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April 1

Why are TV commercials telecine'd?

This is one of my pet peeves. If you ever watch commercial TV in the United States, probably >75% of the ads are shot at 24 fps (film/cinema speed) and then pulled down to the 30 fps nominal framerate that NTSC TV uses. I was particularly amused/bemused by an ad for an HDTV that advertised a "blisteringly" fast refresh rate, but the telecine process made the motion on the simulated screenshot of the TV look very jerky. So my question is why do they do that? Is it cost (film cameras are cheap), artistic license (the movie-like motion could be construed as more artistic or cinematic and therefore "better"), or some other reason? 4.242.235.216 (talk) 01:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Most TV dramas are shot on film (or were until recently, more are using digital video now). Film is considered to give a more stylish upmarket appearance (partly this is historical because of the relative status of film and TV, and partly because it was better able to capture light differences and because the grain was considered to be aesthetically pleasing). Many directors and directors of photography still prefer to use film, because it's what they're used to and it feels more sophisticated than using video. Also, film can be more easily scaled to run internationally in countries with different TV systems, and in cinemas - since many TV commercials are now shown worldwide in territories with both PAL and NTSC, filming for American TV would restrict the usefulness of commercials.[1][2] --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 09:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Since the 1930's it has been possible to show a 24 frame per second movie on 30 frame per second TV with one second of the movie filling one second of TV. They do not have to speed up or slow down the movie. The pitch of music would change dramatically, as would the pitch of voices if there were a one frame of movie per frame of TV lockstep such as you describe. Europe sometimes does use the lockstep approach and change 24 frames/sec to 25 frames per sec, with a semitone of pitch change. Edison (talk) 05:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, in the 1930's - until perhaps the late 1980's - the technology was a 'telecine' machine - which is basically a regular cine projector pointed into a regular TV camera with some optics in the way to get the focus right. So what you got was a rather jerky version of the original where 18 of the 24 film frames every second were displayed for one TV frame each and the other 6 were each displayed twice. This was sometimes "fixed" by using longer persistance in the TV camera - resulting in a smeary rather than jerky image. These days, we can use digital techniques to interpolate the two frame smoothly - that's because of the way that MPEG video compression works by analyzing the motion in the image and separating foreground from background and such. This goes a long way to explain why film footage used to look very different from raw camera footage on TV...but these days, you don't have to put up with that if you don't want to. SteveBaker (talk) 13:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I remember slowing down Babylon 5 and noticing that every fourth frame was repeated in the live shots but not the digital shots. (Or vice versa? but that seems less likely.) —Tamfang (talk) 17:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Lenticel's law

I have a political science major friend who always stumped me on debates so I made a "law" that will stump her. Here are its clauses:

• Lenticel's law says that Lenticel's argument is always right.
• Lenticel's law is a valid argument because Lenticel's law says so.
• Lenticel's law exist because Lenticel's law says so.

I'm curious on what fallacies does my "law" violate since my friend always calls it invalid or fallacious.--Lenticel ^(talk) 04:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

They're all simple circular logic. bibliomaniac15 04:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay now I know why she's annoyed when I bring it up.--Lenticel ^(talk) 04:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course, WP has an article on Lenticel's law. Well, almost. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a popular version of your law, Lenticel:

Rule 1: Lenticel is always right

Rule 2: Should Lenticel ever be wrong, Rule 1 automatically applies.

I don't know who first came up with this set of two rules, but variations can be found in the articles on Stew Leonard's (replace "Lenticel" with "the customer") and Larry Wall (replace "Lenticel" with "Larry Wall"). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not really the same - in the original formulation, Lenticel's law can simply be false with no adverse consequences. Then it does not say it's always right (which is just as well, because it isn't) - if it's false then it doesn't say that it is a valid argument - so it's OK that it's not - and if it exists only because it says so - and it's false then it doesn't even have to exist (although it can if that helps). So we have perfectly satisfactory, non-paradoxical argument that Lenticel's law is simply false. The "more popular version" is a little more painful since the second clause says that if it's wrong then it's right. However, if it IS wrong then it may be wrong about that too...so we still don't really have a problem. Anyway - for our OP to succeed against impossible debating skills will require a very complete knowledge of Gödel's theorem - nothing is guaranteed to toss a spanner in the works of any serious debate to quite the degree that Godel can. For the intelligent layman - I recommend reading Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. SteveBaker (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You can't replace Lenticel, it's against the law :P--Lenticel ^(talk) 15:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of papal infallibility: the popes claim that, in certain matters, they are incapable of error, so anything they say on such matters is automatically right. They claim that this authority is not man-made but divine, which lets them off the hook of circular reasoning. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

So the obvious question is, how well did that work when there were 2 different popes at the same time? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 13:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The official church position is that there have never been two popes simultaneously; rather, all but one simultaneous pope claimants were antipopes. As such, they don't have papal infallibility. Is it something of a cop-out? Sure, but it makes sense within the context. — Lomn 14:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, Papal infallibility is a comparatively recent innovation. There hasn't been a widely supported antipope since the doctrine was announced, nor had there been for some considerable time previously. The last big unseating of antipopes was at the Council of Constance, which also put forward the conciliar doctrine, stating that the Pope is not infallible or the ultimate authority, but is subject to the authority of an ecumenical council. Sadly, this doctrine fell by the wayside during the counter-Reformation. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Manager to be or not

i have applied for a position of a manager with a travel company (call centre). what are the quality they will look for and what questions probably? anyone ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 15:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Read the role profile/job details on the job application - it is the best resource for finding what a company want from you. Beyond that the generic stuff is - confidence, clear evidence of preparation/consideration of your responses, positive attitude etc. Managers should show an ability to be able to people-manage and also be able to delegate/organise workloads across multiple individuals. ny156uk (talk) 17:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how much help it will be, but we do have an article on Management. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Dr Pepper

The can on Dr Pepper says that it is made up of 23 different flavors or something like that, but I can't seem to find any info on what those flavors would be. Does anyone know this, and would they please share their wisdom on the subject? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to specific the "flavors" (which refers to a specific class of chemicals; if derived synthetically they are labeled as "aritificial" if not then they are labeled "natural" but the chemicals are the same either way). In fact, you almost never do—that's part of the trade secret that allows them to keep making the drink and having it taste distinct from others. (Long long long after a patent on it would have expired.) --140.247.241.244 (talk) 19:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nobody seems to know, but more information can be found here and here. Viriditas (talk) 04:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Any judges on our board?

This question does not seek legal advice; rather, I'm after an opinion that requires judicial/courtroom experience.

My community has had an ongoing feud with a local business owner. Last year, he prevailed in District court, but the community took the case to the Court of Appeals, who have just reversed the District court ruling.

I have just read the Opinion, 15 pages of legalese, and am absolutely blown away by the tone of the writing. "The District court erred when it said...", "The District court erred again when it said...", and so on, and so on -- very many times. If I were the judge in said District court, I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public given the tonguelashing I've just taken, albeit indirectly.

Is that kind of language -- which seems forceful to the point of rebuking -- just the standard way in which such Opinions are normally (or perhaps even required to be) delivered? Or is it really a slapping up of the DC judge? When he gets his annual performance appraisal, will the 75 repetitions of "The District Court erred when..." count against him somehow?

I know I'm asking for opinions. Hopefully, one or two among us will know if this typical or not. Thanks! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no connection to the legal community, but it seems to me that if the court of appeals were to rule differently from the District Court, it could only do so on a few grounds:

1. Evidence had come to light that was not availible to the District Court
2. The District Court screwed up

What other grounds would there be for voiding the rulings of a different court? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Appeals courts rarely impugn a lower court's decisions on questions of fact, unless there's some manifest absurdity. Almost always, they will look at the lower court's errors on questions of law.

You are right that a lower court decision would often be overturned on errors of law (i.e. they "screwed up"). New evidence coming to light can also mean a fresh trial, though in that case the appeals court would not say the District Court "erred".

Not sure if there is a more formal process in the US, but in Australia having one of your decisions overturned is embarassing to the judge, and in the judicial community everyone is keeping tabs on each other's statistics in terms of decisions upheld or overturned on appeal. The potential embarassment is usually enough to keep a judge on his toes.

Repeatedly using "the lower court erred" is a standard, though not particularly friendly way to phrase the judgment. Without context, I would guess that it means the higher court sees the errors as straight forward errors - and not simply a difficult and ambiguous point on which they tend to disagree.

(And no, I'm not a judge.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Another consideration, depending on your jurisdiction: appellate decisions are written not only for the court of first instance (the district court), but for other courts considering similar matters or issues of law. This is the concept of case law. If the district court erred by misinterpreting State Law XYZ, the appellate decision is one way to say to other district courts, "Listen up." Lawyers dealing with State Law XYZ will find this decision when doing their research, and take it into account, as might other courts.

(As a current example, a recent decision of the Iowa supreme court found Iowa Code section 595.2(1) unconstitutional under Iowa law. This decision is binding on Iowa courts. In addition, courts in other states may pay attention to the reasoning in the decision, although those states have their own statutory and case law. --- OtherDave (talk) 23:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

April 2

Guanabenz

Are there any studies on useing Guanabenz in horses ? I would like to know what the life of the drug is and can you give a second dose if the drug wears off. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussycutter (talk • contribs) 05:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This might be helpful:

"Guanabenz was administered at 0.2 and 0.04 mg/kg by rapid IV injection to two horses. Initial concentrations of parent guanabenz were approximately 120 ng/ml for the high dose and 50 ng/ml for the low dose. Serum concentrations of guanabenz dropped rapidly, with an extremely rapid distribution half-life (approximately 2.5 minutes), followed by a much slower elimination half-life...Consistent with these interpretations, the apparent Vd_ss was 5.72 L/kg after administration at 0.04 mg/kg and 3.76 L/kg after 0.2 mg/kg. The relatively low serum concentrations of guanabenz found 1 hour after administration are representative of the difficulties racing chemists have in detecting guanabenz in postrace blood or serum samples after its administration at clinically effective doses."

Whether this drug is safe or efficacious in horses, in a first or subsequent dose, is a question that should be addressed to a vet. Rockpocket 17:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Rigid sleep cycle

Every weekday I get up at a set time. I usually wake up 1 to 2 minutes before my alarm, which shows that I have a very accurate internal clock. On the weekends I want to sleep in; I want to get more sleep than I do on weekdays. But I'd even settle for the same amount of sleep. Inevitably, I get less. I stay up late on the weekends and I'm not willing to change that. The problem is that I wake up at exactly the same time as I do on weekdays. Well, if I stay up very late, I might wake up a half hour to 45 minutes later than usual but that's about the limit, no matter what time I get to bed. To give you an example, If I go to bed at 3:30 a.m. on a Saturday, I wake up at 7:30 a.m. because I normally wake up on weekdays at 7:00 a.m. That 4 hours of sleep hurts. My clock is so rigid. Anyone have any suggestions? 70.19.64.161 (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds to me that you want to disrupt your internal clock - perhaps you could do this by either varying the times you go to bed and set your alarm during the week, or by getting some thick curtains for the weekend, in case the light level is a factor in the time you wake. Alternatively, you could live with the shorter nighttime sleep at the weekends and take a siesta. Warofdreams talk 12:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

A very appropriate name for a person commenting on this question. Unfortunately I do not nap. I just lie there awake, so siestas are out. I have a nice dark bedroom so nothing to change on that score. As for varying my weekday wakeup times, you think setting my alarm for 6:30 some days, 7:00 on others and 7:15 on others in a random pattern would make my overarching internal clock become less rigid, such that it would allow me to sleep later on the weekends? I am really loath the set my alarm earlier. I set it as late as I can to make it to work on time. I would be willing to do it if I had some evidence (a link to a study or article or example) which showed that this is effective. Thanks for the reply. 70.19.64.161 (talk) 13:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I have a very similar sleep cycle to you, and sadly, all I can do is live with it. I haven't found an answer that works. I can either have a regular sleep cycle with the disadvantages you describe, or completely irregular sleep and exhaustion while waking. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's any consolation to you, studies have shown that changing wake-up times between work days and week-ends is a leading cause of insomnia and other sleep problems. The fact that you automatically wake up at the same time on week-ends even if you don't need to is a sign of health, not of disfunction. Continually adjusting sleep patterns is what tends to create serious problems. Now, I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, etc. --Xuxl (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above, from personal experience. An aim is to try to sleep the same hours every night. Many factors override that aim, but it is a worthwhile goal, to try to always return to. It can probably be adjusted over the long term, but it is probably not a good thing when it varies a lot over the short term. Again -- just my personal thoughts on the matter. Bus stop (talk) 14:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Have a baby. This simple piece of advice will make you crave every last second of available sleep time, while interrupting your rigid clock nice and randomly.

Oh, And they're cute. --Dweller (talk) 14:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

They are also expensive, and there is something like a 9 month waiting list. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, you can get them at a discount at Costco, and the waiting list is negotiable, but I do take your point. --Dweller (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

But placing your order is more fun than you might expect! SteveBaker (talk) 20:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

When I was in my teens and twenties, and even into my early thirties, I had a similarly rigid wake-up time. It didn't matter how late I went to bed, although, like you, I might wake up 30 minutes later if I had a very late night. There was nothing I could do about it. My solution was to accept it and to give up on staying up late, because, for me, it was more important to be rested and able to enjoy the entire weekend than to stay up late one night and then suffer the rest of the weekend (and/or Monday). Ironically, now that I am somewhat older and not much interested in nightlife, I have gained the ability to sleep later. Marco polo (talk) 01:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I really appreciate the replies from everyone. Despite that no solution was offered, I knew there might not be one. The fact that a bunch of smart people couldn't offer a solution is an answer all on its own. 70.19.64.161 (talk) 01:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, go back to sleep on the weekend and enjoy the sleeping in. If you need to sleep more and you lie in bed with your eyes closed in a dark, quiet room, and you can rid your mind of worry over the fact that you are awake and not asleep, you are likely to nod off eventually. "I just lie there awake" is sometimes followed by "and then when the alarm went off I woke up feeling exhausted." One may have periods of sleep without being aware of them. Edison (talk) 05:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Serial Killers

Presently, what is the percentage of the human population are serial killers? What percentage are caught/exposed? What percentage are still out there, undiscovered? --Reticuli88 (talk) 13:08, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, we can't know how many people are 'undiscovered' examples of anything, because they're undiscovered. The short answer is that virtually no-one is a serial killer; in any random population sample, it's overwhelmingly likely that 0% will be serial killers. If any significant proportion of the population were serial killers, the murder rate would be much higher than it is, with more killings attributable to this cause. As it is, most murder victims are the victims of one-off attacks by people close to them. The signficance of the serial killer phenomenon is greatly exaggerated in the media, and has gradually been becoming so since the time of the Jack the Ripper killings. Modern detective drama, both in print and on the screen, strongly reinforce this perceptual bias. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• We could guestimate the amount of undiscovered serial killers, since although they are undiscovered, their victims are not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 15:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Unless you had some compelling reason for attributing a set of murders to a single perpetrator, I'm not sure how you could use the murder rate to estimate the number of undiscovered serial killers. Bear in mind that even apparently reliable evidence of connection between crimes can be spurious. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:40, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree that it's impossible to guestimate the number of serial killers based solely on the number of unsolved murders on the books, since not every unsolved murder is a serial killing. But the "active serial killer" estimates floating around the internet do seem to be based in more serious research. Trends tend to emerge when there's a serial killer at work; consistency in method of killing, choice of victims, disposal of bodies, etc. all raise some red flags for law enforcement, although it may take a while for the flags to go up if the killer moves around a lot. Sure, there's speculation involved, but my guess is that it's a lot easier to accurately attribute a murder to a serial killer than it is to then accurately profile that killer, hence the tendency of serial killers to remain at large long enough to, well, earn their "serial." There's also a tendency to downplay all but the most major serial killing investigations, since they tend to freak people out and make the police look bad if they go on unsolved. So we, the public, only really hear about the front-page arrests and the Phantom of Heilbronn-style muck-ups. There are plenty of ongoing investigations of serial killers who are "known" to law enforcement, but not to the rest of us. Some of them are, doubtless, false alarms, but some of them, doubtless, are not. --Fullobeans (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I would guess about 1 in every 3 million people in the world population is a serial killer, given it's very rare nature and how many killings we can ascribe to them. 173.52.36.16 (talk) 15:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

