Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/July 2005 III

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[edit] Two things

I'm very computer illiterate and your site is very difficult for me to find my way around.I'm doing the best I know how.

I have been playing bridge since early 1953.I am far from being a whiz but really enjoy random rubber bridge.I have not been a stick in the mud when it comes to learn more updated methods.

A long time ago When the weak twos really started to be the way to go I was playing partner with a fellow I had never seen before or since.He said would you like to try something a bit different and I said yes.He wrote out a system on a sheet of paper {very Simple}and I loved it and over the years since have passed it on to a few of my friends and we use it when we are partners and It always works great and I must add keeps our opponents totally confused.The person who wrote this system out for me titled it at the top of the sheet{WEAK TWO'S VERSION TWO}.When I would refer to it that way all I ever got was and "ARE YOU CRAZY LOOK" As time went on I saw precision and I say that it was very close.Still looking I found on the net B-M PRECISION.It was as if I was handed a fresh copy of the oridignal sheet.He had never heard of weak twos version two. My question is this can you shed any light on this? Sincerely LARRY I don't know if I can find a reply if you sent one so here is my E-mail address larryeh at msn dot com Thank you.

  • Dear Larry: You posted this question perfectly on the right spot. Unfortunately, I can't help you here, but I'm sure there's other bridge players around. Just check back to this same page for your answer. - Mgm|(talk) 18:15, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • I assume it's a "house rules" variant (i.e., in putting cash on Free Parking in Monopoly). This would explain why no-one else has heard of it. GarrettTalk 23:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't know about Bridge but I think it's more of a strategy for hinting your plans to a partner. Superm401 | Talk 06:14, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • It's not exactly "house rules" or a "hinting" to partner. It's an example of a Convention (bridge). Each partnership reaches an agreement as to what types of hands are shown by each available bid. In bridge, as in other fields, new ideas are passed around informally, and sometimes occur to more than one person independently. Thus, the "WEAK TWOS VERSION TWO" sheet that you saw may have been a precursor of the B-M Precision system, with its ideas finding their way to the system developer under another name, or the system developer may have decided on his own to play the two-bids this way. I gather you're trying to find out which it was. Because no one here has yet given you any more detail, though, I suggest you post a query on the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.bridge (and good luck!). JamesMLane 15:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Buskers

My husband is working on an article about busking and asked a group of people (including me) if we knew of any famous buskers in various cities. I think he's interested in any city, but particularly in Canada. He's writing about Ben Kerr in Toronto and a guy known as "Spoonman" in Montreal. I thought, well, Wikipedia is the perfect place to check, I'm sure there will be a Category:Buskers and we can get all the really famous ones. But alas, no, no one has thought to put all the buskers in one place. Can anyone help? moink 18:41, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what he's called (I knew once), but there's a man in San Francisco who carries a fake leaf down by Fisherman's Wharf. Aha! See The World Famous Bushman. He's the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Meelar (talk) 19:00, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
If I remember correctly, it was the Phoenix family that did some busking before gaining fame. Try the articles on River Phoenix for a start. Either that or try a google search of the Wikipedia with the word "busking". Dismas 19:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
There's the Naked Cowboy. --Robert Merkel 06:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I used to be a busker when I was a student in London many years ago. Its an interesting sub-culture and I still know how to spot pitch lists at some places around London. However, I was neither famous, nor particularly good. Though I did meet a very flamboyant gay tap dancer, who made good money dancing at Knightsbridge tube whilst berating and insulting passengers as they came down the escalators towards him. He should have become famous.
In answer to the real question; more recently London Underground started to legalise some authorised buskers on the tube. And their first official busker was Julian Lloyd Webber who is quite famous, although he clearly didn't need the money and I'm not sure that counts (see [1]). Nigel Kennedy is also famous for busking before he sold a few million copies of The Four Seasons.
I can't remember the name of any particular musician, but I recall stories of pop musicians disguising themselves, taking an acoustic guitar and busking to the queues of people waiting to get into their own concert. The last time I heard of this sort of story, I think it was someone copying the antics of a more famous musician (from the 60s?). Elvis Costello would seem a likely candidate, but I can't find a reference. Although it seems he was once arrested for busking outside his hotel [2]
Finally, here is a story I landed on whilst looking for info above. I don't know of Davy Graham, but he is apparently much appreciated by several guitar legends. -- Solipsist 12:05, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Who's the guy that dresses like Jimi Hendrix who roller skates around the boardwalk of Venice Beach, wielding an electric guitar with a small amplifier hooked onto his belt? I had seen him a number of times on American TV series (I'm British) and was absolutely bowled over (astonished) when I saw him in the flesh on the one day I went to Venice Beach. --bodnotbod 07:33, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
I visit New York frequenty and they have an organized program of subway buskers called Music Under New York where they audition performers and give them official blessing and a sign. They have a fact sheet. And of course there is the disorganized busking that you see in London on the Underground. FunkyChicken! 14:26, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
Famous Key West performer at sunset in Mallory square: The bagpipe guy in full Scottish costume. Also the guy with trained cats jumping through hoops, etc. The gathering was a tradition in Key West for many years and had many long-time performers. Many articles have been written about them, try Google with Key West and sunset and Mallory Square, try archives of the Miami Herald for more info. The whole thing became a controvery when the city decided all the sunset performers needed licenses and to pay licensing fees.

[edit] Worth learning LaTeX?

I'm just about to start writing a thesis, due at the end of August. It will probably be about 60 pages long, have a number of diagrams and a few formulas, and no more than about 40-50 references. It will only ever be in one format - i.e. I'm not sending it off to get published in a journal or anything.

Is it worth learning LaTeX? Does it really make your life easier? Will I be better off with LaTeX than simple OpenOffice Text? Biased and un-biased opinions welcome!

I think LaTeX is worth it. I find writing equations in e.g. Equation Editor a serious challenge. Also, trying to lay out figures can be a big big issue, and getting the references to update themselves and not get really ugly. But that experience is with word, not OpenOffice, so I'm not sure how applicable it is. LaTeX handles all of that for you, especially if you use BibTeX which is a great help. A few questions which will help you decide: 1) What will you be using to generate the figures? I like xfig for diagrams, Matlab for mathematical figures. 2) Does your university have a template for the thesis? Mine has it in both Word and LaTeX, and the LaTeX one comes with instructions that make it very easy to use, barely knowing LaTeX (except you need to know how to format the math). 3) Will you ever be writing technical papers again? Going to grad school, being a scientist? If so, the time to learn LaTeX will pay off in the long run.
Here's a good introduction to latex: [3]. A longer, PDF tutorial: [4]. moink 19:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Well... already in grad school, so already on the trek to becoming a scientist, I guess. I realize I need to learn it at some point, I'm just worried that, with only two months to write the thesis, learning LaTeX might slow things down. I guess I'm put off by tutorials with titles such as "The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e". Also, my diagrams are going to be most likely from either Excel or OpenOffice Spreadsheet. Can I use these in LaTeX?
For a one-off project? Smallish? Not formula-intensive? It doesn't matter much. If you have an affinity for these things and find you can pick up LaTeX quickly, then by all means try it, because it produces beautifully typeset documents (the worn-down Computer Modern that everybody insists on using notwithstanding)... But if you already know your way around WYSIWYG land, just using OpenOffice will get you results faster than entering LaTeX.
If you have formula-intensive documents, LaTeX is without peer in both editing and typesetting—it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that LaTeX is one of the foundations of modern mathematics, at least as far as its looks are concerned. :-) For other types of documents, it is still without peer for people who want to control typesetting on a logical level rather than a visual level (quickly and consistently changing around formatting of an entire document is something most WYSIWYG editors are still poorly equipped to do, as is managing a large, multipart project), but for most applications WYSIWYG editors are "good enough" (or "quick enough"). Conversely, in graphics-heavy projects WYSIWYG editors have the edge because formatting a document based on visual layout is something LaTeX (or rather the text editors typically used) are in turn poorly equipped to do.
As always, YMMV. :-) JRM · Talk 19:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Update: forgot the good point Moink made—LaTeX (and the various bibliography packages) are excellent with references, while I've had nothing but bad experiences with references in WYSIWYG editors (hard to insert, hard to keep consistent). 40-50 references would be enough for me to seriously consider LaTeX. But then, I already know it. :-) JRM · Talk 19:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Alright, so I'm basically convinced. However, now I have to ask the classic newbie question: how do I get it? The LaTeX article doesn't seem to be of any help. Neither the [LaTeX primer nor the not-so short introduction appear to discuss this. The LaTeX website does kind-of tell you, but not in a way that's remotely easy to understand. Apparently, first I need to get TeX, and they recommend TeX Live, however, they tell me I need to be a member. I thought it was all free? And then I can still find no help on how I'd download and install the files — I've never been good with anything that doesn't come as a simple .exe file... Finally, nowhere does it tell me how I'd actually get to view the final product (on Windows). How do I turn it into a simple .pdf?

Any simple advice for a complete newbie?

Windows? Get MiKTeX. Tailored to Windows, complete with setup wizard and maintenance tool. Editing? Get WinEdt (not free, but free trial)—it's a complete doozy to use. From there, Accessories -> PDF -> PDFLaTeX should do exactly what you want (you can also configure your project to always use PDFLaTeX for output, but I forget how). JRM · Talk 20:02, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I second that. I started out using MikTeX with WinEdt, and even though I felt like I was bumbling through the installation, I didn't actually find anything that I could seriously mess up and it all worked just fine from the start. At first you might be rather frustrated because it's so different from a WYSIWYG editor, but for a thesis it'll pay off in the long run and produce a much better document. Also, for a single document with just equations and only jpg figures, you really don't need to learn that much. Most problems I ran into were due to being picky on formatting the title page.
At first I kept a copy of the Not So Short Introduction around because of it's nice index, which tends to list both commands (in case you forget exactly how to use it) and topics (in case you don't know the command for what you want). I've never read the thing straight through, but just having it around as a reference makes the going much easier. By the way, if you want an example thesis document to start with as a template, email me or leave a message on my talk page and I'll send you one. I've always learned code best by playing with preexisting code rather than reading a book and starting from scratch. --Laura Scudder | Talk 20:15, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wisconsin Speeding Ticket

I'm having trouble finding how much a typical wisconsin speeding ticket for 36+ mph over the speed limit is. Can anyone tell me how much this type of ticket would be, or how they figure out the fine? Is it the same throughout the state? Thanks. -- BMIComp (talk) 19:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Umm...forget to read the sign? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:03, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Every state that I've ever lived in arrested you for hazardous driving or some such similar charge for anything 20+ over. I'm shocked that all you got was a fine. Anyway, I would think that the ticket should have a number to call if you have questions, etc. I know the couple tickets I've had over the years did. They should be able to answer the question for you. Maybe better than we could here. Dismas 21:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
First, TINLA. I used to live in Kentucky, and the threshold there for "Reckless Driving" was 26 MPH, but an arrest was at the option of the officer. However, even if a citation was issued, it mandated a court appearance. Perhaps you could contact the Wisconsin Bar Association to locate an attorney who can attempt to have the charges reduced. You can see the text of the traffic laws (and the complex system of determining fines) here. Again, IANAA and TINLA. -- Essjay · Talk 21:30, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
I was having major trouble figuring out what TINLA was. All I could guess was though I never licked.... But of course we have an article with the answer in it. As an additional note, there is probably not a typical ticket amount. Each municipality or jurisdiction can set their own fine. The state laws may define what the state police could charge, but some local rules could differ, including immediate incarceration for reckless driving. - Taxman Talk 22:30, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
I don't know; traffic fines are usually set by state law, while local Courts have some leeway on how much they can charge for court costs. That's where they get you, a $25 fine and $150 in court costs, whether it goes to court or not. -- Essjay · Talk 22:58, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
Not in MI at least. Here, every city/jurisdiction can set their own. I've personally seen different amounts from the ticket I got to the ticket a friend of mine got. And here, traffic tickets don't go to court at all unless you appeal the ticket (or the violation is a misdemenor, felony, etc), so there wouldn't be court costs at all. In one city 1-5 over was $115, while the max for 25 over was $125. Over 25 in MI is defined as reckless driving I think. - Taxman Talk 13:54, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
According to state law, there is no set amount for different speeds. The minimum is $30 and the max $300. I doubt you woud be cited for wreckless driving, since it is required that you at least endanger someone's life, which I doubt you were, even at 36 mph over. James 23:04, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
Weird, they gave me a $412 ticket! Hmmm, i'll have to investimigate this. It is a speed that is considered reckless though, as it is 25+ over. I'm used to Illinois which is 40+ over. Reckless speeds -- BMIComp (talk) 06:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)'
And I was cited with 346.57(5) disobeying the posted speed limit. Apparently, according to 346.60, Penalty for violating sections 346.57 to 346.595, the maximum penalty is $300, unless it is my second offense in a year, which it is not.[5]. Thanks for the help everyone. -- BMIComp (talk) 06:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
If you've got the time, go fight it in court. You may get lucky. If the officer doesn't show up to a formal hearing you're off the hook. If they got you with a radar gun, the burden of proof for the state is that the radar gun they clocked you with has been calibrated within a certain required amount of time. You could get really lucky and find out they were late on that too. If it has though, you're cooked, because they've met their burden of proof. I don't think you can win on claiming it was another car and they made a mistake, since they close that loophole. - Taxman Talk 13:54, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
It may sound a little silly, but demand a jury trial. Long before I got into theology, I was a paralegal, and one of our tricks was to demand a jury trial on speeding tickets. You'd usually get one, and the prosecution would DWP (dismiss with prejudice (meaning it can't be brought back)) rather than take it to trial. I've actually seen them tried, and when you count up the costs, it ends up costing the state like $5000 to get $150 for the ticket (my state had statutory fines; they couldn't charge you more than that no matter what it actually cost to try you). So, file a motion to set for jury trial, and watch it disappear. -- Essjay · Talk 14:04, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Funny enough, I've requested a jury in Illinois before. It involved four court appearances (between the original arraignment, to the (moved) trial to the courty courthouse, and the status hearing where I told the judge I needed time to find an attorney (one of the few reasons for continuance under state law), and then the last hearing, which is where I settled with the prosecutor). I was going 31+, and we made a plea arraignment for $75 and 2 months supervision (which included court costs) and it would stay off my record. It was a pretty good deal, since a judge is the only one who can determine the price for that much over the speed limit, but a 15-30 mph over violation, slower than I was going, is a $95 fine (excluding court costs). And usually they make you pay more when you have a bargain where you get supervision in order to keep it off your record. =)
I just spoke to the prosecutor for this wisconsin ticket and he said the reason it is $412 is because of the additional court costs that are added on ($112). He also said that I could pay $100 to not get my license suspended in Wisconsin (reduce it to a 4point violation instead of 6). Does anybody know if my license is suspended in Wisconsin, if Illinois will suspended mine too?-- BMIComp (talk) 20:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

A co-worker in Illinois demanded a jury trial and was convicted and lost his driver lcense for a year. I thought he was damn lucky, He was drunk when he was speeding, on the wrong side of a divided highway, hit another car and killed its occupants. I would never get in a car with him because he was in denial about his responsibilities, and continued to get drunk. AlMac 21:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BOTOX

Bottulinum toxin is supposed to paralyze muscles, so why does it control underarm sweating? And why, for that matter, does it fix sagging/wrinkled skin? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

It not only paralyzes muscles, but also disables the sweat glands. 145.222.138.134 20:40, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Sweat glands are contolled by nerves. Botox works on nerve endings. As far as i know it doesn't fix sagging skin, it only relaxes the muscles underneath skin. This prevents you from moving your face and so showing the wrinkle lines that are visible when you smile for instance. People who take it for non medical reasons are nuts IMHO. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:27, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who's quote is this?

