The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Guys what is this heroic trope?
Let's say Bob is our hero and wants to kill King Charlie who rules as a tyrant in the Kingdom of Alice. Bob wants to kill Charlie for revenge and doesn't care about what happens to the Kingdom. Still, the kingdom is saved when he finished his task. The citizens of Alice wants to congratulate him but Bob simply moves on. Thanks in advance. --Lenticel(talk) 01:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
--Lenticel(talk) 01:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Dismas for the links. I've looked them I think the "Mysterious Protector" variety of the Mysterious Stranger trope is the closest if we're looking at the citizens of Alice's perspective. --Lenticel(talk) 02:25, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In the context of Lit Hist, Knight Errant may be the medieval source model. Compare the Knights of the Round Table to Samurai and Clint-Eastwoodesque laconic heroes who travel the deserts of some autistic loneliness. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 09:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
service personnel killed during the different wars
I am the commander of a VFW from Minnesota and we are looking to build a memorial for service personnel killed during the different wars that are from Minnesota. Once we find the list we will break it down to our local community. Can you help us find this list, any help will be greatly appreciated.
Commander — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rickgwynn (talk • contribs)
I am very surprised that not even one notable person was among those killed by the atomic bomb. I mean, didn′t these cities have mayors or governors? If someone dropped an atomic bomb today on Somerville, which has now less population than Hiroshima did in 1945, certainly there would be many people with Wikipedia articles among the dead. Maybe we have missed some from Hiroshima? 2A02:582:C55:2A00:E58C:3FFC:F108:2131 (talk) 14:29, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would assume that a large fraction of the problem here boils down to two things:
Since the city was mostly reduced to ashes, many of the records that would enable us to establish notability may well have been annihilated.
English Wikipedia is dependent on it's contributing authors to write about such things. Only a very small percentage of us speak and read Japanese well enough to find and understand the source material, and only a tiny fraction of that faction will be interested in writing biographies and an even smaller fraction of that fraction will be interested in people from that time and place. So the pool of people who are working on such matters is likely to be exceedingly small.
Because of the way Wikipedia is written, it's inevitable that our coverage will be patchy, suffering from "recentism" and a bias towards articles about people from English-speaking countries. Please don't interpret this as people being biassed one way or the other - it's just in the nature of a set of disorganized volunteer contributors.
He seems to only be notable for being British and killed by the bomb at Nagasaki. StuRat (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, yet another yankee friendly fire event. I wish your guys would f**king choose their targets carefully. KägeTorä - (影虎) (もしもし！) 01:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From the British POV the dropping of the bombs ended the war early, saving millions of lives, including thousands of British prisoners in Japanese POW camps that were closer to death camps. So, that was well worth the price of one British death.
I understand that Japan is now trying to change their Constitution to allow fighting abroad by their military. If this happens, they will find out it's rarely possible to kill only the enemy without any innocents being harmed. The only alternative left is to leave ISIL, etc., unchallenged to grow and commit genocide. StuRat (talk) 14:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC) [reply]
July 28
Favoured drinks in the American Old West
Comics such as Lucky Luke and Punaniska have shown that men in the American Old West generally drunk whisky in saloons in the west. I imagine they may also have drunk beer. In fact, one Punaniska comic shows Calamity Jane offering Punaniska some wine, which he immediately refuses, thinking it would challenge his masculinity. What was the situation in real life? Did they really almost always drink whisky? And what sort of whisky? American instead of Scottish or Irish, I should presume? Did they have any preferences or did they just want to get drunk quickly? Did they also drink beer and wine? What about non-alcoholic beverages? JIP | Talk 20:35, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Absinthe might be included in the list of alcoholic drinks, until banned in the US by 1915.
