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December 16
Incomplete sentence
The last sentence of M1 motorway#Lighting is incomplete. 79.180.68.135 (talk) 00:31, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- Done!
- Oh, and by the way, while I was fixing the page, I realised how stupid and ridiculous the English motorways are. Not like our Scottish motorways, where the hard shoulders are wide, and our central reservations are not made of concrete. 95.148.142.113 (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- Concrete step barriers are replacing the steel Armco barriers on motorway central reservations because they are safer. The somewhat contravesial smart motorways are necessary due to the higher traffic density we have at this end of the Kingdom. Alansplodge (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- I was always of the impression that metal was better, as it has the ability to deform under pressure, which I feel would absorb some of the impact. Concrete is rock hard, and so that would be worse, surely? 95.148.142.113 (talk) 17:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- The angle of impact (the angle between the direction in which the vehicle makes contact and the barrier) is critically important. If it is a sharp angle, the vehicle more often rebounds back to the road with a concrete step barrier, and the sides of the vehicle next to its occupants are then not or hardly deformed. The majority of transgressions leading to contact are at such a sharp angle. At the usually high speed on motorways with a safety barrier, a "head-on" impact with a steel barrier is about as deadly as with a concrete barrier; the deformation of the metal barrier absorbs only a relatively small amount of the energy. --Lambiam 22:33, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- "Every week there are at least two motorway crossover accidents resulting in an annual death toll of around 40 people. This fact shows that steel barriers are no longer adequate to cope with heavier lorries and growing traffic levels. Crossovers are among the most serious motorway accidents which, apart from the price in Slipformed concrete barriers offer an effective and long term economic solution to the problem of catastrophic crossover accidents". [1] Alansplodge (talk) 23:34, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- Bearing in mind the fact that the same article also gives reasons why steel is better... 95.148.142.113 (talk) 01:44, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if it's the best source anyway since it's a debate with various opinions mostly from COI parties (e.g. Corus Tubes seems to be a manufacturer of steel tubes and pipes, the other one was from the Concrete Paving association) and from 2002. At least when I tried, this is surprisingly hard to find good sources. Our article Concrete step barrier and [2] has some discussion but these aren't great sources. From a quick look, most research I found may have compared different types of concrete barriers or steel barriers but not between the two [3] [4] [5] [6]. (I wonder what it in this, I don't have access [7].) But I'm fairly sure Alansplodge and Lambian are right, and you're wrong. For modern urban motorway use, concrete barriers are better than steel barriers in terms of safety performance. There may be situations where steel is better like head on collisions but realistically head on collisions with barriers on motorways are rare. As Lambian and our Traffic barrier article mentions, the barriers are designed to ideally deflect vehicles in more ordinary impacts. Some sources suggest a high risk of rollover with concrete barriers although it seems to depend on design [8] [9] [10] and I think these decisions are as often the case, striking a balance between the various risks associated with different types of vehicles and collisions. Also this study which only looked at odds of injury did find concrete was the worst [11] (also mentioned here [12]), but that's only metric. One of the big problems with steel barriers seems to be it's poor performance in stopping a heavy vehicle from crossing the median means it's significantly worse in it's primary job on motorways. If you think a head on collision with a concrete barrier is an unpleasant experience, try a head on collision with a heavy vehicle travelling at 80 km/h in the other direction..... Concrete barriers are also more likely to survive a collision without requiring maintenance meaning less disruptive to traffic flow and less risk of injury or death to those who need to fix the things. Also from what I can tell this seems to be the consensus of most motorway engineers in a lot of the world. For other types of roads or highways, where different considerations apply, things can be different. This is probably also why it's hard to find comparisons. For most researchers, that debate was settled a long time ago. Nil Einne (talk) 06:07, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- Personal observation here: In the U.S., they have been moving away from steel barriers to separate oncoming traffic for years. Design standards for such barriers have changed at least twice; in the early years of freeways (motorways in the UK) the standard barrier was a cable barrier, but starting in the 1970s-1980s the trend shifted to replacing these with steel guardrails such as the