"It doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty...it's evaporating either way."

Anyone know? --Scapegoat pariah 03:04, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Maybe it's better to try this at Wikiquote. - Mgm|(talk) 08:55, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Definitely a glass-half-empty person though, isn't it? 86.133.212.138 01:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] looking for a program...

I'm looking for a (hopefully free) program, that would allow me to view files made by Microsoft Works 95 (wps, wdb, etc.). Anybody know of one? Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 04:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

libwpd, which apparently has import filters for both AbiWord [6] and OpenOffice [7]. ¦ Reisio 04:45, 2005 July 20 (UTC)
It says it's for Wordperfect, is that the same group of files types as Microsoft Works? Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 04:56, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I believe it will work...would take all of a few minutes to find out yourself. ¦ Reisio 05:25, 2005 July 20 (UTC)
I believe there is an OpenOffice.org (or was it Microsoft Office?) plugin for Works support. Not sure though.
If all else fails, the contents of at least .wps (and maybe the others) is plain text (unlike, say, a PDF file), so you can even view it in Notepad, as long as you don't need to see the graphics and fonts and whatnot.
Either way, hope that helps! GarrettTalk 11:06, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
MS Works doesn't seem to translate very well into plain text, often to the point of being unintelligible. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 05:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Suggest you get a book like "Essential Software for Writers" ISBN 0-89879-667-9 which explains how to get content from any writing software package to any other writing software package. So if you have Word, and your collaborator has Word Perfect, or you are communicating with someone and at one end is Word 2.0 and at the other end is Word 7.0 and you both want to be able tor read each other's stuff, well that's like a couple chapters of this 25 chapter book. AlMac 21:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] From where did this picture of michelle trachtenberg come from?

www.allsexycelebs.com/pics/michelle_trachtenberg/MichelleTrachtenberg2-nmd.jpg -- ?

It's from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the "S" is for Sunnydale High School. ¦ Reisio 05:20, 2005 July 20 (UTC)
Sources say it's the seventh season episode "Him". -- Cyrius|✎ 06:49, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] what is rubber process oil?

What kind of oil? Fossil fuel oil, or something produced directly by an organism? -- Natalinasmpf 06:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

  • From recently transwikified dic def: Process oil = An oil used for lubrication but as a component of another material, or as a carrier of other products. Rubber is often produced by a certain type of tree, but can also be made synthetically. It depends on whether it's made of rubber or used on rubber. - Mgm|(talk) 09:01, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Claiming copyright on public domain works in the UK

The Science and Society picture library claim copyright on all the images in their website [8]. Some are copyrighted, since their authors died less than 70 years ago. Others however are public domain, yet they are claiming copyright on them. Now I do not believe that there has been a Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. case in the UK yet.

My questions involve the differences between US copyright law and UK copyright law. And secondly, what can be done about it? We should start a campaign! Is there anyone that could sue them for us? Or would they have to sue someone for copyright infringement first? (and would they be willing to do that?) Dunc|☺ 11:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

UK copyright law holds that if anything substantially different from an exact reproduction, a photograph of a PD artwork can be copyrighted. If they've made these copies themselves and put some effort into them, they may well fall under this restriction. Shimgray 11:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
However you're right that there's been no Bridgeman v. Corel equivalent, and so it's never properly been tested. Artlaw puts it like this: "There is no case decided by the UK courts which has clearly determined whether photographers of an artist's original work will acquire copyright in their photographs. From what has been said above about originality, there is a very strong argument that such photographs do not acquire their own copyright: although there is considerable skill, labour and judgement required to be exercised by a photographer of, say, a painting, the resulting print or transparency will in effect be a 'slavish' or 'mere' copy of the painter's original image." OpenToppedBus - My Talk 11:33, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Yeah - but, conversely, the relevant legislation does explicitly provide special status to photographers (it automatically grants them a pass on "artistic", f'rex). A court could rule either way, but... I wouldn't touch it for now ;-). (I looked at this in some detail on Wikien-l a couple of weeks back, over a BL-originating photo; I'm decidedly unconvinced we get to use them). IANAL, &c, of course. Shimgray 12:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I looked into this question a little while ago. AFAIK, there is no case law on this topic in the UK, or indeed any other commonwealth country. --Robert Merkel 06:52, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
As the quote above suggests, the question is one of originality (s1(1)(a) CDPA 1988). Artistic works are not included in s8(1) CDPA (no copyright for reproductions of typographic arrangements), so no real hope of a get out there. I am assuming in this that the image in question is a faithful copy: this would, prima facie fail the originality test. A substantially modified copy could well be classed as a derivative work (hence copyrightable in Berne Convention jurisdictions). Physchim62 18:21, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Harmful effects of masturbation

Hi, I am a 19 yr old male..I read the article about masturbation on ur site but I am still confused about the effects such as premature ejaculation due to masturbation. I masturbate twice a day normally It would be kind of you if u reply...Akshay Jain

Premature ejaculation because of masturbation? I thought that was the point? Though I suspect you are a troll in addition to being a wanker. Dunc|☺ 12:35, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I think Mr. Jain is expressing his concern that his ejaculations might be premature at some point in the future when he will not be confined to masturbation anymore. dab (ᛏ) 12:51, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

The only ill effects you're likely to see from masturbation are chafing, an RSI, and dehydration if you do it more than a thousand times a day. Enjoy yourself now; when you're seventy, you'll probably have arthritis and won't be able to do it anymore. -- Essjay · Talk 13:48, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

What about going blind and growing hair on the palms eh? ;-) Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 13:59, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

You can't go blind in both eyes from it, and isn't losing one eye worth it? As for the hair on the palms, as long as it's soft hair and/or you remember to use a quality creme rinse, it will only add to the experience! ; - ) -- Essjay · Talk 14:21, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

  • If you're worried masturbation will cause you to ejaculate too early when you are having sex later you can relax. It's quite unlikely. If it's not you can use the "stop and go" method to proong the experience. - Mgm|(talk) 14:39, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there are a few harmful effects of masturbation not mentioned. About a year ago I (yes, I, this is not anecdotal) got EXTREME headaches after, well, wanking. I mean EXTREME, it was the worst pain I've ever suffered. This went on for about a week, I hoped it would get better and it did. I think it has something to do with blood-pressure, but I am not sure. Should have gone to see a doctor really...... gkhan 20:53, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Yes that is due to blood pressure. As someone once said, "God gave man a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to use one at a time". While funny, this quote is not untrue. If you masturbate the "wrong" way you will sometimes cause a headache-like feeling that can last a while, and the length it lasts for depends on how wrong your technique was (*has first-hand experience*) so just do it the "right" way and this won't happen. The website below lists what not to do. GarrettTalk 23:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Are you accusing me of not being able to masturbate? :P All jokes aside, I don't think i did it the "wrong" way, I've done it the same way all me life (sorry about the "me", just finished the latest Harry Potter book), and I've never gotten headaches before or since. gkhan 16:44, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
What is this wrong way of which you speak? I'm pretty sure I've done it every-which-way including, on one fateful, painful occasion with the aid of toothpaste as a lubricant (don't do it, if you've ever drunk water after an Extra Strong Mint, well multiply the discomfort by a small integer). I've never got a head ache. Not the "head" I'm assuming is mentioned above at any rate. In fact I often find it helps get rid of, or temporarily relieve, a hangover. --bodnotbod 08:06, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Depending on the laws where you live, perhaps you not supposed to do this until age 21, so don't get caught. Certain mental fantasies will get the same results without having to put your hand down there, so don't sweat the arthritis. Your bed sheets or underpants can get soiled, depending on where you are when you invoke this. AlMac 21:33, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Might I suggest you visit a very helpful website JackinWorld, "The Ultimate Male Masturbation Resource". It will tell you all you need to know based on real medical facts etc. etc. etc. From what I've read, premature ejaculation is extremely rare and, when it occurs, is due to other medical problems, not masturbation, and, indeed, masturbation can be used to teach yourself more control over your responses in order to fulfill the ideal that "nice guys finish last", if you know what I mean. :) Oh, and the hair and blindness are completely untrue. Or, at least, I still have my eyesight and smooth palms... gee it's gone all blurry again, I hope that's the save button down there, I need to go shave them... :) GarrettTalk 23:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

When this is done we have to send it to Wikipedia:BJAODN, its too funny to pass up :) Redwolf24 23:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank God Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors or we'd all be at the ArbCom. ; - ) -- Essjay · Talk 23:56, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Hey, don't be such a wanker! Ohh, wait.... gkhan 10:18, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, well the most harmful effect of masturbation is that it can lead to the extinction of the human race. No kidding! If the whole population of a country only engaged in masturbation to the total exclusion of sexual intercourse, you would see a dramatic fall in the birth rate. If this situation is maintained for some 150 years, the whole population of the country will die out. <Peter Jones Voice>This, of course, is very unlikely to happen.</Peter Jones Voice>

That is to say, it is very unlikely to happen, except that it has more or less happened at least once. Although they didn't encourage masturbation, the religious mores of the Shakers were sufficiently effective in advocating celibacy, that once their popularity began to wane in the 19th century and it became difficult to attract new followers, most Shaker communities effectively died out after a couple of generations. -- Solipsist 16:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Just come across this while answering questions. I don't think I've ever seen a more serious discussion from a bunch of wankers. ;-) Rob Church 01:36, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

By the way, to prevent problems during sex later, sex advice columnist Dan Savage usually recommends significantly varying your masturbatory routine so that you get used to different sensations rather than needing a particular one to reach orgasm. --Laura Scudder | Talk 07:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] baikal

what is mean word baikal

  • Have you checked this entry: Baikal? --Edcolins 14:17, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Telecopy

What is the difference between a telecopy and a facsimile? It there is one, what is the difference? From Google, it looks they are synonymous but I can't find a reliable source of information. Thanks. --Edcolins 14:15, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is one; it's like "copy," "photostat," and "Xerox." I've heard them called fax, facsimile, telefax, telecopy, telefacsimile, but I think it's all the same thing. -- Essjay · Talk 14:18, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
BTW, I've redirected telecopy to fax; feel free to undo it if someone comes up with a difference between the two. -- Essjay · Talk 14:24, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
There is no difference, "telecopy" is the ten-dollar word preferred by law firms etc. "Facsimile" is (or was) a more general word, for example a "facsimile edition" of an old book (being an edition printed by photographic copies of the pages), or "reasonable hand-drawn facsimile" etc. People aware of this usage probably wanted a new word that referred uniquely to the new device, hence "telecopy". But "fax" is much more widely used and, to my knowledge, refers only to telecopiers, never to the generic uses of "facsimile". Sharkford 15:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. It makes sense. --Edcolins 18:10, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] diabetis.

which food reduces the blood sugar?

No food reduces blood sugar. Carbohydrates raise the blood sugar fastest. Insulin reduces the blood sugar. See diabetes mellitus. alteripse 15:42, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

In response to the answer, though not really to the question: The unripe ackee fruit of Jamaica lowers the blood glucose, sometimes to dangerous levels, because it contains hypoglycin. Of course it's not a way to deal with diabetes; it's the cause of Jamaican vomiting sickness. Ackee fruit is illegal in the U.S., though poisonings have occurred there despite this. - F. X. Leyendecker 21:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
OK, you got me. I forgot about ackee fruit! alteripse 22:33, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
It's such a crowd pleaser. Always good to be reminded<g>. - F. X. Leyendecker 23:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

If you actually have diabetes then you need to get dietary advice from your doctor, but refined carbohydrates such as sugar are the worst. Protein and fat are digested slowly and so tend to keep the blood sugar steady. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 20:59, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I suppose a small amount of hypoglycin could be digested instead, rather than all those painful insulin injections? -- Natalinasmpf 00:13, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

No, because hypoglycin is a toxin. It does not have the same effect as insulin, but instead inhibits oxidation, making essentially all sources of glucose unavailable [9]. James 00:59, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
You can confirm that a number of labs are investigating it by doing a quick Medline search, but there are just as many reports like this: Meda HA. Diallo B. Buchet JP. Lison D. Barennes H. Ouangre A. Sanou M. Cousens S. Tall F. Van de Perre P. Epidemic of fatal encephalopathy in preschool children in Burkina Faso and consumption of unripe ackee (Blighia sapida) fruit. Lancet. 353(9152):536-40, 1999 Feb 13. PMID 10028981

Apparently hypoglycin is a small molecule like an amino acid rather than a large one, so it is digested readily. But it causes an illness resembling Reye's syndrome or MCAD deficiency with evidence of interference with fatty acid oxidation, encephalopathy, and liver failure. Nasty stuff, with nearly 100% mortality in confirmed cases in young children. Those of us who remember Reye's syndrome would be perfectly happy not to see it again. alteripse 01:14, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Now that we've covered indentical twin murderers...

