September 23

Burning a volleyball

Purely theoretical, but assuming an Olympic-regulation volleyball in a gym with a constant air temeprature of 20 degress Celsius and a barometric pressure equal of that at sea level, how much of an impact force or energy would a player need to hit the ball with in order to set the ball on fire from air friction? Thanks. Acceptable 02:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A heck of a lot. Actually, if you hit it with enough force to accelerate it to such speeds, it would just explode, you would need to gradually accelerate it in a vacuum, then have it strike the air, much like a meteor hitting the atmosphere. StuRat 03:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You'd probably get a more exact answer on the science desk. Exxolon 15:35, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

K thanks, i'll ask again on the Science Desk. Acceptable 16:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Madden NFL 2008 PC

Is there a way to turn of the salary cap in Madden 2008. Just so i can freely sign players. Any files that might help.--logger 04:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jacqueline Wilson

What is the surname of Tracey, the heroine of Jacqueline Wilson's books? --124.121.46.128 04:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you thinking of The Story of Tracy Beaker? Xn4 05:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, Tracey not Tracy. Thank you very much. --124.121.50.210 05:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

She has written scores of books. Which one(s) are you referring to?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The heroine of Wilson's books is called Tracy, not Tracey. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Digging in dirt

What is a good machine that will dig/burrow through dirt and dig up a backyard? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.121.105.34 (talk) 05:00, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One of the very best is a pig. Xn4 05:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A backhoe isn't just a prostitute who submits to unconventional sex acts. StuRat 05:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How big is the backyard? Actually, the right machine depends on the intended purpose and end result. For gardening, you'll probably want a rotary tiller; general heavy digging would call for a backhoe and installing underground pipes might call for directional boring. 152.16.59.190 05:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you digging a large hole, a narrow hole, a deep hole or just turning over all the soil? (Backhoe, trencher, posthole digger/auger, rototiller) Rmhermen 05:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or if you are thinking about doing some gardening, a garden trowel might be what you want. Dismas|^(talk) 02:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or a Bobcat compact excavator? Of course, if you're in the UK, you'll want a JCB instead, which you can operate whilst listening to JCB.

Atlant 15:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Awwwww... that video brings me to my happy-place... :) --Mdwyer 21:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're not alone.

Atlant 00:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

help

how can i translate chinese to english —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.90.43.175 (talk) 05:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try Babel Fish or any other online translation tool. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.208.110.207 (talk) 06:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Though you might want to try to get it to convert the result back to English to see the kind of quality you are getting, I get the impression that automatic conversion between European and East Asian languages doesn't work that well. The alternatives, of course, are to learn Chinese or to hire a professional translator. Bistromathic 11:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Babelfish is good at conveying the core meaning, but it has light-years to go on translating grammar and context. Every real conversation I've used it for, the other paty told me my grammar was atrocious. :-) Saturn 5 00:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3

I know that this game upon release was absolutely berated for it`s numerous errors. My question is did they actualy release a patch fixing these errors and if so where would I find such a patch in it`s most recent form. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.107.4 (talk) 10:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent patch is here — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 10:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I may, though, even with the errors fixed...it's just not a good game. After 3 days I gave up trying to figure out how to build a ride exit on one of the attractions - it simply would not let me, thus I was unable to make the dang thing work. I was much happier with RCT2. Kuronue | Talk 15:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Fonts"

Yeah I would like to change the font of what I've been writing with on Wikipedia. I think everyone calls it a IB. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.44.155.52 (talk) 11:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to take a real guess here and assume that by the above you are meaning that you don't want your IP address to be your "name" on Wikipedia that is displayed when you are editing. All you have to do is just click the "Sign in / create account" button at the top to pick your own name.

Now if you really mean "change the font" as in "change what style the text is displayed on Wikipedia," you can do that, but it requires you to create an account in any case, and then modify a style sheet for your account (I think you can do that pretty easily under your account preferences). --24.147.86.187 15:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like they're referring to the <small> font the bot uses to sign their IP for them. In which case the answer is simple, sign your own posts by typing 4 ~ or ~~~~, and the bot won't sign your name for you anymore. --VectorPotential^Talk 19:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility is that what you want to do is change your browser's default font; look for a menu option "Preferences" or the like. —Tamfang 04:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

lost DSL filter

We lost four DSL filters when returning a modem to a store to get a new one. The DSL filters are provided by the ISP. We don't have money and time to get a new one. What should we do? Should we go back to the lost and found at the store and say, "We lost the four DSL filters that the ISP provide us." and because we want it back. Jet (talk) 16:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's worth a try. Good luck.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They aren't insanely expensive - I bought a bunch at Radio Shack for something like $10 each. But going back to the store and asking if they kept them is worth a shot. You certainly need one for every telephone in the house - without them, your DSL will be flakey. You could also (I suppose) call up you ISP and claim to have added more phones - maybe they'll give you some filters for nothing. But you can't do without them - that's for sure. SteveBaker 18:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The store is Best Buy. Jet (talk) 18:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Explain that when you returned the modem you returns X filters and that when it was collected they were not here. Large firms often have very good policies on things like this (it is often cheaper for them to do things in good will than to risk a disgruntled customer). I find your best chance is not to be angry but to be assertive, not to be aggressive and also not to be accusing. It is more than likely that they got lost rather than anything else - like the above user says they aren't pricey. Alternatively if that's no luck - ask friends. I know a lot of people who only got a phoneline for the internet and so they tend to have only 1 filter in use and therefore have the rest from their ISP spare somewhere in the house. ny156uk 20:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I mean that I put the DSL filters to the box and return the box to the customer service at the store and I didn't have time to check it. Jet (talk) 22:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean "Buy a new one" because we lost it and maybe we can't get it back. Jet (talk) 22:04, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They can't help me. I can only claim it as my lost property or buy a new set of DSL filters. Jet (talk) 04:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removing beer smell from fabric

OK, this is a random question. I took my nice Tamrac waterproof backpack to a party and got most of a pint of ale spilled over it. It's dried out now, isn't too sticky, but absolutely reeks of beer. I don't want to properly wash it, because the bag has lots of padded compartments and I'm worried they'll just absorb water (luckily the beer only got the top, unpadded compartment wet). Question: is something like Febreze likely to be able to "remove" the smell, even on a waterproof fabric? Rawling4851 16:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about Febreze, but if I were you I would try wiping it all over with a damp cloth (rinse frequently) before trying out any chemicals, as you don't want to compromise the waterproofing.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:05, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience Febreze works its magics on all smells under almost all conditions, and I would give it a try. SaundersW 18:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest hand washing the parts that had beer spilled on them, then dry it with a hair dryer or space heater. Beer, being mostly water and alcohol, should readily dissolve in water alone. StuRat 18:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try washing it - (as I always say) - use a shower head and do it by hand. Why would there be a problem with getting a waterproof bag wet?!87.102.17.252 18:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC) You could just leave it outside and wait for it to rain.87.102.17.252 18:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've never tried it, but Dawn works for everything else, so it probably works for this too. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'll probably try washing it with water first. It's only waterproof from the outside, and I'll probably manage to get some water in if I'm actually washing it, I'm just worried about water soaking into the internal padded bits. Rawling4851 19:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've cleaned a backpack with foamy bits using a shower head - nothing bad seemed to happen - and if the foam gets wet - I'm sure it will dry out.87.102.21.91 12:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could take it to a dry cleaners if you really don't want to wash it in water. Neil ム 15:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TAQWA acronym

im running madrisa as well as school syllabus.i want to name the institution. i have a word in my mind TAQWA. there are three abreviation of this word in my mind —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.99.175.191 (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

203.99.175.191 17:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Im running madrisa as well as school syllabus.i want to name the institution. I have a word in my mind TAQWA. there are three abreviation of this word in my mind

true aims quranic wit apex
true aims quranic ways acadmey
true aums quranic ways apex acadmey.

I want you to examine these words or phrase and suggest me what is the better one or beter one else of these. if there is any other then let me know.

If I understand you — You're starting a school, the school needs a name, you want the name to have the acronym TAQWA. Well, of those that you suggest, I think True Aims Quranic Ways Academy is best because it makes some sense. —Tamfang 06:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Audio mixing question

I have a recording of someone speaking where the microphone was placed below and behind the subject. The result is that while the recording is clear, it sounds a little out of the way, a little less "direct" than had it been placed more in front of them. What sorts of things can I do with this audio to make it sound a little less murky? It somewhat sounds like it was recorded in a tin can. I'd like to "brighten" it a bit. I have access to various professional audio tools, I'm just not sure which sorts of things will help such a recording. --24.147.86.187 17:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The human mouth is shaped (inside and out) to project sound forwards. Thus the microphone did not pick up a large portion of the audio energy that was emitted. You can experiment with omni- and uni- directional mikes to try and get better pickup, but I think you will want to have the mic in front of the speaker to avoid the murky sound quality. (Thank you sinebot) Saturn 5 00:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I know the root cause of it. I'm just asking about after the fact processing that can improve the current recording. --24.147.86.187 04:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that you lost a lot of the high-ends stuff. You MIGHT be able to cut the lower frequencies and boost the higher frequencies, but that's just going to bring the noise floor up. Will you have the chance to re-record it? --Mdwyer 03:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like what I will play with. It's just a small, in-house job, so I'm not going to bother re-recording it. --24.147.86.187 04:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another issue is that a large portion of the sound recorded is likely to be echoes, perhaps more than the direct sound. You would need a rather fancy electronic filter to detect and reduce (or eliminate) the echoes. StuRat 16:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt you could equalize it. I'm no kind of knowledgable, but I'd start by boosting a wideish band of frequencies around 3k or so and see where it goes from there. Gzuckier 18:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

brokerages

Say out of all the Fidelity customers, there are a total of 1 millions shares of IBM in their combined portfolios.

Has Fidelity actually purchased 1 millions shares, or could it have gotten away with just buying 800,000 and investing the rest of the money in its own vices? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.199.246 (talk) 23:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Public funds are (usually anyway) subject to varying levels of scrutiny. While it is possible for a fund manager to not follow the intentions of the contributors, with Enron type scandals in the news lately, that would be begging for the SEC to come calling. Saturn 5 00:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is such a thing as short selling. Sooner or later, though, the accounts do have to balance. Gzuckier 18:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 24

Facebook question

Does Facebook have a "log" application or feature that allows you to see who has visited your profile and when? Thanks, anon.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.23.161 (talk) 00:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, as that would be all kinds of privacy violations. The developers might track that sort of thing, but I doubt it. Neil ム 15:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That wouldn't be any more of a privacy violation than the sort of logging most websites do on their visitors. You make it sound like there's a law against such monitoring; there isn't. --24.147.86.187 05:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why does Japan hate Dragon Ball GT?

Why does Japan hate Dragon Ball GT? I mean it was cancelled after only 64 episodes. The show was shown after Z ended and at the time GT aired, the Dragon Ball series was VERY popular. So why did they cancel it? Did Akira Toriyama like GT? Or did he hate it as well? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.57.235 (talk) 01:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe in Japan they know how to cancel a show just when they run out of good material for it (rather than one or two seasons later as seems to be common in North America). Or maybe they decided the rest of the story would be better presented in other media (as seems to have happened when Serial Experiments Lain got only one 13-episode season). Neon Merlin 03:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, many anime are 13 episodes long; it's a pretty standard run, called a "course". Gunslinger Girls, Record of Lodoss War, Niea_7, and Haibane Renmei are examples; KareKano has a doubled length at 26 episodes, also common; I think it might be the length of a full TV season in Japan. Some of this is discussed at Television season#Seasons/Series. --Masamage ♫ 05:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where do video game cheats come from?

They seem to appear out of no where. Where do they come from? How do people find out about them? Im guessing that the developers send them to video game sites, but im not sure.--Coasttocoast 02:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as far as the (in)famous Konami Code goes, according to our article, the developer put it in to test the game and then never took it out. How people found out about it, I'm not so sure. Dismas|^(talk) 02:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess that the cheat code in Contra, at least, was put in intentionally. The game was way too difficult to play with only three lives. I'd surmise that the programmers gave the game a default of three lives so it would be consistent with the coin-op version but ensured that the "secret" code was disseminated through official Nintendo guides and the like. -- Mwalcoff 02:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree with the assertion that it was "way too difficult" to play without a cheat code. After using the 30 lives cheat code for some time, I eventually found myself only using one or two of those lives. So the cheat code became pointless to input. Being one of the early games, the enemy became really predictable because their placement and timing never changed. Dismas|^(talk) 04:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you were a much better Contra player than I was. -- Mwalcoff 09:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheat codes get put in so (obviously) the developers, testers and the like can playtest the game as much as needed right through. Sometimes, cheat codes are revealed when you complete the game (and then obviously, get passed around). Other times, people figure them out themselves. And yes, sometimes developers release them for the reasons above, or one of the hundreds of playtesters, who are usually not employees, pass them on, as they don't have anything to lose. Neil ム 11:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some (eg, the famous JUSTIN BAILEY cheat from Metroid) come from the fact that early systems used procedurally generated passwords to save data - if you knew the algorithm behind the password, you could then work backwards and find a password which gave you infinite lives or max-ammo. Others, such as the Chris Houlihan room in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past are easter eggs, created by the programmers either to hide their names within the code, or to provide a bonus for dedicated players to find. The ones that appear on websites are generally found in one of three ways: 1) The developer releases the cheat codes (Maxis does this with The Sims 2, to make it easier to play the game in non-linear fashion), 2) The cheat is found by accident (such as the Sequence breaks in the Metroid series), and 3) The cheat is found, generally by more dedicated hackers or gamers, by searching the source of the game or messing about with the game in debug mode (see POKEs as cheats and the glitches in Pokémon games). Laïka 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Free Radical Design, developers of the hugely popular Timesplitters series, insist there are cheats within their Timesplitters 2 game. However, they refuse to release the relevent information, claiming the cheats should be hard to find!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.6.88 (talk) 12:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an actual game developer - so what follows is not speculation - it's the honest truth.

Sure we put development hacks into the game when testing (Just last week I put one into the game I'm working on right now to switch between daylight and night so that I can test my lighting code) - but there is no way these would get accidentally left in the code to be activated by weird button combos. That might have happened years ago - but not these days. We have proper development consoles with much more elegant ways to turn these kinds of things on and off from a PC hanging off the back. So I have a little control panel that pops up on my PC while the game is running on the console - it has a simple Windows dialog box with check-boxes and sliders and stuff - and in there is the box that sets my day/night setting. The place where the PC plugs in doesn't even exist on the Xboxes and Playstations they sell to the players (the Xbox-360 on my desk looks way different from the ones you can buy in stores and my PS-3 is a monsterous ugly black thing with huge noisy fans that's designed to be mounted in a racking system). The software that does all the work of communicating out to my PC is compiled out for 'Retail' builds of the software - it's only there in 'Development' builds. Even if I did want to do it with the joystick - there is no way I'm going to press "left-right-circle-circle-up-down-A-B-A-B-triangle-fire" and enter in a cheat code using the joystick every time I want to try my lighting code!

The real reason that cheat codes are in there is to get free advertising. You ship the game - it's new - all of the game magazines review it - you get tons of free publicity. Then, a few weeks later, it all goes cold. They have nothing new to say about the game and you have to pay through the nose for publicity. So when you write the game, you quite deliberately design in some cheats, some easter eggs - all manner of little things. Now you can "leak" a bunch of cheat codes to the magazine a few weeks after launch and they will write ANOTHER piece about your game that describes the cheat codes. You can even do this a more than once - first some cheat codes - then some easter eggs - then maybe a hidden level. Then you can sell the 'strategy guide' - which has a few more that you maybe didn't tell all of the magazines about. It's all part of the marketing game. The idea that one a piece of 'developer code' could make it out into the launch title and be "discovered" by a player is ridiculous - that may have happened 10 years ago - but not these days. It might be that the codes are 'leaked' to players in order that they get out to blogs or whatever - but that's just a viral marketing tactic.

It's possible that an easter egg might be snuck into a game by one of the programmers - but it's increasingly unlikely - and it would be strongly disapproved of because of the risk that it might prove offensive or somehow destroy the game design. Doing such a thing would get you fired in some games companies. Those easter eggs that DO make it into the game release would be closely guarded secrets between the programmers so they could impress the muggles with magic at parties - it's REALLY unlikely that you'd find one in a magazine.

