to a irrational number. They are not equivalent. Non-terminating decimals may be repeating or not. If they are not, they are irrational. Superm401 | Talk 00:02, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Since Zegnar asked about different bases, I think that's what he meant – IOW: Which fractions can be expressed with a finite number of digits? See Decimal#Decimal_representation_of_real_numbers, which also mentions "other base-n numeral systems". — Sebastian (talk) 07:12, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

(As an aside, what does the internet abbreviation IOW mean?)) --anon

I meant: "in other words". Not sure if this is an internet abbreviation. Yeah, sometimes less is just less. BTW, By the way, there are more meanings to IOW. — Sebastian (talk) 16:56, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

I may be mistaken, but if you can represent the number as $1/prime$ then wouldn't the resulting number have to be rational because you just expressed it as a fraction/ratio? --Think Fast 00:49, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. But this is true only because 1 and prime are real numbers. --HappyCamper 12:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lowest power processor?

Of the following process, which takes the least amount of power (wattage).

Mobile AMD Athlon 64 2800+ (120nm)
Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (90nm)
Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (90nm)
Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (90nm)

My guess would be the Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3000+, but I want to make sure as a I want to build a laptop with the longest battery life that still uses AMD processors.

How rigourous of an answer do you need? Power consumption on a chip depends on a number of factors. Maybe it would help if we find a link or something that describes typical laptop users with these chips? --HappyCamper 23:31, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just the average wattage really

Hmm...maybe this link might help you? [3] I don't really know what you need, but here's a try:

• 2800+ (81.5 W) See this
• 3000+ (62 W) See this

I tried searching for "Mobile AMD Athlon wattage 3200" --HappyCamper 03:05, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Concert For George

Who was the female vocalist who sang "Horse to the Water"? I think it may have been Joe Brown's daughter Sam Brown but I'm not sure. Thank you, hydnjo talk 22:29, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, it was Sam Brown. [4] [5] ~~Shiri — Talk~~ 00:28, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the very infomative links. hydnjo talk 13:14, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Turbowikipedia

I don't, probably, really need an answer to this question, but I'm terribly curious. I live in the middle of nowhere, and am on dial-up modem, and suddenly, in the last couple of hours,wiki has gone from inaccessible to turbo. I understand new servers were coming, but why does that affect me? --Mothperson 01:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Any sluggishness you experience whilst browsing the Wikipedia is likely to be a server problem, not the speed of your dialup link. That's because:

1. Your browser starts rendering pages the moment text starts arriving from the server.
2. Most images are cached.
3. The ones which aren't cached are downloaded in the background anyway.
4. The server compresses the text before sending it. This page, for example, gets squished down to about 70-80k of data in-transit. Most articles are much smaller and will load quickly even over dialup.

—Ghakko 02:55, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cities in America

How many cities are there in the United states of America?

That depends on what you define a city to be, as there are many places in the US which call themselves cities but have a small population. However, a good place to start would be List of cities in the United States. Scroll down in that article to find a list of all cities with a population over 100,000 people.-gadfium 03:17, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

According to the 2002 census of governments, there were 19,429 municipalities in the U.S. that year. Different states have different definitions of "cities." If you want to use a minimum population of 5,000, then there were 4,321 "cities" in the U.S. in 2002. Mwalcoff 20:48, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thehungersite.com

Any idea how I can get independent information about the for-profit company mainting http://www.thehungersite.com at Seattle? I have tried Google and US news archives but found no hard facts. I am preparing an English version of [6]. Thanks! --172.181.1.28 02:59, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Hunger Site is owned by CharityUSA.Com, LLC, which I'm assuming is a Washington corporation. CharityUSA.Com also owns GreaterGood.com, a shopping site which donates a portion of its profits to charity. Searching for CharityUSA on Washington's corporate registration database turns up nothing, oddly. The domain contact for Charityusa.com is a company called Homeline Publications in Dedham, Massachusetts. Homeline has an entry in the Massachusetts Corporations Division's database: [7] According to the database, Homeline was involuntarily dissolved in 1998. So there are quite a few questions about who owns CharityUSA and whether Homeline still exists.

Hope that helps. Rhobite 03:29, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not very familiar with such data. Is there any chance to find out how much money CharityUSA is making and which part is given to the charities? --172.181.1.28 03:48, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

More about Charity USA: From The Hunger Site FAQ:

Who owns and operates The Hunger Site? Tim Kunin and Greg Hesterberg bought The Hunger Site in mid-August 2001 and with your help, work to maintain its position as a leader in online activism and in the fight to end world hunger. In addition to The Hunger Site, Tim and Greg own and operate The Breast Cancer Site (where visitors help fund free mammograms for underprivileged women), The Rainforest Site (where visitors' clicks (where visitors' clicks help save endangered rainforest), and GreaterGood.com, the cause-related shopping portal where up to 15% of every purchase goes to charities at no extra cost to the shopper.

Since taking ownership of The Hunger Site, Tim and Greg have also launched The Animal Rescue Site (where a click helps feed an abandoned animal), and The Child Health Site (which empowers Internet users to fund basic but critical health services for impoverished children living in developing countries.

From the Washington State Department of Revenue (State Business Records Database Detail) (public information located here):

Mailing Address & Business Location: 600 University Street, Suite 1000 Seattle, Washington 98101-4107

Washington's business records search seems to be rather finicky (I've never used it before); you can't search for "CharityUSA," you have to search for "Charity" and then browse the result. CharityUSA is on the second page of results at the link above. -- Essjay · talk 04:20, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there any type of interesting information I could get from a government agency about this limited liability company outside the data mentioned above? See also [8] --172.181.1.28 04:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There's probably not much more. LLCs are privately owned and are under no obligation to release their financial results to the public. However, any money they donate to US charities will show up in the charity's annual report. So you could see how much money CharityUSA actually gives each year. But there's no way to find out how much the company's income is. Rhobite 04:52, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. How can I find out if there is a position Thehungersite in the annual reports of the both charities THS is supporting? Are the reports published and can I find them online? Sorry for these stupid questions. --172.181.1.28 05:35, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

From page 26 of the America's Second Harvest 2004 annual report, CharityUSA.com donated between $50,000 and $99,999. [9] CharityUSA.com also donated to Mercy Corps, but their 2003 annual report doesn't list amounts [10] (p. 45). I forgot that charity annual reports are typically vague about exact donations. Rhobite 05:47, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Excellent help! If Second Harvest receives 30 percent of the amount then in 2004 the Hungersite.com gift to the both charities were between $167,000 and $330,000 (average $ 250,000). Counting with the average this would be 0,05 percent from the total revenue in 2004 ($ 486,642,000). Is that right? Any hint to find out how much a Hungersite cup of food costs? I would also like to know whether there is any possibility to find out nearly the traffic costs for a website with Google PageRank 0.8 or 3.5 million unique visitors each month? And another stupid question: what is a royality payment? Thanks --134.130.68.65 14:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Whose total revenue is $486,642,000? Certainly not CharityUSA's. One word of caution, some of this information shouldn't be added to Wikipedia articles. Due to the original research policy, you won't be able to publish things like hypothetical ad revenues or net income for CharityUSA. Since those are derived from your own calculations, they're original research. Rhobite 00:52, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Pen on an LCD monitor