As for non-alcoholic beverages, there were many variations on root beer, such as ginger ale and sarsparilla. Note that while Coca-Cola has roots going back to the 19th century, it was sold as a patent medicine then, in drug stores, not saloons, as it contained cocaine. StuRat (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Moonshine and Corn_whiskey. Note the former has a name from England but took on its own prominence in America, while the latter, strictly speaking, is a product of the New World. Here are two relevant books I found on Google that would almost certainly give you better info and more context [1][2]. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Bourbon whiskey was the preferred drink because (a) it was relatively cheap, being made mainly from corn (maize), the most widely grown crop in America, and (b) it was easy to store and transport. In the old west the ingredients were not available to brew beer locally, and it didn't keep well enough to be transported by railroad at reasonable expense. Wine was easier to store and transport than beer, but it was still a luxury item. It wasn't just the old west by the way -- even in the east Bourbon was by far the most commonly consumed form of alcohol. Looie496 (talk) 13:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. As for east of the Mississippi, recall Johnny Appleseed gave the gift of booze to the (then) western frontier - his nurseries and orchards did not make tasty apples, they were used for hard cider and applejack, which were both very popular as well - very easy to make in large swathes of the country, less so west of the Mississippi at that time. I'm not saying that apple booze was more popular than Bourbon necessarily, just that it was much easier to make at home than beer, and required less special processing. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A webpage called Saloons of the American West mentions "Cactus Wine, made from a mix of tequila and peyote tea, and Mule Skinner, made with whiskey and blackberry liquor. The house rotgut was often 100 proof, though it was sometimes cut by the barkeep with turpentine, ammonia, gun powder or cayenne" but says that the main drink was rye whiskey or bourbon, also beer served at room temperature. Alansplodge (talk) 20:52, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, now I want to try Cactus wine. Might be hard to do this weekend, but I can probably manage a Mule Skinner :) SemanticMantis (talk) 13:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Be sure to put on some Mule Skinner Blues when you do so. I'm partial to the Jerry Reed/Chet Atkins version, though the Bill Monroe take on it is choice as well... --Jayron32 19:25, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
July 29
Chance of being born?
So, at one stage you consisted of spermatozoa in your dads testicles. I read that a mans testicles make 1000 sperm a second. So that's 60,000 sperm a minute. I'll let you do the math, but on a particular day your parents decided to have sex and fertilised your mommas egg.
Have I got the premise wrong or what, but did you I and everyone else have an astronomically minute chance of even existing in the first place. I mean, if another sperm got inside the egg or you didn't survive the ride through your dads epidermis and into your moms vagina you wouldn't have existed? Would the baby born be a difference person altogether. Or are are all sperm the same.
Woody Allen in 1972 made a hilarious film about this fascinating question. Akseli9 (talk) 11:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There must be theories that approve, and others that disapprove, that the principle of natural selection, applies also among spermatozoa. Akseli9 (talk) 11:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Akseli9: I think you mean prove and disprove. Theories are not a kind of thing that can approve or disapprove things. --ColinFine (talk) 11:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. that's what I meant. Thanks. Akseli9 (talk) 12:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, they're all genetically different. See Meiosis. --ColinFine (talk) 11:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on what your Mom was getting up to, our article Sperm competition may be relevant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 12:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You can ignore biology and instead read up on interpretations of probability, and the ontology of identity, both in terms of personal identity and identity_(philosophy). When people have sex, we can come up with an estimate of chances of pregnancy. When a woman gets pregnant, we can relatively easily look at some statistics and come up with an estimate of percent chance of live birth. But none of that rationale applies to the chances of me being me, or you being you (and we need to acknowledge that this concept is ill defined). Colin and TPFKA's links are good and relevant to the bits of biology, and you should also be aware of nature vs. nurture and twin studies and heritability. But I think this is really a question about philosophy of probability and identity :) SemanticMantis (talk) 13:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The probability of "you" being precisely, genetically "you" if anything whatever were different at the time of your conception is indeed astronomically small. However, not all of what makes you be "you" is in your genes. A lot of it is how your parents treated you, what foods you ate, what diseases you got - that kind of thing. If a different sperm had made it into your egg, a lot of that "nurture" stuff would be very similar. So, it would be as if you were your own twin (but not identical-twin). Twins that are non-identical are very often quite similar.
But in terms if being identically you - everything depends on how identical you're talking about.
If the same sperm met the same egg - but three days into pregnancy, if your mother had eaten something different than she actually did - then that would undoubtedly change some microscopic detail in that tiny ball of cells - and an entirely different "you" would emerge from that process. Genetically identical to the you that we know - but still more different than one of a pair of identical twins. (My step-daughters are identical twins - and I can tell you that they are far from identical in many significant ways).