SteveBaker 17:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the latter point, Cf. the Hot Coffee minigame controversy debacle. --24.147.86.187 14:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Secular use of the Discordian calendar

Have there been any serious proposals to replace the Gregorian calendar with a version of the Discordian calendar (possibly with St. Tibb's Day moved and the names changed)? The latter seems to have several of the advantages over the former sought by calendar reformers -- the five seasons all have the same number of days, each day of the year is a fixed day of the week, and five is easier to divide by than seven. Neon Merlin 03:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By "serious" do you mean "seriously made" or "taken seriously"? —Tamfang 06:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Egyptian calendar is the closest that I'm aware of - that had 36 10-day weeks, with 5 "wandering days" left over at the (you may wonder why they didn't use 73 5-day weeks, but apparently it made the sums easier for the 10-fingered innumerate peasants). This calendar was then reformed into the Coptic calendar, but the Coptic calendar doesn't skip leap-years divisible by 100 but not 400 (as our calendar does), and no longer uses weeks (instead, as far as I'm aware, they just call each day "n month", as in "16 Paremhat"), so it doesn't have enough useful features. Laïka 21:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "Naked at school" dream

What do dreams about being naked at school mean and why are they so common? --124.254.77.148 04:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fear of embarassment? Maybe there's a sexual element.. the child's mind trying to explore the unfamiliar of sexuality, and picking a familiar environment. IINAP --⁪froth^t 06:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please see my comment at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Professional advice#Interpretation of Dreams. -- JackofOz 02:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

None of this is officialor expert, of course, but I don't think it's sexual; I think it's about embarrassment and exposure. When I have this dream, I come to school clothed, get overheated during class, and remove something, only to realize that this is socially inappropriate. I then have to try and put my clothes back on without the teacher or anyone else noticing my error, which may or may not work. (Once I didn't notice until all my clothes were gone, and I had to trace back through all my classes naked, picking up a shirt here and a sock there, while all the seated students sniggered at me.) -Masamage ♫ 05:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is any solid evidence that dreams mean anything whatever. That hasn't stopped a lot of quacks from making a lot of money 'interpreting' them for people - but there is no solid science out there. I strongly suspect (without evidence) that the best analogy for what's going on is that it's like 'defragging' the hard drive in your computer. Memories are being cleaned up and rearranged for easier storage and processing...but unlike a computer, where programs that are using those files can't run when the drive is being defragged, your brain can't entirely switch off - so instead we sleep through the process. Generally, all of the sorting out is finished before we wake up - and all memory of the chaotic mess that was being made during cleanup is tidied away. However, if we happen to wake up before the process is complete - then what's in our short-term memories is a mixed up chaotic mess with snippets of random memories all mixed up together. Fortunately, short term memory fades quickly so the mess goes away with little residual consequences. I have no evidence but it's a better explanation than all of the other bullshit explanations about Jungian symbolism. SteveBaker 19:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of solid evidence and your own personal theories notwithstanding, you wouldn't ever go out on a limb and say that a particular dream you've had appeared to be a specific manifestation of, say, stress at school/work? I'm not at all into dream "interpretation", Jungian or Freudian, but the emerging science of dreaming is interesting and there are multiple suggestions on the "purpose" of dreams; some or all of which could have merit. Regardless, I used to have "anxiety" dreams about missing a test or some school related failure, the "meaning" of which seemed fairly unambigous: I was stressed about school/finals. However, the recurring dreams of riding large boats through dark watery tunnels is another matter... :) 38.112.225.84 15:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's just as likely though that those anxiety dreams are because the memories that your brain is reorganising in the days before finals are the ones most pertinent to up-coming events - and the thoughts you've been having during the days leading up to them. So general information about how to avoid school-related failure might be the thing that most needs to be cleaned up in the nights before the big finals exam - and cleaning memories specifically relating to your worries could also be a part of the process. To stretch the computer analogy, when you defrag your drive, the files that are most likely to be moved are the ones you've been writing to since the last time you defragged.

Dreaming clearly absorbs a lot of energy - and the need to sleep in order to do it is a VAST risk to most animals. Evolution would not stick us with such a vastly expensive, risky and seemingly useless activity if there wasn't a really critical function that these dreams serve. Worst still, if we don't wake up during or very shortly after REM sleep - we don't even remember the dream. So we know that remembering or being consciously aware of having dreamed isn't the important thing - because the vast majority of them are not even noticable. We also know that if these things were there to guide us or predict something then we wouldn't need psychologists to explain them to us! My dogs dream (that much is obvious if you watch them run, bark, sniff and such as they sleep) - surely they aren't analysing their dreams to any useful degree. We know that if you interrupt someone's sleep so that they get plenty of rest - but get no REM sleep (and hence they sleep without dreaming) that they gradually become confused and forgetful and eventually die. That strongly suggests that dreaming is performing some crucial brain-related function. To use the PC analogy once more: Just as your (MS-Windows) PC will run slower and slower if you don't defrag it once in a while - your brain suffers horribly if it doesn't get to reshuffle stuff more or less every night. SteveBaker 17:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's simply not true that in order to remember your dreams you need to be awakened during or shortly after REM sleep, Steve. Many people always or nearly always remember their dreams on waking in the morning, long after REM has passed - and in many cases they can remember multiple dreams they had during the night. It's true that waking during or shortly after REM sleep will give you a much better chance of remembering what's just been going on in your head, but it's certainly not always necessary. -- JackofOz 04:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've never had a "naked in school/at work" dream. But I have had many dreams where I am at a swimming hall or other place with public showers, and then realise I have forgot something at home, and go fetch it naked, or wearing just a towel. I've also had dreams of walking all the way from Kamppi to Haukilahti without wearing shoes. In late autumn. This was years before I actually did it (wearing shoes and in the middle of summer though). JIP | Talk 17:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

today's slashdot quote

...is "Quark! Quark! Beware the quantum duck!" This gets tens of thousands of google results yet I can't find an origin. What's this from? DS9? --⁪froth^t 06:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The joke "How does a quantum duck sound? Quark, quark!" is decades older than DS9, I'd say. —Tamfang 06:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you ask on the scieece desk someone might be able to trace it's origins to a science lab somewhere in the 1970's...(but if i'd quacked that joke i wouldn't bragg about it - now i die)83.100.254.150 07:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But why the "beware"? --⁪froth^t 17:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's spooky. It's both alive and dead at the same time. Or maybe it's a reference to the Jabberwock that burbled as it came. --Milkbreath 17:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The moon on my birthday

Hi there, after fruitless searching I thought I'd ask you guys if you could please help me find out what the moon was doing on my birthday. Which is 25th April 1985?? (P.S- does it matter where on earth you are looking from? If so, it was Perth, Western Australia)

Thanks a bunch Mel —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melissa85 (talk • contribs) 09:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This Google search links to many calculators which should show you what you want, such as [1] or [2]. Sadly the two sites I've linked to disagree as to the phase :( so you may have to take a consensus from a few, or find one which for some other reasons seems especially reliable. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

it was four days after the new moon. Jon513 11:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're asking for the purposes of astrology, note that the moon moves through about 13 degrees of the zodiac per day, so the time of birth is important. At midnight (00:00 hrs GMT) on 25 April 1985 the moon was at 27 degrees of Gemini. By the end of the day (24:00 hrs GMT) it was at 10 degrees of Cancer. (Those are the signs of the zodiac, not the constellations, which are different.) And yes it does make a difference where you look from, because of parallax. An ephemeris will only give you geocentric positions for the moon. Unless the moon is overhead, the parallax effect can make a difference of up to about 1 degree either way.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked it up at Sky and Telescope, and got a different result. From midnight to dawn on April 25, there would be no moon in the sky over Perth. From dusk until it set around 9 pm, the new moon was in Gemini. --M @r ē ino 15:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Physicals

Why, particularly in movies set in American high schools, does a doctor cup someone's balls and ask them to cough? There's nothing in coughing about this, as far as I can tell. Neil ム 10:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They don't "cup" anything, as far as I know. I am not a doctor, and I don't play one on television. They are feeling for hernia at the place where the testicles descended in infancy. Coughing increases the pressure inside the abdomen, allowing the doctor to feel to what extent the stuff inside is able to get out at the weak spots. If you watch a lot of movies set in American high schools, you will see all sorts of salacious behavior, but this isn't that, usually. You should see Rock and Roll High School if you haven't already, by the way. --Milkbreath 10:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's usually whenever there's a physical, for football players and the like. It seems to be a pretty standard thing, and has appeared in lots of movies. So it's to check for hernias? Thank you. Neil ム 11:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a hernia check. Physicals are often required before entering high school here in the U.S. Some schools don't require it on admittance but do if the person is joining some sports team. Though generally, to keep the paperwork easier to maintain, they just require it for everyone and don't have to worry about whether this person or that person had their physical. Dismas|^(talk) 20:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, I had been wondering about that too and never thought to ask here about it. Thanks Neil and answerers. :) --Masamage ♫ 05:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Joe DiMaggio

You do realize that Joe DiMaggio batted and threw right handed and played center field, don't you? What you have on his listing really makes Wikipedia look REALLY bad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.193.141.173 (talk) 11:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --Dweller 11:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article says he bats right handed, and played center field, and has done so since April 2002 ([3]). Neil ム 11:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am talking about the box on the side of the page. Not only that, Joe never played for anyone besides the Yankees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.193.141.173 (talk) 11:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The box says Joe Di Maggio, then his picture, then Centre Fielder. Below, it has his date of birth and death, then Batted: Right and Threw: Right. Then, further down, there's Teams: New York Yankees 1936-42 and 46-51 (there was no baseball between 1942-46, guess why). I don't understand your question. Neil ム 11:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article was vandalised by 172.135.39.234 (Talk) at 02:01, 21 September 2007. That sort of thing happens on wikipedia. Normally the damage is reverted without song and dance. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that having incorrect information on which hand Joe DiMaggio used makes Wikipedia look half as bad as some of the more blatant stuff, of course. Eran of Arcadia 14:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, please do feel free to fix any blatant stuff you come across, or point it out on the article's talk page. Neil ム 15:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(nitpick) Actually, there was baseball during WWII, it's just that there was no Joe DiMaggio baseball, as he was in the military. Matt Deres 20:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right. I've seen A League of Their Own(!) Neil ム 11:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Major League Baseball played during World War II. Just most of the players were in the service. It's probably only because of this fact that the St. Louis Browns were able to win a pennant. Corvus cornix 20:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

requesting articles?

Do you know where? --Plament 15:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is among the most admirably brief questions I have ever seen. Mad props. If you would like to request an article be created, try going to Wikipedia:Requested Articles. You can then find a suitable topic and subtopic for your article. Good luck.Deltopia 16:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Revive the Twinkie Perm"

My One True Ex has been listening to Mark Thomas's monologue My Life in Serious Organised Crime in heavy rotation, and remarked to me the other day that the one thing she couldn't make sense of was someone's demonstration to "Revive the Twinkie Pound". I took a listen and penetrated the imitation Scots accent (MT was quoting a PC Paul Macanally) to find that the concept in question was really the twinkie perm, a phrase that turns up (independently of MT) on two forum webpages, both times in proximity with "blue rinse" and a quantity of Scots dialect. Can anyone tell us more? —Tamfang 15:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Twink (home perm).--Mrs Wibble-Wobble 17:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

William Forsyth....

I am looking for the address that William Forsyth (1820-1902) lived at in Washington DC. I know that he was the DC survoryor and worked with Alexander Shepherd laying the sweage system in the Washington DC area. Also I would love to see a picture of his grave, and the house that he lived in. Any help that you might be able to provide me would be "very" much apprecaited. Thank you, Stephen101 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen101 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Upton Sinclair..

I am looking for information about Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). I know that for a while in his life he spent in the Washington DC area. I am trying to find out where he lived during those years. Also I would enjoying seeing any kind of pictures that might be available of Upton Sinclair during thoses years. Anything that could and can be found would be great and much appreciated to be seen. Thank you. Stephen101 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen101 (talk • contribs) 19:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Harry S. Truman

Mr. Truman's middle name wes "S". Why do you insist on using a period after the letter In his name? His Name should read "Harry S Truman", not Harry S. Truman. Please correct this in your article on the man.— —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.63.149 (talk) 19:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is addressed in the article, as well as having been debated quite a bit on the talk page for the article. --LarryMac | Talk 20:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He even signed it with a period (see image). Neil ム 11:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's entirely possible to abbreviate "S" as "S.". JIP | Talk 17:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the American Red Cross Celebrity Cabinet Members

I was wondering if it would be possible to add all of our Cabinet Members to your site. More specifically add that they are part of our 2007 Celebrity Cabinet.

The American Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet was developed in 2002 as part of the Entertainment Outreach Program to help our organization highlight important initiatives and response efforts.

The award-winning combination of well-respected actors, musical artists, television personalities, athletes and other public figures are "on-call" to help the Red Cross by donating their time, skills, passion and energy for a one-year term when it's needed most.

We are grateful to these generous people for pledging their assistance and look forward to providing them with meaningful projects that inspire them while helping the Red Cross fulfill its humanitarian mission.

All of our members are listed as such:

http://www.redcross.org/news/other/entertainment/natcelebcab/2007_members.asp

To reach me - (email address removed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.6.226.11 (talk) 20:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your suggestion! A section has been added to American Red Cross, although I have not added every name, as it would be too long for the article. Neil ム 11:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheque retrieval

Is it possible to cash a cheque, but then to keep the cheque for posterity. For example, if I were to earn a Knuth reward check, could I cash it in and have it on my wall, framed and virtually unmarked (I'd allow maybe some sort of cancellation stamp), or would I alas have to allow $2.56 to slip through my fingers? (In the United Kingdom, BTW) Laïka 21:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check with your bank. At my bank, at least, they destroy the original check, but provide scanned images of the check's front and back. --Mdwyer 21:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I let the money slip past. The check is worth far more to me than the money would have been. Donald Hosek 23:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The issuer of the check gets to keep the check, not the recipient, if it is returned at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Equal Enjoy (talk • contribs) 01:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest you make a color copy for the wall at your local print shop/copy center and cash the original ? StuRat 02:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or see if it works the other way around. :) I've been wondering about this too, because I recently received a cheque from the US for my first photo-sale (yippee!), a memorable event, so I want to cash in the money, but also keep the cheque, also because it's the first cheque I ever received (money transfers are all electronic in the Netherlands these days). DirkvdM 13:16, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've discovered Knuth's cunning plan. --Sean 17:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At least here in the USA, they used to return paid-in cheques to the person who wrote them. That practice only stopped fairly recently for my bank. Giving them back to the recipient would result in all sorts of fraudulant possibilities. But I agree that a Knuth cheque would be worth a lot more uncashed than it's face value (a hexadecimal dollar). SteveBaker 18:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And another episode of The Simpsons suddenly makes a lot more sense... 130.88.140.44 11:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another Youtube video with uncertain music

I have another video from Youtube where the music is vaguely familiar but unknown. The music is familiar as it appeared previously in the trailer for Pearl Harbor shown here. The comments provide a probable answer for the origin of the music but my search at amazon.com did not match the answer. So, what is it? --Blue387 22:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't the score written by Hans Zimmer? Is there any suggestion he used pre-existing music by another composer, and if so, wouldn't it have been credited as such? The fact that it turned up in the later, unrelated, video doesn't necessarily mean that it's a non-Zimmer piece. Mind you, we're told that "Other composers like Steve Jablonsky, James Dooley, Heitor Pereira and Geoff Zanelli work in Zimmer's studio ... composers including Harry Gregson-Williams, Mark Mancina, John Powell and Klaus Badelt are also all former members of the studio" - so it's possible that one of them actually wrote this part of the score, a score that was attributed in the movie to Hans Zimmer alone. -- JackofOz 01:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 25

Names

Hey, I'm writing a story and I want some special names for my characters, the names I prefer are greek-sounding. My male character's name is Ouranos and my female's Gaïa. I really like those names and would greatly appreciate a list of both male and female names. Thanks --Ninjawolf 01:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since you've clearly got a motif going, I would start by checking out all the articles relating to Greek mythological figures. :) There's some cool stuff in there. I also like looking through the names of real people, e.g. List of Greeks, List of philosophers, etc. --Masamage ♫ 03:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See specifically the Titans! —Tamfang 21:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

for a woman, I'm quite fond of Incontinentia Buttox --Dweller 08:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have Category:Greek surnames, and Category:Greek names, which have some pretty good stuff (although Surnames is a bit sparse). Laïka 12:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish names are pretty great, too. My friend's dad has a coworker named Torfin Borkin. --Masamage ♫ 14:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I'd had another son I was going to name him "Alexander Isosceles", and we're not even Greek, so I know where you're coming from. --Milkbreath 18:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cute (mathematically speaking). I've always wondered if anyone's ever been named after that great Greek, Testicles, the "father of anatomy". :) -- JackofOz 22:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can cute be proven mathematically? :)--JDitto 04:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

JDitto, I think you've been round here long enough by now to know that such questions belong on the Mathematics Ref Desk. :) -- JackofOz 04:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HOW many?

how many penises can a man have? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.59.237.41 (talk) 03:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With science, anything is possible. --Masamage ♫ 03:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there is a medical condition where the penis is split in two at birth, if that's what you mean. StuRat 03:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're looking for diphallia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's it. Somehow that brings to mind the saying: "There's twice as much of me to love". StuRat 05:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is he a curator or owner of a penis museum? The total could be 245. Edison 05:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those fellows need to find a nice girl with uterine didelphys. --Sean 17:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have a contender! --Dweller 08:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean 'how many at once', or just 'how many'? --jjron 09:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Depends how many orifices he has.--Mrs Wibble-Wobble 11:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LOL Mrs Wibble-Wobble, both at your response and your user name :-) 203.41.139.85 07:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shipping costs

How much fuel does it take to move a ton of goods a thousand miles over an average route by:

Boat
Train
Truck
Airplane

--67.185.172.158 03:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What types of airplane, truck, and boat? What do you need the answers for? If we knew what you needed the answers for we could be more precise. You could move a ton of goods in a pickup truck for instance but the fuel consumption for that would differ from a semi-truck pulling a ton of goods inside a trailer. Both are used for commercial transport but one or the other may not suit your needs. Dismas|^(talk) 04:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget to ask what type of goods are involved. A ton of lead (with a volume of about 0.09 m³) will have different requirements for shipping than a ton of extruded polystyrene billets (about 8 cubic meters). A ton of fresh produce may need to be refrigerated; a ton of sulfuric acid will require special containers and paperwork, and will accrue extra costs. Finally, don't forget to ask if there's a mountain in the way. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By boat can be the most efficient method - especially if you are near a waterway and the goods are to be delivered downstream (or by sail)! In general, airplanes are least efficient but much depends on delivery locations as many deliveries will have to be multimodal. Only rarely are factories located at airports while trucks more often make direct deliveries or complete aircraft deliveries. Rmhermen 04:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, average freight revenue per ton-mile in 2001 was:

Domestic Air; 80.4c
Truck; 26.6c
Class I rail; 2.24c
Barge; 0.72c

Those numbers would be a fair indication of the relative fuel costs, I'd say. FiggyBee 04:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not for the air transport, because that is not taxed, so the fuel cost will be a lot higher. Art least, that lack of tax for airplane kerosene is a serious point of debate in Europe. in the US, the difference will probably not be as great because there are hardly any taxes there (compared to most European countries anyway). Btw, is the question about the financial cost, the energy consumption, the ecological (climate) cost or the volume of fuel used? Keep in mind that different modes of transport use different fuels, so values may not be comparable, depending on what you are asking about. DirkvdM 13:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. aircraft fuel is taxed (with both federal and state taxes - California has a 8% tax on top of the federal 0.044 dollars per gallon tax) Also in the U.S., we don't call it kerosene which as our article Jet_fuel shows is an incomplete description of the fuel. Rmhermen 13:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Europe fuel taxes are normally considerably higher - in the Netherlands fuel costs about three or four times what it costs in the US, so tax will be in the hundreds of percents, but not for airplane fuel. So it matters much which country the OP lives in. Note that the reason for this is that airports are international terrain or something - I'm talking about international flights. In the smaller European countries, internal flights are not very common. DirkvdM 17:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also trains and barges can carry a lot more freight than trucks and planes, so on a per ton basis truck drivers and airplane pilots are a lot more expensive. Dave6 ^talk 20:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the train is electrified (as many freight lines are, especially in Europe), then you don't necessarily need any "fuel" at all -- the electricity could come from a non-fuel source such as hydropower. --M @r ē ino 18:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Print a calendar

Anyone know a site where I can upload my own pics and print out calendar pages (for free)? --124.254.77.148 05:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ - number of neat little tools here including a calendar. Lanfear's Bane 08:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's that hard to find free calendar making software that uses your own pics, but are you actually wanting to get them printed for free as well? --jjron 09:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Was the "States List Puzzle" ever solved?

I was just reading a Straight Dope thread about the States List Puzzle. Out of curiosity, did anyone ever figure out the solution? Or was it generally assumed to be a big ruse? Zagalejo^^^ 06:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ruse or not, if it has been solved it has never been posted as such anywhere online. (Wikipedia used to have an article States List Puzzle which stated pretty much that, but it got deleted by some admin). --24.147.86.187 14:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Umm. . .if it got deleted why is it still there? --S.dedalus 05:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It got undeleted yesterday. FiggyBee 05:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

what are the differences...

between the basic infantryman MOS and rifleman MOS in the United States Marine Corps? --MKnight9989 13:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article for MOS 0311, for riflemen, but nothing for MOS 0300 basic infantryman. Googleing MOS 0300 gives you some sites which might help. Meanwhile List of United States Marine Corps MOS could do with wikilinks for any MOSs for which we have articles, if anyone is feeling sufficiently obsessive. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We only have three - MOS 0311 (Rifleman), MOS 0331 (Machine Gunner), and MOS 0369 (Infantry Unit Leader). Now there's a fun Wikiproject. Neil ム 15:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

86'd

We all know what the term "getting 86'd" means. We have an "86" board at work for menu items which are currently out of stock but does anyone know the actual significance of the number 86 in these terms? We can't figure out why it is 86 and not another number. Help!!! Please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.53.61 (talk) 14:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what "getting 86'd" means. DuncanHill 14:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See 86 (number), third section. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 14:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, 86 (number) seems to answer both questions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've always been (a,be)-mused by the rebus-like product name: RU-486. --Sean 17:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Electricity waste

How much electricity is wasted in a year on average in the UK? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mheaver (talk • contribs) 15:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide some more detail on this question? Some figures might be possible if you can supply some who, why, what or where details. Lanfear's Bane 15:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

here's a start (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39268538,00.htm) this is a guesstimate for PCs, there will be literally hundreds of other guesstimates for different products/different processes. I know stand by mode for electrical equipment is fast becoming a disliked feature and there has been talk of banning it from new appliances. Light bulbs are often held out as a culprit of 'wasted' energy. It depends on defining waste...The electricity itself isn't wasted - it does power something - but the use of the electricity could be removed and thus it is 'waste' as it is unnecessary use. I am led to understand that power-stations lose waste and that also storing electricity on a national scale isn't feasible so i guess any over-production would be considered waste too. ny156uk 17:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also look at Control of the National Grid (UK)...Actually quite interesting read. Never knew things were so ridiculously complex (though it does figure that powering a whole nation would be!). ny156uk 17:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(link fixed! Neil ム 08:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]

It's really hard to say what is waste and what isn't. Suppose you leave a light burning outside your front door all night to discourage burglars - is that 'waste' or not? If your computer takes 10 minutes to boot up after you power it down - so you leave it turned on for 30 minutes to grab lunch - is that waste? What about the electricity used to run the factory that makes herbal weight reduction tablets (which for sake of argument, we'll say are quite utterly useless)? One person's waste is another person's justifiable cost. I don't think you can measure this in any meaningful way. SteveBaker 18:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

True, there is a lot that is subject to opinion, but there's also a lot that isn't. I've been in office buildings that just left the lights on all night, with nobody there. It wasn't for security, they just didn't care about waste. Raising the cost of electricity is probably the best way to get such companies to behave reasonably. Then, either their owners will be concerned about the effect this waste has on profits or, if not, the company will eventually go out of business and be replaced by a more efficient one. StuRat 02:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Raising the price will not suffice for those who aren't aware what an electric appliance consumes. Such as me (most of the time) and most other people. Where I work, people boil water in a, ehm, water boiler which is always filled up completely and then reheated every time someone wants to make coffee. The main reason for this is that the water boils very fast, so people think it doesn't consume too much power. I'm in the process of pointing out to everyone that at the bottom (nicely hidden) it says that the bloody thing consumes 2200 Watts. 2200 WATTS!! Excessively powerful machines are a main reason for overconsumption. The worst example of which, of course, are cars. In the Netherlands (a very flat country) most cars could easily pull a heavy trailer up a Swiss Alp. Just in case someday they may find themselves in that situation? If you want to know about power waste, start looking at cars (most of which don't run on electricity yet, though). But concerning the water boiler - even when I tell people this, they barely react. The problem is that this doesn't mean anything to most people. The main problem is that you don't have to pull out your wallet every time you consume electricity. Ah, the good old days when you had to put a coin in the thingy in the hallway to make the electricity work (at least in post-war UK, I believe). DirkvdM 17:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Explain by analogy. 2200 Watts doesn't mean much - but explaining that this is equivelent to turning on a bank of 55 forty Watt lightbulbs or around 250 compact flourescent lightbulbs might. In a small office environment, it could easily double the electricity consumption of the building for as long as it's turned on. Heating water in a microwave oven is better - and I bet it's just as fast. SteveBaker 02:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While microwaving the water may well be more energy efficient (from my calculations and experiments, 92% of the energy goes into heating the water as opposed to 85% using a kettle (water boiler)), you are never going to convince people to microwave a cup of water rather than using the kettle. This is because: my microwave takes more than 3 times as long to microwave 350 ml to boiling point as my kettle does to boil 500 ml (its minimum amount); the kettle heats to a rolling boil, then switches off, while the microwave requires supervision; with a microwave, there's always the risk of that exploding-water-in-your-face-thing, which isn't very likely, but is at the back of many people's minds. Plus, it is inconvenient to try to get a teabag into a cup of boiling water, and the water has cooled a little by the time you have. For a really nice cup of tea, you have to pour boiling water straight onto the leaves. So, what can you do? By my calculations and experiments, it takes 220 kJ to boil the minimum amount in my kettle (500ml), and 143 kJ to boil 350 ml in my microwave. So, I'm wasting 77 kJ every time I make a cup of tea, although with the benefits listed above. This is 77 kWs or 0.021 kWh, so not a lot in the great scheme of things. However, if people are filling the kettle to make a single cup of tea, they could be boiling 2L for the sake of 350 ml, thus wasting closer to 737 kJ (0.205 kWh), which is more significant. If you want to save energy, you are more likely to make headway if you point out the energy saved by only boiling the minimum amount needed, and by making a drink for someone else at the same time. If you put 2 cups-worth of water in the kettle to make two cups of tea, you wouldn't be boiling any water you didn't need, making each cup more energy efficient. Skittle 12:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but why don't they know which things waste power ? Because there isn't much incentive to find out. Yes, they could save a few dollars a month, but that hardly seems worth the trouble. If they could save (or lose) hundreds of dollars each month, then it would be worth the effort to figure out how to save energy. StuRat 17:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well the article I linked to notes that in the Uk we lose up to around 8% of our electricity just transporting it from North (where most power stations are located) to South. If we could reduce that in any meaningful way that would have a huge impact at the source. The problem with raising the price of electricity/power through taxation is that it could have many negative impacts (a 10% increase in electricity costs to a low-power business like an office block would be much smaller than a 10% increase in electricity costs for a power-intensive business - or for those on low pay compared to those on high). Improve the efficiency of new models coming out, promote the reduction of waste and even contemplate slapping a purchase-tax on things that are less-energy efficient than they could (realistically) be. That's how i'd see improvements in waste being reduced. Cars are becoming more efficient, and whilst you might not use the car to move X everyday that doesn't mean that the extra power/ability is necessarily waste just because Mpg is lower than could be achieved on a smaller/lower power car (if this were justification one could say that larger-tvs are wasters of energy since smaller tvs do the same job, or that faster more energy intensive computers are because they do the same job as a slower/lower power one etc. etc. ad infinitum) ny156uk 23:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And many of those things are true. Most computers are never used at anything like full capacity. You can do email, surf the web, fill out forms and edit documents just as well on a 300MHz PC as on a 3GHz machine. A 300MHz PC can be run on a tiny fraction of the power of a full-up machine. It's not necessarily true of TV's though - large flat panel TV's that use LCD panels are probably quite a bit cheaper to run than old fashioned small screen cathode-ray-tube TV's.

Increasing the price of energy through taxation doesn't have to be so bad - the government gets more income - and as a result can reduce taxes on everything else. The net cost to the economy can be zero. You simply want to focus people's minds on saving energy in order to cut their outlay rather than taxing them on (say) income tax. SteveBaker 02:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the price rise would be a whole lot more than 10% to have a sufficiently strong effect, because what is most needed is that people are aware of how much power something consumes. Price mechanisms (the whole free market thing) only work in as far as people buy rationally, but as long as they don't know and frankly don't care, there will be little basis for rational behaviour. About this hitting lower incomes harder, we could change the price with consumption, a variation on rationing - after all, we're dealing with a scarcity. These things make people think about their energy consumption and that is a basic requirement here. Slapping a purchase tax on high-consumption goods is a good idea, in line with what I said above, and that is indeed done with some of the bigger electrical appliances in the Netherlands (or a subsidy for lower-consumption goods or both, something like that). And there is talk about doing something similar with cars. Nijmegen has already started charging extra for parking a SUV. DirkvdM 06:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing the "people not knowing" thing is something government could easily tackle - requring companies to put labels on products is what they do best! So a little 2"x2" swing-tag next to the mains plug or on-off switch that gave the wattage - perhaps colour coded (eg blue= 40w or less, green=200w or less....red=2000w or more) - backed with a TV ad campaign showing how much you can save by buying blue-tag appliances.

I agree that a 10% energy tax wouldn't cut it - it needs something on the scale of gasoline taxes in the UK to make a dent (something close to 100% I believe). The tax has to happen suddenly - so it makes a MASSIVE impact on people. You can't gradually ramp it up 1% at a time because people won't notice it. The tax doesn't have to impact poor people - the government would get a HUGE income from this tax - they can (indeed, must) spend it in ways that will redress the balance...things like a negative income tax rate for the poorest people and reduced income tax for everyone else - including big businesses and increasing grant money to local government. The net economic effect on the day the tax kicks in should be close to zero. The idea isn't to take more money from people - the idea is to make them more able to justify energy-saving behaviors when to do so will inconvenience them or cost them money - handing them money in the form of reduced income taxes will help them to do that.

A one-time tax on electrical appliances is dangerous. Firstly, it doesn't encourage people with horribly wasteful equipment to upgrade to more efficient equipment - and actually it makes it LESS likely people will switch out an inefficient appliance for a better one because the better one now has a tax on it. Secondly, it's not just the initial cost of the appliance. Making a 100w lightbulb cost more than a 7w CFL is useful - but getting people to turn off their lights when they don't need them is also important - taxing the bulb isn't going to do that - taxing the electricity is. Here in the USA, major appliances have pretty decent labelling that shows you how efficient this unit is compared to others like it - and indicating how much it will typically cost to run the thing over the course of a year. I found this to be rather BAD news. I'd look at an energy efficient refrigerator - costing (say) $100 more than the regular one - and I'd be able to see from the label that it's only going to save me $20 per year in electricity. So I'd figure that it's going to take 5 years to pay for itself - and that buying the cheaper, inefficient model and investing that $100 would be a smarter deal!

SteveBaker 14:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of this turning into a thread...A sudden increase in tax on a product would be disasterous, marginally less so if good forewarning was given. You would need to allow people to prepare for the move towards higher tax. Tax on fuel in the UK has steadily driven upwards over a sustained period of years. This had the effect of giving people incentives to move away from the less efficient towards the more efficient. I agre (in principle) that energy waste taxes would need to financially 'impact' on people, but it is about striking the balance. We need to incentivise the people to change, not force them to. Individuals do not like to be forced to do things, but if you frame it cleverly you can often give them the impression that they are choosing themselves to change. Suddenly doubling the price doesn't promote change, it demands it. Much better to move it up 5/10% a year over a sustained period. This way there is a slope allowing people to A) move towards efficiency in a realistic timescale and B) See that the government is interested in changing the culture of electricity/power usage and is not just 'taxing the public' in the aid of the current cause. Anyhoo kinda off topic from the original question - but that's ok. ny156uk 16:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that any tax aimed at conserving energy should be implemented slowly. In the US, for example, I would support increasing gasoline taxes by $0.01 per week, for 10 years, until they reach $5.20. This would ensure that new car purchases would all be fuel-efficient vehicles, but would not cause people to go out and scrap their current cars and buy new ones (which would be very bad for the environment). StuRat 18:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are two goals here.

To get people to buy fuel efficient cars (without scrapping the ones they have now), you just pass a law to make it illegal to sell cars that do less than X mpg - and steadily increase X over time. In theory, the US government already does that with the CAFE law. The trouble is that (a) it only requires the AVERAGE consumption to meet the law and (b) A 'truck' weighing over 8,500 lbs is exempt from the law (meaning all of the big gas guzzlers) - oh and (c) the MPG number is not pushed up according to the needs of the community - it's negotiated with the car companies.

To get people to use their cars less. Providing better public transport is very tough because people LIKE cars and they don't like waiting at rainy bus stops. The problem is always "the last mile" - how do you get people from office to train station and train station to front door. But this is just as important as improving MPG numbers - so we have to encourage people (even the ones with fuel efficient cars) to actually go one step further and leave the thing in the garage more. For that, we need gasoline prices to go up - and to ban cars from city centers (which forces you to take public transport for the last mile anyway - so trains become more useful) - and to do all sorts of other unpopular things.

