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May 25
County officials
Who is ahead or above the clark county, Washington code enforcement officer, ? Who do they have to answer to ? Or who is their boss? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Salinia50 (talk • contribs) 00:27, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
- That would be Martin Snell. Marco polo (talk) 00:35, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
How is Kawasaki ninja 250 different from its new version with twin headlight?
Zonex shrestha (talk) 03:52, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Re Wiki Post of Amanda Todd
| Rerouting to Talk:Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd#Hanged_vs_.27found_dead.27. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC) |
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I have spoken with family of Amanda Todd. They have been un able to edit. A UK paper stated Amanda hung herself and seems so many rolled with it afterwards. That is all assumption as it was never released how she took her own life. Why can't they edit something as serious as that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reportamandatruth (talk • contribs) 04:11, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
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How is banning guns in U.S. going to work, exactly?
| This has become a political discussion and exchange of opinions; let's all give it a break. - AlexTiefling (talk) 22:05, 26 May 2014 (UTC) |
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| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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I don't want to start a debate about the second amendment. That is not the purpose of the reference desk. My question is ONLY about the practical/logistical aspects of a gun ban that pro-gun control people seem to crave. How is it going to work. Let us assume, temporarily, for the purpose of this question: guns are bad for society; permissive gun laws lead to murders; it is in society's interest to ban guns; a national gun ban is going to be passed by Congress, and the local governments will be on board with it as well and won't defy the federal government. What, then, are we going to do with the millions of people in the US who already have legal guns? Do we, as right-wing anti-gun-control people fear, send out armed government agents to round up and confiscate all guns? Or do we have sort of a grandfather clause that states that if you already have a gun, that's fine, but people aren't allowed to buy any *new* guns? If the latter, how does that prevent any gun murders? There would still be plenty of legal guns floating around. If the former... yeah, good luck with that. I am looking for a sensible and concise outline of how the proposed gun ban is going to work. Thank you.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 23:34, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
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May 26
I am not making this up (famous last words)
I had read somewhere that the world's first modern environmental movement was in Japan, during the Meiji period, regarding preservation of the wilderness of Hokkaido, however I can find no reference for this, has anyone else heard this?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 08:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- Information about early conservation in Japan at Local Environmental Movements - A Comparative History of US and Japanese Invironmental Movements. Alansplodge (talk) 11:04, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- I doubt if the Meiji period was the first instance of environmentalism. Establishment of large parks, like Central Park, may also qualify, as might implementation of clean water and sewage systems, such as the Roman aqueducts. For that matter, when the first cave men decided not to just poop wherever they happened to be and set aside a place for that, this would qualify, too. StuRat (talk) 13:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- This was probably pre-human, but post arboreal.
- But early environmental movements might be the creation of the New Forest in 1079, or even the estate formations of the previous millenia. Exactly what constitutes a "modern environmental movement" is something that would need to be defined before one could consider "first". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 26 May 2014 (UTC).
- But early environmental movements might be the creation of the New Forest in 1079, or even the estate formations of the previous millenia. Exactly what constitutes a "modern environmental movement" is something that would need to be defined before one could consider "first". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 26 May 2014 (UTC).
- I believe that if you consider the legal preservation of the environmental system of a particular area as an end in itself, rather than for hunting, water catchment, grazing or other human activity, then the first example I can find is Yosemite National Park in 1864. The New Forest was created by a a brutal military tyrant expelling thousands of people from productive farmland so that he could chase deer about, which didn't really have the same lofty ideals. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- OP specifically asked about the first instance of modern environmentalism, not the first instance. Come on, peeps. Viriditas (talk) 22:37, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- Define modern and environmentalism. Every example thus given has been objected solely by the "no true Scotsman" defense. We have a case of shifting goalposts, which should be said were very ill-defined to start with. --Jayron32 02:39, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Well, assuming that the premise of the question is correct, the Meiji period started in 1868, so on that basis, the creation of the first national park in USA was earlier. Alansplodge (talk) 12:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Define modern and environmentalism. Every example thus given has been objected solely by the "no true Scotsman" defense. We have a case of shifting goalposts, which should be said were very ill-defined to start with. --Jayron32 02:39, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Saved pages
Where are my saved pages gone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimi76 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- Saved pages from what source using what tool? SteveBaker (talk) 14:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Renovation of the White House under Obama
I hardly find any updates update that project? What is the current status of the renovation? Is it on hold due to the GOP's objections or are the shovels still active? 112.198.79.49 (talk) 14:37, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- This report (from February 2013) says that a major two-year renovation programme is underway. --Viennese Waltz 14:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
May 27
Lethargy
My lethargy, though having enormous contacts and practical ideas, has making me unsuccessful in all areas namely, family life, financial and health. I have a name of good worker when I worked with various organisations. I need to know the obstacle in me and I want to remove it and be successful. Is it Procrastination? If so how to overcome it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vijayakrishnam (talk • contribs) 10:31, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- If the lethargy is ruining your life, then you ought to consult a doctor -- it is possible that you are seriously depressed, or have some sort of illness. Looie496 (talk) 13:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- I second that. See a doctor. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- Procrastination is the act of postponing, delaying or putting off, from Latin prō ("to") + crāstinus (“of tomorrow”), from crās (“tomorrow”). While procrastination is often associated with feelings of laziness and guilt, there is enough scope for normal people to procrastinate for rational reasons and/or as part of their coping strategy in complex situations for it not by itself to amount to a Mental disorder. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:07, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- You know very well that medical advice is prohibited here. You have no way to know what the OP's real issue is. Only a professional, in a face-to-face meeting, can provide possible answers to whatever might be ailing the OP. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with Baseball bugs here...but then we don't really apply our standards to the reference desk. We let editors get away with breaking Arb com sanctions and nothing happens so...give whatever advice you want. No one really cares that much...but be careful, you could also destroy someone's life by pretending to know what is wrong with Them.
- You know very well that medical advice is prohibited here. You have no way to know what the OP's real issue is. Only a professional, in a face-to-face meeting, can provide possible answers to whatever might be ailing the OP. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- Procrastination is the act of postponing, delaying or putting off, from Latin prō ("to") + crāstinus (“of tomorrow”), from crās (“tomorrow”). While procrastination is often associated with feelings of laziness and guilt, there is enough scope for normal people to procrastinate for rational reasons and/or as part of their coping strategy in complex situations for it not by itself to amount to a Mental disorder. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:07, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- I second that. See a doctor. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- We need to start putting our foot down on the reference desk and stick to policy. Otherwise this is just a secondary venue for editors to bypass our policies and guidelines.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- "Arb Com Sanctions", User:Mark Miller? Can you be more specific? μηδείς (talk) 15:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- We need to start putting our foot down on the reference desk and stick to policy. Otherwise this is just a secondary venue for editors to bypass our policies and guidelines.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- Vijayakrishnam, you may benefit from the short book The War of Art.[3] It talks about how to remove the obstacles you describe. Joe Rogan and many artists, writers, and celebrities swear by it. Good luck. Viriditas (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Reasons for granting or denying a motion for summary judgment
What percentage of motions for summary judgment are granted or denied for lack of jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, a contested issue of fact or some other reason? Raquel Baranow (talk) 16:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- Oddly enough.....I had this information at one time but cannot, for the life of me, remember where I found it.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:49, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
- It should be taught in law school. What are your chances of winning, is it a waste of time or the client's money? Is filing such motions like churning stocks to gain commissions? Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Is this what you wanted? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- No Richard-of-Earth, I've seen that, what I'm looking for is probably pay-walled or I'm not using the right search terms. I think there might be some good articles about lawyers using motions to increase income but it can't be too obvious that the motion has no merit. Raquel Baranow (talk) 14:25, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Is this what you wanted? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- It should be taught in law school. What are your chances of winning, is it a waste of time or the client's money? Is filing such motions like churning stocks to gain commissions? Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- This 2006 paper indicates that there is considerable variation among studies in finding what percentage of summary judgment motions is successful. If we can't even get good numbers on the success rate for motions generally, I would not be optimistic with respect to more specific inquiries. John M Baker (talk) 19:15, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- I can't give you the stats, but there's something odd about your question. Your first two reasons for denial are easily handled under Rule 12(b)(6) reasons. In fact, most of those denials will never reach summary judgment stage. Your third reason is by far the primary reason such motions are granted. You could never grant a summary judgment motion for jurisdiciton, except for some posture where that was the only material fact, which in most cases would be rare. I'm sure there are exceptoins to all of my generalizations. This would be a good law review article: textually analyze summary judgment decisions. Unfortunately you'll find few of them are published; you'll have to troll pacer, and moreover, you'll have to break them down. If you have westlaw access perhaps you could do some keysight searches. Shadowjams (talk) 03:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- It's only anecdotal. But an artist I know had sold some works of art on commission to a client who received them, but refused to pay. After hearing preliminary testimony, the judge asked the parties to confirm that the facts of the commission and consideration were stipulated, that the defendant was in possession of the art, that he refused to pay, and that he intended to destroy the art rather than return it. The judge made an immediate (summary, without full trial) judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and issued an injunction to have the bailiff restrain and escort the defendant to the location of the art where it was to be seized and given to the plaintiff. Apparently the defendant had made the mistake of representing himself in court and admitting to four conditions which allowed this judgment. μηδείς (talk) 04:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
May 28
Watchlist notice
My watchlist has a notice at the top including "This event honours Adrienne Wadewitz, who died suddenly last month"; her name is really Adrianne Wadewitz so this should be corrected.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 19:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Hi Johnsoniensis, thank you for the notice. To correct that an admin has to edit this page: MediaWiki:Geonotice.js. - Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:01, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Update: It has now been fixed [4] - Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 20:51, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
- Update: It has now been fixed [4] - Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
May 29
Downloading very large forum topics as some sort of document
I want to download a number of forum topics from an invisionfree forum, preferably as documents or something readable. They're really long, bordering on like 230 pages each, so I don't want to go through with Copy-paste unless there's no easier way. What would be the best way for me to do this? 98.27.255.223 (talk) 08:30, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- You should close this and ask it again at computing where you'd probably already have gotten an answer. μηδείς (talk) 04:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- If it's still live there it should not have been posted here. μηδείς (talk) 19:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Metro lines crossing themselves