Conclusion: The "you" that would emerge if there were a difference in some small detail surrounding your conception, pregnancy, birth and early childhood would range from roughly what a fraternal twin would be like - to roughly what an identical twin would be like - depending on whether the change happened before or after sperm-met-egg.
I'd point out that a mere difference in a meal is unlikely to have an effect on a fetus unless it contains a teratogenic toxin. The fetus will thrive so long as threshold levels of the necessary nutrients are available, and certain toxins are avoided or minimized. The sort of change that could effect a baby during development is a somatic mutation. Such a mutation at a very early stage in one of two twins might have noticeable effects. Otherwise twins are sometimes differentiated by position in the womb, especially the relative size and bloodflow from the respective or shared placentas.
The overall concept here is historical contingency. There are certain focal points such as which numbers you choose and which numbers are drawn in a lottery. The path you take to get to the store to buy the ticket might not matter at all, if you have already made up your mind on the numbers you want beforehand. In his book Wonderful Life, S J Gould examines contingency in depth. He gives the case of a single dog that is believed to have killed a significant portion of the wild Kiwis of New Zealand. Had it not been stopped, it might have driven the species extinct.
Another example is my neighbor, who did not work at the World Trade Center, but who was at a conference there on the Windows of the World restaurant, and was killed on 9/11. Certain events are canalized, and others are tipping points. μηδείς (talk) 20:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I thought this nonsense had been zapped. Be that as it may, the OP's premise is wrong. You don't start out as a sperm, you start out as a fertilized egg. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 22:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The definition of "you" is kinda fuzzy. All of the information needed to describe "you" (genetically speaking) is present before sperm meets egg - so who is to say when "you" are "you"? One of the severe problems with the abortion debate is in answering this very question - contraception for the catholic church revolves around similar issues. Personally, I liked Monty Python's "Every Sperm is Useful" song - which encapsulates a yet further extreme point of view. Coming up with a specific point of origin is horribly misleading. I'm a very different person than I was (say) 10 years ago - was I "me" then? I just don't think you can pick a single point and call that "The Moment". SteveBaker (talk) 23:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Even the most staunch opponents of abortion define a human being's starting point as conception. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 23:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think you meant staunch supporters, BBB. I would protest that I started from a pair of isogametes. I oppose assigning gender roles such as sperm and egg. μηδείς (talk) 00:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The definition, Steve, isn't really fuzzy. Instead, you are you is axiomatic. By definition you have to be you, because if you weren't you, then the you you really were would be you, and I'd be writing in response to someone else. It's like the anthropic principle. It's not really a physical explanation of anything, but it is necessarily true epistemologically as a precursor of debate. μηδείς (talk) 00:00, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The term, from formal logic, is Tautology, which in the non-pejorative sense, just means "universally true under all conditions"; a classic example is the Law of identity or the famous Aristotlean proposition A is A. That is, we must always assume that a thing is always itself, for any given complete definition of the thing. The idea that "you are always you" is a logical tautology; for the reasons noted (if you weren't you, you'd be a different person, but that different person would still be you, and you wouldn't then have been the person you are now, so that you wouldn't be you anymore. Or, you are always you). Besides that particular tautology, is the definition of The Universe which, under it's simple definition of "everything", means that one cannot have more than one universe, merely only that one can learn more about what is in The Universe. Other classic logic or philosophy problems are based on tautologies, some with long histories, such as the primum movens argument for God, or the philosophy behind the atomists like Democritus. --Jayron32 19:22, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, technically it is a tautology, not an assumption necessary in a deductive system. μηδείς (talk) 20:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Today's Feature Picture
Today's feature picture of NGC 1097 shows it rotating clockwise, the picture in the posted link to NGC 1097 shows it rotating counter clockwise. Which is correct?70.30.7.110 (talk) 14:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For convenience, NGC 1097. I think OP is comparing the top image galaxy appears to be rotating clockwise to the bottom image. galaxy appears to be rotating counterclockwise
I think it's safe to say that the images were not take from different sides of the galaxy :) I cannot tell which one is a mirror image. I don't think it can be the case that they are showing different structures in the same galaxy from the same perspective without reflection - but I don't know much about spiral galaxies. Both images are sourced - top one is a composite image here [3]Spitzer Space Telescope, bottom one (seems to be a single image?) here [4], from the Very Large Telescope. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I downloaded them both, and rotated and flipped one of them so that their orientation is similar. The patterns of various points of light seem to match. So one of the images was flipped, either purposely or by the type of telescope they were using. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 17:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of flipping of images is quite common in old-style print media dealing with physical plates that can be reversed accidentally during layout or printing. Unless there's written words in the image it is often impossible to know which is right. This seems less likely in digital media, however. μηδείς (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you do a Google Images search on "NGC 1097" - you get a surprising mixture of clockwise and anticlockwise images. I'd say that the preponderance of them is per the top image - but it's definitely not a slam-dunk one way or the other. Most JPEG files have orientation data stored in an "EXIF" record - which should (in theory) tell you when they are rotated or flipped and in which direction. However, when people use a program to crop, recolor or adjust contrast on the image, that data is easily destroyed...so it's still not conclusive evidence. SteveBaker (talk) 19:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The EXIF orientation value indicates the raster order of the encoded pixels, not the orientation of the image relative to some canonical source image. Almost all software writes JPEG images in the standard raster order (English reading order) with a matching (or omitted) orientation tag, because that's the most compatible format. This doesn't destroy any (relevant) information because the raster order is a low level encoding detail, like the Huffman tables. As far as I know, no software ever writes the reflected raster orders (2, 4, 5, 7). -- BenRG (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. But many software packages don't pay attention to the EXIF data, resulting in these kinds of issues. I know of at least a couple of cellphone camera apps that use the reflection flag when using the 'front camera' in order that the user gets a mirror-imaged photo when taking a 'selfie' (which is what they seem to expect will happen). It's plausible that astronomy packages might use it to flip pictures from telescopes that naturally produce inverted images. That would be a fairly plausible explanation as to how this came about...but it's just speculation at this point since there are no unusual EXIF flags in either of those two JPEG files and there are many software packages that might have been used to crop the images that both ignore and destroy the EXIF information. (The EXIF flags aren't a part of the core JPEG specification anyway - so there is some justification for doing that.) SteveBaker (talk) 14:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Can we figure out which is correct by the LEDAentry?—eric 00:21, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure this out with no luck.. I am really curious and hope that someone comes along with the right answer. I did learn that some galaxies have a spin different than what you would think and based on this alone I'd put my money on the bottom image and that the top one was flipped because of the type of telescope or imaging instruments, but that's just an unsubstantiated guess. Maybe someone could repost this to the science section?? Void burn (talk) 05:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If OP or anyone else wants to cut to the chase, they could ask NASA here [5], though it may take them a few weeks to get back to you. Could probably even point them to this thread for context. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I submitted a request with the link semantic mantis posted. Whenever they reply to me I'll be sure to post it on the WP science reference desk. Hopefully this link still works for 10 to 15 days. Void burn (talk) 22:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This shows the rotation relative to the rest of the night sky. 209.149.113.45 (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That still doesn't help us IP.. That picture you posted could be backwards. We need a reference that explicitly states which way the tails spin for this specific galaxy. Void burn (talk) 00:32, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I just created a page and would like to put it into draft mode because I dont know it if is ready for wikipedia before it gets deleted. Is there a way i can do this and if so how ? Thank you for your valued time. --NewRoyalty (talk) 18:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You got your answer here, but this is the sort of question that can be answered at the Help Desk or the Teahouse, which are for questions about Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Requests for past medical records
I am currently on Klonopin and Adderall and have been for 2 years. I recently moved and have had to see a new psychiatric provider. This new psychiatrist is demanding that I sign a release of information for him to speak with, and obtain records from, my previous provider if he is to continue prescribing those medications, but otherwise does not object to prescribing them. I do not want to release these records, and I am wondering if this is typical (for a psychiatrist to refuse to prescribe medications without speaking with and reviewing the records of the previous provider). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.244.19.161 (talk) 20:16, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would think any doctor would want to see a given patient's history on any medical matter. As to whether he can compel you to do so, that's a legal question and we can't answer it, first because we're not allowed to, and second because any laws relating to this subject could be specific to your region. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 20:55, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
He isn't "compelling" the handover of medical records, just saying he would require them to continue the prescriptions as is. Presumably otherwise the patient would need a new diagnosis to justify those prescriptions. StuRat (talk) 20:54, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the doctor won't do anything without the records, then he's compelling the OP to provide the records if the OP wants treatment. If he doesn't want treatment from that doctor, then that's that. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 18:37, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Since medical professionals don't (or aren't supposed to) prescribe medication to anyone who walks in an asks for it (especially substances with a high potential for abuse like Adderall), in order to prescribe without going through typical diagnostic processes, they would need verification from whoever performed the diagnosis and determined these two medicines are most appropriate. After all, there's no way for them to tell someone like yourself who has been taking medication and simply wants to continue it from someone malingering or otherwise being dishonest. Laws about medical privacy vary depending on where you are. If you're in the US, take a look through the Department of Health and Human Services page about sharing information related to mental health. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 23:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
July 31
Urinating / defecating simultaneously?