Other than for political reasons, there is no need to do this gradually "so people can prepare for it". If we arrange that for the vast majority of people, the extra $100 they'll be spending on gasoline each month is balanced by a $100 income tax reduction - then on the day the tax kicks in, nobody is significantly worse off. No need for them to 'prepare' - it's simply that instead of giving the money to the tax man directly - you do it via the filling station - nobody wins (much), nobody loses (much). Then, people will look at the $6 per gallon fuel prices and realise that they can do better by using less gas. Some people will go out and buy new cars in order to make that happen - but their old cars will get sold to people with even older cars - and so on down the chain until the really nasty old 'clunkers' drop off the bottom of the chain and onto the scrapheap. Those are the problem cars. Even a big SUV isn't so terrible when it's brand new and actually getting the 26mpg it claims. The problem is when it's old, hasn't been serviced for three years and has 150,000 miles on the clock - because then it's getting more like 15mpg. It's not that society replaced a 26mpg car with a 40mpg car - overall, we replaced a 15mpg car with a 40mpg car. As more people cut back on consumption, the gasoline tax has to increase to keep the government books balanced - but you need to do that anyway to keep people looking for savings - and to make them feel good about the savings they already made. SteveBaker 00:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Doing unpopular things is what this needs - and government doesn't like doing unpopular things because it gets you kicked out of office and replaced by more popular people who don't mind killing the planet. SteveBaker 00:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite. In a 100% rational world a $100 extra cost of fuel to $100 reduction in taxes would result in a loss of 0...This is working on the assumption that you can match up millions of people's fuel consumption to reduced tax...If I earn 15k and drive 25,000 miles a year no amount of reduction in my already modest tax-bill would make up for the increased cost. Government can do unpopular things, what it cannot do is things that will be reject outright unanimously. Vehicle wise we have to be realistic about this. Cars are perhaps not the best focus of our attention - since movement of goods/people is more important than virtually anthing in the economy. Perhaps, instead, we should focus on the areas we can make the most impact at the least cost (financial and otherwise). Pricing people off the road doesn't solve the problem, because people will allow car-ownership to take up a vastly higher proportion of their income than much else (a car gives people freedom far beyond any other product they can buy). The pressing issue of climate-change will bring about a lot of difficult debates in the future and certainly fuel-efficiency is one of the areas we can make an impact, but I don't believe that rapid tax increases/mpg requirements for new vehicles are plausible solutions...Now long, manageable increases coupled with vehicle-class based mpg purchase-tax/road-tax pricing - that's workable solutions to me. ny156uk 20:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning public transport, I've been thinking about that a lot over the last decade and I've come to the conclusion it can't be the solution. You've either got that 'last mile' and switching between lines or it gets too expensive for everyday use. Like with a taxi. Well-organised taxi-sharing could be a good compromise - if this would be used extensively then there would be enough taxis to get one arrive at your front door (or wherever) within a minute. But you would still miss the privacy and have to make detours to pick up and drop off people.

A better idea would be to quickly develop driverless car techniques like automated highway system and autonomous cruise control system. Of which VaMP is an extreme example. But the basic idea is to have cars drive bumper-to-bumper. That itself would already reduce fuel consumption by about 40%. But because it uses roads more efficiently, it will also largely solve the traffic congestion problem, which is another major cause of fuel waste. And it is something that people will be more than willing to cooperate with. This is relatively simple to do on highways, where the congestion problem is often biggest. It would take some more time to make it safe to use in built-up areas, but once that works too, we've got the best of both worlds. Also, cars driving in blocks will make it easier to implement phased traffic lights. A promising initiative is the DARPA Grand Challenge, which was won by my favourite, Stanley, in 2005. The next challenge will be to have the car drive though an urban environment. This will be held on 3 November 2007, so in about a month. I hope coverage on tv will be as good as last time (one of the most exciting races I have ever seen).

Of course, also using more fuel-efficient cars would reduce emissions even more. But public transport is not the answer. Getting people to use that will take more effort than developing the technologies I mentioned. DirkvdM 08:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah - it's certainly a problem. Packing cars closer together and automatically driving them will cut accidents and reduce congestion - but I'm skeptical about actual fuel savings - and the technology is a LONG way from being ready. There are also legal liability problems with car trains and auto-drive cars that are going to make them tough to deploy. It think we're just going to have to keep on beating on fuel efficiency for cars. There is no good reason why every car shouldn't do 40mpg today. With a few years of intense research effort, I have no doubt that 60 to 80mpg can be done. Switching over to plant-based ethanol is a really nice medium-term solution - it's CO2 neutral and with a little research can be produced pretty much anywhere plants will grow. Long term is hydrogen - which you can make using electricity - which you can get from nuclear/fusion/wave/wind/hydro/solar/biomass/geothermal...whatever. SteveBaker 02:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've read that 40% savings figure somewhere and it sounds quite plausible. Ever ridden a bike in the slipstream of a car? It makes a huge difference. You actually even get 'sucked in' a bit, it seems. Move back a few metres and the effect is gone. Cars on a busy highway usually leave about 10 m space between them, so they each get the full 'blast' of the wind (or how should I say that?).

And as for safety, that distance is about the most dangerous one one can have. Best is some 20 metres or more (or thereabouts - it also depends on the speed and road conditions). Move closer and when the car in front of you suddenly brakes, the chance increases that you will hit the brakes too late and hit it. Move closer still and you'll hit it harder. Up to a point. If you're bumper to bumper, you'll hit the car before it has started to decelerate much, so you won't hit it very hard. So that is actually the second best distance. Somewhere between 0 (or 1) and 20 metes lies the most dangerous distance and I once heard that that is a very popular distance on busy highways. Of course, until you start braking, the car in front will have to brake for two cars, making the distance covered until it stops longer, which means a danger for whatever it is hitting the breaks for greater. But on a highway, accidents are usually not the result of something else on the road. There are just cars. So if they all 'play at this game', there should not be a problem. The cars form little 'trains', resulting in more space, so the 'trains' can keep a sufficiently safe distance between them. When they can't anymore, the two trains unite into one train.

This is the simplest form - no added technology. Of course, one could let the cars speak to each other, so that when one car hits the breaks, all cars will do so and they all come a standstill at the same time. Well, of course not as perfect as that, because different cars will react differently and synchronising them perfectly won't be easy. But even without this added, it will be safer than the distances cars keep now on busy roads. So it should only be allowed on busy roads, where the effect on safety and energy savings will be greatest. One could also limit it to the left lane (or right lane in Britain), so people whom this makes nervous will not have to participate. People do this a lot already, and if no-one gets nervous and everyone wants to participate then people will be quite able to do this safely. It's the agitation (such as over bumper to bumper driving) and different driving styles that cause a lot of accidents. In this system, people are forced (voluntarily) to drive at a constant speed. And I suspect that therein lies another energy saver. More constant driving will improve safety and efficiency.

So even if there is any added technology, the car doesn't need to take over completely, just a little bit, and that is very easy to do. But it can be simpler still. Just let the cars lock in physically, possibly with something like what real trains use. That should be easy to develop, although it would be more expensive to implement. Several hundred euro per car at least, but the fuel savings will pay that back very quickly.

This is pretty much like public transport - the cars form trains with private compartments. But those compartments can split off and go their own way whenever they want to, like ordinary cars. That's what I meant with 'best of both worlds'. Much of the safety and energy savings of a train plus the freedom of a private car. This should be very easy to 'sell' to voters, especially when it's just an option for left lane drivers. So what's stopping us? Let's start a political party. :) DirkvdM 07:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Technologically, you're quite right - but what happens if someone negligantly fails to maintain his car - so it has defective sensors or a broken antenna on the inter-car radio or something? There is an accident as a result and 20 more cars suffer the same fate. The front car was essentially "in control" of all of the others. If the lead car is being driven by a computer - that's one complicated situation - if it's being controlled (in any way whatever) by the lead driver...then that one person becomes responsible for the lives of everyone else. There are a lot of drivers out there who I wouldn't trust my life to - think "Drunk 18 year old crashes 100 car 'train' - news at 10." !! Legally, morally, societally and from an insurance point of view...it's a minefield. The thing has to be 100% automated or it won't work - and the ownership and maintenance of the automation can't be left up to the individual or people won't trust it. SteveBaker 16:52, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Read back what you wrote and think of the present situation - just about everything you said already applies to cars right now. No wonder it's the major case of deaths under 40 (in the West at least). We already accept a high death toll on the roads. But you're right, if something new causes deaths that may lead to a public outrage (then again, in the seventies when the death toll was about three or four times as high as it is now, there was no such outrage either). But note that my proposal in its simplest form requires no technology that could fail. Bumper-to-bumper driving is already done quite often now, except that it's done in an irritating fashion. If it is done with the consent of all participants (just in the left lane), people will (at least in the beginning!) be extra 'on their guard'. And if it helps reduce traffic jams, which is something everyone wants real bad, then people might be quite willing to accept an accident. If on top of that, the average death toll will go down, as I assume it will, then people will be easily won over. Especially if an 'extra bonus' is that they use much less fuel and thus save money (and the planet - as if they really care (sorry about the realism)).

I don't see a moral problem here. The insurance thing might indeed be a problem, not sure, but is the present situation any different? When you hit the road you already take a risk putting your life in the hands of other people. legally, there probably won't be a problem. It's just a matter of not enforcing a traffic rule (no bumper-to-bumper driving) on left lanes on certain highways. This could easily be done as an experiment on one road. If people are sufficiently prepared for it there will probably be enough people willing to participate and try to make the best of it. So the death toll is likely to go down there and as a result people will be eager to participate elsewhere.

Btw, the trains will probably not be 100 cars long - at least not in the beginning. Cars will take up about half the space they do now on a busy road (at least one car will fit between two cars at a distance of 10 m). People will look at which car is closest - the one in front or the one behind them, and move towards that. When 10 car clusters are formed, the distance between the will be the space they took up before (10 x (10 + 5) = 150 m) minus the space they take up now (10 x (1 + 5) = 60 m), so that's 150 - 60 = 90 m. At that distance, two trains are not likely to join, so trains will not become much longer than 10 cars. DirkvdM 18:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ice and water density

If ice is less dense than water how come most of an iceberg is underwater —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mheaver (talk • contribs) 15:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a look at the iceberg article you can find the answer to this in the second paragraph. Lanfear's Bane 15:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

If it was more dense than water it would be entirely underwater..in fact, it would be sitting on the bottom of the ocean. SteveBaker 18:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is true for lots of things, not just icebergs. If a human is less dense than water how come most of the human is underwater? Please see Displacement (fluid) and buoyancy. -Arch dude 00:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason is that ice is just a little bit less dense than water (somewhere around 10%). So only that amount sticks above water. If ice was much less dense than water, like air is, then it would be almost entirely above the water, as air is. StuRat 02:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the reason for that is that ice is a solid. A fluid (or a gas, for that matter) with the density of ice would spread out to form a layer on top of the water. But an iceberg is a lump, so it can't do that and partly sticks down in the water. DirkvdM 17:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a factor, too, but so is the density. If ice had the density of air, it would float up and out of the water entirely. StuRat 17:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Technically true, but open to misinterpretation. A solid body with the exact same density as air will be neutrally buoyant with respect to air, and will neither fall nor rise when it's surrounded by air. It doesn't need to be sitting on or in the surface of the water—it will float just fine in the air itself. Indeed, you can look at the atmosphere itself as 'floating' on the surface of the water, the much-less-dense fluid on top of the much-more-dense one. By Archimedes' principle, any solid body placed on the water will sink until it displaces a mass of water equal to the body's own mass. (This doesn't take into account the usually-negligible buoyancy due to the air dispalced by the body.)

There's a minor caveat to Dirk's point about liquids on water. What he says is absolutely true to a reasonable first approximation. If you take a cup of water, and pour a goodly amount of vegetable on top, you'll see that the oil forms a uniform layer on top of the water, exactly as described. On the other hand, if you instead add only a drop or two of oil to the cup, the oil's own surface tension will tend to hold the drop to a finite size. In that case, the oil drop will settle such that a certain amount of it does sit up above the water's surface, just as Archimedes' principle demands. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And it will press down the water a bit, compared to the oil-free water surrounding the oily spot, so it will also be (ever so) slightly submerged. Point taken. DirkvdM 06:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

San Francisco Bay area

I am curious to know the perimeter of San Francisco area Bay. I would be grateful if somebody answer this question.

Andres del Rio Madrid Spain

(ae-mail removed)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.24.47.162 (talk) 15:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our San Francisco Bay Area article may be helpful, but basically, the Bay Area is all of the counties that touch the bay.

Atlant 15:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By perimeter, I think he means the distance of the bay's coastline, rather than the counties around the bay. Neil ム 16:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This question is fraught with difficulties. Apart from the basic problem that lengths of coastlines are not well-defined, there is also (according to San Francisco Bay) no general agreement on which areas actually constitute the bay. As a result, you should expect any figures you find to differ by large margins. Algebraist 17:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How can i find my article or did it get deleted?

I asked for information on rebus puzzles to find out where I can see more of them and what thier most comonly known as (I used an example of a picture with "dog" and an underscore seperating it from "flying" with flying being below "dog" and the underscore meaning "flying under dog"). now i cant find my artical so that i can read if thier we're any more responces.

how can i find my artical or did it get deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.140.46.245 (talk) 16:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The contents of the reference desks get archived regularly; your question is here. If you click on the "Archives" link at the top of the page (right side, under Topics) there should be instructions on how to format a search string to help you find things in the Archives. --LarryMac | Talk 16:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

US Zipcode enclaves?

Are there any US Zipcodes which are entirely enclosed by a single zip code? Or are all US zipcodes defined as simple polygons? Donald Hosek 18:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on zip codes notes: "Despite the geographic derivation of most ZIP codes, the codes themselves do not represent geographic regions; they generally correspond to address groups or delivery routes. Consequently, ZIP Code "areas" can overlap, be subsets of each other, or be artificial constructs with no geographic area. Similarly, in areas without regular postal routes (rural route areas) or no mail delivery (undeveloped areas), ZIP Codes are not assigned or are based on sparse delivery routes, and hence the boundary between ZIP code areas is undefined." It also mentions schools, government buildings and businesses which have there own zip codes. Rmhermen 19:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting place to explore zip code layout is at: [4]. Since, as Rmhermen mentioned, the codes don't describe geographic areas, you'll just see a dot as you zoom in. jeﬀjon 20:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This may not be the type of information that you're looking for but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. There are people who have two zip codes. Take me for example. The town that I live in has a post office and we have our own zip code. However, the town post office does not employ any mail carriers. So the only people that get mail through our zip code are those who have a post office box in the post office. All other residents of my town get their mail through the surrounding towns. So, while I live in one town, my mail is addressed to another town with a seperate zip code and their mail carrier comes outside of that zip code to deliver my mail to me. While everyone has a physical address and a mailing address, mine have the same house number and street but seperate towns and zip codes. Dismas|^(talk) 05:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not relevant to the question because I'm not in the USA, but your experience is spookily close to my own, Dismas. I live in a place that is too small to have its own post office, the nearest one being in a town 12 minutes drive away (A) - it too doesn't employ its own mail carriers, but I could choose to have a private box there if I wanted. The post office that actually services me (in a manner of speaking) and delivers my mail is in a different town 20 minutes drive away (B). So my postcode (that's Oz-speak for zip code) is the same as town B's but different from that of the closer town A, and if I have to collect any mail that's too big to fit in my letter box, I've got to go to town B. Such is rural life. -- JackofOz 04:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the original question, yes, there are US zip codes that are entirely surrounded by another zip code. The most common case is the one described by Dismas, in which a given zip code applies only to a single building, typically a post office with boxes, surrounded by a delivery district with a separate zip code. However, there are other buildings that may have their own zip codes. For example, the headquarters of Citibank, in New York City, has its own zip code: 10043. However, there are also delivery areas of more than one building with one zip code completely surrounded by delivery areas with another zip code. For example, Burnham, PA (17009) is completely surrounded by Lewistown (17044). Marco polo 20:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Until this last response, I didn't understand the question fully. And yes, there are many examples of this. The World Trade Center used to have a single zip code of its own. Dismas|^(talk) 17:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed once that the White House had its own zipcode, the Capitol two and The Pentagon four – whups, now six. —Tamfang 04:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 26

foul language

I would like to use the panama canal article in my fifth grade class tomorrow but there is a foul headline on the article. How do I clear that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.88.79 (talk) 00:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was some vandalism on that page, yes. Another alert editor has cleared it, so you should be ok now. Arakunem 00:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the future, hit the "history" tab at the top and you can see a list of recent edits and compare them. If the vandalism was the most recent edit, you can hit 'undo'. For more information check out the tutorial. --Masamage ♫ 01:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can also link to a particular version of the Panama Canal article. The following link will take you to the now current version, but you will not see any changes, whether improvements or vandalism, when the article is subsequently changed: [5]. This might be a safer way to go when bringing kids to the site, so you can be sure, once you find a good version, that this is the version your students will see. StuRat 01:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since all Wikipedia articles are GFDL, you may copy the clean version of the article you want onto another web site (such as your school's web site.) Just put a brief attribution on your copy. That way you need not worry about subsequent edits at Wikipedia, or about your students clicking on links that go to other vandalized pages. Of course, if the kids use the internet at all, they already know about Wikipedia and they spend a fair amount of time here satisfying their curiosity, and some of them have probably done some minor exploratory vandalism as most new young users seem to. But if you make your own copy, at least you will not get yelled at by the parents. -Arch dude 17:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correct method of delivering a punch