I have another legal question regarding persons with handicaps. Specifically: is there any special treatment given to little people in sentencing? Let's say a little person is found guilty of a serious crime, and is sentenced to 30 years in prison. I can't conceive that they'd allow someone so vulnerable to abuse to go into a general prison population.

So, is there any precedent in jailing little people? Brian Schlosser42 16:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "little people" - juveniles? physical midgets? Shimgray 16:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, dwarfs. Midget is not an appropriate term, and is viewed as a slur. Of course, the whole question is kind of inappropriate...Brian Schlosser42 17:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I think he's being PC; he means "midgets" (and any other technical class of "small" people). My guess, and I'm not an attorney so I don't know for sure, is that they would be segregated into a special wing. -- Essjay · Talk 16:53, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

My great-aunt would have wondered why we were jailing the little people... but anyway. I doubt there's any major differences. The incidence of dwarfism in the general population is rather low; a back-of-the-envelope guess says that if they're equally likely to be imprisoned, you'd get about fifty in the entire US prison population. With those kind of numbers a special wing, or the like, is impractical; I'm not sure how the prisons handle it, but presumably mix them in with the general population unless this is percieved to pose a risk to the individual by the prison system.
I don't see it as particularly likely that a court would change its sentencing based simply on stature unless it had clear reason to worry about the possibility for abuse in prison - it's more likely they'd sentence as normal, and then leave it to the prison system to sort out how they're dealt with. Shimgray 18:51, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
"If they are convicted at the same rate". If wonder how big that if is. People have preconceptions about persons with dwarfism. People tend to see them as child- like and innocent (or freakish and creepy, thanks to the myriad portrayals of odd dwarfs in film and TV, like in the works of David Lynch) and this may affect the conviction rate. Just a thought...Brian Schlosser42 20:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, there is that. The problem is that I can think of arguments they'd be convicted at a higher rate, and arguments they'd be convicted at a lower one... and I don't think there's really enough of them to be able to make a statistical judgement even if anyone collected the figures. So we can't say either way. Shimgray 20:40, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Note for future reference: a Google search of "prison dwarf" does not turn up anything useful. --Fastfission 19:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] why men love war

Men meaning males, or men meaning humans? Frencheigh 17:29, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
This has been a question asked for a long time, and answered according to the vogue of the era. I've always thought Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents was at least as plausible as the just so stories told by modern cognitive scientists, but that's just me. --Fastfission 19:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891)

see also Wickidquote on War

First, you'll have to show us the evidence supporting this assumption in the first place. Do also answer Frencheigh's question. ¦ Reisio 01:20, 2005 July 21 (UTC)

[edit] Dalek-like voice

Is there any text-to-speech software that has a Dalek like output voice as one of its options. The more ancient the machine you can run it on the better. I have a Windows 98 Pentium II (266MHz) and I'm a total noob at sound recording and don't have any such equipment available, so don't tell I should buy a modulator. I know, odd question... - Mgm|(talk) 17:30, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how a Dalek sounds like....but you can try Audacity...I know excessive noise removal will remove legitimate sound information as well (hence there is a slider for a balance between removing a little noise and removing too much noise) - distorting it, as well as possibly distorting the waveform in other ways....-- Natalinasmpf 01:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/10/Dalek_Exterminate_all_humans.ogg ¦ Reisio 01:24, 2005 July 21 (UTC)

Well given the age of Daleks, I would be surprised if any TTS was used to produce their voice. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop produced the original theme tune for Dr Who, so it would be a good guess that they were involved with any other sound effects. Their earliest work was started before synthesisers, and apart from tape machines they had few other electronic effects. A Dalek's voice is most likely produced by modulating the voice of an actor - odds on, a ring modulator would be involved somewhere in the line. The trick then would be to work out what the modulating carrier wave would be and again it should probably be something simple like a low frequency sine wave. -- Solipsist 11:08, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

In fact, if I had dug around a little harder, I would have noticed that our own ring modulator article mentions that it was the primary effect used for the Daleks. It is also confirmed in this BBC article on making the modern series of Dr Who.
The ring modulator effect is fairly simple, so if your sound editing software doesn't already include one you could probably find a free or cheap plugin - here's one for VST style plugins. The main complication is that a ring modulator needs two input signals, whilst many sound effects assume one input. That example plugin looks like it dodges the issue by using internally generated tones as the second signal. -- Solipsist 11:24, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I'm positive they modulated an actor's voice. I've seen Nicholas Briggs while actually performing the Dalek's voice. - Mgm|(talk) 13:33, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Swollen arms from I.V.'s

Why do arms swell after a person receives multiple I'V.'s?

Because the human body does not like being injured? ...or were you looking for a very detailed answer involving the explanation of the relevant biological reactions? ¦ Reisio 01:26, 2005 July 21 (UTC)

Most of the time arms do not swell just because of multiple IVs, but sometimes they do. Common contributing factors include extravasation of iv fluid from veins into tissue, infiltration of the fluid directly from the iv needle into the tissue if it has become dislodged from the vein, movement of fluid through the walls of the blood vessels due to local release of cytokines (molecules released during an inflammatory reaction), and occasionally to infection or inflammation of the veins used for the iv (phlebitis) or to the hindering of venous blood flow by clotted or inflamed veins. Most post-iv swelling goes away in a day or two and is not serious. alteripse 01:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] tour de france question

Why does Alexander Vinokourov's jersey have different color that his teamates on T-Mobile? Thank you Graam@aol.com

Because he is the Kazakhstan national champion. His jersey's design (his own design) is based on the Kazakhstan national flag. -- Arwel 19:21, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] lived in three centuries

Is there a term for people who have lived in three centuries? If so, can you please share it? Thank you. Kay

  • Not that I know of, but if you know the term for someone who lived in 2 centuries and share it with me, I might be able to make an educated guess about it. - Mgm|(talk) 20:14, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

What about tercentenary, as opposed to bicentenary or centenary? Tercentenary would mean "relative to three centuries". It would be derived from Latin centum, which means "hundred".

Tricentenary, with tri- instead of ter-, is also an option. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 20:36, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Are you referring to someone who is just over 100 years old, most of their life in the middle century ... for example they were born in the last years of the 1800'ds, lived thruought 20th century, and today are age near 110? Or is this some kind of reincarnation question? AlMac 21:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that was the idea. Superm401 | Talk 06:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Isaac Asimov used The Bicentennial Man as the title of one of his works, so tricentennial perhaps? Thryduulf 22:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do I upload a video to my website?

Copied from the Village Pump gkhan 20:45, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I am selling my house and want to add a video of the surrounding area (golf courses, fishing etc) to my website, but I don't know how to add it. I am truly a novice so the instructions would have to be specific. I have saved the little video blurb on my computer but I don't know how to get it on my website. I hope this makes sense. Thanks so much for any help you can provide. Blessings, Marcea


It all depends on what type of Web site you have. On every Web site there are different sets of instructions to upload videos. As stated at the beginning of this page, it would be good to specify your question. ("Be specific and clarify your question, describing specifically what you'd like answered.") Please specify the type of Web site you have. Is it a blog on MSN Spaces or Blogger, or a site on Yahoo! Geocities, or just a Web site you pay for? If so, what kind of Web site is it? What is the URL (="Internet address") of the home page of the Web site or the specific Web page where you wanna put the video on?

Also, you have to take a closer look at the pages of the Web site. Usually Web sites have hyperlinks on pages that are named "Help" or "?" (question mark) or something similar where you click to land on help pages.

To summarize it, read the instructions on the Web site. Usually you just have to upload the video, know the URL (location) of the video, and then hyperlink to it from the Web page that presents the video. That's all it takes. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 20:57, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Have I encountered different dialects of German?

Well...the way I learned some German [some= about 15 phrases], I always thought the ch in 'ich' was pronounced just like the ch in 'loch' (and 'nicht' pronounced similarly). But now I'm listening to a song by a german band called Oomph! where they're pronouncing the ch like 'sh', and thus 'zeig dich nicht' as 'Zeiz dish nisht'. Is this a different dialect of German, are there more than one words spelled 'ich' and 'nicht', or am I just going crazy? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:53, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

There are dialects of German, though none of them, so far as I know, pronounce ich as isch. What is more likely is a lazy singer or bad recording. James 22:01, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps both. :) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
There is a difference between the "ch" in "loch" and in "ich"...the former is more glottal and the latter more palatal, I think (not that I really know what those words mean :)) - whether there are two "ch"'s in German is something I am not sure about (I feel like "nicht" und "ich" are slightly differnt sounds). As for dialects - my grandmother pronounced Hamburg "Hamboich" or something like that. Guettarda 22:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
The "ch" in "ich" is pronounced similar to how you would pronounce the letter "H" in the name "Hugh". --HappyCamper 22:23, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I don't know how you pronounce Hugh, but that is incorrect. There is no sound in English comparable to the "ch" in ich. According to German_pronunciation#Ich-Laut_and_ach-Laut, the "ch" is a Voiceless_palatal_fricative, which probably sounds like ish to an English speaker. James 22:31, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Untrue...I have heard a friend say ich and nicht that didn't sound like ish or nisht at all (and I watched German MTV for a month while in Latvia in December/January :D). I'm really sure it's different in this song (Titled Augen Auf...listen to it if you want) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:40, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
It sounds like a normal ich to me. James 23:52, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Strange...because I'd expect English speakers to hear ik instead of ich, yet I clearly hear ish. Hmm... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I was making a close approximation — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • "Ich" is pronounced "isch" in the Middle German dialects (spoken in the blue and green regions on this dialect map). --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 22:29, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
However, the band hails from Wolfsburg, well within the northern portion of the map. James 22:35, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
That's weird. BTW, is yellow 'high german'? It says oberdeutsche...so over German? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, yellow is "high german". It is high, despite being the south of Germany, because it is in/on the foothills of the alps. James 22:40, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
I think I'm going to learn German just because it's cool ;) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
There's a bit of confusion because Hochdeutsch is used one way by linguists and another way in the more common parlance. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 22:52, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
That's strange, since as I remember, all the yellow regions fall above the ich-ik line, so you'd expect ik rather than isch. --Laura Scudder | Talk 23:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
  • You're correct, Laura, about the ich-ik line (assuming you mean orange, not yellow). However, lower German (Niederdeutsch) has been discouraged for many years, so that most people in that area speak High German now, pronouncing the word as [iç]. Actually, there are four regions, [ik]-[iç]-[iʃ]-[i], which more or less are the same as the orange-blue-green-yellow areas in the map. [iç] and [iʃ] can be regarded equivalent because the distinction is not phonemic: In the green area the phoneme /ch/ is always pronounced as [ʃ] in soft positions (i.e. after "i", "e", "ä", "ö" and "ü" and in the ending "-chen"). Since English doesn't have the sound [ç], it may appear like [ʃ] to an English speaker (It actually sounds much more like [ʃ] than [k]). BTW, even the letter "g" may be pronounced this way in a soft position, which is why Goethe rhymed: "Neige, du schmerzensreiche." — Sebastian (talk) 00:53, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Wow...I learned a lot today. Well, I've always heard ich as more of ik (but different). I think I can hear the soft g a little bit better because I speak Russian (if it's the same soft g of which you speak...like Russian zhele). Like I said, perhaps I should learn German ;) Perhaps you can give me a sound file of all the different pronunciations and I can tell you what I hear. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:16, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • re the "Hughes" example: Of course it's not a phoneme in English, so the best we can do here is find something that remotely resembles the sound. A similar, maybe more common case is in French, where some speakers pronounce an emphatic "oui" often ending in the "ich" sound. — Sebastian (talk) 00:53, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I think I'm gonna use Wikibooks to help me learn basic German. :D — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

By the way, you might know this, but I didn't and it would've saved me a lot of trouble trying to learn it. The umlauts are just 'ä' = 'e' (just a way of rewriting the sound in German which has to do with the umlaut process in verbs and nouns), 'ö' = German 'e' sound + rounded lips (so say hey vowel sound but make your lips like you're saying an 'o'), 'ü' = German 'i' sound + rounded lips (so say something like see but round your lips). The umlauted vowel should always have the tongue slightly farther forward than the un-umlauted one (so saying first 'o' and then 'ö' you move your tongue a bit higher and forward). That's about the simplest explanation I've heard for Americans, who tend to have trouble even hearing the distinction between the totally new sounds at first. --Laura Scudder | Talk 04:25, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Hey, thanks. I may have trouble hearing a lot of german sounds, because I only know English, a teensy bit of Spanish, and Russian. Entirely diifferent than German ;) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 13:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Earl of Southesk

I'm in the process of improving articles on people who are in line to the British throne. On the James Carnegie, 3rd Duke of Fife article it states that one of his titles is "12th Earl of Southesk", however his son's article is entitled David Carnegie, Earl of Southesk. Are there two earls of Southesk or has there been a boo-boo somewhere along the line? -- Francs2000 | Talk 22:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it - thanks to a quick check in Whitaker's - the son is using Earl of Southesk as a courtesy title; as his father has a more senior title (Duke of Fife), he styles himself by the lesser one. Shimgray 23:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your prompt reply. -- Francs2000 | Talk 23:03, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
No problem. You might find poking Wikipedia:WikiProject Peerage useful if you start having more queries like this, since they presumably know what to do about naming conventions and the like. Shimgray 23:18, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quote

Greetings...I have heard this quote from the Talmud, and I would appreciate it if you can tell me where it is found in the Talmud.

"We do not see things as they are.
We see things as we are."

Thank you, Dr. Robert J. Westgate

If you don't get any good answer here, you might also like to try our counterparts over at Wikiquote (on their reference desk). They're the quote specialists (or so they claim). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:07, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • I think you can probably easily find an on-line version of the Talmud (Try Googling "Talmud + online"). You may be able to search it for parts of the phrase. If not, copy it into a word processing software like Word Perfect or MS Word, and do a search there. Ground Zero 14:46, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is a "Blind Chase"?

Um, is there a specific context you're asking the question? In general, it means some person/group/organization expends efforts to achieve a goal ignoring the adverse consequences of their efforts. A common example of usage is that Americans are allegedly engaged in a blind chase of material wealth, at the expense of social cohesion and the environment. For instance. --Robert Merkel 02:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to Program a Computer

So, here I am. With all this computing power and I can't do any programming. I'd like to tell my computer my latitude and longitude and instruct it to tell me where the Sun or Moon is right now. Or, tell it the givens in a Sudoku puzzle and have my computer work out the solution, or just give hints as desired. I know how to do the instructions via some programming language, I just don't know what program to buy (get) to do general stuff like that.