design shown here. By the 1990s, those were replaced by concrete Jersey barriers in situations without a wide central median (called a reservation in the UK); you can still find cable barriers where the central median is wider than the roadways, but where there is basically no grassy area between the roadways, nearly all freeways built or re-built since the 1990s use Jersey barriers to separate oncoming traffic. I've been watching them rebuild I-40 here in Raleigh for several years, and while the prior road used steel guardrails, the new road (seen here) uses fairly tall concrete barriers. You still see steel guardrails used for the right-side where there's a downslope or something (if you go back up the road I show you about 100 yards, you can see them used there). --Jayron32 13:20, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- This is what you posted: "One of the big problems with steel barriers seems to be it's poor performance in stopping a heavy vehicle from crossing the median means it's significantly worse in it's primary job on motorways." 84.209.119.241 (talk) 15:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- Do drunk or impaired drivers ever drive between freeway bridges and fall many feet? (talk) 02:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Not sure if I'm reading your question correctly User:Sagittarian Milky Way, but in 1993, ten people (nine were American tourists) were killed when their coach (long-distance bus) went through a steel barrier and down an embankment on the M2 motorway in Kent. In 2001, the Selby rail crash was caused by a Land Rover leaving the M62 motorway, going down an embankment and landing on a main rail line; 10 were killed and 82 injured. The safety barrier protecting the bridge was too short to stop the car; the driver went to prison for falling asleep. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Driving at least roughly parallel to the lanes, but on the grass between carriageways, then the grass drops off where the freeway becomes made of multiple bridges, and you drive right between the bridges and fall onto an underpass or river or whatever. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Okay, I see what you mean. I don't think that would be possible in the UK as main roads are carefully risk-assessed.
- However, I did find: "A woman who died after a car she was in caught fire on the A21, is thought to have been trying to reach a place of safety between crash barriers, unaware in the dark there was a 50ft drop in between them". [13] Alansplodge (talk) 01:20, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Vehicles can, of course, run off the road at any time - it would be prohibitively expensive to build barriers separating the road from the surrounding countryside. 78.145.28.23 (talk) 11:11, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Driving at least roughly parallel to the lanes, but on the grass between carriageways, then the grass drops off where the freeway becomes made of multiple bridges, and you drive right between the bridges and fall onto an underpass or river or whatever. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Not sure if I'm reading your question correctly User:Sagittarian Milky Way, but in 1993, ten people (nine were American tourists) were killed when their coach (long-distance bus) went through a steel barrier and down an embankment on the M2 motorway in Kent. In 2001, the Selby rail crash was caused by a Land Rover leaving the M62 motorway, going down an embankment and landing on a main rail line; 10 were killed and 82 injured. The safety barrier protecting the bridge was too short to stop the car; the driver went to prison for falling asleep. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Do drunk or impaired drivers ever drive between freeway bridges and fall many feet? (talk) 02:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if it's the best source anyway since it's a debate with various opinions mostly from COI parties (e.g. Corus Tubes seems to be a manufacturer of steel tubes and pipes, the other one was from the Concrete Paving association) and from 2002. At least when I tried, this is surprisingly hard to find good sources. Our article Concrete step barrier and [2] has some discussion but these aren't great sources. From a quick look, most research I found may have compared different types of concrete barriers or steel barriers but not between the two [3] [4] [5] [6]. (I wonder what it in this, I don't have access [7].) But I'm fairly sure Alansplodge and Lambian are right, and you're wrong. For modern urban motorway use, concrete barriers are better than steel barriers in terms of safety performance. There may be situations where steel is better like head on collisions but realistically head on collisions with barriers on motorways are rare. As Lambian and our Traffic barrier article mentions, the barriers are designed to ideally deflect vehicles in more ordinary impacts. Some sources suggest a high risk of rollover with concrete barriers although it seems to depend on design [8] [9] [10] and I think these decisions are as often the case, striking a balance between the various risks associated with different types of vehicles and collisions. Also this study which only looked at odds of injury did find concrete was the worst [11] (also mentioned here [12]), but that's only