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February 29

BBC radio archives

Hello, I'm looking for information about archival WWII-era, BBC radio recordings consisting of four separate radio programs read by E. Graham Howe. The lectures or shows were titled "Cross Purposes", "Create and Share", "How Long", and "The Great Unseen". There is evidently information about these BBC radio shows in the book Where this War Hits You: Four Broadcast Talks (1941) OCLC 2174883, which represents an edited transcript in book form. I'm hoping the book also includes more information about the broadcast. Obviously, I do not have access to this work. What's odd, is that the four shows were supposed to be somewhat controversial, but I can find nothing about the controversy. I'm wondering if the chaos of this war-time era is responsible for the dearth of information on this subject. So I guess what I'm asking is, can anyone find anything else about these BBC radio broadcasts by Howe? Internet Archive has a few words here and there, but not much I can add to the article on Howe. On Google Books, I noticed at least one major work about BBC radio during WWII, but nothing about Howe. Even stranger, I can find nothing regarding his death in 1975, neither an obituary nor a death notice nor a courtesy notice in a professional journal, which is also very odd. Viriditas (talk) 08:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

A bit of synthesis/OR: Graham Howe was inspired by Buddhism and knew the (German-born) Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera personally.^[1] Part of his approach to dealing with difficult and distressing situations in which one may feel helpless was rooted in Buddhist spirituality, and has been described as trying to "synthesize Christianity and Buddhism".^[2] If his lectures were interpreted by some doctrinal Christians as engaging in such synthesis, they may have been alarmed. Another possible point of contention may have been his advocacy of "peaceful acceptance", an "acceptance of both sides", as recorded in his earlier book War Dance,^[3][4] which, like Where this War Hits You, was based on a series of lectures.  --Lambiam 11:30, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Alternatively, they may not have been considered particularly notable at the time. I imagine that there are a very large number of wartime BBC radio broadcasts that escaped contemporary critical comment. Alansplodge (talk) 13:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Right, but that’s why I was even looking in the first place. Several sources asserted they were notable broadcasts that generated controversy, yet I can find nothing. I suspect the book says something, but what I really wanted to do was to listen to the archival lectures, which I was hoping the BBC had put online. Viriditas (talk) 22:09, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, my comments sound rather flippant in retrospect, but my point was that in wartime, the BBC broadcast a huge number of lectures (what we might now call podcasts) by some of the most eminent minds in the country, from archbishops to trade unionists, so one being unremarked upon might not be too surprising.

However, a bit of digging reveals that there is a brief book review in The Theosophist; Vol. 63, No. 10, July 1942 p. 320 (81/89 of the pdf file).

A Google search result shows that the book is also mentioned in War Aims and Peace Aims V by Helen Lidell. My JSTOR account doesn't allow me to see more than the front page, but someone at WikiProject Resource Exchange might be able to help. That's all I could find, except that the British Library must have a copy of the book, but how you would access that, I don't know. Alansplodge (talk) 23:08, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Update: I was able to access the JSTOR article through the Wikipedia Library, but it only says:

"Individual and shared creativeness" is the phrase used by Professor Huxley for the motive force of the new democratic society in the picture he draws in the last of his broadcast talks. [footnote 2: Democracy Marches. By Julian Huxley. 1941. (London, Chatto & Windus, 126 pp. 3s. 6d.)] The biologist and publicist is here supported in almost identical terms by a psychologist, Dr. Graham Howe, in another series of broadcasts.