What is the correct method of delivering a punch with one's fist? Correct in respect to maximizing punching power, speed and one that is the least harmful to one's joints and wrists. Which knuckles should be making contact with the target? Should the hand be horizontal like in boxing or vertical like in Jeet Kune Do?Thanks. Acceptable 00:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thumbs outside the fists. --Masamage ♫ 01:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Roll your fingers into your palm and keep the fist tight. Put your thumb on the outside just above the first knuckle of your fingers. The part of the fist that makes contact should be between the second and third knuckles of your fingers. Aim for a spot about an inch or two behind where you will make contact. Basically don't dive into the punch too much or you may become off balance and limit the amount of time that you have to recoil your arm and be ready for either another punch or a block from an opponent. Dismas|^(talk) 01:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep your elbow bent even at full extension. If you straighten your arm out completely, then if the punch doesn't end the fight, you've left yourself wide open for a broken elbow. --Carnildo 19:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if WP is going to be sued by whoever Acceptable beats up? ;) FiggyBee 05:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming good faith is one thing, assuming a Wikipedian will win a fist fight is another ;p Neil ム 08:19, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well if that is the case,then we want full details of Acceptable's adversary. Some of us might want to put a bet on and we can't do that without being able to study the form :) Lemon martini 11:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would be an entertaining way to resolve edit wars, anyway. :P FiggyBee 15:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget the kiai!!!, very important. Also, see our article: punch for more info/variations. 38.112.225.84 14:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The puncher has, which violates the brawlers principle of AGF (assume good fighting). One time-honored version of this is to say "I'll give you to the count of three to (give me the candy bar, get your hand off my girlfriend, hand me the videogame controller, whatever)." Then at the count of "Two," when the person is relaxed in anticipation of having another whole count, you hit him, hopefully with a punch which ends the fight. Note: This will enrage the victim. Edison 15:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, the least painful way, for both sides, is not to hit at all. Btw, is this a pre-medical question? We can't tell people how to treat an injury, but we can tell them how to cause one? DirkvdM 18:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

<ObJossWhedon> "They tell you never hit a man with a closed fist, but it is on occasion hilarious." —Tamfang 04:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

whats the name of this flower

hello, i need to know whats the latin or popular name of this mediteranen scented flower, http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560459385CTMXiy i checked the flowers list but its too big and didnt find it....any help? thank you. hadi from lebanon [email address redacted] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.142.49.220 (talk) 08:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to be a cultivar of Jasminum sambac [6] --Melburnian 09:17, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

^{email address removed — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 10:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)}[reply]

Melbourne to Hawaii travel time

How many hours does it take to fly from Melbourne to Hawaii and vice-versa? --124.254.77.148 09:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

roughly 16-17 hours is what I got when I went to expedia.com and put in Melbourne to Hawaii, that was the big island, and I clicked direct flights. No idea if you mean as the crow flies. Dureo 09:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

edit conflict That will depend on your route; for example, if you can find a direct flight it will be quicker than a flight via Sydney. It will also depend on the airline. Can I suggest you check the airline's websites. For example a quick check on the Qantas site returned a relatively rare direct flight taking 10½ hours, but the far more common flights via Sydney taking anywhere from just over 12hrs to 19hrs. --jjron 09:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Typhoon in Hong Kong

Where can I find out about the typhoon that badly damaged Hong Kong around Christmas-time 1936? Jasper33 15:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This should have the info you want, but I have trouble opening the PDF file: [7]. StuRat 15:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh thanks for that - very useful. Jasper33 15:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 27

U.S. Census deffinition of a city

Im trying to find the deffinition of a city according to the U.S. Census bureau. I've looked on their website and tryed googling it, but havnt had any luck. --ChesterMarcol 00:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does the US Census bureau use its own blanket definitions for any purpose? My understanding of it was that the legal designation of "city", "town", "village", whatever, was handled at the state level, not the federal level, and that they are not mutually compatible categories. Most things I have seen by the census contain self-defining tites like "Population Estimates for Cities with Populations of 100,000 and Greater", where the definition of "city" is not important. --24.147.86.187 00:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Census Bureau does define "place". See http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/glossry2.pdf —Nricardo 01:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Thanks, I guess that will have to work.--ChesterMarcol 01:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The term "city" really has nothing to do with population. Whether a place is a "city" or a "borough" or a "town" or what-have-you is mostly determined by the type of government it has. And to complicate matters, those definitions differ from state to state. — Michael J 02:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MURDER!! or something like that...

sorry, just had to get you're attention (I know the rules about no yelling) ^_^ There's this book (I THOUGHT it was called son of a mobster or something like that, but I doubt it.) The main person is a boy whose father is in the mob (or was it a girl whose father was in a mob? can't remember), but he/she fell in love with someone whose father was in the police or something like that. They couldn't be together until the end, but they always tried to be with eachother during the whole of the book- they snuck around their parents, I think. Any ideas what it could be? I've looked around forever, but I can't find it. I read it a couple of years ago. Thanks in advance! --PolarWolf ( sign ) 03:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about "Son of the Mob" by Gordon Korman? "Romance between daughter of FBI & son of Mafia" [8] Lazyquasar 04:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC) p.s. If that is correct it should be worth at least an attaboy if not a google barnstar. 8)[reply]

Okay, Thanks! Thats the right book. I'd give you a google barnstar if I knew how, but this is all I can give you- Attaboy! ^_^ --PolarWolf ( sign ) 23:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IIR

What is the term IRR means in mortgage loan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gireesh.puthumana (talk • contribs) 10:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In finance it means internal rate of return. Lanfear's Bane 10:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statue of Virgin Mary

What is the ritual and steps for burying a statue of Mary in front yard to help sell your house? Is this a widely held belief? Does the church approve of this? Where did this belief evolve from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reno117 (talk • contribs) 11:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno but it seems to involve locating her in a partially-buried old-and-now-unneeded clawfoot bathtub for maximum effect; perhaps that's to keep God's holy rain from falling on her holy head and wetting her holy brown painted-on hair? More seriously, I've never heard of this having anything to do with real estate transactions, but adoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a common practice among Roman Catholics and I assume that some carry this as far as building shrines (of varying degrees of elaborateness) in or outside their homes. One person in my extended neighborhood has built a small mountain in their backyard and the entire thing is decorated as just such a shrine, with shiny things and candles, and it's all crowned by a BVM-in-a-bathtub.

Atlant 11:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of this. As for the ritual, I suggest you ask your local priest to make sure you get it right. The church tends to encourage any rituals that honour the BVM; whether burying her in your front yard is a respectful thing to do is another matter. I think we can safely say that it is not a widely held belief. As for where the belief comes from, it would seem that we are in the realms of superstition, and that investment in a few pots of paint would probably be more effective in making your property more saleable. At least, that's what they tell us on all those TV programmes.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Saint Joseph, not Mary. Snopes has a good write-up. --LarryMac | Talk 13:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Sacramento Bee did an article on this just a week or so ago, but I don't have the paper and I can't find it on their website, but it was definitely a statue of the Virgin Mary, and it has something to do with whether you bury her feet up or feet down. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to the article, and sorry I can't find it. Corvus cornix 18:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a couple of news reports about buring St. Joseph statues -- [9], [10]. Corvus cornix 18:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, it is St. Joseph in the Sac Bee story as well. The story just mentions the BVM because he was her husband. Anxious sellers put faith in icons by Jim Wasserman. Published September 19, 2007. Crypticfirefly 18:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that I didn't say "buried". She's a statue and she's in the normal standing-erect position. The bathtub is positioned vertically to create a sort of niche or grotto around her. I don't see an obvious picture in Commons, but this sort of thing is very common in Catholic areas of New England. Now, in retrospect, I guess the original questioner was asking about a different myth.

Atlant 19:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good God! We do have an article on everything: Bathtub madonna. (It came up as the first link when I did a Google Image search for blessed virgin mary statue tub yard.) —Nricardo 06:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Page numbers and ref macro

How can I use the <ref> macro to make several different references to different sources, without having to repeat the full citation for each reference?

Jpalme 11:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are talking about the info you can see on WP:FOOTNOTES, but the question didn't come out right. If the sources are different you will need to make a full citation for each, it's only when they are partly the same that you can use part of an earlier citation. Use {{refbegin}} and {{refend}} to cite the main work in the reference sections and use the ref-tags to cite specific editions/pages referring back to the book by naming just the author. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gold rush

Clicking the above edit link will send you to a subpage of my userspace, so I don't lose this thing in the archives.

I remember editing an article about some American creek that has a significant connection to one of the gold rushes; if I remember it was the place where a find was made that intiated one. Unfortunately, the toolserver is down and because I did only a minor edit, I don't think I recorded it on my userpage. Can anyone help me track down the article I'm looking for? In case someone can do a query on my edits, I'm pretty sure the title of the page includes the word "Creek" - Mgm|^(talk) 11:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only mainspace edits I can find by you to articles including the word "creek" in the title are to Bull Creek (a dab page), and Treaty of Buffalo Creek (a treaty with the Native Americans). DuncanHill 13:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might be thinking of Sutter Creek, California, which was founded by the owner of Sutter's Mill, where the California Gold Rush started. --LarryMac | Talk 13:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- A huge western migration occurred in America with the discovery of gold by James Marshall at Sutter's Mill on the American River, on January 24, 1848. Due to the length of time for communication to travel across country, time to travel across country or around South America (which took months or near a year) to the West Coast of California, the "Gold Rush" occurred mainly in 1849, thus the term, "49ers", or "forty-niners".

I don't think there's any article for "creek" which initiated a gold rush. I am aware that gold was actually discovered earlier than Marshall's find in southern California, I believe near Los Angeles. Little happened with people going there to find gold.

Try a search for California gold rush, forty-niners, California Mother Lode, State of California website, James Marshall, and Coloma State Park (I think) where the original Sutter's Mill was.

By the way, it's said that only about an estimated 20% has been found in the "Mother Lode" area of Califoria. Good luck....very interesting history to be learned regarding many aspects of the gold rush, migration, and peoples experiences.

There's also Rock Creek Gold Rush, Gold Creek (Montana), Cripple Creek, Colorado, the Klondike Gold Rush which started in rabbit creek. This google search is your friend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tagishsimon (talk • contribs) 19:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, thanks for the effort guys... Not sure if it's in there, but I will definitely go through the lot. Good thing I have a script that highlights my name in edit histories. Would it help if I said I found info about the place in the first book of an print version of EB? - Mgm|^(talk) 17:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Life

Do any ov you people who use this site n ansa questions have anyfing else 2 do?? or are u all locked away in ur lil room w8in 4 ya mumy 2 bring u milk n cookies?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 12:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well I can't speak for other people, but I do lots of other things. Answering questions is a lot more useful to people than vandalism.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I for one would welcome milk & cookies. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yeah! You didn't know about the Ref Desk free Milk and Cookies scheme? Come on over! I think we still have a few of the oatmeal & raisin ones left.

But seriously - for me, it gives me a good mental work-out each day. To answer questions you have to wrack your brains, test your Google/Wiki search skills, read articles about things you'd never think about reading otherwise - and to a HUGE extent, we teach each other. It doesn't actually consume all that much time - and the payback is more than worth the effort. SteveBaker 14:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe people who use words like "n", "ansa", "anyfing", "2", "u", "ur", "lil", "w8in", "4" or "ya" have even less of a life than I do. Me, I lock myself in my own apartment whose rent I pay all by myself and prepare for an evening with beer, cookies and Wikipedia. JIP | Talk 17:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beer and cookies? Oh you are SICK! Please don't tell us whether you dunk them or nor...I really don't want to know that. Repeat after me: Beer & Pizza, Milk & Cookies, Vodka & Caviar, Red Wine & Stilton, Coffee & Doughnuts, Tea & Digestive biscuits, Cocoa & Hobnobs. There are no other allowed combinations - period. :-) SteveBaker 20:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't dispute that those combinations will almost invariably 'work', but for those who are willing to take risks, beer and cookies can be done! A dark chocolate chip cookie would probably work with a stout or a porter (particularly with a coffee porter). I've had some nut brown ales that have a bit of sweetness to them that would also go well with some (nut and or chocolate) cookies. See (for example) this page which describes some other beer-snack pairings. This page has some general guidelines. Bon appetit! TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You know, original questioner, with your edit history, you might do better than to draw attention to yourself.

Atlant 19:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Steve, you forgot Skittlebrau. Lanfear's Bane 08:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm disabled and pretty much locked in my room.My friends bring me beer and food for my cats. I do this for about 1/2 hr a day then do lots of other things.I have the world at my fingertips and a lively mind.I consider that I have a great life.--hotclaws 09:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So this is why its called the Miscellaneous desk..... Think outside the box 14:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bible please ansa!!

Is their actualy any proof off anything that happened in the bible?? how do we know who ever wrote it didnt make it up? this is a serious question so please no religious people saying that it happened because of god or anything like that, is their any factual truth?? cheers for your time x —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 12:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot of stuff in the Bible, so that is a huge question. You might like to start by reading our excellent article on The Bible and history. If you want to know more about specific events, feel free to ask for more details.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some parts are thoroughly proven, like that there was a Jewish state in roughly the same position as the current Israel. There's plenty of archaeological evidence for this. Other parts are thoroughly disproven, like that the world was created in 7 days. Then there's lot of grey area, like whether Jesus existed (I'd guess that he did) or whether the Red Sea parted (I'd say it didn't). Unfortunately, it was the tendency at the time to mix fact and fiction, making it impossible to know which parts are which. We had similar problems with the Iliad, which was assumed to be pure fiction until archaeological evidence emerged of the city of Troy having been destroyed by fire at approximately the right date. StuRat 13:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm.. well I wouldn't say creation has been "thoroughly disproven"- in fact I'd say it hasn't been, and physics has been rather leaning toward uncertainty on this matter. There's no reason to assume that our current laws of physics were operating in the universe's early history (possibly no laws of conservation to keep the universe from popping into existance), and such things can't just be assumed. There's currently no way to tell what the universe was like, since the uncertainty principle (not to mention quantum theory) prevents us from tracing back through history with empirical means, and per David Hume's disproof of causality we cannot begin to guess what "caused" the "effect" of our current universe. Who knows what a "formless and void" universe acts like? Why shouldnt matter just appear and disappear? Leave the metaphysics to philosophers please. --⁪froth^t 18:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying that creation itself is disproven (after all, you could just claim that God created the Big Bang). I am, however, claiming that creation in 7 days (6 days, really), as laid out in the Bible, is thoroughly disproven. Even if you say that a "day" isn't necessarily a 24 hour period, you still can't use any fixed length of time, as some of the steps took billions of years and others only millions. The order of creation is also wrong. StuRat 13:52, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SORRY I WAS REALY REFERING TO MAINLY THE NEW TESTOMENT AND WHERE SUCH THINGS AS THE CRUCIFIXION HAD ANY TRUTH BEHIND THEM?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 13:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

then you want to read Historicity of Jesus, historical Jesus and Jesus Christ and mythology. Then you may want to go on and study Pre-Roman history of ancient Israel and Judah, Iudaea Province, Hellenistic Judaism, Origins of Christianity, Hellenistic religion and Hellenistic philosophy. This isn't a question that can be answered in a nutshell on Wikipedia Reference Desk, but if you want to learn more about it, you have come to the right place. You'll just need to take a couple of hours to dig into it. --dab (𒁳) 14:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unusual - I'm an atheist who actually read the bible from cover to cover (the "King James" edition). I didn't believe in god(s) beforehand and I certainly don't believe in them since - I just wanted to be informed about what all of these millions of christians are going on about.

Frankly, the book is a mess - it reads like it's been written by a drunken psychopath and if you believe it, you'd have to conclude that God is a dangerous lunatic who has nasty mood swings. He alternates between extreme violence, hatred of women, extreme bias towards the Isrealites - and being "Mr Nice Guy" - there is nothing consistent anywhere. The book contradicts itself - it does a really terrible job of promoting and explaining the religion. If I didn't already know, I'd never have guessed that modern christianity is based upon its "teachings".

In reading it, it's really very evident that many generations of religious leaders have tampered with it - adding their own layers of bias - changing words and phrases here and there without looking at the whole. The writing style changes a lot - even in the middle of a story.

Some of the big facts (that certain countries existed - that the Romans invaded Isreal) are undoubtedly true. Other entire stories (genesis, Noah's ark) are really obviously false. Most stories are so full of plot holes and contradictions that they just can't be true.

My favorite (and the story that most differs from what I heard before I actually read it) is the story of the 10 commandments. Moses leaves his tribe and is heading up the mountain to talk to God and get the 10 stone tablets. He's only away on this rather important mission for a couple of days - but his people unaccountably choose this exact moment to go nuts the moment his back is turned and start worshipping pagan gods (Why? Why now of all times? Do we really believe that after all that stuff with the plagues and the parting of the red seas that they'd seriously change their religion just because the boss stepped out for a while?). So when Moses comes back he has such a hissy-fit that he manages to smash all of the tablets (yes - the tablets that GOD GAVE HIM...you really would think he'd be a bit more careful). He then exacts extreme punishments of his people - most of which break many of the 10 commandments that God himself just dictated to him just the day before! So he has to go back to God and pick up another set of commandments - only the second lot are WAY different from the first ten?!?

This is so utterly weird that it leaves one wondering whether God has memory lapses or something. It's more like an episode from a cheap sitcom than it is the foundation of the beliefs of several hundred million people!

