Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 August 5

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August 5

Is there a record for most emails in someone's in box?

A friend recently figured out how to get back into his e-mail account, after having gotten a new one. He said he's up to 7,000 e-mails in his in box. He jokingly (well, maybe not, knowing him :-) said he'd like to get it up to 100,000.

I said I thought that would be a record, and wondered, is there a record? A very quick search (it's close to bedtime) didn't reveal any records, though I didn't check Guinness itself; would they have a record listed? Are there unused, unaccessed e-mail accoutns with millions, somewhere int he ether?Somebody or his brother (talk) 02:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I have 9,796 emails in my inbox right now. I received 6,473 spam emails in the last month alone. Your friend's 7,000 is so very much less than unremarkable. I doubt that anyone bar you seeks records in this area, since it would be trivial to break any given record, by the expedient of setting up an email account and sending it the requisite number of emails. Sorry to disappoint. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Another bad situation is when an autoreply replies to an autoreply and you get an email loop. Thousands of emails can accumulate. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Or run a website with a bad hosting company who can't seem to keep their database servers up and running. Then have software on that site that emails you everytime it tries to query a database and fails. 1500 emails in a little over three hours.... At least I learned what the max number of emails you can have in a given "conversation" within Gmail is: 61. After that, it starts a new "conversation" Dismas|^(talk) 05:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems obvious that it would not be trivial to beat any given record but I don't know what would burst first. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I would expect that certain famous individuals (particularly major politicians and senior tech company management) receive hundreds of emails per day. Any address that is widely disseminated (on purpose or by one's enemies) will be the recipient of great wodges of spam. Any public figure will receive friendly and helpful advice and requests from thousands of people every month — now that we don't have to sit down, find paper, type a letter, find an envelope, and buy a stamp, the urge to share our every little thought with our politicians is damn near irresistable. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:20, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's been claimed before that Bill Gates receives 4 million emails a day [1]. This wouldn't surprise me since I know of several people who used to fill in askbill@ms... on those annoying email address request things. Although I have the idea the askbill address may have stopped working at some stage anyway Nil Einne (talk) 14:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

dates backwards only in the US

why does every country in the world shows dates as day/month/year ie small/bigger/biggest (units of measurement) except the US which has month/day/year? (bigger,small/biggest). This seems ridiculous. Why is the US out of synch with the rest of the world? are there any other countries like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Payneham (talk • contribs) 05:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Canadians waffle, as in most matters of differences in style between the US and the UK. It's only confusing for days 1 to 12 inclusive of any month. // BL \\ (talk) 05:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Or put another way, it's only confusing for a nearly two-fifths of the days in the year. DuncanHill (talk) 15:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

We Americans like to think that the rest of the world is out of synch with us. :) Actually, military format, which is what you're describing, is used here. It's also the standard date format for Oracle database, for example. And legal documents will typically say "this __ day of ___ in ____". But to really do it right, for sorting purposes, it should be year-month-day. My guess as far as usage goes is that we tend to say "August 4th", for example, and the year gets stuck on the end when the context is unclear. Europeans would tend to say "4th August". But which usage drove which? Are Europeans parroting what's written? Or was it originally spoken that way and the writing parrots the spoken? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. tends to be out of synch with the rest of the world on a number of issues. I think one main reason is ultimately because the U.S. is more geographically isolated than most countries, so its inhabitants tend to have less of a world viewpoint than in much of the world.

However, It isn’t really true that the whole world except the U.S. uses a day/month/year date format. For example, the ISO 8601 standard YYYY-MM-DD format is common in some countries, as well as in databases and other computer applications. In some countries, it’s common to even use a calendar other than the Gregorian calendar, for example the Islamic calendar, the Iranian calendar, the Ethiopian calendar, or the Thai solar calendar. Red Act (talk) 07:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the US, I use YYYY:MM:DD and nobody knows when I wrote my letters. Nobody knows what a decimeter is, either. It's assumed (and is, sadly, mostly true) that the US can pretty much say "to hell with the standards, we're doing it our own way" and have everyone convert their units. ZS 07:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Most countries in East Asia traditionally use Year-Month-Date format (and thus, prefer YYYY-MM-DD today). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

They also (at least in Japan) write addresses from bigger to smaller. —Tamfang (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

And, to switch, why does the US stick to fractions ? Especially in this computer driven decimal age !86.197.21.121 (talk) 13:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)DT

In what context?AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Stock market, fuel pricing...86.197.21.121 (talk) 15:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)DT

Fuel prices, if you're talking about gasoline/petrol at the pump, is just phrased as fractions for clarity as, for example, "$2.89 9/10". Mills don't exist as negotiable coin or currency, while cents still do, so "2.899/gal." just looks weird by the roadside. Much easier to think in fractions of the smallest tangible coin. But there's utterly no difference in substance. It's not as if the price were "$2.89 5/12" or "$2.89 3/7". (However, as with all such "just-under" prices, there's an element of trivial psychological manipulation, as the 9/10 is smaller than the 9 which precedes it.)

