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March 23

Florida 2000 election (results in Miami)

Hello, a curiosity, if possible: I have never been able to find the final totals of the city of Miami, only of the city and not of the county, as regards the presidential elections of 2000. Can you help me? I imagine that in Miami, only in Miami, it was the vice president Gore of the alliance, who won and also with a good margin. I thank you in advance, a happy greeting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.41.100.198 (talk) 13:00, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is How Miami-Dade voted in the last five presidential elections any good? Alansplodge (talk) 17:14, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Dade County the county Miami was in and then it annexed the rest of the county? In not sure. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

March 24

Looking for remote-controlled car horn

Background: My car horn went nuts, going off at random. The mechanic wants $1500 to fix it, but only charged $200 to pull the fuse (what a bargain !). After I recovered from my heart attack, I began looking for cheaper after-market options.

I am trying to find this item for sale online. Features I would like:

Small. Needs to fit in tight engine compartment.

Waterproof.

Wireless remote. Key fob shape best.

Normal car horn beep sound. Not too loud. Volume setting a plus.

Horn power wires should have clips to hook onto car battery pos and neg terminals.

So, far, this is the closest I've found, but it makes siren sounds, not regular horn beep:

https://www.ebay.com/i/132882535265?chn=ps

This one makes 7 tones, but I have no idea what those "tones" are:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Siren-Horn-Remote-Control-Kit-7-Tones-Wireless-Electronic-Loud-Alarm-12V-DC-New-/264223552580?hash=item3d84f37444

Can anyone help me find what I need ? Thanks for your help ! SinisterLefty (talk) 00:26, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not wanting to sidetrack but, is it actually a legal requirement where you are? I use mine around once a year, and if I had a better temper I'd probably never use it at all. Might be more economical to hang fire until you trade in for a newer car. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.138.194 (talk) 04:39, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Our relevant article is Vehicle horn. Is there a reason not to fix your car's own horn circuit which is probably like this?

                      ---------------------------
                     /                           \
                    /                       horn  \
                   /                       switch  \
   _______________/               fuse        /     |________________________
  /                         +-----OXO-------o/  o------------------------+   \
 |                          |                                            |    \
==                       +_____                                        __|___  \
                            -                                          |    |/
                  battery   :                                     horn |     
                          _____                                        |____|\
                            -                                            |
                            |____________________________________________+

DroneB (talk) 14:34, 24 March 2019 (UTC

Unfortunately, it's far more complex than that. It's a Jeep Compass, with the infamous TIPM (Totally Integrated Power Module), which controls not only the horn but just about everything else, and frequently fails, and can't be serviced, and is extremely expensive to replace. Why did they do this ? Well, the horn also is tied in to the panic button on the key fob, which causes it to play a sequence of alarms until the key is placed in the ignition to stop it. I don't need this, but I do need a horn, mainly just to nudge the guy in front of me who hasn't noticed the light has changed (unless he's like the guy in the Beatles song, then there's not much hope). Still, I just want a friendly little honk, not something that will require him to change his shorts. SinisterLefty (talk) 15:17, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is it wowwow–wowwow wowwow–wowwow, wowwow–wowwow wowwow–wowwow (lower pitch), wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow (long gaps), woooooouuuuuup! (rising pitch) woooooouuuuuup! (a repeat) (low pitch)taw TAH!(high pitch) taw TAH! taw TAH! taw TAH! (same pitches as the first taw TAH) [loop for ~2 minutes]? I'm not old enough to remember the car alarm fad's peak and my part of NYC wasn't hood but that was my lullaby. Or was it double the number of woooooouuuuuup!'s and a different number of taw TAH!'s? It's not quite seared into my memory enough to be sure 2 decades later. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:44, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rick Muscoplat is of the same opinion and suggests sending a note to Chrysler telling them how much you appreciate their incredibly stupid engineering. There is a repair service for the TIPM which looks like it can be opened and possibly be cleaned of corrosion with a Brake cleaner or Acetone, but I can't guarantee this will help. DroneB (talk) 17:44, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Which is the Beatles song? There's this [1], but that wasn't by the Beatles. I was surprised by the reference to "a little Nash Rambler" - I have never heard of Nash, let alone it's Rambler. In the only version I've heard, the reference is to "a little bubble car". I thought this might be due to the BBC objecting to advertising, but "Cadillac" is in there - maybe they played a cover version? 2A00:23C4:5D0C:D500:305F:D789:20A:9B8 (talk) 18:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure your question is meant to help the OP somehow. Cadillac and Nash Rambler are replaced by Limousine and Bubble car respectively in the version for Europe of the 1958 song Beep Beep where the Nash brand was unknown (except as a buyer and re-badger of Austin Metropolitans) and the BBC would not play songs that advertise car brands. DroneB (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2019 (UTC) [reply]