Alansplodge (talk) 23:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I take it that you've seen The Druid of Harley Street: The Spiritual Psychology of E. Graham Howe which has a lengthy preview on Google Books? The forward and the first chapter have some biographical details. It sounds as though he was at odds with the mainstream psychiatric community, which might explain why they didn't mark his passing. Alansplodge (talk) 23:51, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I have access to all of the sources mentioned in this discussion, many of which appear in his biography article that I linked to up above. What I’m looking for is access to archival British newspaper indexes which might have noted his passing or the BBC radio lectures. I don’t think any of these are online or easily accessible. Viriditas (talk) 00:18, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Someone at WikiProject Resource Exchange might be able to help with newspaper archives. The BBC Sound Archive doesn't seem to be easily accessible to the public. Alansplodge (talk) 12:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that was one of my primary concerns. It's not just a problem with the BBC Sound Archive, it's a problem with sound archives everywhere. One of the most fascinating sound archives that documents the counterculture of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in the US is held by KPFA. It's a treasure trove for researchers, but I don't think even 1% of it is online. A few years ago, I found a comprehensive index to these recordings online. I was hoping the BBC sound archives would at least have the same kind of index for the public. Viriditas (talk) 20:22, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

March 2

Eastern Townships

Do Quebec's Eastern Townships have English-speaking majority? I once thought that in Sherbrooke, street signs have English text over French text. But do streets there even have official English names? --40bus (talk) 21:44, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The region is now majority French-speaking, by a wide margin (89%), although there are still some small pockets of English speakers. The demographic shift occurred in the late 1950s and 1960s. Street signs are in French all over Quebec (with Inuktitut and First Nation languages used as well in Native communities). Highway signs and tourist signs sometimes include English translation, but not street signs. In Sherbrooke, the majority of streets in the city center have retained their original name; many of these are English, like King Street, which is the city's main commercial street (now called "la rue King", not "la rue du roi"). Xuxl (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

March 3

Newspaper in Emergency

Whenever their has been a big news like 911/ death of Queen etc., newspaper often publish full front page with that news, or at least cover major chunk of front page with that news. What happens to advertisements which were paid to be shown on front page for that day? How do they handle other things? ExclusiveEditor _{Notify Me!} 14:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Guessing. I suppose it varies from paper to paper and whether time allows it. I would suggest everything is pushed to subsequent pages, or if it is possible stories are just ditched in favour of the breaking news. As for the ads, I gather either money is returned outright if it's too late to sort of call and clarify the situation, or the advertisers are just reimbursed in some way. Mind you, if a paper is to appear in the newsstands in the morning it still has to be typeset and printed, and that takes time. I guess it all depends how last-minute the news is. If there is enough time the editors are bound to reshuffle everything and keep it tidy, contact advertisers or internally discuss whether to do a full front page big news story or just do half-page reserving the other half for other things like other stories or ads or whatever. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:22, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I haven't looked at a newspaper in years,but back when I did it was pretty much unheard of to have ads on the front page. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 00:27, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Same here. I don't know how it works in Britain, but in America I've never seen ads on the front page. At least not recently. In the 19th century, it was another thing: want-ads and such on the front page were fairly common, intermingled among the news items. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Just for fun, I'll point out that one British paper, the (London) Times, used to devote its entire front page to little advertisements. In 1966 they decided that maybe all the other papers had a better idea and started putting news there. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 03:00, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so I clarify: I currently live in a very small town (50k) and we have one or two little local papers that run ads all over the place, including the front page. Large national papers will have some kind of ads on the front page too, but not always. Back in the 1990s when the paper was a regular thing at my parents' home I remember that it was rather usual for smaller or larger ads to be on the front page, especially on broadsheets. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

If this is typical [5] newspapers don't guarantee to put advertisements in any specific location. 2A00:23D0:D89:2D01:80C2:2E34:5AE:16BF (talk) 09:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I have seen various newspapers (local and national) contain full front page advertisement (though occasionally), it is usually done in large marketing campaigns. Once a newspaper reverted all photos on front page to advertise toothpaste's freshness. ExclusiveEditor _{Notify Me!} 09:48, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

"Stop press" and "Latest" were very different. The box you referred to would be a "Latest" or "Late news" box which could be printed into by a separate stereotype, basically an overprint. "Stop press" and "Hold the front page" much beloved of Holywood referred to recasting the whole front page and would only be done in extremis. Do bear in mind though that the larger national (UK) papers went through several editions as the night wore on. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:29, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