On Killing has some statistics in it about how many people are estimated to be "natural born killers"—not the same thing as a serial killer, but someone who lacks certain apparently normal reactions to killing other people. (I don't have it on hand, otherwise I'd look them up myself) It's not a very big percentage. Take some small percentage of that who are actually serial killers. --140.247.248.90 (talk) 15:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to the know odds of me knowing/meeting someone that was a serial killer but didn't know it. --Reticuli88 (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Very, very slim. The odds would be greater if you're exceptionally gregarious, sell weapons for a living, or are Ann Rule. --Fullobeans (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I found an estimate. According to this link, which cites an FBI study but doesn't link to it, there are 20 to 50 serial killers active at any given time (presumably in the United States). The population of the US is 306 million, so that's around 1 in 8,750,000, or .000011% of the population. In other words, if you introduced yourself to every single person in the state of New Jersey, odds would be good that you would meet one serial killer. --Fullobeans (talk) 19:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In New Jersey, I would expect you would meet more than one! Rmhermen (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds similar to the number of anvils and pianos killing people by falling on their heads, or even the number of Killer Robots From Outer Space currently active. Yet on U.S tv and in novels, people are constantly being slain by serial killers. Edison (talk) 05:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the majority or homicide victims are killed by their friends, family, and loved ones, but that's rather depressing to think about. Serial killers spice things up a bit, and allow people to use fun words like "evil" instead of just meditating bleakly on human nature. Some more statistics: only 16% of American serial killers since 1800 have been female, so yours odds of meeting one are better if you mostly fraternize with men. White men would be your best bet, especially in the 25-34 age range. And serial killings are much more common in industrialized nations and are becoming more so, so if you're worried about this, now might be the time to make that move to Madagascar. Note that deaths by anvil and piano may be higher in developing nations. --Fullobeans (talk) 06:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If you are seeking to meet a serial killer, Madagascar would seem to be one place to go. Sadly, the 2009 Malagasy political crisis has so far led to over 130 deaths. In one incident alone:

In the latest clashes heavily armed security forces opened fire on anti-government demonstrators marching on the presidential palace on Saturday 7 February. "Around 50 people were killed and around 1,000 have been wounded," Claude Rakotondranja, National President of the Malagasy Red Cross, told IRIN. -- UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

It seems reasonable to believe that some (many?) of those thousand subsequently died, and that some (few?) of the soldiers doing the shooting killed more than one each. However, we do not normally consider such troops (or, indeed, executioners) to be serial killers, because they are not normally legally culpable of homicide. They did it because they were paid to, because society finds it necessary for someone to perform those functions. Nonetheless, those people go to sleep each night knowing that they have been the proximate cause of another person's death. If you really want to meet some serial killers, shake the hand of the politicians who order troops to fire indiscriminately into crowds of demonstrators. Take Islam Karimov, president of Uzbekistan, and his role in the Andijan massacre five years ago. Or those who ordered the post-election massacre in 2001 in Zanzibar (see the Human Rights Watch report). And then, not politicians but leaders: e.g. the "donkeys leading lions" of World War I -- commanding officers who endlessly ordered men to go "over the top" and walk into German machine gun fire. Finally -- although I understand face-to-face interviews are tricky to arrange -- have a chat with Osama bin Ladin. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you certain about the white part? While it wouldn't surprise me if it were true, the fact that there are more white serial killers in the US doesn't mean that you're more likely to meet a serial killer by fraternising with white people since it depends on their relative percentage Nil Einne (talk) 14:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, the page cited doesn't say a disproportionate majority, merely "a majority"; it's insignificant that a majority of group W belongs to the majority ethnic group. —Tamfang (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The page cited doesn't say "friends, family, and loved ones"; it says "members of the same family ... friends, neighbors, and acquaintances" (my emphasis) versus "strangers". Members of rival gangs, for example, are likely to know each other by name. —Tamfang (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Dual licensing of GFDL and CC-BY-NC-ND?

Currently we are facing a dispute of copyright licensing of a very popular Chinese website Baidu Baike(owned by Search Engine Baidu, and it's more or less similar to Wikipedia). It claims to release content under "GFDL and CC-BY-NC-ND 2.5". Obviously these two licensing systems are not compatible with each other. Furthermore, any edit made to existing article is a copyvio against No derivatives. Should Wikipedia accept content from Baidu Baike, take it as that all the content is released under the GFDL? --Ben.MQ (talk) 15:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This should probably be at the helpdesk, but yes. For dual licencing, policy is we only require one licence to be free, or it certainly is on commons. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Are Gambling Winnings taxable in the UK

I live in the UK (London, to be precise). Say I took my life savings, put them on Red on Roulette and won. Assuming my life savings are above the income tax threshold of about 5K do I have to pay tax on the winnings, or are they mine to keep as I haven't got them through 'work'. I know gifts are taxable to stop blatent tax dodges, but how about gambling?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.155.146 (talk) 15:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't give legal advice, which this is arguably a request for. However, I believe that winnings are taxable, but I'm not sure if income tax is the right tax. You might consider asking HM Revenue and Customs. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In the US you have to pay a tax on gambling winnings. If it is over a certain amount, they get you the forms right there in the casino. Otherwise you have to declare it on your end of year tax documents. I suspect something similar would apply in the UK. Governments hate to miss out on an opportunity for a tax.65.121.141.34 (talk) 15:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

London isn't all that precise. ;) —Tamfang (talk) 16:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

If it helps I can state for the record I have no intention of acting out the scenario I describe above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.155.146 (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, you would only have to pay tax on any interest accrued from your winnings. Since the tax was removed from horse racing, there are no taxes that I am aware of on gambling in the UK - only licensee's are taxed (currently at 15%). All gambling, betting and lotteries are VAT exempt too. Nanonic (talk) 16:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In the UK, gambling winnings are generally not taxable[3] (unlike in the USA[4]). I can't find a specific statement on the HMRC website except that premium bond winnings are not taxable[5]. The general principle in the UK is that even professional gambling winnings aren't taxable, but running a gambling business (e.g. a bookmaker) is[6]. Allowing gambling winnings to be taxable in the USA means that gambling losses are tax deductable[7]. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(after EC)Not all jurisdictions tax gambling and lottery winnings - for example, they are tax-free in Canada. I've dug around on the HM Revenue and Customs web site and I can't find a definitive statement that gambling winnings are free from all forms of tax, although this document notes they are exempt from capital gains:

"Winnings from betting (including pool betting or lotteries or games with prizes) are not chargeable gains, and rights to winnings obtained by participating in any pool betting or lottery or game with prizes are not chargeable assets. For example, a gain or loss realised on the purchase of a share in the winnings of a ticket which has drawn a horse in a sweepstake is outside the scope of the tax."

This page lists forms of taxable and non-taxable income in the UK. Gambling and lottery winnings are not listed; it suggests contacting your local tax office if you have income that isn't listed and want to know how to declare it.

As to governments missing an opportunity to tax, they do tax those who operate lotteries, casinos, and other forms of betting. So while they may not tax the money people win at gambling, they certainly tax the money people lose - which is a much greater amount! - Eron^Talk 16:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I thought that when gambling in the UK (at least on things like horse-racing) you could choose to pay tax on your stake - and have tax-free winnings or pay no tax on the stake and pay the tax on all of the winnings - if you win. That may be horribly out of date though. SteveBaker (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the old way SteveBaker, but yeah that did previously exist. The history of gambling in the Uk is quite interesting. I watched a tv show some time ago on BBC Four (great channel) and they were discussing old rules about betting-shops. They weren't allowed to make them places to 'be' so they were banned from having padded-chairs, or from providing refreshments/toilets for customers things like that - basically the idea was that they could exist ut that people shouldn't be enticed to spend their afternoons in them. These days the rules have relaxed a lot - as any visit to BetFred would attest (my local city centre one has arm chairs, countless tvs, food and drinks (though not alcohol I don't believe). ny156uk (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes - I recall those old-style betting shops. Very spartan indeed. It's a shame about the choice on how to pay tax on horseracing - it was kinda like the government was taking the bet with you! SteveBaker (talk) 20:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking, gambling winnings are not taxable as income because a gambling win is a windfall gain - it is not income that can be tied back to some activity undertaken to produce income - i.e. it's a fruit without a tree.

Gambling winnings are taxable only when there's a special tax on them --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, I fairly often win in poker tournaments at my local casino, and despite the winnings being fairly decent in size, I have never been taxed on them... Certainly the lottery doesn't get taxed as I know a friend of a friend who won a 7 figure sum... So it's unlikely that these two individual companies (camelot and my local casino) have some abilty to pay out cash without paying tax, so I would imagine it's the same for all gambling... Gazhiley (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not very convincing, it's entirely possible for the government to expect you to keep track of your winnings yourself, and pay taxes on them annually. (Note: I have no idea at all how the UK does things, only that Gazhiley's apparent line of logic would probably get him into trouble if he lived in USA.) APL (talk) 00:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Cheers everyone, lots of good stuff here. It would appear they are not (now all I need to do is become a poker great, and the world will be my tax-free oyster!) but I'm tempted to contact my tax office to check anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.155.146 (talk) 10:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

As long as you don't become a poker great in my neck of the woods as I'm trying to do that! Mind you, feel free while you are "learning to play" to play at my locals as I like newbies - always a good source of income! hehe Gazhiley (talk) 10:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, I have now contact HMRC and they have confirmed gambling winnings aren't taxable in the UK, so gamble away everyone! 217.206.155.146 (talk) 12:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Photographing without a lens

It should be theoretically entirely possible to take a picture with a DSLR without a lens in place. But what will the picture look like? From my intuition, I think it will be kind-of a realistic photograph, but so hopelessly out of focus and unsharp it will be difficult to recognise anything in it. Is this assumption correct? JIP | Talk 19:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes - every pixel in the image would be the average of the colors of all of the objects in front of the camera - so your picture would be all one exact same color. But that's with an "infinite" aperture. If there is even a reasonably large hole in front of the image plane - then some kind of focussing can happen. In the limit, a pinhole camera can theoretically produce infinitely sharp images without a lens. SteveBaker (talk) 20:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Having tried this with my camera (hoping it might help me identify where the 'muck' was on my lens) I can confirm that my photo just came out pure grey - though if i pointed it at a light it was lighter (amazingly enough) - no focus, no shading - it is kinda how I imagine being very blind is. ny156uk (talk) 20:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Take a 35mm rectangle of blank paper and hold it up—what you see on the paper will be roughly what the picture would look like. In other words, usually a featureless white rectangle. But if a shadow falls across part of the paper, for example, the same shadow would show up in the picture taken by the DSLR, and if you held the paper/camera in the beam of a slide projector then you would get some approximation to the image on the slide. -- BenRG (talk) 00:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

LaGuardia Airport

I'm going on vacation to New York City, and a friend told me that the best view I'll get of the city might be on the plane coming in. We're landing at LaGuardia, and the wind is supposed to be from the east. We'll be coming in from the north, north-west direction. I would like to know which side of the plane I should sit on to get the view. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 21:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It depends whether you want to view the terrain to the west-southwest (WSW) of LaGuardia Airport or the terrain to the east-northeast (ENE) of LaGuardia airport. Bus stop (talk) 22:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It depends on how the plane flies over Manhattan, which is most likely the view you want to see. If you arrive at night, it'll look pretty no matter which side you're on. ~EdGl ★ 22:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to see Manhattan, which is west-southwest, I believe. So with the wind from the east, would that be on the left or right? Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

What does the wind have to do with anything? How does wind direction figure into the equation? Bus stop (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, the way the wind is blowing will probably determine which runway they'll use, and in which direction. Pilots seem to prefer to land into the wind. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I see, OK. I don't know about that. Bus stop (talk) 22:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Beats me, but if you should miss it, you can also get nice views from a lot of spots in Brooklyn and New Jersey. The best thing to do would be to befriend people who live in tall buildings with roof access, but if that's too much effort, you could just walk across some bridges, wander around Hoboken, or take a Circle Line cruise (never been, but people seem to like them). On a clear day, the view from the Whitestone Bridge or Triborough Bridge can be stunning. --Fullobeans (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

When I fly into LaGuardia from Chicago, the usual flight path is eastward to the southern tip of Manhattan, then northeastward up the East River to the Westchester County area, then a U-turn to cross Long Island Sound and land from the northeast. (So sitting on the left side of the plane provides the good views of Manhattan.) I don't know what the flight path from the northwest is, but if you just barrel in across Westchester and the Sound, the right side of the plane should give you the better view. Deor (talk) 01:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The flight path that Deor describes would be consistent with a wind out of the west or southwest. It is not surprising that this is his/her usual flight path, since the prevailing wind in New York is from the west or southwest. However, if you are flying tomorrow, there is a good chance that the wind will be out of the east or southeast. In this case, the best seat to see Manhattan will be on the right side of the plane. As you fly east-southeast toward Runway 13, it's obvious (if you look at a map) that Manhattan will be to your right. Your most likely approach will be southward over the Hudson River to the Bronx, at which point your plane will bank to the left, offering your right-window seat a view of Midtown Manhattan from the north. As you descend over Harlem and then over the East River, you will have a view of Midtown Manhattan from the Northeast in the last minute or two before you land. Marco polo (talk) 01:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I did a little more research on this, and it seems as though the most likely approach to LGA with an easterly wind would actually be that you would fly over Westchester County and across the Bronx and the East River. If you are flying tomorrow, the clouds will probably be low, and you probably won't be able to see anything yet, but if you are below the clouds, you will see the skyline of Manhattan in the distance to your right. You will then fly across Queens toward JFK Airport at an altitude of maybe 4000 feet. At that point, you will bank to the right and fly toward New York Harbor, gradually descending to around 2000 feet. Over the harbor, from which you should have a stunning view of Lower Manhattan if the ceiling is above 2,000 feet, you will bank to the right again and fly up the Hudson the entire length of Manhattan, which will be to the right of the plane. Again, you have to hope that the ceiling is above 2,000 feet in order to see anything. Finally, once you reach the George Washington Bridge, you would bank to the right again and descend rapidly toward the LGA runway, with the view of Manhattan from the north that I've described above, again from the right side of the plane. If the cloud ceiling is low, it is only during that final ascent that you will have any view. The weather forecast for tomorrow suggests a low ceiling. Marco polo (talk) 02:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Not to worry - the view that you'll get going into Manhattan from the upper level of the Quensboro Bridge (100 years old 2 days ago) will do quite nicely. B00P (talk) 06:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This might be a common enough question that the airline could just tell you outright. --Sean 13:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Rod Blagojevich

In the BBC link here [8] about Rod Blagojevich and his corruption charges, it states that "Illinois senators voted 59-0 to remove him from power in January." I know for a fact that Illinois only has two senators, as that is all each state has. Where did all the other 57 votes come from? Thanks, The Reader who Writes (talk) 23:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

(2 ecs)I haven't read the story, or heard of it, but it might refer to Illinois' state senate. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 23:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's talking about the state senate. The US government does not have the power to impeach anyone in state government. 49 out of 50 US states have a bicameral legislature like the Congress, with a House and a Senate. --Anonymous, 00:12 UTC, April 3, 2009.

For the curious, Nebraska is the exception with a unicameral legislature; see Nebraska Legislature. – 74  02:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that little kernel of knowledge. StuRat (talk) 07:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

In many states, the lower house is called the Assembly rather than the House of Representatives. --Trovatore (talk) 02:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying, in parts of the U.S., some assembly is required? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

And in all fifty States (I think), including Nebraska, one of the houses has members called Senators. —Tamfang (talk) 16:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

April 3

Largest jackpot in Asia

In the article lottery, records of the largest prizes in the world, Europe and other countries are mentioned. I wonder, what is the largest ever won in Asia? Several weeks ago, a prize won in a Philippine-based lottery was worth a little over $7,000,000 but I assume there are prizes in other countries that are even larger. 202.69.188.72 (talk) 04:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't know about Asia, but the Spanish Lottery a few years ago had a jackpot of £186,000,000 ($360 million US), and no-one won it, so the Spanish government took it.--KageTora (talk) 10:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds pretty much like the Spanish Christmas Lottery. Yes the prizes are quite large but they're usually split. 202.69.188.72 (talk) 10:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Michael Caine Joke

On the Tonight Show a few days ago Michael Caine was on and he told a joke, saying the audience wouldn't get it but if we were British we'd be rolling in the aisles. Well, sure enough I didn't get it. I'm guessing it has something to do with an idiom I'm not familiar with as a Yank. Anyway, can someone explain this joke? It went something like this:

Guy knocks on the door of a friend; the wife opens the door and he says "is john around?" She bursts into tears saying "john died not two minutes ago; just keeled over; it was his heart I think." The man then says "that's horrible but before he died, did he say anything about a pot of brown paint?"—70.19.64.161 (talk) 04:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm British, yes it is hilarious!--88.109.57.209 (talk) 06:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's a funny joke. I think it is based on the premise that English men are very particular about things they have lent to others and the the worst crime is not to return anything borrowed. The visitor is clearly more concerned about the return of his paint than the por guy's death. Like all jokes - when you dissect it it dies! 86.4.190.210 (talk) 06:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

(I'm British too.) Personally I read it as that the two men had previously agreed that John would lend the other guy his pot of paint and the other guy is now coming round to pick it up. He still wants the paint and is now wondering where it is. It also says something about the British obsession with DIY. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