I notice that Line 1 (Naples Metro) crosses over itself mid-route. I am aware that the Tyne and Wear Metro Yellow line also crosses over itself. Do any other metro/subway/underground systems do this? I would not count, for example, the Heathrow loop on London's Piccadilly line, as it rejoins itself without really crossing (track layout notwithstanding). —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 18:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- It appears to me that London's Northern line does so in the neighborhood of Camden Town tube station (see the diagram headed "since 1924" in the sidebar below the infobox in that article); but I'm not actually familiar with the tube, so I can't be sure. Deor (talk) 19:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- At Camden Town itself, the Northern pretty much joins up and then diverges again. The spot where the line actually crosses itself is just north of Euston - Mornington Crescent is on the eastern arm, not the western as the map shows, but the lines swap sides. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- But this is not "crossing itself" in the manner of the line in Naples. Rather, the line splits into two branches that then cross each other. (The reason for this, by the way, is that the two branches originated as separate lines owned by different companies, and when the second of them reached Euston there was no intention to extend it to join with the other, so it was not built in the correct alignment to join up there.) I'm not aware of any other line anywhere that makes an actual loop like in Naples. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 01:59, 30 May 2014 (UTC), edited 05:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Oh, but I just thought of a real one—in the past. When the first east-west line of the Toronto subway was opened in 1966, for the first 6 months the system was integrated so that there were three train routes serving all three possible pairings of the system's three endpoints. And the Eglinton–Woodbine (or Danforth–University–Yonge) route crossed itself at Bloor-Yonge station, stopping each time through the station. But after the 6 months, the integrated service was withdrawn and that route ceased to exist. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 03:26, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you.—Nelson Ricardo (talk) 05:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- But this is not "crossing itself" in the manner of the line in Naples. Rather, the line splits into two branches that then cross each other. (The reason for this, by the way, is that the two branches originated as separate lines owned by different companies, and when the second of them reached Euston there was no intention to extend it to join with the other, so it was not built in the correct alignment to join up there.) I'm not aware of any other line anywhere that makes an actual loop like in Naples. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 01:59, 30 May 2014 (UTC), edited 05:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- At Camden Town itself, the Northern pretty much joins up and then diverges again. The spot where the line actually crosses itself is just north of Euston - Mornington Crescent is on the eastern arm, not the western as the map shows, but the lines swap sides. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- I've just checked out the Tyne and Wear situation, and our article on Monument Metro station tells me that the only other place in the world where this happens at a station is at Commercial-Broadway Station on the Millennium Line in Vancouver. I'm still trying to recall if there are other places where it happens away from stations. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- There appears to be a small crossover - like the Northern Line one - on the Paris RER A, close to Nanterre Université station - the line through the station (A1) crosses over the line it has just diverged from (A3/A5). It's only non-trivial because the station is on the opposite side of the crossover from the remainder of the branch. Similarly, the D4 between Moulin-Galant and Mennecy crosses the D2 between Villabé and Le Plessis-Chenet - both lines having diverged at Corbeil Essonnes, the stop before Moulin-Galant. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:47, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you. —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 01:03, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Appropriate Article Page?
I am on the board of directors for Recovery Coaches International a non-profit organization providing information for and about recovery coaching. RCI recently launched the first step in a nation wide credentialing process for Recovery Coaches. Is "Recovery Coaches International" an appropriate topic to write a page about?
http://www.recoverycoaching.org/
thanksJjansen20 (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
- Probably not, especially when one of the organization's officers is asking; see WP:NOT and WP:COI. Maybe the article Recovery coaching ought to mention RCI; the place to raise that question is Talk:Recovery coaching. —Tamfang (talk) 02:16, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
May 30
Rolfing: classification
Is Rolfing (a) a type of bodywork (alternative medicine), (b) a type of manual therapy, or (c) a type of massage? (Despite appearances, this is not a homework question.)
—Wavelength (talk) 00:50, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Why does it need to be only one? --Jayron32 02:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Maybe it can be more than one.—Wavelength (talk) 03:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Yes. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Which (one or more) of these statements is true? (This is not a homework question.)
- Rolfing is a type of bodywork (alternative medicine).
- Rolfing is a type of manual therapy.
- Rolfing is a type of massage.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- According to our articles on the topics, all three seem true enough to me. Especially since WP considers massage to be a subclass of manual therapy. However "Rolfing is a type of massage that has not been proven effective, and is often considered a form of pseudoscience or quackery" also seems true to me. See e.g. these links, and the medical journal articles cited therein [5] [6]. I guess the problem is, bodywork comes with "alternative medicine" implied, so it stands to reason all techniques in that area have not been rigorously tested for effectiveness. However, manual therapy also deals with the "straight" world of medicine and physical therapies, so considering Rolfing as manual therapy might be seen as giving it too much credence. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:54, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- After doing some reading on the subject, I'm inclined to say that "bodywork" is the best descriptor, based on the sources that seem to be most familiar with the topic. By the way, SemanticMantis, the sources you link to above should be taken with a grain of salt, as the Skeptic world definitely has its own spin, with a penchant to look for wild claims even if that's a stretch. Both of these articles seem to be more interested in getting a laugh than presenting the material thoroughly or accurately; the Skeptic's Dictionary does provide some good info (albeit without citing its sources). As to quackery, it seems that most of the claims made about Rolfing are the type that *might* be able to be proven scientifically at some point in the future, such as the various aspects of physical alignment. Metaphysical claims do not seem to be a big aspect. But, this is not terribly relevant to the discussion at hand. The point is, sources need to be evaluated for their merit on the specific topic. --Karinpower (talk) 06:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you for your reply. My question was prompted by a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#How to deal with conflicting sources on how to categorize a topic. Here is a link to the version of 17:19, 30 May 2014.
- —Wavelength (talk) 23:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- This was a bad place to ask that question for that purpose. The difference between how something is generally and "correctly" classified and how Wikipedia classifies it is profound. Wikipedia classifications are intended to be an additional means of navigation rather than an encyclopedic statement of fact. That's why we don't require references for classifications. Very often we may wish to deliberately mis-classify something in order that people can find it more easily. A common misconception that X is a kind of Y may result in us "incorrectly" putting X into category Y so that people looking for X will find it if they (incorrectly) search for it in category Y. So the issue here is not whether Rolfing really is a form of any of those things - but rather a question of whether people could usefully be pointed in the direction of reading about it if they are trying to research those types of activity. SteveBaker (talk) 16:12, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- I searched for a guideline supporting what you said, but my search was unsuccessful. Please direct me to a supporting guideline.
- —Wavelength (talk) 17:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Self-storage in Bangladesh
Can anyone find a Bangladeshi self-storage facility that has an online presence? It can be anywhere in the country, as long as they either have a website or are at least mentioned somewhere online. -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:24, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Bangladesh Storage Assessment gives a table of 6 warehouses available for rent. Bangladesh Cold Storage Ltd. provides cold storage facilities to agricultural producers. The company is based in Khulna, Bangladesh. No online presence is mentioned. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 23:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Suitable car for tall driver
Hi. I'm tall (actually I'm not that tall, but have rather short legs, so sitting down I am). I've been looking for a new car today, but although just sitting in some is fine, once on a test drive I find I cant really fit in them properly. I have had larger family cars in the past, but am looking for something a bit smaller - renault megane and peugeot 308 were the ones that took my fancy today - but once driving, the headroom wasn't sufficient. Is there some sort of list of headroom, or is it just a case of trying everything? Thanks, and sorry if this is wafffly.86.157.129.169 (talk) 18:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- There are lots of different car "classes" with different shapes and profiles which may fit your needs. Many smaller SUVs and "crossover" vehicles have different interior configurations than a sedan, and may have the combination of head room and leg room you seek. There are also a trend for taller subcompacts like the Nissan Cube and Scion xB which are small and tall. --Jayron32 18:54, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- I'm a big fan of the MINI Cooper - for such a small car, it has really good headroom. You should at least take a test drive. SteveBaker (talk) 20:40, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- As you are in the UK, a second-hand taxicab would be ideal Taxicabs of the United Kingdom. The height is still regulated today, so a gentleman can ride in one without the need to take of his Top hat. They also have a very small turning circle, thus avoiding the need to do three-point-turns. As Michael Cain might have said “not a lot of people know that”.--Aspro (talk) 23:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- The trouble with buying a "Black Cab" is that they have a fairly low top speed. The very latest one tops out at 80mph - which means that you're redlining the poor thing even at normal road speeds. The older ones were often limited to 55 or 60mph. I don't think they make a very good personal-use car - unless you only EVER plan on driving it in town. Also, if you buy a used one - you can pretty much guarantee that the thing has an astounding number of miles on it, so plan on needing lots of repairs! SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Black-cabs have diesel engines and the chassis are well designed. So no problem with remaining life expectancy and spares. Why the top road speed thing? A Ferrari (even with soft plugs) still splutter and farts in heavy slow moving traffic. So what are you also saying: Don't get a Ferrari because you can never drive them slow traffic? (well you can actually but you have to keep blipping the throttle to stop the plugs sooting up). All the OP asked for was headroom. And most people, spend most of their time driving at common speeds.--Aspro (talk) 00:13, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- I certainly wouldn't recommend a Ferrari for a daily driver! They are designed for a very specific role - and trying to use one as a daily-driver is obviously a bad idea. The black cabs are also engineered for a very specific role - decent passenger comfort, good fuel efficiency when driving narrow in-town streets with lots of stop-start traffic. Trying to use a black cab as a daily driver is only a good idea if your needs closely match that role. Driving along a motorway in a black cab is at least as far away from what they are designed to do as driving a Ferrari through central London in the rush-hour. For a daily driver, you need a car that's more of a generalist - it needs to not be horrible in busy traffic - and it needs to go fast enough to keep up with other cars on the motorway. So it's better to pick a relatively boring, conventional car (with sufficient headroom for our OP) than to start considering whacky ideas like black cabs! SteveBaker (talk) 14:54, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Black-cabs have diesel engines and the chassis are well designed. So no problem with remaining life expectancy and spares. Why the top road speed thing? A Ferrari (even with soft plugs) still splutter and farts in heavy slow moving traffic. So what are you also saying: Don't get a Ferrari because you can never drive them slow traffic? (well you can actually but you have to keep blipping the throttle to stop the plugs sooting up). All the OP asked for was headroom. And most people, spend most of their time driving at common speeds.--Aspro (talk) 00:13, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- The trouble with buying a "Black Cab" is that they have a fairly low top speed. The very latest one tops out at 80mph - which means that you're redlining the poor thing even at normal road speeds. The older ones were often limited to 55 or 60mph. I don't think they make a very good personal-use car - unless you only EVER plan on driving it in town. Also, if you buy a used one - you can pretty much guarantee that the thing has an astounding number of miles on it, so plan on needing lots of repairs! SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- If you're interested in a small car the Citroen C1/Peugeot 107/Toyota Aygo is surprisingly roomy. Sjö (talk) 10:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
OP : Many thanks for your responses86.157.134.7 (talk) 20:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
middle school teacher wants to reassure history students of Wikipedia's reliability
Hi,
I'm a middle school world history teacher in San Diego, California.