The expression beloved of Hollywood (double L there) is "stop the presses". (And I remember one relatively modern movie, possibly I Love Trouble, where someone runs into the pressroom and gives that order and nothing happens, because hey, they don't do that any more.) But I've seen newspapers or reproductions of same, that had what Martin calls a "late news" box and it was titled "stop press news". I'm sure the paper or papers I'm thinking of were British but I have no recollection of which. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 14:27, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This discussion is drifting away from the topic, and it seems it has become a unrelated forum. ExclusiveEditor _{Notify Me!} 14:34, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Thepaperboy.com allows you to see UK paper front pages for specific dates. The page for Friday, 9 September 2022 shows no adverts. Most of the papers have a (near) full page photo, except the Independent and Evening Standard, which apparently missed the big news. By comparison some of the papers from two days earlier have adverts. As for what happens to the missing adverts, hopefully 2A00:23D0:D89:2D01:80C2:2E34:5AE:16BF's answer suffices. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 13:18, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Also by the way, the Toronto Sun is a tabloid and likes to use a magazine-style front cover with just a photo, a headline, and maybe some small text pointing to other items inside. I would only read it if I come across a discarded copy. One day I did that and saw that the front cover showed Leonid Brezhnev under the headline "BREZHNEV DIES", so I looked through the paper to see what other information they had. And the interesting part is, there wasn't any. So they hadn't had to remake anything but the front cover to run that "story". --142.112.220.50 (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

March 5

Dust buildup

If humans and animals produce dust in their dead skin, hair, body matter, etc., and dust isn't being removed from the world, but simply moved around and accumulated, will there come a time when there is too much dust, or a dust buildup on Earth? Will dust kill us, and if so, was Malthus right? What if we took all of the dust, packed it in a space capsule more densely concentrated than a Bangladeshi slum, and flung said capsule into the Sun? Would this be feasible and cost-effective? Any and all clarification is appreciated. Ευtγchεα 03:15, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Would you want all the poor little dust mites to starve to death? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The organic dust isn't created out of nothing: it ultimately comes from the food humans and animals eat, which is formed from the existing soil and atmosphere, and it ultimately returns to the soil and becomes part of it (although it might hang around in the house for a while). There is thus no net increase of material from this source.

In any case, the amounts are trivial compared to the scale of the Earth. Consider that every year around 40,000 metric tons of meteoritic material, including 5,000 tons of cosmic dust, fall on to the Earth every year – this is new material, but even though it's been going on for a few billion years, it doesn't seem to have caused any problems: quite the reverse, as some scientists think it might have been the source of molecules that gave rise to life. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.24.44.161 (talk) 04:23, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Life has been the source of quite some problems.  --Lambiam 06:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

We come from dust and we return to dust. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:31, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Dust simply goes to create earth, along with all the other rotting vegetable and animal matter. Incidentally, the idea that dust is made up largely of dead skin cells is a myth. Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:31, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Dead skin cells, hair, pollen, worn carpets and clothes, ash from fires, soot from internal combustion engines, dust mite corpses, sea salt, ... Most of it is simply recycled into the environment. Worn synthetic fibres can be a problem though, as they may not be biodegradable. And launching something into the sun is very hard; first get to circular heliocentric orbit and then it still requires ${\frac {1}{{\sqrt {2}}-1}}$ times the $\Delta v$ compared to throwing it completely out of the solar system. The rocket launch would create more dust than you can put in the capsule. Better combust it into simple molecules. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:58, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Our Dust article says: "Dust in homes is composed of about 20–50% dead skin cells". Alansplodge (talk) 14:25, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Have you tried the Black & Decker DustBuster? Available at all good hardware stores. There are probably some instructions on what to do when the planet gets full. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:49, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

That would be good info for April 1 (along with the original question here). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:54, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I suspect James Dyson's business model relies on the earth never running out of dust. The more the merrier, in fact. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a humorous short story in which household dust is teleported to a neighboring universe, until the people there get fed up and start sending trash back. —Tamfang (talk) 00:33, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Somebody get this hero a dust barnstar pronto Ευtγchεα 20:52, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Rosh Hashanah and centuries in the Gregorian calendar

In the Gregorian calendar, which repeats every 400 years, centuries (starting with years ending with "01") only start on Monday, Saturday, Thursday, or Tuesday. So, no century in the Gregorian calendar starts on Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. Well, coincidentally, those are also the three days of the week that Rosh Hashanah cannot fall on.

