Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 April 12

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 12

ayers rock

There used to be a book at the top of ayers rock how do I find it and is it possiable to veiw it???

Yes, there was such a book. Apparently it's no longer there, mainly because climbing Uluru is considered culturally insensitive and is officially discouraged, and so having any sort of incentive to climb would run counter to that.

As for the whereabouts of the book, assuming it still exists, maybe you could contact someone at the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There was such a book, and I've got a picture to prove it. (Well it's a picture of the page with my name in it, just after I signed it in 1987.) Mitch Ames (talk) 09:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Country of van

Resolved

Hi, I'm trying to add a description to This photo. I know it's a Ford Transit ambulance, but I think the writing on the side is in Italian. Can anyone help? What country is this van from? Chevymontecarlo. 06:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The writing on the side says "spitalul clinic de copii". That is Romanian for "Children's Hospital." (AFAIK). ^Avicenna_sis @ 06:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I'll put Romania :) Chevymontecarlo. 06:16, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Note that Romanian is also spoken in Moldova. — Kpalion^(talk) 08:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want to be even more specific, the city seems to be Oradea, as the particular hospital is identified as the Spitalul Clinic de Copii "Dr. G. Curteanu". Deor (talk) 12:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I have added the city to the description. Thanks. Chevymontecarlo. 15:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thoes Small Icons What Are In Line With The Title

like on protected, spoken and featured pages

when mediawiki:sitenotice is being used, they stay in line with the title

on my wiki, they dont stay in line (see here)

iv coppied

• Common.js
• Monobook.js
• Common.css
• Monobook.css

to my wiki but it just wont do it, i dont want to use "demospace" because i want to use my own custom icons

how do i get it to work?

-Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 10:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You might try this question on the computing reference desk. Deor (talk) 01:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Fun / Weird / Use and unuseful information

on 4chan they are known as info thereads, saved a lot of them, very interesting, can they be used at all?

-Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 10:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"Used" as in "Used to make wikipedia articles"? Not likely. We have high standards for notability and (especially) we require that any fact that is likely to be disputed must be backed up with solid references in mainstream media (books, reputable newspapers, scientific journals, etc). The threads you refer to are highly unlikely to be any of those things. So, it's almost certain that this information is pretty much useless to Wikipedia. SteveBaker (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear waste

Is it possible and/or feasible to send our nuclear waste into the sun? One could just launch a rocket loaded with the stuff with preset coordinates and launch, no worries. If this is possible why is it not done?

think it would be because of cost and time. how much would it take to bulid something for 1 use, the fuel to power it to the sun and how long it would take the rocket to get to the sun. it takes about 8mins for light so it would take a long time for a rocket -Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 12:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

How long it would take to get to the sun is irrelevant. It's not like we have to wait for the first one to hit before we launch the second. :) FiggyBee (talk) 12:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

See Radioactive waste#Space disposal Nanonic (talk) 12:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Because;

A) The world's nuclear programs produce thousands of tons of high level waste a year. Just putting that much material into orbit with current technology (ie, no space elevators) would cost trillions of dollars. Pushing it out of orbit and towards the sun would cost vastly more.

B) The world's best expendable launch systems currently have a failure rate of about 5%. The consequences of 10 tons of high level radioactive waste exploding in the upper atmosphere are unknown, but it wouldn't be pretty...

FiggyBee (talk) 12:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

But those practical concerns aside, once (if) we have a reliable cheap method of getting stuff to orbit (such as a space elevator), launching nuclear waste into the sun becomes a reasonable option. — Lomn 12:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

...which is a fairly tautological statement. "Once it becomes practical, then it can become reasonable." But it's nowhere near practical, so it's not reasonable. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair point, so I'll clarify the intent. Once orbital launches are safe and cheap, "shooting something into the sun" is an effective means of disposal. The problem isn't that nuclear waste falling into the sun is in some way unsafe. Contrast with "launching nuclear waste to Mars". — Lomn 13:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Disagreed. An orbital launch requires a speed of 18,000 mph (8 km/s). Escaping the Earth requires a speed of 25,000 mph (11 km/s). (If you haul something to a higher enough altitude first, as in a space elevator, of course the speed requirement is lowered but not the energy requirement.) But to launch into the Sun not only requires escaping the Earth but also requires canceling its orbital velocity, which is 66,600 mph (30 km/s) -- a much bigger deal. Some sort of gravitational slingshot trajectory might be able to reduce the energy requirements but would require active control for course corrections. In any case, today's waste may be tomorrow's fuel, which argues against such irrevocable disposal. --Anonymous, 19:11 UTC, April 12, 2010.

