Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 August 4

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August 4

What's the copyright status of Microsoft's clip art?

The monthly newsletter of a voluntary organisation I'm part of typically contains some clip art, usually from Microsoft's own collection.

Somebody has asked a question I'm surprised I've never heard nor thought about before.

How legal is it to use such images in a publicly distributed newsletter? HiLo48 (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

That will depend on the licencing of the clip art package. See Clip_art#Image_Rights RudolfRed (talk) 06:15, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but that link doesn't really help. My question is quite specifically about the clip art that Microsoft makes available with Office. Anyone? HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually it does. It tells you no one can possible answer your question since it will depend on the licencing of the particularly product you are referring to, and no one knows what that is. For someone who is always complaining about people not providing sufficient information to answer their questions, you should know particularly with the link RudolfRed has helpfully provided that 'clip art that Microsoft makes available with Office' is woefully lacking sufficient information to answer your question. There are probably at least 4 versions of Microsoft Office in common use, with several different editions in each version, and it could depend on how you acquired the product (e.g. is it volume licence or from MSDN or as an OEM product or as a student some versions of which forbid commercial use I believe) or could even vary from country to country, or due to other random things. Your best bet, as the link RudolfRed helpful provided implies, is to actually check the licence terms of the software you are referring to. Microsoft products are nothing if very willing to provide the licence terms. And when I search for Office help for 'licence' it finds a result which tells me how to find the licence terms for my version.

And if you don't believe me or the article that you should check the licence terms yourself, a quick search for me for 'microsoft clipart copyright' in either Google or Bing and probably most search engines finds [1] as the first search result which says:

“ Clip Art: Use of clip art and other media found on Office Online or provided by Microsoft product is governed by the Microsoft Office Online Service Agreement and the EULA (end user license agreement) for the product from which you obtained the media. ”

That page also links to [2] to find the licence terms for you product, but if this actually matters and considering you could be mistaken about what product you are actually using (including how it was acquired), I would strongly suggest you try to find the licence that comes with your specific product. If all else fails, while Microsoft as with many big companies can be difficult to reliably contact for end home users at times, I imagine they're more willing to do so for licence reasons even if their legal department apparently can't afford a spell checker ('offenseive') ('leagal'). (From their legal department page, you may have to do so via snail mail.)

Nil Einne (talk) 08:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

For Office Online, the relevant parts seems to be:

• You may copy and use the media elements in projects and documents. You may not (i) sell, license, or distribute copies of the media elements by themselves or as a product if the primary value of the product is the media elements; (ii) grant your customers rights to further license or distribute the media elements; (iii) license or distribute for commercial purposes media elements that include the representation of identifiable individuals, governments, logos, trademarks, or emblems or use these types of images in ways that could imply an endorsement or association with your product, entity or activity; or (iv) create obscene works using the media elements.
• Sample Media includes images, music, etc. customarily found in the "sample" folders within Microsoft operating systems. Sample Media may be used for personal use only. You may not sell, lease, or distribute Sample Art, or any materials you create that use Sample images, for any commercial purposes.