A student told me he read that Wikipedia is unreliable. (He said 70% unreliable, but he couldn't tell me his source. He read it on an app, he said.)
Our school librarian presents (during school wide lab orientation) a hacked Wikipedia entry for "Spot the Dog".
I'm seeking student accessible articles that can explain the editing and governance of Wikipedia webpages. Are you able to help me? I'd like to share the information with my students.
Thank you,
Alisa
- A simple example of how vandalism gets fixed would be to show the edit history of Spot the Dog. It seems to have quite a few bad edits, but they never last more than a few hours, and are often fixed within minutes. The same pattern will be evident on higher-traffic pages, but the vandalism gets fixed faster, especially on pages known for abuse. Many articles are well-cited, and you can demonstrate to students that they can check out the original sources for the claims made in the articles. I don't usually reference Wikipedia directly in my work, but I often use it as a starting point for finding references I can use. Katie R (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Our own article Reliability of Wikipedia has some links to independent studies. Dbfirs 19:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Additionally, there are certain policies in place which guide content and the way that Wikipedia works. There are also guidelines that editors are expected to follow. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_guidelines and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_policies for proof of this. Giving a good glance at one or two of the important ones, I figure would be No original research, which basically means that you can't do your own original research, you have to abide it by a source. As well as neutral point of view, which stands that Wikipedia should have a neutral tone for aspects, even controversial. Tutelary (talk) 19:41, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Our own article Reliability of Wikipedia has some links to independent studies. Dbfirs 19:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Studies have shown that Wikipedia is more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica. That's pretty good. However, Wikipedia has one GIGANTIC benefit over other encyclopedias - and that's those little blue numbers you see scattered everywhere. We try hard to cite our sources...Britannica (and similar works) generally do not.
- My opinion is that if it really matters, your best bet is to find the information that you need in a Wikipedia article - then to follow the blue number links to the references at the foot of the article. Then you can check where the information came from and see for yourself whether we somehow distorted the facts when we wrote about it. However, if it's just idle curiosity, or some relatively unimportant matter - you can generally trust what you find here.
- That said, vandalism is an issue in some sorts of article. You can look at the history of the article by clicking on the "history" tab at the top - and from that you can see how recent each change to the article is - if the article is changing a lot - and especially if it's bouncing back and forth between two different versions of the truth...then distrust it.
- SteveBaker (talk) 20:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- (Since others have given good references already, I'll share my thoughts as a teacher) I usually tell my college students that WP is not a reliable source (it doesn't even meet its own standards on the topic: WP:RS). However, that is not to say that WP isn't an incredibly useful resource for education, school projects, and research. When I teach math, I tell students that they can almost always trust things like trigonometric identities and List_of_logarithmic_identities on WP. First, there is almost zero controversy or politics involved, and also these are basic facts, and the key pages for highschool and college math are watchlisted by many expert editors. That is not to say that it is easy to learn a math topic on WP, quite the opposite, but our math pages are excellent for reference use. For other topics, a standard thing to do is to read the WP article for an overview of a topic, then use the sources that WP uses. By using forward citation records (e.g. "cited by X articles" on google scholar), many reliable sources can be found that are perfectly valid for school projects and even academic research papers. Of course, middle schoolers are a bit different. I guess I'd aim to convince them that WP is usually right (as indicated by DBfirs' links above), but to remain skeptical and critical of what they see here, unless they can find corroborating evidence elsewhere. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- One of the most valuable things I learned in history is that it is written be the victors. Therefore, it is better to presume there is no ultimate reliable source. Wikipedia is perhaps the best starting point today – but like anything else, it needs to be compared to other sources. For instance, I was taught that Julius Caesar's last words were Et tu, Brute? However, on deeper inquiry, he was a high class roman so could have well said 'και συ τεκνον' as high class Romans spoke in Greek. My best teacher once said, “Hey guys, I'm only telling you what the examiner will pass you on but I'm not convinced myself.” That is what education really means... To draw out and awaken the intellect. Otherwise you'll might as well just be programming robots. So yes, Wikipedia is a very good starting point, yet like every other source it needs explaining.--Aspro (talk) 00:00, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Certainly Wikipedia requires interpretation and critical thinking on behalf of the reader-who-cares - but in that regard, it's no different than any other encyclopedia or other reference work. No books of any kind are ever error-free. What's kinda 'special' here is that in the past, there were many different encyclopedias that one might wish to consult to get a variety of perspectives and thereby form a coherent view. But that's getting harder to do. Wikipedia has so taken over the world that other sources that might have competed are vanishing. Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer in print - and the online version requires a subscription or LOTS of popup ads and other annoyance...and the online edition can now be edited by the general public - so it's going to start having similar problems to Wikipedia in that regard...it's dying. If Britannica - with it's impressive reputation - can't stand up to this juggernaut, then no other general-purpose reference work stands a chance.
- If Wikipedia becomes "the only game in town" (as now seems inevitable) - and "The One True Source of All Human Knowledge" - then teachers need to adapt to how it works and what it can truly do for students. Learning when to accept it and how to check it is not just a skill that students need for writing papers and doing projects - the ability to be able to use Wikipedia effectively becomes a skill that's as important to their future intellectual development as knowing how to read.
- That's just a part of a wider skill-set - knowing how to find facts on the Internet and figuring out what to believe and what to ignore. If I search for "Dangers of Vaccinations" - I'll find more complete nonsense about vaccinations causing Autism than I'll find useful material about the real risks such as injection-site infections. Figuring out what to believe and what to ignore (Hint: Look for a peer-reviewed journal article!) is a crucial life-skill these days. When I was a kid, we were taught how to use the Dewey-Decimal system...useful knowledge, actually. Well...yeah...that, but for the 21st century!
- The people who work here at the Wikipedia reference desk (well, at least the ones who are good at it!) can pull off incredible feats of searching this vast array of material - teaching THAT skill would be incredibly useful to students later in life. It's a subtle skill - knowing which words, typed into Google, will get you the gold-mine of information that you need - and which will bury you in a sea of unrelated topics - is exceedingly difficult. But who teaches this to school-kids?
- I recall one situation where someone posted a photo of a tree, looking out over a valley with some fairly nondescript buildings off in the distance and asked us where the photo was taken. They thought it was somewhere in Thailand - but it could have been literally anywhere in the entire world. And we nailed it, (it turned out to be somewhere in India) - being able to point out more or less exactly where the camera was, and finding another photo from a very similar location. The collaborative detective skills required to do that are what I believe should be taught. Figuring out how to use Wikipedia (and Google, IMDB, WikiCommons, WikiTravel, Wiktionary, etc) is just a part of that. Critical thinking skills are paramount - and a wide base of knowledge that allows you to filter out a lot of impossible answers.
Inducing Orgasm
What chemical process takes place during orgasm to make it feel good?
Can the same feeling be induced without sexual stimulation? Like a pill that releases the same chemicals and makes a person feel orgasm without genital manipulation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordNoodles (talk • contribs)
- This really belongs on the science desk. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:33, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- This is a complicated thing. From what I can find, the actual moment of orgasm is a mental thing - it's the consequences of it that produce all of the chemical changes - notably the prolactin and oxytocin release that produces the profound feelings of relaxation afterwards. Oxytocin can be generated in other ways - and generates similar feelings of relaxation - but it doesn't CAUSE orgasm. Oxytocin is used in many medical situations - no orgasms result.
- So I suspect that the answer is that there is no pill that can produce the orgasmic feeling itself - only the after-effects. Another problem with a literal pill is that these chemicals have to act on the brain - and most drugs can't cross the blood/brain barrier.