I know how to make an HP48 sing and dance but it's way too slow and memory limited to do anything really complex. So again, what programming language (program) would anyone suggest that I acquire for general purpose programming and which would of course include some graphics capability. Thanks for your suggestions as I don't want to buy something stupid. Probably relevant is that I'm using a Mac with OS 10.3.

Sorry for presenting such a difficult (obtuse) question but I'm hoping that someone can help me out. hydnjo talk 01:38, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


Look, if you're clever enough to program a HP48, you're clever enough to learn any general purpose programming language (though INTERCAL might be a challenge...).
If your primary interest is doing mathematically-oriented work, you may be interested in languages/systems like Matlab and its free workalike GNU Octave, or perhaps a computer algebra system (which is also essentially a specialised programming language) like Mathematica. You can try the free GNU Maxima but there's a fairly large capability and usability gap between the free and the proprietary computer algebra systems at this stage.
For general-purpose programming, you have a wide range of choices. You can download Perl, Python, Java, as well as C and C++ compilers and tools for free, though free tools to simplify the process of building GUIs might be a little harder to come by (there's a number of them for Linux, but I don't know the situation on OS X). I'd suggest you have a play with what's available for free before spending your hard-earned cash.
One more suggestion - if you're interested in solving puzzles like sudoku, finite domain constraint programming makes it a complete doddle (it's easier to write the program than solve one puzzle by hand). The free GNU Prolog comes with such a solver. --Robert Merkel 02:19, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

As a generalization, I'm not looking for a solver but instead, a programming language so that I can develop my own solver, hydnjo talk 02:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your comprehensive response. I'll look into it all. I just didn't know where to start. hydnjo talk 02:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I've heard it said that Java is good to start with, as it apparently teaches clean syntax and good habits, and also provides quick results and essentially renders programs that can work in most any operating system. Java is a private language, however - it is controlled by Sun Microsystems. I would personally start with something like C (or C++), as it's pretty much the base most popular programming languages of today were inspired by, but I'm a pretty unusual person and into chronological order. C is also quite low-level compared to Perl, Python, Ruby and Java. Check out what the internet thinks: Programming Languages: The Internet's Current Opinion. ¦ Reisio 03:01, 2005 July 21 (UTC)
I'd recommend Java (although I'm a C++ programmer - Java is much cleaner). Download java from Sun and Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel, and have fun.-gadfium 03:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I don't know a lot about programming, I've only just started learning C, but so far I've been able to write my programs using free software. Write the program in a text editor, anything will do, compile it in the Terminal program on your Mac, and run it through the terminal as well. Basically I write the program. Name it something like "foo.c". Open the terminal and type "cc foo.c" (no quotes of course). That will compile it to a file named "a.out". Then type in the terminal "./a.out" and, if you've done everything correctly, it will run. Dismas 15:29, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The absolute coolest way of doing a sudoku solver is doing it in a language like Prolog. Since sudoku is all about setting up constraints and finding a solution, Prolog is perfectly fitted for it. It is as if they were made for eachother. For an unexperienced programmer however, Prolog can be similar to INTERCAL, so only attempt it if you know what you are doing. If you do know, it is a joyride all the way. gkhan 10:40, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Abandoned railway station New York/Newark

[Originally posted by Digger66 in the main namespace -- RHaworth 03:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)] there is a train station just on the far side of new york/newark area? well, anyways, its there and it has a history with the macintosh/moncrief family, one of the guys who built the platform and some of the building was born in boston,mass, and was a student in lowell public schools, i saw the station a few years ago, passing through new york on the "world famous greyhound" thats the one where the drivers are as nice a a female pit bull on a monthly and they are famous for loosing your luggage and you will wind up waiting at least twelve hours, but back to my discovery, i got the basic info of the building and did some digging, there is a cornerstone that has the names of all the men and where they came from, on the stone is a day of birth and death of only 2 men and the names arent that clear, but they are the ones i am looking for.if there is a chance that someday some body who has had the time and can get more info, please, i would love to know the names of the two men not mentioned on the stone and why only they are listed as "crew, and support" then the state they came from and when they died.what i dont understand is why they were singled out and not with the rest of those involved in the building, well, i will keep looking and hope somebody sees this and knows more.

[edit] What are the oldest colleges in the U.S.

I found the list of the oldest colleges in the world. But I want a list of the oldest colleges in the United States. At least, a list of all American colleges founded before 1900, in order of founding.

  • See colonial colleges. Superm401 | Talk 14:00, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Did America have any colleges before founding of USA? The Spanish controlled the area for over a hundred years before the founding of the British colonies. Of course the original question not about any academia that might have existed before USA got founded. I was just wondering if all those highly educated founding fathers got any of their education other than in the old country.
  • I think West Point predates the US Revolution ... I saw something about it on a History Channel episode about what Benedict Arnold did to get in so much trouble. {[User:AlMac|AlMac]]|(talk) 00:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
    • The US had a handful - Harvard, apocryphally, once had a president who referred to American independence as an "experiement they were watching with great interest" :-). The oldest university in the New World is in the Dominican Republic, and has university status dating from 1538 - before any serious colonisation efforts in North America! Shimgray 01:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Assuming that you date the founding of the US to July 4, 1776, then all of the schools at Colonial colleges are "before founding of USA." -- Essjay · Talk 01:07, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cooling effect of oil on human body

I've often felt my internal body temperature go up or at least it appeared so. The symptoms would be: feeling heat in the eyes and experiencing difficulty with urinating. One remedy that my parents (and many others here) suggest is applying a few drops of gingelly oil (sesame oil) or castor oil in the navel. I've always found immediate relief with this. What is the mechanism behind this remedy? -- Sundar \talk \contribs 04:24, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I can't see what kind of effect they would have, other than making your belly button well lubricated (which isn't a particularly medical effect) :) ... I would guess the relief is psychosomatic in nature (see also placebo effect), and possibly the feeling of your internal body temperature rising is psychosomatic, as well. Proto t c 12:03, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
My unsure wording (like at least it appeared so) probably led you to think as above. I wish to clarify that the uncertainty was only with respect to my assessment of the cause, but the symptoms are real and the inconvenience during urination is a very objective symptom in that you can practically feel a pain as if your own urine is piercing the inner wall of the urethra (at least, for a male). Also, it is not peculiar to me. I've heard the same complaint from a number of males and some females in this part of the world (Tamil Nadu). It sometimes happens if you had to sit for sometime on a hot rock for an hour. It is so common that the Tamil language word suudu for heat is used commonly among many generations of people to describe this condition. Perhaps the relief has to do with the placebo effect, but I'm not totally convinced about the symptom per se being psychosomatic. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 12:34, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

If this is a widely recognized and named condition in your culture, ask a western trained doctor in your culture what the scientific perspective is. All cultures, including American and European, have "folk diseases" as well as folk medicine that are culture-specific and absolutely unfamiliar and strange to a scientific physician from another culture. The phenomenon is a good illustration of the cultural dimension of how we think about, categorize, and interpret disease of the sort that doesn't include unmistakably objective structural or biochemical alterations of the body. I am not referring to structural/biochemical diseases that occur in a specific locale (like ackee-fruit hypoglycemia or sleeping sickness or kuru) but diseases that occur only in a specific culture (like koro or repetitive motion injury or adolescent conduct disorder or zombification) and do not involve objective structural or biochemical abnormalities. I suspect your phenomenon falls in this category. Have you discussed it with a local doctor? And then please write us an article about it! alteripse 20:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I know equivalents for say Zombie etc in our local culture and know fully well that these are myths, which sometimes are perpetrated because of vested interests like self-styled priests claiming to cure these. But, I still feel that this particular phenomenon falls under the ackee-fruit kind. Aren't you at least aware of people massaging their head with certain oils purportedly to reduce their internal "heat"? Perhaps, it's a tropical phenomenon. I would definitely talk to a local doctor here sometime soon and update. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:21, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
Some related links: [10] [11]. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:55, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
I should have left out the mention of zombies, but my understanding is that many Haitians used to be as certain of the objective reality of the phenomenon as you are. I emphasized some American and European types of culture-bound conditions and treatments so you understand that I am not characterizing your condition as superstititious, magical, primitive, or mistaken, just culture-specific. All cultures have this sort of disorder that is widely known within the culture and completely unknown in others. Note that the one relevant link you offered suggests that chinese traditional categorizations of heating and cooling substances correspond to measurable differences in ability to influence prostaglandin processes in vitro. I have no knowledge of traditional chinese medicine but would not be surprised to learn that in that culture there are disorders of hotness or coolness that do not correspond to any conditions known in other cultures. You are describing an unusual type of dysuria not recognizable to a physician from another culture and proposing that a few drops of oil in your navel can affect your sensations of micturition. I am not disputing that the oil cures your symptoms, but that both your disorder and your treatment seem to be known only in your culture. That is why I suggested that a western-trained doctor in your culture might have an explanation that would make sense outside your culture, since the rest of us can only guess. alteripse 10:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Sure. I understood your intention behind the examples. Just that everyone around here (even outside of Tamil Nadu) that I asked recently seem to know this and tell that they've experienced the symptom. An additional symptom is perceivable warmth in the lower abdomen, pelvic area and the penis. It's getting more interesting for me as I learn that something very common in this culture is totally new for others. I'll definitely update you after discussing with some doctor. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:17, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
I had a discussion with a western-trained local doctor. Contrary to my expectations, she almost approved Alteripse's reasoning. She said the dysuria that happens is mostly due to reduced intake of water or infection and added that the apparent cure of the oil might have to do with the soothing effect of the oil and the sleep that it induces when applied on the eyes and the head. However, she said Castor oil is an anti-irritant and hence may be useful in other instances. Now, I'm compelled to believe in the placebo theory. However, let me wait for the next occurence and objectively analise the situation. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:59, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Culture-specific syndromes are characterized by

  1. widespread familiarity in the culture;
  2. complete lack of familiarity of the condition to people in other cultures;
  3. no objectively demonstrable biochemical or tissue abnormalities (just symptoms);
  4. the condition usually is recognized and treated by the folk medicine of the culture.

An interesting aspect of culture-specific syndromes is how real they are-- characterizing them as "imaginary" is as inaccurate as characterizing them as "malingering", but in the English language and from a scientific perspective, we have no good way to understand them. Culture-specific syndromes shed light on how our mind decides that symptoms are connected and how we define a known "disease." Medical care of the condition is challenging and illustrates a truly fundamental but rarely discussed aspect of the physician-patient relationship: the need to negotiate a diagnosis that fits the way of looking at the body and its diseases of both parties. The physician may

  1. share the way the patient sees the disorder and offer the folk medicine treatment;
  2. recognize it as a culture-bound syndrome but pretend to share the patient's perspectives and offer the folk medicine treatment or a new improvised treatment;
  3. recognize it as a culture-bound syndrome but try to educate the patient into seeing the condition as the physician sees it.

The problem with choice 1 is that a physician who prides himself on his knowledge of disease likes to think he knows the difference between culture-specific disorders and "organic" diseases. While choice 2 may be the quickest and most comfortable choice, the physician must deliberately deceive the patient. Currently in Western culture this is considered one of the most unethical things a physician can do (a 7th circle of hell sin like having sex with your patient), whereas in other times and cultures deception with benevolent intent has been considered one of the tools of treatment. The problem with choice 3 is that it is the most difficult and time-consuming to do without leaving the patient disappointed, insulted, or lacking confidence in the physician, and may be haunted by doubts in the minds of both physician and patient ("maybe the condition is real" or "maybe this doctor doesn't know what he is talking about").

Sundar, we could still use a brief article on this condition. alteripse 12:49, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Sure. Thanks for the detailed analysis, Alteripse. I'll try to write a stub on this soon. As for the "ethicality" of point 2, it is considered praiseworthy in our local culture. The couplet 292 from Tirukkural would illustrate that. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 07:50, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
This discussion has resulted in the creation of two articles Culture-specific syndrome and Suudu

[edit] Crashes of B-29's in the U.S.

(title posted by anon 4.252.75.55)

Accidents and incidents in aviation links to this database going back to 1942, (coincidentally, the same year that the B-42 first flew) Ojw 00:05, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Worldwide publishers of Harry Potter

Hi,

I need to know who are the Worldwide publishers of Harry Potter, other than Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Raincoast, and Penguin in India.

Thanks.

  • In Belgium it's "Standaard Uitgeverij"; in the Netherlands it's "De Harmonie". - Mgm|(talk) 15:02, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] which country does not have a natinal anthem ?

which country does NOT have a national anthem ? please advice to manishparekh@rediffmail.com

thanks

manish

I think there are many which don't have a de jure national anthem although they have a de facto one (Finland and "Maamme" being an example). --EnSamulili 15:21, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
The UK also has no de jure anthem, though God Save The Queen is generally used. Shimgray 15:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
People keep saying this (about Britain not having a 'de jure' national anthem) but this would be news to any Briton. I think the people saying this have the idea that if some legislature hasn't passed a law saying that this is the national anthem then it isn't one. Britain doesn't work like this. Things are done because that's the way they are done. We don't waste our legislator's time passing laws that tell us things we already know. It's like having an unwritten constitution - it doesn't make it any the less effective. Ask any Briton, from the Queen on down - the UK has a national anthem. DJ Clayworth 15:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I did say "no de jure anthem", which is the case - there is no legally established anthem, though I'd agree with you that to all practical effect GSTQ is it. I figured I should mention it as a followon to the Finnish point, because it's a "trick question" I've seen a few times in quizzes and the like... and the way the question was phrased made me suspect it was the sort of question the enquirer had been asked ;-) Shimgray 15:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
On a similar line, English is not an official language of the United Kingdom... Welsh and Scots Gaelic have more statutary status to that claim! Physchim62 17:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
It's an exactly similar line. Just because we didn't pass a law about it doesn't mean it isn't an official language. No wonder the Yanks have so many lawyers. DJ Clayworth 18:01, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Melasma and cysteine

(moved here from the help desk) - Mgm|(talk) 14:59, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
how could cysteine help me with my melasma. Is it possble?