Out of my own stupidity, I marked my LCD monitor with some blue pen, right near the middle of the screen. The mark is about 1 cm in length. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get rid of the pen mark? Ideally, I'd prefer if the finishing on the monitor wasn't damaged. Thanks in advance! --HappyCamper 03:22, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I assume you tried isopropyl alcohol soaked antistatic wipes alreay? — Sebastian (talk) 06:49, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

Whatever you do, do not use common glass cleaners like Windex. The ammonia will ruin your screen. JRM · Talk 01:22, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

What's the concentration of isopropyl alcohol that you recommend? --HappyCamper 14:57, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't say myself, but this site suggests using a 50% solution, and claims this to be Apple's recommendation. It also has the "don't use ammonia" warning, so it's at least moderately informed. :-) JRM · Talk 15:04, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

I just use commercially available wipes – they don't indicate exactly what they contain. One more tip: Test if the substance removes the ink at all on a piece of similar plastic. — Sebastian (talk) 06:14, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Yay, thanks for all the tips - that pen mark is now gone! I used 50% isopropyl alcohol by volume with a cotton ball - one to wipe, and one to dry. --HappyCamper 18:34, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New Topic Idea

I am new to Wikipedia and was wondering about a new topic idea that I have. I am a futures trader so I did a search for "futures" "trading" and "traders" and found that there wasn't very much information there. There was lots of information about professional terms in the futures market but nothing about how to go about trading the futures market. My new topic would be "Futures Trading". The reason why I decided to ask the help desk about this issue is because I don't want to do anything wrong with my first article on your website.

If you have any more tips or information please feel free to tell me about them.

thanks again for listening to a newbie

--Ddg 06:56, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

There already is a futures trading article, but it's a redirection to futures contract. You might have missed that in your original search.

—Ghakko 08:12, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I for one love to listen to newbies (I was one not too long ago, and some people might argue I sill am...), and I think it would be great for you to write an article on futures trading! As long as it's the kind of thing you would expect to find in an encyclopedia (or wish was in one), then I'm sure someone has or will come here looking for it. Remember to be bold!

If you have any questions, or run across one of the grumpier editors, give me a shout; feel free to ask at my talk page any questions you don't want to ask here. Welcome, and hope to see you around! -- Essjay · talk 07:21, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

If I'm right in my understanding of your post, I'm thinking that futures trading is the article you already saw that had the "professional language." What you are offering to write is more of a how-to, not necessarily as a primer to futures trading, but as a "this is what happens when you make a futures trade." If that is the case, maybe a section on "how futures are traded" would be appropriate.

If you need help with anything, let me know. -- Essjay · talk 09:11, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

If you want to write an educational work on how to go about trading futures, our sister project Wikibooks is probibly a better choice to house the content. We run the same software, and linking from the current Wikipedia article to the Wikibooks module is very simple. Gentgeen 23:13, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Gentgeen that a full blown "how-to" should be at Wikibooks; I was suggesting something more along the lines of "this happens, then this happens, then this" for a "how it happens" section. -- Essjay · Talk 02:06, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

You might also be interested in the http://stockepedia.com/ wiki. --DavidCary 17:44, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Present tense speech in articles

I'm just wondering if this should be an issue:

Option 1: By this time, so-and-so manages to find his food.

Option 2: By this time, so-and-so has found his food.

From experience and reading, present tense speech (Option 1) is not the way to write an article, but past tense speech (Option 2) should be used, as is in reporting speech.

I've noticed a lot of these present tense speeches on Wikipedia, and I am wondering what the stance Wikipedia takes on this. Edit or no edit?

--x42bn6 10:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I opt to edit so that the sentences are in past tense. After all, Wikipedia contains information which is reported after the fact. Also, writing in past tense would mean that the content would still make sense contextually after a long period of time. --HappyCamper 11:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your option 2 ("has found") is not in the past tense. It is in the present perfect tense. "Found" would be past tense, and "had found" would be pluperfect, or past perfect tense. — Chameleon 12:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I always edit present tense to past tense when I find it, assuming it's describing events that actually occurred in the past. The only exceptions are retellings of fictional events (like episode summaries). Just my way. DJ Clayworth 13:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Option 1 is common in informal speech; it has a storyteller's air to it. As DJ Clayworth writes, it is (probably) acceptable for a plot synopsis ("McCoy pronounces the alien dead just as Kirk finds the entrance to the cave","the gravediggers unearth a skull which Hamlet recognizes as being that of a friend, causing him to reflect on the meaning of life") but (usually) not for historical recounting. Option 2 is just inconsistent, the first part suggesting present tense and the second being in, well, what Chamelion said. For Wikipedia, you should rewrite such sentances to "by that time, so-and-so had found [had managed to find] his food." Sharkford 14:15, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I actually thought of those examples off the top of my head; I couldn't find any examples because I edited them and then forgot what I changed.  :( But I get the idea, thanks. --x42bn6 07:25, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

French fishing

I bought this seafood at the market last week in France - its called Noix St Jacques, and they're loads of little balls of seafood. They were really really delicious, and cost about 25Euros per kilogram. Even my biggest 70Euro dictionary couldn't tell me what that is in English, and the guy in the stall laughed at me when i asked him what it is in English. Any poisson experts can drop me a line? --Wonderfool t(c)e) 13:18, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

They're a French variety of scallop. St. Jacques is St. James, whose image is associated with the scallop, and I believe his life was saved by a scallop. Or something like that. Don't quote me on that. --Robojames 15:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

blumenbach and the black woman

Hi, all:

I was looking at the wikipedia entry for Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who is widely regarded as the founder of physical anthropology and who originated the five-races-of-humanity categorial scheme. I noticed that there is a claim made in that article that I have not seen anywhere else. I quote:

"Later in life Blumenbach encountered in Switzerland 'eine zum Verlieben schönen Négresse' ('a negro woman beautiful enough to fall in love with'). Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other individual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'. Furthermore he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities'.

Unfortunately these later ideas were far less influential than his earlier assertions with regard to the perceived relative qualities of the different so-called races."

Anybody know where this story of the "negro woman" comes from? I'd like to cite a reputable source in a paper.

Harvey Cormier

---

Unfortunately, this was written by an anonymous user [11], who hasn't contributed enough to assess how trustworthythis edit is. — Sebastian (talk) 23:45, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

I don't know if that is specifically true (I can try to look it up), but the idea that Blumenbach became significantly less-racist in his writings later in life is quite true, as is the fact that his influence in physical anthropology though was primarily through his earlier and more typological phase. --Fastfission 06:01, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is there a list of people awarded the MBE?

Can someone tell me whether there is a comprehensive list of those awarded the MBE available on the internet, together with a short description of what the MBE was awarded for? If so, please could you tell me the URL.