- There is no drug that can reliably induce orgasm all by itself. However, there are some drugs that occasionally cause them. Antidepressants are the best known -- their usual effect is to inhibit sexual function, but there are numerous reports of some of them (particularly clomipramine) producing spontaneous orgasms in some people, sometimes, strangely enough, triggered by yawning. There are also non-drug-related ways of producing spontaneous orgasms, including electrical stimulation of certain points in the brain, and certain types of epilepsy. Looie496 (talk) 14:07, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
elephant in the room
Where does the phrase "elephant in the room" come from to denote something people can't see? Surely if there really was an elephant in the room, everyone would not only be able to see it, but also smell and hear it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Elsa Anna 4 ever (talk • contribs)
- It doesn't mean that at all. The elephant in the room is something that is making everyone present uncomfortable, but which everyone either ignores or refuses to address. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:34, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- agreed. It's the exact opposite of no one noticing. The reference is to something that everyone is VERY aware of, as they would be if an elephant was in the room. Bali88 (talk) 01:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- I think a better expression would be "It's the dog poo on the carpet that nobody can see" (because if they see it, they will have to clean it up). StuRat (talk) 05:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- For an example of the usage, see The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party μηδείς (talk) 10:11 pm, Yesterday (UTC−4)
- That could also be called an "unholy alliance", kind of like with the northern liberal Democrats and the southern segregationist Democrats, notably during the 1930s. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:21, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- For an example of the usage, see The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party μηδείς (talk) 10:11 pm, Yesterday (UTC−4)
Driver-less cars
I heard that Google are making driver-less cars
Does the car have to take and pass a driving test, and get a driving license, before being allowed on the road? What would the picture be of in its license, the car itself? 200 ethernet cables (talk) 22:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Funny. As with anything to do with driving on public streets, a serious answer will depend on the laws of a given region, for example a US State. You may find Autonomous car of interest. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:54, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- The answer is "nobody knows yet". The likelyhood of these things becoming consumer items is still a long way off. Some US states are trying to work on laws about this - others are ignoring it for the moment. In some places, the gizmo that makes the car drive itself is considered (by default) in the same way as cruise control is legislated - so the car wouldn't need any special testing - but the person sitting in the driver position would take full responsibility for the behavior of the car. That interpretation of the law is what has enabled Google (and a few others) to put experimental driverless cars onto US roads for testing.
- There is a tendency to assume that these cars are going to become very common very soon - and that's not likely. The super-impressive Google car relies on very up-to-date maps that are accurate to better than a centimeter and detailed enough to show curbs and drain covers and anything else like that. Making those maps is exceedingly difficult - you can't just scan the roadways because you have to distinguish permenant features (curbs, roadsigns, buildings, etc) from things that just happened to be there when the road was scanned (parked cars, etc). So having driverless cars (using the Google approach) can't happen until enough of the road system can be mapped that way - and an infrastructure put in place to update those maps almost immediately every time anything changes (eg a junction is remodeled, a new road sign added, etc). We'd also need an efficient way to redistribute those incredibly bandwidth-intensive maps to these cars.
- The other driverless vehicles (such as the ones that participated in the DARPA challenge) don't need such detailed maps - but they are in a much less advanced state of development. Most are not remotely ready to drive safely in normal traffic.
- The legal impediments to doing this go beyond a "driving test" - there is also the issue of insurance rules. If you send your car home without you and there is a crash, can you be held liable? What about if the problem is a bug in the software? What if two cars from different manufacturers both have flaws in their software such that each is safe by itself, but fatal when the two of them meet in the streets...who has to do the recall of 10 million vehicles and fix the problem?
- Can cars be allowed to run by themselves - or with just small children inside? One idea is that you'd be able to tell your car to take your kids to school so you don't have to.
- Then we have moral issues to contend with. One recent problem that popped up is with crash-avoidance. If your driverless car sees that a crash is inevitable, it needs to be programmed to decide what is the least lethal route to take. If there is a choice between driving itself off a cliff, inevitably killing it's owner - versus swerving into incoming traffic and hitting a much smaller car with three little children in it, yet only slightly injuring it's own driver - should it decide to kill it's owner or to kill three small children and merely injure it's owner? What if it detects that there is a choice between hitting two oncoming cars and has time to consult a database provided by it's insurance company so it can aim for the one that's least expensive to repair...or to always aim for cars that have insurance and to try to avoid uninsured cars? Would you like your Ford to preferentially hit Chevvy's rather than other Fords in order to improve the reliability statistics for Ford cars? Difficult stuff! Do you really want to buy a car that is programmed to sacrifice your life or ding your pocketbook in some altruistic act?
- So we're a long way off doing this. It's not just technology - there are infrastructure, commercial, legal and moral issues to iron out too. I'm pretty sure that most states will hold off writing any laws at all until everything settles down and we can understand where we're going.
- There is some precedent for passing overly-restrictive laws to start with, and relaxing them as the technology becomes more widely accepted. When cars first appeared, there were laws passed in the UK and some US states that a man had to walk in front of the car waving a red flag! (See Red flag traffic laws) That kind of overly-cautious, unbearably-restrictive law will probably appear first.
- SteveBaker (talk) 14:03, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Congratulations to SB on one correct usage of it's = it is. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- ...and thanks for violating your edit-ban to bring us that exciting piece of news. SteveBaker (talk) 14:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Steve, lots of thought-provoking questions, but what is your source for the Google cars depending on maps that are "accurate to better than a centimeter and detailed enough to show curbs and drain covers and anything else like that. " I have not seen any suggestion in articles about the Google cars that they require more accuracy than typical GIS maps such as ordinary GPS units use. They have cameras/lidar to see curbs and such, and their press release shows them avoiding parked cars and traffic cones which one would not expect to me mapped down to a few millimeters in advance of the outing.
- Congratulations to SB on one correct usage of it's = it is. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- [7] covers it moderately well. I saw it on a TV interview with someone at Google just recently - but I don't recall where. The reason their cars do so much better than the winners of the DARPA contest is that their LIDAR only has to see differences between the "true" map of the road and what the world currently appears to be. It's relatively easy for them to recognize the differences as being people, cars, etc - and to treat any difference as a hazard. Figuring out that there are traffic cones is fairly easy once you know where the road surface is and where you *care* about cones being present...and resolving what to do if cones are present is easier if you know already which other lanes are available to drive upon. The DARPA-challenge folks only had available digital maps to get a rough route from - they had to detect kerbs and other fixed objects using LIDAR or other measurement techniques on the fly - which is a vastly higher level of difficulty than Google have attempted. So far, they've only mapped 2,000 miles of road to this extreme level of detail - it sounds like a lot, but it's really not even a drop in the bucket. These aren't even really "maps" - they record things like the three dimensional location of each of the lights in each of the signals at every intersection to within a centimeter or so! They even know things like which days garbage trucks do pickups and when there are likely to be school busses present. It's far, far beyond what a typical GIS map would contain...although the concept of storing all of these data layers isn't a technological obstacle - it's just a matter of collecting all of that data for millions of miles of road - and then keeping it up to date - and guaranteeing it'll stay up to date for the entire lifespan of the cars that need it. (If Ford goes bust tomorrow - you can still drive your car, and probably get it serviced and find spare parts for it. But if Google decided to drop the driverless car data from it's servers in 10 years time, your car turns into a worthless paperweight overnight! SteveBaker (talk) 14:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Steve, you say "the person sitting in the driver position would take full responsibility for the behavior of the car". The newest Google cars have no steering wheel or pedals. There is no driver position. HiLo48 (talk) 00:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, but it's far from clear whether any jurisdiction will accept them as legal. Google don't get to write the laws.
- This article says that the Google car will have both steering wheel and pedals when it's tested in California (for legal reasons). It also refers to the extra-detailed maps. SteveBaker (talk) 14:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Steve, you say "the person sitting in the driver position would take full responsibility for the behavior of the car". The newest Google cars have no steering wheel or pedals. There is no driver position. HiLo48 (talk) 00:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Why are there so many American Organisations
Why is it that there are so many food and other companies which exist in the US, but not in my country (Scotland)? I found this when attempting a quiz app on food brands, and cheated on 90% of the questions, given they were obscure brands which only existed in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.229.232 (talk • contribs) 22:58, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- Population of the US: 318,127,000. Population of Scotland: 5,327,700. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- It could be interesting to see some of those "obscure" US brands, and maybe some brands well-known to Scots. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:16, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- This isn't a chat forum. 208.31.38.30 (talk) 23:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- I would like to see some of those brand names. That's information. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- This isn't a chat forum. 208.31.38.30 (talk) 23:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
If the question is about "number of food brands" one reason is simple - Americans markets can carry more than 60,000 different SKUs. This is quite a bit more than most European markets can carry, thus there is intrinsically a need for more "brands" even where they are made by the same company. European "hypermarkets" generally carry up to 35,000 SKUs it appears, and most local markets carry under 9,000 SKUs. As one example, Florida supermarkets generally carry more than 40 SKUs just for baked beans, which is likely more than one would find in a typical Scottish supermarket. Collect (talk) 01:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Not only is this not a chat forum, in the US we have organizations, not organis..a..whatsits. Also, that Americans give more to charity than any other sepcies is widely know. As for the reputation of Scotts, it's not our place to say, is it? μηδείς (talk) 01:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- It's fair to say that Montgomery Scott and Sir Walter Scott had good reputations.←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:29, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- For those of us unschooled in Inventory Management, "SKUs" are Stock keeping units. Dbfirs 05:50, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- ...or more mundanely and specifically, a SKU is a unique bar-code pattern.
- So 10 different flavors of the same food item would each have a different SKU...but a pack containing 10 smaller containers, each with a different flavor and "Not labelled for individual sale" would be a single SKU. So it's hard to tie what a SKU represents to the variety of product present. Our local food store has bags of potato chips in a dozen flavors - each with a different SKU, but also sells large boxes, each containing a dozen bags of the exact same kind of chips in a variety of flavors - which has a single SKU. You'd also find that an item that comes in a variety of sizes of packaging will have a different SKU for each size. Some companies even change the SKU when they change the printing on the box for some reason. For smaller companies, the cost of owning a new barcode is significant (you have to register those things with a central agency who ensures that they are unique) - and it costs around $1,000 per bar-code to do that. So in some cases a variety of identically-priced and similarly-stocked items (like the same cuddly toy made with different colors of fur in some 3rd world sweat-shop) might share the same exact SKU.