metric. One of the big problems with steel barriers seems to be it's poor performance in stopping a heavy vehicle from crossing the median means it's significantly worse in it's primary job on motorways. If you think a head on collision with a concrete barrier is an unpleasant experience, try a head on collision with a heavy vehicle travelling at 80 km/h in the other direction..... Concrete barriers are also more likely to survive a collision without requiring maintenance meaning less disruptive to traffic flow and less risk of injury or death to those who need to fix the things. Also from what I can tell this seems to be the consensus of most motorway engineers in a lot of the world. For other types of roads or highways, where different considerations apply, things can be different. This is probably also why it's hard to find comparisons. For most researchers, that debate was settled a long time ago. Nil Einne (talk) 06:07, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- Bearing in mind the fact that the same article also gives reasons why steel is better... 95.148.142.113 (talk) 01:44, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- "Every week there are at least two motorway crossover accidents resulting in an annual death toll of around 40 people. This fact shows that steel barriers are no longer adequate to cope with heavier lorries and growing traffic levels. Crossovers are among the most serious motorway accidents which, apart from the price in Slipformed concrete barriers offer an effective and long term economic solution to the problem of catastrophic crossover accidents". [1] Alansplodge (talk) 23:34, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- The angle of impact (the angle between the direction in which the vehicle makes contact and the barrier) is critically important. If it is a sharp angle, the vehicle more often rebounds back to the road with a concrete step barrier, and the sides of the vehicle next to its occupants are then not or hardly deformed. The majority of transgressions leading to contact are at such a sharp angle. At the usually high speed on motorways with a safety barrier, a "head-on" impact with a steel barrier is about as deadly as with a concrete barrier; the deformation of the metal barrier absorbs only a relatively small amount of the energy. --Lambiam 22:33, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- I was always of the impression that metal was better, as it has the ability to deform under pressure, which I feel would absorb some of the impact. Concrete is rock hard, and so that would be worse, surely? 95.148.142.113 (talk) 17:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- Concrete step barriers are replacing the steel Armco barriers on motorway central reservations because they are safer. The somewhat contravesial smart motorways are necessary due to the higher traffic density we have at this end of the Kingdom. Alansplodge (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- Oh, and by the way, while I was fixing the page, I realised how stupid and ridiculous the English motorways are. Not like our Scottish motorways, where the hard shoulders are wide, and our central reservations are not made of concrete. 95.148.142.113 (talk) 00:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
Witness Tree Protection Program
The National Park Service established The Witness Tree Protection Program in 2006, as part of the Historic American Landscapes Survey. This suggests that there must be something like a national witness tree registry. Is there? And, is there any relevant WP article? 107.15.157.44 (talk) 18:52, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- "Written histories and photographs of the trees are archived at the Library of Congress."[14] A search for "Witness Tree Protection Program" on the website of the LoC lists entries for 25 trees.[15] --Lambiam 22:14, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- More details here describing a number of trees, but not an actual list. Witness Tree Protection Program has yet to be written. It could be you. Alansplodge (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
How do I Create a wiki Page for a Relative?
I want to create a wikipedia page for a relative, per their request. I would like to know the steps I need to take to be able to do this. I have read a person needs to be "notable"; who decides whether they are notable or not? Who is allowed to write a page? How much does this cost? I would appreciate any and all information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjhart154223 (talk • contribs) 18:58, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- Have a look at WP:YFA. --Viennese Waltz 19:05, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- The OP actually asked on the Help Desk page first, but they didn't respond yet. However, you've provided the right answer. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:09, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- The bottleneck for such per request articles is almost always the notability requirement of three or more reliable sources, published independently of the subject and of each other, that are about the subject, rather than just mentioning them. No sources, no Wikipedia page. --Lambiam 21:50, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Kjhart154223: Re:
How much does this cost?