J Fuller

I assume you're talking about members of the Order of the British Empire? Check out that article- it has a comprehensive history and background of the Order. In addition, I would also check each of the links in the "See also" section- some of the links have lists of members of different orders. In addition, there is also a list of honorary British knights and a list of television personalities who have been awarded the Order of the British Empire. Hope this helps! Flcelloguy Give me a note! d.c. al fine? Desk 14:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I had this same question a few months ago. I didn't ask here, I just basically did my own research with Google's help. The conclusion I came to, unfortunately, is that there is no such list on the internet at this time. One place that I thought would obviously have it was some official site of the British gov't but that was no help either. Sorry. Dismas 10:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[The Prime Minister's website] has several lists relating to these honors; just search the site for "Order of the British Empire." I don't know enough about the honors system to know exactly what the lists are (i.e. upcoming honors, existing honors, etc.). -- Essjay · Talk 11:11, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, an important point I've just discovered: There are over 100,000 living members of the Order. It's highly unlikely that there is a comprehensive list anywhere outside some massive tome hidden in a cave at the Royal Archives. However, you might consider contacting the PM's office (through the website I cited above) to inquire. -- Essjay · Talk 11:25, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, and most of the members are MBE recipients. More to the point... a hundred thousand people, skewed to the old - call it an average of age fifty at receipt. So maybe twenty-five years to live, meaning ~4% of holders die a year, meaning on average about ten are dying a day. It'd be a real bastard to keep that list up to date; I suspect they may just have a list of all awards and not document it by "alive". However, the annual awards lists are certainly public - you read them in the papers - so they're probably easy enough to come by. Shimgray 11:54, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That must have been what I saw on the PM's website. -- Essjay · Talk 12:05, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

The Honours Lists are published online by the London Gazette [12], and the only way to make a comprehensive list would be to compile one from each of the two annual Lists. (The online archives only go back to 1900, but the Order was established in 1917 so that isn't a problem.) Proteus (Talk) 13:20, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

British poisonous plants

Could I please have a list of the 10 most poisonous plants that grow in the UK, in order of most to least toxic. Thanks,--J.B. 14:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if this helps, but Wikipedia has a List of poisonous plants. Flcelloguy Give me a note! d.c. al fine? Desk 14:59, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Which is horribly incomplete. It doesn't even list any of the very common, poisonous houseplants like philodendrons. [13] has a list, and notes that houseplant poisoning is among the top three in the US for couses of poisoining of children 5 and under. The UK is likely similar. Googling for poisonous houseplants finds a lot. - Taxman ^Talk 09:17, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

over and under-determined

Though it is possible to use 'Search engines' to discover the mathematical use of these concepts, there seem to be no clues available as to how they are being used in a psychological/philosophical sense. Are they Freudian? What is the link with mathematics? Where and when were they derived and first used?

Harold Bloom in his book 'Shakespeare - the Invention of the Human' constantly uses the concepts e.g p. 407 'Hamlet will not do anything prematurely; something in him is determined not be be over-determined.'

There is clearly some meaning at work here - but what? --User:Jeffrey_Newman

You are correct that Bloom, a literary critic, uses it in a psychoanalytic sense. Psychoanalysis was a "school" of theoretical concepts intended to help us understand normal and abnormal behavior and to provide tools and methods for treating mental illness. Freud was the principal originator, but many others contributed. It was very influential in psychiatry in the first half of the 20th century, but has been largely discarded among practicing psychiatrists in the last 40 years with the advances in understanding the brain and the evidence that most severe "mental illnesses" represent biological disease of the brain, and that for more minor degrees of psychological or social dysfunction, one "talking treatment" works about as well as another. Critics say that nothing in psychoanalysis was testable or falsifiable, so that it should not have been considered a branch of "science" in any form. Psychoanalysis lived on in literary theory where there is less need for reality testing or usefulness, although among the younger generation of literary critics structuralism has largely replaced psychoanalysis in favor.

All that is background. A simple definition of overdetermination in a psychoanalytic or literary sense is that there are additional motives for a person's behavior which arise from unconscious conflicts and motivations. Thus a person may have a conscious reason for doing something, but a psychoanalyst may claim that there was one or more additional unconscious motivations, thus "overdetermining" the behavior in question. One may recognize that in its orginal, most powerful form, this concept fails the Occam's razor test (as well as falsifiability and perhaps common sense).

Note that in this sense there is no such thing as underdetermined behavior--- psychoanalysts will always come up with an "explanation", although in a logical sense it might make sense to use the term for anything you do "just because." alteripse 18:07, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In epistemology, underdetermination can mean that any set of facts can be explained in many ways -- a given set of pieces of evidence can never have only one possible explanation. This is often used in philosophy of science, e.g. regarding the underdetermination of theory by data. This is similar to (but much easier to show than) the psychoanalytic sense.

Are you certain you have this right? It sounds almost exactly like the psychoanalytic usage of overdetermination (i.e., that a given action may have multiple explanations). alteripse 23:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes. See Google, underdetermination of theory by data, or see this article entitled "Underdetermination". --FOo 04:16, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've also heard the word overdetermination used to refer to a specification, possibly mathematical or technical, which places too many constraints on the possible solutions, such that there may not be any. For instance, three points determine a plane; for any three points in space there necessarily exists a plane containing all three. But four points overdetermine a plane -- given four points in space, there is not necessarily a plane containing all four. --FOo 23:11, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

GCHQ Probability Question

Been puzzling over this for some time:

From the GCHQ recruitment website, a past question:

2. Alice and Bob play coin toss: Alice pays Bob £1 for each head and Bob pays Alice £1 for each tail they throw. They continue playing until one player loses (runs out of money). Initially Alice has £6 and Bob has £14.

a. Determine, with proof, the probability that Alice loses.

b. Determine the probability that Alice loses but also has at some time previously been within £1 of winning.

Any ideas? The problem appears to be a random walk, but the article doesn't seem to be much help on this particular problem. --Fangz 15:55, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, it seems easy enough to try to answer the question by computer experimentation. The answer to A is about 0.30 0.70, if that helps.--Fangz 15:57, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean that the probability that A wins is about 0.3? I can't see how the probability that A loses could be as low as 0.3, given that A starts with only 6/20 coins and it is 50/50 on each throw whether A wins or loses a coin. (Can it be this simple: A wins 6/20 and B wins 14/20... now for the proof...) -- ALoan (Talk) 17:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oops, mixed the two up. It's 1 - 0.30 = 0.70, yes.

It's the gambler's ruin. [14] The answer to b. ought to be (6/19)*(1/20)=3/190. 14:42, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oscar Winning Politicians

Apart from Clint Eastwood and Glenda Jackson, has any other Oscar winner ever been elected to public office? User:PedanticallySpeaking

• Michael Moore - elected president of his high school's school board, ran for various positions at various times unsuccessfully. That's the closest I could find... -Robojames 18:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Shirley Temple - United States Ambasador to the United Nations. Its not an elected position, but its a political one. Gentgeen 23:24, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Forgot about Moore. Temple did run for Congress back in the 60's but lost. PedanticallySpeaking 16:12, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Electronics component supplier in the UK

I'm an electronics dummy but I need a component to modify my Linksys NSLU2 (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/ForcePowerAlwaysOn) so that it powers itself up after a power failure. Where can I obtain an MCP120-450DI or equivalent product in the UK. Maplin's are useless. The only supplier I've found for this that ships to the UK is one based in the US. For a chip costing 24p they wan't to charge me a £10 handling fee and £12 to ship it to the UK. Jooler 18:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC) (sorry for earlier typos but I had to rush out to the pub)

I suspect the problem is that the thing you're after is discontinued - cf RS Components: [15]. So what we need is someone with more time than me to find an alternative chip. I've got an RSC account, fwiw, if that turns out to be the only place to get it from. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Have you seen the list of suppliers at the electronics wiki?

Oldest English Word?