- So counting the number of SKU's and relating that to "variety" of product is a very tricky matter. Much depends on the store policy - especially in the case of gigantic chain-stores who can order the manufacturers to package and bar-code in a certain way.
- [8] FWIW, one can buy UPC codes for as little as $80 each. If one pays $750 and an annual fee of $150,one can get a humungous number of bar codes (cutting cost down to only a few dollars each) Collect (talk) 15:25, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- My understanding is that the problem is that the number on the barcode is part a company code and part a product within that company. The people who sell the $80 (or so) UPC's are giving you one number out of a batch that they own. So the company code is theirs, not yours. I found that there are three categories of retailers out there:
- The big guys (like WalMart) demand that each company that they order stuff from have their own company code...so the $80 UPC's you describe are not acceptable to them. The meaning of the code is important to them.
- Middle-tier organizations (and I happen to know that Hobby Lobby is one of them) only care that the code is unique - so they are happy for you to use the $80 UPC's because the entire code is still unique - even though it doesn't mean much.
- Very small retailers don't give a damn so long as your product doesn't have the same code as anyone elses that they sell. So you can get away with picking a random number (with a vanishingly small probability of coming up with the same one as anyone else)...and I know that some individual stores take that attitude.
- So whether your code costs $0, $80 or $1000 depends on whom you're planning to sell to!
- SteveBaker (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- People, please? The OP wants their question answered. Stop going off topic! — Preceding unsigned comment added by TempUName (talk • contribs) 20:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- It's pretty much already been answered. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- The reference desk has a long and wonderful history of continuing to explore issues long after the OP has been adequately answered. New, somewhat tangential, questions arise (and not necessarily from the OP) during the answering of the original question - and cutting that off or starting a new topic seems unnecessarily complicated. So long as the original question has been answered, there is no harm in tackling additional matters that come up. SteveBaker (talk) 14:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- People, please? The OP wants their question answered. Stop going off topic! — Preceding unsigned comment added by TempUName (talk • contribs) 20:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- My understanding is that the problem is that the number on the barcode is part a company code and part a product within that company. The people who sell the $80 (or so) UPC's are giving you one number out of a batch that they own. So the company code is theirs, not yours. I found that there are three categories of retailers out there:
I think the problem is that the question hasn't actually been answered; most of the above discussion is actually over a different question. The OP noted that in a quiz based on U.S. brands, he – being from Scotland – recognized only about 10%. Paraphrasing, the question wasn't "why are there more brands in the U.S. than in Scotland?" (which seems to be what most of the above back-and-forth is about) but rather "Why is there so little overlap in brands between the U.S. and Scotland?"
Sure, smaller stores carrying a smaller number of unique products could certainly contribute to the disparity. (Though fewer SKUs can mean fewer brands, or it can mean fewer unique products from any one brand's line of products—or more likely, a bit of both.) As well, we don't know which brands were part of the OP's survey, so we don't know if they might have been deliberately chosen to be obscure or challenging. (In other words, are those brands that a typical American might also have some trouble recognizing? And were the brands specifically those of U.S.-based companies, or just brands belonging to companies that do business in the U.S.?) And then, of course, there are the companies that use different logos, or even different brand names, when doing business in different markets. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:48, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Well, the OP hasn't bothered to come back here and interact with anyone. However, Grumpy's initial response, about the relative sizes of the two countries, goes a long way toward answering the question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:54, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Note that after looking at many a food quiz myself, I another Scot, say that most of such quizzes are supposedly easier for Americans. Note that other food companies and not just brands may be important here. For instance, why are there more restaurant chains there than in the UK? TempUName (talk) 14:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Light Bulbs
Energy companies and governments around the world are screaming that everyone needs to use compact fluorescent lamps because there aren't enough power stations. But there are more power stations in existence today than at any previous point in history, and years ago everyone used 100 watt incandescent bulbs instead of 7 watt fluorescents. Care to explain? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Melaonin (talk • contribs) 23:08, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- As far as I'm aware, nobody has suggested that there aren't enough power stations - the reason for advocating more efficient light bulbs is that doing so is intended to reduce the detrimental effects of power generation on the environment. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:13, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
- I've never heard that rationale either. Bali88 (talk) 01:00, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- It's called the ethic of altruism, which means, I will fly on private jets for photo ops and you will buy lights you don't want to save coal you don't care about even though it is you and not Greenpeace who pays your electricity bills. μηδείς (talk) 02:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
| WP:NOTFORUM, WP:NOTSOAPBOX |
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| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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- There are more power stations because the demand for power is still increasing. That's not just because of lightbulbs. Lighting consumes about 9% of domestic electricity use (at least in the USA - figures for the UK suggest that 20% is the figure in that part of the world). The biggest uses are heating, water heating, refrigerators and air conditioning. Domestic power consumption is only about a third of the total consumption. So lighting is about 3% to 6% of total electrical usage - and switching to CFL's would cut that to more like 1% (switching to LED lighting would reduce it still more). Demand is increasing across the board - and power station construction grows to meet that demand.
- Global climate change means that we have to cut back on the amount of power we use. In practical terms, it's hard to improve heating and cooling in an existing home - so we encourage people to nudge the thermostat a few degrees to save on those big costs...to buy efficient refrigerators and freezers. But not many people are going to change their heating or aircon systems. Getting people to change their light bulbs *ought* to be a no-brainer. These more efficient bulbs pay for themselves and soon save you money - and they help (a little) to save the planet. Making that change isn't anywhere near enough by itself - but every little helps.
- We're not saying that there aren't enough power stations - if that were the only problem, we could just build more of them. The problem is actually that there are too many of them! We need to reduce the amount of CO2 produced - so fewer CO2-producing power plants - which means using less energy - which means making every economy we possibly can. Switching to more efficient lighting is only a small step - but it's an easy one to take.
May 31
Why is there no human mating season?
Why is there no human mating season? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firstonetotalk (talk • contribs) 10:56, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Being able to breed all year round seems like an obviously better way to maximize the number of offspring. The more litters you can have in a year, the faster your population can grow. So it's easy to see why it's a good idea for humans. So, perhaps a better way to understand this question to turn it around and ask "Why do so many non-human species have a seasonal mating pattern?"...and we have an article about that: Seasonal breeder.
- Mostly, the reason for seasonal breeding is so that the young are born at a time when a suitable food supply is available. In many species, the timing of mating is carefully optimised so that the young appear exactly when some food item becomes available.
- Some animals, such as the Periodical cicadas do it for the opposite reason - to NOT have offspring at a time when predators are there to eat them. These animals take this to an extreme by only breeding once every 13 or 17 years. This strategy works by starving out their predators...no species can easily evolve to survive by eating 17 year cicadas because they'd have to go for 16 years and 10 months at a time with no food!
- In many other species (eg the Black widow spider or the Crematogaster ants), the effort of producing young is fatal to one or both of the parents - so the breeding season is limited to the amount of time it takes a newborn of the species to get to breeding age. In the case of Crematogaster, the male and female ants grow wings, engage in a nuptual flight and then the males die and the female loses her wings forever.
- Migratory animals also have to time their breeding to fit in with their migration patterns. The young have to be sufficiently strong to endure the migration - and that ties the breeding period to the appropriate time for migration - which may be related to weather patterns, winds, tides and so forth.
- That said, humans do have a set of specific times when mating is effective in producing offspring - that being once each month when our females are fertile. But because we're a "pair-bonding" species, it's valuable for us to have sex between the effective mating periods in order to form and maintain those social bonds.
- SteveBaker (talk) 13:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Modern humans in most parts of the world are now able to have a supply of food available year round, but this wasn't always the case. However, humans take so long to grow up that, unlike many other species, we can't do most of or growing during one season, so there's not much point in timing births to hit during a time-of-plenty. StuRat (talk) 20:17, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
vegetable
is it true that in north america, pizza is considered a vegetable because it has tomato ketchup on it? approximately how many full tomatoes in the form of ketchup would there be on an average pizza? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coolist404 (talk • contribs) 12:14, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Well, I wouldn't say that everyone in the USA thinks that! The pressure to come up with this crazy idea is that in some parts of the USA there is legislation requiring that children who have school lunches are provided with at least one serving of vegetables with each meal. Labelling a pizza (or even a serving of ketchup) as "A vegetable" allows schools to occasionally serve food that kids will actually eat - despite the legislation. Very recently, there was a study about the effectiveness of the law - and one finding was that although every child would duly have to pick a serving of beans or peas or something with their meal - nobody was checking to ensure that they were actually being eaten. Hence the law was producing enormous amounts of wastage of food...which might go some way to explain why this fairly crazy claim that the tomato sauce on a pizza is a "serving of vegetables".
- FWIW, I'd heard the claim that a serving of ketchup was claimed by some schools in the UK to be a "vegetable serving" for much the same reasons. So it's not just the handful of crazy US school districts that thought this up!
- But please don't go away with the idea that all Americans think that Pizza is a vegetable - I'm fairly sure that a large percentage know that pizza is not remotely a healthy food - and nearly everyone laughs at the idea of considering it to be a "vegetable portion". This is a stupid artifact of a poorly thought out law.