- Editors are volunteers & "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit" (unless they've been banned). So, the answer is "nothing". But, please see: WP:SCAM. 2603:6081:1C00:1187:9907:139E:459:8414 (talk) 02:07, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Kjhart154223: Re:
December 20
London Highways
In Highways_England#Operating_the_network there is a table of all the regions of UK whose highways are managed. Does London not have any highways? -- SGBailey (talk) 08:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, but they are managed by London Streets, not by Highways England.--Shantavira|feed me 09:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- There's no history section on the London Streets article, but I imagine it was formerly the responsibility of the departed Greater London Council. Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- Re-reading the table in the Highways_England article, the section headed "DBFO area 5" says "M25, link roads to GLA Boundary". Not a model of clarity though. The GLA is responsible for Transport for London which in turn is the governing body of London Streets. Alansplodge (talk) 17:31, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- There's no history section on the London Streets article, but I imagine it was formerly the responsibility of the departed Greater London Council. Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
December 21
I donated, leave me alone
| The Reference Desk volunteers are not responsible for donation solicitations. Leave us alone. |
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| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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I donated, leave me alone — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:783C:7700:E063:BFC5:295A:AC02 (talk) 01:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
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Just how far from getting a seventh congressional seat was Connecticut back in 1970?
Just how far from getting a seventh congressional seat was Connecticut back in 1970? Futurist110 (talk) 18:21, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- I don't know that they were "close to getting a seventh congressional seat" in 1970, so one would first need to see where you found that information before someone can help you research it. In general, however, if you want more details on the history of congressional districting in the U.S., this website seems to have every single district in the history of the U.S. Without knowing more about the antecedent to your question (since it presupposes something as true that we haven't even 'established' yet, see plurium interrogationum) it would be difficult to research any more details on it. If you could show us where you learned such an idea, perhaps we could use the information to help direct you to more details. --Jayron32 20:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- I did this calculation: (3,031,709 / 203,392,031) * 435 = 6.484 Congressional seats. 3,031,709 was Connecticut's total population in 1970, 203,392,031 was the US's total population in 1970, and 435 is the total number of seats in the US House of Representatives. The fact that, proportionally, Connecticut would have deserved almost 6.5 Congressional seats in 1970 suggests that it might have been close to getting a seventh Congressional seat after the 1970 US Census, no? Futurist110 (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Futurist110: I think all the information you need is at United_States_congressional_apportionment#Past_apportionments, where it shows the formula used to apportion House seats along with links to the census data. According to the table, the reapportionment from the 1970 United States census happened in 1973. I'll note that Connecticut got six seats with a population of 3,031,709 and Kentucky got 7 seats with a population of 3,218,706, so that gives some bounds to your question. RudolfRed (talk) 20:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- What about my calculation above? Is there any US state in 1970 who had a larger "seat remainder" than Connecticut had in 1970 (Connecticut's remainder was 0.484, since 6.484 - 6 = 0.484) and yet had its number of seats rounded down as opposed to rounded up? Futurist110 (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Futurist110: It is more complicated than just the rounding of fractions. See the formula on the page I linked above. You will need to either find, or calculate yourself, the "priority" values, and that is how the seats are allocated. See this example for 2010: [16]. I tried some searching, but could not find the 1970 version online. RudolfRed (talk) 21:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you very much! Futurist110 (talk) 08:04, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- The modern method of apportioning seats is known as the Huntington–Hill method, and was in use in 1970. It isn't as simple as your calculation, but it also isn't too complex. The article may give you some more insight into the issue. --Jayron32 12:17, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thank you very much! Futurist110 (talk) 08:04, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Futurist110: It is more complicated than just the rounding of fractions. See the formula on the page I linked above. You will need to either find, or calculate yourself, the "priority" values, and that is how the seats are allocated. See this example for 2010: [16]. I tried some searching, but could not find the 1970 version online. RudolfRed (talk) 21:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- What about my calculation above? Is there any US state in 1970 who had a larger "seat remainder" than Connecticut had in 1970 (Connecticut's remainder was 0.484, since 6.484 - 6 = 0.484) and yet had its number of seats rounded down as opposed to rounded up? Futurist110 (talk) 21:06, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- According to PDF page 18 of [17] the last seat went to Oklahoma with a priority value of 472,043. Oregon would have gotten the next seat with 471,991. PDF page 4 says Oklahoma had population 2,585,486 used for apportionment and they got their 6th seat. Their priority value is calculated as 2,585,486/sqrt(5×6) = 472,043 so it adds up. Connecticut had population 3,050,693 used for apportionment and got 6 seats. Their priority value for a 7th would have been 3,050,693/sqrt(6×7) = 470732, below Oklahoma and Oregon. In order to get a priority value of 472,044 to beat Oklahoma they would need a population of 472,044 × sqrt(6×7) = 3,059,195 so they were missing 8,502. Oregon would need 472,044 × sqrt(4×5) = 2,111,045 to get a 5th seat. They had 2,110,810 so they were only missing 235. Connecticut was missing 36 times as many. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:16, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- Very interesting! Thank you! So, Connecticut needed an extra 8,502 people to get a seventh seat in the US House of Representatives in 1970. Not a lot, but not nothing either. Futurist110 (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
December 22
Amiga record label etymology
Everyone knows that the American home computer company Amiga got its name from the Spanish word amiga meaning "female friend", because it sounded friendly, and came before rivals Apple and Atari alphabetically.