Are humans the only species that can accomplish the same task at once? Obviously, I only speak for myself here but I've never witnesses any other common animal do the same thing, save for birds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.114.5.58 (talk) 08:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
... and cows. You need more observations. Dbfirs 12:55, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And birds and reptiles, who do not have separate exits in their lower abdomens, but rather have a single orifice called a cloaca which is used for all reproductive and excretory function. See Bird anatomy#Kidney which describes who urine moves from the kidneys to the cloaca, but rather then be excreted directly, migrates back into the colon where it mixes with bird feces before being eliminated together with them. --Jayron32 16:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Double Digestion in humans
Does double digestion ever occur in humans? It seems odd that most of our primate relatives practise it and we do not. In fact, a lot of food seems to quite literally go down the toilet merely because it never had a chance to get absorbed the first time round. (Onions, sweet corn, seeds) Or, did humans naturally engage in behaviour and it simply being a case of modern culture deeming it inappropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.106.33.151 (talk) 16:55, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Humans don't do this because their digestive system is extremely efficient (although yours seems a bit sub-standard). Animals that do this generally have poor digestive systems and/or have a primary food source that is difficult to digest, such as rabbits and grass. Which primates do you think eat their own faeces?--Ykraps (talk) 17:42, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but given that those are our two closest relatives, it's reasonable to ask about why humans generally don't do it. I suspect that our guts aren't particularly more efficient than a chimp's (though, if so, that would serve as at least a provisional explanation). 64.235.97.146 (talk) 18:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Eating faeces is done for a number of reasons and, despite what it says in the article, I'm not sure they do it for nutritional value although mountain gorillas eat a lot of green plant matter which is tough to digest. Lowland gorillas tend to mainly eat fruit which is easy to digest so I wouldn't imagine they re-ingest their food.--Ykraps (talk) 20:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Humans tend to cook their food. Cooking food makes it easier to digest. It is very rare for animals to cook their food. 209.149.113.45 (talk) 19:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, rabbits are not at all hard to digest, so I am not sure why they were mentioned above. Second, unlike chimps and gorillas, humans have teeth, hence we can chew stuff like corn thoroughly, rather than just randomly tossing it at our colon to see the outcome. Finally, as mentioned, most people have cooking degrees, while Spain has only recently begun admitting orangutans to its culinary institutes.