But like Nil Einne says, you really should check the specific agreement that came with your version. Ssscienccce (talk) 08:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I honestly didn't think this would be such a difficult question. We all know that most people never read such formal agreements. We all also know that Microsoft's clip art IS used by amateur newsletter producers all over the world. (I'm not the newsletter editor here. Just following up from a question asked in discussion.) So this situation must arise quite frequently. I have never heard of a copyright case involving Microsoft's clip art. My guess is that Microsoft doesn't care. It's just happy to sell Office. HiLo48 (talk) 18:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The "I don't think they care" approach is dangerous. All too often people with extensive portfolios of intellectual property will wait, in full knowledge of infringement, and then sue everyone in sight right before their rights expire in order to catch the maximum possible number of infringers in one go. With the ability to do "Search by Image" on Google and elsewhere, it's childishly easy to track down hundreds of copyright infringers very easily. SteveBaker (talk) 21:30, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with HiLo, this is not a difficult question. It seems fairly obvious to me that there are no copyright issues involved in using Microsoft's clip art. The clip art is right there in the software. By providing it, Microsoft are effectively saying "Go ahead, use it however you wish." --Viennese Waltz 08:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Well when you buy a Bluray or DVD or video tape, they provide you the movie, surprisingly if you try to upload the movie to the internet or do a public viewing they aren't particularly happy. And funnily enough Microsoft seems to have similar objections to uploading their software. And even before software keys, they didn't seem to like it of you bought one copy and installed it in multiple computers without paying for it. Anyway you could try going ahead and using the Microsoft content for obscene and pornographic purposes (which Microsoft seems to universally forbid) and then making a big deal of it and seeing if Microsoft agrees. Or make a Microsoft clipart compilation and sell it and tell Microsoft about it, to do the same. Nil Einne (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Your statement makes little sense. If you don't want a proper answer but just plan to use the stuff any way you wish regardless of what the licence provided to you actually says in the belief you will probably not be sued then why did you ask the question? There are of course plenty of people who for a variety of reasons can't just rely on the unlikelihood of being sued. If you want a proper answer, you will have to actually read the licence terms which most people never read. (Of course such terms can't overide anything you are guaranteed under local law, but it's unlikely many jurisdictions will allow you to do anything and everything you want with the clipart without the copyright holder allowing it.) Even if you didn't know this initially, the link by RudolfRed surely did tell you the the precise licence terms depends on the specific package involved which isn't exactly surprising (particularly considering you appeared to know software tends to have highly specific licences which most people never read). Incidently, Steve Baker's reply makes another interesting point. It isn't unknown for companies, including Microsoft, to screw up and provide content which they don't have enough rights to provide in the manner they do. If Microsoft provides you clipart which is actually copyrighted by someone else who did not licence the content to you or to Microsoft, your legal risk in such cases if the company decided to come after you would depend on the country you are in and other factors like how you used the content etc, but I think there is enough history to show you can't be sure you'll be fine, particularly if you're a big, prominent and significant target. Microsoft does provide indeminities in some cases which will protect you from such a risk, but of course the existance and nature of such indeminities will depend on your specific case and you'll have to actual read any agreement. Nil Einne (talk) 18:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Weird factory in Kirkenes

In Kirkenes, Norway, there is a weird factory or similar contraption on the top of a hill, near the harbour. It has two immensely large canisters both displaying the Shell logo. What is this factory? JIP | Talk 11:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the "immensely large canisters" on aerial views or Google street views; but if it's the industrial complex located at 69.7250°N 30.0342°E / 69.7250; 30.0342 and shown in background of the photos here and here, it's some sort of plant or shipment facility belonging to Sydvaranger Gruve, an iron-mining firm. Deor (talk) 14:08, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

A weird factory in Kirkenes.

This is the weird factory I'm talking about. JIP | Talk 18:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the building at the top of the hill is definitely part of the Sydvaranger complex. It would seem to be a facility for loading iron ore onto ships in the harbor (hence the conveyors leading from it). The iron ore is brought to the facility via the railroad track visible in the Google aerial view. Deor (talk) 19:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Longest day possible?

What's the longest amount of time that it is possible to spend in a single day of the week? Allowing for Daylight Savings Time if relevant (and the changeover days with the extra hour), and allowing any mode of transport. 81.158.82.154 (talk) 12:32, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

38 hours. Start at the Line Islands at 1000 GMT on Tuesday (0000 Wednesday local time), travel to Baker Island in 14 hours (0000 Wednesday GMT, 0000 Tuesday local time). Any plane should be capable of that journey, although I'm not sure if it can be done by boat; it has to be a minimum of 14 hours, or you'll go back to Tuesday. Then spend 24 hours on Baker Island (wear warm clothing and take a good book). See Time zone. Tevildo (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Hang on, those numbers look wrong. Recalculating. Tevildo (talk) 13:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