But is there any significance of this coincidence? GTrang (talk) 16:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Rosh Hashanah postponement rules? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:47, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The Jewish calendar is not influenced by the Gregorian calendar in any way, shape or form. Cullen328 (talk) 08:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

And the Rosh Hashanah postponement rules were not influenced by the Gregorian calendar, being hundreds of years older than the Gregorian calendar. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

March 6

Wp / wm images not loading

I asked at the Wikipedia teahouse and Wikimedia commons teahouse to no avail. I'm getting timeouts from upload.wikimedia that mean I don't see images on Wikipedia any more. It's been like a week or more. No images. What could be going on? I can see images browsing on my phone, until I turn the wifi connection on. So it's IP linked. If i go directly to upload.wikimedia.org, it times out. If I google wikimedia commons and click on it and upload from there, it seems like it's working. But stuff that I'd uploaded this way recently, during the problem? It worked, but now I can't see those images better than any others. Who should I be sending a message to about this? Temerarius (talk) 03:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

If you also have this problem viewing images on commons.wikimedia.org, it is definitely not a Wikipedia issue. You gave us much more detail here about the phenomenon plaguing you than you did a week ago at the Commons' Village pump/Technical page, in particular that it may be IP-linked. Is your IP static? Perhaps, describing the issue there again, but as detailed as is possible and reasonable, will elicit possible explanations. In the meantime, did you try other devices with your wifi connection, or your phone with other wifi connections?  --Lambiam 09:57, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes power cycling a device (such as your Wi-Fi router) makes a stubborn problem disappear.  --Lambiam 20:44, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

March 7

CAAC Souvenir

I have been asked to identify the source of a souvenir. It is a small baby in a blanket. When you press down the baby's head, it makes a squeak sound. It is in a hand-made cardboard box with a CAAC sticker on top. I recognize the sticker with the CAAC logo and the name in both Chinese and the English letters CAAC at the bottom. But, I have no idea what a squeaking baby has to do with an airline. The assumption is that it comes from the late 60s or early 70s. If it helps, the bag also has a pair of Wuxi clay figurines in a similar hand-made cardboard box. I have a photo of the baby and the label, but I don't know how to add them here. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Presumably you're talking about CAAC (airline). For uploading pictures, one option is something called Imgur. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Given how annoyed some passengers get with a wailing baby on board, one would expect that an airline will try to avoid an association with squeaking babies, just like the inflight entertainment system does not serve up airplane disaster movies, or even the comedy flick Airplane!. Do you have an indication that the box and the souvenir are connected, beyond that the box may have happened to be around when the person in possession of the souvenir needed a box to store it? Could the box perhaps originally also have contained figurines? Or might it perhaps also be an accidental container for stuff not connected to the airline.  --Lambiam 19:38, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I do not have a lot of information. These belonged to a couple who died in Framingham over 20 years ago. They traveled internationally in the 50s and 60s a great deal, but appear to have traveled less so in the 70s. I have no indication that they ever visited China. There are two boxes, both made of the same blue-printed card stock. They are hand-made because they are not squared off and the material is not cut straight. One has a very common Wuxi clay figurine set. I identified it quickly. It is factory made, not handmade. The baby is the hard one. It is a baby in a swaddling blanket. Basically, a baby head on a push rod inside a bucket painted to look like a baby blanket. Press down on the head and it goes into the bucket and makes a squeak noise. The Wuxi figurines have, in English, "Wuxi Clay" on the box. The baby has a CAAC sticker with the CAAC logo. Because the couple who owned it died in Framingham, I am beginning to suspect that they purchased it in China town in Boston or someplace similar. It is easy to find examples of Wuxi figurines. I have had no luck identifying the baby. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