But Amiga is also the name of an entirely unrelated German music record label. Does anyone know where that name came from? JIP | Talk 03:36, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- A bit off-topic: Spanish amiga comes from Latin amica of exactly the same meaning, which would be even earlier in alphabetical order. :) --CiaPan (talk) 07:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- And there exists a home appliances' label Amica in Poland. --CiaPan (talk) 07:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- I see no plausible argument for another theory than that this label name too came from Spanish amiga. A sister label was named Eterna (likely from Spanish eterna). The creator of these labels, Ernst Busch (actor), had joined the International Brigades in Spain in 1937 in the fight against the Nationalist faction, where he sang revolutionary songs, mostly in Spanish. --Lambiam 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
Does the former USSR have anything comparable to a Walmart?
Does the former USSR have anything comparable to a Walmart? If so, what and where? Futurist110 (talk) 03:53, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Not sure whether GUM meets the criterion. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 10:31, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Category:Retail companies of the Soviet Union may be a good place to begin your research. While places to exchange money for goods was as necessary for modern life in the Soviet Union as it was in any other country of the time, all such endeavours were state-run (as is the way under a Communist dictatorship) and there really isn't an equivalent of a private, family-owned chain store like Walmart. The list of such places we have at Wikipedia is likely incomplete, but any such chain will not be on the scale of Walmart, in terms of number of stores or size of individual stores, nor diversity of goods available. --Jayron32 12:13, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- FWIW, I was also asking about the former ex-USSR countries here. So, this hypothetical Walmart equivalent could have been created after 1991. Futurist110 (talk) 23:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Comparable in what way? --Khajidha (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
- In terms of providing a lot of good products–especially, but not only, food–at a low price. Futurist110 (talk) 06:39, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
- Comparable in what way? --Khajidha (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
- FWIW, I was also asking about the former ex-USSR countries here. So, this hypothetical Walmart equivalent could have been created after 1991. Futurist110 (talk) 23:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Search for hypermarkets, yes hyper like Carrefour, they're French but have very distant stores. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
- Interesting! Thank you! Futurist110 (talk) 06:40, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Fixing an error in a map?
Is it please possible for someone here to fix an error in this map to the right?
The slide for 1798 here is before the slide for 1797 even though it's supposed to be the other way around. Futurist110 (talk) 08:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- 1662 and 1661 are also out of order. You can put in a request at Commons:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop. --Lambiam 09:41, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks; will do! Futurist110 (talk) 06:38, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
What is the expiration date on my Matzos?
I know this is not a big deal. And sure, "I'll live" without an answer, or even if I use them if stale, and waste time cooking them if they're no good, but I thought I'd ask nevertheless.
I want to make a matzoh-based dish. I always check expiration dates, and so I can tell you that (not only is it the law in NY, in the U.S., that they are required), but boxes of matzoh's always have one in my past experience. In fact, I have an (almost empty) box of an American Matzoh brand that has printed on the bottom "02/02/2021". Anyway, I bought two boxes of matzoh some time back, of a brand I had never seen before (can't remember where I bought them, possibly Cosco). It's Israeli: "Yehuda Matzos". I Googled that brand name and "expiration date" and only got false positives.
I have carefully looked at every side of the box and cannot find anything that looks like an expiration date to me. What I have found, on the bottom (in the normal spot for an expiration date) is the following verbatim (with no spaces or hyphens): "1165619315". I also find, when I open the box, underneath one of the side flaps: "M.Y. 221-6".