OK. Start at the Line Islands at 1000 GMT Tuesday (0000 Wednesday local time). Wait one hour, then travel to the Phoenix Islands in (say) 30 mins (1130 Tuesday GMT, 0030 Wednesday local). Travel to Fiji in (at least) one hour (1230 Tuesday GMT, 0030 Wednesday local). Spend 23.5 hours in Fiji (1159 Wednesday GMT, 2359 Wednesday local) - the last of which should be in your boat on the way back to Kiribati. Cross the International Date Line on the stroke of midnight (1200 Wednesday GMT, 0000 Wednesday local). Spend 24 hours on Baker Island, for a total of 3850 hours. Tevildo (talk) 14:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Nope. This approach doesn't work - you can't cross the International Date Line in literally zero time - your body has a certain size and you can't cross that distance in zero time - so at least a part of your body wouldn't experience the full amount of time in the same day...plus, I don't understand why 38 is the most (see below). To do this right, you have to fly westwards all around the earth within a little less than 48 hours. SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, it's because I can't do arithmetic. It should be 50, not 38 - we still should take advantage of the GMT+14 timezone. If an instantaneous crossing of the IDL is invalid, we can get 50 hours using your method of multiple Concordes - although we'll have to get to a runway from which a Concorde can take off, starting at the Line Islands. Perhaps a shorter-range supersonic carrier-launched plane could be used for the first leg. Tevildo (talk) 15:42, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh! Right. I'd forgotten about the +14 zone. Yeah - OK then by that trick we're up to 50 hours. Maybe not Concorde then. Well, if we can't walk there - then we'll still need a plane - to keep the distances small, we'd want to start in the Line Islands - loop tightly around the south pole and land somewhere close to 180 longitude. we have 48 hours to do it - but we'd need to be close to the pole within 12 hours to keep ahead of the earth's rotation without fancy supersonic aircraft. So we'd have a few thousand miles to cover in 12 hours - and something that can land on ice at the end. An LC-130 would do that with comparative ease. It has a range of 2300 miles - and at 320 mph - it could fly due south and with a couple of refuelling stops get us to the pole within 24 hours - giving us a leisurely 24 hours to hike in a circle outside the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. SteveBaker (talk) 19:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd still like to avoid the poles (due to the lack of certainty with time zones discussed below) and end up on Baker Island, which is unambiguously at GMT-12. We need to circumnavigate in a westerly direction from the Line Islands to Baker Island in less than 22 hours - that shouldn't be too difficult. Tevildo (talk) 19:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's think about what "Wednesday" means. The start of "Wednesday" anywhere on earth is a bazillionth of a second after midnight at any point in the time-zone immediately on the western side of the International date line (IDL)...the end of Wednesday is a bazillionth of a second before midnight in the time-zone immediately on the eastern side. (A "bazillionth of a second" being here defined as an infinitely small amount of time). When you're just on the eastern side of the IDL on Wednesday just before midnight, your day changes from Wednesday to Thursday - but on the other side of the IDL, it was already Thursday and rolls into Friday. So from the point of view of someone who stays on the western side, you set out on your trip after midnight on Wednesday and arrived back just before midnight on Thursday - so if you time it just right, 48 hours will have elapsed while you're stuck in perpetual "hump day".

Now we just need a vehicle to get us around the earth faster than it's rotating...and for that we might get really fancy and use a number of reconditioned Concorde airliners pre-positioned at suitable locations (they could fly faster than the rotation of the earth)...but so long as you have some nice warm clothing - it would be much easier to just walk. So long as you're standing sufficiently close to one of the poles (within a few miles should suffice) - you'll be able to cross all 24 time zones in 48 hours on foot without much effort - leaving you plenty of time for sleeping, eating and erecting your tent to get warm.

Hence, I believe the answer is 48 hours. I wonder if anyone has ever done that? SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, while all the lines of longitude converge at the South Pole, for practical reasons the polar region operates on New Zealand time for a decent distance in all directions. So that approach is out. At the North Pole it might work, but the concept of a "time zone" is a bit fuzzier once you're in international waters. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:13, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Our article doesn't say that at all. It says that FOR CONVENIENCE the base at the south pole operates on New Zealand time - once you're outside of the base, your time zone depends entirely on your longitude. There are places such as the Mars rover mission contol at NASA that operate on Mars time - that doesn't change things once you're outside the scope of their offices. SteveBaker (talk) 19:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Is Mars time defined anywhere? I ask this because of my very longstanding objection to dating the Armstrong/Aldrin Moon landing as at a certain time on a certain date in July 1969, which date applies only to the Earth, a completely different celestial body. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

We have an article on timekeeping on Mars that describes various proposals. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Wow, thanks, Gandalf. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

See s:Around the World in Eighty Days/XXXVII.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:42, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The trouble with these answers is that there is no (precise) international dateline. Our article says "The IDL on the map on this page and all other maps is an artificial construct of cartographers—the precise course of the line in international waters is arbitrary.". --ColinFine (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. That doesn't affect my answer in any way.

1. Any place that you, personally, decide is where the IDL is - allows you to spend 48 hours "in the same day".
2. "..in international waters" doesn't cover the antarctic where the line has an extremely precise definition at 180 degrees longitude.
3. The only reason that the position of the IDL is vague in international waters is that there is a solid definition of which islands and territories are in which time-zones (and therefore on which side of the line) - but the actual line itself isn't defined outside of the legal jurisdiction of those places. Since (for convenience) some places that are beyond the strict 180 longitude have the "wrong" timezone - the IDL has to wind around them - and the precise geometry of that is indeed poorly defined. But if you're on land, the definition of which day it is and what time it is will be perfectly well-defined.
4. The answer to the problem that I provide works just fine if you start in any place in the +12 time zone and end anywhere in the -12 zone...since both of those places can be on land - the issue of what happens in international waters doesn't matter.