OR— CAAC was handing out other kinds of souvenirs well into the 1980s. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 10:22, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/ has 2.7 million members Polygnotus (talk) 11:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The baby is probably something to do with Christmas. Are you able to insert the Chinese characters, as they would have more meaning than 4 letters? Are they "中國民航" for the airline? But the box may be nothing to do with the contents ass mentioned by Lambiam. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

March 8

Rock dust as soil amendment

So, I've been getting my hands very dirty, trying to grow Hawaiian gardenias in containers. At the end of the day, I hope to put some of this experience to work writing articles about Hawaiian gardenias, but that's still some time in the future. One of the reasons I'm doing it is because gardenias can be very difficult due to their requirements, so it's a bit of a fun challenge for me. One thing that has me curious is the use of rock dust (mineral powder) as a soil amendment. The literature is bit odd on this subject due to the history of its use. Some people say it is just a trend and is not needed, while other gardeners swear by it. It's the only thing I haven't used yet, so I'm curious what the state of the literature says about it for container gardening. Is it helpful and will it make much of a difference for the plant, or can I get the same results using something else? Viriditas (talk) 21:09, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

A search for "controlled+experiment"+"rock+dust" yields mixed results – mainly involving the growing of tomatoes. Some report a positive effect, others no effect. (As far as I checked the search results in more detail, none reported a negative effect.) Most were not up to scientific standards, whether in the setup itself, or in the reporting of the setup (which should be detailed enough to allow replicating the experiment), or in the reporting of the results (which should be detailed enough to make statistical hypothesis testing possible). One study, which reported a significant (but small) positive effect of Azomite^® on tomato crop,^[6] may pass muster. One issue is that there are many potentially confounding factors. What works for Solanales may not work for Gentianales. What works in soils with low pH may not have an effect in soils with high pH. The mineral composition of the rock dust and its granularity can be expected to make a difference. And so on.  --Lambiam 12:04, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. It looks like some studies show an increase in nutrient uptake leading to faster growth and yield in corn treated with basalt rock dust. Viriditas (talk) 22:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

At a very general level, basalt is what comes out of volcanoes, and historically people have tended to live by/on volcanoes because the soil is (reportedly) very fertile, so that would make some sense. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.24.44.161 (talk) 03:35, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The farmers at es:La Geria found that the lapilli that covered their fields reduced evapotranspiration. --Error (talk) 12:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Declaration from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) on the use of rock dust:

Therefore, Embrapa's official position on this topic is that, currently, there is not enough scientific information to recommend silicate agrominerals as a source of nutrients, especially potassium, or soil conditioners for agriculture.^[7]

They announce a project to assess its agronomic potential in various production systems, including biologically based ones, and, if there is scientific proof of their usefulness in agriculture, recommendations for these materials (dose, source, time and form of application) in different production systems, based on their characteristics and soil indicators. The project is now running and slated to end in April 2026.^[8]  --Lambiam 06:04, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a huge variety of rock and therefore of "rock dust", but the rock dust known as sand is of course widely used to improve drainage, which is generally regarded as a good thing. Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:41, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Correct. The growers I've been following recommend basalt and glacial rock to increase nutrient uptake, growth, yields, and flowering, but I'm not sure it would make much of a difference for hobbyist container growing. Viriditas (talk) 20:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Is "glacial rock" just a marketing buzzword? Glacial erratics are rocks and boulders that have been picked up by glaciers and deposited some distance from their origin, but it's not clear to me how that makes them helpful to plant growth more than, say, rocks that have been moved around by human labour. Matt Deres (talk) 17:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

It's discussed in the article on rock flour. Viriditas (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