Emmabelle

  • Probably not. It won't do you much harm to try (except to your wallet, if you are thinking of buying commercial supplements), but it may increase the unpleasant smell when you pass wind, especially if you overdo it a bit. Physchim62 18:05, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Latin, Greek, Sanskrit et al.

I'm pushing my luck here, as people have already very kindly given me Latin translations, but I'm trying to produce some BtVS letterhead and I would dearly love to know the Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit translations for "the Watchers' Council." Also Russian, Chinese, Arabic/farsi, and Japanese, except I don't expect those to show up in usable form. Whatever you can do, though. Thank you. --Mothperson cocoon 15:23, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

In Latin I guess "Concilium Custodum" would work. Adam Bishop 15:52, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
But qui custodes ipsos concilium? (sorry, couldn't resist...)
If you're only wanting this for effect, rather than to read, a quick-and-dirty hack would be to transliterate rather than translate; would work for anything not in a Latin alphabet. Using Google's translation, though, and hacking it around until we get something stable (ie, translates back as the same thing, and sounds sort of similar) -
Japanese: 保護者委員会 "Guardian comission"
Simplified Chinese: 监护人理事会 "Guardian council" Shimgray 16:43, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Cool, great, thanks, and also thanks to whomever cleaned up after my double post. But I am grieved to admit that my Latin is so bad as to be unable, sob, to get the your joke, Adam Bishop. Please explain in teeny tiny print or on my talk page? Thank you, Shimgray. I only get boxes on my screen, but I expect there's a magic spell to change that. --Mothperson cocoon 20:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC) P.S. I just realized I can do the Persian myself if I'd just go fetch the dictionaries, but I still would like Greek. Anyone? --Mothperson cocoon 20:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
The joke, incidentally - "Quis custodes ipsos custodes" is "who watches the watchmen", an old Latin phrase/question/epigram/whatever; Concilum Custodum is basically "Council [of] Watchers", perhaps "Watching Council"
The quote is actually "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes," "Who shall watch the very one who guards" by Juvenal James 21:37, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
I was havering over that; I thought it might have been "custodet". Ah, well, close enough for folk music. Thanks for the attribution. Shimgray 21:41, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
ipsos custodes is plural; I'd usually translate it as "who would watch the guards themselves?" Hv 14:44, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Try using a different browser. As for Greek... hmm. συμβούλιο από φύλακας is a messy version from a dictionary ("council of guard/watchman"); unfortunately I don't know how to pluralise it, so it's pidgin at best. And modern Greek, not ancient, which is (I suspect) what you really want. Shimgray 21:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
In ancient Greek it would be τὸ συνέδριον τῶν φυλάκων "The Council of the Guardians". James 22:12, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
If you want a cool gothic language with umlauts and diacritics and stuff, may I recommend swedish: "Väktarrådet". gkhan 10:45, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
Even more impressive-looking (and isn't that always what we want?) would be to have the Swedish written in blackletter type, which should be a relatively easy trick if you can find the relevant fonts... Shimgray 11:19, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Russian: Совет наблюдателей (transliterated: Soviet Nabliudateley, yes that's the same word as in Soviet Union). Ornil 00:28, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks to y'all, in my almost completed set of falsified letterheads, memos, book titles, et al., I have Latin, ancient Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Swedish (and I found a free Swedish black letter font on-line which looks swell - great idea). This place is the best. As I said to Shimgray, I think the Wikipedia reference desk is one of the great wonders of the world. Thank you thank you all. Tack så mycket. --Mothperson cocoon 02:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC) (Now I have one last Latin question further down.)

[edit] suspected person

If i have a releigious person , who is suspecious , he is always opening religous related web sites , write some notes , which i dont know what it is , spending more than an hour on these sites , whom should i tell ?? is there is a reachable e-mail to write to more details about this incident?

Sincerely;

ED

MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS ______________________(email removed by Superm401 | Talk 16:35, July 26, 2005 (UTC))

  • That depends entirely upon the notes they write. Visiting religious websites isn't wrong. If you think the person in question is planning something illegal, contact the police, but be sure you have some proof at hand. - Mgm|(talk) 17:20, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • The answer to the question is yes, if you are worried about the behaviour of this person, though I do agree with Mgm that there are many legitimate reasons to visit religious websites. Physchim62 18:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

When did 'visiting religious websites' become cause for suspicion? I visit lots of them myself. To start with, what kind of religious websites? If they are for the Society of Friends then I wouldn't worry too much. DJ Clayworth 20:47, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Are you kidding? After the so-called "Society of Friends" bombed US embassies in Kenya? And sank the USS Cole? And brought down the World Trade Center, killing thousands? Not to mention the Pentagon? They are a danger to civilized society who must be exterminated with extreme prejudice in order to safeguard freedom and democracy! Unless of course you mean the Quaker-type Society of Friends. They are an altogether different kettle of fish. Quite harmless they are. And pleasant, too. In that case, never mind. ;-) Ground Zero 20:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to know no Society of Friends other than the Quakers (who are of course who I meant). If there is another organisation of the same name maybe it deserves some disambiguation. DJ Clayworth 15:24, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

  • No organization calling itself the Society of Friends was responsible for any of the operations listed. Rather, they were all traced to an organization unofficially referred to as The Base. If Ground Zero believes a group named the Society of Friends was involved, he is mistaken. Superm401 | Talk 16:35, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
Wow, when did humor die on wikipedia? --Laura Scudder | Talk 06:56, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] please help me!

Hello,

I m playing a game online and there's i m confuse in a puzzle and i dont know how to play it ahead. so please help me out.There i have some coding like this:

       . . .-  - - -  - - -   -. .  - - -  - - -  . - - .  - - -  . - -  .  . - .


and i dont know wht is this..so please help me out from this...and tell me wht exactly this coding meaning is. the page link where this coding is written is:

http://www.deathball.net/notpron/true/gototheothersite.htm

Please reply me on jc007_ak47 at yahoo dot co dot in.

thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.196.173.30 (talk • contribs) 18:14, July 21, 2005.

Reformatted for clarity. -- Essjay · Talk 18:23, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
Try looking at Morse Code. Shimgray 18:29, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

A rough decoding yields "VOODOOPOPR". Is that what I think it is? -- Natalinasmpf 01:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

  • VOODOO POWER, I do believe. (The last three letters are .-- . .-.) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mayan Ruins at Chichen Itza and Tulum

Hello,

I am new to your site but found it very exciting. I will be traveling to the Yucatan area in February, 2006, and I am interested in any publications describing the history of these two cities. I am also interested in perhaps taking a guided tour of same. Any information or links you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Travel On and Thanks for the Help!!

JK in Baltimore

  • Wikipedia isn't a travel guide, but Wikitravel is. You might try perusing their site. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • While Wikipedia isn't a travel guide, he didn't really ask for one. He first requested historical information, which is at Chichen Itza and Tulum. Superm401 | Talk 20:59, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] information required

Hello,

I am a researcher in History and most specially in Arabic Manuscripts.

I has come to my notice that a scholar from (may be) Italy,Mr.Gripheni, edited a manuscript of book "Majmu-al-Fiqah" by Zaid-bin-Ali. ,in 1919 AD.,The book was published in Italy,Melano. How can I find this book now.

Please reply soon at

khmohsin_1@yahoo.com

There are copies at a number of libraries around the U.S. (Harvard has a copy filed under "Majmūʻ al-fiqh" by "Zayd ibn ʻAlī", for example) and probably the world. The difficulty might be in the romanization of the title and author's name, if you are having difficulty finding it. It might be a hard one to find, though. --Fastfission 20:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] pc speakers and 4:1, 5:1, 2:0, 2:1 etc

if a soundcard supports 4:1 output (4 speakers and a subwoofer), what happens if you plug a 5:1 speaker set into it? what about 2:0 and 2:1? will you get any sound?

That all depends on how the sound is mapped. Sound should certainly come out of the speakers, but they may be the wrong speakers. You could try moving the cables around until it sounds good (i.e. the bass is actually coming out of the subwoofer) and also look at any configuration programs that came with the soundcard, in which you may be able to set which speakers are plugged into which jacks. James 22:18, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
Also, I wouldn't think you would be able to plug a subwoofer into a X:0 system, or a second set of speakers into a 2:X system. All the sound cards that I've seen (except for the ones that used optical) used standard mini-plugs, one for the front 2 or 3 speakers, one for the rear pair, and one more for the sub, so it's hard for me to imagine a card with more speaker jacks then it could actually support. --CVaneg 22:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Converting Diesel Engine from fossil fuel to veggie oil

Hello, I read that I can convert my diesel Jetta to run on veggie oil (UTNE Reader). They said you have instructions. Can you forward me the link? Cool website. Thanks, Emily (posted from 24.210.41.192)

this section copied from Wikipedia:Help desk DES 22:16, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Who said that we have instructions? There is a biodiesel article which may have some good links to "instructions" but the article doesn't go over every make and model of vehicle and how to put the system into it. Sorry. Dismas 22:17, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
This company sell the equipment necessary, as I'm sure do others. Note that (in the UK at least, probably most other jurisdictions too) you still need to pay government fuel duty (in advance) before you drive. If not, it's really easy to get caught - the smell is obvious (even if you're burning fresh oil, and not old frying oil) and police officers carry spot-test kits (mostly for looking for red diesel, but they'll catch you out too). Man, I need to write an article about red diesel... -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:27, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

There are two approaches to this. 1) Convert the car to run on Straight vegetable oil by incorporating a fuel heater to reduce the much higher viscosity of vegetable oil, and allow it to burn unmodified in a diesel engine. Note, this is illegal if driven on the roads in most countries because no fuel tax is paid on the fuel. In the US at least, vegetable oil is not a legal road fuel even if you paid a tax. People do it anyway. 2) Convert the fuel. Vegetable oil, when chemically modified (by transesterification) into biodiesel has viscosity and other combustion properties much more similar to diesel fuel. You can do this yourself and you'll find many web links to doing the transesterification, but again, if you don't pay the fuel tax, it is illegal. You can also buy biodiesel from retail fueling stations in the US and Europe, or get it delivered in bulk from a distributor. - Taxman Talk 16:03, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Beam Me Up, Scotty

I heard that the above words were never actualy uttered in Star Trek, and that the popular phrase was made up by trekkies. I've never watched the old Star Trek, so I would like to know, did Spock or anyone ever say "Beam me up, Scotty"?

According to Society and Star Trek However, the exact phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" is never actually uttered in any episode of the Original Series although there are a couple of examples of "Beam us up, Scotty" being uttered in the Animated Series. DES 22:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
It sounds similar to another famous fictional quote, "Elementary, my dear Watson" - which was never said in any of the Conan Doyle stories, but appeared in later film adaptations. (Some reading suggests that a quite similar comment does appear in one story, but the actual wording doesn't) Shimgray 22:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
See the article Beam me up, Scotty Dismas 22:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Wasn't "Harry, holl mal den Wagen." a similar example from the German krimi Derrick? - Mgm|(talk) 23:33, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. You can remove this query if you want.

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Kirk says, "Scotty, beam me up!". John Barleycorn 20:48, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Another common misquote is Bob Geldof's supposed "Send us yer f***in' money, NOW!" He didn't actually swear at the time. I hope I remember that correctly. --bodnotbod 08:36, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
That's correct. Bob Geldof was attempting to continue an appeal and was interrupted by the BBC presenter, who wanted to display information other than a phone number; although I forget what it was. Geldof lost his temper and responded with, "Fuck the <something>, let's put the number up; that's how we're going to get the money..." The effect was that most people believed he'd said "Give me the fucking money", though quite why is unknown; but the use of the emotive "fuck" helped the Live Aid 1985 appeal to raise over £79 million. Rob Church 02:18, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Role of the Supreme Court of Canada

This Wikinews article mentions that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court signed some legislation into law. Is that normal? -- Beland 04:18, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, she is currently the acting Governor-General; see Beverley McLachlin. -- Beland 04:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Remote sensing devices

What are the current breakthroughs and needs in the field of remote sensing? --HappyCamper 04:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

There is both progress being made, and needs for new advances in security. Consider current events with the attacks in London England. Allegedly one of the July 21 devices was a nail bomb ... there are ways to detect explosives, but the distance is not good enough to protect Israelis, military in Iraq, attacks on commuter trains. Many buildings in the USA have devices to detect certain kinds of contraband coming in, such as concealed weapons, but it does no good if a suicide bomber walks up to the entrance then blows up. We need to detect such threats before they get into a crowded place or board a bus.
Consider port security, and general transportation. Right now, inspectors have to open up the cargo containers, because their construction blocks sensing what might be inside that should not be there. This means the budget does not exist to have every container checked. What is needed is some kind of X-Ray vision, that can identify what kinds of objects are inside a truck body.

AlMac|(talk) 05:05, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

The nearest thing to X-ray vision (apart from X-ray photography, of course) is terahertz imaging. This can see through clothing, walls and shipping containers, and is being evaluated by firefighters and customs people. If, by 'remote', you mean more than a few metres, then you might be interested in imaging radar, which allows planes and satellites to make pictures of the ground. --Heron 20:20, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

What about buoys which operate in the ocean and broadcast data that they collect?
Tidal wave detection is recently big in the news. I think the challenges are not with their design, but with overall funding and notification. For example, with the last big Tsunami that killed an awful lot of people in Asia, alerts went out to many of those nations, and anti-spam software had false positives on the alerts, causing them to not reach the mail boxes of the people who needed to know this trouble was coming. Or so I read in some computer security newsletter. AlMac|(talk) 23:14, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NanoTechnology

I wonder if this can be used to enhance remote sensing capabilities.

Radio communications are practical with microscopic objects, such as RFID but the distance of effective communications is dictated by the sizes of the transmitter and receiver.
Consider what it takes for a creature to be able to fly like bird or insect. The smaller the cube mass, the less effort needed by the square of the wing size, thus the smaller an object, the easier to make it airborne.
So, can these two views be combined, to make an effective detector of bombs and other threats, from sufficient distance away so we escape risk of bomb blast, using invisible (to the naked eye) flying nanotechnology detectors that radio back info about the discovered threats.

There are many things practical with NanoTechnology that are not practical with normal sized stuff, but like Genetic Manipulation, and Mad Cow disease, there are potential disasters awaiting us when this stuff gets into the wild. AlMac|(talk) 15:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is siberian goose down an actual product or a trade name?