Hence, my previous answer stands. Start somewhere just west of 180 degrees longitude, somewhere close to the south pole. Walk in a circle around the pole over a period of 48 hours and stop just east of 180 longitude and you'll have spent 48 hours in the same day. SteveBaker (talk) 18:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

If leap seconds aren't abolished and you wait an unknown time for the next one then you may get an extra second. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Good one! Any advance on 50 hours and one second?! Can we glean a few more nanoseconds from relativity? Get up nice and high out of the gravity well maybe? (You have to *really* like Wednesdays to want to do that!)  :-) SteveBaker (talk) 00:43, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Indirect cannibalism in Yorkshire?

How many ducks would a person need to eat in order to have entirely consumed a deceased hillwalker? Horatio Snickers (talk) 16:19, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

That premise doesn't work. You're not ingesting the victim's body, you're ingesting the duck, as whatever it has ingested (human or otherwise) has been broken down to basic molecules and then converted to molecules within the duck's tissue. For a somewhat parallel example, in the old days a farmer might plant a fishhead along with a seed or seedling, to provide fertilizer as the fish decomposes. If you eat the produce of that plant, you're not eating the fish, your eating whatever nature converted it to - namely, plant tissue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:31, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

So we should be singing; "Then we shall all have eaten some of thy molecules in't duck's tissues", but it doesn't really scan ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 17:36, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Sounds a bit like The Third Policeman where a person and a bicycle ggradually exchange atoms till the bicycle is part human and the human is part bicycle. Dmcq (talk) 17:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

That happened in The Fly also, except it wasn't gradual. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:46, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

What things contribute to satisfaction with your life?

From a general psychological point of view, what factors or categories of things and your level of satisfaction in each determine if you are happy and satisfied with your life or if you are unhappy and dissatisfied with your life? Things like your relationship with your family, your occupation, your level of healthy exercise, and so on? This will help my self-improvement, so thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.3.227 (talk) 18:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

As it says clearly at the top of this page "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:09, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

By "From a general psychological point of view" I meant that I don't want individualized or personal answers. I'm not asking "What specific things make YOU happy?". I meant "What do Psychologists say as a fact?". I assume that things like Family Relationship and Occupation would be categories in a psychologist's answer but I haven't been able to find such a list. I hope this clarifies the question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.3.227 (talk) 19:15, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a vast literature on this subject (despite the previous none-too-helpful replies). Happiness is our main article, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is one of the standard starting points, and Gross national happiness gives details on how various government agencies attempt to measure it. Tevildo (talk) 19:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

We don't help "This will help my self-improvement, so thank you" with your self improvement either. Consult with a professional. μηδείς (talk) 19:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Tevildo. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is exactly the kind of article I was looking for. You might not want to help anyone who posts a question here with a personal thing, Medeis, but the purpose of the Wikipedia Reference Desk is to answer all questions that are not prohibited, so I suggest you think about that before posting an unhelpful and or hostile response to an allowed question in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.3.227 (talk) 20:09, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

File an ANI. μηδείς (talk) 20:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The "Hierarchy of Needs" was the first thing that came to mind. As regards the OP lecturing others here, maybe he's under the impression that we get paid for this. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:42, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Simple answer, SEX. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.204.94 (talk) 23:44, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Beware of STD's, which could cut down on the satisfaction level. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:38, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

What is the recipe and cost to make a HOMEMADE Big-Mac™?

When I try to cut back on eating out, I start to miss the Big Mac™. Its taste is so priceless, I'd rather learn to make my own than to miss eating another one for that much longer.

(Then I suppose I'd substitute less healthy options for healthier ones: Iceberg lettuce for romaine, American Cheese for anything healthier, processed salt for sea salt, etc.)

But let's start with the original recipe.

If I made my own Big Mac™, how much would the ingredients cost altogether per burger (from your local grocery), and what is the price of a Big Mac™ at your local McDonald's®? --75.39.138.10 (talk) 20:58, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

(I can't answer your question - but I have to correct a serious misapprehension that you appear to have. Our Sea salt article says: "there is little or no health benefit to using sea salt over table salt, as both are primarily sodium chloride"...and Table salt says: "It is a misconception that sea salt has a lower sodium content than table salt, — they are both basically sodium chloride.". If anything, sea salt is less healthy because commercially produced salt has added iodine and sea salt has much less of it. To get the flavor of saltiness with reduced high blood pressure issues, What you want is potassium and magnesium salts - sometimes sold as "No Salt" or "Lo Salt".) SteveBaker (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Paging Jim Delligatti . . . to get a true taste of one you need to start with Monongahela River water and of course Heinz ketchup & pickles. If I was in your position I might just apply at McDonalds for a part-time seasonal position, nothing quite like going directly to the source and I hear every employee gets a meal of their choice on the house per shift.  :-) ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 21:37, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The recent health craze around Sea Salt is a wonderful scam. It's the same stuff, of course, but there's always money in telling people that it's OK to do something they're not supposed to if only they do it in a more expensive way!