What's the oldest word in the English language that's in reasonably common use? That is, what's the furthest back one could go in time, hear a word in whatever the language was, and say, "hey, I recognize the word foo, meaning bar!", and be reasonably accurate---that is, not just doing a French Erotic Film? What is the language, the place, and the word? grendel|khan 21:17, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

There is no good answer to this, but here goes... A number of words in English can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European, spoken at least 5 millennia ago. Most of them sound nothing like their original form at this point, but some would still be kind of recognizable - for instance, me meaning "me", or sed- meaning "sit". Beyond this point linguists simply don't agree on what previous languages sounded like. However, the wide distribution of a first-person pronoun beginning with m- (as in, say, Uralic) has led some to postulate this for much earlier hypothetical languages, as in the controversial "Nostratic" or "Eurasiatic" hypotheses. - Mustafaa 21:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

According to Google, "town" seems to be a popular choice...but I think this is a lesson in futility. ¦ Reisio 21:41, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

It is really a little meaningless, to ask what the oldest English word is (;-). Do you mean words from Germanic/Nordic origin, or from Latin/Greek. Ultimately most English words in one way or another derive from Proto-Indo-European either via Greek or Latin or indeed via the Germanic languages (both language families are part of the Proto-Indo-Eyropean heritage). The word town itself developed relatively recently and derives from tun which first meant an enclosure, then a village and only later a town. The first is closely related to the German Zaun, which means "fence" and also "enclosure". However, the Old English word for "town" would have been burg, similar to the modern German word for "castle". (Modern English town names ending in -borough or -burgh still ber witness to this, as English towns ending in -ton to tun - enclosure/town).

So, the problem is although the words in one form or another existed in Old English, for example, they didn't necessarily mean the same thing as they did later. Dieter Simon 23:23, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A contender for the oldest surviving word in English is cyuls, now keels, used by Gildas to describe the boats that that Hengist and Horsa came to Britain in, otherwise Gildas wrote in Latin but chose a Saxon word for their vessels. adamsan 12:11, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Language

What is the language of the original message I received via Email?

Kgus

We don't have access to your email, so we can't answer your question. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:46, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I do, but I'm not telling. - Taxman ^Talk 03:23, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Ten bucks says it wasn't English. --Fastfission 05:48, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It could probably be HTML. -- Sundar (talk · contribs) 04:47, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

How can I install linux on a palm 505?

How can I install linux on a palm 505? Grtu 23:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

http://palm-linux.sf.net/ ¦ Reisio 20:39, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

Usage of the word "terrorist"

I am not exactly sure if this is the place to put this under attention, but here it goes. The word terrorist is one of the most controversial and misused words in our vocabulary. I feel that "terrorist" isn't in line with the NPOV policy, because "terrorist" is a very emotional negative word. Afterall: one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. One could even kick a little controversy by simply asking what is a terrorist? I feel that such a vague, emotion stricken term shouldn't be used in an encyclopedia. Reuters has already adopted this policy. -- anon

The English language - and any language for that matter - is full of loaded words and terminology. The meaning that these words have change with time and context. As a contributing Wikipedian, you can help render such loaded words into an NPOV form by explaining such concerns which were posted here in a levelheaded, encyclopedic way in the article. Not only would this improve the article, but would also help aid in the appropriate interpretation of the word used in that particular article. Hope this helps! --HappyCamper 02:03, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We have a policy on this: Wikipedia:Words to avoid. "Terrorist" has its own section. And see also, of course, terrorism, which is unsurprisingly fraught with controversy. JRM · Talk 11:17, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

Need the name of a country music artist and lyrics to the song

I am looking for the name of the country music artist and the lyrics to the song. The song contains the words "I thought that you were gone forever, but it's nice here we stand" in it.I sure would appreiate somebodies help. Thank you kindly.--Rick1960 05:15, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Could it be "Hello Heart" by George Jones? Bovlb 06:04, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

How to save before being published

I was writting an article on Tullio Campagnolo but I ran out of time and wanted to save the uncompleted entry and work on it the next day. However, when I got back, the article was marked as copyright infringement and my page is now gone. WHile it is true that I did use another web page for info, I did have the author's permision. How can I prevent this and how do I save without publishing?

Eric campagnollo2002

Regarding "saving without publishing": that's not really possible, but if you register an account, you can put these works in progress in your own user space, where you can work on them at your leisure.

Your page is not gone, because possible copyright violations are kept for at least a few days to allow just such an appeal as yours. Tullio Campagnolo now contains a link to Wikipedia:Copyright problems#June 17, and that is where you should go to explain the situation. Your old page is still available as a separate revision: [16]. Do not simply restore it before clearing the problem, though. JRM · Talk 14:53, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

When I am working on long articles, I usually either save them to my User space or just to a text file on my desktop. Pretty low-tech, but it works pretty well. --Fastfission 18:23, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

measuring weight of a planet

How exactly experts measure the weight or mass of a planet or even a star? Roscoe x 18:35, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is any serious sense in which planets can be said to have weight, but I think that they estimate mass either by making estimates based on volume and what they think the planet is made of, or by observing its gravitational effect on nearby objects like stars. Natalizer 18:39, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sending a space probe near an object and watching the freqency of radio waves it emits (doppler effect) can give very accurate results. Basically all you need to probe the gravity field of an object is to know its acceleration and distance from the object, but these can be calculated by knowing the period and velocity of an orbiting object. Astronomers can often find these through direct observations of object's position in the sky over time.--Joel 19:31, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Using gravitational constants seems to be the method of choice for mass. 01 02. ¦ Reisio 21:32, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

If you can find a satellite orbiting the planet it is easy, as the period of the orbiting body (assuming that its mass is much less than that of the body it is orbiting otherwise things get complicated) is found by:

$T=2\pi {\sqrt {a^{3}/GM}}$

Where a is length of orbit's semi-major axis, G is the gravitational constant, and M is the mass of the central body. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:04, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Where would one look in an encyclopedia for an answer to a question like this? Getting philosophical now, I find that as Wikipedia matures, the "obviously" named subjects are covered. However there are lots of objective facts, like this one, that isn't very well covered in Wikipedia. Is "Weighing planets" a suitable article? Samw 18:39, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm an interesting question. I knew of the formula I gave, so knew it would be hidden somewhere in Wikipedia, finding it in orbital period. I don't know about measuring mass of planets (the pendantic physicist in me shows here — weight is a measure of the force caused by a gravity field, while mass is resistance to change in motion, but anyway…). My guess is the information is in Wikipedia, but spread over several articles. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:09, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

I seem to remember an undergraduate experiment with two big lead ball called "weighing the earth". — Sebastian (talk) 08:06, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

Sorry about "Weighing planets"; "Massing planets" doesn't quite roll of the tongue.  :-) Anyways, my point remains. As Wikipedia matures, the challenge is to organize the information as much as it is to gather more information. Maybe we could compile a "FAQ" on common questions like this in the Reference desk. "Why does salt melt ice?" is another common question that comes to mind that I don't think Wikipedia answers in a single location: Freezing point depression, Eutectic all allude to it (along with Snow removal) but there's no crisp explanation anywhere. Samw 03:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Identifying Photos

Since this worked so well last time I'll try again. The following is an unindent stick insect:

Unident stick insect	File:Stick insect02.jpg Unident stick insect	File:Stick insect03.jpg Unident stick insect
File:Stick insect04.jpg Unident stick insect	File:Stick insect body.jpg Unident stick insect

Thanks again to those who help out. --144.139.163.207 11:16, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry that was me --Fir0002 01:37, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Where were these taken? ¦ Reisio 12:31, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Based on the IP and the previous request, I'm betting Australia, though I don't know what region. :-) It think it's a nymph of some member of Phasmatidae, but that's a pretty large family, and I'm no entomologist. In shape it resembles a Podacanthus wilkinsoni, but the characteristic markings are missing. I just spent a pleasant hour or two digging through pages on stick insects and learning all about fibulae, tibiae and filiform antennae, but I'm guessing this is hopeless if you're not an expert. JRM · Talk 13:06, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

My best guess is that it's a Ctenomorpha chronus. Looks right Vital stats X marks the spot Distribution (Stick insect) ¦ Reisio 13:56, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

I think you've got it again Reisio!--Fir0002 01:37, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

I seen stick insects simular to those in South Africa.