Are either of these a translatable expiration dates in some Israeli format? Any idea? (I am thinking, they are simply not, it has none, and oh well).--108.21.51.204 (talk) 20:11, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Just to correct one falsehood in your post Expiration dates on food are not required by any federal law, although some states require such dates on meat or milk. Furthermore, New York isn't even one of those states that require milk to be sold by its printed expiration date. Expiration dates are not required by any law, food products (with some exceptions in some states, of which matzoh do not appear to be one) are not required to have them, and stores are not even required to pull many products by any expiration date even if it passes. There's a very good chance that the particular brand of matzoh you have purchased has no meaningful expiration date, or at least any that you could discern from the particular lot codes (which is likely what you have found) on your products. Wish I could be of more help, but all I can find is that there's no law that requires them. --Jayron32 20:19, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hello Jeyron. Thank you for answering. You are correct. There is no federal law, nor NY state law, as I've confirmed; I stand corrected – and am glad to actually know this now! I had always assumed (and you know what they say about assumptions...). If I may, I don't think you meant to imply how it reads, but "falsehood" is a word choice with certain connotations of intentional deceit. I'm sure all you intended was the equivalent of "incorrect", but please take note. Anyway, I'm going to trust that my nose knows. There's a slight mustiness. I'm tossing 'em. Thanks.108.21.51.204 (talk) 21:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- In case you haven't already seen it, we have an article Shelf life which goes into some detail about these matters. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.237 (talk) 02:26, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hello Jeyron. Thank you for answering. You are correct. There is no federal law, nor NY state law, as I've confirmed; I stand corrected – and am glad to actually know this now! I had always assumed (and you know what they say about assumptions...). If I may, I don't think you meant to imply how it reads, but "falsehood" is a word choice with certain connotations of intentional deceit. I'm sure all you intended was the equivalent of "incorrect", but please take note. Anyway, I'm going to trust that my nose knows. There's a slight mustiness. I'm tossing 'em. Thanks.108.21.51.204 (talk) 21:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
Open front toilet seat
My mom's apartment bathroom has an open front toilet seat with no lid, like this. I've seen those in public restroom stalls where I guess they don't want people standing on the lids and looking into other stalls or whatever. Can anyone explain why someone would install one in a residence? I'd like to take it out and replace it with a normal lidded seat, in order to not spray poop droplets all over the place, which among other things can apparently spread covid.[18] Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 21:48, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- Purpose of Open Front Toilet Seats notes that international Plumbing Code 411.3 requires public water closet seats to be "of the elongated type and either of the open front type or have an automatic seat cover dispenser." and explains that the omitted front part potentially harbors body waste products. Further, "The open-front seat design ensures that women can reach down to clean their genitals without scraping their hand on the....toilet seat". Possible reasons someone would install an open-front toilet seat in a residence are economy or a male unwilling to raise the seat to urinate standing. See Toilet seat#Open front toilet seats. 84.209.119.241 (talk) 22:47, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- From time to time, toilet seats can become worn and their fixings unserviceable through regular, significant strain, and have to be replaced, typically by the homeowner (or occupier?) who purchases and fits a new seat (with or without a lid), as I myself have done. It may be that whoever fitted the current seat in your mom's apartment (assuming it's not from the original WC installation) chose for some reason (cheapness, immediate availability, personal preference, access difficulty, etc.) to both buy the open-front seat design and to not buy/fit a lid. Alternatively, someone may in the past have stood on the lid, broken it, and not replaced it.
- One possible reason for deliberate lid omission: some WCs are so positioned relative to other plumbing features (pipework, the cistern) that a lid will not stand upright and has to be held – not a problem if sitting, as one's back will do so, but problematic for a male who prefers to urinate while standing. Is it possible that this was a factor for some previous owner? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.237 (talk) 02:24, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
December 23
Railroads between China and Germany that go through Kalmykia
Are there any railroads between China and Germany that go through both Kalmykia and at least one of these two regions: Atyrau Region and West Kazakhstan Region? Futurist110 (talk) 06:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
- A more interesting question is, why do you want to know? --174.95.161.129 (talk) 09:08, 23 December 2020 (UTC)