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April 19

Mysterious blue towers

When I was in Houston Texas some time ago I was looking out my hotel window and saw a mysterious light blue tower in the distance that looked like a giant upside-down golf club. I thought at the time it was something like a promotional statue atop a sporting goods store. Later, driving through the city, I noticed more of them at various places, and realized they weren't really golf-club-shaped, more round, but from my perspective from my hotel room they looked that way. (I wish I'd taken a picture that I could show you, but I didn't.) So, what are those things? Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could it have been a water tower? These are ubiquitous in the landscape of low-lying American urban areas such as Houston. Here is a Google Image search showing some typical water towers. Marco polo (talk) 01:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A radar station? Or maybe air traffic control? Look like this?

Nope, it didn't have windows or anything. It definitely looked like a solid blue golf club. I think Marco polo's got it; it was probably a water tower. It looks like one of those pictures on the google search he linked to. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 02:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Avatars

Inspired by the thread about virtual crime on the Humanities desk, I was wondering if an avatar in a game like World of Warcraft or Second Life is a fictional character. Have there been any legal rulings or anything? Are they an extension of the player or a fictional character or a bit of both? Thanks. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 08:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last year there was a story in the press about the Belgian police investigating allegations of rape in Second Life [1]. I never heard what happened next, though. 194.171.56.13 (talk) 11:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The police take very seriausly criminal activitie in virtual worlds which obviusly relateed to real world activities.

What are you, 12? Please for the love of god use a bloody spell checker before posting your comments. Jesus. Green t-shirt (talk) 15:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, this person may well not have English as a first language, so fair play to them. Be nice.

Ham

How long does a cured meat such as ham, kept in the refrigerator, remain edible for? --Richardrj ^talk ^email 10:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience it depends on the quality of the ham. If you buy cheap, poorly cured ham from a supermarket then you can expect it to start 'going off' after a week or two. Dry cured ham from a deli will last maybe a month or six weeks. The long cured hams of continental Europe, jamon iberico, for example, will last for many months, or maybe longer, the temptation never permitted prolonged experimentation! Richard Avery (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/Ham/index.asp#3 says on dry cured hams that "These uncooked hams are safe stored at room temperature because they contain so little water, bacteria can't multiply in them." Mind you, the stuff costs an arm and a leg, particularly if one is a pig. Try the Naschmarkt or Julius Meinl am Graben (there is a bank on the corner for preprandial withdrawal syndroms). --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that paper thin sliced ham goes bad a lot quicker, due to increased surface area offering more sites for bacteria to go to work. StuRat (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who and where are Nuni

I have been reading about John Howard Griffin, author of Black Like Me. This biography says that as part of his WWII service he volunteered to be stationed (alone?) on a remote, presumably Pacific, island.

He lived on Nuni, as the natives called it, for a year. His charge was not only to learn the local tongue but to gain the islanders’ trust. To do so, he became one of them: fishing with the men, chewing betel nut, observing tribal customs and ceremonies, and even taking a wife. “They were one of the few truly primitive tribes left in the world,” he later wrote, “in a land where there was no sense of time or goal.” But life there was far from innocent. Behind the apparent languor Griffin discovered a harsh existence where children sometimes perished in brutal rites of initiation.

My Google-fu, as someone else so charmingly dubbed it, appears to be as weak as my wifi signal today. Apparently there is a noni plant, the juice of which is being marketed by e.g. Tahiti and the Cook Islands. This might be a clue via transliteration, or it might be a red herring. Where is Nuni and who were or are the people living there? This is a question worthy of the reference skills of the refdeskers! BrainyBabe (talk) 10:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First result: there is a Nuni in Indonesia. The only hit in Google Maps for "nuni" is "Nuni, Irian Jaya Barat Indonesia", which apparently lies in or near the western end of New Guinea on the Bird's Head Peninsula. I have yet to find "Nuni" on a map. Google shows it inland in "map" mode, but they put it in the water in "satellite" mode. Still looking. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this was interesting. After several other ideas failed, I searched on "John Howard Griffin" plus "Pacific". Ironically, the answer — or an answer — turned up (as the 12th hit) on [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/john-howard-griffin-and-black-121667.html this racist web page] that Griffin would no doubt have despised. It says the place was in the Solomon Islands.

Then searching for "Solomon Islands" plus "Nuni" turned up multiple sites, such as this one, which place the island at 6.65°S, 156.5833°E.

However, this doesn't seem to make sense! Those coordinates are on Choiseul Island, just a little inshore near one end of the island. And it's not as if Nuni Island is another name for it, because the same sites also show Choiseul Island by name with different coordinates. So this is still puzzling, and at this point I stop.

--Anonymous, 11:45 UTC, April 19, 2008.