[1] says that the cost to launch 10,000kg into low earth orbit is well over $100,000,000. That's only to low earth orbit - to get out to geostationary orbit is about twice that - and prices for an orbit to get you to the sun could only be higher than that. So let's go with $100,000 per kilo of waste...versus digging a hole in Yucca mountain and dumping it there. But much worse than that is that both commercial and NASA launches have a failure rate of around 2% to 5%. So when your rocket (containing 10 tons of radioactive waste and a few hundred tons of highly explosive rocket fuel) fails...what are the consequences? Recall the shuttle disaster when the thing exploded on the way up to orbit...that was a pretty big bang. My guess is that the consequences would be about 1,000 times worse than a 10kg "dirty bomb"...which is to say "utterly devastating". Since we'd need to make well over a hundred launches a year to do what you suggest with current rocket technology, we'd have between two and five major nuclear accidents every year! It would be vastly cheaper about as harmful to simply dump the raw waste in a big pile out in the middle of New Mexico someplace! This is SO impractical that it's hardly worth discussing. SteveBaker (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Before you go sending nuclear stuff toward the sun, watch Superman IV. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

How about disposal on the ocean floor ?

If we were to dump nuclear waste in the Mariana Trench, in containers designed to dissolve quickly, would it be sufficiently diluted by the ocean to become "safe". I realize that this would be a political and PR nightmare, in any case, but I'm just asking about the scientific merit. StuRat (talk) 14:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you considered breeder reactors?124.171.232.30 (talk) 15:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, if your material was denser the water, I don't see how it would circulate to any great extant. Googlemeister (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You mean like NaCl does not circulate to any great extend? Of course the idea has a certain movie potential "Atomollusc - Death from the Deep Deep!" ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Japan had a plan to do exactly that, except they were going to use long-lasting containers. See Challenger_Deep#Possible_nuclear_waste_disposal_site. --Sean 17:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe the Godzilla movies used nuclear weapons testing as the source of Godzilla, so they could have even more plot fun with this. StuRat (talk) 17:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

So, would the radioactive elements be at detectable levels if diluted in all the world's oceans ? Would they be dangerous ? StuRat (talk) 17:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You can put it in the ocean, but it is not without its risks. On the whole the idea is that dilution and isolation would be sufficient to keep it from appreciably affecting humans, which is probably true if you only consider water transport, but there are concerns that localized contamination could work its way up the food chain. There was already a lot of dumping of low-level nuclear waste in the 1940s through the 1970s, but it has basically stopped (apparently) in the 1980s, and is banned by of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, of which the US is a party. The major argument against it is that if something did go wrong with the waste (if it turned out it was making its way up the food chain, etc.), you can't get it out again. This lack of ability for retrieval is one of the main arguments against it as a long-term strategy. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Sailing down the Mississippi

Ok, I and my missus are retired and we have loads of time on our hands and are not terribly short of funds, though we are not terribly rich either. We have travelled extensively across many continents and cultures, by land, sea and air. And we are looking for something different for our anniversary next year, after my wife has undergone some surgery to both feet (she is a chronic arthritic and can't walk far). We have done conventional cruising and don't particularly like it (lots of stuck-up would-be-celebrity-types). And I have just finished reading James Michener's Centennial for the umpteenth time, and I have this obsessive notion to sail up or down the Mississippi. But all I can find on the Web are local 3 hour dinner cruises or one day lecture cruises out of St. Louis or similar. Is there any way I could arrange a whole river trip? Any advice welcome. Thanks. ps. We are in the UK.92.30.49.161 (talk) 12:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not advertising anything, and this isn't completely on the Mississippi, but here is a 14-day river/canal cruise from Chicago to New Orleans. The current economic situation seems to have hit this sort of travel hard; at least two companies have suspended operations on the Mississippi. There really doesn't appear to be much available at this time. Deor (talk) 13:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Note that the coasts of the Mississippi are heavily industrialized, so you may see lots of barges and factories. I'm sure there are pleasant areas, too, but it's not all pretty. StuRat (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not that bad; most of the industrialization is in the neighborhood of major cities. Deor (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Then there are the old, abandoned, rusting truss bridges, which are downright hideous. StuRat (talk) 14:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Depending on how much work you want to do, I believe that you can rent houseboats and cruise the Mississippi yourself. Buddy431 (talk) 14:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's one such place that claims not to have any range limits. There are probably others. Buddy431 (talk) 14:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Navigating the Mississippi—what with the commercial traffic (all a lot bigger than you are), negotiating locks, and such—does require a certain amount of knowledge and experience, and a person on a vacation of limited length may not want to be spending much of the time engaged in piloting a boat. Plus, the place you linked may not have a range limit, but it does appear to have a maximum time limit of seven days for returning the boat to the starting point, which would restrict you to, oh, less than a hundred miles upriver and downriver from its base in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I can't imagine that there are any companies that would allow you to rent a boat for an extended one-way trip, but I could be wrong. Deor (talk) 14:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I interpret the Q as asking about cruises, not boat rentals. StuRat (talk) 14:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If, given the lack of cruise options and loads of time on their hands, the posters wanted a real adventure, they might consider purchasing a powerboat in Minnesota and using it to travel down the river to New Orleans, where they could resell the boat. (Given the depressed economy in New Orleans, though, they might have better luck reselling the boat up the coast in Mobile, Alabama.) However, navigation of the Mississippi is known to be challenging. There are currents, shifting shoals, and considerable commercial traffic, as well as locks. I probably wouldn't consider it without some past piloting experience on a large river. Marco polo (talk) 18:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Johnathan Raban actually did it and wrote about it here.http://www.amazon.com/Old-Glory-Voyage-Down-Mississippi/dp/0375701001 if this is any help..hotclaws 22:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Bible