As for stock prices, I think that the New York Stock Exchange did switch from eighths and sixteenths to decimals. Look at some recent quotations. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:55, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The fraction thing looks weird to me not the reverse. Nil Einne (talk) 22:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What's the point in having things the same? There's enough market around that the variety doesn't affect prices much. Diversity is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to go to another country and find the money the same the language the same the laws the same the electric sockets the same everybody driving on the same side of the road and the same food in the restaurants. Dmcq (talk) 17:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of fractions, I am not yet convinced that there's anything superior about the metric system. You can easily divide a mile, a yard, or a foot by 3. Try doing that with a meter. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

That's not so much a flaw with the metric system as it is with a base-10 numbering system. If only we had two more fingers, we'd have 10s break down into halves, thirds, quarters, and sixths! — Lomn 18:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Just like the English System! Shazam! Maybe those old Anglo-Saxons were 6-fingered? Or maybe they just went with what seemed convenient rather than obsessing over divisibility by 10? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

As long as we used a base 10 number system, using a base 10 unit system makes a lot of sense. Using anything else is hardly convenient except in a few rare instances. Trying tell me how much 3 yards, 2 feet and 9 inches in inches in under 5 seconds without a calculator. Very few people can. Or worse, 3.029 yards. However anyone with a basic understanding of SI can tell you how much 3 metres, 2 centimetres and 9 millimetres is in millimetres. Ditto for 3.029 metres. Besides that, it's not as if the imperial system and those based on it is even consistent. Sure a foot is 12 inches which is fine. But a yard is 3 feet. And a mile is 1760 yards. It gets even worse once we start to consider more stuff like weight, let alone temperature. And of course once we get to derived units... There's a good reason why nearly all scientists use SI, and it isn't just because of the need for consistency or clarity of communication. Frankly, I'm glad I never had to learn that shit that some people still hold so dear. Sure, it would probably be largely better if we did use base 12, but we don't so it's a moot point. Nil Einne (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's amazingly easy to count in twelves on your fingers - you use the thumb to point, and count off the joints on each finger. You can count with one hand, while using the other to hold things. Much easier in fact than counting to ten on the tips of your fingers, which takes two hands and requires a switch of pointer half way through. DuncanHill (talk) 20:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I would note that I think most people count by either lifting up or closing fingers, rather then by pointing. And whatever the case most people didn't do that so we are stuck with base 10. Nil Einne (talk) 22:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is, if we'd gone with a base-12 numbering scheme, (or better still, like the Egyptians, base 60 - which gives you factors of 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20 and 30) then we'd all be whining about how much better it would have been to go with base 16 for the sake of computers. As one who does math in base 16 quite a bit - my observation is that the larger the base you go with, the more hassle it is to remember your multiplication tables - but there is a natural trade-off against the number of digits you have to write down and the ease of doing calculations on large numbers. If, for example, you were to learn your multiplication tables in base 60 (a pretty tough feat of memory) - then you'd be able to multiply quite large numbers in your head - and things like phone numbers would need far fewer digits in them.

I've gotta agree about the illogic of the US date system though - either DDMMYYYY or YYYYMMDD would make much more sense. I used to work for Philips (a Dutch company) and we used YYYYMMDD for everything. Being a Brit and living in the US, I once got into a lot of trouble by not showing up for a court appearance until almost a month after it was due because I forgot about the goddamn date reversal...I showed up on 7th August (8/7/xxxx) instead of 8th July (7/8/xxxx)...WHICH WAS NOT GOOD! SteveBaker (talk) 21:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how many people would actually be saying 16 is better. 16 isn't dividable by 3. And let's face it, most people don't really care about hexadecimal, many don't even know what it is and probably don't get why it matters. (I learnt it at an early age due to hex editing savegames and it is taught in some schools but I suspect most people would have forgotten by the time they reach 25 unless they actually work with computer to that level.) The inability to divide by 3 is a frequent complaint, the inability to divide by 4 perhaps to a lesser extent. Although I wonder if everyone would be complaining about 5 if we were 12 or 16. Gotta agree about your views on the date thing however, that's perhaps the worst of all the American oddities Nil Einne (talk) 22:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Hexadecimal (base 16) arose simply as the lowest power of 2 that could accommodate a sufficiently large character set - as an improvement on the more limited octal (base 8). Tom Lehrer once said "Base 8 is just like base 10, really - if you're missing 2 fingers!" Then there's "hex"adecimal, which someone once characterized as number system that had been "bewitched". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the history, so that may very well be the case, but nowadays hexadecimal has the advantage that two hexadecimal digits represent an 8 bit byte (octet), and many things are either in 8 bit bytes, or multiples thereof. Of course perhaps one of the reasons for this is because of the use of hexadecimal, I don't know Nil Einne (talk) 09:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The first computer I used was PLATO, which had a 60-bit word; hex was unknown there. Indeed, at about the same time it was common to write 16-bit numbers in "split octal": MAXINT was written 377 377 (I think you'll find some examples of this in early issues of DDJ). —Tamfang (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I once had a Unix sysadmin class taught by someone who was missing two fingers. I wondered how many people in the room thought of Tom Lehrer when he explained chmod. —Tamfang (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a story that Alan Turing, interviewed on radio about the coming age of computers, spent most of the time explaining that people would have to learn to count in base 32. <sigh> —Tamfang (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