Google "Beatles lyrics He didn't notice that the lights had changed". In this one, the BBC objected to the drug ref ("I'd love to turn you on") and censored it.SinisterLefty (talk) 18:46, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When you said they censored it I wondered what they did as I've heard the song many times. I thought maybe they re-recorded it or turned down the volume at the critical moment. Turns out they didn't play the song at all for a while A Day in the Life#BBC radio ban. 2A00:23C4:5D0C:D500:305F:D789:20A:9B8 (talk) 19:25, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

March 26

Publisher

Does Wikipedia have a publisher?2600:6C67:517F:F5E2:C972:A76E:E87D:762F (talk) 01:01, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For the purpose of citations, the articles are the publications, and Wikipedia is the publisher. If you're asking if someone owns Wikipedia, the web domain and trademarks are owned by the Wikimedia Foundation. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:52, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia also, which contains instruction on how to attribute articles you are citing from Wikipedia in your own writing elsewhere. --Jayron 32 13:23, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reverse Credit Card

Please would you confirm if what I heard is true. Someone told me that they had made a significant amount of money by taking out a credit card with say an 18% repayment, but instead of buying tings with the card they just made repayments increasing the balance on the card from £0.00 to + £XX.xx this caused them to earn 18% interest instead of being charged 18% interest. Is this true? Is this possible? If so, why doesn't everyone do this? If not, why not, why can you not do this? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 17:28, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Credit cards do not pay you interest on credit balances. Clarityfiend (talk) 17:52, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot do this because the going rate on lending banks money that you can't even withdraw for 5 years without losing a lot of interest is about 3 percent. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:38, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If a credit card offers an initial interest-free "grace" period, one can exploit this by repaying fully on the first due date. The only "achievement" is to deny the bank a short period of interest but likely at a cost to oneself of any fixed fee for the use of the card, and the inconvenience of buying things one might not normally buy. A credit card does not offer any way for the holder to earn interest but maximizes the temptation to borrow money at a high interest rate. DroneB (talk) 00:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A credit card doesn't directly offer a way to earn interest, but the typical grace period you mentioned means interest can be earned by keeping the money which would have otherwise been spent directly in an interest bearing account or similar. The time period is fairly short although likely to vary depending on several factors including the norms and laws of where you're talking about. In NZ it's about up to ~55 days (1 month plus ~25 days) which means ~28 days average assuming that the expenses are spread out evenly. Although as you said, this comes with other costs (but also benefits). The interest you will earn is going to be even more dependent although is almost definitely going to be way less than 18%. (It's only likely to be be anything close to 18% if you're in a country with very high inflation.) E.g. here in NZ it will probably be something between 0.5-2.2% annually at the moment. Nil Einne (talk) 04:46, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK many credit cards have a "reward" scheme, typically refunding 0.2-0.4% of your spend at the end of the year which is why I use my credit cards to buy absolutely everything. They don't like it if you accrue credit in your account. One of my banks called me when I overpaid by £100 and said I wasn't allowed to do that.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They are a lot more generous in the US. The Discover Card credit card, for example, provides 1% cash back for most things, and 5% for a different category, such as restaurants, each quarter. That can provide a way to make some money, say if you regularly go out to lunch with coworkers, put the entire bill on your credit card, and have them pay you cash. SinisterLefty (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's a way to get some immediate cash. As regards the "rewards" thing that some cards do, those are essentially rebates on purchases. Paying them off and getting a credit balance isn't likely to get you more rewards. If anything, it's the opposite: They'll have more of your money. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:58, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and my point is that in this way you are getting the rebate from the purchases of others. For example, if the lunch costs $200, and the rewards are at 5% for restaurants, you get $10 back in rewards. If your lunch costs less than that, you've made a profit. You could also combine this with the restaurant customer rewards program, and maybe get your lunches for free, again, getting the rewards from everyone else's purchases, pocketing the entire $10. It's quite a minimal profit, and your coworkers might get wise to this and object, of course. You could also invest the $200 (hopefully not in lottery tickets) until the bill comes due. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ripping off your friends is not a good long-term strategy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:26, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can you not then buy a product, get the 5% cash back and then return the item and get you full oney back and thereby make 5% per purchase?