For me, it says something about British frugality and focus. Is very funny too, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep - it works for me too. I don't know about "VERY" funny - but it's definitely a joke. Somehow, it helps that the paint is brown...I don't know why. SteveBaker (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Because it's so uninteresting, I'd imagine. The joke gets it humor from the contrast of the banal returning of the object and the shock of death. So you increase the humor by making the object to be return very uninteresting... brown paint is pretty uninteresting. (Notice that the humor disappears if you make the object something valuable or sentimental.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a difference between American sensibilities and British sensibilities as concerns the banal object? I doubt if British views on death are different from American views on death. Is a pot of brown paint viewed differently in the two settings? Bus stop (talk) 14:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No - I doubt the color of the paint makes much difference to the translatability...but perhaps the banality of brown paint exceeds that of more vibrant colors. I think British people are more inclined to make jokes about death than Americans...but it's very difficult to generalize. Contrast the episode of Fawlty Towers where a resident in a small hotel dies with Weekend at Bernie's. SteveBaker (talk) 14:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I 'get' the joke, guess i'd have to see it being told (most jokes don't work for me when read - must not have a very funny internal narration), but don't think this is a particularly 'great' joke. (oh and I'm English) 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that the joke is only funny when coming from a down-at-earth, vaguely working-class geezer (however much that image may be divorced from reality) like Caine. Give it to someone foppish like Hugh Grant or bourgeois like John Cleese and it just wouldn't work. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Also the nature of the joke could be changed totally, making it a non-PC mean spiritedA joke if you start it "A Scotsman knocks....". If you made it an Irishman (Paddy) you would have to change the punchline, maybe to "so do you think he will be able to help me paint the ceiling tomorrow". If it was an American you would have him saying "that's terrible, but the important thing is had he found Jesus?". -- Q Chris (talk) 12:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

"If it was an American you would have him saying "that's terrible, but the important thing is had he found Jesus?"". LOL. See, that I get. :) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If it was an American you would have him saying, "that's horrible but before he died, did he say anything about a pot of red, white, and blue paint?" Bus stop (talk) 13:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so I guess I get it now. The pot of brown paint, which I thought was a specific reference to something I'm not familiar with, could have been any mundane borrowed item, a pair of plyers and so on. I was focused on it being something more involved.—70.19.64.161 (talk) 11:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There are a great many jokes that don't translate. One that came up at work a while ago (I'm a Brit living in Texas BTW) was: "What do you call a Lada Cabrio? A skip!". Sadly, almost none of the actual words in this joke translate into American. Firstly, the "Lada" brand of uber-crappy cars does not exist in the US - so you have to change it to "Hyundai" or "Kia" or something - and they don't call cars with retractable roofs "Cabrios" - so we have to change that to "Convertible" - and the large container full of trash is a "Dumpster" not a "Skip". So finally, you arrive at "What do you call a Hyundai Convertible? A dumpster!"...but somehow, it's lost something. Part of the trouble is that 'dumpster' refers to the rectangular trash containers that have lids as well as the trapezoidal ones that don't - and that's a critical part of the joke - if you happen to be thinking of the kind of dumpster that has a lid - the joke completely fails. So there really isn't really a good way to translate it perfectly. SteveBaker (talk) 13:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

But I think I should be able to share the humor in any joke, if I am provided with sufficient background information. Bus stop (talk) 13:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No, no. The American version of the Caine joke would be "... that's horrible but before he died, did he say anything about my golf clubs?" (Or possibly "an electric drill.") B00P (talk) 17:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I would have gone with belt sander. (Obscure reference to when Homer Simpson borrowed Ned Flanders' belt sander.) --Blue387 (talk) 20:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

That reminds me of a story my mum frequently tells at family gatherings: her father died several years ago, and after the funeral, while speaking to his brother, she asked if there were any of my grandfather's things his brother would like to keep, thinking he might want one of her father's Bibles, as the family was quite religious, and my grandfather had been a church elder. Her uncle thought for a minute, and then replied: "Well, I wouldn't mind his ladders, if you don't want them." --Kateshortforbob 20:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The joke works because the guy is behaving so incredibly insensitively, something we would hope would never happen in real life. But it's not unknown. The father of a friend of mine died, and various old friends arrived spontaneously to comfort his widow. But one person who turned up was someone she'd never seen before. She asked him who he was, and he said he'd had various business dealings with her husband, and was owed some money, and could he please have it back. She set the dogs on him. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

A woman I know was 19 at her father's funeral, when her uncle asked her whether she was thinking of getting married soon. I guess he was trying to make conversation... -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

From the wording of the joke as told, we don't really know that the reference to a "pot of brown paint" has anything to do with anything loaned, or about to be loaned, as two people have suggested. The one person who said they were British and found the joke "hilarious," didn't explain what they found to be hilarious. Bus stop (talk) 22:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Stupid question : Why would you loan (or borrow) a consumable like paint? APL (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

My grandparents,like everyone around them had their house painted dark green and brown.They were seen as hard wearing, respectable colours.The old oil based woodpaint used to blister in the sun.It was not uncommon to buy a small pot of paint to touch up these blisters rather than completely repaint.As child I was often sent to "pop" the blisters then repaint the marks.It would be quite feasible to lend a small pot of paint to a neighbour as every house was painted the same colour.hotclaws 00:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

One thing that doesn't translate is that the paint is in a "pot". In the US a pot is for cooking and paint comes in cans. So, that line left me wondering why anyone would put paint in a cooking pot. How about my take on the joke: "I'm sorry to hear that John's dead, but now that your plans are clear for the weekend, would you like to go out ?". Don't like that one ? How about "I'm sorry to hear that John's dead, do you need me to go dig a hole out back ?". StuRat (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that that show (the Tonight Show, with Michael Caine as a guest on it), aired on April first. Could this be an April Fool's joke, perpetrated by Michael Caine and/or others? There might not be any British understanding of the circumstances any different from an American understanding, and no one so far has convincingly named what the "joke" is. I don't think there is any joke. But it was apparently told to an American audience, all (or most) of whom attributed their failure to "get" the joke to the introductory note that only a British recipient of this joke would be "rolling in the aisles." Bus stop (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

just to throw in my tuppenny's worth, this joke has nothing to do with borrowed or lent items but is a prime example of battlefield humour. the point is the stoicism of the english, that faced with the death of a neighbour (and my we assume friend) the protagonist carries on with the task in hand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.138.179 (talk) 10:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

But what you are saying, if I understand you correctly, is that it does involve borrowed or lent items. Carrying on with the task at hand, in this instance, means inquiring after the borrowed or lent item. Bus stop (talk) 14:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I might be getting the wrong idea, but isn't "john" another word for the toilet? Therefore, the pot of brown paint would be, well... ~AH1^(TCU) 19:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure this was not intended as a poo joke. TastyCakes (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, British people are only vaguely aware that some of their transatlantic cousins call it a "john", when it is of course a loo or a bog. See British English --Dweller (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Here it is: [9]. It is about the second or third section into the show. The only thing different from the joke as told above is that the man's name is Charlie, not John. Bus stop (talk) 20:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It reminds me of a similar joke playing on the homophony of heart and art in a lot of English dialects. "It was 'is 'eart, Ah think." "Oh, that's terrible, but it wasn't *that* bad, was it?" Steewi (talk) 01:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I tried out that joke over the weekend (I thought it was hilarious). My audiences were all British. Interestingly, I discovered that men seemed to find it funny, but not a single woman did. They all either didn't "get it" or expressed disgust at what they thought was a sexist joke (against men). Ho hum. --Dweller (talk) 09:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The Brown Paint joke only works if you're British and blessed with an acute sense of humour. Here's another joke along similar lines. A man arrives home. His wife says, "Hello, Dear, notice anything different about me?" He looks her up and down. "You've had your hair done?" She shakes her head. "New dress?" She shakes her head. "New shoes?" She shakes her head. "Okay," say the husband, "I give up. What is it?" His wife says, "I'm wearing a gas mask."

Cuban peso exchange rate outside Cuba

Yahoo Finance indicates that 1 Cuban national peso is worth one USD. Is this the exchange rate one can actually get on the peso outside Cuba? Does it help to do the exchange in Canada, given that Canada has no trade sanctions against Cuba? NeonMerlin 07:13, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• As I understand it, the US has a trade sanction against Cuba. It does not exchange products or services (no doubt there are exceptions), but I have no actual evidence that currency is included in such sanctions. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The article on Cuban peso gives links to 3 currency conversion sites.

Yahoo Finance 1 CAD (Canadian dollar) = 0.8057 CUP (Cuban Pesos)[10]

xe.com - 1 CAD = 21.3514 CUP[11]

oanda.com 1 CAD = 18.49998 Cuban Peso[12]

The second and third seem to be actual rates for exchange/currency trading, while the first is the official Cuban rate (see also Cuban government website). Most Canadian and UK high-street banks seem not to quote rates for CUP (e.g. [13][14]) but will probably give them if asked. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 11:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So, according to the Cuban government, the Cuban dollar is worth one US dollar, while in reality it's only worth about a nickel (isn't communism fun ?). I wonder what actually happens when you walk into a bank in Cuba and say you want the official exchange rate. I assume they'd have no problem with it if you gave them dollars, but I can't see them honoring that absurd rate if you give them Cuban pesos and ask for an equal number of dollars. StuRat (talk) 07:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, the joys of capital controls. Reminds me of Myanmar Burma. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Lotteries

In national and state lotteries, is there usually a clause that the winner has to be a citizen or resident of that particular territory? In other words, could a tourist buy the winning ticket and leave the territory with the winnings? Has this ever happened, for large amounts? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

According to these guessters[15], the answer to your middle question is Yes but there may be taxes. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure this just happened - an American won money in a Canadian lottery. I can't find any news about it though... Adam Bishop (talk) 09:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If the conditions say only residents then a tourist could only win by cheating (difficult with a cheque to cash and no bank account), or by entering through a friend who is resident. If the lottery is open then, of course, anyone can enter and win. But there are many scams that appear to offer a lottery, and do not!86.200.2.89 (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)DT

In Ontario, Canada, both national and provincial lotteries are administered by the OLG. Their web site goes into this subject at http://www.olg.ca/lotteries/guide/international_residents.jsp:

• Some countries do not allow OLG to mail cheques for lottery winnings. ...
• OLG will not mail cheques for lottery winnings to the U.S.
• Prizes over $250,000 must be collected in person... in Toronto.

That last rule applies to Canadians too. Because of scams about pretended lottery wins, they also point out that they don't use agents to contact winners, they don't collect fees up front, and no Canadian taxes are payable on wins.

--Anonymous, 22:16 UTC, April 3, 2009.

It seems rather counter-productive for a lottery to exclude foreigners, as they are the only way it's even possible for the lottery to bring money into the territory. Otherwise, any money won by citizens of the territory is offset by all the money lost by those who play. In other words, they just move money around, and don't create any wealth at all. At least if you take in more money from foreigners than you pay out, then your territory can increase it's wealth, at the expense of the surrounding territories, of course. StuRat (talk) 06:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, but I don't think that's usually the purpose of the lottery, is it? Casinos are designed to draw people in, but lotteries generally aren't; they're more like a sin tax on the locals to fund schools and stuff like that. Matt Deres (talk) 12:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if the term "sin tax" applies here, as that's a term used to describe a tax placed on something to discourage it, like tobacco and alcohol, with additional tax revenues as a side benefit. In the case of a lottery, though, they only care about the revenue, and actually encourage the "sin" (gambling), by government-funded advertising. I've often seen gambling sold to the public as a way to increase wealth, especially when first trying to legalize or subsidize a new project. StuRat (talk) 15:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps not sin tax; I believe the usual phrase is 'a tax on the stupid'. When the National Lottery was first launched in the UK, a great deal was made of the percentage of takings that would be used for charity, but I don't think I heard anyone claim it would increase wealth. 86.151.238.242 (talk) 21:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I heard of a case where a Mexican won the California lottery and was then deported (but kept the winnings, without paying income tax!). —Tamfang (talk) 16:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Astrology

What star sign is someone born July 24th? The zodiac aricle [[16] says July 17 – August 16 but that's differnt from other sources I've found. Is there a standard? That you 79.76.240.82 (talk) 11:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No. Basically they tend to say you are 'born in the cusp' - the dates for the Signs of the Zodiac change depending on the source from where you get them. They're usually around the same time, and I would expect a 24th July person to be a Leo but not necessarily the case. I am 23rd August and some star-signs put me as Leo and others as Virgo. Given that it is gibberish anyways (in my eyes) i've never really been surprised by the inconsistency of it all 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The dates you quoted are not the start and end dates normally used, but they weren't intended to mean that either. Leo (astrology) tells us that Leo starts "roughly on 23 July" and ends "roughly on 23 August". These dates can only be given roughly in a book, encyclopedia, magazine or newspaper, or website, because the precise moment when the sign changes (a) changes from year to year and (b) is almost never midnight. People born within a day or two of the change-over date really need to consult an ephemeris (or someone with astrological skills/knowledge) to determine exactly which sign the Sun was in at the moment of their birth (and because the sign can change at any time of the day or night, the most accurate birth time you can find, to the nearest minute if possible, will help you pin it down). The location and time zone of your birth, and whether or not daylight saving was in force at that time, are also important factors in this calculation. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, you may want to take a look at this article from LiveScience.com. ~AH1^(TCU) 19:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Translatability or otherwise of humour

Following on from the brown paint...

What would be the criteria for the most universal of humour? Would it necessarily be childish or slapstick? Imagine a line of people, starting with you, and then each of your same-sex ancestors (e.g. mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, g-g-m, etc.), stretching out ad infinitem. What sort of joke could you tell that could be passed back through the chain while keeping its humour? No cultural references, because those change too quickly. No puns, obviously, or anything that depends on word-play, because langauge evolves. Are we restricted to Chaucerian fart jokes? I suppose this could be widened to humour beyond jokes; suggestions welcome. (NB I am not asking for an endless lists of jokes here but criteria by which we could assemble such a list. A relevant example might help your case.) And, related to this, when explorers contact previously unknown people (either in the Age of Exploration or more recently in Papua New Guinea), what commonalities of humour have they observed? Let the fun begin! BrainyBabe (talk) 16:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Slapstick. How else would you be able to cross language barriers? Everyone likes seeing someone trip over MedicRoo (talk) 17:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

If you check out World's funniest joke, I think the Sherlock Holmes joke would go as far back as there are detectives. At the point where detectives become obscure, some quick-thinking ancestor of yours could change it to a joke about a famous brilliant logical philosopher, and then it could go back thousands of years and still retain at least some of its humor. The baby joke and the Doctor joke could also go pretty far back.

Basically, I think any joke that depends on a setup and then an ironic twist would probably work as far back as the setup still makes sense. APL (talk) 18:14, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I know that there are examples of Greek tragic plays, perhaps there are some existing examples of comedies as well? Maybe a trip to the library is in order... 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There are dozens of surviving Greek comedies. The regular jokes are kind of weird, but the satires of philosophers or politicians are still as great as anything now; you usually need to study a bit of background first, though. (Ancient Roman comedy is also funny, but then the Romans were a lot more like us than the Greeks, I would say.) Adam Bishop (talk) 20:41, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think humor is too subjective to find a common thread amoung each form of humor that could make every single person laugh. The kind of people that enjoy Monty Python may not even crack a smile when they watch Larry the Cable Guy. Livewireo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC).

(Tangentially related anecdote) In a previous job, I used to give sales presentations for a large Silicon Valley technology company (despite being an engineer, and ill-suited to any form of public speaking). Many of these presentations were to groups of Chinese or Japanese businessmen. For these we engaged the help of a couple of translators, who simultaneously translated what I said into a microphone (the visitors had headphones). My standard bit had a few mild jokes peppered in there, and these played (as the saying has it) pretty well in Peoria. Most of these were language, or pun, based, and with hindsight I should have been more surprised that the visitors laughed at them that I was. One day, once I was done, I chatted with one of the translators (to help improve my performance; not all all because she was phenomenally cute) and I asked her how her buddy (they took turns) had successfully translated my joke (which she'd never heard previously). "Oh", she replied, "she just said 'he made a joke'". I was crushed. So I switched to something more direct. As it was a safety critical product, the new joke was "It's our company policy not to kill our customers..." (translator queried "kill"?; wait for translation) "until they pay our bill" (hopefully genuine laughter). Later boss of customers gives brief talk, says "it's OUR company policy not to kill our customers ... at all!" (big smile). Success. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 22:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Did that actually happen to you or are you repeating a story you heard somewhere? I'd swear I've heard that story before. Have you posted it before, maybe? Matt Deres (talk) 12:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess I may have posted it in answer to another ref desk query a year or two ago, but I don't really remember. Frankly I don't think it's that good a story, and it's a sad indictment of my life that its one of the stories I have that's worth repeating. It'd be really sad if there was some other poor soul who is also going around with no better story than this. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I would bet that gender reversal jokes or age reversal jokes would play to any audience, unless you find a place where there are no differences between the genders. When telling this joke to a caveman, pretend you are a big, brave caveman going to hunt a dangerous beast, then you turn over a rock and are so scared at the bug you see there that you emit a high-pitched scream, drop your weapon, and run away with your arms flailing. This would be funny because that's behavior normally associated with a little girl, not a brave man. StuRat (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that follows at all. The adult/child element is much more transferable than the male/female part, though. It's not that different cultures don't observe gender differences, but that what those differences are can be highly culturally specific. The role of women in ancient Babylon was quite different to late-classical Greece, for example. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

My impression is that jokes don't last much over time. I have a book of jokes printed in England in 1860 - and none of the "jokes" in it seem remotely funny. If jokes don't survive well over time - it's even less likely that they'd survive across cultures. SteveBaker (talk) 17:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with the idea of slapstic, but would also add that - while jokes in general might not translate well - some sort of reversal might, as StuRat noted. However, because of the problem of cultural norms being so different, the "reversal" would be more of stretching things, so that the big becomes small, and the small big.