Is there any christian religion that follows the rules set out by god in the old testament, where it states that one should not cut the hairs on the side of the head. Please note, christian, not jewis, and if not why not?

I wouldn't be surprised to find that there's some small sect somewhere trying to (pardon the pun) religiously adhere to Old Testament law, but no major flavors of Christianity do. As for why, the New Testament repeatedly de-emphasizes slavish adherence to the list of laws. I expect there are graduate-level seminary courses in this question, so I prefer not to add my own personal rationales here. You might consider going to a local church or two and asking the pastor, though -- I'd bet it's not too hard to find a few who'd have the conversation. I will note, though, that I often wonder: "do I skip the rule for <x> because it's not necessary or because it's not convenient?" It's an interesting issue. — Lomn 13:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The United Pentecostal Church International does, but based on passages in Corinthians, not because of the Old Testament (the laws of which no longer needs to be followed because they were fulfilled by Christ). Rastafarians, if you count them as Christians, follow the Old Testament rules about cutting hair. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Probably some of the Jews for Jesus crowd would satisfy those conditions. APL (talk) 17:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the OP cites Leviticus 19:27 Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye hath Moses' word that the Lord spake that unto him. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the "why not" part of the question: See Acts 10 for a vision of Peter's, which is used to justify both eating formerly unclean foods and the admission into the church of formerly unclean people (i.e., non-Jews). The presence of non-Jews in the community at all was a big deal, law-wise. Also, some of the Pauline epistles cover the superiority of faith to by-the-letter law, and his discussion of circumcision might be relevant, too. (See Romans 4, for example.) Paul (Stansifer) 03:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

GM Crops

Is the following assumption right or wrong, please feel free to pick holes in my theory. If rich companies creat GM seeds and sell them to farmers to grow GM crops, okay. The insects that feed on them will by evolution need to get stronger to feed on them. Then poor farmers that do not have the money to buy the GM seeds will have inferior crops with super insects. This will thus increase the starvation problem in the 3rd world. Thanks

Sure, it's a plausible scenario, but I should note that you can strip out "GM" from that whole paragraph and it'll still be just as valid. Wired ran an interesting piece in February on a new strain of wheat rust that's skipped past the developed "immunity" in the world's major wheat strains. The point here, though, is that those wheat strains were hybridized traditionally some 40 years ago -- no direct genetic modification occurred. — Lomn 13:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Well, it's a bit like saying that modern housing practices have (or will) resulted in a bunch of super termites to eat them, which will then wipe out the old-fashioned kind of houses, increasing the rate of house-lessness in the third world. Matt Deres (talk) 13:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It depends:

A) If the GM crops are insect resistant by producing some chemical which the other crops also produce, but in lower quantities, then you are right.