It would depend on their rules. Do they then deduct that 5 percent from the value of the return? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The cash back is reversed when the return is processed. Shops in the UK insist on repaying onto the credit card if the purchase was made that way, otherwise they incur costs. They will not refund in cash unless the purchase was made in cash. Dbfirs 19:45, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, that's generally true in America too, although sometimes a grocery store will refund in cash if it's a small amount. (That probably saves a processing cost.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

March 27

Chiselled into marble

If Wikipedia is supposed to be the accumulation of the world’s knowledge in one place; it poses several questions which I would like answered.

1. Has there been any effort to close articles so that once a significant number of experts on the subject agree that all that can be said about the subject has been listed in the article that it is then closed for editing as the article is complete? Is there such a movement? I believe this would be useful for the following…

2. The electronic format is particularly fickle in my opinion and the internet etc will probably not last 10,000 years. Is there any movement to have the accumulated knowledge, and/or closed articles to be enshrined in a more durable format such as being chiselled into marble? What would the problem be with such an idea? Is this already underway? It would appear to me that Wikipedia is a prime opportunity to preserve such knowledge, a one-off chance for humanity, and a window which is quickly closing. I would appreciate any commentary on the subject. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 09:44, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1. Many topics are subject to change over time, such as living people, current organizations, current physical locations, etc. And even those topics for which no change is likely, such as long dead people, there's still new research, etc., which may provide new info for the article. Thus there really aren't cases where "all that has been said about a subject has been listed". And, even if there was, good luck ever getting "experts" to agree on a final version.

2) Carving it in marble would take a huge amount of marble, space, time, and money. There is a way to download a snapshot of Wikipedia, but that does make an electronic copy. Making permanent copies of electronic data is a problem, and not just for Wikipedia. The best we can do currently seems to be to recopy the data each time a new format comes out. Any form of directly human readable data would have the same problems as marble. Microscopic preservation of data solves some of these problems, but creates others, like needing a microscope or other device to read it, and it being more subject to erosion over time. In any case you need to find a place to store it, like a sealed off dry cavern, where it will be safe for thousands of years.

As for whether the Internet will be around in 10,000 years, that depends on how you define it. If you mean the current format of web pages, then no, that's not likely to last. But if you mean people being interconnected with each other and with stored info, then yes, I'd expect some form of that to be around. Perhaps the sci-fi staple of a direct brain interface will be a reality then, with the answer to some technical question ("What's the composition of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter ?") coming automatically as soon as you think of it. SinisterLefty (talk) 10:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you're thinking about 2), then Clock of the Long Now might be an interesting read for you, and Danny Hillis' efforts in just those directions. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:36, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your valued answer but I fear the point may have been missed. The point would be to preserve the data in a hall of records type chamber. This does not mean it would need to be chiselled into marble, or that all articles would need to be complete but rather that the knowledge we currently have and stored in a central location is saved in a durable format which will last millennia. Much like the Pyramids etc. Is no one looking to do such a thing at all? If not, surely if a nuclear war or the like were to take place, all of our knowledge would disappear overnight? Something as common as how to produce and harness electricity or how to synthesise plastic, or create antibiotics or anaesthesia would just vanish. Someone other than me must have desire to see such a project launched?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 11:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the Long Now Foundation have been considering just such a long-term storage. Although the WP article only seems to cover the clock.