StuRat sort of hit on it with the beast/bug analogy, but I would instead suggest that this would work because of the hyperbole involved. I suspect most exaggersation would probably go over well, as would most of...the opposite, which i can't think of right now.

So, I think you could, for instance, have a person speaking of some large earthquake, and say, "the ground was shaking so hard, my grandchildren will still be feeling it when they are born." Or, something like that.Somebody or his brother (talk) 01:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I think imitation of a well known person's overt characteristics is common to most places. Of course, you can't imitate the same person in all cultures throughout history. That's silly. But so many people like a clever imitation of someone, especially if the person is known to be otherwise humourless. Otherwise, slapstick is common to so many places. Joining them together, a hilarity would probably be re-enacting when someone known to everyone did something silly. Steewi (talk) 01:42, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

My contention is that any joke can be related to by any human regardless of geographic location, cultural background, language, gender, etc. All that I think is required is normal intelligence on the part of the 2 people involved, and sufficient time and explanation of any necessary background material. The limit that I think is real is in going back in time. I think that a point in prehistory would be reached where humor is not found. That would effectively prevent the explaining of a joke to people of an earlier period in time, and jokes from that ancient period in time would be nonexistent. I base this on my feeling that no other forms of life really laugh. I don't think other forms of life, even our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, experience the humorous moment, but I could be wrong. And probably some people will tell me that their dogs laugh. I'm not a scientist, but I doubt it. Bus stop (talk) 02:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Freud (a singularly un-funny man) wrote "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious" which lists seven kinds of joke:

1. Absurdity
2. Allusion
3. Analogy
4. Exaggeration
5. Faulty reasoning
6. Play on words
7. Reproach

...hmmmm...so which one of those is the "Brown paint" joke? SteveBaker (talk) 03:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The death in the joke is of supportive importance to the pot of brown paint. "Pot of brown paint" sounds simple enough, but it is actually open to interpretation. Why a pot? Why not a jar or a can? Why brown? Brown is the color of brown skinned people. Brown is the color that can result from mixing many colors of paint together. Brown is also the color of excrement. Brown is also the color of the leaves of trees after they are dead. I think the listener to this joke naturally wonders if there might not be some symbolism to the color brown, and the choice of naming the container a pot, rather than a jar or a can. Mustard is also brown, and might come in a pot. Is it mustard that is being inquired about? The very inquiring itself after this object also lends possibilities to the meaning of the pot of brown paint. That the question is asked of the wife of the recently deceased man serves to arouse our curiosity concerning the real meaning of the referred to pot of brown paint. Does the pot of brown paint hold the key to a treasure? Is it somehow the source of great wealth and/or power? Is it really brown paint, or is that just a pseudonym for its real identity? In this case, a joke is the explosion of possible explanations for what one has just heard. Bus stop (talk) 14:24, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to register my complete disagreement with any analysis of the colour of the paint, what sort of container it was in, etc. The paint and its details are what's known as a red herring. The point of the joke is not that he was focussing on the paint (whatever its colour); the point of the joke is that he wasn't focussing on the widow's situation, and wasn't putting all other matters aside to express compassion and sympathy for her, when that would be the normal societal expectation. The paint per se is not important. It is identified merely to create something for him to be interested in getting back. He might just as well have asked about his lawnmower, and the joke would still work in precisely the same way. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:07, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Then why the specifics? Why paint? Why a pot of? Why brown? Any reason for "a pot of brown paint" being chosen to serve the role in the story that you are contending it serves? I don't even know that the story even indicates his interest in getting something back. I think that requires a bit of reading into the story. All that we know is that he inquires of the widow if the deceased man mentioned anything about this item. I am almost tempted to argue that the death is the red herring in this story, but I don't really know if that really explains the way I see it. I see it as a very sophisticated intellectual verbal delivery. We are left holding the variety of symbols stirred up by the imagery of a "pot of brown paint." The death I see as a foil for that. I think it is the death that catapults the possible meanings of the "pot of brown paint" into existence. Our focus is understandably on the significance of the death of a man and the wife's plight. In such a context we could not care less about the meaning of the suggested object that is inquired about. But that object is carefully designed by the storyteller to elicit the maximum number and variety of responses. In essence the "pot of brown paint" flies into the story under the radar. We are not thinking about any meanings being associated with a pot of brown paint. But the story would not work if it were a pair of skis being inquired about, or a heavy duty stapler, or as you suggested -- a lawnmower. "A pot of brown paint" is just poorly enough defined that it doesn't arouse our suspicions, and yet it is open-ended enough in meaning that a lot of reading into it can be done. Also, "pot of brown paint" is silly sounding. Just on the basis of the sounds of which it is composed it is lacking in seriousness. It is almost a tongue twister. It is funny just on the basis of the sounds required to make it. The other items suggested by you and I above have more inherent seriousness to them -- just based on their sound. The silliness, I think, of the sound of "pot of brown paint," is also in contrast to and incongruous with the seriousness of the situation described. I believe the "p" and the "b" in "pot of brown paint" may be known as fricatives. They come closely on the heels of one another. That may result in the juvenile sound to the utterance. I would be interested to know if other people see the phrase as associative with baby talk, as I see it. Bus stop (talk) 22:42, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It's very often necessary to assume certain things, in order to get a joke. OK, it doesn't say explicitly that he had lent the paint to his neighbour and was now wanting to get it back. But if a listener assumes some scenario like that, then it fits with why he's turned up on the widow's doorstep. It provides a context in which humour can be created. He went there to talk to his friend to ask for the paint back (or what was left of it). When he got there, he was told his friend had died. Normally, the paint (or whatever reason he had for going there) would be instantly forgotten, and he'd be getting upset, expressing his shock and condolences to the widow, offering to comfort her, asking if there's anything he can do to help, etc etc. But he didn't do any of that. He'd gone there to ask about his paint, an important matter, and nothing so trivial and unimportant as the sudden and unexpected death of the friend/neighbour who borrowed the paint was going to put him off. He even went to the extent of specifying the colour, to identify exactly which pot he'd lent him. Placing some mundane object (whether it be brown paint, lawnmowers, hedge clippers or whatever) above life and death - how absurd! Who would ever do that in real life? That's where the humour lies. His crass insensitivity and inflexibility is what we laugh at. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a pot of brown paint because it has to be something; else it could be a template joke: "Did he say anything about an unspecified object?" — /p,b/ are stops; /f,v/ (in some languages /ɸ,β/) are the related fricatives – characterized by friction, get it? —Tamfang (talk) 16:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I reckon the paint joke is Reproach. —Tamfang (talk) 16:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl. Charlie Chaplan
Phil_burnstein (talk) 23:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

That is pretty funny. Its humor is based on the incongruity of the natural setting with law and order. The pretty girl serves as a foil, or a backdrop, against which both naturalness and strict conformity can be played out. Bus stop (talk) 00:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

(From the OP) Thanks everyone. There is enough material in here, both opinion and references, to provide fodder for an undergraduate essay. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:05, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Search Engines

I am a student in southern California and during a recent homework exercise my classmates and I have noticed that when searching for a phrase or name in pretty much any search engine (yahoo, msn, and google) that wikipedia is almost always the 1st result. We were wondering why this is. Has Wikipedia been ranked by something as the best site to go to for information. Is it random. Please let us know..

Thanks so much

DAndra —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.147.243 (talk) 18:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Google uses the PageRank scheme for deciding search-result ordering. That's mostly based on the quality (and quantity) of inbound links to page (generally from other websites). So if lots of pages, from all around the Web link to a given word to a given page, that pushes that page up the ranking (if done deliberately then that's called Google bomb). One reason Wikipedia articles are highly ranked is because they're generic introductions to things. So if someone is writing about Australia, they could link to Wikipedia's Australia article, or to a website of the government of Australia, or to one of a number of "visit Australia" or "history of Australia" websites; generally if you want to give people a good intro to Australia, the Wikipedia article is the best of that lot. Secondly it's noncommercial, so people worrying about promoting a given company (like those Australian tourism sites) can link to Wikipedia instead, and know they won't be criticised for promoting some company or other. You might think "why don't other encyclopedias, like Encarta and Britannica, get high links too?" - the main reason is that they either limit access to some or all of their content on a given subject to paying customers (which makes it a useless link for most people) or they simply don't have an article on the subject - Wikipedia as many times as many articles, so if you're thinking about anything even slightly obscure, like a manga or some work of a minor composer or an odd kind of screwdriver then it's likely only Wikipedia will have an article on it. Note that Wikipedia generally isn't the top ranked entry for any current company or person that has a decent web presence - search for "Microsoft" or "Richard Dawkins" or "New York Times" and you get their own sites before Wikipedia's article. Now there are also rumours that search engines give Wikipedia articles a boost, because they feel that searchers who get that are going to be happier (and happy searchers make for happy search engine operators). And lastly I'd like to think that Wikipedia articles deserve to be the top link in many cases, that they're the first thing (and often the best thing) you'd want to read about on a given subject. Britannica like to quack on about how great they say their quality supposedly is, but that doesn't explain why people preferentially choose to read the Wikipedia article over even their free offering's version. Lastly, here's an experiment for you and your classmates - try to find a Google search term for which Wikipdia is the top entry but which you'd think it was entirely inappropriate to be there (that is, to find one which Google ranked highly, but got that rank significantly wrong). 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally teachers sometimes seem to set this test to their students as part of an effort to claim the students are gullible fools who believe any old rubbish they read on Facebook or whatever, and that real facts can be found only in dusty textbooks written by dusty people (like the teachers). Luckily such claims are easily falsified - if Google's rank of Wikipedia is too high, what would be a better simple introduction to the subject for the layman? Also you might want to look at Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There's also the fact that Wikipedia abuses the nofollow tag, thereby benefiting from incoming links without giving anything back. This breaks the functionality of the web. Indeed, for this reason Wikipedia probably shouldn't even be considered a "website" at all. --88.109.193.248 (talk) 10:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call that an 'abuse' of the tag. The tag is there to allow web site authors to make a link without "recommending" the site it points at. Since Wikipedia doesn't routinely check outgoing links for quality - or keep an eye on them to ensure they don't change in undesirable way - we should not be recommending the links we make. Correctly made external references should only be to high quality sites - so those sites we legitimately link to are very likely to have high pagerank scores irrespective of Wikipedia. Obviously, the REASON we do that is to try to dissuade spammers from using Wikipedia's off-the-chart page-rank scores to make their disreputable commercial sites look good. SteveBaker (talk) 17:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that (for the same reason) Google was already ignoring links from Wikipedia for PageRank purposes by the time Wikipedia started marking them as nofollow. Google doesn't just sort pages by PageRank, it uses some complicated system of heuristics with PageRank being just one of the inputs. I wouldn't be surprised if they treat wikipedia.org specially in any number of ways. -- BenRG (talk) 22:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no question about that - Wikipedia is highly special to Google. For example - go to GoogleMaps - zoom in to a city or something and click the 'More' button - then check the "Wikipedia" box. Google is seeking out Wikipedia articles that are marked with a specific Lat/Lon coordinate and displaying our "W" icon with a link to the article whenever it finds one. They wouldn't be doing that if we weren't treated at least somewhat specially! SteveBaker (talk) 03:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

2008/09 newfoundland budget

What are the positive and negative sides of the budget in terms of poverty concerns —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.0.142 (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't do your homework, I suggest you go to the relevant pages (Fiscal Spending or the like) and seek out the information there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.116.239 (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a strange question for homework, I'd think, but we also prefer to avoid matters of opinion. —Tamfang (talk) 03:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

which way?

hi I am on treadgold street in notting hill can anybody tell me how to get to elgin crescent please? My phone runs out of memory loading streetmap! :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by DirectionsPlease (talk • contribs) 23:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Head east; you'll come to Clarendon Road (which runs N/S); head south (right). Elgin Crescent is one of several crescents that rise NE from Clarendon (Cornwall and Blenheim Crescents are to the north of it, Landsdown rise to the south). You're about 1/2 mile. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

great thanks very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DirectionsPlease (talk • contribs) 23:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, this is a new use for the Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 00:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that was pretty awesome. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's too late but here is a Google Maps view of the directions you could have taken. If you drag the little yellow man on the route, you will get a street view of where you were. --199.198.223.106 (talk) 01:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of undiscovered uses for the Reference desk. I'm glad you finally discovered one of them :-) . ~AH1^(TCU) 18:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

April 4

6-on-3

Has any team scored while being short three players in a hockey match (5-on-3 + pulled goalie)? Kurtelacić (talk) 00:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd be very surprised if it's never happened in the NHL (with an empty net, it just takes a lucky shot down the ice), but I don't know of an instance. A Google search on the two phrases "empty net" and "six on three" turns up one fairly recent instance in US college hockey: Chad Kolarik of Michigan did it on October 14, 2006, as part of a 7-5 win over Connecticut. --Anonymous, edited 01:11 UTC, April 4, 2009.

Thank you a lot :) Kurtelacić (talk) 12:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Zulu War Campaign Game

Does anyone know of any games that deal with the Zulu War? I have heard rumours that Total War has a few scenarios, but I am not sure which version. Empires Total War might be the one. Can anyone confirm this before I buy it?--KageTora (talk) 11:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

This game may be of interest to you. Our articles on the Total War series don't seem to indicate any Zulu-themed campaigns. Matt Deres (talk) 12:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it looks like production ceased on that game in 2001. [17] -Elmer Clark (talk) 06:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Academics

I am from India... studying in the Indian Institute of technology (IIT) Madras.

As you might have heard, this is a very prestigious institution in our country, requiring years of preparation and hard work to get into, and once in, provides high quality education to its students. Getting here is like a dream for many children here...

However, on a global scale, the IITs are ranked, by most surveys, pretty low... not even in the top 100s. Despite it being the most preferred institution for a billion people, i feel it doesn't quite get the recognition it deserves. Being a student here, i know what's going on here as well as in other colleges, but despite the high standards, its not quite in the league of the big guns as per most surveys, say compared to NUS (National University of Singapore), which is ranked in the top 20 in most surveys. I tell you, any person from India will go to NUS if and only if he doesn't get a branch of his choice in any of the premier IITs. The cream of the country come here, but on a global scale, its just not there!

I just wanted an explanation on this... Wondering out loud where we are going wrong...Rkr1991 (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

It will depend on the survey. Most surveys are made with relevance to the proximity of their readers. A BBC survey, for example, will rate British universities higher, purely because it is more relevant to British people. Similarly, an American survey will rate American universities higher. It's got nothing to do with what the universities are doing wrong or doing right. It's just a simple fact. Be happy you are in a prestigious university and don't worry about whether it is Number Whatever in the world.--KageTora (talk) 18:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd take any ranking with a large amoung of salt, apparently I go to one of the best in the country and the world and I find that slightly disturbing. I was looking at this website which is cited on the Imperial College page for where it finds out it is 5th in the world, and the terrible typing errors on the page where it explains how the ranks were worked out so it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence. Then looking at their criteria it looks like establishments are ranked based on survey of academics asking them to say which university they think is best, only 6000 odd people responded and it although there was weighting it respondents could only reply once and not their own institution, so maybe the your institute just wasn't rated very often, 50% of the final score was based on this and another very similar type of question. Then there is another 10% based on 'international factors', on the IIT page it explains that there are not many international students or faculty the and considering the [brain drain] gives other institutions more points in these areas. These factors are a bit unfair because as you said they are preferred establishments in India because they fall at the hurdle of not being as well known in the rest of world, and when they are known given they might not be the number 1 of the people being asked. However, the article on IITs says that they fall on not having internationally recognised research, the ranking systems do use citations by faculty so if the work that is being done isn't being cited by as many people as work by other establishments that's another (arguably important) reason that they are not as highly ranked.

If you really wanted to go up the ranks, I'd imagine getting a better PR dept for the institute would help and they go on a global drive to get themselves more recognised. But, does it matter that much? I understand there is an issue of pride in your alma mater but as you said they are the prefered establishments of a billion people that's pretty good, and the fact that the brain drain exists mean that you're coming out with an internationally recognised degree that puts you in good stead to compete with people around the world for jobs so in reality must be ranked as high as if you went to any other establishment.MedicRoo (talk) 18:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Does it matter that much? Yes, it does — for lots of practical reasons. The higher ranked a place is, the more respect and importance it conveys if you graduate from it, the more people of higher calibre who want to go there to learn or teach, the more money it generally is able to raise, and so forth. These things do matter in material ways for those who attend said institutions. Rankings matter a lot — Harvard wouldn't be Harvard, for example, if people didn't understand that "Harvard" means at or close to #1. (Are the ranking accurate, sensible? An entirely different question. I suspect in most cases not. Harvard is an excellent example — there are plenty better places to get an undergraduate education in the world. But if Harvard wasn't in the top 5 then people would cry and whine and discount the rating system in question. Ratings very quickly start to be a mirror of expectations... which is the tail wagging the dog.) All that being said, if you are not planning to leave India, then all that matters is the respect it conveys within India. In the USA I doubt most people could name any educational institution in India; but the same goes for China and most of Europe as well. --140.247.250.235 (talk) 19:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The IITs are fairly new and need to build up their reputations. Despite India being huge the IITs taken all together are probably only the same size as one of the multi site US state universities. See for instance the highly regarded University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University that another person from India was asking about just a few questions after you below. They show what builds prestige and fame. You can't have loads of Nobel prizes for instance without a bit of history. Dmcq (talk) 09:22, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Those universities I mentioned aren't one of the multi-site universities in the US state university system. See California State University for a huge example of that. Dmcq (talk) 09:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

dreaming while under anasthesia

does anyone dream while under anasthesia, such as during an operation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.237.252 (talk) 17:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I personally have some recollections of dreams while being anaesthetised, and a sizeable amount of people claim to have had NDEs, so I would say yes.--KageTora (talk) 18:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Definitely. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

When having my wisdom teeth out, I was under local, and thought about something (a baseball game featuring some all-time teams) to pass the time. I found that I drifted into it sufficiently that I was there, enough that I would say it was a dream. So, yes, although perhaps not always a dream as most would classify it. It's almost like a cross between a daydream and a regular dream, in this case.Somebody or his brother (talk) 00:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

If you were the one that was making the story up, and it felt sufficiently real that you were there, that would be akin to a lucid dream.--KageTora (talk) 07:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been under general anesthesia 4 times (the most recent was last week), and never dreamed. In fact, every time, it seemed like I just blinked and it was over.--Shuttlebug (talk) 21:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Are Penn and Cornell Good Universities?