- SteveBaker (talk) 13:22, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- See Ketchup as a vegetable, in particular the "Similar efforts" section. Graham87 14:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- The claim comes down to the fact that government bureaucracies will tend to define what a "serving" is and what a "vegetable" is. We can reasonably define a vegetable (ignoring the edge cases, things like cucumbers and tomatoes which are botanically fruits, but which we all agree are culinary vegetables) and we can then define what a "serving" is. Let's say we agree that 30 grams is a reasonable serving size for a child (I have no idea if it is or it isn't. But lets just say that it is, for our argument). Now, if a piece of pizza contains 30 grams of an actual tomato as an ingredient, why wouldn't it contain a serving of vegetables? If I added 30 grams of tomatoes to a salad, that counts, but it doesn't in pizza? Now, this exercise may display the folly in this thinking (the idea that one can ignore the unhealthy portions of a meal merely because it happens to contain some randomly healthy ingredient), but it isn't dishonest or lying in any way. --Jayron32 15:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Indeed! But aside from the actual weight of vegetable matter on the plate, the larger problem is the way the the vegetables are prepared. The more heavily processed it is, the less value it has in terms of being "A Serving Of Vegetables" with it's associated health benefits. The tomato paste in a typical pizza is incredibly heavily processed...I'd be very surprised if the nutritional value of an actual tomato was remotely present in a slice of pizza. Sadly, these laws are rushed in by politicians who are more interested in "Being Seen To Do Something" than actually making the world a better place. Passing a dumb law that says that something that a certain weight of what was once a vegetable has to be placed on the plate of every child in the nation - is quite easy for them to do. Figuring out how to intelligently persuade our children to make healthier food choices and eat a healthy mix of foods is really, really hard. Hence, we get stupid laws with great gaping loopholes that result in kids STILL eating pizza whenever they can get away with it - but also wasting our money by tossing their peas and beans, carrots, broccoli and cabbage straight from cook-pot to garbage bucket. If that's what the majority of them are doing (as a recent survey suggests) - then we might as well allow pizza as a loophole just to save that horrifying waste. SteveBaker (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Do you have a source for "tomato paste in a typical pizza is incredibly heavily processed"? I make my pizza tomatoes two ways: either cook it to reduce moisture, or even easier, just drain chopped tomatoes in a sieve. What more processing is required? I'm also skeptical about "pizza is unhealthy" - I don't think the pizza I make is any less healthy than, say, soup I make. Just understand what you put in it. 88.112.50.121 (talk) 18:53, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Indeed, home-made pizza could be pretty good - I'm thinking of the stuff they are likely to serve in a school lunch line. SteveBaker (talk) 19:43, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- So the cooks go "Monday is casserole, get some healthy ingredients. Tuesday, soup, healthy, check. Wednesday is pizza - ha! Get the lard bucket and extra salt! And process (whatever that means) the snot out of those tomatoes!" Sure it is possible to have a kitchen that ignores health concerns, but why would a flat bread with toppings be the one particular evil in that kitchen? 88.112.50.121 (talk) 20:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- While pretty much any food can be made healthier or less healthy, some an inherently healthier than others. Pizza almost has to have cheese, for example, and that's unhealthy. It also has many ingredients which tend to have salt added, like the crust, cheese, sauce, and many toppings. So, you really do have to make an effort to make it healthy. A greens salad, on the other hand, is rather healthy to begin with, and you need to go out of your way to make it unhealthy, say by putting fried chicken on top of it. StuRat (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Even if we accept the implied absolute unhealthiness of cheese, a quick web search finds substitutes. Or just don't put so much of it it there! Cow's milk has calcium, gotta love that for my bones. I feel no more fear of salt in pizza than in a casserole or a pasta sauce (made with that mystical "processed" tomato again). A green salad does not contain essential amino acids; eating only green salads will eventually kill you. It's all more complex than "flat bread with toppings is processed (still wondering what that word means) and thus unhealthy".
- Yeah, there are popular narratives about nutrition. Everyone has knowledge gained from unexplainable sources about it, even more than about economics. Much of it is contradictory - get a paleo diet guy and a lacto-vegetarian in a room and ask them to discuss cheese - ka-BOOM! 88.112.50.121 (talk) 00:23, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Here's an example of how not to do pizza: [9]. That one has over half your daily sodium and saturated fat allowance in one serving, and nobody eats just one serving. Processed food contains all sorts of additives to simulate healthy food. In the case of pizza sauce, they might use unripe tomatoes, then add artificial coloring to make it red, add some acid to make it tart, add some sugar to make it seem ripe, add some preservatives to keep it from rotting, etc. Processed cheese is even worse, and often doesn't meet the legal requirements to be called cheese, since no cow is involved in the process. So, while pizza can be healthy, just declaring all pizza to be automatically healthy because it contains tomato sauce is not in the interest of the children who eat it. Instead, the schools must do the work to actually make sure the pizza is really good for the kids. As for salads, you can add some beans, nuts, and seeds to a salad to make it more complete, but my favorite is a steamed salmon fillet on top. StuRat (talk) 04:33, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, pizza can be healthy, but the typical American pizza is far from healthy, with too much sodium, too many sugars, carbohydrates, calories, fat, saturated fat, and possibly trans fats, with minimal fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The classic pepperoni pizza is one of the worst, and there are even crazy pizzas that eliminate the tomato sauce and substitute something far less healthy, like alfredo sauce. Now, to make it healthy, it should have a thin multi-grain crust, minimal cheese, keep the tomato sauce but make it low salt, and put mushrooms and lots of veggies on it, avoiding heavily-salted veggies like olives and hot peppers. If you must have meat on it, avoid heavily salted and fatty meats like pepperoni, ham, hamburger, and sausage, and add grilled chicken, instead. Pineapple works, too. StuRat (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- At that point, what do you add to it to make it taste good, or at least to taste like pizza? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:26, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, pizza can be healthy, but the typical American pizza is far from healthy, with too much sodium, too many sugars, carbohydrates, calories, fat, saturated fat, and possibly trans fats, with minimal fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The classic pepperoni pizza is one of the worst, and there are even crazy pizzas that eliminate the tomato sauce and substitute something far less healthy, like alfredo sauce. Now, to make it healthy, it should have a thin multi-grain crust, minimal cheese, keep the tomato sauce but make it low salt, and put mushrooms and lots of veggies on it, avoiding heavily-salted veggies like olives and hot peppers. If you must have meat on it, avoid heavily salted and fatty meats like pepperoni, ham, hamburger, and sausage, and add grilled chicken, instead. Pineapple works, too. StuRat (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- American pizza has pizza sauce on it - never catsup. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 16:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- According to those articles, the main difference is which ingredients are added to the basic tomato sauce. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:28, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- I actually think the law requiring them to serve something healthy is a good one, and the attempt to weaken it is not in the interest of the kids. When I was in school I was appalled at the greasy junk food they served, like tater tots. I agree that, given the choice, most kids will choose junk food over healthy food. Well, don't give them the choice. Remove all junk food from the cafeteria menu, and remove all junk food vending machines. If the kids bring in junk food, at their own expense, that's between them and their parents, but schools should not be encouraging unhealthy eating. A kid who is hungry enough will eat healthy food, and may even grow to like it. StuRat (talk) 19:57, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- True - but a healthy diet is a mix of different food types. If the cafeteria offers that mix - then kids can get away with eating just the individual items that they like and dumping the ones they don't. The only way to fix that is to somehow force-feed with a Victorian punishment ethic ("You don't leave the table until the plate is clean!" - or "If you don't finish everything today, you get the left-overs back tomorrow") - or maybe you feed them nothing but Soylent (not Soylent Green!) where all of the ingredients are inextricably blended. In the end, the best you can do is offer a balanced diet and educate them to choose to consume a balanced diet. Education is, after all, what schools are supposed to be all about. The unfortunate part of school lunch programs is that many parents use the excuse that the kid is supposedly getting a good, balanced lunch to dodge the issue of feeding them properly at home.
- Hmmm - maybe the answer is: Take a serving of vegetables and eat it all - or you get Soylent for the next three days! Either way, the kid gets a healthy diet!
- SteveBaker (talk) 14:13, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- For American kids, I don't think you need to worry that they might not get enough fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol in their diet if not provided in school lunches, they will get plenty of that at home. So, you can focus on only providing healthy foods at lunch, like salads with nuts, and skim white milk to drink, and let them pig-out elsewhere. StuRat (talk) 18:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
City of London
How many people have been murdered in the City of London since 1991? AppleSparkleDash (talk) 15:56, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- To be completely clear: You're asking about the City of London which is a tiny 1.1 square mile section of the place most people call "London" - which covers about 600 square miles. I presume you're aware of that distinction! It's mostly government buildings, parks and such - very few people live there. (About 7,000).
- I found this which lists the names of all 500 people murdered in Greater London since 2006...so VERY roughly, 500 people in 8 years is 62.5 per year - so perhaps around 1,500 since 1991. It seems though that the murder rate has been steadily falling, and dropped abruptly by about 20% in the last few years - so I'd imagine that this is an under-estimate and mayb 2,000 would be closer to the mark.
- But that same article lists no murders at all in the square mile of the city itself - and since it has a population of just 7,000 people and it's full of high-security areas with a ton of cameras and police presence - that shouldn't be surprising.
- Looking at it another way, the murder rate in Greater London in 2012 was 12.5 deaths per million people - so we would expect to see a little over one murder per decade in the City itself. On that basis, the answer I'd expect would be just one or two people...and with the additional security of the area, probably zero. Once the numbers get that small though - statistical approaches break down. It would only take one major incident with a terrorist killing a handful of people to push that number through the roof.