Opening Macintosh ShrinkWrap disk image files in Windows

I had created some data disks (JPEG, HTML, ...) in the ShrinkWrap IMG format on a Macintosh several years ago. Some of them were compressed disk image files. How do I open these HFS-compatible disk images on my Windows computer? -- Toytoy 11:29, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry I have no experience to draw from, but I can guess based on quick research. It seems only a few Mac applications can still expand ShrinkWrap images; Stuffit Expander can, but only in the Mac version. It is very possible that ShrinkWrap images stored vital data partially in the resource fork; if this is the case, then the image file is practially destroyed as soon as it is copied to/via a non-HFS(+) medium. This could explain the absence of decompressors for Windows. — Sverdrup 12:37, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The StruffIt .sit format does not use the resource fork at all. Only its self-expander format (.sea) contains a 68k-based executable in the resource fork. You can delete a .sea file's resource fork, you can still recover its contents by opening it with the StuffIt Expander. I guess ShrinkWrap follows the same logic.

The reason why Aladdin did not ship a Windows version that supports disk images, I guess, is a practical one. Since many traditional Mac files are at least supplemented by the resource fork, it is unwise to open them in any non-HFS-compatible machine. Because you could name an image "Me and My Dog" without adding the .jpg or .gif file extension on a Macintosh. If they ship a Windows version, they'll receive then thousand angry calls a day.

I wonder if there's a 3rd party solution to this problem. Otherwise, I may try a simulator. How I miss ardi.com and its Executor emulator. -- Toytoy 12:56, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

My suggestion: Open them on a Mac, burn the files to a CD. If you don't have access to any Macs, a lot copy-machine places will let you rent time on them for pretty cheap. --Fastfission 18:19, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Doolittle Raid

The article for the Doolittle Raid states that the raid occurred on 18 April 1942.

Under the heading "Aftermath" it states "Following the Tokyo Raid, the crews of two planes were missing. On August 15, 1942, it was learned from the Swiss Consulate General in Shanghai that eight American flyers were prisoners of the Japanese at Police Headquarters in that city."

There's a problem with dates there.

- and I think Wikipedia is better than Google for research!

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the problem. I haven't been able to find an explicit date for the held-in-Shanghai thing, but August sounds about right, given the later mention of October seems well-confirmed. Did you perhaps misread April for August? I almost went to correct it before noticing that... Shimgray 13:37, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

how many books publish in the world a year?

I would like to know how many books publish in the world in 1 year time.. and..how about in a country? Where can I check it? thanks.~coral

There's no central database, so it's hard to be sure. An estimate for the US in 2003 reckoned 141,901 new books - this seems to have been generated by taking every new ISBN issued that year. As such, the number isn't accurate - it doesn't count non-ISBNed publications, and will count a lot of books two or three times, if different editions are published (if a publisher produces textually-identical copies in different covers, it gets a new ISBN). Another source gives ~1,600,000,000 individual copies sold in the US that year; I'm not sure what figure you're looking for.

Worldwide, about 4,000,000,000 copies in 2003 (personally I suspect this is too low) and around a million new books. source. Shimgray 15:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

ecco mono year 1628 bust of christ

i have a bust of christ dated 1628 thats was my grandmothers. it states on the back of the bust which is in a frame and the head and neck come away from the main portion of the sclupture..it is one of six from an english collert of art.. the original carving was of wood by a artist otto reinvoldt i belive. from 1628.. the last name is hard to see. anyway the other five were destroyed and thisis the last peice. how do i fing out its authenticity.. deb wells

I would check with an antiques dealer/appraiser, or take it to an antiques shop/expert. Perhaps Antiques Roadshow? Flcelloguy | Give me a note! | Desk 16:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

well not sure if i know what im doing bere im new log on is moom53 Moon53 i asked the question on ecco mono trying to fogure out how to use this site.. im not sure if antique place would give me the right info since its more historical and antique road show ive already tried and still no response but im sure im one of many who ask questions

Nobody on the internet would be able to verify its authenticity or its worth without seeing it in person. If you think it is truly from the 17th century, you really need to take it to an appraiser. --Fastfission 18:21, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just a thought, but perhaps someone at a local museum, or perhaps art/history department of a college or university could put you on the right track? Noodhoog 11:26, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

First day of school in New York City public schools

What's the first day of the 2005–2006 academic year in New York City public schools, specifically Stuyvesant? --anon.

Thursday, September 8. See NYC Public Schools Calendar. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 17:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mexican jumping beans

I've got some Mexican jumping beans and they're happily moving around in a box I put them in. Is there a proper way to take care of them so they continue jumping longer? --HappyCamper 18:29, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

All they need to survive is air (and non-extreme environmental conditions, of course...putting them at the top of mount everest or on top of a volcano would obviously be a bad idea). I doubt there are any simple ways to extend the period of time they "jump", but if there are I think I would have trouble seeing it as anything but abuse. Of course, if you intend on leaving them in a box where the moths cannot later escape from or keeping them in a place where there are no shrubs for the moths to lay eggs in, that's already abuse, so I guess it wouldn't matter to be more abusive. ¦ Reisio 20:05, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

I was wondering, for example, if these beans needed sunlight and water for the moths to mature. --HappyCamper 22:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you have a picture of them, could you post it on Mexican jumping bean, please? — Sebastian (talk) 08:46, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

I concur. By the way, can we have a picture of the moth? -- Toytoy 00:18, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

what are the different things found in micorsoft power point

• "Things"? You're going to have to be more specific than that. I've got no idea what you want to know. Alternatively, checking Microsoft PowerPoint might be helpful. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:58, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

More photos to identify

I think this is the last series of photos I've currently got on my hdd which need identifying. This time its a wierd fly thing:

File:100 6472.jpg Fly thing

File:100 6490.jpg Fly thing

As you can see it is very well camouflage on the wood planks. --Fir0002 10:35, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

It's kind of hard to determine scale. About how large is the insect? --CVaneg 22:50, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's about 5 or 6 cm. --Fir0002 07:02, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Where and when did you take these pictures? I want to know it so I can stay away from that place for the rest of my life. That bug gives me creeps. -- Toytoy 00:23, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

East Gippsland Australia, but don't let that thing put you off - it's the first time I've ever seen anything like it in the 8 yrs I've lived here. Australia is a beautiful place - one of the most beautifull places on earth, I think. --Fir0002 07:02, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

There are creepier things than that in Australia - but also many things more beautiful than elsewhere. ¦ Reisio 00:45, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

I think it's some sort of stonefly, but then I still suck at determining insects, so you should probably ignore me. :-) JRM · Talk 02:15, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