Dear Sirs and Madams,

Recently, I have been blessed with the good fortune of being accepted into both the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University in the USA. Coming from India, not many people have heard of these two, of what I think, excellent universities. From a Western point of view, especially from an American point of view, are these two universities considered "excellent" universities? If not, I will choose to attend a local university and save the 50k a year.

Secondly, in terms of reputation, which of these two are better? I realize that they are located in two geographically diverse locations, but only in terms of reputation, which is better in pre-med education and will help me get a job later, hopefully in the States if I can get a Visa.

Many thanks, 99.240.175.185 (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

In unofficial, off the top of my head rankings, both of the schools would be among the best (among the top 20 or so) schools in the US. There are probably more precise rankings on the university's articles, and rankings vary by subject, but they may very well be worth 50k a year. (However, cost of living at either wouldn't be cheap, due to their locations, just something to keep in mind if you don't have a scholarship.) AlexiusHoratius 20:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes indeed, living costs can vary a lot, and be eyewatering for some places (hello Stanford). The dean of admissions for a given school will generally have (and often post on their part of the University's website) an estimate of the living costs for students living near the school. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:08, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Both are excellent schools, both highly regarded, and both members of the Ivy League. I don't know about rankings for undergrad, but for medical school (if you chose to go onto medical school at the same institution) Penn seems to be ranked very highly ([18], [19], [20]). While I would assume that a school with a good medical school would do pre-med well, I frankly don't know for a fact that that's true. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Both are excellent schools. In terms of differences, which may help making a decision, you probably want to visit each campus. Cornell is also a part of the SUNY system, besides being an private Ivy League school (certain programs are state funded, like the Agriculture program, I think) and is, IIRC, the largest of the Ivy League schools. Its in a fairly rural part of upstate New York, in a little town called Ithaca, New York. The only city of any size nearby is Syracuse, New York, and that's not even that close, or all that large. Penn, on the other hand, is downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and so has all the ammeneties (and drawbacks) of living in one of the largest cities in America. So, both are good schools, but both are VERY DIFFERENT places to go to school.--Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

April 5

Most Prestigious Oxford College

What is the most prestigious constituent college of Oxford University - the Oxford equivalent of Cambridge's Trinity College? Acceptable (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

See Norrington Table --199.198.223.106 (talk) 01:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Christ Church is hands down the most respected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clashbash (talk • contribs) 05:21, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hands up if you agree. --Dweller (talk) 09:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Well obviously respected is not the same thing as prestigious (respected by whom?). Also it depends what you mean by prestigious. If you mean academically, you would have to go by the Norrington table as linked to above. But Christ Church certainly has more aristocratic Brideshead-y cachet than any other college. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

When was the sandwich invented?

When was the sandwich invented? Not the term "sandwich" itself, but the actual food item. - Vikramkr (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Popular myth has it that it was invented by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich; the article has a section called "The Sandwich", which mentions an alternate candidate for the creator. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

But he just introduced it to high society. Poor people had been eating sandwiches for centuries if not millennia at that point. (sadly, I don't seem to still have the report I wrote in college on this topic, or I'd fork over the references. Sorry.) If I recall, the jist of it was that throughout history, almost at any point where people had the right sort of bread, the peasant or working class would come up with a way to use it to hold an entire meal together. APL (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I have read this, although I find it hard to believe that a simple food item such as a sandwich came to existence in the 1700's. - Vikramkr (talk) 06:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Just like America being "discovered" by some Viking (despite the natives) and Machu Picchu being discovered by Hiram Bingham, whoever claims the honor first (usually) gets the credit. This says the earl copied the idea from the Greeks and Turks, and that it is "a culinary practice of ancient origins", i.e. nobody knows. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It's so obvious to place something on bread and fold it over, I imagine it was invented within a short time after the first use of bread; probably around 10,000 BCE.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I've always thought it odd that Cornish pasties have been around since at least the 13th century, yet it took four hundred more years for someone to try essentially the same thing with bread. A fanciful tale of invention to be sure, but hardly unique. Matt Deres (talk) 00:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hillel was eating sandwiches 2000 years ago - something that will be remembered and imitated by millions of Jews worldwide this very week. --Dweller (talk) 11:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Remember also that matzo in Hillel's time was much lss crumbly than ours and much easier to fold over. Phil_burnstein (talk) 00:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

height of territories?

Hey, I'm just curious, how high does a countries airspace territory go? I mean, we have satellites that orbit above countries, so presumably that isn't forbidden, but flying a russian jet flying over the US would almost certainly be considered a hostile act. Is there a certain height limit to which a county can claim to own? Cyclonenim :  Chat  11:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Our article Airspace states "There is no international agreement on the vertical extent of sovereign airspace" but then mentions ranges from 30km to 160km. ny156uk (talk) 11:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There are international treaties dealing with high atmosphere / use of space. See Outer Space Treaty, also the proposed Space Preservation Treaty, and generally, Space law. Civilian use of another country's air space is by permission of that nation only; see, for example, Convention on International Civil Aviation, International Civil Aviation Organization, and more generally, freedoms of the air. Generally, most countries do not allow foreign spaceaircrafts to use their airspaces for non-civilian purposes, but see Treaty on Open Skies.

As to how far a country's sovereignty goes: theoretically, it goes on forever, at least under the Anglophone common law system and the Roman-derived civil law system, as a consequence of "cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos". Practically, it goes only to the limits of the atmosphere, or usable atmosphere - but definitions of what is that limit varies. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

This question reminds me of a story from before most of those treaties. In The Man Who Sold the Moon, the main character successfully asserts that as property rights extend to infinity above a land parcel, only those countries in a narrow band north and south of the equator may lay claim to Earth's moon. Of course, taken to the next logical step, those countries would also collectively own all the planets in the solar system, but that wasn't touched on in the story. 152.16.16.75 (talk) 00:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The state of Illinois recently passed a law re-designating Pluto a planet while it is overhead Illinois, so in their minds at least their jurisdiction extends 7 billion kilometers. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

One might say that the state of Illinois is simply out of its depth. :) 87.115.166.150 (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Those legislators should be sacked (and then burnt at the stake) for wasting the public's money on such utter absurdities. One might have thought that they'd have quite a few more pressing issues than this, particularly at the present time in history. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

IIRC certainn countries near the Equator did try to claim that their sovereignty went all the way up, in an attempt to get rent from geostationary satellites. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

How to gain weight ?

This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page.

This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis or prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page. --~~~~

TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see the discussion of whether this is medical advice here: Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#question removed as medical advice request (weight gain). StuRat (talk) 19:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

crazy electronics kit catalog

When I was a kid (1980s) I had this crazy catalog of electronic kits you could order. It included some things that in retrospect I'm pretty dubious about — your own laser interferometer microphone (which my reading of the Wikipedia page on such makes it sound like that is quite a complicated thing to set up!), all sorts of bugging equipment, all sorts of weird "make a machine that sends out rays that makes people uncomfortable" sorts of things. As a kid I thought it was the coolest catalog ever, even though I was well aware the prices were beyond me and there was no way I'd be able to assemble anything in it myself. My question is: does this ring any bells? Anybody have the slightest clue what this catalog was? Who put it out? I'd find it such a kick to see it again, I read it cover to cover a million times. But I can't remember too many details other than the above. Thought it would be worth asking about, though. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I think I read something like that once. Try [21] <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 18:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

If that's not it, maybe try asking this on the science desk? Just 'cause, they might read more science catalogs than I do. I'm really not sure. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 18:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Heathkit comes to mind (see here for some catalog covers), but I'm not sure how far they were into the crazy and weird category. Perhaps some other company in the Electronic kit manufacturers category may ring a bell. -- Tcncv (talk) 04:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I remember that catalog! Wow, that was a long time ago. That was also one of my favorite catalogs as a kid. Some of the items (Tesla coils, infinity transmitters, etc.) were legitimate but it also had 'questionable' plans and kits that seemed really cool to me when I was too young to understand the science behind them. Similar to Consumertronics but with slightly more plausible concepts. The kits were usually based at least somewhat loosely on real research, but the small scale of the finished products would likely have been too weak to accomplish much of anything. Now, what was the name of that catalog? 152.16.16.75 (talk) 09:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, tesla coils! That sounds like the right one. Everything in there was wild and crazy and no doubt sounded about 50 X cooler in there than it would have been to actually make. It was printed on cheap paper, lots of tiny tiny text blurbs crammed onto each page. Most things sold in kit form. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 10:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like the stuff at the back of the Superman comics, or the back of MAD magazine? --TammyMoet (talk) 11:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Mad Magazine didn't run advertisements until very recently. APL (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

And this was a full catalog. And in color? A short little booklet. Stand-alone. The pure stuff of adolescent geek fantasies. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Edmund Scientific. Still there. I got the catalog when I was a kid in the early 1960's. -Arch dude (talk) 18:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I fondly remember the RadioShack kits from Tandy, but the ones I saw achieved mundane tasks well rather than attempting exotic pseudo-science. Certes (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Very cheap watch

Does anyone know of a high-street store in Britain where one could get hold of a very cheap watch (preferably one like this or this, without a strap, but other types also acceptable) in the £3-8 range? Cheers! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 20:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Argos okay? £5.89MedicRoo (talk) 21:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Beware cheap watches, they are run by a fly on a bicycle.--88.109.57.209 (talk) 05:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Ask a nurse. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:19, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Ooh, I think Argos looks good, thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 09:21, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't buy that one, it's upside down.  :) Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, that was a pretty stupid mistake by the photographer, all the more expensive ones are pictured properly ;-)

Anyway, I now have it, works very nicely (was even set at precisely the right time when I bought it, battery and everything!) and if anyone's interested, it's a thoroughly good deal :p Thanks for the help! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 21:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

April 6

Making a "wiki"

I dont know if my definition of "wiki" matches other people's definition of "wiki" but I've noticed that many sites, such as game sites have a "wiki" page made for them. I was wondering how they made it, and if I could make one myself. I'm wondering if the game's wiki page is just another wikipedia page, or a completely different thing. I dont know if I explained myself clearly or not, but thanks for the help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sokushi (talk • contribs) 04:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a common misconception that "wiki" and "Wikipedia" mean the same thing, but they don't. "Wiki" refers to a type of software, whereas "Wikipedia" refers to, well, Wikipedia. A wiki is a collection of web pages that can be edited by visitors -- either everyone, or just registered users, or a combination thereof. While Wikipedia is undoubtedly the most famous application of wiki software, there are many, many other wikis out there, and anyone can install one for their own purposes. (I've got a couple myself.) List of wiki software may be of interest to you. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 04:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:TourBusStop provides links to "guided tours" of several other wikis. -- SGBailey (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't even know that existed! Cool. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

There are really three layers to this. Firstly - the term 'Wiki' refers to a piece of software associated with a web site that allows communal document editing. There are many varieties of Wiki software - Twiki, ClearSpace, etc. The specific variety that's becoming by far the most common is called 'MediaWiki' - it's an OpenSourced package written in PHP and JavaScript that stores documents in a 'MySQL' database. It's free - and it's very easy to set up on your own website. Then, there are the specific web sites that use Wiki software - of which Wikipedia is probably the most well-known. So Wikipedia uses MediaWiki which is a Wiki. These 'game sites' you are seeing are almost certainly using the MediaWiki software - so that (by default) they look and behave almost identically to Wikipedia. However, if you look at the logo in the top-left corner, you'll see that they don't have the 'puzzle-ball' logo that Wikipedia uses...so you know that they are different. These sites are most certainly NOT related to Wikipedia (other than that they use the same software) - they don't necessarily have the same editorial standards, or the same attention to detail that Wikipedia does - they may not be 'open' and their content may not be freely licensed. For example, I run a car enthusiast's club called 'Mini Owners of Texas' - and we have a MediaWiki site at http://www.miniownersoftexas.org/wiki - which is not open to non-members...you have to create an account in order to edit it. My personal Wiki at http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki is even more private - nobody but me can create an account on it - so if you wish to edit it, you have to send me an email. My Wiki is customised so it doesn't look quite so much like Wikipedia either. Then there is another Wiki I use at work that is so private, you can't even read it without an account! SteveBaker (talk) 20:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Rape & Progress

Is there any record of a child that was born as the result of rape reaching high levels of success in it's life?--88.109.57.209 (talk) 10:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I suspect this isn't the sort of scenario that is often publically discussed/mentioned so unless there is a high-profile example people are aware of i'd be surprised if data were available on it. Tracey Emin the artist is frank about her being abused as a child, but from my experience discussing/noting something like that publically is extremely rare. Also you'd probably have to define 'high levels of success' - would that be earning over X a year, famous for Y, creator of Z? Maybe someone will be along with some more useful information for you, can't recall any high-profile examples of this though. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Success of a sort (notability) came to Tituba, but the story that she was the product of a rape is far from reliable. --Dweller (talk) 10:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Here is a support group for such individuals. You could (tactfully) ask there. If you're just wondering whether it has occurred, the answer is almost always "yes" when you ask "has anybody in largish group A ever gone on to enter largish group B"? --Sean 14:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Sean, the answer may be more difficult here because a) victims of rape aren't always very keen to promulgate their misfortune b) victims of rape who had consensual sex around the same time as their rape may find it difficult to be certain whether their issue was or was not the result of the rape (especially in the days before DNA tests) and c) many of those who achieved "high levels of success" would be loathe to reveal such humble origins, even were they certain that they had occurred. So, all in all, I think this may be more accurately a case of "mathematics tells us that undoubtedly lots have, but logic insists that not many will be reliably known". --Dweller (talk) 15:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Why would a person whose male biological material came from a rapist be at a disadvantage in life? I am only considering the raping of a female by a male, because it is most common, but the same would apply in the case of a female raping a male. How does rape as the origin of life disadvantage the offspring? Bus stop (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

From a genetic point of view, not at all. If our experiences in life were 100% genetic, you may have a case. However, from an environmental point of view, children of rape have several disadvantages over children produced by mutual consent of his parents. Children of rape are less likely to have a reliable male presence in their lives, and women who are raped frequently suffer psycholgical trauma which unraped women do not. This trauma could certainly affect their ability to provide adequate maternal care for their child. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the above is true. But the child produced as a result of a rape of a married woman (or an unmarried woman in a stable relationship) raped once by a stranger (whose spouse chooses to share in the raising of the offspring of the rape) would be at little disadvantage. I just wanted to state the extreme other possibility (the above), though it may be the less likely possibility. And another twist that can be added to this story is that the husband can be the rapist. It is simply a possibility. After conciliation the two may become good parents. Bus stop (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2009 (UTC) Bus stop (talk) 16:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say that it most certainly has happened. It was very common in the past for nobility to have a 'bastard son', and if you take rape with the broader definition of 'abuse of power to gain sexual gratification', I think this would apply to non-consensual adultery. For example, household servants might seem consensual, purely because they have no other choice. I can't think of any specific cases on hand, but if you do a google search on 'bastard son', I'm sure you will find plenty of famous people.--KageTora (talk) 19:17, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you might have left off a "but aren't..." between consensual and purely. Matt Deres (talk) 20:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Searching for "royal bastard" would give you an idea of how often this occurred in history. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

But it's interesting how we can't come up with any examples. The only case I can think of - and it's not even a real person - is the character Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how unexpected the lack of results is - when you consider the population of "people who have achieved enough success that RefDeskers have heard of them" (which is probably no more than a few tens of thousands at the most) and "people who are known to have been born as a result of rape" (which is probably even smaller) it doesn't take any kind of real trend for there to be no meaningful overlap between the groups at all. ~ mazca ^t|c 22:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, though I think the emphasis should be almost completely on the second component of that equation. Unless a person's bloodline was of particular importance, the matter of their conception usually isn't a hot topic of interest. Yes, they're a bastard, which piques some interest, I guess, but until recently many victims of rape were held accountable for the crime against them; they would have nothing to gain by bringing out the facts of the conception, and possibly even more embarrassment and shame. Of the thousands of people you meet in your life, there's a very very good chance that at least some of them will be victims of rape, though you'd never know it unless you get particularly close or they turn into an activist or something; it's just not part of most conversations. Being the product of a rape would be even less likely to enter the conversation since it didn't impact the person in nearly the same way - they might not even be aware of it at all. Matt Deres (talk) 23:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