If you are even thinking of becoming a christian - I beg you - please read the book before you make a decision! I'm amazed at the number of people who claim to believe in the christian god who haven't read the all-important book from beginning to end - it's insanity. SteveBaker 14:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, the Bible does contain many different books, written by many different people, all with different views, politics, and agendas, so it would actually be amazing if it was consistent. StuRat 18:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do not start debates or post diatribes. The reference desk is not a soapbox. --LarryMac | Talk 15:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. That was a completely inappropriate use of this page. Lots of atheists read the Bible; so do lots of university professors, some of whom are very religious. Big deal. Answering the question doesn't require mud-slinging and self-promotion. --Masamage ♫ 00:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason to doubt that Jesus existed and was crucified. That was a common means of execution at the time and execution was quite typical for those who were thought to be "false profits". StuRat 18:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the questions asked, no, there is no hard proof that any of the events described in the New Testament actually happened. There is no documentary evidence of the existence of Jesus from the time that he supposedly lived. There is no Roman record of his crucifixion. The only sources for the existence of Jesus are the New Testament and a few historical references written years after he is supposed to have lived. So it is possible that he was a fictional figure. That said, there is no proof that Jesus did not exist, either. So he may have walked this Earth. Marco polo 19:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Skepticism is good, I try to apply it myself in daily life. On the other hand, it's important to understand the implications of radical skepticism. The evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus is, as I understand it, not bad as such things are usually judged. It seems substantially better than the evidence for the existence of Edwin of Deira or Harald Fairhair, for example. Bede, hardly an unbiased source, wrote about a century after Edwin's supposed death, and an extreme skeptic would dismiss the supposed Chronicle of Ireland material without second thought. Written evidence for Harald is even further removed from his presumed floruit. Strange to say, I've never seen anyone denying the historicity of Edwin or Harald. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is some identifiable history in the Gospels. The Roman occupation of Judea is well-known from other sources, as is the Roman practice of crucifixion. Josephus corroborates the existence of John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate and a number of king Herods, although his mentions of Jesus are, to say the least, suspicious - what, if anything, he originally said about him is unknown. The dating is inconsistent - Matthew places Jesus' birth in the reign of Herod the Great (died 4 BC), while Luke places it during Quirinius' governorship of Syria, which began in AD 6 - and the stories of Jesus' early life in these two gospels are contradictory. The Gospels certainly aren't reliable historical documents.

As a rejoinder to SteveBaker, I'm also an atheist, and I'd have to say the Old Testament is a lot more fun if you don't believe in it. --Nicknack009 12:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't use the Bible as a historical document for academic purposes, since it's not very supported by other verifiable documents, but I'm not so skeptical about the religion. God seems to act inconsistently between the Testaments, but he's God and he can do what he wants I suppose. Christianity's stories are no more bizarre than almost all other religions.. what's important though are the values and teachings of a religion. Jesus's teachings are widely regarded as the foundation for western morality --⁪froth^t 18:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Serious question (microwaved chocolate and the speed of light)

Is it possible to measure the speed of light useing a bar of chocolate IN a microwave?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 13:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly; see our article on the speed of light. Naturally, other instrumentation is required as well. — Lomn 13:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See also an experiment detailed here involving chocolate chips. — Lomn 13:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's pretty clever. --24.147.86.187 14:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Put the microwave in orbit around Jupiter and time its occultations (see Ole Rømer). Eat the chocolate. Gandalf61 13:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Forget the microwave, take the bar of chocolate to a physicist and say "I'll give you this bar of chocolate if you'll tell me the speed of light". :-) SteveBaker 19:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This question is answered in the London TIMES part 2 today--88.109.183.227 20:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

George W. Bush in underwear

Recently there was a story about regional newspaper in Russia, which experienced pressure from regional authorities after publishing collage of Putin wearing a Nazi suit [11]. Obviously, such setback on speech freedom is impossible in the United States. Could you, please, recall any publication in an U.S. newspaper, painting G.W. Bush in a Nazi suit, or silk underwear for a change? It's no damned joke, I really need it. Thank you in advance, ellol 15:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there was a recent magazine cover of Bush dressed as Saddam Hussein. As for Bush as a Nazi, you could probably find some rather unflattering drawings of him in Rolling Stone, which is one of the few "mainstream" publications that doesn't shy away at all from drawing rather offensive images of the president and members of Congress... --24.147.86.187 16:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Note, though, that "such a setback on speech freedom is impossible in the United States" is not completely true. I am not sure what you are defining as "pressure" here, but it is quite common in the U.S. for "regional authorities" to go apeshit whenever a publication does something that could be constrained as highly offensive, resulting in "pressure" being put to fire whomever was in charge, to withdraw advertising revenue, to issue public apologies, impromptu death threats, etc. While I would not equate such things immediately with Putin's suppression of free speech in Russia, I would point out that the U.S. is not a place where free speech is respected in a de facto way as much as it is respected in a strictly-legal way. We don't have a sedition act anymore but there are many ways to chill free speech other than throwing people into a gulag system.) --24.147.86.187 16:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. But, well, the first your link leads to a Canadian maganize. I think it doesn't count, as it's easy to blame leader of a foreign state, especially not the top world's popular one.

There's not exactly Gulag, just the newspaper will be closed if it publishes anything of that kind once more. What's bad, that goes under federal anti-extremism legislature. What's good is the story was viewed in a federal newspaper "Kommersant", and those journalists hadn't yet given up... ellol 16:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but Prince Harry caused a bit of a furore by wearing a swastika armband to a fancy dress party. The photo was originally published by The Sun, I think. A story on his apology is here, and there's loads more about it on the BBC News site. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 16:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would you settle for a picture of Jenna Bush exposing hers? (It's pretty widely available via Google.) They're a classy bunch, that gang from Crawford!

Atlant 19:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're not going to find Bush as Hitler in any reputable publication. Hitler stands for anti-Semitism in the USA, not Fascism. The symbol for megalomania is Napoleon. I looked through The Cartoonist Group up to page 67, and I found you a bunch of other cartoons of Bush in undignified garb or guise, but nothing as extreme as I think you want. Judge for yourself:

jester superhero drum major conquistador cowboy devil on shoulder of Hugo Chavez child wearing mouse ears king grease monkey octopus on Merkel dog ostrich superhero drum major plumber cowboy gauntlets dog Roman emperor --Milkbreath 19:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful. Both Prince Harry and Putin could dress as Nazis without being arrested (as they might be, for example, in Germany where public display of Nazi swastika's and such is illegal). This indicates that at least that much freedom of speech is present in both Russia and the UK. Remember - just because you have freedom to do something doesn't make you immune to criticism for doing it! For sure, if someone in a position of power in the USA went out in public dressed as a Nazi, they would get just as much criticism from the media as the others. In the case of Harry - I think that all the hoopla in the press was totally unjustified. He was going to a fancy dress party - people dress as all sorts of things at those events - the devil is pretty popular, so are Roman emperors, hookers...all are huge favorites - in no case is the person wearing the costume in espousing a position in favor of the character they are dressed as! I have no clue what Putin was up to - but I bet it was just as innocent. SteveBaker 19:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See also Fictionalized portrayals of George W. Bush, including, for instance, Doonesbury's Imperial Bush. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again, thank you all. All published links were republished in a Russian political blog with regard to the story in above (and thanks to you :-) ). ellol 05:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a little late, but I might chip in with how one Mr Alexander Downer allowing himself to be photographed wearing fishnet stockings. Caused a bit of damage to his reputation. Pics are probably all over the Internet. --203.208.110.207 09:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The question put me in mind of this episode: Richard Hongisto#Return to San Francisco. —Tamfang 05:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Walking to work

What state in the United States has the most people walking to work? I need this information for a health class and I cannot locate it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.183.235.49 (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to the table on page 9 of this Census document, New York had the greatest number of people walking to work as of the 2000 Census. Marco polo 19:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In percentage terms, the District of Columbia had the largest percentage of people walking to work, but it is not technically a state. Surprisingly, Alaska is the state with the largest percentage of people walking to work. Marco polo 19:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably because their cars won't start. :-) SteveBaker 19:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Funny but I'd guess that it's got a lot to do with population densities withing cities and towns. Dismas|^(talk) 15:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1956 Ford F100 pickup truck "Custom Cab"

Can someone help me to find out what differences there were between a "regular" Ford pickup truck and a "Custom Cab" pickup truck? I've been unable to find anything at this point. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.86.189.73 (talk) 18:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cahula (?) dog

On Animal Planet, last night, a show made mention of a breed of dog which I think they called a Cahoola or Cahula dog or hound, but I can't find anything with google with those spellings. Can anybody point me to a correct spelling? Corvus cornix 19:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Catahoula Leopard Dog? We have a List of Dog Breeds. --LarryMac | Talk 19:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, that's probably it. Thanks. Corvus cornix 19:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

However, if you are in university you should probably not cite Wikipedia or any other "tertiary" source (Britanica, other encyclopedias, etc.) Instead, (at least for Wikipedia) look at the references, read them, and cite them instead. Sadly, some instructors will take off points if you mention Wikipedia at all, even if you cite the sources you found via Wikipedia. Discuss ths with your instructor prior to submiting your paper. -Arch dude 00:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Citation

how do i site wikipedia?76.185.166.209 23:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)sara[reply]

On normal article pages, you'll see a link at the bottom of the menu on the left of the screen "Cite this article" - click on that and you should have everything you need. SteveBaker 23:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

San Luis valley

I have a question. Do youo guys have any articles on compeition in the San Luis Valley? like, anlimal competition or plant compitition? just asking —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.71.25.114 (talk) 23:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have abn article on the valley: San Luis Valley but not that level of detail. Rmhermen 00:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 28

Popular Opera Songs

What are some popular Opera songs? For example: "Memory" from Cats, "Phantom of the Opera" from Phantom of the Opera, Nessun Dorma, etc... Thanks. Acceptable 00:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Toreador, don't spit upon the floor! Use the cuspidor, that's what it's for! springs to mind. DuncanHill 00:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As does Your Tiny Hands are Frozen, from La bohème. DuncanHill 00:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usually translated as "Your tiny hand is frozen" (literally it would be something like "How cold your little hand is"; the Italian is "Che gelida manina"). -- JackofOz 02:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cats and Phantom are not traditionally considered operas, though. Other opera songs can be found in Category:Opera excerpts and Category:Arias. From an American opera, you have "Summertime" but the somewhat similar "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from a musical isn't opera. Go, figure. Rmhermen 00:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When a felon's not engaged in his employment from The Pirates of Penzance is jolly good fun. DuncanHill 01:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"La donna è mobile" (Woman is fickle) from Verdi's Rigoletto and "Non piu andrai, farfallone amoroso" (Now your days of philandering are over) from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro spring to mind. -- JackofOz 02:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Flower Duet and Un bel di from Madame Butterfly spring to mind.--hotclaws 09:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The drinking song from la traviata. Algebraist 10:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Give Mozart his due. You can't forget Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (often called the Queen of the Night aria) from The Magic Flute; it's very recognizable and technically demanding. My old flatmate – a tenor – used to single it a couple of octaves lower in the shower. Perhaps slightly less familiar (but still quite catchy) is the so-called Champagne Aria from Don Giovanni. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vesti la giubba, as featured in It's a Hard Life by Queen among others. 79.65.119.193 18:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ABC Classic FM radio in Australia ran a competion last year to find voters' top 100 favourite operatic “moments”. Number 1 surprised me, I must say – it was “In the depths of the temple”, a duet for tenor and baritone from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers”. "Va, pensiero" (the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) came second. "Nessun dorma" was only 12th. The full results are here. -- JackofOz 23:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not really an opera, but "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" has to be up there. Aaadddaaammm 05:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1960s spinning toy by Parker?

Anyone remember this? It was a flat thing that you spun around and a coin would be held in place by centrifugal force. I can't find anything about it on Google. The commercials had a chimp in them. 172.159.25.218 00:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Euler's disk? Google will find you sites that sell them. 88.112.51.254 05:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

gmail

With gmail, can you check if the receiver of your sent email read it? Kaiilaiqualyn 01:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. Lauren^whisper 01:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SUPPLEMENTARY question: Can you do that with any mail programme does anyone know please?--88.109.183.227 08:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.183.227 (talk) 08:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes (in a way) - with Outlook Express you can make the email send asking for a receipt. If the receiver of the email is using Outlook Express, he/she is asked with a dialogue box if they would like to send a receipt to say they have read the email to the sender. If they allow it, a receipt in the form of an email is sent back to the sender. I have not used Outlook Express in a long while and only tested this feature once, so the details might differ a little bit to how I remember them. 203.208.110.207 09:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, with Outlook the sender can request a read receipt, but the reader can instruct Outlook not to send a read receipt (either globally or for a specific message). So if you receive a read receipt you know your message has been read (well, to be precise, it has been opened), but if you don't receive a read receipt you don't know anything. (Sorry, no idea about Gmail). Gandalf61 13:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just Outlook. Most email programs are able to send a request for a receipt. However, it is up to the recipient of the email to set up his email program to either send a receipt when the mail arrives at their computer - or when it is read - or not at all. Because of the rise of spam, and the strong desire not to let the spammers know whether people actually read that junk or not - or even made it through the spam filters for that matter, most systems come configured (by default) with the receipt mechanism set to NONE. That being the case, it's 99% pointless to ask for a receipt since nobody is likely to give you one - so the receipt requesting feature is almost never used. SteveBaker 14:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're sending HTML email, you could embed a web bug in the message, such that when the message is rendered, you would see a request for that web bug appear in your webserver logs. In practice, however, web bugs are often in the same boat as return-receipts. Due to spam, many email programs will block the loading of external content. --Mdwyer 00:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it`s AOL mail, can`t you just click on 'Status'?...You might have to be an AOL member for this...not sure. Also, there was another program 'offered' not long ago that could let you verify whether or not your e-mail was opened/read. If I remember well, it was called, "Didyouopenyet", or something close to that. It gave you 10 free 'checks'. Not sure if that still exists. Thinking about it again for a minute, it might have been 'Didyoureadityet'. Something close to that. Anyone else remember something like this?

I hope that helped, although I didn`t answer your g-mail question. Just trying to help. Dave 64.230.233.222 02:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

None of those mechanisms can possibly work without the cooperation of the mail recipient's email program. That's the only part of the system that knows whether the message was read or not. It doesn't matter how the mail was sent or which company transmitted it. If the email reader software doesn't send a reply when the mail is read - then the sender can't possibly know. I would be very surprised if any of those software packages come set up with "Yes, send a return reciept when the mail is read" enabled by default...that would be madness in a world full of Spammers. Web-bugs might or might not work - but they are a very flakey mechanism. Firstly, HTML mail or automatic image loading may have very well have been disabled by the recipient - in which case you won't know when the email was read. Secondly, they'll fail if (as in many cases) the recipient's email system caches images or automatically filters junk mail for him. In that case, the 'thing' that reads the web bug is some server en-route to the user and the fact that the web bug was read proves nothing about whether the mail was delivered or read. Thirdly, some people read their email 'offline' - and again, all of the images have to be cached onto the local machine in order for that to happen - so again, the sender gets a false impression that the email was read when it was not. So web-bugs are unreliable - at best. To repeat my original answer to this question: NO! There is absolutely no way to know whether your email was read by the recipient unless they have return receipts enabled - which is exceedingly unlikely. SteveBaker 13:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That`s twice now that I post something and it comes-out in a 'box' like that. What did I do to cause that? Did I 'click' on something wrong? Sorry for posting that right HERE, just now. I just want to know. Thanks. Dave 64.230.233.222 02:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That happens if you start your line with a space. :) I've fixed it now with the proper indentation. --Masamage ♫ 02:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

refrigerator costs

how can I find out what the electricity cost per day of my refrigerator is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.195.89 (talk) 03:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Turn off all circuits in the house at the breaker panel or fuse box except the refrigerator. Check to make sure the hot water heater is not on same circuit as fridge. If it is see if there is a switch to turn it off. Take a reading off the electric meter. Go on vacation for a few days or weeks. When you get back take the electric reading again. Get the kilowatt-hour rate off your electric bill. Divide the electricty consumed by the number of hours between readings and multiply by 24 hours and price per kilowatthour. The longer the reading period the more accurate your estimate will be. Do not do this during winter or expect frozen and burst water pipes. If you have natural gas DO NOT turn off the circuits to the gas appliances without having the gas turned off first. Alternatively you may be able to buy or rent an inexpensive inline meter and plug your fridge into it for measurements.[12] Lazyquasar 04:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check with your local power company. They may rent or lend you a meter as part of an energy conservation project. You might also check with the EPA. Not only may they have the original yellow efficiency tag for your fridge on file, but they also have a lot of educational programs. this link might be what you need. --Mdwyer 05:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or more generally browse using an appropriate google search. There look to be useful links in that list. --Tagishsimon (talk) 06:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Surely if you went off on holiday this would only give you a resting figure, not general use. Lanfear's Bane 08:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I have on occasion wondered how much effect the opening of the fridge has and what makes the biggest difference - opening and closing it (which creates an air current and an exchange of the hot and cold air) or leaving it open unnecessarily for, say, half a minute, as I sometimes see people do. When I have to take out several things to the sink a few metres away, should I open and close it each time or leave it open? And does it matter if I open and close it fast or slow? Or is that irrelevant to the temperature-setting, another important factor? Or how old the fridge is (a factor often mentioned). If people don't know these kinds of things, then how can they save energy, even if they want to? There should really be an authoritative site that shows what the major sources of energy use and waste in households are. Of course, all these variables make that not as simple as the questioneer apparently thought it was. But there should at least be some indication. DirkvdM 09:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt that it matters much - the cold air in the refrigerator is a lot denser than the warm air in your kitchen - as soon as you open the door, that cold air will flow out of the bottom and be replaced by warm air coming in from above - that'll happen in a matter of seconds. Now your fridge is full of warm air and it's going to take a while to cool it back down again. Whether you repeatedly open and shut it over a short period isn't going to make much difference (although there will be some - I think it's going to be negligable). I'd bet the biggest difference is that all the time the door is open, the light is on. But I very much doubt that air currents caused by turbulance in actually opening the door are as significant as the dense, cold air flowing out of the bottom. I think you should do an experiment. Listen to the motor in your fridge turning on and off (because of the thermostat). When it turns off (so you know the fridge is as cold as it ever is), open the door for 30 seconds and when the motor kicks on again, measure how long it stays on for. That's the amount of time it takes the fridge to get back to the right temperature and will be a reasonably good estimate for the amount of electricity used. Now repeat the experiment only instead of leaving the door open for 30 seconds, open and shut it a few times over a total period of 30 seconds. Compare the two times and you'll know the answer. You should probably repeat the test a few times for statistical reasons - and you might want to do it when your kitchen is hot (eg after you've been doing a lot of cooking) and when it's at its coldest (early in the morning perhaps). Let us know how that goes! SteveBaker 13:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The cold air flowing out instantly makes sense. However, at the bottom of my fridge are two 'drawers' - containers with the opening at the top. Cold air won't fly out of those that easily. Now I also understand why deep freezers open at the top. But then, why aren't all fridges constructed like that? Ok, that's not very practical for everyday use. But then what about drawers such as I have at the bottom of my fridge, but at all 'levels'. That would also make the goods more easily accessible. Concerning your last remark, I don't know what kind of kitchen you have, but mine doesn't heat up from cooking. If the whole room would heat up noticeably, then that would mean the stove is very inefficient. Or you use it inefficiently, such as leaving the flame high when the water is already boiling, or not having lids on the pans. Steve, really, I expected more energy-friendly behaviour from you! DirkvdM 18:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that having drawers in your fridge helps - and chest freezers are certainly more efficient than the upright sort - and indeed they aren't found in kitchens because they are a poor use of 'vertical' space and you can't put counter-tops over them. My kitchen doesn't get outrageously hot - but even you have a lot of things in there that are leaking heat - your kitchen absolutely MUST be getting hotter when you cook - the laws of thermodynamics guarantee it! Perhaps your A/C works harder, perhaps the room is large enough that the heat averages out over a larger volume, perhaps you simply don't notice the temperature rise - but you can't deny that heat is being produced. Worse still, as your refrigerator chills things down when you open the door - so the coils at the back of the thing get hotter. SteveBaker 02:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Airco? What airco? Steve, you disappoint me once again.