Looks like a dobsonfly, but that isn't found in Australia, apparently. Could be something similar. Tuf-Kat 16:03, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, sure looks like a dobsonfly to me, but it's not. It doesn't have the mandibles, and has hairy body and legs. Probably in the same family/order though. I can say it's almost certainly definitely in the fly genre. :) If you really need to know, contact someone at your local university entomology department. An Australian one would be most likely to know of course, but I know Michigan State University has a great entomology department that you could contact. - Taxman ^Talk 01:41, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Colloquial phrase in English: "the works"

I sometimes hear the phrase "it's the works" in a conversation. What does this phrase mean, and where did it originate from? What is its proper usage, and in what context does one use it? Thanks in advance. --HappyCamper 12:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

the works, refers to "everything", as in "the whole works", it basically means "all of it" or "everything" or "the full treatment". It comes from the term "works" referring to clockworks, watchworks or wheelworks -- or any 'works' of a machine: the guts of the machine. And usage of that word comes from the verb "work" as in "to do work"; as in those guts are doing the work of the machine. I don't really use the phrase "it's the works", maybe as in "that Wikipedia page on Boris Yeltsin is really detailled; it's the works." --Robojames 13:50, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"It's got this, that; y'know, the works" - I usually hear it like that, not as "It's the works.". ¦ Reisio 14:53, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Thanks for the responses! --HappyCamper 15:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One of the most common uses of the expression is in reference to toppings or condiments on a food item, such as a pizza or a hot dog. A hot dog "with the works" means one topped with the full selection of condiments -- depending on the location, perhaps ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, cheese, and bean chili. --FOo 23:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with FOo -- the phrase "Gimme a hot dog with the works" means "give me a hot dog with all the condiments you have". Occasionally I hear another similar-sounding idiom -- "We just put up the Spanish web site, and the Italian translation is in the works". That calls to mind an assembly line. Work has already started on building a car (or a web site, or whatever), and you're just going to have to wait for it to go by a bunch of people (in the appropriate specialties) before the completed car (or web site, or whatever) comes out. --DavidCary 00:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Buckminsterfullerene

Would a kind synthetic chemist volunteer to make a small quantity of buckminsterfullerene, dissolve it in a vial of benzene, and take a picture of it for Wikipedia? What colour is the substance in and out of solution? --HappyCamper 15:00, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I think it takes too long to just make it especially for wikipedia, but if someone got it lying around, I think you've got a good chance, I'll check with my local organic chemistry department to see if they know. - Mgm|^(talk) 15:48, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
• I'm sure you know the solvent can influence the color of a solution, why do you want it to be dissolved in benzene? - Mgm|^(talk) 15:50, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

I think a dilute solution of buckminsterfullerene in benzene (or even toulene) should give a pretty colour. It would be good for the article, as it would impress on the reader that buckminsterfullerene is indeed a novel substance. Even though it can be found in say, soot (and might even look like soot at first sight), it has some very unique chemical properties. --HappyCamper 23:49, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Q without U

I was browsing the Q without U section of the Hasbro Scrabble site and it got me wondering, aside from qwerty whose spelling is dictated by the placement of keys of the keyboard, how did these words make it into the English language? Is there some odd phoneme between K and Q that does not occur in the english language, or were they just anglicized oddly? --CVaneg 20:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Before entering the Latin alphabet, where it was pronounced "kw", the letter "Q" was used in Phoenician to represent a sound which doesn't occur in English (a voiceless uvular plosive or a velar ejective, if you must know), but does occur in many other languages, such as Arabic. Probably for that reason, 19th-century Orientalists started using it to transcribe words containing this sound; and, of course, in these languages it's often not followed by a "u" sound. So its use in English is essentially as a convention indicating to those "in the know" that it should be pronounced like a sound that isn't found in English, rather than like a normal "k". - Mustafaa 20:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Number of instruments in orchestra

I have always been told that the number of instruments (I believe different kinds of instruments) in an orchestra is 32. Where does that number come from?

Thank you, Gary

The number of instruments in an orchestra varies greatly. Standard orchestra has approximately 20 instruments, but the number can vary because of the different amounts of percussion. Here is a list taken from the article on orchestra:

• the strings (violins, violas, cellos, double basses),
• the woodwinds (flutes, piccolos, oboes, cor anglais, clarinets, bass clarinets, bassoons, contrabassoons)
• the brass (trumpets, trombones, french horns, bass trombones, tuba), and
• the percussion (timpani, snare drum, bass drum, celesta, piano, etc.).

In addition, most orchestras have a harp, and may also have different variations of wind instruments (Trumpet in Bb, Trumpet in F, etc). Also, some "odd" instruments- saxophone, euphonium, etc. may be used. Thus, the number varies. Hope this helps. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Information on Citric Acid

I ask help from the researchers for information on Citric Acid. I wish to know a neutralising agent for the citric acid present in Lemon If anybody can provide me with the information I would be really grateful to him

See citric acid for information. It's a weak acid. You could try mixing it with bicarbonate of soda. Milk is also slightly alkaline if you're cooking, but you should add sugar to sweeten lemon in puddings. Why do you want to do it? Dunc|☺ 22:36, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Printing to card?

Hum. I can print to most types of paper or thin card, easily enough, by using a laserjet or inkjet printer - standard desktop stuff. However, what options are available if I was to want to print to thick card - perhaps of a millimeter or two thickness? I suspect this'd cause most domestic printers to choke... thoughts? Shimgray 23:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Alps ( http://Alps.com/ ) used to sell a desktop printer that had a "straight-through paper feed" -- you can put completely rigid slabs of particleboard through them. I suspect other companies may have similar printers.
• At many local stores I see "transfer paper" -- you print on the transfer paper, then put the transfer paper against the thick card (or T-shirt or whatever else you couldn't get into the printer), and the heat of an iron would somehow melt the image off the transfer paper and get it to stick to whatever you were holding it against.
• ... other options ?

Hope that helps. --DavidCary 00:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, the transfer-paper option had occured to me, ditto other ways of trying to bind two layers together. (One eminently sensible suggestion was "Laminate the lot...", but that's horrendous from a tactile point of view)

Now I think about it I have used some of the "flat" printers; I'll see if I've still got access to one, and if not go and poke around print shops. Thanks. Shimgray 01:04, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What about one of those inkjet printers that's been adapted to print CD labels? Like this Epson Stylus Photo R800. A rigid tray holding the CD goes right through the printer. You could replace the tray with your piece of cardboard. --Heron 19:08, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

When and Where was Chuck Behler, former Megadeth drummer, Born?

When and where was Chuck Behler, former Megadeth drummer, born? Bandleader Dave Mustaine mentions Gar Samuelson, their previous drummer, had selected Behler "from the Detroit area" in the liner notes to the re-released version of So Far, So Good... So What!, but that doesn't necessarily mean Behler was born in Detroit.

I'll ask on the the official Megadeth forum as well. Mustaine himself won't answer now as he is on tour, but perhaps a moderator will. Not much is generally known about Behler. --slonDFW 00:49, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Does it snow in Australia?