A search of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency site shows a hit around the same place as Google Maps did, ~~45° 37’ 50”S, 134° 00’ 03”E~~ [see below]. Those coordinates land us about a mile inland along a river in Google Earth (which, puzzlingly, shows the name "Nuni" in the water nearby but no corresponding island). The site also reports an alternate spelling of "Noeni", which gives a few ghits as if it exists and is indeed Nuni. NGA had one other hit for "Nuni" someplace that couldn't be the one you're after, Russia, I think it was. --Milkbreath (talk) 12:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What?? First, if I type "Nuni" in the search box on the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency page you cited, I get zero hits; it just asks if I meant "Nuri" (which is irrelevant; it's an acronym, not a place name). Second, the position 45°S 134°E is nowhere near New Guinea; it's in an ocean basin (i.e. no islands there) south of Australia!

Since writing the previous posting I have also checked a large world atlas and it shows no place called Nuni. Of course, the original posting did say it was the name "the natives" used, so perhaps Nuni is another name for a place that we could easily look up if we only know what it was called. --Anon, 04:06 UTC, edited 04:09, April 20/08.

Leave it to me to screw that up. The coordinates should be 00° 46' 00" S, 133° 59' 00" E. Sorry, my browser locked up just as I was about to send, and I reported something I had written down but was obviously wrong. I think you have to be registered to use NGA; I got in through a university library. Please believe that I'm only the kind of idiot who can't type coordinates right, not the kind who makes stuff up. There is a Nuni on New Guinea with an alternate spelling "Noeni", and I believe that it must be the place he went. --Milkbreath (talk) 12:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for looking -- it is still a mystery. I get nothing from the NGIA site either. Nuni is the title of Griffin's 1956 novel, long out of print and not in my local library! Presumably that might have some clues. It is not clear to me how much of Griffin's autobiographical writings were ever published. Does anyone have access to works about him? BrainyBabe (talk) 08:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Griffin's papers are held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin [2]. Perhaps they might have some ideas? Rmhermen (talk) 13:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This link takes you into the Geonames search page at NGA. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I was curious enough to go to the library for this. First, none of the big world atlases (Times, National Geographic, Rand McNally) has any listing for "Nuni" or "Noeni". I also tried a couple of big gazetteers with no success. I then turned to literary reference books for anything about Griffin, but I found nothing specific enough to help. Finally I looked up Griffin as a subject in the library catalog and found two relevant hits:

Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision, by Griffin.
Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the story of BLACK LIKE ME by Robert Bonazzi, ISBN 1-57075-118-8.

The first book wasn't at my local branch, but the second one was. It does not give any name for the island in question, but describes it simply as "a remote island in the Solomon chain" and says he had dealings with "Vutha, grand chief of the Solomons". That would seem to conclusively rule out any location in New Guinea, at any rate.

Bonazzi's book also refers to Griffin having to learn "the Floridian dialect" for this mission. Obviously this does not refer to Florida, but it's not clear to me what it does refer to. Ethnologue.com has no listing for any language or dialect with that name or for any language starting with "Flor". (It does have a listing for a pair of languages called "Nuni", by the way, but they're used in West Africa and again clearly irrelevant.)

The attack that led to Griffin's blindness did not take place on Nuni but at his next assigned posting, Morotai. But it seems likely that Scattered Shadows would talk about his life before Morotai, and would therefore be the best place to find an answer to tihs question. The other possibility is the novel Nuni if it includes any information relating to the real-life island. It's not in my library either. --Anonymous, 22:50 UTC, April 20/08.

I'm trying to order a copy of Nuni through interlibrary loan. This one tasks me, and I will have it. Yup, it looks bad for New Guinea. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) O worthy refdeskers! O hard-working Anonymous! Truly I am impressed at how fast the horse can gallop once the bit is between his teeth! I am the small apprentice jockey crouched atop, who realises that she cannot control her mount, but O the view!

I think we may be more than half-way there. I can see the Google Earth co-ordinates on the coast of New Guinea, though no settlement. The link provided to NGIA says "your session has timed out". How annoying that Bonazzi's biography doesn't name the island! Is any other noble and intrepid refdesker inspired to go to their library for Nuni or Scattered Shadows? If I have to settle for just somewhere in the Solomons, I will, but so far the response has been really good, THANK YOU, so perhaps my luck will hold. We like a challenge, don't we? And we all like being patted on the back. Right, let's form a circle and start massaging each others' shoulders.... BrainyBabe (talk) 22:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Floridian language" could refer to one of the languages of Flores Island. Corvus cornix_talk 22:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unwilling to watch a horserace pass by without joining in, I, too, have visited my local library, which has an extensive collection of books on the history and geography of Pacific Islands. Far too many to read, but I checked the indexes on each and every one: no Nuni. Retiring to the World War II section, I then skimmed through various tomes describing the Pacific War. No joy. I even tried the children's section: plenty of books on the Solomon Islands (and so forth), but not one even mentions Nuni in passing. However, since the Solomons have over 100 languages/dialects, it is quite possible Nuni is the local name for an island we know by another name. The novel Nuni is probably the best bet. Gievn a few days, I may be able to access Scattered Shadows, if no one else can. Gwinva (talk) 00:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well done everyone, so far! Interesting guess re Flores Island. It feels intuitively right. The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center mentioned above seems unlikely, as its bits begin more than a decade after his island experience, and are not manuscripts touching on it. I look forward to someone getting a copy of Nuni or Shadows. BrainyBabe (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have Scattered Shadows here beside me, but the odds-on favourite for this horse race is not going to make the final gate I'm afraid, BrainyBabe, so a wise jockey will swap horses. Griffin describes the events on Morotai Island, but gives no details of his earlier service. Later, he refers to the writing of Nuni, but discusses only the act of writing and publishing, and makes reference to the main character: no reference to the island. However, the preface by Robert Bonazzi (who, I think, married his widow), has this:

"In 1941, he enlisted in the Air Force and was shipped to the Pacific front. Griffin spent 1943 living in a native village on a remote island in the Solomon chain, assigned to study the indigenous culture [...] In 1945 he was reassigned to the landing base at Morotai when a Japanese invasion plan was intercepted." (p. 13)

And in reference to his 1956 novel, Nuni we read: "He set the novel on a remote island in the South Pacific where he had lived in 1944" and that Nuni means "world" in the native idiom. (p. 11) Gwinva (talk) 01:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We await Milkbreath's library request for copy of Nuni, with, uh, baited breath. I don't think there is anywhere else to go, aside from a Griffin specialist. BrainyBabe (talk) 07:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Florida Islands where they spoke Floridian. Still no Nuni. 86.44.30.169 (talk) 07:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That link leads to a 1937 publication from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The article is locked, but the first page is free. I am amazed at how collectively clever we can be. (They should set the RefDesk to figure out the global food challenge or getting fuel into the Gaza Strip.) And who is this kind anonymous? A regular not logged in, or someone new who couldn't resist joining the extended horse race? BrainyBabe (talk) 10:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the first page: "Florida is a convenient name for the largest island in the Nggela group, British Solomon Islands. The group consists of three inhabited islands. The smaller western island bears the native name of Olevuga […The other two islands] bear the one native name of Nggela." BrainyBabe (talk) 10:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Milkbreath, having read Nuni, provides a conclusion here. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my part I've just read the above-cited Man in the Mirror: John Howard Griffin and the story of BLACK LIKE ME by Robert Bonazzi, ISBN 1-57075-118-8. I've made no headway in my attempts to identify the so-called "Floridian dialect" of Griffin's Solomons hosts, though it's clearly some form of Neo-Melanesian. As for Nuni, there's no such thing. Nuni is the fictional island Griffin invented to serve as the setting for his novelised version of his experiences there. Fictional by definition. Laodah (talk) 23:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dilated eyes

Please do not post medical questions on the reference desk. They are not allowed. If you are asking about health effects, it is a medical question. --Anon, 11:50 UTC, April 19, 2008.

We do not give medical advice. Information, on the other hand. 81.93.102.185 (talk) 15:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Life Comes to Mind

This question has been asked and made a theory before. But it still has me wondering. Wondering and wondering. I was playing Sims and Urbz recently when a matter came to me. Could all life be like the Sims? Our world is a world created by a player. What we do and what comes to mind is what the player tells us to do? The player laughs at us when we talk in our "sim" language, laughs as we dance "simly", and freaks out because our bladder is going to explode. A world where death is not really death were are merely deleted for pleasure or die of old age only to be recreated. Could this be possible? The world is just a virtual reality created by a player. The catch would be the players world would also be just a simulated world with another player. It just keeps going and going. There is really no god, but a creator creating for their entertainment.

Always

Cardinal Raven

Cardinal Raven (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Cardinal Raven[reply]

See Nick Bostrom / simulism et al.

On a tangent, some religions hold that humans are a creation of some master player. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something like that in The Truman Show. Julia Rossi (talk) 01:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've been playing Sims too long. Take a break :) 79.66.99.37 (talk) 12:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please also see brains in vats, solipsism. There are numerous fiction takes on this theme, such as The Truman Show, Piers Anthony's novel, Race Against Time and others.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See the film The Thirteenth Floor and the book it was based on, Simulacron 3. Corvus cornix_talk 21:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Surprised no one mentioned The Matrix. Astronaut (talk) 22:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm disappointed that the creators of The Sims didn't think about this and made it possible for one's sims to play The Sims on their computers as well. But the thing is, if you play The Sims 2 you will notice that the Sims are somewhat aware of their condition. Sometimes they look straight at you when you order them to do something they don't want to do. They also look at you when they are deprived of something and "ask" you to give it to them.206.252.74.48 (talk) 13:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do we not ask our gods for things when we are deprived of them? It's funny how real the Sims is. -^Violask8₁₉₇₆ 02:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]