This claims that Ethel Waters was the product of a rape, but it doesn't provide any sources. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention this. This says so, I'm not sure how reliable it is. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Another problem is that in pre-modern times a man could do whatever he wanted to a woman of lesser status. So when you see that someone was born to a noble/rich father and "a peasant woman", then the peasant women may very have been raped, and since nobody really would have cared about the woman, it may never be specifically stated how the man happened to father a child with her. It may not have been a violent rape, but it would have been semi-consensual at best. Benvenuto Cellini raped lots of women if you define rape this way, he brags about it all throughout his autobiography. Medieval kings and nobles may have also raped plenty of women in this sense; I'll see if I can find any examples. Andreas Capellanus says that it is perfectly acceptable to drag a peasant girl off into the bushes and have your way with her - maybe he was joking, maybe not. An example of a child born this way may be Leonardo da Vinci. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

If you're talking about droit de seigneur, then possibly the firstborn of any medieval marriage would be the result.--TammyMoet (talk) 08:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Except for the fact, as the article states, that the droit de seigneur is probably completely fictional. -Elmer Clark (talk) 14:39, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Collectively, the RefDesk is quite right to focus on the rapes as a result of power imbalances within a stable society, e.g. of peasant women by aristocratic men. For one thing, many of these would not have been one-off events, but long-term, thus increasing the chances of conception. However, there is another whole swathe of rapes, this time within very unstable societies, namely those at war. See History of rape (and History of war). Rape in war is of interest to genealogists, among others: here is a description of genetic testing and genealogy, with reference to the Cossack massacres of Jews in Ukraine. These war rapes still go on, not as isolated incidents but structured into the conflict: ten years ago in the former Yugoslavia, today in Uganda and Congo and elsewhere. There are also customs such as bride kidnapping, again still very common today, the basic elements of which involve abduction and rape. In some countries or ethnic groups, a large percentage of marriages begin this way. Logic dictates that some of these children will go on to great things. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Good Lord, I started something here. Thanks for the answers.--79.71.217.59 (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I have one: James Robison. In addition, If a person's mother was below the age of consent at conception, and the father above, then the child would be the product of rape (of the statutory variety). There are a number of successful people in that situation, including Jesse Jackson. Rockpocket 06:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Newspaper copyright

I'm struggling to understand copyright law.

For example, UK newspapers like The Times or The Guardian say on their website that their material is copyright and can only be copied for personal use. I understand that. So, let's say a UK organisation broke newspaper copyright by photocopying pages, I'd guess they'd be liable to be sued. Fine. But what if the organisation destroyed its archive of clippings. Would that mean it is no longer liable? --195.194.4.65 (talk) 12:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

No. The crime was the copying (if done so in a way that violates fair dealing), not the possession. Just because you destroyed the product after the fact does not affect whether the initial crime was committed. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC) No obviously any liability for previous copyright infrigement doesn't end when you stop infringing anymore then if you are speeding and stop speeding you'd not be liable for your previous speeding. However clearly if you respond to cease and desist orders or whatever and destroy copyright violating material the company would be less likely to sue you, particularly if you haven't greatly benefited from your copyright violations although often they may require at least some compensation which would likely be in the form a negotiated settlement if the infringing company acknowledges wrongdoing (why fight a lawsuit you'd lose?). Nil Einne (talk) 14:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that the legal notices and warnings a lot of websites have often have little to do with what can actually be legally done. It's not uncommon for publications -- online or otherwise -- to proclaim that none of their content may be copied anywhere for any purpose, no matter what, but that doesn't mean that someone couldn't legally copy a piece of text from the site under fair use so he can use it as a part of a critique of that text, for example. And, of course, copyright law differs from one country to another, and copyright warnings that are quite valid in one country may be meaningless in another. (Obviously, this is not to say that what the Guardian's website says is crap! I'm talking in generalities here.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• With so many newspapers going belly up in the crisis, newspaper owners should think about ways to preserve their archives of information rather than rigidly trying to keep the copyright that's likely never going to be used. Copyright is a good thing for the creator of a work, but too often I see information disappear due to financial issues and because of copyright no one was able to store it... - Mgm|^(talk) 08:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Eh, preserving information for newspapers is not that hard. There are plenty of services that will buy up your back issues and keep them in a paid archive (e.g. ProQuest). I don't know what the answer for newspapers as a business model is going to be but I don't see weakening their copyright to be a likely solution. They don't want people to reuse it freely — such an approach does not direct revenue streams back to them in any appreciable way. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Because The Guardian was mentioned, I have to point out their visionary understanding of what a re-interpretation of copyright can mean: Open Platform. They are ready for a whole new business model. (I have no affiliation with them.) BrainyBabe (talk) 15:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Shoot Up Hill

This question is probably too localised but if possible i was wondering why a street in Cricklewood, London was called Shoot Up Hill? Simply south (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It shoots up steeply. I'm not sure I find it all that steep, but hey, I grew up on a very steep hill. --Dweller (talk) 15:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Installing a preamp and pickup into an accoustic guitar

I wish to install a preamp and pickup into my acoustic guitar. However, I am a little nervous about cutting a hole into the side of my guitar. Any suggestions about what tools to use, or things that I could do to prevent the wood from splitting would be greatly appreciated.130.113.115.53 (talk) 17:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

You can get pickups that come on a little bar that straddles the sound hole (and can, with some effort, be removed without damaging the guitar), and you tape the cable for them over the outside of the soundboard. Note that this will only work if all the strings are steel (or have a steel core); a pure bronze string won't work, and the (plastic) gut strings on a classical guitar won't work either. Alternatively you can install a microphone (which confusingly is called an "acoustic guitar pickup") that replaces the heel end strap hanger (for which you might need to enlarge the existing hole) and the mic part tapes to the guitar (I think to the undersurface of the soundboard). THe kind I'm thinking about is: this kind. Enlarging an existing hole shouldn't cause splitting, and neither should drilling carefully with the appropriate bit. You might need to put some tape around the hole you're drilling, to prevent the lacquer cracking. 87.115.166.150 (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Many years ago I had a Barcus-Berry. It was about 2 cm by 0.5 cm, had a wire coming out one end, and a sticky pad underneath which attached to the body. It was about the most unobtrusive way of amplifying a Spanish guitar we could find. I'm truly amazed to find (a) I spelt it right and (b) they're still around: this is their website [22] And no we don't have a page on them! --TammyMoet (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I play a Takamine Jasmine full-dreadnought style acoustic guitar, and use a Dean Markley ProMag in-hole pickup. It's a litle rectangle that wedges in the soundhole quite easily; there's little foam pads that allow it to grip the edges of the hole. I use both the single coil (in natural wood) and humbucker (in black) varieties. I've not used them with any signal processing equipment, but they sound great using a simple Countryman direct-box patch in to a sound board or PA system. They work fine too using a personal amplifier, and I have used them to record simply soundfiles on my computer as well. Versitile, removable, and sound great. They should be what you are looking for, and require no "surgery" on your guitar. See http://www.deanmarkley.com/Pickups/ProMag.shtml for the ones I use, I have the ProMag Plus and the ProMag Grand. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

work on quantum mechanics

hi, I'm a student of B.sc of chemistry honours . In future I'm insterested doing work on quantum chemistry but I see many of the scientice who worked on quantum chemistry are physists. So is there any scop for me to wok on quantum chemistry and how I go ahed ?Supriyochowdhury (talk) 18:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

There's absolutely scope for you to proceed. Going to graduate school and pursuing a Ph. D. is an effective prerequisite for this sort of cutting-edge science, and the precise nature of your Bachelor's degree matters little in the end. Focus future studies on your area(s) of interest and an undergraduate degree of chemistry vs physics will not matter in the least. — Lomn 19:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The proper way to proceed is to familiarize yourself with scientists currently working in Quantum Chemistry and to seek to study under them in seeking your PhD. Unlike your undergraduate school, which may have any of a number of reasons for you to choose it (social life, campus location, cost), you should choose a PhD program primarily for the work you intend to do while seeking your PhD. So find a quantum chemist working at a university, ask them if they have any openings in their lab for PhD candidates, and if they do, ask them how to go about applying for that spot. If they are interested in taking you on, getting through the university application procedure should be a breeze... Oh, and don't worry about whether the scientist works in the Chemistry or Physics or whatever department, just try to find one whose interests match your own... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

April 7

Extrapolating Free Speech To Allow Political Donations

How did it ever happen that our greatest legal minds could stretch their imagination so much as to prove to us all that the right to free speech includes the right to give money to political candidates? Such a practice obviously would, and obviously has, led to corruption in our governments at all levels.

Can my question be answered in less words there are in the First Amendment?

Thanks for any info.

Xesandohs (talk) 00:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

See burden of proof. --Sean 01:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

As long as there are political campaigns, there will be political fundraising. Or would you rather that only the rich run for office? Phil_burnstein (talk) 03:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not allowing limits to be placed on donations (because they're considered "free speech") that causes the problem. We can end up with a few people giving most of the money to a campaign, which results in the "representatives" only representing those people. This undermines democracy. Incidentally, another option is to have public funding of elections, either with taxpayer money or by requiring TV and radio stations to air free ads and debates for all candidates (if they want their broadcast licenses renewed). StuRat (talk) 06:07, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

This looks to me more like an attempt to start a debate than a Reference Desk question. Much as I appreciate the irony of attempting to stop a discussion about free speech, I don't think this is the place for it. --Anonymous, 04:55 UTC, April 7, 2009.

By defining the question as "free speech," the answer is given. However, define it as "freedom of expression" and the right to express oneself through donations becomes more meaningful. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

See Buckley v. Valeo, a US Supreme Court case that ruled spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech (though the later Davis v. Federal Election Commission also had something to say on the matter). The full judgment of Buckley v. Valeo is here. I think that's the factual answer to the question. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

english language

which of the following statements are correct. 1. Unlike trains, terrorists don't come with an announcement(can we make use of two negative's in a single sentence?) 2. Like trains, terrorists don't come with an announcement —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nag183raj (talk • contribs) 04:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

They're both correct; they just mean two different things:

1. Trains come with an announcement; terrorists do not.
2. Trains and terrorists come with no announcement.

In general, each negative in English negates the premise: "unalike" means "different", "not unalike" means "similar", "insignificantly not unalike" means "different", etc. (though stacking negations tends to make sentences difficult to parse and should be avoided in most cases). – 74  04:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Not quite correct. See litotes. There are shades of meaning in these terms, for example "not unalike" is not identical to "similar". Language is not a set of binary conditions which strictly obey boolean operations; as such different word choices do carry subtle differences in tone and meaning which strict logic would not allow... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

They certainly aren't identical (you'd be hard-pressed to find any two words that are). But, as an answer to the question "can we make use of two negative's in a single sentence?", I believe broad strokes are sufficient. Besides, even though my answer was technically incomplete it was not incorrect. – 74  11:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as English grammar is concerned they are both correct and mean two different things, both of which I believe are incorrect. Both trains and terrorists may or may not come with an announcement. Dmcq (talk) 09:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not a double negative - the two negatives refer to completely different things. The first negative ("Unlike") says that terrorists are not like trains - the second one says that terrorists don't come with an announcement. You can't cancel them without changing the meaning. It's not like "My dog doesn't have no legs" which you can simplify to "My dog has legs". Hence there is nothing wrong with the first version. If you are hell bent on getting rid of a negative, at best you'd have to say something like "Unlike terrorists, trains come with announcements"...but even that has changed the subject of the sentence from something about terrorists to something about trains. (Although it works better as a joke, IMHO) SteveBaker (talk) 21:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Just as a matter of interest, when did the word unalike creep into the language? That was a new one to me. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

According to Google, it was included in a book published in 1755. That doesn't, however, mean it has been in common usage since (or ever!); Google helpfully suggests the correction "unlike". You (and potentially the OP) might receive a better answer at the Language desk. – 74  21:48, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The OED has unalike both as an adjective (with four quotes, all from the twentieth century) and as an adverb (with a single quote from Thomas Gataker in 1616). Algebraist 22:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh my

Has the world really come to this? [23] Am I the only one that thinks the anchors completely ignoring not only her fainting but a part of the set falling on her is horrible? Sure, they're live on the air but come on, I'm sure they could cut to break or something. It absolutely disgusts me. 75.169.196.140 (talk) 04:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

To answer your question: No, you are probably not alone. —Tamfang (talk) 05:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I doubt you're alone, but it is considered a very good quality in a newsreader to be able to continue no matter what is going on around them. There are a number of bloopers around of when that's gone too far, including an anchor vomiting, wetting pants, animals being very inappropriate, being hit on the head, etc. Steewi (talk) 06:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

There was one where a bird crapped in the anchor's mouth while he was looking up at some trees.--KageTora (talk) 07:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I saw that in a lol site. The reporter was also talking about the bird population in that particular area. --Lenticel ^(talk) 07:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no problem with what happened. Have you not seen anybody faint before? They'll have other people around the place who can help her. There's no need for the world to stop because someone faints and some props fall down on her. The props would be pretty light and what what would you expecting them to do after rushing up to her? She'd be best left lying down to revive and I'm sure they've some first-aiders around to have a look if there's anything worse. Any waving of hands and rushing around showing concern would be due to either cosmetic, ignorance, or headless chicken reasons. Dmcq (talk) 09:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll bet it would make more sense if it wasn't cut right after the set fell. I'll bet either A) people from offstage came rushing on to check on her, or B) Something more ridiculous happened indicating this was a parody.

If it's real, I'll bet there was someone talking into the guy's ear-piece saying something like : "Keep going, we'll take care of this.". APL (talk) 22:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I enjoyed one clip of a newsreader continuing to read without a falter as a fly landed on his lip and walked into his mouth, never to be seen again. Edison (talk) 22:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Sue Lawley exhibited famous sang froid when a team of lesbians invaded the TV studio and interrupted her news anchoring. (They were protesting Section 28, a piece of anti-gay legislation.) She said, "We have been rather invaded by some people who we hope to be removing very shortly." Full story here. YouTube clip here -- her eyes do not even flicker as the shouted protests can be heard off camera. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:08, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Pack of dogs and cat

A long time ago, I saw a picture (not in Wikipedia) of large pack of dogs (perhaps the German Shepherds) standing in a row and a cat passing by next to them without any fear and all the dogs were watching the cat. The dogs were trained by US military and the picture was to show how obedient and restraint the dogs were who won't do anything without the order of soldiers. Can anybody point me to that picture. That picture is not in Wikipedia perhaps. Thanks - DSachan (talk) 09:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Go to http://images.google.com. Type in German Shepherd Cat. Hit Enter. Dismas|^(talk) 09:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Lol, well thanks. I googled before only with dogs and cat. But now this gives me the right picture. :) - DSachan (talk) 09:17, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

What I want to know is, how the heck did they train the cat? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

If the cat never had any negative experiences with dogs, or had been in a household with friendly dogs, he may have never had any reason to feel uncomfortable. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Some cats taunt dogs they know can't reach them. (e.g. walk along the top of a fence just out of reach.) OR I've had to patch up more scratched dog noses than cats that got bitten. Dogs that aren't trained to go after cats often try to befriend them. Cats will try to dominate and unless the dog is defense mode it will let them. Guess who ends up in the comfy spot that used to be the dog's? ;-) Feral dogs in packs are another matter, though. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 15:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI, I believe this picture was made at New Skete. --Sean 15:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Push-ups

The corresponding article is lacking some information. What is a good number of push-ups, if I want to be on the top 5%? How many push-ups Marines and the like must do? What is a good complement for push-ups? If I combine push-ups with pull-ups, what muscle am I NOT working? --217.12.16.53 (talk) 09:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The top 5% of what? Also, please be aware that we can't give medical advice here. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

That's no medical advice. It's a question about fitness. Top 5% of the people who do push-ups. --217.12.16.53 (talk) 11:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I mean, the top 5% by what criterion? Muscle mass? Body mass? Duration of continual push-ups? And note that 'the top 5% of those who dio push-ups' is a different thing to 'the top 5% of the population'. In any case, I don't think that sufficiently precise data exist for you to be able to determine this. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Here are the charts for the Army PT test. You need to score a 270, if I remember correctly, to get into Special forces. So if you want to be in the 0.4% percentile, you'd need to score enough push-ups in 2 minutes to allow for a 270 score on the PT test. There is also, the One-Hundred Push-Ups test. What do you mean a good complement? You mean in terms of muscle groups? If so, it isn't as though your body has muscles that are complementary. If you mean another exercise that requires little material and works a decent number of different muscle groups, then squats would be it.--droptone (talk) 11:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Did you mean Press-ups? Edison (talk) 22:22, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the same thing, n'est-ce pas? Just transatlantic variation. Algebraist 00:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers so far. I meant a good complement in terms of what muscle I was not training. Doing Squat (exercise) is also a nice tip.--217.12.16.53 (talk) 09:11, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