I am interested in learning whether comforters marketed as siberian goose down actually come from some superior feathers from geese in Siberia. Siberian goose down is usually marketed as the best goose down but some suggest that the only geese in Siberia are red and black and thus aren't fit for a white down comforter. They claim that what is sold as high quality "Siberian goose down" is actually from various countries and has no standard to back it up. They claim that Hungarian goose, marketed as the second best down, is actually superior. Any thoughts? Thanks.

The Down Association of Canada's web page about down and feather quality, here, suggests "Siberian goose down" is a meaningless marketing name. I'd suggest contacting a manufacturer selling "Siberian goose down" and asking exactly where the down comes from and what the term means. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:05, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
As for the Filigree Siberian hamster ... -- ALoan (Talk) 15:15, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French translation of phrase

How does the phrase "mischief managed" transfer in French. It is from the Harry Potter novels, if anyone knows the exact phrase used, it would be great!

I read it in English, but there is a very high probability that it is "méfait accompli". Rama 04:50, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
  • This is an average free translation site. Jake
  • For Harry Potter specific words and phrases, the French Harry Potter lexicon affiliate of the site by Steve VanderArk should do the trick. - Mgm|(talk) 09:18, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] uses of square wave??

can any one tell me what's the use of square wave in general??

have a look at the Square wave article. If that doesn't contain the information you want to know, come back here and ask a specific question. Thryduulf 14:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

A square wave bolus with an insulin pump sometimes covers a high fat meal like pizza better. In other words, give us some context for your question. alteripse 16:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

It also runs the clock on the computer you are using to read this... Physchim62 17:46, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contagious spyware

My dad has either spyware or adware on my system, we've been trying to clean it off with Adaware. Anyway, he's worried that if he emails people, it would be transmitable, like a worm. Is this so? He has both a POP3/ISP e-mail account and a web-based account (Gmail). Any wisdom would be appreciated. -- user:zanimum

Spyware and adware is not normally trasmissable by simple email, if not programs are sent nor files attached.DES 14:42, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
To clean your dad's computer, he might also try using Spybot - Search & Destroy. I think it finds and cleans some things that Ad-aware doesn't, and vice versa. JamesMLane 16:04, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
"As of 2005, spyware affects only computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. There have been no reported observations of spyware for Mac OS X, Linux, or other platforms." -- Spyware
"Windows was originally designed for ease-of-use on a single-user PC without a network connection, and did not have security features built in from the outset. Combined with occasionally flawed code (such as buffer overruns) Windows has been the successful target of worms and virus writers numerous times. In June 2005, Bruce Schneier's Counterpane Internet Security reported that it had seen over 1,000 new viruses and worms in the previous six months.

Some say Microsoft Windows gets more than its fair share of attacks simply because it is the dominant desktop operating system. Others say it gets more attacks because poor engineering design makes it such an easy target: its monolithic and entangled structure is in stark contrast to the rigorous modularity and carefully defined layers of its rivals. Microsoft publicly admitted their ongoing security problems shortly after the turn of the century and (according to their press statements) now claims to regard security as their number one priority." -- Microsoft Windows
Pretty much sums it up. ¦ Reisio 16:50, 2005 July 22 (UTC)
No one anti-spyware product gets at all the problems, so you need to have 2-3 of them ... check out Spyware Warrior to see the problems and which to a great job of protecting against different things, also an insight into the vast problem of places claiming to be anti-badware that are in fact the bad malware. AlMac|(talk) 21:47, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
I find the best way to kill spyware/adware is a antispyware cocktail, first i use Spybot - Search & Destroy. gets the basic stuff out, then (if you have windows XP,) Microsoft antispyware beta. the full version is not yet released last time i checked. followed by the powerhouse, the human brain with tools: hijack this, to kill the ez startup and registry entries, whats running to ID and locate the newest spyware, which i then use the MMC tool regedit to finish the job, killing the infection within windows, and writing down any filenames and locations, for deletion from the HDD. end result: really clean system!

[edit] Reversible electric AC motors

I have a boat lift that has two 3/4 hp motors that rotate in either direction depending on the switch position. I understand that in a DC motor reversing the polarity reverses the rotation but how is this accomplished in an AC motor? Is it a matter of changing which coil is energized or what?

DavidG

A reversible AC motor is constructed with two motor coils stacked one on top of the other. In order to select the desired direction of rotation a capacitor is used to de-phase one of these coils so that it will start rotating before than the other. A switch can be used to change which coil starts earlier and thus determine the direction of rotation. If an AC motor is desired to always turn in the same direction then a small starter coil and capacitor would be built in to accomodate the desired direction. hydnjo talk 19:46, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Didi mau!

On The Simpsons on several occasions they have Asian characters shouting 'Didi mau!'. What language is this and what does it mean? PedanticallySpeaking 16:13, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

<looks around to see if anyone else has answered this> Never saw the episode(s) in question, but 'Didi mau' is somewhat broken Vietnamese for "Go quickly!" (di=go mau=fast) My uneducated guess is that this phrase (which I've seen in a computer gaming magazine review of some Vietnam war game) was learned by American soliders who fought in Vietnam. (SomeAnonymousCoward)

[edit] A California Yankee in Queen Elizabeth's Court?

Reports in the American press state a Californian is next in line for the earldom of Essex. The account in my local paper talked about him being eligible to be elected to one of the seats for hereditaries in the House of Lords. I thought one had to be a citizen of Britain or a Commonwealth country to sit in Parliament. PedanticallySpeaking 16:13, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be true - check out Earl of Essex and William Jennings Capell who is the heir. However isn't there something in the US body of law about citizens not taking titles issued by a foreign power? --Neo 16:19, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
There is, but it only applies to those holding public office in the U.S. See Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution. Superm401 | Talk 17:31, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
Congress and the States are forbidden from creating titles of nobility. And Americans aren't allowed to accept foreign honors without the consent of Congress. I believe there is now a general law on the subject--but once Congress had to act in every case. In reading the Statutes at Large from 1861, I came across a joint resolution where an admiral was permitted to accept a fancy sword some foreign government wished to present him. PedanticallySpeaking 14:00, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
It's true that Congress can't grant titles. However, people can take them without permission as long as they don't hold office. See the section of the Constitution above. Superm401 | Talk 16:11, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
If and when William Jennings Capell inherits the title, the chances of him sitting in the House of Lords are next to nil. After the 1999 reform only 92 (out of about 1000) hereditary peers (elected by their peers funnily enough) are allowed to sit in the House of Lords, and they are all generally people who have been active members of of the House. By the time WJ Capell inherits, the House is likely to have been reformed some more and there may be no place for hereditary peers at all. Jooler 01:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you, but on the other hand, the Lords have been known to do stranger things in the past... and it'd be damn funny :-) Shimgray 13:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I know it is unlikely that he would sit in the Lords, but would he be eligible to stand for one of the hereditary seats? PedanticallySpeaking 14:00, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Latin Mass for the Dead

Anyone point me to the text of the Catholic mass for the dead in Latin? PedanticallySpeaking 16:13, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

The Requiem? Here are the lyrics. grendel|khan 17:06, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Well, which one? Do you want the pre-1963 Tridentine Mass, or the current Novus Ordo Missae? Do you want the entire text of the NOM (all the possible options) or just the Requiem-specific parts? It should be very easy to find the TM in Latin, but finding a NOM in Latin on the web could be problematic. For the TM in Latin, go here. For the Requiem specific material, go here. If that doesn't cut it, I'd suggest contacting a local parish; if they don't have one, the diocese will. -- Essjay · Talk 20:11, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. This will do very nicely. PedanticallySpeaking 14:02, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ENGINE Thermodynamics

I want to understand thermodynamics of powered engine in details help! --sujay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine ? ¦ Reisio 17:52, 2005 July 22 (UTC)

And don't miss Carnot heat engine and everything in Category:Thermodynamics. - Taxman Talk 20:02, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cover album?

The album eMOTIVe consists of A Perfect Circle performing songs not written by them. Is that a cover album? How is that different from an album of different bands making a tribute to one single band? Should eMOTIVe use the plum-colored "cover album" box, or the standard orange "album" box? grendel|khan 17:56, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'd call it a cover album. There are two different variables here: cover/original, and single-artist/multiple-artist. You can have any of the four possibilities: most albums are original single-artist; the albums bound to come out of Live 8 will be original multi-artist; eMOTIVe or Erasure's Other People's Songs are single-artist cover albums; a tribute album is a multi-artist cover album. As far as I can tell the plum-colored box fits fine. — mendel ☎ 17:28, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Searching for a list of "Post" articles from the 40's.

I am searching for an article that was published in the Saturday Evening Post sometime in the 40's that was written about then living survivors of the Civil War. There was a picture with the article of an ancestor--Amazial Baker--of my husband. I would love to find the issue but cannot pinpoint what issue I am looking for exactly to try of find. Is there a list of articles featured in the past issues of the Post that would help me? I have searched the Post website and could not locate any possible way to research from their website. Any help you could give me would be appreciated. T. Butler

You could try asking Rich Wannen. I believe he has an extensive collection of back issues and has devoted some effort to indexing them. I suggest you ask very politely, as some people here have rubbed him up the wrong way in the past. Bovlb 21:24:56, 2005-07-22 (UTC)
Perhaps you could contact the Curtis Publishing Company, which owns the rights to the Post. It's here. PedanticallySpeaking 14:08, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 1 extra minute in 1998?

I was reading through a Ripley's Believe It or Not! book and on the back cover it said that there was 1 extra minute at the end of 1998 or 1 second. Not too sure. Can anyone find any information about this? • Thorpe • 19:13, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

  • A leap second? They're quite common, though often confuse people. Shimgray 19:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks as well. • Thorpe • 20:05, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
  • A leap second was added on December 31, 1998 and will again on December 31, 2005. They keep the time of day close to mean solar time.
I think that solves my problem. • Thorpe • 20:05, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

In a similar vein, I read something a little while back that said that the December earthquake which produced the tsunamis slowed the Earth down, so a year is now slightly longer than it was before. Is this a common occurrence with all major earthquakes, or was there something unique about that one? John Barleycorn 21:10, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

I believe it is the only earthquake recorded to have such an effect. The entire Indian plate moved some 30 feet, an enormous movement for such a large piece of rock. James 21:26, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
I think that's mentioned in the article about the tsunami... 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake --Dismas 22:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to know if theres any proof of that or even any articles on here about earth quakes affecting the orbit of the earth. I doubt that this is true. --Timmywimmy 22:11, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
It's plausible. The earthquake could rearrange enough rock to change the moment of inertia of the Earth. This would change the length of solar days a bit, which would make the year change (in units of solar days at least). I cannot think of a way that an earthquake would change the absolute length of a year, only the length relative to solar days. --Laura Scudder | Talk 06:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] political parties

I would appreciate it if you could forward my request to the person who put together the list of Political parties in the various countries.

I need help to define or get a list of the number of seats won by political parties since 1960s to 2004 in the Mexican Congress of Union (in both houses). Which parties won seats from 1960s-2000s. I see from the Wikipedia online that you have that information for Canada and the U.S. Please help me.

Secondly, I am having the difficulty in relating the various political parties in Mexico into right wing or left wing /liberals or conservatives. So I would like someone to just tell me which political parties is liberal and which political parties are conservatives. I am doing a comparative work with the U.S. where liberals and conservatives are clearly defined.

ny

Is this needed for homework or for an essay or for a thesis? I ask only to be able to research at the appropriate level. hydnjo talk 21:00, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is needed for a thesis, since your website is a great resource I thought I would get the best help from you. You are able to get all the needed links and that makes this website great. Thanks for contacting. I really appreciate it. I need the time series data on the election results from 1958 to 2004 at the National elections for the political parties in Mexico eg. in the congress, I must specify, on the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and the Presidential elctions. I see you have it on US and Canada but not Mexico. When you get the link you can paste it here I would check frequently.

ny

There's a site run by the Mexican government that has some results (none before 1991) [12]. To my knowledge, there were only an insignificant number of seats won by non-PRI parties before the 1989 reforms. James 19:10, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
Suggestions
  1. Get to C-Span which has links to the Parliaments of all nations that have Legislative bodies, most of which will have information about the political parties that currently have persons elected in those nations.
  2. Get to the CIA Factbook which has information about every nation in the world, including political parties there.
  3. Get to major newspapers of major nations, such as the British Economist and Washington Post in USA, which have links to information about each nation in the world, information about those nations.
  4. Get to the United Nations home page or a web site to help you navigate information about all nations that are members of the UN, which is not all nations, but most of them.
  5. By several of the above means, you can then get to list of nations, home pages about those governments (major search engines like Google should also help, then many nations will then have info about political parties that are legal in those nations.
  6. As for which organizations are where on the political spectrum, look into publications for Journalists, such as ISBN 0-8281-9952-3 "Forbes Media Guide" which looks at the biggest stories in a year, and how different media covered it. The focus is which got it right, first, but you can also see which publications in which nations are where on the political spectrum.
    1. Editions of the Media Guide before Forbes bought it out from Polyconomics, such as ISBN 0-938081-10-1 was both on how the various Journalists doing, but also better about how the media compared to each other, including that of several nations important to American decision makers, particularly out of Canada.
  7. Make a list of major issues that divide the parties in a nation where you understand their different views, and mark those views as being where on your nation's political spectrum, then go see where a political party in another nation has a viewpoint about that, if it is even on their radar screen, and do the different parties in that nation have views that are markedly different on major issues?
    1. Examples: Abortion; Civil Liberties; Corporate Governance; Free Trade; Health Care; Stem Cell Research; The War in Iraq.