The fridge is indeed a good heat generator, but cooling the 1 m³ or so inside down 20 C will heat the 60 m³ of the kitchen up only 0.5 C (counting in inefficiency of the fridge), and a lot of that will be lost to the walls and the rest of the house when the door is open. I'm not counting the solids inside the fridge (the food), but that cold will not be lost when the fridge is opened (unless it is left open after the cold air has moved out).

As for the cooking, that's a little more complicated, but keeping water at a boil requires just a tiny flame if there is a lid on the pot. Most of the heat is used to get it to a boil and it's tempting to put the flame too high. But nowadays I boil my potatoes in the microwave (much tastier result, but requires some experimenting) and that is a whole lot more efficient (I heard this tip from an energy saving consultant). I buy all my veggies (except for the carrots) in a form that only requires reheating, and that also only requires a very small flame for about 10 minutes. I suppose I lose most heat through the frying pan because I am constantly stirring in it, so I don't have a lid on it - that flame is a fair bit higher, and on for about 20 to 30 minutes. If you have an electric stove you are probably not aware of these things. And more importantly (I know this because my mother has one) it is very tempting to not turn it down soon enough, so when you stop cooking, the plate will still be hot and that heat will be lost. DirkvdM 19:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a book source

I'm UFO Headquarters, written by Susan Wright, ISBN is 0-312-97181-8. This even claims that Gene Roddenberry got his Star Trek ideas from attending UFO conferences. Where can this be placed ? 65.163.112.187 07:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're a book?? I've heard of "talking books" but this takes the cake :)

Seriously, though. if you want to add some material about Gene Roddenberry or Star Trek, try the links, follow the instructions about editing articles, and go for your life. Welcome to Wikipedia. -- JackofOz 07:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So do people call you UFO Headquarters or 0-312-97181-8? Is one more formal than the other? Lanfear's Bane 09:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the OP is asking whether the claim that "Gene Roddenberry got his Star Trek ideas from attending UFO conferences." in "'UFO Headquarters', written by Susan Wright, ISBN is 0-312-97181-8." can be referenced. Can we find a ref for them? SaundersW 09:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Only one, so far is in that book, page 236. 65.163.112.187 00:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Income to Installment Ratio

Who can please explain me what is Income to Installment Ratio and how can it be calculated —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gireesh.puthumana (talk • contribs) 08:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Urination

In the colder weather I need to pee more than in moderate or warm weather but I sweat less. In warm weather I sweat more but I need to pee less that in moderate or cold weather. In moderate weather everything sort of averages out - I pee and sweat a little. It feels that in the cold weather I lose a greater volume of liquid than in the warm weather. Does the body lose more liquid in cold weather than warm? Could I die of dehydration more quickly in a cold, dry environment (i.e. no snow about to get liquid from) than a warm, dry environment? Difficulty: No urine puns. Lanfear's Bane 13:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your body loses the same amount of water that you drink, in round figures. However there is a phenomenon that causes you to pee more if you are cold, which you may also have noticed when you swim in cold water. If the skin gets cold the capillaries close to the skin contract so that there is less circulation of blood close to the body surface, to try to reduce heat loss through the skin. This means that there is a slightly smaller volume of blood needed and the excess fluid is removed from the blood through the kidneys, and passed as urine. Thus, you probably won't dehydrate faster in dry cold than in dry heat. SaundersW 17:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strange, as you probably drink more in warm weather Think outside the box 14:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The SAT in the 1970s

Can anyone point me in the direction of the histiry of the SAT throughout the 1970s? Thanks. 24.39.182.101 13:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's some good history at [13]. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

United Nations general assembly

How long the United Nations general assembly has been gathering for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.43.164.149 (talk) 14:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on the United Nations General Assembly has the date of its first session (10 January 1946) as well as a whole lot of other interesting information. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's approximately 22550 days ago! Lanfear's Bane 15:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How much of a human body is edible?

Just something I've been wondering.

-- _{Escape Artist Swyer} ^{Talk to me} _{Articles touched by my noodly appendage} 15:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All of it. How much nutrition you get out of a toenail vs. a thigh muscle will be different though. Also, I'm assuming that you're not counting the urine and fecal matter given that they aren't really parts of the body per se. Stomach acids can be diluted but are still edible. Dismas|^(talk) 15:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the same tissues in another mammal (a cow, say) then anything that's edible in it will very likely be edible in us. (How you choose to define 'edible' is up to you; some people are pickier eaters than others. Dismas also correctly notes that there are tissues that you can cansume that probably won't cause you harm but which don't have much or any nutritional value.) Consider as well that certain diseases are more likely to be transmitted when consuming human tissue; there's no species barrier. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In particular re that last point, note kuru.

Atlant 16:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was a guy on the radio a while back talking about how he'd eaten an entire pig - all of it. He's written a cookery book with recipies for all of the various parts[14]. I would imagine the same thing would work with a human. But as Ten and Atlant point out, if a human is doing the eating - there are some rather nasty health implications. Cannibalism is taboo in most societies and in many animal species too. That's no accident - there must be some really good evolutionary drives behind that - because otherwise this source of protein would be more widely exploited.

SteveBaker 16:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look two responses above yours. ;-) Dismas|^(talk) 18:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect the teeth might be somewhat indegistible. DuncanHill 18:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on what you mean by 'digestible'. I assume preparation is allowed, so grinding them up will make them edible. DirkvdM 18:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Steve, are you sure that cannibalism is 'taboo' with many animals? of course it is with herbivores, but carnivores eat their own kind quite often, I believe. Not quite as a rule, but I don't believe it's all that uncommon either. With humans, I suppose much of the taboo lies in the notion that the body is needed in the afterlife. I, for one, didn't understand the hesitation of the people in the crashed plane in Alive to eat the dead. Ok, the guy's sister is another thing, but I wouldn't hesitate to eat a dead stranger if I would starve otherwise. I think. Of course one never knows until it actually happens. I mean, I once witnessed the slaughtering of a goat I was going to eat and that affected me more than I thought it would. DirkvdM 18:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carnivores will resort to cannibalism only if there's no other food source available. As noted above, there's a very strong evolutionary pressure against it: the lack of a species barrier means that any communicable disease that your meal has, you will get. --Carnildo 21:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the human digestive system can manage to destroy some diseases. StuRat 01:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's not really true. Lots of carnivorous bugs eat each other just for kicks or as part of the mating process. And some apes eat members of enemy tribes. --Masamage ♫ 02:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did say "many animal species" - I specifically didn't say "all" or even "most" - there are certainly exceptions. Also, it's only a taboo - it's likely that all carnivores will eat members of their own species if they are starving to death and there is nothing else available. After all, evolution has designed these animals to avoid cannibalism because of the disease risks - but if the alternative is dying of starvation then clearly that takes precedence over a disease risk. Evolution is clearly going to favor those who avoid disease by avoiding routine cannibalism but who can also overcome that taboo in times of extreme pressure. By 'evolution', in this case we must include 'cultural evolution' (via memes or whatever) as well as genetic evolution - there isn't necessarily an 'anti-cannibalism' gene in humans. SteveBaker 13:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that teeth and bones would be slightly indigestible unless ground up. In that case, they may provide a source of calcium. Also, tendons may be a bit chewy unless cooked right! Hair and toenails fingernails are not digestible and maybe cartilage isnt either.

With regard to cartilage, "Watch it quiver, see it shiver..." -- c'mon, sing along with me! Atlant 19:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If only I knew the tune. Or the brand, for that matter. DirkvdM 08:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ubiquitous in the US, though nobody eats it. Hmm --⁪froth^t 18:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat sickening, no? bibliomaniac 1 5 03:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tendons are a delicious part of Vietnamese cuisine. They're great in soup. --Sean 22:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cannibalism is an instinctive part of some mouse species; they eat their own young if the nest is under attack so that all the energy they have expended in raising the young will not be waisted (ie, eaten by the predator). Also, according to this site, rats and mice may become cannibals when their colony population rises rapidly, and their naturally high reproductive rate results in a high mortality of young. Think outside the box 14:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably, the health risks are much smaller when the mother eats her own newborns because any diseases they have are likely to have come from the mother anyway. SteveBaker 15:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dweller's thread of the week. It's an 'out of the box' idea.

Congratulations to all contributing here. This anthropoculinarianism debate wins the sixth User:Dweller/Dweller's Ref Desk thread of the week award. Good job. --Dweller 22:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

+

Music from flash animations?

Good evening wikipedians! Can someone tell me what music plays at the begining of this flash animation: http://pown.alluc.org/?uid=239 thanks alot, 88.110.203.63 19:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The very start is No Surprises by Radiohead. DuncanHill 19:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Duncan Hill :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertsZ (talk • contribs) 19:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

California Driver's License

I'm a resident of California and have a California Driver's License. It expired on May 10, 2007. When I attempted to use it for identification purposes at an airport in early July, it was flagged as being invalid. How come when my license expires, it ceases to be valid as a means of identification? It's still a picture of me with my name on it issued by the state. I thought that I simply couldn't drive with it. I don't think it has to do with the picture on the card needing to be current, as Californians can renew on-line now using the same picture. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 20:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably for the same reason they want to see a printed-out email for a boarding pass, rather than just a handwritten note with the same information: to give the public the illusion of security. --Sean 22:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it's good for ID when it's expired, and you can get a new one without turning the old one in, you can have two (or more) people with one identity. Not the most secure state of affairs.... - Nunh-huh 00:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're supposed to get rid of expired identification in general, I believe. If it is not officially up to date then the state has not officially vouched for its accuracy. Its value as official identification comes from the state vouching for its accuracy (hence you cannot use non-state issued IDs either). --24.147.86.187 15:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 29

juice from concentrate

Why is juice made from concentrate that they add water to? Wouldn't it be easier just to bottle juice as is, than to remove the water and re-add it? Calliopejen1 00:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Water is heavy and bulky. Shipping it is more expensive than it is to remove it, and reconstitute the juice. And some people probably find concentrate convenient.... - Nunh-huh 00:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, the Coca-Cola company produces only concentrate. The bottlers in various countries add the sugar and water.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:09, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(And also the CO₂ of course).

In the UK, (and probably elsewhere) you can actually buy drinks like Coca-Cola as bottles of concentrate (including the sugar - but not the water or CO₂) and reconstitute them yourself using a machine that has a small CO₂ cylinder. This is extremely convenient and allows you to have dozens of flavors of such things at home and not have them take up refrigerator space. Sadly, I've never seen one of these machines in the USA - nor the supplies to refill them. That's a pain in the neck because they are REALLY useful and also save messing around with recycling cans. SteveBaker 13:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's called a Sodastream. DuncanHill 13:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to DuncanHill for sending me the link to a store that sells these things in Austin, Texas! Duncan pointed out that you can buy them mail order and in some camping/boating supply stores(!). Not as convenient as having sodastream in the supermarket - but you'll tend to buy 6 month supplies at one go - so it's not a big deal to have to go to a specialist store to get the stuff. The cost of making soda this way works out at about 60c per liter (18c for CO₂, 42c for concentrate) if you can buy the stuff locally - more if you have to buy supplies by mail. The CO2 cylinders are recycled and you re-use the same soda bottles over and over again - so no can/bottle recycling. The biggest problem is the $100 cost of the machine that carbonates the drink. Right now, our local supermarket sells Coke, etc with a 'perpetual special offer' at $10 for three 12 can packs. That's 83c/liter - so at US prices, you need to drink about 450 liters of soda to pay for the machine - but if you have to pay postage to get the supplies and send back the empty cylinders - then supermarket soda is probably cheaper. So you definitely shouldn't do this to save money! But the ability to have no cans cluttering up your fridge (assuming your fridge has a cold water outlet) and a choice of a bazillion flavors - and "saving the planet" - may make it still worthwhile. SteveBaker 14:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With apple and pear concentrate (and probably others) the sugar content is so high that microbes dont grow. So no preservatives are required and health regulations are easily satisfied. Also, fresher fruit juice often contains a small amount of ethanol. Polypipe Wrangler 03:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most Humorous Question ?

What is the most humorous question that wikipedia has had, so far ? 65.163.112.187 00:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of any reference desk specifics - but more Wikipedia humor can be found via this link: WP:HUMOR SteveBaker 01:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I remember the "mask" questions. "Is it illegal to kill a man while hitting him with a cactus? What if you're wearing a mask?" Acceptable 04:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Link. I searched for kill cactus mask wikipedia in Google. A.Z. 04:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The square root of France, How do Artic explorers go to the toilet?, Humans driving a ship (by me). And a somewhat humorous answer by me: Turkey Po Out, which was used in an episode of QI. For some more interesting threads (humorous or otherwise) see User:DirkvdM/BestOfTheRefDesk. DirkvdM 09:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone ought to create a list of lists of best reference desk threads. A.Z. 20:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're in luck! One my personal favorites: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007_September_5#Daaaaaang. --Ybbor^Talk 22:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm familiar with Dweller's award. I was suggesting a list of lists of best reference desk threads, such as the following:

A.Z. 00:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What does this say?