PHD on a subject

I'm a student of B.sc on chemistry honours . I'm interested in Quantum mechanics . I want Ph.D on this subject after my graduation. Without M.sc can I doing Ph.D ? It is possible ? If possible how I go ahed ?Supriyochowdhury (talk) 13:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You certainly need a Masters degree before you do your PhD. But you can choose programs which offer joint Masters and PhD program which lasts about 5-6 years or more depending on the subject. - DSachan (talk) 14:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Have a look at PhD. You could always become rich and famous and try to get an honorary degree. There are companies that call themselves "university" that sell degrees. Unless you are interested in a rather expensive piece of wall art, stay away from those. You may encounter that - even with a Masters - finding a PhD program in quantum physics that has openings is a rather rare thing. Highly competitive doesn't even begin to describe the field. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 14:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Without the knowledge and skills gained through an MSc degree in an appropriate subject, you probably wouldn't be in a position to take a PhD, even if a course would take you on. My (strictly non-professional) advice to you is to be patient, do an MSc, and get a research job in the field. This is difficult, but still nothing like as difficult as applying for a PhD placement on spec. A good MSc topic for the career path you have outlined would be something like physical chemistry or quantum physics. Quantum mechanics is a pretty specialised field, even within atomic physics, so a good theoretical grounding will be essential. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

These statements do not describe the American degree system so you may want to consider studying internationally. In an American course, you would probably be expected to get a good result on a GRE subject test in your chosen field which, of course, requires study of the subject (like a B.S. degree might offer). Once accepted into a PhD program, obtaining a Master's first may, in fact, be discouraged as it may require additional classes and papers - and takes away time available for conducting the research required for the PhD. The edges of the fields of physics and chemistry overlap as much as the fields of biology and chemistry (biochemistry). Perhaps instead of pure quantum mechanics, you would be interested in some branch of theoretical chemistry such as quantum chemistry, computational chemistry, mathematical chemistry, statistical mechanics. All of these require mathematical and computer skill as well as a chemistry and physics knowledge. Rmhermen (talk) 15:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

As already mentioned, a masters degree is NOT a prerequisite in the American system; in fact it is most common to enter a PhD program directly from a bachelors program. If you intend to get the PhD, there is usually no need to enter a seperate master's degree program first. At some schools, they just give you a master's certificate in your second or third year of your PhD program; I have several friends who got theirs in the mail without even realizing they earned it along the way. In other cases, some schools offer what is sometimes derisively known as the "Consolation Masters Degree". It is usually awarded to PhD candidates whose doctoral research doesn't pan out; either the research leads to a dead end, and there isn't any publishable data from it, or often more likely they get "beaten" to publishing the information. I had a teacher in High School who got his master's degree in History this way; 1 month before his dissertation, someone published a book that basically usurped all his ideas. No novel research = No PhD. He got the 5-year Master's instead, and such is the way it goes. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

In many American universities it is perfectly possible to enter a doctoral program without obtaining a Masters degree first. This allows the student to obtain the doctorate somewhat faster and at slightly less cost. The downside is that if some problem arises toward the end of the program - typically with one's doctoral thesis - you have obtained nothing. So, let us say, it becomes necessary for you to rewrite - or even rethink and rewrite - your thesis, you'd only have the bachelor's degree, not a master's, with which to get a job while reworking the thesis. Essentially, going straight for the Ph.D. is a gamble; getting the Master's first may be construed as insurance in this context. ("A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.")

Those are the options, but I wouldn't presume to advise you as to what to do. B00P (talk) 00:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

In Britain, I know that some universities (if they think you show promise) are willing to accept you provided you complete relevant lecture courses from their masters or undergraduate courses whilst enrolled as a research student. I'd say that you should contact the admissions department of any university you are interested in, they are generally very helpful at explaining exactly what they require: it's not in their interest to mess you about. 163.1.176.253 (talk) 10:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

animal trivia

a sea creature found all over the world considered royal by blood. it's also edible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.255.218.250 (talk) 15:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Almost definitely Squid. Royal blood is apparently 'blue' (not really) and a squid's ink is 'blue' (indigo?). 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

My first thought was King crab. --Onorem♠Dil 15:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Horseshoe crab, I'd say, actually. They literally have blue blood. I remember reading that in National Geographic, I believe... --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 15:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Haustellum brandaris, from which Tyrian purple was made? Adam Bishop (talk) 16:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

How about emperor seahorse? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Goats in Paris

What are the relevant ordinances on keeping goats in residential areas of Paris? Thanks. --Sean 16:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Without wishing to give legal advice, they seem to get away with it in the Menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes. Certes (talk) 21:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

News pictures aggregator

I used to go on a site that shows good quality images of news events. It gathered pictures from different agencies, Reuters, EPA, Getty news, etc. I lost the address. Anyone knows which site I'm talking about? Alternatively I'm looking for news pictures in high quality. Thank you. 190.220.104.35 (talk) 16:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The Big Picture has some high quality news photos. Tomdobb (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Story Ending?

So a friend of mine gave a speech in Writing & Public Speaking class today. It was a great story, but he left it hanging intentionally (for suspense. He thinks it's funny.) My creative juices aren't flowing, so I'll give the jist of the story:

A man lives in a fictional town in a fictional city. He makes pots. He learned the craft from his father, who learned it from his father and so on. Every day he makes five pots, sells them, and uses the $ to buy food. But eventually everyone has a pot. What does he do now?

Any brilliant endings? Just curious...76.120.179.184 (talk) 18:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

This type of question doesn't really belong on the reference desk. Tomdobb (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh that is so disrespectful to the masters of the universe approach to re-invigorating a stagnant economy. He obviously has to persuade his clients to re-cycle their old pots and make them feel guilty and anti-social and off-green if they choose not to do so. He, of course, will give them a 5% discount off the price of their new pots in return for surendering their old pots for re-cycling BUT the cost of raw materials and green processing and disposal has unfortunately lifted the new-pots-price by 15%. Result? Everybody (plus the environment) wins. 92.21.155.155 (talk) 19:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Stories without an ending are not always designed to annoy you. Sometimes, including in this case I would expect, they are designed to make you think about the resolution. As 92.21.155.155 pointed out there are real world parallels here. Of course there are plenty of possible endings to the story, some nice and some not so nice. But coming up with what you think is a good ending is the point. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

For instance, you might think about how K.C. Gillette got rich. In particular, the second paragraph under Biography. For a related subject, see also Ponzi scheme. --Anonymous, 20:50 UTC, April 7, 2009,.

Obviously, this is a parable designed to make you think about surviving at business even in a saturated market.

It's clear to me that our hero needs to convince people to replace their old pots. Perhaps by inventing a new style of pot that is better in some real or perceived way. Or perhaps by expanding his territory, if people from neighboring towns need pots.

(Alternate answer : Pot lids. Everyone in town will want one. )

Personally, it seems contrived. Three generations of pot makers in a small town and only just now the market saturated? APL (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

1. At 3am he takes a baseball bat and goes visiting the kitchens of people of the village. Mysteriously, pots around the village are found to have spontaneously disintigrated during the night. The demand for replacement pots goes through the roof.
2. He continues to make the same pots as before but puts up a large sign saying "Our pots are now carbon-neutral!" - everyone is guilt-tripped into buying new pots.
3. He continues to make the same pots but puts a little purple dot on each one. Then he merely has to find a local movie star to say that pots without purple dots are un-cool and everyone will switch.
4. Pots don't last forever. They get broken. Since pots are presumably a necessity and he has a monopoly on the market, as his sales volume goes down, he may simply increase his prices proportionately. If he sells only 1% of the pots he once did - but makes 100x the profit on each one (noting that his manufacturing costs have now decreased) - what does he care?
5. He can invest in technology to adapt the product to make it better. Consumers will see the advantage of the new pot design and replace their old ones in great numbers.
6. He can do research to find new uses for pots, thereby increasing the number each person will need.
7. If you put a certain part of the male anatomy into one of these new purple pots, it will get bigger!(These claims have not been tested by the FDA and make no claim to diagnose, treat or cure any medical condition)
8. Instead of selling pots, he leverages his brand image to make pot-themed novelty items - hats with pots embroidered on the front - "Potty" action figures for the kids.
9. Showing the amazing sales figures from previous years, he stops making pots and instead sell franchises.

SteveBaker (talk) 21:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

@ SteveBaker. I think that is the entire content of my MBA marketing courses summed up in 9 points. Nice work, that! // BL \\ (talk) 22:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

This is an old story. He invents tins and can openers and cardboard boxes with plastic bags inside which people buy and throw away instead of storing stuff in pots and we get the modern world. Then he invents recycling and being green. Oh and saving is anti-social it'll stop the economy growing. Dmcq (talk) 22:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

(for ceramic pots only) He makes a new kind of pot that is quite suitable for Molotov cocktails and sells them to local extortionists. Coincitentally, he makes a new fireproof building material, since there seems to be a sudden demand for it. -Arch dude (talk) 23:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Being a clever lad, he opens both doors, and after the Tiger eats the Lady, our hero marries the princess. B00P (talk) 00:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

There's the "fashion" angle, where you change the line of pots every year and advertise to convince everyone they need the latest fashion and that their current pots are "so last year".

Then there's planned obsolescence, where you design the pots to fail, so you can then sell replacements. The most blatant case of planned obsolescence is toothbrushes designed to have half the bristles dissolve after a few months, ostensibly as a reminder to replace "that old, germy toothbrush". Of course, they don't mention that a normal toothbrush could last for decades, and you could just dip it in bleach periodically when you get paranoid about germs.

You could also make the pots either entirely disposable or have a disposable liner, so people can "avoid the hassle of cleaning them". StuRat (talk) 05:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

You get the local press to run a story on how the government is going to require a high tax to be paid on all old pots, or make it patriotic to melt your current pot so that you can buy American. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The question didn't say whether it was in Iraq or not... --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:58, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

He sells pots to neighboring villages as well. And be may diversify into teapots, roof tiles, and mugs. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:59, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that he has a finite demand for a product that generally doesnt need to be replaced. If this artisan is only making enough money from selling the pots for food, he is going to be in big trouble once the demand runs out. So he needs to either expand his production to another town/group of people or diversify. Maybe people also need other pieces of furniture that match the pot, like cups or bowls or plates. If he has a surplus of pots, he can start selling these products as a set. He can start selling "limited edition" pots as status symbols. Pots don't really lend themselves to planned obsolescence or any sort of loss leader business model unless they are very, very poorly constructed and who wants a pot that falls apart in a year? Livewireo (talk) 21:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, if he has the monopoly, as it seems from the wording of the OP's question, it would make perfect sense to make pots that fall apart after a year or so, so they need to be replaced or repaired. He would have an endless supply of customers, then.--KageTora (talk) 01:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

And, with my suggestion of disposable pots or liners (the ultimate planned obsolescence, a product which only works once) this can be sold as being an advantage. The trick is to rip people off without them knowing you are doing it, the environment be damned. StuRat (talk) 14:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Eventually, people will catch on to the price and environmental problems of single-use pots. Then it's time to make a big deal about your brand-new "Reusable Pots". These can be more expensive and lower quality than the original pots because they will still seem superior compared to the disposable ones that people are currently using. APL (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Another approach to planned obsolescence, more in line with the toothbrush example, would be to claim that some type of toxic chemical builds up on pots after a while, and use that to justify pots made to fail after a certain number of uses. You could also use that justification to lease pots instead of selling them, so those customers don't have to deal with those "nasty old, polluted pots". StuRat (talk) 14:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

...whilst recycling the old pots by selling them to people in another town or village....I think we are developing a working business model here.--KageTora (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

seth bullock's family history

my dad and i are trying to find out if it might be possible that we are related to the famous seth bullock. what i can't seem to find out is any information about his father or his father's family. i have relatives, henry bullock born 9-29-1825 who had a child leonard bullock born 1-13-1852. according to my records he was born in Elba, N.Y. genesee co. and i though i read where some of seth bullock's family came from new york. can you help me in my search. it would mean a lot to my dad and i would love to find some information for him. thank you for taking the time to read this, and help me with any information or suggestions —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bullockrelative? (talk • contribs) 23:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

The Seth Bullock article says his father was British, his mother was Scottish, and he came from Canada, so it's unlikely. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 01:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

April 8

protectionism

How deep are the roots of protectionism responsible for the currunt economic meltdown . Is it really responsible? What are the other factors. Anyone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 09:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's reference desk is not really the place to start an open discussion. We do have articles on Protectionism and on the Late 2000s recession and on the Financial crisis of 2007–2009. You are free to form your own opinions based on your reading of those articles. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:29, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

It is worth noting that the period since the early 1980s has seen unprecedented globalisation and the removal of protectionist policies. There has also been many calls since the start of the crisis for nations not to introduce new protectionist measures (clearly, these are being made because some countries have been tempted to). If you were to claim that protectionism was responsible for the current slump, you would have to explain why it caused a crisis now, rather than ten or twenty years ago, when globalisation had not moved so far. Warofdreams talk 13:41, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't heard anyone argue that protectionism got the world into this economic downturn. Mostly the fears seem the other way around: that the economic slump will cause protectionism. That indeed seems to be the case, and is of great concern to people that believe free markets are a crucial element of advancing the human condition. TastyCakes (talk) 14:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The concept that unrestricted free markets and free trade will lead to global economic growth has certainly been widely discredited by the current crisis, which could lead to what critics call protectionism and advocates are more likely to call fair trade (requiring trade partners to have comparable environmental, health, and safety standards, for example). StuRat (talk) 16:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Although it would take some gall to present the US government's attempt to exclude foreign steel in stimulus projects or European banks' beggar thy neighbour policies as "fair trade". I'd also say the dramatic improvements in the lives of millions of Chinese and Indians suggest that, "fair or not", global free trade has been of net benefit to the world. TastyCakes (talk) 16:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

There certainly are those who benefit from free trade, at least initially. The wealthy in every country seem to benefit, for example. For the poor and middle class it's not so clear. In the West those groups are likely to lose their jobs or have lower wages as a result of competing with third-world wages, health, safety, and environmental standards. This is somewhat offset by lower prices for imported goods, but not for long.

The West also loses it's industrial capacity, which has both negative economic and defense implications. In China and India there are more factory jobs, but they often pay the bare minimum that a person needs to survive. So, like in Dickens' London, conditions are often horrid. I saw a description of a town in India where leather is tanned. The entire town smells of rotting animal skins, chemicals pollute the water, and clumps of animal fur blow through the streets. It might be worth it if they were getting rich, but only the factory owners are. In the case of China, this economic growth also props up a deeply corrupt and anti-democratic government. And products and services from China and India are often inferior. A wrench from China that breaks when you use it or a call center operator from India who can't understand you or do anything more than read "answers" from a book aren't really very helpful, even when the lower cost is factored in.

But the most troubling aspects are what happens in the long run. In the case of earlier "third-world nations", like Japan, which competed with the West, the size of the population was such that bringing Japan up to the economic level of North America and Europe only required small economic dislocations here. However, the populations of India and China are such that achieving economic equality via free trade will be more about bringing the economies of the West down the their level than bringing them up to ours. StuRat (talk) 14:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

If you really believe free trade only benefits the wealthy, and that it is "not clear" for the lower and middle classes, please watch this video and share your thoughts on it with me. Also note that poverty rates in China have dropped from over 60% to under 10% since economic reforms were started. Similarly, the rate in India has dropped from 60% in 1981 to 42% today. Liberal economic reforms can be shown to have been beneficial throughout the world in every size and type of economy, from South Korea to Singapore and Hong Kong to ex-soviet states. And yes, now in China and India as well. If your argument is that China and India shouldn't be allowed to compete with the rest of the world because their economies could become so big they'd swamp our own, then I think you're starting to demonstrate the thin line between protectionism and "fair trade" quite well. TastyCakes (talk) 14:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

You said "beneficial throughout the world in every size and type of economy" but then only listed developing nations in Asia. Can Africa be shown to have benefited ? Can the poor and middle class of Western Europe and North America ? As for poverty levels in China and India, there's a problem in measuring poverty strictly by income level. Subsistence farmers can, and have, existed for centuries with little or no cash. They tend to have a barter economy, not a cash economy. This makes determining the rate of poverty of such people quite difficult. So, a good portion of those former 60% "living in poverty" in China may have been doing just fine. Of course, once they leave the farms and move to factories in the cities, then they do need cash. I've seen lots of documentaries on the life of the average Chinese factory worker, and it doesn't look like much of a life. StuRat (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed; I will say that on the balance free trade has been a net benefit. The question, largely unanswerable, is whether the "bottom" of this current crisis would not be better than the "top" of what our world would look like without a general commitment to market economics. Certainly, things need tweaking, but there are babies that need not be thrown out with any bathwater here... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:56, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and the free trade movement describes that "tweaking" as insisting on equal pay, health, safety, and environmental standards. StuRat (talk) 14:42, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, if anyone had been saying that free trade will prevent bank fraud and housing bubbles, they're discredited; otherwise I gotta say, huh? —Tamfang (talk) 03:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly :) TastyCakes (talk) 04:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It's more "free markets" (as in a lack of government regulations) which has caused the current economic crisis. StuRat (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Royal Mail's Red Rubber Bands

I ran across this article on the BBC news site. "The Royal Mail is under pressure to stop its posties from dropping red rubber bands onto the ground." Not being from the UK, I'm slightly baffled. Can anyone explain the Royal Mail/red rubber band thing to me? Why do they seem to be a cultural artifact in Britain - I'm not aware of the rubber band usage of my local post office, and I seriously doubt there would ever be a "on a lighter note" news piece about them. -- 128.104.112.117 (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

They appear to be widely used by postmen, who join together bundles of letters with them (e.g. all letters for this road), and who then discard the bands once they've delivered the letters. I can attest to having picked up many of the things, fwiw. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Royal Mail uses over 800 million rubber bands per year. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't normal anti-littering laws apply to postal carriers ? StuRat (talk) 15:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

And why don't they take them back to base to re-use them the next day? BrainyBabe (talk) 16:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I recommend Stu & BB read the link in Gandalf61's post, which somewhat answers their questions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

As a former letter carrier (summer job when I was in college) myself, I can confirm that rubber bands are also used in the U.S. as described by Tagishsimon. I put the "used" bands in a pocket of the leather satchel and brought them back to the post office, though. Deor (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

It has become such a ubiquitous sight that the BBC website even has a page for '10 things you can do with all those discarded Royal Mail rubber bands'. Tongue in cheek, of course.--KageTora (talk) 19:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

which is, in fact, the same story the OP linked to...--Tagishsimon (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Whoops! Same link as the OP's!--KageTora (talk) 19:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Nah, you linked to BBC1; they linked to BBC2 - totally different. If anyone has the ITV link, maybe we can get Benny Hill's take on this... Matt Deres (talk) 19:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

My mail comes wrapped in a rubber band probably once a month or so. I'm not in the UK, I'm in the US. Basically it's on days that have a sale flyer wrapped around a lot of smaller pieces. And this is when I go out to meet the mail lady. If it's in our mailbox, there generally isn't a rubber band. Dismas|^(talk) 02:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Similarly, here in Canada I sometimes get mail with a rubber band around it. Presumably it happens when my mail is the last thing in the rubber-banded bundle. And presumably British postal workers were told not to do that, so they started discarding the rubber bands instead. --Anonymous, 04:10 UTC, April 9, 2009.