AlMac|(talk) 22:55, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Education in South Africa

How is education in South Africa arranged? The South African Schools Act, 1996 is quite important, though its online, its all legalese. Specifically, does the state offer any free education, how much is down to independent schools, and does the state run fee-paying schools? Specifically, what category does Jeppe High School for Boys fall into? I think it is a government school but one's parents have to pay fees for one to attend, but not being South African it's all a bit confusing... Dunc|☺ 21:58, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

From the act, it is clear that firstly, education is compulsory from age 7 to 15 or grade 9, whichever comes first. In order for compulsory education to work, it must be public (ie free), and as such, the heads of education in each region are required by the act to ensure that there are enough facilities to enable all students to attend school. Chapter 3 of the bill is devoted completely to public schools. These schools are funded by the State through public funds. Further, fees may be charged, "only if a resolution to do so has been adopted by a majority of parents attending the meeting referred to in section 38(2) (a general meeting about the budget for the school)." I can't find information on the relative prevalence of public and private schools, but I imagine the vast majority of people in school are in public schools. From the Jeppe High School for Boys' page, they are a public school, but require parents pay fees as well [13]. James 01:03, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BBC Cricket theme tune

What instrument is the main melody of this tune (Soul Limbo by Brooker T and the MGs) played on?

I downloaded a midi file of the BBC Cricket theme tune from the internet (free from 4th link on this google search) but it doens't sound quite right. Loading it up into a midi program I have, I can change the instruments. and I've changed the rhythm from "grand piano" to "steel drum" and that sounds much better, but I can't work out what instrument the main tune is played on. The midi file has it as "rock organ", but I'd have thought it would be a brass instrument. Thryduulf 23:54, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I think it's Booker T playing the electric organ. Finding a patch for some sixties analog tube organ is going to be ... challenging. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:00, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
Probably a Hammond B-3, which is still incredibly famous and has had its sound duplicated A LOT by various synth companies. Korg, Roland, Casio, Yamaha...they probably all have a version and many similar ones. If you're actually looking, I'm not sure where you'd find a free one, but there most likely is one considering the B-3's fame. ¦ Reisio 00:21, 2005 July 23 (UTC)
Also check out the B4 by Native Instruments. chocolateboy 07:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bröchten und Semmeln

What is the difference between the German terms "Bröchten" and "Semmeln"? Are they both breads? What is the difference between them, and when are they consumed during a typical day? --HappyCamper 02:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

There are examples on this page, the first picture shows a "Bröchten", the second one a "Semmel". The term "Semmel" is not widely used in Germany (possibly in Bavaria), but rather Austria. Additionally, "Semmel" can mean "Brötchen", too. --82.83.49.100 02:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and you usually eat them for Breakfast. --82.83.49.100 02:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The difference is purely regional, at least for normal citizens. Someone from Frankfurt would call the "Austrian (Kaiser-)Semmel" a "Brötchen", and someone (originally) from Munich the "Two Brötchen" "zwoa Semmeln". That doesn't mean that the captions are wrong: I presume the Bakers' guild is happy to have different names to distinguish the different types. As an aside, the "Brötchen" variety has a more pronounced core of incompletely raised dough, which many people peel out. — Sebastian (talk) 06:35, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is the meaning of 'carbon dioxide reforming of methane'?- Kin Cheong

I have read several articles on natural gas refining. However, I have no idea on a phrase- 'carbon dioxide reforming of methane'. Can someone please explain to me about it? If it is possible, please be kindly insert the chemical reactions, catalyst involved, or any other relevant information. Thanks.

[edit] Wellstone quote

I remember reading a something said by one of the sons of the late Senator Paul Wellstone, I think at his memorial service. The quote went something like, "I offer no words of wisdom, but only this: I love my dad." I can't find the exact quote. Can someone lend a hand? Neutralitytalk 03:49, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

I searched all the national and midwest papers. Within the time period of 10/25/2002 to 11/25/2002 the words love and dad do not appear within 5 words of each other in any Wellstone article. More info? lots of issues | leave me a message 00:18, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] hydrogen production

I had a question about hydrogen production. I thought that there was a way to separate steam with two oppositly charged plates so that the steam could be turned into hydrogen and oxygen because of their different polarities. what is that system called and where can I get more info on such a system?--64.48.234.170 03:57, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

luis_tj@hotmail.com

I don't know if there is a way to reform hydrogen directly from water by steam, but currently the most common process is steam reforming using water and methane (natural gas). I think that is what people are talking about when they refer to making hydrogen from steam. Though google searching on these terms may get you more info. The other way people talk about making hydrogen is electrolysis of course, ideally from renewable, non polluting sources like wind power. Either way, those methods are very inneficient and combined with the horrid storage inneficiencies of hydrogen, etc, I can't understand why anyone would advocate that as a viable solution. It seems more as a diversion to keep people pacified and think a solution is being worked on. But that's just an opinion. - Taxman Talk 13:52, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poe poems and letters - To _________ ?

This might be a stupid question but I have always wondered why some of Poe's poems appear in published books entitled "To _______" or "To F_______s S. O________d" or a published letter of his is always called "Letter to B______". Are these "censored" for a reason? Were those parts of the title not readable and therefore the underscore is substituted? Is there another reason entirely for the "mystery?" (I know we are dealing with Poe here afterall =) Thank you very much.

This was not Poe being idiosyncratic, nor were the titles censored by an editor or anyone else. It was common in the 19th century to refer to a real person mentioned in a literary work by only an initial. Presumably it was considered a matter of delicacy or reserve or preservation of privacy. Names were used in news despatches or frankly biographical or historical accounts. The extreme was reached in the fiction of the latter 19th century, when many authors, especially in Europe, began referring to fictional characters as, for example, "S___" in order to amplify the verisimilitude that a real person was being alluded to. You can find many examples in Russian and French novels all the way to the early 20th century. alteripse 09:03, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

It was done in the 18th century as well. In the epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisions, many characters, chataeu names, and dates are likewise striken. Alteripse is correct on the reasoning--to add versimilitude to the story. To our eyes, it looks odd because authors haven't done this in a very long time. PedanticallySpeaking 14:11, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help To Identify Penguin Types

Hey all, I have uploaded images for the Edinburgh Zoo page but unfortunatley when I took the pics I didn't make a note of the types of penguin. Could someone have a look and see if I have correctly identified the penguins on that page? When this is done I will update the image description pages. Many thanks. SeanMack 06:31, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Also I may have marked a stork as a pelican - not sure..... SeanMack 06:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I believe this has been taken care of. :) ¦ Reisio 08:06, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

[edit] Monism and panentheism

Can someone explain the difference between monism and panentheism to me? I'm a little confused. Neutralitytalk 06:48, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Like the articles say, basically monism is everything is one & panentheism is God(or Divinity, etc.) is part of everything. The articles are quite good imo, so perhaps you can gain better understanding by detailing what specifically you do not get. ¦ Reisio 08:24, 2005 July 23 (UTC)

[edit] Film countdowns (new comment now)

Slightly odd question: at the beginning of old fashioned films, there was a 3 in a circle, which, after 1 second, sort of swivelled into a 2, then into a 1. What were these things called? Is there an article on them?--anon 09:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

It's called the "Academy leader", developed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscar people). To quote the 4th edition of Katz's Film Encyclopedia it:
contains a descending sequence of numbers, as well as cue marks and other information, to guide a projectionist in threating the projector and changing over one reel to the next. The leader not only protects the film itself from unnecessary handling but also permits the projector to gain full sound speed before the first image reaches the picture gate.
It was superseded in 1965 by the "universal leader", developed by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and is "marked with identification words, numbers and symbols" to guide projectionists. PedanticallySpeaking 14:16, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Do you happen to know where I could find a video clip of either of these?--anon 06:24, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

There's a pretty decent video search at http://www.alltheweb.com, but I couldn't find these there. John Barleycorn 18:00, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sculpture Identification

I have uploaded some pictures to Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art but one is a mystery to me. I think it is by Barbara Hepworth but searching the net doesn't provide any details on this piece. It is currently marked as Unknown Sculpture. Thanks in advance. SeanMack 10:43, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Updated the info on the page. Didn't take long to click on the museum website at the bottom of the page, they have 1118 work on display there. [14] MeltBanana 18:23, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MEMS and NEMS

both are explained in same references then what's the actual differences? I want to give seminar for college on MEMS and I cant figure it out -- sujay

In this case size matters. hydnjo talk 18:40, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Van der Valk music

Are there lyrics to the theme to Van der Valk (aka "Eye Level")? PedanticallySpeaking 14:22, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • The old Simon Park orchestra tune? No - always been an instrumental. Of course someone might have written some to fit, but I don't know of any jamesgibbon 13:09, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pachelbel's Canon and Ordinary People

The 1980 film Ordinary People opens with a choir singing to Pachelbel's Canon in D. What are those words and who composed them? The IMDB only credits Pachelbel (see here), but the lyrics were in English so he didn't write them. PedanticallySpeaking 14:22, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

IMDB credits Marvin Hamlisch with writing the original music for the soundtrack, which would presumably include lyrics to a song that never had lyrics. James 19:42, July 23, 2005 (UTC)


The arrangement for voice was done by Noel Goemanne.

[edit] judaism, sex and white bed sheets

I always believed that stories concerning orthodox jews having sex thought holes in bed sheets were just a stereotypical prejudicial joke. But recently a close friend of mine had a cousin converted from a non praticant daughter of a jew to a strictly orthodox one, what amazed her family as she was anything but religious when teenager. And that cousin told her that, that althoutght saying that all sex is made through hole in a sheet is a reductionism of the ritual there is indeed a white sheet (with a hole) separating the couple of newly wed jews, and some do have their first intercourse through it. We discussed all night long as I still wouldn´t believe some of the details.

What is true and what is myth behind that ritual? is there a wikipedia article concerning it?--Alexandre Van de Sande 19:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's this page [15] and this one [16]. James 19:31, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
I knew it! That was simply too absurd, i will meet that friend of mine again. There should be a myths about judaism article.. --Alexandre Van de Sande 19:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, which is set amongst devout Catholics in Mexico, a pair of newlyweds are described as having sex in this manner. 66.213.99.30

[edit] recipe

can you send me recipe for sangria or where to look for it ? thank you


The wikibooks:cookbook may have what you look for --Alexandre Van de Sande 19:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, they seem to have what you are looking for. wikibooks:Bartending:Sangría Jeltz talk 20:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Effect of electrical conservation

I know that it's supposedly good for the environment to turn off lights one isn't using, and I do this just to save money. But one person reducing consumption isn't going to cause a power plant to burn less fuel. How many fewer watts would the people serviced by an average power plant have to consume for the power company to notice and reduce output? Nickptar 20:40, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Like...one, if the power company knows what they're doing at all. Every person does matter. ¦ Reisio 21:58, 2005 July 23 (UTC)
"One person can't make a difference" is one of the great diseases of our society. No, turning off one light you aren't using won't cause a significant reduction in fuel used. It is the cumulative effect of many people acting individually that produces the desired drop in power consumption. -- Cyrius|✎ 22:38, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
One person's consumption does not have a large effect compared to the average outputs of power plants. However, power plants do monitor consumption and either reduce output or sell excess power to neighboring areas if they are producing more than is being consumed. James 22:45, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
By Nickptar's argument, one person increasing consumption isn't going to cause a power plant to burn any more fuel. So why build power stations at all? We could all just connect to some car battery in California and see if it notices when we turn a light on?
One famous piece of trivia is that the National Grid's peak demand occurs during the advertising break in Coronation Street when you turn on your kettle for a cup of tea, so it's possible that whatever factor is influencing you to turn a light off also applies to many other people... Ojw 11:23, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Experiments have been done with personal computers in business networks ... turn them off when go to lunch, turn them off at end of work day, leave them on all the time including weekends. The results, as reported to me by peers who work places where there are hundreds of networked PCs, if turn off at end of work day, these PCs have the longest life with respect to parts wearing out, while if you constantly turning off on, like when go to the bathroom, those PCs have problems more often, and the workers efficiency suffers, to best plan is to turn off at end of work day, turn on at start of work day.
I have friends with solar panels on roof. I asked how big an impact this has on the electric bill. I was told that their electric bill has been cut by about 1/3, that they get value from this any day there is sunlight, even in the middle of winter. My next question was how long it took for the cost of the installation to be paid for in savings on the electric bill. They got it during Jimmy Carter time when there was tax breaks for this ... it paid for itself in less than 3 years. They figure it would have taken 6-7 years without Carter tax breaks. My friends later moved to a new house without the solar panels. I asked why not. Apparently a neighborhood beautification lobby had banned them because they look unsightly.
My local power company has a deal where if you let them install something, when they have peak power drains, all the people with the deal installed will have their air conditioner, heat etc. cut out for a few minutes every hour. In return they lower the cost of the gas & electric rate we pay.
Humor: I figure that during TV commercials of popular shows, there will be a small rise in electric consumption ... some people take a bathroom break, and turn on the light in there, some people take a kitchen break. Reffrigerator door opens, light inside goes on, pop something in microwave oven. Each person impact minimal, but consider thousands of homes in a communty, millions across a nation, all thse people taking some kind of a break during the commercials.