In Hong Kong, the British date/month is common, but Chinese always refer to 六四 the other way around. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

YYYYMMDD e.g. 20090806 has digit places in regular size order. DDMMYYYY e.g. 06082009 has irregular size order (no one is seriously proposing to express it as 06089002 which would regularise in increasing size order). So they are not equally good. In both cases the leading zeroes on days 1-9 and months 1-9 are needed. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Surely you mean 60809002, not 06089002. — In my private files, I use one byte for months (123456789abc). —Tamfang (talk) 22:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Primates gained an evolutionary boost in the form of their opposable thumbs. One can ask a creationist whether their alleged intelligent designer foresaw its use for handling tools, hitchhiking, operating cellphone keys and counting to 12 on one hand. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

You can count to 11111 if you're willing to use base 2. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

PS: Nil, what about the oddity of the so-called English system units being slightly different to their British homonyms? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you're referring to. But if you mean the fact that US customary units are slightly different in definition from the British ones, that's just because they were standardised in different ways and at different times (since units were never that well standardised in historic times, with people using different things in different situations). They're still basically the same thing, hence why they have the same names. (Although this is another example of why using the imperial system and those based on it is so problematic.) Do you really think both the Americans and British came up with the name 'gallon' independently? Nil Einne (talk) 09:47, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I really think the main reason the US is different is because it wasn't much of an issue before the internet. I grew up measuring things in feet and pounds (except in science class) and I wrote dates MM/DD/YYYY because that's how everyone I interacted with understood things. Only when the internet made communication with other countries is as easy as communication with someone across the street did these issues start to reach the average person. I agree that the metric system and DD/MM/YYYY system are superior but it takes a long time convert when the system still works just fine for us in our every day lives. -- Mad031683 (talk) 21:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Americans are nuts , thats why they do such things which others dont !!

Type O Negative

The following information is missing from the relative articles, I am very curious to know what language or pseudo-language is being used on the album Dead Again. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 (talk) 08:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC) Corrected link in above question --ColinFine (talk) 20:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's Russian. Seems to be a Russian theme running through the album in general. Fribbler (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's actually gibberish written in a mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters (was it that hard to find some real words, I wonder?!). The overall theme, however, is indeed Russian, as the picture of Rasputin on the cover would immediately attest.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:16, August 5, 2009 (UTC)

the language "written" on the front is faux cyrillic, but the OP wonders about the actual audio. Fribbler (talk) 16:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

19th Century secrets

Today there are facts that someone knows but by law have to be kept secret from the public, for reasons of national security, commercial secrecy, protection of archeological sites, international relations, witness protection...or other reasons. There are plenty of secrets from the 20th century. Are there secrets from the 19th century ? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, no-one will tell me. But seriously, declassification normally happens in the US after 25 years, unless there are special circumstances. In the UK, I believe it's 50 years. Other countries probably have limits too. In addition, it seems most secrecy legislation only came into place in the 20th century. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I never heard of secret archeological sites. Can you cite one which is secret?--Quest09 (talk) 10:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Keeping an archaeological site a secret while the excavation is carried out, is sometimes necessary if the find is valuables like jewelry and/or it is an area that is prone to looting. However as soon as the excavation is over the secrecy is lifted (at least in the cases that I know of). --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The most recent I can think of where the location is kept secret would be one of the many findings of Odyssey Marine Exploration. Nanonic (talk) 13:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there are plenty of 19th century secrets. A wonderful book on the entire practice of 19th century secrets (in the UK) is David Vincent, The culture of secrecy: Britain, 1832-1998. It's a wonderfully fun book. All of the things you listed above existed in the 19th century as well, and much more (there were attempts in the UK, for example, to keep effective methods of birth control generally secret, for moral reasons). Though technical secrets for military purposes is something that didn't come into vogue in most places until World War I. Certainly they had industrial trade secrets—you can find evidence of those as far back to Ancient times. If you have more specific questions, feel free to ask. It is true that the government secrecy infrastructure of the US, UK, etc. increased dramatically in the twentieth century, esp. around the periods of WWI and WWII (and went bonkers during the Cold War and afterwards, where millions of documents were being classified as secret per year). But there were all sorts of other secrets as well. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP means things that are *still* secret. --Tango (talk) 17:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes I do mean that. We can safely say there is nobody alive today who keeps a personal secret from before year 1900. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Whilst both US and UK have laws opening up secret documents after so many years - they both have clauses that enable their respective governments to redact either parts of those documents or entire documents for a wide range of reasons. So I'm pretty sure there are a ton of things still being kept secret from 100 years ago. SteveBaker (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