[IMG]http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o71/Baku-Aoki/book_intro_gogeta.jpg[/IMG]

It is drawn by Akira Toriyama. Can someone tell me what it says? Thank you-Natalie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.57.235 (talk) 03:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You may have more luck getting an answer at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. - Eron ^Talk 04:38, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you by chance have a larger version? I can hardly read the kana, it's sort of like trying to translate Shakespeare in 1px. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 11:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The picture looks like Vegeta in his max-ed out Super Saiyan form in the popular Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball GT. Acceptable 16:23, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And the text begins doragonbōru. —Tamfang 05:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tiffany Taylor

What is the real height of Tiffany Taylor? Somesay she is 5'7" and some say she is 6' tall. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.2.51 (talk) 06:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, her playmate data sheet says 5'7" so that is probably correct. I'm guessing that Playboy asks the models to fill in their physical info (or rather has their agent do it), so that info should come pretty much directly from Taylor. Dismas|^(talk) 13:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which is probably about as accurate as her age and weight --⁪froth^t 18:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Auschwitz

At Auschwitz, the B in 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (slogan above the gate) is placed upside-down, what is the story behind this? Or is it just an accident? 88.110.203.63 14:22, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See our photo of the gate (at right). I can certainly see what you mean. The upper loop of the 'B' is bigger than the lower one. ~~Is it a B or is it a ß? If the latter then maybe this is a common thing?~~ It's definitely a B, not a ß - the other versions of this sign shown here: Arbeit macht frei have normal B's. The inverted B is even mentioned in our article - but it doesn't say why. Weird. SteveBaker 15:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's even a zoomed in version here. I'm not sure there's a reason behind it — could be an error, could be stylistic, could be related to how they made the letters. My bet is on the latter—it's not necessarily inverted, it might just be using the same upper form as the R and then not have a lot of space for the lower form. --24.147.86.187 15:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm betting on either stylism or accident. It's definitely not a ß, because there is no such word as "Arßeit". JIP | Talk 16:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

maybe it's just the angle of the camera. parallax or something —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.195.89 (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting to think that the shape of that "B" is just a style. It's not a fluke, because the gate at Sachsenhausen (the link is blacklisted) looks that way, too. I googled for images of the Fraktur typeface, and I found this. The "B" looks a bit like the one in question, which is odd, because apparently the Nazis banned Fraktur in 1941. --Milkbreath 22:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why did they ban a typeface? A.Z. 22:56, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found the relevant Wikipedia section. A.Z. 22:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really think Fraktur's B looks anything like that B, to be honest. --24.147.86.187 03:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I reckon it's just an Art Deco affectation. —Tamfang 05:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, how are articles blacklisted? and why is Sachsenhausen blakclisted? (sorry going a bit off topic, but i dont think there isnt an answer for my original question.) 88.110.203.63 09:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Links are blacklisted, not articles. Look here. I can't imagine why this one is but I'm going to try to find out. And I think there is an answer for your question, but nobody who has answered so far actually knows what it is. --Milkbreath 18:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dry ice to chill drinks

Is it safe to use dry ice from packaging of chemical products to put into drinks to chill and carbonate them? Acceptable 16:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This website suggests that it's ok if you're using food grade dry ice. I doubt stuff used in packaging is going to be food grade. Friday (talk) 16:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ACTUARIAL SCIENCE AS A PROFESSION

THE RELEVANCE OF MATHEMATICS TO ACTUARIAL ≤≤≤SCIENCE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.207.13.198 (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our article Actuary says: Analytical skills, business knowledge and understanding of human behavior and the vagaries of information systems are required to design and manage programs that control risk. - I would imagine that beyond simple arithmetic, you'd need a really good grounding in statistics and perhaps a little calculus. Beyond that, a wide knowledge of business and general science. But our article seems very good - you should read that...right after you learn to TURN OFF THAT GODDAMN CAPS LOCK BUTTON! SteveBaker 18:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Squeezing Your balls

Before the kickoff in a football game, the kicker always squeezes the ball before placing it on the tee. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.53.147 (talk) 20:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

make sure it's full of air maybe? if it's not, well there goes your 1 point —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.195.89 (talk) 20:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To make sure its perfectly round before kicking? Or maybe to test the pressure?--88.110.150.148 21:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure the type of football in question isn't supposed to be round. - Eron ^Talk 22:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's just for good-luck. Acceptable 23:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a test to check the pressure of the ball. These guys spend hours just kicking their balls**!!. They learn how different pressures affect their kicks, etc. They want to know how much pressure their balls have, so they squeeze them. Dismas|^(talk) 04:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it could be one of those actions that have become habitual, like a sort of ritual, one kicker has seen another doing it and so it gets copied until almost everybody is doing it for no good practical reason. There are plenty of other examples in other sports. I can't for a minute believe that the kicker is testing the pressure of the ball, although we can't discount the possibility that this may have been the original, spurious, reason. Richard Avery 13:06, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

printing/mailing online

can I print something and have it mailed to an address all over the web? links? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.195.89 (talk) 20:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you google online printer you'll get all the links you can handle. - Eron ^Talk 21:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 30

Duck and Cover.

According to the Duck and Cover article, this fairly crazy 'nuclear safety' campaign was still run in US schools into 1980's. This amazes me - I thought it had been utterly discredited by the late 1960's. I lived in the UK throughout this period - we were not given any training whatever in schools. I'm guessing that if it was still taught in the 1980's that a lot of people here remember actually being taught this stuff. I'm curious to discover how people felt about the campaign in these later years - was it all considered to be important? Did everyone think it was a waste of time? I'd actually like some OR responses please. Any memories you may have of this phenomena would be useful. Thanks! SteveBaker 03:23, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Civil Defense was replaced by more mundate disaster preparation (such as FEMA) in the 1970s. In the 1980s I am pretty sure one was not routinely ducking and covering, though it was a time of high political and nuclear tensions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was in school in California, we learned to duck and cover as an earthquake drill, and did nothing related to nuclear war. (Note that ducking and covering is not actually a bad idea in the case of nuclear war, though it would not save you if you were directly near a nuclear blast; it was intended to prevent the total number of deaths from things like flying debris, which happens over a much greater area than just the incinerating fireball. It's not totally looney—you could significantly change the number of deaths in a nuclear war if Civil Defense strictures were undertaken—but you're still talking about millions of deaths either way.) --24.147.86.187 03:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)--24.147.86.187 03:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was watching one of the earlier video's from the campaign and you see stuff like a family out on a picnic - there is a flash of light and everyone hides under the tablecloth! I really don't think that's especially relevent advice. It goes on to say that even a sheet of newspaper could save you from severe burns. It falls into the general category of "When there is basically nothing that can be done, it's better to give people hope that they have some control over their destiny." - but I was really interested to hear whether the kids of the time thought it was relevent. It's good to know that more realistic advice was being given by the 1970's. SteveBaker 03:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When I was growing up in the late 70s and through the 80s, I knew about Duck and Cover as a nuclear war safety thing only because I've always been rather geeky. I doubt most of my classmates knew anything about it. We did however learn to get under our desks in the event of a tornado if we could not get down to the basement of the building in time. We had drills where we would go to the basement and get in the fetal position with our heads against a wall as well. My wife who was born in the early 80s had never heard of Duck and Cover, the nuke version, until I showed her a YouTube video of it a few years ago. We're both born and raised in the StatesDismas|^(talk) 04:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can tell you that in the 80s -- even in the early 80s when the Cold War was quite cold -- there was no "Duck and Cover"-type program at my school. We had fire drills and tornado drills, but nuclear bombs were never mentioned. On the other hand, there was one of these signs pointing toward the basement where presumably we would have been herded in case of attack. That sign always freaked me out. -- Mwalcoff 04:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be confused about the arrows pointing in different directions. Dismas|^(talk) 05:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In 1983 a friend's daughter (in Los Angeles public school) was disciplined for refusing to get her trousers dirty in a "drop drill", which I gather was of the same genus as duck'n'cover. I myself have an extremely dim memory of crouching in a prescribed position, at least once, in a Pasadena school circa 1967; and my school had a chart of relevant siren patterns .... —Tamfang 05:44, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

She was probably disciplined for disobeying an order from a teacher, not for opposing the obviously useless drill. --⁪froth^t 06:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tomayto, tomahto, let's call the whole thing off. The point is that such a drill was held at all. —Tamfang 19:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This question has led me down one of those pesky 4 hour rabbit trails.. this time into McCarthyism. Contrasting that page with this one has my blood boiling over that insuffrable polemic. --⁪froth^t 07:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Steve: the early 1980s in the UK were the period of Protect and Survive, the information leaflet referred to in When the Wind Blows. I can highly recommend the latter publication.SaundersW 12:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We had an honest-to-goodness bomb shelter at my school, so no ducking under the desks for us. StuRat 13:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was in sixth grade in a school in the Washington DC suburbs in 1959. We did duck-and-cover drills, and we did not think they were ridiculous. There was not yet a presumption that a nuclear war would be unsurvivable: that perception grew throughout the 1960's. Until at least the early 1970's, the bulk of the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals were bombs, not missles. The strategy was to use the missles to destroy enemy bombers bases ("first-strike") and to destroy command centers and anit-aircraft defenses to clear the way for the bombers. In this scenario, civil defense actually seemed to make sense. -Arch dude 18:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, how does that make sense? They're being warned to duck and cover if they see a blinding flash, which wouldn't occur due to conventional weapons. And if they're being missile'd to clear the way for nuclear bombers, they're not going to have a lot longer to live anyway. --⁪froth^t 18:56, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The light should be visible for a much larger area than the immediate death area, which is only a few miles. The blast shock wave travels slower than the speed of light and creates damage over a much wider area than the deadly radiation, the firestorm even slower and over a less predicable but potential even larger area. (Effects of nuclear explosions) Rmhermen 19:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see nothing crazy about avoiding severe burns from a nuke blast at a distance where you are not incinerated by the initial effects, and of avoiding being fatally cut by flying glass. We live in an era when more and more nutty countries are acquiring nuclear weapons and where suicide bombers routinely blow themselves up. How long until some power-mad "national leader" uses one against his perceived enemies, or until one of the well funded international terrorist organizations acquire one and bring it into their target country as easily as dope and illegal aliens enter, or send it in via ship to a port, or in a cargo container? It is no longer the case that one nuke would mean thousands more were on the way to end the existence of the human race, as it was during the Cold War. Isolated relatively small nuclear attacks could, sadly, become a recurring 21st century phenomenon. The U.S. recently lost track of a number of nuclear weapons when they were supposedly mistakenly loaded on a B52. Do you suppose the former Soviet Union's nuclear weapons guarding is more secure, or that soldiers guarding the weapons are immune to bribery. or that emerging nuclear powers keep theirs any more secure? Edison 20:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

please answer!

why does Melanesia called as Black Island? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.84.188.10 (talk) 05:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Melanesia was so named because the indigenous inhabitants have dark skin. "Mela" is from the Greek word "melas", meaning black. It also appears in words such as melancholy and melatonin. -- JackofOz 07:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is this font?

What is the font used in the YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry1sjgf7jrI ? (Seen at 00:03 and 00:23) -- JSH-alive ^(talk)_(cntrbtns)^{(mail me)} 06:44, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is a form of san serif font. A service like Identifont might help. See this article for more. --Mdwyer 17:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conserving the battery life of a watch

I own a slightly expensive swiss quartz watch that I use only for a few weeks during summer. It is now nearly 2 years old and the watch did not come with a manual and I could not find the battery life from the internet either. How many years can the battery last when I turn the watch off during the idle months?. I do not want to open the watch to remove the battery since that might damage waterproofing.

If you use it that little, I'd expect it not to run down due to energy usage, but due to age, instead. I think 5 years is the typical shelf life for such a battery, but it's hard to say without knowing the model number of the battery. CR2032 may be the most popular model, so I'd start there. Incidentally, how do you turn the watch off without pulling the battery ? Does your watch have an on/off switch ? I've never seen that before (because of the obvious issue of having to reset the time when you turn it back on again). StuRat 13:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The watch does not have any on/off switch. Like any other quartz watch, the movement stops when you pull the adjusting button(do not know its name - its on the right side).Does that cut of the power frm the battery to the quartz movement?

Probably not. So the battery may run down quicker than I was thinking it would. StuRat 21:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above method is used by owners of vintage Bulova Accutron models. Not for battery economy although the batteries are rare but to prevent unnecessary wear during storage. With an Accutron you can hear the tuning fork ring indicating that it is still using the battery. With a Quartz watch (I have just tested) you still hear the tick indicating that the quartz is still accessing the battery. Test your watch. Batteries are cheap anyway. Paul

Wii Adverstiements

Does anyone know the name of the song played in the background of Wii ads, and if so do you know where i can downlaod it? 75.19.69.116 09:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's called "Kodo-Inside the Sun Remix." It's by the Yoshida Brothers off of their album "Yoshida Brothers Volume II." It's on iTunes.Aquaman590 17:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remedies for Insomnia

Anyone that has insomnia would know how annoying it is. I go to bed at 11pm and can't fall asleep until like 3am. And then I have to get up at 7am. So that's only 4 hours of sleep, and I don't have any energy to do anything during the day. So is there any effective remedies to combat insonmia?? (Apart from the ones mentioned in the Insomnia article) Thanks. Oidia (talk) 13:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will restrict my answer to non-medical solutions:

1) Be sure you aren't consuming any stimulants, like caffeine, during the day, especially after noon, as they make it difficult to get to sleep early.

2) Try exercising to tire yourself out right before bed.

3) Eat foods for dinner that promote sleep, like turkey containing L-tryptophan.

4) Try to eliminate, block, or cover up noises and lights at night, with dark drapes and possibly a white noise machine to drown out crickets, etc.

5) Sex always seems to put people (especially men) to sleep right afterwards.

6) Make sure your bed is comfy. StuRat 13:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What used to work for me when I suffered from Insomnia was a shower before bed. However, I did find there was a time-limit: if I stayed awake doing other things for about 45 minutes after the shower, the reverse would happen: I'd be wide awake. It seems that the cooling off from the shower stimulates sleep (I read that somewhere).

Another tip is to get enough sun. A lot of people don't, and there is a chemical that you get from being in the sun that assists with sleep - I think its dopamine. More than that your body uses circadian rhythms (rhythms of the sun) which affects your sleeping patterns - so in theory if you spend a day in natural light - your body will learn to tell the difference between day and night and you should get sleepy.

Finally, in terms of self-hypnosis, some people have a 'bed' routine that helps them put themselves to bed. For this reason I've read some insomnia advice that says don't use your bed for non-sleeping activities, e.g. watching TV or reading - IF you stay awake doing these things.

I hope some of that helped. Rfwoolf 14:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of people swear by a cup of warm (not hot) milk a short time before going to bed. -- JackofOz 14:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Listening to a favourite story or play can help one relax, and then slip into sleep. NOT a new (unheard) piece, however - that will keep one awake!90.9.87.132 14:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)DT[reply]

I'd say nothing with lyrics, as the language processing part of your brain can keep you awake when active. StuRat 21:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that depends, Stu. A lot of parents will attest that their kids nod off a short time after you start reading them a bedtime story. -- JackofOz 22:01, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My bedtime favorites include some songs in languages I don't understand. —Tamfang 22:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I drink Jack Daniels. It may not work but its a pleasant folk remedy. Paul —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.166.234 (talk) 21:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

parapsychology

how do you call a person that can feel something about someone or something just by handlingthat persons jewelry or other personal belongings.Iknow its starts with chro.....thank you for your time in answering this question .Jani —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.10.132.17 (talk) 13:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would be Psychometry, and the practitioner of it is called a "psychometrist". -- JackofOz 14:21, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clairsentience if you believe in ESP clairvoyance etc. Paul —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.166.234 (talk) 21:52, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Eleanor Crosses

There are 12 original crosses marking the route that the party carrying the body of Eleanor of Castile from Lincoln to Charing Cross. All seem to be well documented. There are however other replicas not on the route. I am particularly interested in finding out the link between Eleanor and Sledmere in East Yorkshire. There is a replica cross there built in 1890 approximately 600 years after the death of Eleanor. What is the connection between Eleanor and Sledmere ????

As the article eleanor cross says it's a fake/replica - the cross is actually a war memorial87.102.19.191 21:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Colorado River and the Colorado River in Texas

I've looked every where and cant find where the Colorado River in Colorado and the Colorado River in Texas connect. I was thinking that they might connect in New Mexico somehow but I don't know.

link to the Colorado River in Colorado: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_(U.S.)

link to Colorado River in Texas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_(Texas)

Question submitted by: Kelly

They don't connect. They are two different rivers. (This is why they have two separate Wikipedia articles.) --Anonymous, 17:08 UTC, September 30, 2007.

Freighter cruises

I heard it was to possible to book cruises on big freighters, tankers or other commercial vessels. Would anyone have more info or links to a travel agent that offers such trips? Thank you 81.240.113.172 17:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Search google for sailing with "tramp steamer" and apparently "banana boat". Rmhermen 17:40, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Got it, an even better search term is freighter travel ... don't know what's up with banana boats. 87.65.9.22 18:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

nitrous?

video games for xbox with nitrous? --Ginoeri 17:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ridge Racer 6? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas if you're willing to play several hours. --⁪froth^t 19:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bear-riding

Assuming you could find a bear willing to try it, would it be possible to ride one? I just mean physically possible, not dependant on the temperament of the bear. Their cubs ride piggy-back style, so I'm more thinking of sitting upright, like on a horse. --Masamage ♫ 18:52, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read a horrible story years ago (smacks of urban legend) that vacationers in the mountains saw a cute adolescent black bear begging for food. They stopped their car, as tourists inadvisedly do, to take pictures of the bear. It was friendly, so they posed their child on its back, as if it were a pony. Then it loped off into the woods, the child holding onto it. Presumably the bear then had a tasty lunch . Edison 20:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Launching an ICBM

It is often referred by historians that the Cold War was a war of buttons. In this they are referring to the devastating powers of nuclear missiles. But in modern United States, assuming all the procedures are taken care of, what is the final action for launching a nuclear ICBM? Does one actually press a button? Thanks. Acceptable 20:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the USA, it used to be two people turning keys at a separation too great for either one of them to reach to turn both. These days, I would expect a computer command...possibly from a remote site. SteveBaker 22:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Commander of submarine

Generally, in the United States, what is the rank of the commander of an Ohio-class SSBN and similarly, what is the rank of the commander of a Virginia-class SSN? Thanks. Acceptable 20:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Justify your answers

Is there a name for the justification I see in many movie credits ? There are two columns, the right of which is left justified, and the left of which is right justified, with a fixed amount of blank space between the two columns:

Bearded lady   Bea Arthur
        Pimp   Cedric the Entertainer
  Lady's man   Richard Simmons

It's not center justification, that would look like this:

  Bearded lady  Bea Arthur
Pimp  Cedric the Entertainer
Lady's man   Richard Simmons

StuRat 21:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]