As the title suggests, does it snow in Australia? What is the weather like in the wintertime? --HappyCamper 01:45, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it does snow in Australia, but only in the southeastern areas, where the climate is temperate. And then you'll want to head into the mountains for snow that actually sticks around. :-) (The Australian Antarctic Territory presumably doesn't count for the purposes of this discussion...) I'm sure the Aussie Wikipedians can give more detailed answers. JRM · Talk 02:10, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

It doesn't snow at sea level anywhere in Australia, but Australia has quite decent ski fields right along the Great Dividing Range. Being winter, you can see some of them on live webcams, e.g. [17]. As for what it's like in winter generally, well have a look at this map of daily maximum temperature, averaged over the last week. And keep in mind that most people live along the southeastern coastal fringe. -- Tim Starling 02:29, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Or this July average. -- Tim Starling 02:38, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Canberra is the only large Australian city (if Canberra counts as a large city...) where it ever snows in the center of town; even there it's only once every few years and it doesn't stay on the ground for very long. There are virtually no permanent settlements, aside from ski resorts, in regions where there is snow on the ground for significant periods. --Robert Merkel 02:44, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The townships of Omeo and Benambra (close to Mt Hotham) sometimes have snow laying around for days. --Fir0002 07:17, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I said "virtually no"; my family is from Tallangatta, so I used to live reasonably close to most of the places in mainland Australia where it does snow regularly. Aside from the ski resorts, you've got Omeo, population 300. Benambra, population 150. To that you could also throw in the thriving metropolises of Dargo (maybe 100), Cabramurra (160 or so, and the most regularly snowbound at an altitude of nearly 1500 metres), and maybe Woods Point (30-50 residents). The biggest one which I did miss was Jindabyne, a town with about 2500 permanent residents, which does get regular light snow, if not particularly long-lasting, in winter. Throw in a few locations in Tasmania, probably. By the way, I've visited all of these places; all of them are very pretty and great fun for summer Sunday drive :) --Robert Merkel 07:46, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for all the responses everyone! It makes Australia sound like a wonderful place :-) --HappyCamper 05:06, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was there during June and July a few years ago on vacation; as I understand it, that's winter there. If that was mid-winter, compared to an Eastern US winter, it's not just wonderful, it's paradise. -- Essjay · Talk 05:35, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but you have to have lived somewhere where you have gotten 4 or more feet of snow to truly appreciate that :). I remember once when I was small getting over 5 feet. We weren't allowed outside the house for worry we would get lost. Now of course there are areas that get that all the time, but man can you have some fun building snow forts and digging tunnels when a lot of snow gets piled up. - Taxman ^Talk 01:11, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Designer's chair

I remember there was a strange chair sold in the 1980s or 1990s. You did not sit on that chair, your body is supported on your knees and you have to keep your upper body straight using your back muscles. What was the name of that chair? -- Toytoy 03:57, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean a kneeling chair? Our article is only a stub, but Google gave good results for the words "kneeling" and "chair". -Rholton 04:38, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

And they still sell them: I bought one last year. Joyous 16:15, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Ergonomic chair.

Best known one is probably the HAG Balans kneeling chair. Fuzheado | Talk 03:23, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Origin of "Mangosteen, Queen of Fruit"

Does anyone know when the phrase, "mangosteen, queen of fruit" was first coined, and in what media was it recorded? It was not David Fairchild. And in a similar vein, does anyone know if there is any actual written document from the 19th century that records the specific rewards that Queen Elizabeth allegedly offered for the mangosteen?

First off, Elizabeth I of England (often referred to as simply Queen Elizabeth) was queen between 1558 and 1603, i.e. for the 16th and 17th centuries. Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom has been queen since 1953, i.e. for the 20th and 21st centuries. There are various queens consort listed at Queen Elizabeth and those do cover the 19th century however.

Well, maybe he means Queen Victoria. Ornil 04:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

douglas county, Missouri

Iwould like a map of douglas county, Mo. I am trying to do research on a family (Freemam) and need to know how to get around so I can visit the cemetaries in the county. If you can't help do you know where i may get one. thank you svw@mchsi.com

If you're looking for an online map you can go to [www.mapquest.com Mapquest] and enter the address. If it's a paper state or county map you're looking for, I'd try a welcome center in the state (they usually have them at Interstate rest stops) which should have free local maps. Also, the county courthouse in Douglas County will probably have county maps available. -- Essjay · Talk 12:56, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Google maps is also good for driving directions: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=mansfield%20missouri%20to%20ava%20missouri ¦ Reisio 14:46, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

Birthdate of Adam

What date would you give for the birth of Adam, the first human? What about the birthdate of Eve?

Thank you,

Lori Harasta

Obviously you have to make certain assumptions here, but try 28 October 4004 BC according to Ussher calendar. DJ Clayworth 13:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You may want to look at Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. Note however that human population was never, ever, 2 but rather these are the patrilineal and matrilineal respectively shared ancestors of us all. They also lived a long time apart. Dunc|☺ 17:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How do I burn paper in a small apartment?

Every time I've tried to burn a bunch of old receipts in my apartment, I end up ruining the pot I do it in. Since I'm burning private stuff, I can't just go out to a BBQ grill.

Is there anyway to make a controlled fire inside an apartment on my stove?

Have you considered buying a paper shredder? Unless you're trying to destroy top secret stuff, that should be quite sufficient and a lot less messy. More environmentally friendly too. --W(t) 16:04, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

• Well, since you already have one ruined pot, why don't you just use that one over and over? --CVaneg 16:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have read the sink is a good place, but I haven't tried it. It should work in a pot, though. Try to burn it in smaller units. And use pots made of stainless steel.--Fenice 16:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, just go out and buy something meant for burning stuff in if you're going to be doing this a lot. I don't trust paper shredders. :) ¦ Reisio 16:22, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

If you have a stove, you can brown or blacken your receipts over the stove. Hold the pieces of paper over the heating element, preferably with tongs so you avoid burning yourself. Once they are sufficiently darkened, get a plastic container and rub the burnt papers between your palms so that the paper crumbs will fall into the box. Make sure the crumbs are quite small. Mix with some water and a small bit of detergent - then flush down the drain. A bit more messy, but saves having to start a bonfire in your kitchen. You want to limit the fumes from paper to be stuck in your apartment, especially if you are burning chemically treated papers, like photographs and laminated cards. --HappyCamper 17:00, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Of course, you need not answer this, but Happy Camper - how is it that you are such an expert on this matter??? curious, Mothperson 01:24, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How about acid? Palm probss 02:26, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Acid would just wet the paper. Well I suppose thast concentrated Sulfuric acid would dehydrate it, but who would want to use that stuff? Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 15:41, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You could just eat the stupid things, come on, who hasn't eaten paper? Well, I guess I'm alone there. 67.160.39.151 03:24, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of papier-mâché? Buy yourself a paper shredder and a powerful food processor or a blender and a sculpture How-To book, you'll become the top artist of your town in six months. (Unless there's another guy who has more secrets than you.) -- Toytoy 06:00, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

how can i find out what prison a person is being sent to?

You really need to add more details if you want an answer. Which country/state are you in for starters?Lisiate 03:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you live in the US, then you probably want to contact your local department of corrections, or equivalent (most of them are named something like "Department of Corrections" or "Department of Correctional Services", Google can help you find the relevant one to your state). Once you've done that, most websites will tell you how to find a prisoner. For example, if you live in Florida, you'd look here. Alternatively, if you're looking for someone who was convicted of a federal crime this site would probably be more what you're looking for. From the way you state your question, I should warn that these databases are probably not 100% up to date, so it may be that a new prisoner won't be in the system for a while or a prisoner who has been transferred from one prison to another may not have up to date information--CVaneg 03:56, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Palm 500 sync with Thunderbird

I am migrating from Outlook on Win2k to Thunderbird on Win2k. I used to sync my email inbox with Outhouse, and want to do the same for Thunderbird. I am of the opinion that this has nothing to do with the address book / contacts issue, which is all I can find on the web. Any help would be gratfully recieved. Palm probss 02:25, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Help needed for bewildered synth player

Alright, I own a Yamaha portatone PSR-230 synth keyboard, alright? It's specs can be found here:

http://achamilton.co.uk/PSR280.htm

Now, this is my problem, would it be possible for me to record something, then play it back on my keyboard, at the varying pitches? Here's an example, I didn't explain it very well.

http://www.archivestowearpantsto.com/tracks/0047_kazookazookazookazookazoo.mp3

So, tell me, could my synth do that? and if it can, tell me how, tell me what I need to buy, where I hook it up, anything, It's just so cool. English helps too, if for any reason, you think I wouldn't be able to understand something, write it out in laymans terms, I'm a sort of "Plug in and play" sort of guy, you know? Thanks in advance!