There are secrets much older than that. Greek fire is a famous example - it was a state secret of the Byzantine Empire, and it was kept so well that we still don't know what was in it. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

There is a difference between secrets and lost knowledge. There are plenty of secrets that people took with them to their graves, that's not interesting. I'm sure the OP means things which some people do still know (or, at least, are in archives somewhere). --Tango (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, you mean things STILL secret. OK. Well, I doubt there's anything still classified under U.S. government laws from that time period. The earliest I have ever heard are things from World War I relating to cryptography, secret writing, etc. The main reason you wouldn't have much from that time period still secret is because there weren't regular secrecy laws at that point—there was no procedure for making something "officially" secret in a way that would be legally binding over a long period of time. (You could write "secret" on a piece of paper in the Civil War, but there was no official categorization scheme.) As for things that were kept secret and just never seen again, thought of, or figured out... sure, that's definitely the case, though no governments are actively trying to keep such things secret. In general, in terms of secrets, it is easy to make a new secret (whole branches of the government have practically everything they produce be classified in one way or another); it is relatively hard to "take back" a released secret (reclassification); it is not easy at all to classify something that was never previously officially classified, as all pre-WWI materials would be in the US, for example. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

A caveat. There are a lot of historical materials kept in private or provincially-run archives. Embarrassing personal papers, even for figures long, LONG since dead, can easily be kept out of public circulation by such people. I have heard stories of archives today refusing to release information about a certain famous Russian bigamist which was thought to be embarrassing to a great hero. So I guess there are things like that, as well. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:20, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Victorian morality demanded secrecy about such facts of life as how two make a baby (in spite of an occasional revealing book or magazine). I have been told that Queen Victoria when she received her first practical demonstration (in 1840?) declared "Oh Albert, this is far too good for the ordinary people!". Another fine lady of the period on becoming aware of the controversy surrounding the publication in 1859 of On the Origin of Species commented "I cannot say whether Mr. Darwin is correct in his theory that we are descended from apes. But if that is found to be true, I hope it does not become generally known". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The secret journals detailing the perverse and licentious affairs of James Boswell were kept secret by his heirs from his death in 1795 until the 1920's. His heirs used black ink to cover up the naughty bits, but the editor managed to read the original text through the ink. Some hypothesized "affairs" of state, such as some member of a royal family being involved in the Jack the Ripper murders, might be kept as official secrets as long as the particular dynasty remained in power. The Catholic Church had someone forge a "Donation of Constantine" in the mid 8th century, purporting to be from the 4th century, which gave them control of worldly estates. A priest in 1440 wrote a book exposing the fraud, based on textual analysis and historical errors in the document, but the Church still banned the book 200 years later. It is rumored that in the archives of the KGB were Czarist records showing that Stalin had worked for the Czar's secret police, the Okhrana, starting back in 1899. Many a regime has sought to avoid exposing secrets which might be embarrassing or which might provoke unrest. Edison (talk) 02:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

My favorite story about the Stalin material in the KGB archives: The KGB inherited the archives of the Czarist secret police. A directive came down from Stalin (or his henchmen) to destroy any documents stating that Stalin had worked for the Czar's secret police. The women archivists, being librarians by nature, and embodying an early version of the Wikipedia WP:PRESERVE principle, first made copies of the condemned archives, then destroyed the originals, and sent back a form certifying the documents had been destroyed. Edison (talk) 03:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

investment analysis

discus the aptness of applying capital market theory to real estate investment analysis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgekalusanga (talk • contribs) 11:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to Wikipedia. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 11:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried looking at our articles on capital market, investment analysis, and Real estate appraisal and the external links from these articles? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Walking in zig-zags

I've seen a woman in my area out and about a few times, and she has the most peculiar way of walking. She literally walks in zig-zags, and not just each stride or anything like that, she walks from one side of the road or path to the other, turning at 90 degree angles, and she keeps doing that even after she's turned around the corner. The first time I saw her doing it she was walking downhill, so I assumed she was doing it to lower the resistance on her knees (she's slightly overweight) by walking along the side of the hill instead of directly down it. I've seen her since doing it on a flat path, and on a sidewalk only 2 meters wide (2 or three steps per diagonal). She also has a huge cross on her chest. I'm left assuming she's bonkers, but could there be any physical, diet-related, or religious reason for this particular behaviour? Thanks. 210.254.117.186 (talk) 15:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