(There's a similar madness around honey. But at least that tastes better than ordinary sugars.) APL (talk) 11:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

If you think the taste is "priceless", I think you must have a serious addiction (but that is just an opinion, not medical advice). Probably the least healthy part of a Big Mac is the bread, with all its processed white flour, sugar, and god knows what else. It's the flour and sugar you're addicted to, not the meat, salad, pickles, ketchup (apart from the sugar content), or sesame seeds. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:42, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The goal of fast food restaurants is the same as Tobacco or Beer companies, get them hooked. A recent Colbert Report guest author admitted that food companies spend millions/year to research & discover the "bliss point" of a food product so that a consumer literally can't stop ingesting it. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 21:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh yeah, when the guest author revealed what food scientists working for the big manufactures told him on CR it made me think of that scene in the Matrix Reloaded where the Merovingian demonstrates causality with the woman eating cake. That would be the food induced "bliss point"/addiction the author might be describing on CR. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 21:57, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]}, Jack. The "(processed) sugar is evil/raw sugar (or honey) is good!" crowd is almost as prevalent as the "processed, iodized salt is evil/sea salt is good!" crowd, and similarly poorly supported by data. If you dry pure sugarcane juice, you get a dark brown product that is somewhere north of 95% sucrose. Refining the sugar removes most of the 5% as molasses, and leaves behind (refined) white sugar: essentially pure sucrose. The various styles of brown, turbinado, or unrefined sugar all either interrupt the refining process a bit early to leave some of the molasses (and its color and flavor) in the product, or just add molasses to refined white sugar. (The latter option is much more common, as it allows easier production of a uniform product on an industrial scale.) The small fraction of molasses affects the flavor profile of the product, but it doesn't have any important nutritional influence.

Honey has similarly 'dirty' secrets. When produced by the bees, it starts out with most of its sweetness coming from good old sucrose, but the bees then secrete enzymes (invertases) which cleave the sucrose into glucose and fructose. Where else do you find that mixture of sucrose with enyzmatically produced fructose, and glucose? They are the same sweetness-producing ingredients in that most detested of the anti-health food demons: high fructose corn syrup. Again, honey has some additional components in small quantity that mostly affect the flavor profile, but the 'sweet stuff' is just as evil as HFCS.

Meanwhile, the original Atkins diet fad has morphed into an array of similarly faddish pronouncements by gurus peddling wheat-free or gluten-free diets, and the evils of refined flour. While a diet too rich in high-glycemic index foods (whether 'natural' or 'processed') isn't good for you – and I'm definitely not going to fight you on that – it's a bit of a step to conclude that it is the high-glycemic-index ingredients in the Big Mac which make it 'addictive'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to not go on about the health of eating Big Macs. (by the way, you don't have to use the TM symbol here) The burger and fixings aren't anything all that different from a standard burger with the exception of the sauce. You can search for the recipe and come up with a plethora of people who think they've nailed it down. There are even books of so-called "top secret" recipes. You'd have to pick one that you think matches the taste and then figure out your cost for the ingredients. And as far as what a Big Mac costs at your local McD's... Well, I would think that you'd know that pretty well. After all, you've been buying them all this time. Since prices vary by location for not only ingredients but the cost of the burger as well (not all McD's charge the same for the same food), I don't see how we can be very exact in pricing this out for you. Dismas|^(talk) 23:54, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you'll find that the Big Mac's distinctive taste comes from the sauce.

The sauce is very similar to Thousand Island dressing, so you might just try that and see if it does it for you. APL (talk) 11:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

At some risk of showing my age, in the 1970s the advertising for Big Macs consisted of an omnipresent TV/radio campaign stating simply: "Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun", all run together exactly like that. It now takes up valuable brain space in everybody my age. Argh. It was viral before we had viral media. It's the sauce, which as noted above, is closely related to Thousand Island dressing, that gives it a distinctive taste, along with the thickness and consistency of the meat and the buns. Acroterion (talk) 12:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep. The keyword there being "special sauce", along with however they do the beef. Each hamburger chain seems to have a unique taste to their beef, which could be the meat itself or it could be the preparation. If you want a better taste than Thousand Island (which I find to be fairly gross), you could try a barbecue sauce. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:28, 5 August 2013 (UTC)