-67.160.39.151 03:20, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So it sounds like what you want to do is record something (say a kazoo note) and then play it back at different pitches according to which key you play on the keyboard? I don't think the Portatone can do that by itself. If you have MIDI cables for your keyboard, what you should probably try is recording the sample you want into your computer, then using a MIDI sequencer or sampler program to handle the playback. It's easier than it sounds.

Say you connect the keyboard to the computer with MIDI cables. Then, you record your sample into the computer and load it into some MIDI-based sampler. You set the Sampler program to receive on MIDI channel 1, and set the Portatone to transmit on MIDI channel 1. Then, when you play keyboard notes, the Portatone will tell the computer program to play the sample at the appropriate frequency. I can't give you precise examples of software to try, since I don't use Windows systems, but I own a Portatone, and I use it to control a couple of drum machines sometimes, so it shouldn't be too hard to make it control a sampling program. Oh yeah, and you asked about equipment you'd need. A microphone (for recording), a set of MIDI cables (they come in pairs), and a soundcard that has MIDI ports. If your sound card has a joystick port, you can buy a set of MIDI cables that plugs into that instead. If you don't want to use your computer at all, you can instead get a real sampler (a piece of hardware which does exactly what you want), but they're expensive and sometimes tricky. Jeeves 03:28, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

PERFECT, thank you so much for that very punctual response, I understood every word of it, my dad is buying me a soundcard within the next... eventually, so I guess I'm more or less set, ah, this is going to be great! I'm giddy just thinking of the possibilities!

-67.160.39.151 03:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I forgot to mention a third possibility. You could probably get up and running faster with a program called ModPlug Tracker, which is free for download. Once you have recorded your kazoo (or whatever) into a WAV file on your computer, you can load it into ModPlug as a sample and immediately start playing notes. Trackers are actually used to make full songs, by specifying which sample to play at which frequency on which beat. The interface takes some getting used to, but is very functional once you get the hang of it. I believe you can control ModPlug with a MIDI keyboard also, but you don't have to — you can enter in the melodies you want directly from your computer's keyboard. If you run into trouble with this stuff, or have more specific questions about how to get something to work, please feel free to email me or leave a note on my Talk page; I do this stuff all the time. Good luck. = ) Jeeves 07:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

19th century music box melody

I heard this melody from a beautiful 19th century music box:

File:19th century musicbox melody.PNG

Any ideas what it could be? (I hope I remember it correctly.) — Sebastian (talk) 03:59, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

How did you output this music? It's amazing! -- Toytoy 07:48, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I used an old evaluation version of Cakewalk Pro Audio and took a screen shot. — Sebastian (talk) 07:55, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

There's also ABCPlus], which is a phenomenal tool for typesetting music with a minimum of hassle, if you're into that sort of thing. It's also open-source! = ) Jeeves 07:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Musicpedia musichound search using Parson's code "*DUDDDUDDUUUUUD" finds only one EXACT hit, and a cursory glance at the many other "possibles" doesn't look promising, though you may want to have a look yourself. (There may be fewer if you include the keyword WALTZ in the search. - Nunh-huh 08:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the link — it's a great idea to simplify it like this. I entered the whole code ("DUDDDUDDUUUUUDrdudddduduududd") but didn't see anything in the music they showed. As for waltz: It doesn't really have the waltz feel (actually I considered 6/8), but that may be because it's a music box. — Sebastian (talk) 08:24, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

Music boxes tend not to follow the original contour of the music because it's easier to manufacture the simplified tone. --HappyCamper 11:50, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It bears a very striking resemblance to the famous duet "Verranna a te sull' aure" from Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor--that would be my guess. I'll knock up an image later tonight so you can judge for yourself (I should think you'll be able to find a sample of it on a CD retail website as well). --Camembert 15:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

David Bowie song

In the Bowie song The Man Who Sold The World (song), what is the annoying instrument that goes in the background and sounds kinda like a duck? I've heard it in quite a few songs, and each time I think the song would sound better without it. Nirvana's version is better than David's, methinks --Wonderfool t(c)e)

Think it's probably a güiro (Images). ¦ Reisio 13:35, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

That brings me back - we played them in infant school. I was head xylophonist back in those days, so i didnt get to shine on the guiro --Wonderfool t(c)e)

What is the history of the Ethene industry?

I am doing an assignment on the ethene industry and I am having trouble finding information on ethene, such as when it was first manufactured/how and when newer methods were first used ie fractional distillation. And I have tried searching using ethylene and I am still coming up blank. Thanx in advance, Jon Wednesday, June 22 2005

ask for some information about World Intangible Heritage

Dear editors, I am a college student in China,and now I am working with a project to compile a book about World Cutural Heritage.Now what we possess are some translated Chinese editions of this topic.So I am curious if you are kind enough to give me some help or rather some hint on this in the form of Websites or so.Very appreciated.

help identifying relatives of Juana D'Armagnac

(cross-posted from Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#identifying someone)

I have heard. or read, that Juana D'Armagnac, Princess of Aragon, who married Matthieu de Foix did not, after all, die childless but that there was a son, nicknamed "Juan Franchos", who left for Scandinavia and produced two daughters there.

Is there any verifiation of this highly romantic event?

It is highly conceivable that an heir from the first marriage for political reasons may have been hidden, or other-wise disposed of, in favor of expected heirs from the second marriage with Violant de Bar.

The only information on this that I have found has come fom Finn Asbjorn Wang of Norway but I have lost contact with this source.

Identify this household tool

I found this, left by the previous tennant of my apartment. It looks like a can opener, it's about the size of a can opener, but it can't open cans. I found it in a drawer with a can opener and aluminium foil, etc. I have no idea what it is, does anyone? I put a quarter on the scanner bed just so you can get an idea of the size. Thanks! --Robojames 14:47, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A nutcracker? --Wonderfool t(c)e) 14:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks like a can opener to me. Are you sure it can't open cans or does a poor workman always blame his tools? Dunc|☺ 15:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It looks like a garlic press to me. --Mothperson 15:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) And a pretty good one. Peel the cloves, put in the sieve-like thing, and crush away. Mothperson 15:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It absolutely can not open cans. There's nothing sharp to pierce the can. And it's not a nutcracker, although it could be used to crack nuts. And it doesn't look like a garlic press... there's no sieve-like thing on it. (I need to get a better picture of this) The functional part seems to be at the top (left in photo) it's got these small flat metal bits on the top... one of them lifts up when you open the handle, and the other two stay put. It's like the following:

Open    Closed
]         ]
   [       [
]         ]

It looks like it could be used to press buttons on something, but i don't know. --Robojames 15:53, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)