OCD possibly. Dismas|^(talk) 15:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd probably assume it is down to a slightly non-straight stride (slight difference in leg-length, slight difference in way places weight from foot to foot) and that she's not thinking about it but when she gets to the edge of the path she corrects, and thus it causes this. It could be an OCD type thing (my years playing Counter-strike have taught me that zig-zag walking in games reduces the ease at which average-competence snipers can kill me. Always thought such a thing would make for a decent real-life mental disease comedy-sketch (if a little geeeky for the general public). 15:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk)

I sooooooooooooo miss that game!!! Never managed to find the version of this game i once played on a massive LAN in a computer shop... It was about 8 years ago now though so I assume no-one plays it online anymore...  :( AH well... Gazhiley (talk) 11:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Was she walking upwind? Maybe she thinks she's an entry in the America's Cup race, and was tacking. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe she thinks she is light in a fiber optic tube. Googlemeister (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Could it be that she's blind and is using one of those sonar contraptions to detect the edge of the sidewalk and the wall on the other side? She would have to adopt the strategy of walking in a straight line until the machine goes "beep" then turning slightly to avoid hitting whatever it is. SteveBaker (talk) 21:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Models on a catwalk often use a walk which is like that of a cat, placing one foot directly in front of the other to produce an alluring swagger in which the hips take on a more exaggerated movement. Another possibility to consider is that the lady has had one tee many martoonies. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Just what I was thinking - could simply be intoxicated. I recall years ago a panel cartoon showing a drunk walking home. He was zigzagging all over the sidewalk. Then he ran into a part of the sidewalk which itself zigzagged - and he inadvertently ended up walking in a straight line through that part of it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Might be practicing techniques for walking a straight line on a moving train or during an earthquake. More likely OCD. Edison (talk) 02:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I used to play CS too, but to be honest she wasn't strafing; it's like she's using the mouse to turn, and very accurately at that. She's not blind either, because she scowled at me when she saw me looking at her, though I admit it's all very reminiscent of the robot walking mechanism, so I guess there is a possibility she could have some sort of selective visual disorder, or a spacial coordination problem. I guess OCD is a possibility, how obvious can something like that be? She didn't appear troubled at all, and was walking in such a nonchalant way that it was hard to believe there was anything wrong with her. I guess that just added to the tragic comedy of it all. 210.254.117.186 (talk) 11:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The next tie you walk down a sidewalk, just think "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." Unless you hate the old lady, see if you don't start stutter-stepping to avoid the cracks. Now you begin to comprehend the world of OCD. Edison (talk) 03:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

never heard of that phrase before, but I walk like this - i cannot stand stepping on a crack in the pavement... But then I'm quite open about having mild OCD... Plus my right foot always has to be the first foot to hit a new floor when walking up or down stairs - even if i have to stop half way up and change to the other foot, or jump a couple of steps to get the order correct... Can't say I've ever tacked down a street though... Gazhiley (talk) 10:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

online job

I want some online job like deta transfer or other job.will you suggest some web address from where I get this type job?Supriyochowdhury (talk) 15:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

"Data transfer" isn't a job I'm familiar with. Also, there really isn't any web address out there that you can just visit and get a job. It's most likely going to take more than that. If you can be a little more specific about what kind of work you're looking for, we can probably give you some pointers, though. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 21:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you looked at guru.com? Tempshill (talk) 21:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

There are places that will pay you for tasks such as typing in phone books in order that they can cold-call the victims listed within. However, I would caution you that many of those schemes are set up in ways that make it tanatmount to slave labor. They tend to pay you by the number of entries you type in - then DEDUCT a fairly large amount for every mistake you make. Knowing the error rate of typical typists - they set things up so that they hardly have to pay you anything for all your hard (and mind-numbing) work. Be sure you read ALL of the fine-print on the agreement and look hard for any loopholes they've put there...I guarantee you'll find some. The problem is that this work can be done by people in countries where the hourly wage is a TINY fraction of what it's likely to be wherever you live...in order for it to be cost-effective to have you do it, there has to be a scam of some description behind it. SteveBaker (talk) 21:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is true, but does not apply to more serious sites like guru.com above or elance.com. There are also real descent well-paid services that are traded online. --Quest09 (talk) 09:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

From the look of it, guru.com seems to be just some sort of listing site, where many people can list. If so, I don't see any reason to presume all the jobs available thereare magically excellent jobs and without abusive conditions. I know of someone who nearly took up a job accepting money from phished accounts which was offered via a highly reputable job seeking site here in NZ (can't remember which, but it was either [2] or [3] IIRC). He realised something was fishy (pun unintended, seriously) however and made a police report IIRC. In other words, just because the site is reputable doesn't mean all the employers are. Indeed the article on guru.com says "Some customers (freelancers)[who?] are dissatisfied with Guru.com's strong employer bias. "I make sure that my subscribers know that they are not my customer -- the employer is," said Inder Guglani,[2] and Guru.com site policies reflect Mr. Guglani's philosophy." Nil Einne (talk) 10:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Tennis Racket