Marble isn't considered to be quite as long-lived as metals for this, and certainly doesn't offer the same storage density. See HD-Rosetta. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:17, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note that another potential problem is looting. That is, if it's location is known, and it's of any value, you could expect somebody to attempt to steal the marble slabs, or whatever material is used, much as the pyramids were looted (except for those whose location was unknown, such as King Tut's Tomb). But keeping such a place hidden also means it would be unavailable to those who want access to the info. Using materials of no value would help, if that's possible, but vandalism would still be a problem. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:48, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sports trivia

having used the random article button recently it occurs to me that a vast number of articles are sports related. How many articles does wikipedia have and how many of these are sports related? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 10:08, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For the total number of all articles on the English Wikipedia - see the top of the Main Page. Working out the total number of sports related articles is a bit trickier. You can try Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports and its various sub-projects, listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Sports and total the number of tagged articles. Alternatively you can use the appropriate categories and total those instead. Mikenorton (talk) 10:54, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Press random article till you see 100 sports related articles. Divide 10,000 by the number of times you pressed random article to reach 100. That's about how many percent are sports.

I found 17 out of 100 random articles were sports related; that's 17% or about 1 in 6. That was ratio was fairly consistent in my count; it wasn't exactly every sixth article, but I did note in my counts that I had hit 6 sports articles in 36 tries, 9 at the 50 mark, and so on. I suspect that 100 is quite a small sample size, but the ballpark of "1 in 6" is probably not a bad guess. I didn't consciously count other topics, but my impression as they were flying by is that a similar proportion of articles were also about geographic locales of some sort. --Jayron 32 15:23, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard similar complaints about train stations. And invertebrates. Some topics are just easier to collect the minimum number of good sources for. In comparison to other professions, athletes have a lot of things going in their favour when it comes to getting articles written. Their accomplishments are in the public record, they perform publicly so it's easy to get pictures, and they get lots of third-party press coverage for both their personal and professional lives. Even the least accomplished MLB player or driver or whatever will have many times the requisite number of references for them than, say, medieval poems or species of beetle. Matt Deres (talk) 18:21, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia may have an overabundance of pop culture, but it has plenty of other info. As regards the average beetle, as Babe Ruth would have said, "How many home runs did HE hit last year?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And someone has to actually write the article. In case anyone doesn't pay attention to mass culture, more people care about professional sports than history or science. My default response to anyone complaining about subject coverage is, "How many articles have you written, or paid to have written?" (If they've donated to the Wikimedia Foundation, the follow-up response is that little if any of that money goes towards writing articles.) --47.146.63.87 (talk) 00:31, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Define "sports related". Is hide-and-seek sports related? Are you including mind sports? What about ball? Or bleachers? --Khajidha (talk) 14:05, 29 March 2019 (UTC) PS - just hit Random Article 50 times and found only 6 that seemed "sports related" to me. Roughly one in eight. --Khajidha (talk) 14:10, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: We have 100s (1,000s?) of articles on random footballers, yet none on the scientist regarded as making one of the most important discoveries of the 21st century. —2606:A000:1126:28D:84A8:1E5E:5535:59A2 (talk) 04:14, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have an article on the scientist, but we do have a well-developed article on the site: Hell Creek Formation. It appears that DePalma's discoveries are breaking news, so it isn't very surprising that there's not an article on him yet.-gadfium 04:34, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed with no disrespect intended to DePalma, that above source itself says

Without his Ph.D., DePalma remains mostly invisible, awaiting the stamp of approval that signals the beginning of a serious research career. Several paleontologists I talked to had not heard of him.

It continues to give a quote from someone else I'm not including here for BLP reasons. While it's possible DePalma is notable, suffice to say "one of the most important discoveries of the 21st century" seems to be in strong dispute at the moment.

The media is of course prone to hype up stuff all the time. E.g. I'm sure some of us remember this [2], and we even had an article on that person at one time. Sometimes of course the people, the families or the institutions they work for contribute to this hype since it's seen in advantageous in numerous ways, but it can happen without that.

Ultimately for a lot of science matters, you need sufficient time to determine the significance of discoveries or research, one of the reasons most science related Nobel Prizes are only awarded many years after the whatever it is. I'd note even if this does turn out to be super significant, at a minimum the source supports the view it's not completely unexpected we didn't have an article since they were of relatively low notability (if notable) until recently.