There are also traditional methods of preparing fermented drinks like chicha which involved chewing up and spitting out the starch to be fermented. This is also how baby food is prepared in primitive societies. μηδείς (talk) 20:01, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
By which I meant, grass, which is the primary food source of rabbits, is hard to digest, and rabbits have a poor digestive system.--Ykraps (talk) 20:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC) (also I'm pretty sure chimps and gorillas do have teeth).[reply]
Why would Mother Nature have been so mean-minded as to give rabbits a poor digestive system? Are they aware they're deficient? What would be the biological purpose of having any anatomical system that's poor? Or are you speaking in relative terms here, and is the truth that what's poor for a rabbit when compared with the human system is actually just dandy for the rabbit in its own terms? Are you suggesting that if the rabbit digestive system were as good as that of humans, rabbits wouldn't have to spend all their time eating and could devote more of their time to studying the Lives of the Saints, doing good works, and generally being more productive members of animal society? ... wait, they're already notoriously productive ... -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries] 20:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think that what Ykraps meant in saying that rabbits have a relatively poor digestive system is that it is not as efficient in digesting cellulose as that of ruminants, which are foregut fermenters, or equids, which are hindgut fermenters. Rabbits probably made a different evolutionary investment than the development of an efficient herbivorous digestive system. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would use snakes as an example of an animal with a poor digestive system, although "slow" might be a better description than "poor". Since their jaws and teeth aren't designed for chewing and their digestive system is limited to the length of the snake, that decreases surface area and means it takes them days or weeks to digest what we could digest in a single day. Being cold-blooded also slows everything down, especially on cold days. StuRat (talk) 20:50, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh about rabbits' digestive systems. They're perfectly adequate providing the food is passed through twice. As to why nature would do such a thing; well I'm afraid that contrary to popular belief, nature isn't perfect.--Ykraps (talk) 21:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Stu, even "slow" is based on a comparison with other species of animal. That's really pointless, imo. Unless, of course, you're comparing species (and maybe that actually happens all the time without it being explicitly acknowledged). But when just describing some species in its own terms, comparative words would seem to have no place. (We really have to get out of the habit of calling giraffes "tall" and tortoises "slow" and whales "big". It's so discriminatory.) -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries] 21:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
August 1
chess games having lion and eagle as chess pieces
chess games having lion and eagle as chess pieces — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.247.217.17 (talk) 02:23, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Are you asking about a chess set using those pieces in place of the regular pieces (king, queen, rook, bishop, night, or pawn) ? If so, what about it ? Do you want to find one like that ? StuRat (talk) 02:28, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The lion and the eagle are national symbols of Britain and France respectively. Do you want some sort of military chess set? I vaguely remember a set issued by Franklin Mint commemorating the Battle of Waterloo that used lions and eagles for the rooks.--Ykraps (talk) 08:04, 1 August 2015 (UTC) Here it is [6][reply]
I have been visited by an ad which I believe to be a money scam, but you don't have any reference to it: My Online Empire; or as onlineempiremaker.com. Could you inform me more about this? 2602:306:833D:8830:B051:982C:8AB:6FCE (talk) 09:22, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia often lacks articles about scams, because our policy is that we can only have an article when reliable published sources exist to back it up. In this case no published sources seem to exist. I can't see any direct evidence that it is a scam, but it would make sense to be cautious about giving them anything of value. Looie496 (talk) 12:44, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find any real information about it that isn't provided by the company or someone working for it. There are an awful lot of "is it a scam or DOES IT WORK" blog posts and videos out there which include an affiliate link (i.e. they profit from telling you it works if you join the program through them). It's also hard to find out what it even is beyond generalizations about working from home over the Internet, being your own boss, getting extra money, requiring no experience, and other work-at-home scheme (or get-rich-quick scheme) cliches -- some even talk about "my secret" and have very long sales pitches that say nothing about the product (a technique also employed heavily by multi-level marketing schemes like Amway and Cutco).
Following one of the links takes me to a page that just says "Free Software Automatically Creates Money-Making Websites in Minutes - DOWNLOAD NOW".
Aha. So it's going to (a) create some awful websites stuffed with ads and who knows what kind of sketchy business and (b) almost certainly impact your computer somehow -- otherwise the websites could simply be created on the web.
Hopefully I'm not overstepping the "advice" aspect of the reference desk, but based on everything I see: do not download that software. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 16:26, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Why do newscasters (and others on TV) need makeup?
I guess I can already anticipate words to the effect "without it, their face would get washed out by the lights" etc.. I'd appreciate specifically sources that actually show examples of what a newscaster or guest on a live TV show looks like both with and without whatever non-cosmetic makeup one often sees the aforementioned people getting before they go on camera to see what such washing out actually looks like. 75.75.42.89 (talk) 21:28, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