I've taken up tennis recently after a long layoff. My racket is over 15 years old and doesn't have the string tension it had when new. I don't want to have it restrung yet. What can I do to preserve the life of the strings? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.195.3.244 (talk) 16:20, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

My racket has this rubber thing at the bottom of the strings, preserving the string tension. see picture. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Most tennis racquets can be restored satisfactorily by replacing the frame and strings. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The rubber thing on the strings is there to dampen racket vibration, or more likely just to change the sound on impact. I've never heard any claims that it "preserves string tension", nor can I imagine how it might do something like that. A tennis racket, like a guitar, probably isn't much good to you if you leave it for 15 years. The strings will stretch over time, and probably become hard and brittle. If you really don't care enough to have it restrung, then don't, and use it as it is. If it's unplayable as it is, you'll have to get it restrung (it's not that expensive), though I'm willing to bet there's been a considerable amount of warpage to your racket frame over the last 15 years. 210.254.117.186 (talk) 02:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

twice as wide

It seems that nobody is online at the math’s reference desk... So I would like to as you: We have a question in the german wiki reference desk that can only be answered by a native speaker. How would an english native speaker understand the sentence (from a test): "Now find at least three positions where you can put the light and the card to make a shadow twice as wide as the card." Does the question in that test mean a shadow width twice as wide as the edge width of the card or twice as wide as the whole card? --Ian Dury^{Hit me} 17:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

As stated, the question doesn't mean one or the other; the meaning might be discoverable with the complete text, but as is, it is ambiguous. --LarryMac | Talk 17:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

If the question is referring to a playing card, I think it would be most common to call the card’s longest size the “height”, the card’s shortest size the “thickness”, and the card’s intermediate size the “width”. I’d be pretty sure that the person who wrote that question intended “twice as wide as the card” to mean twice the card’s intermediate size. Red Act (talk) 17:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. In fact the questioner thought it may be ambigious. Agreeing to that I suggested the answer from Red Act. The question was of course translated into german, but somewhat wrong, I think. The re-translation from German to English would be: twice as big. --Ian Dury^{Hit me} 17:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily: The shadow may be twice as wide but the height may also be twice as long, thus the shadowed area would be four times as big (by area), ie "vier mal so groß". The translation "doppelt so groß" is ambiguous, as I (a native German speaker) would understand this to mean the area. This is, "doppelt so groß" could also mean to place the light in a positon where the height of the card is doubled but not the width, or to place the light in a position where width (of shadow) times height (of shadow) is twice the area of the "real" card. In neither case the width of the card´s shadow would be twice the width of the real card. As I don´t know the original TIMMS text, I may misunderstand the question, anyway. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

As a former test writer, I would expect the intent to be "twice the width." The answerer should consider the light to card distance and the card to screen distance. "Twice the area" would perhaps be allowed if clearly explained. Edison (talk) 02:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Nordstrom and Paypal connection???

I had a debit card on my Paypal account. That card got lost. I called my bank and cancelled the card. (all this happened over a year ago). I recently attempted to purchase something online from Nordstrom. I entered in the debit card # of my lost card into Nordstrom's website (2 days ago) and it got denied (no surprise there). Today, I receive an email from paypal saying that they have removed a debit card from my Paypal account. Are these events related? How?--12.48.220.130 (talk) 17:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps Paypal realised that your old card had been cancelled and thought to themselves what is the point of a cancelled card on this person's account - let's cancel it. The odd thing is why you entered the cancelled card number. 86.4.181.14 (talk) 17:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

But how did Paypal find out? Where did the get the information from, when I entered the card number onto Nordstrom's website? I entered it accidentally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.48.220.130 (talk) 17:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess they used the same system that they use to validate your card (or anybody's card). They have some sort of card registration centre that they have access to. 86.4.181.14 (talk) 20:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What was the expiry date? It may just be a coincidence and the card would have expired at the end of July and Paypal have gone through tidying up old cards. --Tango (talk) 03:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

They all use the same program, your card details go through to aperson/program that enters the details this then comes back with an auth code or declined. This info would be related to all involved to ensure that a stolen/ canx card does not get used by a theif on a diff web site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 (talk) 07:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

They must have sent u an e-mail stating that your card has been removed because of expiry date of your card.. dont forget whoever and whenevr you `ll register your card with paypal... u give them Card valid from and expiry date too... so when your car get expired ...they remove it and wait for u to enter new card details :)

what metal

What metal was used in the production of a 1939-40 5 Rial Iranian coin? Googlemeister (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

According to Iranian_rial#Coins the second issue coins were silver

quote

"Second rial:The first coins of the second rial currency were in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 25 dinar, ½, 1, 2 and 5 rial, with the ½ to 5 rial coins minted in silver. Gold coins denominated in pahlavi were also issued, initially valued at 100 rial. In 1944, the silver coinage was reduced in size, with the smallest silver coins being 1 rial pieces."