- Yup - statistics suggest that numbers would be very small this [10] seems to suggest that there have been no murders at all since 2006 (note that the City of London is in the drop-down list, suggesting that data hasn't simply been omitted). It should be noted though that terrorist attacks have occurred - the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing caused one fatality, and the bomb on the underground train between
Edgware RoadAldgate and Liverpool Street during the 7 July 2005 London bombings killed seven people (other fatalities were outside the City). I can't think of any further incidents which took place within the City itself. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)- Agreed - those terrorist attacks are the only murders I can recall in the City for many years. There have of course been other unlawful deaths, but no other murders. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:52, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Yup - statistics suggest that numbers would be very small this [10] seems to suggest that there have been no murders at all since 2006 (note that the City of London is in the drop-down list, suggesting that data hasn't simply been omitted). It should be noted though that terrorist attacks have occurred - the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing caused one fatality, and the bomb on the underground train between
- The official statistics are here for 1990 to 2001/02 and here for 2002/03 to 2012/13. From which it appears that the number of homicides recorded in the City of London Police Force (identical with the City of London) was 3 in 1992, 1 in 1993, 1 in 1995, 2 in 1997, 1 in 2002/03, 1 in 2003/04, 2 in 2005/06, 1 in 2006/07, 1 in 2007/08, 2 in 2009/10, 1 in 2011/12 and 1 in 2012/13. Note that there is a discontinuity with data caused by the National Crime Recording Standard being introduced in 2002/03, although unlikely to have had much impact here. So 17 in total. Not all of those may have resulted in a conviction for murder due to various legal defences. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:27, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- English law makes a distinction between manslaughter and murder, which may account for some of the discrepancy. It seems odd that the 2007 bombing victims aren't included though. The table Blacketer links also includes the British Transport Police, who might possibly have had jurisdiction over the killings, but the data doesn't seem to include them there either. I wonder whether the killings were all included in the Metropolitan Police figures? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Were the 2007 bombings actually within the City of London though? And even if they were, did all the victims die on the spot, or in hospitals that aren't inside the City of London boundaries, so wouldn't be counted anyway? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Aldgate tube station is within the City (just), but it may be that terrorist killings are listed separately from murders. Alansplodge (talk) 12:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Were the 2007 bombings actually within the City of London though? And even if they were, did all the victims die on the spot, or in hospitals that aren't inside the City of London boundaries, so wouldn't be counted anyway? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- English law makes a distinction between manslaughter and murder, which may account for some of the discrepancy. It seems odd that the 2007 bombing victims aren't included though. The table Blacketer links also includes the British Transport Police, who might possibly have had jurisdiction over the killings, but the data doesn't seem to include them there either. I wonder whether the killings were all included in the Metropolitan Police figures? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Hmmm...are murders recorded as at the place where the incident happens - or at the place where the victim actually dies? If the latter, then the numbers would be horribly skewed. It's also possible that the police record it one way and some other kind of official statistic list it the other way. I was trying to find which Accident & Emergency hospitals are actually within the boundaries of the City of London - but it's kinda difficult because all of the lists out there tell you where to go for those services if you are within the City boundaries...not which hospitals are within the square mile. If there are no actual A&E centers in the square mile, and the place of record for a murder is the place where the person is officially declared dead - then that might account for all sorts of statistical oddities. SteveBaker (talk) 13:52, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- St Bartholomew's Hospital no longer has an accident and emergency department, it's now at the Royal London Hospital in Tower Hamlets. I can't see the point of compiling stats by which hospital people die in - it wouldn't tell you anything useful. Although as you say above, only about 7,000 people live there, about 300,000 more populate it during the day and the place is still lively late into the night. Thus it is temporarily bigger than Newcastle upon Tyne every working day. Alansplodge (talk) 17:46, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Trams
The article says Tramlink cost "£98m" for 39 stations, 30 trams, and 17 miles of line. Meanwhile, Edinburgh Trams with only 16 stations, 17 trams, and 8 miles of line "is expected to top £1 billion". Is there a reason for the vast difference in price? 186.88.87.143 (talk) 22:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Well the article you linked to, right in the WP:LEDE (and also in the article) says the cost is only $1 billion after interest. It's a bit unclear how much it was before interest but [11] suggest £776 million. That's still a lot more but not quite the over 10 to 1 your initial figures suggest. The £98 million is evidentally the purchase price of the completed system from the owner Tramtrack Croydon Limited a Private Finance Initiative which would likely be related much more to the worth of the system rather than the construction costs (and the construction was about 10 years earlier anyway) and particularly for a highly regulated public transport system there may be limited connection between the two. Per the articles, it sounds like the Edinburgh system was in a much more congested and busier area and was plagued with funding and political difficulties, which would increase costs. Nil Einne (talk) 23:45, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Japanese culture
Why is enjoying sex considered shameful in Japanese culture? イトになるこ (talk) 22:34, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Who says it is? 84.209.89.214 (talk) 23:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- If that were true, there wouldn't be any more Japanese. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- It is true, see Herbivore men. 41.46.232.131 (talk) 11:33, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- That's a subculture, not "Japanese culture" overall. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- It is true, see Herbivore men. 41.46.232.131 (talk) 11:33, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- If that were true, there wouldn't be any more Japanese. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Germany and Japan have dealt differently with their wartime past. One nation legislated genocide-denial as a crime, while the other resorts to whitewashing such irrefutable atrocities as the "comfort women" - Kalliope Lee, The Desperate Cover-Up of a Shame Culture. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 12:40, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Mousy girls
Is there a specific word for an attraction to women who have mouse/rat-like faces? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnnaKendrickFan999 (talk • contribs) 23:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
- Don't think so. Society has a way of categorizing women into categories such a attractive, beautiful, pretty etc. But a mousy girl is someone you are interested in because of her personality. Men stop sort, at trying describe this je ne sais quoi so it comes out as simply Mousy Girl. Don't think that the etymology has anything to do with rodents.--Aspro (talk) 00:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- The term "mousy" is usually about personality. I can't think of anyone whose face I could describe as mouse-like. Perhaps the OP has an example? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- I've heard of "mousy hair", which is grayish brown. StuRat (talk) 04:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Note that the OP is yet another blocked sock. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:32, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- I've heard of "mousy hair", which is grayish brown. StuRat (talk) 04:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
June 1
Cycling
In most parts of the world, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is against the law. And yet cyclists always ignore this rule and do it anyway. Have there been any studies about why cyclists feel that laws against sidewalk cycling and jumping red lights don't apply to them? Bikehornbeepbeep (talk) 00:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Apparently, the situation is so out of hand that NYC had to spend money on educating these jerks. http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/nyc-takes-rude-evil-cyclists-new-ads-131570 —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 00:40, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- I think an investigation in my city showed that (some) cyclists thought that the normal road laws were designed primarily for cars, ignoring their needs, so they had a moral right to ignore them. I do take issue with the OP's claim that "cyclists always ignore this rule". Obviously it's not always, and not all cyclists. HiLo48 (talk) 03:21, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- The ones that obey the laws don't get noticed. But NYC is trying to do something. There was a recent row with Alec Baldwin when he was riding his bike the wrong way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Often people are not confident enough to ride on roads (mostly recreational cyclists out for a nice ride I'd say), that's another cause of sidewalk cycling. The Alec Baldwin incident from what I've read seems to be more of an issue of how he dealt with the police telling him to ride the right way rather than him actually riding the wrong way... Connormah (talk) 03:36, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- True. But the point is that he was riding the wrong way and the cops did something about it. It's to be assumed (or at least hoped) that he wasn't targeted because of who he is, and that the NYC cops try to consistently enforce the bicycling laws. Bicycles have become a pretty important mode of transportation in crowded cities. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:53, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- The laws often seem to be anti-cyclist here in the USA. For example, they might require that cyclists ride on the shoulder of the road, which is inevitably full of road debris, and dangerous, as cars may easily strike them, especially where the shoulder narrows or disappears, as in going over a bridge. A more reasonable law, IMHO, would be to allow cyclists on the sidewalks, but specify that pedestrians have the right of way, so the cyclists can go onto the shoulder to avoid them, for example, then go back onto the sidewalk. Of course, in an ideal world, there would be a separate bicycle path, but that is rarely a reality here. StuRat (talk) 04:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- There's a growing trend in cities to have separate bicycle paths as well as trails specifically made for bicycles. Minneapolis has a pretty good system. Summer is short, and in the winter they double as snowmobile trails. (Snowmobiles are generally not street-legal.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:23, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- It's actually not that simple. Here in Austin, Texas, the laws are a complete mess. There is a blanket law that says that cyclists aren't allowed on sidewalks - then a bunch of ad-hoc rules, in some cases applying to single streets in downtown Austin, that say that cyclists MUST right on the sidewalk. It's an unbelievable mess. Austin has more bike lanes than any other city in the US - and we're known as a bike-friendly city...but still, it's horribly difficult to stay within the letter of the law.
- The reason so many cyclists break the law in riding on the sidewalk is that they simply fear for their lives out there in the street. Even with bike lanes, you can be taking your life into your own hands. Since sidewalk-riding is rarely prosecuted, and the fines are minimal, I could easily see why cyclists would choose to risk getting a fine rather than risking their lives. Watch this video to get a bike-eye-view of how terrifying this can be. SteveBaker (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Super Hod
Can you please find me news articles about a man called "SUPER HOD". My friend said he worked on a construction site and could carry 35 bricks at a time, which earned him a lot of money as he would do the work of 5 men. However, this story sounded like it was made-up and based on a newspaper story about a similar story. His name was SUPER HOD and he could carry 35 bricks in his brick hod. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.73.100.39 (talk) 00:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- think you're referring to Russell Bradley.--Aspro (talk) 02:19, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Our article Brick hod says that typically, 10 to 12 bricks would be carried - so carrying 35 is hardly the work of 5 men...more like three or four. Of course a lot also depends on how fast he carried them. If he walked faster than most people would - then maybe. You'd also want to worry about stamina. Could he carry that many over and over for the same work-day as everyone else.