March 13

US metric units

Is there any newspaper in the US that also uses metric units on its weather page, so that the forecasted temperatures would also be given in Celsius in addition to Fahrenheit, or the weather page would have a metric conversion table? Is there any US media that consistently uses metric units as primary, or only units? --40bus (talk) 21:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It's been a while since I read Scientific American, but I would certainly expect metric units to be primary there and other magazines of that kind. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 21:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The National Weather Service in the US uses Fahrenheit temperatures, as does The Weather Channel and similar weather reporting services. Newspapers normally follow the same practice. I cannot say that there is no newspaper in the US that uses Celsius in weather reports, but the vast majority don't. When Americans talk about the weather, they overwhelmingly express temperatures in Fahrenheit, and the same is true of home heating and oven cooking. Why? Fahrenheit temperatures are 1.8 times more granular than Celsius temperatures, and the 100 degrees from 0 to 100 neatly covers the range from a very cold but normal winter day to a very hot but normal summer day. Plus, many Americans take a certain delight in doing things differently than the rest of the world does. The metric system is widely used in scientific and techological contexts, though. Cullen328 (talk) 08:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

But the question was about media, not general usage. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 21:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

You told us why Americans use Fahrenheit. I submit that really, most Americans have never made a choice to use Fahrenheit. They just do. HiLo48 (talk) 22:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

By now, that's likely the case with Celsius around the world, too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

March 14

ID for credit card purchases

Why and when did stores stop asking to see ID when you use a credit card? I remember as a kid (say around 2004) they would almost always ask my mom to see ID if it was over a certain amount (I think about $20). Then eventually the practice slowly faded away, and I can't recall any times she was asked after about 2008-2010ish maybe. — THORNFIELD HALL ^(Talk) 01:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Where are you? I don't recall that ever being the case in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 02:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The US — THORNFIELD HALL ^(Talk) 08:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

MasterCard and Visa prohibit this practice, but I am not sure when that started. [9]. Other card brands may have similar rules. RudolfRed (talk) 03:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The Visa Core Rules of 22 April 2017 said, "A Merchant may request Cardholder identification in a Face-to-Face Environment."^[10] Those of 13 October 2018 said, "Unless specified in the Visa Rules, a Merchant must not request Cardholder identification as a condition of purchase."^[11] This has remained unchanged since. There is an exception that applies in the US, Canada, and several other regions, for when the merchant suspects fraud in a face-to-face environment. The oldest version of the MasterCard Tules I found, of 12 May 2010, already state, "A Merchant must not refuse to complete a Transaction solely because a Cardholder who has complied with the conditions for presentment of a Card at the POI refuses to provide additional identification information, except as specifically permitted or required by the Standards." ^[12]  --Lambiam 09:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Money question

In Carl Barks's story A Financial Fable, Scrooge McDuck's money gets spread all over the land and people grab it for themselves. However, they soon find that their new wealth is not of much use, as there are not enough things left to buy with it, which leads to increased prices.

How analogous is this situation to real life? If the richest people in the world suddenly decided to spend all their money, would it happen that there are not enough things in the world to buy with it, making the money useless? JIP | Talk 12:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I guess a real-life situation would be the introduction of a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. Some might fear that most people would simply stop working if they had a guaranteed income to cover their basic needs, removing the need to work, and this would lead to the situation described in Barks' fable. I don't agree with that interpretation, and I don't believe this situation could arise in real life, at least as long as only money is involved. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

This has happened repeatedly in history. It was more common before the ability to travel easily. A rich person travels across the land. Town by town, the rich person spreads wealth. The people are initially happy at the wealth, but quickly find that all prices have increased and there is no continued income. So, they end up poorer than before. It has continued with increases in wages. When wages increase, people are initially happy. Then, prices increase and they find they have less purchasing power. For more detailed information, look into the Big Mac index. It attempts to separate the concept of money vs buying power. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 17:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

On a larger scale, large amounts of silver and gold looted by Spain from the New World resulted in the Price revolution. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

See also Mansa Musa#Wealth. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.186.221 (talk) 00:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)