Given that 5rials were silver in 1935 [4], and the switch to alloy coins happened much later (1950s I think) it looks like the answer is silver.83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I got that they are silver, but are they 100% silver, or is it a mix like American coins at that time were? Googlemeister (talk) 19:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What mix where the american coins?83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

US silver coins at that time were 90% silver 10% copper. British were 92.5% silver, not sure on the remainder. Googlemeister (talk) 20:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Silver standards for Iran in the 20th century include .84 and .90 silver

However for coins, around 1910 5 dinars were .6655 [5], it's unlikely that the content improved, so I'd expect .6655 (or maybe less)83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

British coins were only 92.5% silver until 1920; then 50% silver (and various percentages of copper, zinc, and nickel) until 1947, then 0% silver. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 00:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

TV ratings and muting of commercials

Do any of the meters used to produce TV ratings track whether or not the viewer mutes the TV during commercials? NeonMerlin 18:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this could be technically accomplished, since volume is almost always a function of the TV itself (that is, the end device) rather than a meter, cable box, or other intermediate device. — Lomn 18:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree — the remote that is actually used in my house is the cable TV remote, and the "Mute" button on that may send out the mute command for the TV or may send out the mute command for the cable box; I'm not sure. If NeonMerlin's data collection scheme were desirable then the cable TV company would set it up to be the latter, and track it. Tempshill (talk) 21:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The devices they connect to TV's in order to collect viewer data are pretty sophisticated. They can even tell which people are in the room with the TV and who is watching and who is turned around playing with their computers. I don't think they'd have any trouble figuring out whether the mute circuit was activated or not. Remember - the people who submit to this monitoring are paid for their trouble and put under some pretty severe restrictions. Personally - I doubt very much whether the ratings are actually worth the paper they are printed on because there is a ton of bias built into the system. Do people who mute adverts - or use their TiVo to skip past them actually volunteer for ratings monitoring? If so, do they change their viewing habits while they are being monitored? I bet they do. SteveBaker (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What? Really? There's an automated (i.e. not the user-filled survey) method of determining who's watching? I know the paper surveys ask for this info, but as you've noted, that's subject to extreme bias. As for the Tivo, my understanding is that the ad-skipping is monitored universally. My mute function, though -- even on the Tivo remote -- is the TV's native command. The Tivo doesn't know what that particular IR signal means. Supposing any sort of piggybacked Tivo signal with the mute command isn't reasonable, as IR commands are dropped all the time and the Tivo would quickly be out of state with the display. While it's certainly possible to route mute through a cable box (and to be fair, it appears some people meters do this), the inability to force a single-source command (are they listening to the commercial? did they just mute the TV itself? Are they really using our remote or going back to one of the three others they're already familiar with?) makes any sort of objective measurement impossible. — Lomn 21:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

My interesting question of the day is whether the cable TV companies in the US are actively monitoring all the activity of their customers who have digital set-top boxes, and then selling that data — or, at least, using it internally for analysis of their customers' viewing. I may have "agreed" to this monitoring in the small print of my subscriber agreement — I don't have any idea. Even if not, presumably all my activity is being logged back at the head office, under the rubric of "collecting data to make sure our systems are working properly". Tempshill (talk) 21:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

In the US they have "Nielson boxes" which do it all automatically (in addition to paper surveys, I believe). It gets plugged into your TV somehow and keeps note of what you watch. As far as I know, the UK just uses the paper surveys. --Tango (talk) 00:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Jokes and political correction

Is there any serious study relating differences in jokes and the political correct movement? (this question is not a joke).--Quest09 (talk) 18:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I would dispute that there is such a thing as the politicall(ly) correct movement. The term is almost always applied by critics to people or groups who are applying strictures they wish to attack or ridicule. --ColinFine (talk) 20:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

But it's amazing how quickly people will latch on to perceived political correctness. A couple of years ago, some bright spark announced that, for reasons that completely escaped me, saying "Ho, ho, ho" at Christmas time could be offensive. Then before you knew it, thousands of people were saying, literally, We're not allowed to say "Ho, ho, ho" any more, as if there had been some government decree making this utterance punishable by imprisonment. Same thing happened with "Merry Christmas". Someone went too far in protecting the feelings of non-Christians, so now it's routinely "Happy holidays". Bah, humbug, I say. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

"Politically correct" was actually used by progressives in the 1960's — although sometimes also with an ironic allusion to Stalinist countries where dissident factions (e.g Trotskyists) could face dire consequences for being "politically incorrect, comrade".

But it didn't take very long for "PC" to achieve its pejorative connotations of censoriousness and censorship.

I don't think there's any conspiracy against Christmas. I'm not a Christian but I often wish people Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah or best wishes for Ramadan). I also often just say Happy Holidays because I don't how they'd feel. Those who are most frantic about "Happy Holidays" being some kind of anti-Christmas conspiracy are probably those who'd be most taken aback if they were constantly wished a Happy Hanukkah or Happy New Year at Rosh Hashannah.