Perhaps we should have an article sooner, but frankly our handling of late breaking news tends to be poor, and it generally gets worse when it's something easy to get wrong like science so it's probably a good thing we don't. The fact we do it with other stuff when we shouldn't isn't good, but the solution is to do it less not more.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:36, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's all well and good, but the point is, if you're an obscure sports person all you need to do is "appear" in one professional game, and you're "notable" enough for an article. —2606:A000:1126:28D:84A8:1E5E:5535:59A2 (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2019 (UTC) — Btw, as the OP noted, an easy way to find trivial sports-related articles is to use the 'Random article' link (on the left); it only takes a few tries to find one. With a sufficient sampling of random articles, one could derive a reasonable estimate of the number for those that are sports-related; it seems to be at least 10% of the total.[reply]

March 28

9/11

~~Had a national emergency been declared under the 1976 National Emergencies Act in response to the 9/11 attacks? If so, does this declaration still remain in force?~~ Never mind, I've just read the article -- it has, and it does! 2601:646:8A00:A0B3:8455:812B:E0C0:6B54 (talk) 05:22, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

cheapest postal rates

Someone needs to send me a book weighing about 3 lbs (about 1.4 kilos) from US (New York) to Israel. I would be grateful if a user could please let me know the cheapest way and how much will be the postage to send such a book, even if it takes several months to arrive. Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Surface mail is cheapest and slowest. Mjroots (talk) 19:24, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Walking to JFK to avoid paying public transit (sneaking onto one of the airport freeways' rights-of-ways to reach the free part of the Airtrain system without being arrested for suspicion of terrorism might be required), finding people that are going to Israel and asking them to take the domestically-stamped book to a mailbox till someone accepts? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If the book will fit in a USPS Priority Mail Small Flat Rate box (interior dimensions: 8-5/8" x 5-3/8" x 1-5/8"), it'll be $35.65. If it won't fit in that box, you can ship it as a First Class Package through USPS for $37.50. TheMrP (talk) 19:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned, the actual cheapest way is almost certainly to find someone willing to take it as luggage on a flight they were already taking, especially if time isn't of the essence. One or both of you could ask around in person, and/or post on locally-oriented pages on websites such as Facebook, Craigslist, and Nextdoor. Make sure to check whether it will raise any customs hassles for them. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Call the Post Office and ask about the cheapest rates. There used to be an international book rate that was slow and cheap but it looks like it is U.S. only now. There may be other rates still available. Rmhermen (talk) 01:41, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mailing rate information is available on the USPS website. If you call a post office they'll just do the same thing you do on the website: enter package information and look at the calculated postage rates. TheMrP presumably got the rates from the website; I get the same rates with the given information about the item. The subsidized rate for books and other publications is Media Mail. I'm not sure if this was ever available internationally, but if it was this is no longer the case. There is an airmail bag service for international mail that is kind of similar, but designed for lots of small printed articles. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 05:41, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia pages

how can I get a page made for someone — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hypnotickagon (talk • contribs) 21:43, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Hypnotickagon. There is no reliable way to "get a page made for someone", because this is a volunteer project, and people work on what they choose to work on. In order to get an article written about someone (which is how I very strongly recommend you rephrase your question), you either need to do it yourself, or to interest a volunteeer editor in writing it.

Doing it yourself is possible, but not easy for a new editor - and if it is about you or a person or organisation closely associated with you, you are strongly recommended not to try it. See Your first article and autobiography.

In principle, a way of getting somebody else to write an article is by posting at requested articles; but in practice, few of them get picked up from there. A better way might be to find a WikiProject that is relevant to the person, and ask on the talk page of the WikiProject.

In any case, if you are trying to get somebody interested in writing an article, you need to make it attractive to them to do so. I don't mean any kind of reward: that's not what motivates most people here. Rather, you need to get their interest: why would it be interesting for them to write about this person? More particularly, it is a good idea for you to spend the time finding the sources required to establish that the person is notable (in Wikipedia's special sense). If you can find some suitable sources, you can mention them, and it will make the editor's job that much easier; if you cannot find any, then you will know right away that no article can be accepted about the person, however it is written, and you can save yourself and everybody else from wasting time trying. --ColinFine (talk) 00:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

March 29

Shocks vs Springs

My car has only springs, no shocks. Cheap. Are there obvious drawbacks to replacing the springs with shocks? I hope to cut down on the bouncing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.12.10.227 (talk) 22:08, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In a nutshell: springs absorb movement, shock absorbers dampen movement -- they work best together (the springs absorb energy and the shocks dissipate the energy). How about coil-over shocks? —2606:A000:1126:28D:84A8:1E5E:5535:59A2 (talk) 00:42, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

March 30