My parents' mail (in the UK) sometimes has a band round it, but mine never does. They live on a very short "spur" of three houses, so I guess they get the band when there's no post for either of the others. I live on the middle of an urban street, so will never be the last in the bundle. 93.97.184.230 (talk) 07:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but so do I! So there! :-) --Anon, 08:37 UTC, April 9.

I think it would be a good idea to get the posties to put the rubber band through with the last bunch of letters, as it saves us picking them all up. Having said that, the last house in the street would probably end up with loads of rubber bands!--KageTora (talk) 20:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been helping out with a friend's paper shop recently, delivering papers in the morning for 15 minutes on my mountain bike (starts the day off nicely before spending the rest of it sitting down typing like a maniac!), and it's around the same time that the Postmen are delivering, and I find one of these things on EVERY street, proving Tagishsimon's statement that they are bundled one set for each road.--KageTora (talk) 04:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course, all of this background doesn't necessarily prove it's the posties who are dropping the rubber bands. It could be the recipients of the mail, who, in their rush to open their latest batch of unexpected bills, drop the items themselves. Or it could be some of both. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

No, Jack. In the UK, most letters are delivered directly through the front door (a wonderful source of pleasure for kids on Guy Fawkes night!). We don't have outside postboxes like in the US (I don't know about Oz). If they dropped them, they would be in the hallway, not in the street.--KageTora (talk) 20:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in an episode of MI-5, a "safe house" was built with a large mail slot in the front door, suitable for sliding a bomb through. That, combined with the inability of anyone inside to leave without a working key-card, made the house into a death trap. StuRat (talk) 20:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, in the UK there are plenty of instances where someone who (presumably) doesn't like the occupant of the house has poured petrol through the letter-box (as we call it, even though it's not a box, just a direct opening into the house) then threw a match in. It's really a good idea to have outside postboxes, like everywhere else seems to have!--KageTora (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

What, no outside post boxes at all? (Yes, they're the norm in Oz, too). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we should collect the rubber bands they drop and shoot them at them the next time they drop one. This suggestion has been approved by the Ministry of Fitting Punishments. StuRat (talk) 20:38, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

My dad is a mailman and he always hangs onto his rubber bands, but when he has holidays and someone else covers his walk he usually comes back the next week to find a bunch of rubber bands scattered around the pick-up boxes along his route. He says he's definitely in the minority about not dropping them. (Then again, it was a number of years ago he told me this, so I don't know if the phenomenon is changing as "greenness" is becoming more mainstream.) This also says something about Jack's suggestion that it might be the customers dropping the rubber bands. The pick-up boxes (this is the system in Canada anyway - I don't know if it holds true for other countries; and I should point out that I made up the name "pick-up boxes;" I don't know what they're actually called) are where the mailmen pick up the mail every so often along the route so they don't have to carry it all at once. My dad says this is where the rubber bands accumulate and only the mailmen use these boxes, not the customers, so the posties are definitely the culprits. Needless to say, this is all completely OR. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 22:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

'Institute' Definition

Hello I am looking to find out where the first 3-4 sentences for the definition of 'Institute' came from? I am asking because I would like to cite that source or Wikipedia if it is an original Wikipedia definition? Thanks Ted Auch —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wauch (talk • contribs) 16:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you'd probably be better off using a decent dictionary for this kind of thing. I'd also add that using dictionary definitions in a paper or speech never strikes me as particularly clever, and is certainly overdone. TastyCakes (talk) 16:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The sentence will almost certainly have multiple authors. See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for the preferred method of doing this. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:54, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is land advertised as "x acres, more or less"?

Why is it when you see land for sale the ad says x number of acres m/l which I presume means more or less?64.196.11.97 (talk) 20:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

It provides the surveryor with a margin of error if the land is difficult to measure up to a certain whole number. For example, the land may be 2.93 acres, or 3.12 acres but they will round it to 3 for an easier listing and easier pricing. Livewireo (talk) 21:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Some very old parcels of land in the US are described in land records (deeds and titles) by metes and bounds rather than by reference to geodetic survey markers. I have a farm in Tennessee that is "188 acres, more or less." Its western boundary is "bounded by the center of Kennedy creek, subject the meander" The farm "meets the farm to the east along the top of the ridge" -Arch dude (talk) 22:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Read 'Mr Blandings builds his dream house' for the effect of this phrase.--79.71.217.59 (talk) 06:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

In the Blandings movie, based on a book, based on a factual magazine article, the country folks would always cheat the city slickers and the "more or less" would always be "less." Some country properties have never had a proper survey all the way around, with old metes and bounds deed going back to the 1700, with corners being stakes, rock piles or stumps long gone, or referenced to long-gone barns, or creeks which meandered, with bearings based on magnetic compass readings which have varied by 8 degrees since the surveyor read his compass in 1862. The property may have gained or lost parcels by purchase and sale, with perhaps only the dividing line surveyed. It can cost $6000 or more to have a modern surveyor run a survey all the way around, and neighboring property owners may disagree with the survey, resulting in potential litigation. Edison (talk) 19:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

street names of detroit

what is the stories behind these Streets of Detroit Michigan and the street names are Laura,Rosa Parks Boulevard, Phillip,Carol,Raymond,and Bewick? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.112.134.30 (talk) 20:12, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a good place to start http://www.geocities.com/histmich/streetname.html ny156uk (talk) 20:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I would have hoped the origin of Rosa Parks Boulevard was easy enough. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:39, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Note that Detroit also has Rosa Parks parks. So, if someone leaves their car at those places, then he "parks at Parks parks". StuRat (talk) 13:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Forbidden versions of the German coat of arms?

I know that the public use of some Nazi Germany insignia, in order to commemorate or propagate the Nazi ideology instead of simply mentioning it in historical context, is a criminal offence in Germany. To what extent does this extend to the German coat of arms? Nazi Germany used a highly stylised version of the traditional Reichsadler, which has since been reverted to the traditional one. Nazi Germany had two versions of the eagle, one symbolising the Nazi party, the other symbolising the country, distinguished simply by the way the eagle's head faced. Leaving out the obvious use of the swastika, is either or both of these stylised versions of the Reichsadler forbidden on its own? JIP | Talk 20:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

April 9

19th Century Scottish Towns

For the purpose of family tree research could the towns of Armadale and Bathgate be considered the same? What information I've found on your site is that Bathgate appears first in the 12th century but there is no elaboration on Armadale. They are approximately 2.5 miles apart now but in the 1800's I wonder if that meant anything.

Thank you, --ScotsBloodline (talk) 00:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Simple answer: no. Longer answer: yes :)

Bathgate can, as you say, be traced back to the C12 or earlier. Armadale as a town dates back only as far as 1785, according to http://www.armadale.org.uk/localhistory.htm ("Armadale, from the building of the first house in the year 1795 up to the year 1850, had grown very slowly"). 2.5 miles is a considerable distance - moreso in the 1800s. I'm sure that is is unlikely in the extreme that anyone from Armadale would consider themselves to live in Bathgate. There is a big however, however. And that is that Armadale was in the parish of Bathgate, and so it would be accurate to say of an Armadale dweller, that they lived in the parish of Bathgate. And so far as genealogical records are concerned, I suspect that much of what is available will be parish records which may or may not draw a distinction between the two places. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a word of caution, though I apologise if this turns out to be a bit of a red-herring. There is another Armadale I know of in Scotland (having visited last year), and that is on the Isle of Skye, a short ferry crossing from Mallaig, neither of which are anywhere within 100 miles of Bathgate, West Lothian. 92.20.13.27 (talk) 17:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Thai Wedding

If this constitutes a request for legal advice please feel free to ignore/delete. My question is simply this: If a man marries a thai woman in thailand is that considered a legal marriage in the western world, specifically UK?

cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.138.179 (talk) 07:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

This site (http://www.th4u.com/thai_marriage.htm) has some info. It suggests that yes it would be considered legal but that the UK would require 'evidence' by way of an Affidavit or Statutory form. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 07:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about Thailand, but I married a Japanese woman in Japan. The process was that I had to inform the UK Embassy that we were marrying, we would have an interview, then they would leave a notice up for 21 days, after which I had to go back to the Embassy to tell them that I still intended to marry. After that I was free to marry. You do not need to register the marriage unless she is coming to live in the UK, for which she will need a spousal visa. This is for Japan, but you are asking about the UK 'law' on this, so I think this is relevant. Good luck!--KageTora (talk) 20:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

White out

I have a note from someone where the bottom part is whited out. I would like to see what is whited out, but the person signed her name on top of it. Is there a way to see what is under the white out without damaging the note? Anonymous--12:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

If you turn the paper around and hold it up to the light it's often possible to see what is underneath what we in the UK know as Tippex. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:24, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

By the way, a bit of wiki-surfing just informed me that the original correction fluid was called Liquid Paper and was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith out of the Monkees. Extraordinary. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I already tried holding it up to the light, but I'll try again with a better light. And I never knew that about Mike Nesmith's mother. Any other responses are welcome! Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 19:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

One time, I used a simple eraser and it took it off cleanly. Do it lightly, though. --Reticuli88 (talk) 19:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Anti-trust

In the US, does the government have any way to legally prevent a company from getting so big that it's collapse would cause a recession or depression ? Certainly if they engage in anticompetitive practices an antitrust suit can be filed. And media companies can be limited by arguing that having control over too many outlets (newspapers, radio, and TV) infringes on freedom of the press and freedom of speech. However, if a company has no media outlets and doesn't do anything bad, can it be broken up just because it's "too big" ? StuRat (talk) 15:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The US has the Federal Trade Commission (http://www.ftc.gov/bc/index.shtml). I would expect that went considering mergers/acquisitions they consider whether or not it is in the interests of the public for the companies to merger (or be acquired), but can't find definitive confirmation either way. ny156uk (talk) 15:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Two troubles: 1) a company doesn't have to be very big to be "too big to fail". Neither AIG nor Chrysler account for very much of their respective markets. In the banking sector the failure of even a small bank can be catastrophic. 2) "Too big to fail" is often a matter of politics. In my humble opinion the US economy would certainly survive the loss of either GM or Chrysler, just as Britain survived the loss of it's car industry; but it would cause a lot of pain to a lot of voters, and all concentrated in one area. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Answering the original question, I don't think so. Antitrust law is the only tool that comes to mind, and as you note, the company has to engage in illegal anticompetitive practices in order to merit drastic remedies like breakups. There is no US law putting a ceiling on the size or power of a corporation. Tempshill (talk) 18:25, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Longest red light

In Marin County, California there is a narrow tunnel about a half mile long. It is so narrow that it has a single lane to service both directions. There is a traffic light at each end of the tunnel, which stays red for about five minutes to allow traffic from the opposite end to go through. For a minute or two both ends have a red light to allow traffic already in the tunnel time to exit. Are there other places in the United States with a similar set-up? Where is the longest red light located? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.90.166 (talk) 17:24, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Drawbridges will have very long red lights when the bridge is up, but that's not normally a regular, predictable thing. APL (talk) 18:19, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It's really fun when that tunnel is closed for repairs (like it was after the Loma Prieta quake); people instead get to drive on the edge of a cliff with nothing but optimism between them and the breakers far below. On the other hand, they don't have to wait for the red light to change. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The Easter/Christmas road toll and the media

I don't want this to sound like a rant, but I have to give some background first. In Australia, Christmas and Easter come with various traditions. One of them is how the road toll is reported in the media. Leading up to the events, we're told that all the police are going to be on duty, and speeding/drink-driving/drug-driving/mobile phone-using/seat belt non-wearing drivers "will be caught". We're assured it's not about revenue, but the public are being given an incentive to drive safely, and arrive alive. That's all good. Then the deaths inevitably start happening. That's bad. What we get given, though, is a state-by-state breakdown, which is updated frequently. Newspapers have maps, with the state figures shown prominently. We're told things like "<state> has had its worst Easter road toll on record, with 17 deaths; <other state> has had only 3". Maybe the fact that we have only 6 states and 2 territories lends itself to this type of comparison; I doubt it would happen if we had 50 states, like the USA. But apart from that, I've always wondered who is interested in this type of information. Why would a person living in Tasmania (say) have any real interest in knowing the number of people killed in Western Australia (say)? At any other time of the year, reporting of road deaths is generally confined to the state concerned, not broadcast throughout the nation, unless it's something particularly horrific or record-breaking. (I've always regarded this daily (or even hourly, on radio) reporting of the state-by-state tallies and the national total as extremely ghoulish, but I seem to be a lone voice on that score because it's become such a hallowed tradition that I doubt any opinion I may express on the matter would ever have any effect.)

The other part of the reporting is that this year's figures are always compared with last year's figures, state-by-state and nationally. I've always wondered what makes whatever last year's figures were some sort of benchmark. What if last year happened to be particularly high; or particularly low? What does that comparison tell anyone? I'd have thought a better comparison would be with an average over, say, the past 10 years. But why compare this year's figures with any previous years at all? When fewer people die this year compared to last year, newsreaders have a happy face; and when more die this year than last year, they put on a sad face. They seem to treat this subject as some sort of contest.

So, now that I've veered too close to a rant, what I want to know is: Do other countries have similar media practices? -- JackofOz (talk) 18:45, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

In Ireland the road toll (does everywhere use that phrase?, its kind of odd) tends to be mentioned on the news after bank holiday weekends. I suppose its because the number of deaths are higher than at other times of year; with more people on the roads, making longer journeys. The statistics may be more readily available from the police, in an effort to raise people's awareness.Stanstaple (talk) 19:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard the term "road troll" in the US, but I like it. "Armed bandits" also seems appropo (and if the reason for giving tickets isn't for "revenue enhancement", we can assume they will give all that money to charity rather than keeping it, right ?). As for the reason for state-by-state and year-to-year comparisons, it's because people just don't know if a number is high or low without some context. A dozen people died ? Is that normal or not ? (How would they know what normal is, without a basis for comparison ?) StuRat (talk) 20:25, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's why I suggest a 10-year average, not just last year's figure. What's to say last year's was normal? It may have been spectacularly low, or it may have been horrifically high. Just comparing this year's figure with last year's figure tells you nothing except whether this year is higher or lower than last year. You still don't know whether it's anywhere near "normal" or not. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Is the complaint that reporters and mass media news organizations are stupid and/or that they have the memory of a sand flea? Agreed. Tempshill (talk) 22:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

In the UK we have the national road deaths figures that come out and a big thing is made of them. I've never seen this sort of "this <festive> period we saw X deaths, compared to last year where we had Y deaths" but certainly the UK media is very interested by road-death statistics (and i'd have to say quite rightly - whilst under 3000 (2008 saw 2,943 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/27/transport1) is impressive obviously the less the better. Comparing this year vs last-year is pretty common-place in every sort of media reporting and it's definitely questionable statistics-wise, but then they often use it to be able to produce a 'good' or 'bad' story - ultimately the long-term trend is less interesting (news wise) if it is only showing a 0.5% drop per annum. ny156uk (talk) 22:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

April 10

What size of object can Steve Baker pick up with his nose?

I am interested I know it is a large object