- Anyway, just type "Super Hod" into Google - there are lots of hits. Chief amongst them are these:
- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/5560926/Superhod-Max-Quarterman-on-100000-brickies.html - which says that a Mr Max Quarterman was earning 100,000 UK pounds in the 1970's. I could easily imagine that was five times what a regular brickie would be earning back then.
- http://www.awci.org/cd/pdfs/7601_b.pdf - which calls him "Maxie Quarterman" and says that he was earning about five times what a typical worker was getting. It also says that he hauled 150lbs of plaster at a time "at a run" for 8 hours a day...so yes, three times the normal load and at significantly higher speeds could easily amount to five times what a normal hod carrier would do.
- http://store.historicimages.com/products/ksc15119 - contains another photo of Mr Quartermain, adds the detail that he drove Rolls Royce and was entertaining job offers from construction managers in the USA.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8715505.stm - shows the guy standing next to what is presumably the afore-mentioned car.
- http://fred67.com/focus.html - a poem written in the guy's honor! He was famous in the mid-1970's because he earned more than the Prime Minister and seemed to have gotten there by sheer focussed hard work.
- There are lots of other articles about him - but they all repeat the same basic information with minor embellishments.
- I found various forum posts about "What happened to Super Hod?" - but no actual answers. The consensus is that he eventually stopped carrying the hod and instead sub-contracted plastering jobs...but this is far from certain. There was also talk that the housing price squeeze of the 1980's reduced demand for his services. Since he wasn't a brick carrier - but a plaster specialist, the switch from rendered and plastered walls to plaster-board (aka drywall, aka sheet-rock) would certainly have curtailed his value.
- Conclusion: Yes, at least one person with the nickname "Super-Hod" carried three times the normal load for a hod-carrier - and by running everywhere managed to do the work of 5 men - and was paid accordingly. HOWEVER, he seems to have carried loads of plaster - not bricks...which throws suspicion on your friend who seems to be talking about bricks (which are also carried in a hod - but not by Maxie Quartermain). We also know that in 1975, he was 33 years old - so now he'd be in his early 70's.
- What we don't know: (a) Was this nickname later applied to other workers who worked similarly hard but carried bricks instead? (b) Is the friend you have one of those people, or is your friend Mr Maxie Quartermain?
- SteveBaker (talk) 13:08, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
dandelion
If a dandelion seed was put into a large pot on it's own, and regularly weeded for other plants, how big would the dandelion get? Would it just grow and grow until it filled the entire pot, or does it have a size limit coded into its genome? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pizzxx7 (talk • contribs) 10:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- It's a perennial root system that flowers annually, at least in the wild. Like your typical houseplant, the roots should be able to grow until the pot becomes "rootbound". If you get the right type of dandelion, you could harvest the leaves and make salads. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:17, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Note that the OP is yet another blocked sock. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia
How did the Wikipedia userbase manage to usurp power from Jimbo Wales and turn him into a powerless figurehead? Surely as the owner and bill-payer of the Wikipedia server he could simply pull the plug at any time — Preceding unsigned comment added by CareerSoat (talk • contribs) 12:52, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Your characterization of the situation is way off-base. Nobody "usurped" Jimbo - he set up the system from the outset to be run by the editors themselves and handed over the financial reins to form a public charity in 2003. He did this to avoid the growing financial burden on his own (for-profit) business - not because anyone took it from him. Since 2003, he neither owns Wikipedia, nor pays any of the bills here.
- The servers for Wikipedia and it's sister projects belong to the Wikimedia Foundation (Sue Gardner is the executive director, Jan-Bart de Vreede is chairman of the board) - and the software and essentially all of the content (except the Wikipedia logo!) is licensed under an open license - so even if the WikiMedia Foundation decided to commit corporate suicide by "pulling the plug", any of the bazillion existing mirror sites out there could pick it all up and carry on in a matter of days. Jimbo is only one of ten board members who vote on issues relating to Wikimedia - his position is as an "emeritus" board member - so he's the only member of the board who isn't voted in...although I think he could (in principle) be voted out.
- Financial ties with Jimbo Wales and his other businesses have been severed for years - WikiMedia (and hence Wikipedia) is funded by public contributions and charitable grants. You can read the rules under which WikiMedia Foundation operates here. You can see that Jimbo is not remotely able to dictate any "plug-pulling".
- That said, Jimbo still wields considerable power here just because people respect him and his vision - and because he gives presentations and hosts discussions about Wikipedia and it's sister projects around the world - so that he is undoubtedly the public face of Wikipedia. When Jimbo says something, people listen - but they don't have to listen - and he is frequently overruled or ignored. He is, however, a figurehead - and ignoring Jimbo tends to bring a ton of attention from other editors who tend to side with his point of view.
- Note that the OP is yet another sock of somebody or other, now indef'd. However, the information posted above is useful, so no hat. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:07, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Navvies
Did the public care that much about navvies dying by the bucket load during construction projects of 19th century? Dosxexe (talk) 14:15, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Define "care that much". Accidents can happen in most any engineering project. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:46, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Death in the workplace was a common occurrence, for instance the Hartley Colliery Disaster killed 204 men in one go. I suspect that several British miners were killed every day without any disaster. Sailors, fishermen, builders, foundry men and many other trades were prone to the most gruesome accidents. My grandfather's first job as an apprentice on a sailing ship was to look after a man who had fallen out of the rigging and took 15 hours to die. Women who made matches went down like flies with phossy jaw, for which the only treatment was amputation of the lower jaw. So I think people accepted that many jobs were dangerous, but that was the way it was. A modern parallel might be that many drivers accept that 35,000 road users are killed a year in the United States, but complain about restrictive measures designed to reduce this. There were moves to improve things, Lord Shaftesbury pushed through legal regulation designed to protect women and children, and by the end of the century, laws like the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 meant that bosses had to compensate their injured employees. There were similar moves in Germany and the US. This book review has more details. Alansplodge (talk) 17:25, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- The OP is yet another blocked sock. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Death in the workplace was a common occurrence, for instance the Hartley Colliery Disaster killed 204 men in one go. I suspect that several British miners were killed every day without any disaster. Sailors, fishermen, builders, foundry men and many other trades were prone to the most gruesome accidents. My grandfather's first job as an apprentice on a sailing ship was to look after a man who had fallen out of the rigging and took 15 hours to die. Women who made matches went down like flies with phossy jaw, for which the only treatment was amputation of the lower jaw. So I think people accepted that many jobs were dangerous, but that was the way it was. A modern parallel might be that many drivers accept that 35,000 road users are killed a year in the United States, but complain about restrictive measures designed to reduce this. There were moves to improve things, Lord Shaftesbury pushed through legal regulation designed to protect women and children, and by the end of the century, laws like the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 meant that bosses had to compensate their injured employees. There were similar moves in Germany and the US. This book review has more details. Alansplodge (talk) 17:25, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Electricity
Is it true that in some parts of America they still use DC electricity as mains electricity instead of AC electricity? Also how is it that hillbilly families can live in the same house for generations without working or paying any bills? Does it have something to do with the American Civil War? Ccdvscmos (talk) 14:53, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Who says they don't work or pay any bills? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:55, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- As to the first question, High-voltage direct current would seem to be the answer, and it would seem to be mostly or solely a European thing. Of course, everyone uses direct current if they have any appliances in their house, as the AC is converted to DC for the appliance. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- The OP is yet another blocked sock. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:28, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- As to the first question, High-voltage direct current would seem to be the answer, and it would seem to be mostly or solely a European thing. Of course, everyone uses direct current if they have any appliances in their house, as the AC is converted to DC for the appliance. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
How do people living near time zone boundaries deal with frequent crossings between time zones?
How do people living near time zone boundaries deal with frequent crossings between time zones? --173.49.79.20 (talk) 16:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- It's a royal pain. You always have to specify the time zone any time you plan anything. If they are mostly in one time zone, then they might assume that to be the default, and specify when they mean the other time zone. This is why time zone boundaries often detour around major cities. China even tries to use one time zone even though it should use about 5 or 6, based on geography.
- Internet and teleconferencing meetings have this problem even worse. I think it's time to abandon local time zones and all use UTC. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
What are the current/last known names of the Wallsall and Wolverhampton mentioned here?
I don't think they are the modern stations of the same name.
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:58, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Can you post a link to an external online copy please so we can see what you are talking about? Thank you.--TammyMoet (talk) 17:09, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Wikisource - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Bradshaw%27s_Monthly_%28XVI%29.djvu/19
- Scans: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bradshaw%27s_Monthly_%28XVI%29.djvu
- I was trying to reconcile the figures shown in the tables (which in respect of the fractions aren't readable.), It's proving trickier than it looks.
(Nobody here has access to the Bradshw concerned to get better scans? :( )
Certain Song played in the movie "The Sacrament "
Hello there, I have watched the movie " The Sacrament". In that movie, a certain song started playing at 20:59 minutes. It was a kind of rap song. The song started when lead actor Joe Swanberg started playing basketball with some boys in playground. What is that song name and who is the artist? Thank you.--180.234.18.232 (talk) 17:37, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
create a title for a new heading on which I have no information
I am trying to a new subject title, to create a Wikipedia article, however being somewhat new to this particular game, I went around the carousel and was not able to create the article title on "seborrhoeic intertrigo". Can someone please direct me to a more simplified page for directions on how to create that title. Thank you
- Wikipedia already has separate articles about Intertrigo an inflammation (rash) of the body folds (adjacent areas of skin) and Seborrheic dermatitis an inflammatory skin disorder affecting the scalp, face, and torso. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
- Hi Gooseberry4112 (talk, contribs). This sort of question is better placed on the help desk, which answers questions about using Wikipedia. You will probably find that you are unable to create new pages yet, as your account is too new. 86.146.28.105 (talk) 19:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)