But I'm not quite sure what the question is asking. Do you mean are there studies showing changes in jokes since, say 1965? That's not necessarily, in my opinion, always a bad thing. U.S. cartoons before 1940 show Jews, Mexicans and Negroes in a very different way than most of us would find funny or acceptable, so they're often edited before being shown today. Even Mickey Rooney's portrayal of a Japanese photographer in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) is just embarrassing. And both Mr Rooney and the director Blake Edwards are happily still with us. Similarly for Bob Newhart's more-recent routine about Asian women drivers. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The title is amusingly misleading, as it's not how it's actually expressed, which is "political correctness", but "correction" is the intent of folks who harp on it too much - i.e. censoriousness. It's a term often used by the right to ridicule the left as being "too sensitive", yet there is also right-wing political correctness - basically, things you're not supposed to say. Right wingers talk about "Winter Holiday" being PC, but actually Christmas usurped the already-existing winter holiday and arbitrarily assigned it as the birthday of Jesus, which in reality is unknown. And if any politician dares to make fun of religion, the right wing will suddenly become very sensitive. Where the right fails on this is when it comes to racial and ethnic stereotyping, which are unacceptable in our somewhat more enlightened society. Pop culture, especially vaudeville, was rife with stereotypes, much of it probably a product of the ethnic diversity in the big cities. It may or may not have been intended to be harmful. It's just out of fashion, at the very least. I'm thinking about the Marx Brothers, as Chico was known for his fake Italian accent which he retained from the stage; Groucho did a fake German accent in some of his bits, but not in films to speak of. They themselves were Jewish, and there was no shortage of stereotypes about Jews. Basically they all made fun of each other. Films and cartoons and phonograph records from that era are loaded with stereotypes - to the point where the WB DVD's hired Whoopi Goldberg to record a disclaimer for some of them. That old-fashioned stereotyping was a curious mix of both celebrating and putting down ethnic diversity. We still like to celebrate ethnic diversity. Putting it down is what's out of fashion - except when someone is trying to make a point of some kind, typically for shock value. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly a serious study, but The Guardian ran a piece a couple of weeks ago about the increase in political incorrectness by comics: The new offenders of standup comedy which I found quite interesting. In trawling through the archives just now to find the link, I noticed that the original piece seems to have produced a bit of a backlash from some of the comedians mentioned Brendon Burns, Richard Herring, and the original writer, Brian Logan's, response. Frank Skinner also seems to have done an interview on "whether comedy has gone too far]".--Kateshortforbob 21:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Leaders of the U.S. Reconstruction Finance Corporation

I got thoroughly snarled up last night in trying to adjust the succession boxes for Calvin Coolidge's Vice-President Charles G. Dawes, who was later briefly either chairman or president of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (ca. 1931-57), and then in adjusting the succession boxes for subsequent leaders of the RFC. When a government entity or a direct successor has lasted into the age of the World Wide Web, it's usually fairly easy to find a list of its previous principal officials, either at the organization's own site, or at a place like World Statesmen.org.

But the RFC is much murkier (as it was during its TARP-like origins as a bailout mechanism for banks after the international financial crisis of 1931). Apparently its first chairman was Eugene Meyer, also Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and its first president was Dawes. Dawes (whose terms is said to have begun with the RFC's formal establishment on February 2, 1932) had to resign suddenly on June 7, 1932, after questions about RFC loans to his own bank, and was succeeded by Atlee Pomerene — an Ohio Democratic politician who'd prosecuted the Teapot Dome defendants in 1924. But some sources say Pomerene was chairman and others president. (Pomerene himself had to resign the next year after similar questions about home-bank favoritism.) When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the U.S. on March 4, 1933, he chose the Texas financier and Democratic stalwart Jesse H. Jones (who became Secretary of Commerce in 1940) to headed the RFC, but under what title I'm not sure. Some sources say he led the RFC from 1933 to 1945. But my 1943 World Almanac and Book of Facts, which devotes pages 626-628 to the RFC and its subsidiaries including Fannie Mae (FNMA), lists Charles B. Henderson as chairman with four other directors, none of whom is Jones, but no president. (Wikipedia says Henderson served as chairman from 1941 to 1947.)

I suppose I should confine this question to the RFC talk page, but it's not an active page, and the varied expertise on the Help Desk seems like a better place to find out where to obtain a good list or at least some clarification.

I can make some estimates and guesses (e.g., did Henderson succeed Jones directly?) but I'd much rather be entering supported facts than suppositions and plausible conclusions. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I don't know anything about this, but Amazon shows a 1977 book and a 1988 book and a few others that are 99% likely to be more useful than any articles on the Web. I was surprised to see that 1988 book is going for $197 used. Sounds like a trip to the library would be preferable. Tempshill (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)