B) If the GM crops are insect resistant by producing some chemical which the other crops lack, then the insects would just develop a resistance to that chemical. Therefore, this would have no effect on their ability to eat other crops, only on GM crops. StuRat (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Your basic contention, that if farmers adopt a monoculture they will open themselves up to major dependence on seed suppliers (because even GM monocultures will probably eventually run into problems), is probably correct and is a common argument against GM crops. That's not necessarily an argument against GM crops altogether, but it is an argument against monocultures, which are often associated with GM crops. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

An insect species cannot evolve new characteristics instantly. If and when the new "super insects" eventually appear they won't necessarily want to eat the pre-GM crops their ancestors ate. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not so much an issue of "super insects", but rather of inadvertent artificial selection by killing the insect larvae that have no resistance, while the larvae with resistance likely will survive to reproduce. With corn (maize), for example, where you plant GM crops, you also plant a portion of conventional corn, to provide what's called a "refuge" for bugs that have little or no resistance to the insecticide toxin being produced by the GM plant. So if your crop gets infested, you'll still have a decent yield, but you'll also ensure some genetic diversity in the insect population. That's the theory, anyway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

And it doesn't have to be something related to the original GM modification. Let's say you replace all your places with Super Corn that defeats the Nefarious Corn Eating Beetle. Great! Except then one day the Asian Corn Blight happens to migrate to your country and takes off like crazy. It turns out that it happens to afflict Super Corn especially hard, just coincidentally. Well, heck. Now all of your Super Corn is Blighted. If you had less of a monoculture, that might set you back but not be a disaster, because your other varieties of corn might be more (coincidentally) resistant to the Blight. But since you didn't, now you have a total destruction of your corn crop. These aren't just hypothetical examples—monocultures in general have led to this sort of thing in the past, and it's not something you can predict. It's an argument against any monoculture, not just GMOs, but the widespread domination of GMOs makes it all the more likely that you'll end up with monocultures, as the argument goes. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What is this car?

Hi, I am trying to add a description to this picture. Can anyone help me identify the car in the picture? It looks like a Toyota or Mazda, but I'm not sure. Chevymontecarlo. 15:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, it says Mazda on the hood, if that helps...! --Mr.98 (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

[after edit conflict] Looks like a series 4 Mazda RX7 to me, compare Google Image search. -- Ferkelparade π 15:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

2nd gen Mazda RX-7, Series 5. That's actually the pic from the article: Mazda_RX-7#Second_generation_.28FC.29. StuRat (talk) 15:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

OK I'll add that to the description. Thanks. Chevymontecarlo. 15:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

A Capella Group?

So, I have this song on my iPod of an A Capella group doing a "remix" of Deck the Halls. I'm almost positive it is a professional group, as it sounds studio edited, professionally done, and I swear I just remember knowing they were a professional group. I can't find them on the internet though, as all my searches on every plane bring up endless results of amateurs and covers. So, I'm hoping someone here could recognize, or maybe point me in the right direction. The song is unique, as it actually portrays a recording session where two British men are the studio workers, trying to get the group to do different sounds for the song. They go from the 40s to present, then go back to the "gregorian chant" version at the end, and the British guys get continually more annoying. Any help would be MASSIVELY appreciated, as I want to revisit my old music days and find more of their stuff! Side note: if you here a song that sounds like this, stress on the British guy's phrase "Shall we?" is emphasized more and more throughout the song; its a dead give away for the group I'm looking for. Thanks in advance! Hubydane (talk) 18:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fantastic. I look forward to viewing it when someone tracks it down. Edison (talk) 01:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I remember hearing that as well! But unfortunately, I now join you in frustration of not being able to find it. 10draftsdeep (talk) 13:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, is there any chance this could be King's Singers? They did a version of Deck the Halls but the sound clip is too short to determine if it is the same one. [2] 10draftsdeep (talk) 15:09, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Deceptively close on the King's Singers, but the song (and group) I'm thinking about has pauses between decade sets, where the studio workers discuss random, hilarious things. Our search continues!Hubydane (talk) 16:09, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Are there any clues on your Ipod? How is the track titled...and how long is it? I'm grasping for any clues possible. The "shall we" is starting to haunt me! 10draftsdeep (talk) 16:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Just for Edison: The Swingle Singers recorded "Music History 101" which is "a trip through Music History to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" treated as a Gregorian Chant, a Medieval Round, a Madrigal, a Bach Chorale, a Schubert Lied and many other styles including jazz and rap."[3]. It's on Anyone For Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi?. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Clues from iPod: simply titled "Deck the Halls - A Capella" with album Unknown. My track is 6 minutes 55 seconds. I uploaded the file here to help the search. Hubydane (talk) 14:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

For further research: The group didn't vary over the theme or harmonies of "Deck the Halls". Instead, they simply squeezed the words into famous existing tunes: "In the Mood" for big band era, The Marcels' version of "Blue Moon" ("bom-baba-bom...") for doo-wop. "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" for "bell-bottoms" rock. "Don't Worry, Be Happy" for "happy" I thought maybe the group had recorded these songs in their own right as well, but found nothing conclusive. Are those British accents fake, by the way? ---Sluzzelin talk 03:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)