AlMac|(talk) 22:43, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm fully aware that by turning off a light I'm using less electricity, and that the amount of electricity produced by a plant is approximately the same as the amount being consumed, and that individual actions do matter as they add up; but I'm still curious as to how many people would have to turn off a light in order for the power plant to actually use less fuel (as opposed to just producing a little less power and a little more heat). I'm sure they don't control output to the watt or even kilowatt updated every minute. Nickptar 23:10, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

There might be a power station that reduces its output, but it will be some diesel generator that's dealing with the tiny fluctuations, and not a coal power station that doesn't adjust its output for weeks at a time. I was going to say that Dinorwig might adjust their sluice-gates a bit, but even they have a dial with 1,300,000,000 watts at one end and 0 at the other. Of course, if you don't leave the light off for long then the inductance in power lines and transformers might keep that electricity flowing anyway, and the frequency just rises for everyone else in your street. Ojw 00:17, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Programming problems

I'm trying to find a page that lists common programming problems and small suggestions for projects to work on, such as "make a program that takes input and determines if it's a prime number", "make a random list of 10 items and sort it". —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 23:32, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

What programming language ae you using? - Mgm|(talk) 06:58, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking of ruby but it really wouldn't matter, I'm specifically thinking of common problems not specific to any language like finding prime numbers and such. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 15:56, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
IIRC some classic problems are;
  • Printing "Hello World" to screen.
  • Making a program print its own source code to screen (without acessing the source code file).
    • While cool, quines are quite difficult and not "common programming problems". Just be informed. Superm401 | Talk 17:24, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Printing a list of prime numbers from 1 to 100. --Neo 16:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
  • This site is cool http://www.programming-challenges.com/ gkhan 21:38, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Speaking as a preson who has been a professional programmer since the early 1960's.
  1. The biggest problem for the profession is effective communications between the user of the software and the creator of the software with respect to clarity of what they want and need, with minimal time talking about it. Reason this is a big problem is misunderstandings are extremely common, meaning the programmer is spending a lot of time developing something other than what the user really wanted.
  2. Personal career my biggest problem has been "el typo" where I mean to key one thing, but get a character off or logic twisted ... I meant to key "Select values where something is greater than or equal to" but instead of GE I key GT (Greater than), for eacmple.
  3. If what you want is not what I consider a problem, but a programming challenge, consider this:
    1. We have a column of figures, in which the nubers are lumpy (somewhat random, but also lots that are very low values and very high values) and at the bottom of the list, we want to show meaningful averages, perhaps show
      1. arithmetical average (add up all the values and divide by however many there are, in which the number of values is indeterminate ... could be anywhere from half a dozen to hundreds or thousands)
      2. mean average (if you were to lay all the values in a row from smallest to biggest, this would be the one in the middle)
      3. mode ... think in terms of clusters of same value showing up multiple times in the list ... which value is there the most often?
    2. See how the history works at Wiki? Apply that concept to programming language source code.
      1. Simple application ... you have two or more copies of the same source code, because of multiple cooks working on the code, and not doing a good job of intercommunication and documentation standards ... identify what is different in the source code contents between the different copies,, which has the most recent additions, and which has bugs.
      2. More complex ... A company has tens of thousands of source code collections which internally has code that has worked Ok, but there has been some kind of change, like running out of digits, or need math to go to more decimal places. Write a program to read throught all the source code, and every place it finds a particular work field, redefine it so that it goes to 2 more decimal places than it used to. When this is done, basically copy the line of code, where the old version is commented out with date of modification, and the new version has the fix, and there is also a comment inserted above both lines giving the name of the source program that made this software update ... ignore previously commented out source code lines.
        1. This "more complex" is a reality, a common challenge. Example: It is brought to programmer attention that something is not rounding properly. We setup tools to trace updates to files to isolate which program is doing it, since there can be millions of different programs at a typical company. Thanks to the trace tools, we find a program that is not rounding correctly (there could be others) ... Oh **** (bad words), this program has in the neighborhood of a million lines of code, and the buggy code is systemic (meaning it is all over the place) so if it is to be manually fixed by programmer, there are tens of thousands of places to be fixed. Thus, a program is needed to automate the task of fixing this program.
    3. An ideal program needs to efficiently deliver what the user of the program needs, not be a big drain on overall resources, be easy for other programmers to maintain or upgrade it (ie. have good internal documentation), and to a competent job when it comes to the precepts of computer security. Many programs fail at one or more of the above tasks.
      1. Your assignment ... find a program in popular usage where you understand what it is doing, and how it is doing it. Evaluate whether it is doing a good job with respect to performance, ease of maintenance, and security. What else is important? Oh yes, that it give correct answers. Then you improve it so that there is noticeable results.
        1. The first time I did a perfomance improvement, there was noticeable degradation for the end users ... they fill in a screen, then wait and wait and wait for the program to do its thing. After I had re-written it, it had sub-second response time. It had exactly the same actions, except now they done in less than 1/10 of second, where previously they took several minutes. How I got that done was by restructuring how the data base was navigated.
        2. I working on some now, where a task runs in the background and takes in excess of one hour to get the job done. I got one done, many to go. Result was to shave several minutes off run time, not as great as I had hoped. The technique I used to get this done was something I call "Data Slicing" which has to do with the timing of accessing needed information in sizes of data gulps.

AlMac|(talk) 21:58, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

It is not a "mean average," which is actually two synonyms, but a median to which you refer. James 22:18, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting me ... often I know what people want, but I not know the right terminology for it. AlMac|(talk) 22:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Recipes for common real-world programming problems are often collected in "cookbooks", such as the (dead-tree) Perl Cookbook. I know there was an online cookbook/Rosetta Stone for Ruby, Python, Perl, ASP, and others but I can't find it now. Alternatively and a bit more abstractly, design patterns might be what you are after. — mendel ☎ 17:33, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ozonated terpenoids

What information and definitions is available on the subject of ozonated terpenoids? How have they been used - for what purpose? What are possible contraindications?

Ozonated terpenoids is a phrase that doesn't make any hits on Google. Terpenoids are VOCs, produced by plants, which can produce ozone from Nitrogen oxides. For more information, see terpenoid and The Physics and Chemistry of Ozone. James 01:28, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do law students in other countries do online legal research?

Hello:

I was wondering how law students in other countries do legal research online. In the United States, law schools provide "free" access to LexisNexis and Westlaw as part of the annual tuition package. Book research is taught during the first year, but after that, students do a mix of book research and online research when they're writing papers.

Are there similar programs in other countries (I know LexisNexis operates in many countries, because when I had access, I could access UK and Commonwealth cases), or do you have to do all your research the hard way through books?

--Coolcaesar 00:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Taking a look at the University of British Columbia Law School's library, it appears that, at least in Canada the situation is very similar to the US. To compare to a less similar institution, take a look at Wits Law School's library in South Africa, which has very similar electronic resources, including LexisNexis. James 01:17, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Australia's free Austlii has links to free legal databases around the world, which are, I believe, used heavily by Australian students and researchers. I imagine that most Australian law faculties have a number of commercial subscriptions to various online databases as well. --Robert Merkel 00:47, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Java: How to read in a file with a bunch of commas

I'm currently trying to whip up something quick to read in a data file which has a bunch of decimal numbers separated by commas. There is a newline after every 100 numbers, and there are no spaces in the file. Is there a Java input filestream object I can use to easily read all these numbers and dump them into a 3 dimensional array? Thanks for your suggestions! --HappyCamper 06:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I am curious about the three dimensional array. What is the three dimensions? I count two (100 x # of lines). Anyway, the thing I think you want is a tokenizer, java.io.StreamTokenizer or java.util.StringTokenizer. What you basically do is supply a number of characters which works as delimiters and then the tokenizer divides it up into tokens. For instance, say you want to tokenize an URL such as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_whale" using the delimiters ":/" (ie ":" and "/") you get the tokens "http", "en.wikipedia.com", "wiki" and "Exploding_whale". In your case, if you use use the delimiters ",\n" every new token is a number. StingTokenizer works on strings and StreamTokenizer works on streams. See the api docs for more information. Is this what you were looking for? gkhan 21:31, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I need! In retrospect, the 3 dimensions was sort of unrelated to the question. The data that I have is a 10 by 10 matrix (hence 100 data points), so including the number of lines, I'd get 3 dimensions. Thanks for your help! --HappyCamper 18:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


It would be listed under CSV in any helpfiles you have. If you want a quick hack, you can just read lines, and use a split function to turn each line into an array of 100 numbers. That would be while($Line = fgets($fp)){$Array = explode(",", $Line);} in PHP, which should translate fairly easily to java once you find the relevant file and string functions. Ojw 11:08, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't know PHP, but when I showed it to a friend of mine, your code was described in a rather positive light. My friend was then able to get the data I wanted quickly. Thanks again! --HappyCamper 18:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] UK sort codes

I know that this is a bit broad, but could I have all info possible on sort codes. Particularly about who issues them and how they are ensured to be unique. Is it the UK government? Thanks v. much in advance, --anon 07:26, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

  • UK Postcodes are assigned by the Royal Mail. Their format is [1 or 2 letters][1 or 2 digits][space][1 digit][2 letters]. The structure is heirarchical: the first letters denote a town (originally the sorting office) or a district of London (N, NW, NE, WC, EC, SW, SE, W), the subsequent codes narrow down the code to a group of about 10-20 residential addresses or one bulk user. Physchim62 10:55, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Sort codes, not postcodes.--84.51.149.80 16:36, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
    • By sort codes, do you mean the identification of banks and building societies? It's likely that BACS are involved somewhere. Ojw 11:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
I queried someone about this a while back... The sort codes are of the form 12-34-56; they're allocated by "blocks", so the Bank of Foo will have all the codes in the block 12-xx-xx, and the Bank of Bar those in 13-xx-xx, &c. Kind of like IP numbers or ISBNs. (Block sizes may vary according to the size of the organisation, of course).
Uniqueness is ensured by the fact that only one organisation can allocate in the 12-xx-xx "numberspace", so there's no risk of duplication (this is how ISBN codes, of which there are potentially billions, work); a central list is presumably also maintained, so clashes would be caught fast.
I believe BACS issue the original "blocks", but I could be wrong there; [17] says they're "allocated by the banking community". Shimgray 12:05, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Speed of Sound in Dirt

What is the speed of sound in dirt? --elpenmaster

A quick google search turns up "Measurement of Attenuation and Speed of Sound in Soils" (PDF) (HTML). The short of it, in most soils it's about 150 m/s, slower than the 340ish m/s in air. In solid clay, however, it goes up to around 3500 m/s. -- Cyrius|✎ 08:20, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why is mercury a liquid?

The only elements that are liquids at room temperature are Mercury and Bromine (though it is theorised that Ununbium would also be so).

From the elements around it in the periodic table, it seems obvious why Bromine should be a liquid, but Mercury is surrounded by metals that are solid at RT.

So what makes it the exception? Does the theoretical extension to Ununbium extend further, to postulate a wedge of liquid phase metals appearing in a sufficiently extended periodic table? Hv 10:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

This was answered earlier this month so I'm just going to paste in the responses from the first time it was asked... Dismas 10:46, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
The answer has partly to do with the electron configuration of Mercury, and also relativistic effects. The electron configuration of mercury is [Kr] 4d10 4f14 5s2 5p6 5d10 6s2. The last shell labeled 6s is completely full, and is noticibly closer to the nucleus than what would be expected if relativistic effects were not taken into account. The combination of these two factors results in rather tightly bound outer shell of electrons for mercury. Hence, mercury cannot form particularly strong metal-metal bonds. The result is an element which is liquid at room temperature. Contrast this with gold and thallium which are right beside mercury on the periodic table, but are solids. Let the reference desk know if you'd like a more detailed explanation, I hope this answers your question! --HappyCamper 1 July 2005 00:03 (UTC)
Thanks HappyCamper for explaining more clearly than I usually manage! "Relativistic effects" occur in atoms of a high atomic number: the positive charge of the nucleus is so high that some of the electrons in the atoms are moving very fast—fast enough that special relativity has to be taken into account in predicting their movement. This causes a number of changes in the chemistry of the elements concerned, of which the fact that mercury is liquid at room temperature is perhaps the most striking. Physchim62 4 July 2005 08:46 (UTC)
You're welcome, Physchim62 :-) You do great edits on Wikipedia too! --HappyCamper 7 July 2005 04:25 (UTC)

You beat me to it. I shall also place this on Talk:Mercury (element). Physchim62 11:02, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks both; I'm still interested in my final question, as to whether this should theoretically extend to form a wedge of liquid/gas phase elements in a sufficiently extended periodic table. Hv 14:52, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
That would seem reasonable, but it would be anybody's guess I think. Would be pretty neat though! Somebody could probably be awarded a Ph.D. for an extensive and thorough investigation of this question. --HappyCamper 17:29, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Not if I were their external they wouldn't be! The element immediately below mercury would probably be a liquid if we were able to make more than a couple of atoms at a time, and if they lasted longer than a few milliseconds (neither of which is the case). There would not be wedge of liquid elements, merely a column. Physchim62 10:52, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
This reference desk is a most wonderful thing - I doubt any of the typical students I encounter would even think about these sorts of things, let alone ask about such questions! --HappyCamper 22:47, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

One small quibble, if I may: "electrons moving fast". Well, yes the electrons whether acting particle-like or wave-like do have velocity and momentum data associated with them. But while in an orbital (a standing wave) "moving fast" is a poor way to describe a charge that is not doing what charged particles do when they move fast (in a circle - i.e. accelerating). Visualizing a charged particle zipping about the nucleus like a planet around a sun at a relativistic speed is terribly misleading. (Even if expert chemists who don't care about the physics of charged particle movement DO use that heuristic.) 4.250.168.127 23:08, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

There is a fine balance here to find just the right abstraction to get the explanation across "reasonably clearly", given only an incremental amount of time to spend on Wikipedia. I guess me and the Wikipedians answering this question just chose a particular method to do so. Ideally, I would even venture to draw nice 3D digrams depicting the deformation of the orbitals due to relativistic effects. Of course, it would be really nice to have had incorporated all the nuances of quantum mechanics into the answer, but it seemed to be somewhat excessive to do so (at least from my perspective). Maybe I'll post a set of prepared notes with a more rigorous treatment to Wikipedia (if that sort of thing is allowed) since I've encountered this question quite often to warrant a nice little encyclopedic project... --HappyCamper 01:34, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What weapon is this?

I've seen a weapon like this somewhere, yet I can't remember the name of it. Here's a picture. http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thingy6oj.png

A pollaxe? Shimgray 15:52, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
A voulge? A glaive? (Yes, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons.) The illustration is rather crude, which makes it difficult to tell what the artist had in mind. —Charles P. (Mirv) 18:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's a glaive. It should be about 2 metres long, and have a blade along the curved side. It's used for hacking down into the shoulders of early medieval soldiers behind a shield wall. Ojw 22:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much. That's been bothering me forever. -The Questioner P.S. I made that image. Sorry about the...er..bad quality.

[edit] Why does gallium have a low melting point?

For the sake of completeness, I just had to ask: Why does gallium have a low melting point? --HappyCamper 17:32, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[18] Has a good discusion of why Mercury has a low melting point, the same reasons explain Gallium's melting point as well, the link highlights the fact there is a range of metal melting points from high to low and all points in between. Gallium and Mercury have low melting points, but it is not the case that all or even most metals have high melting points and these two are an exception. The article metal explains the popular conception that metals are hard and have high melting points as being because we don't often come accross those which don't as they are reactive. The melting point of a metal depends on the strength of the association between the individual metal atoms see - Metallic bond this in turn depends on the density of the "electron gas" between the atoms which depends on the number of "free" electrons, and the packing density of the atoms. Reactivity of a metal is also affectted by the same varibles - which in that case affect how easy it is for electrons to be lost from a metal which is what happens when a metal reacts. Richard Taylor 18:47, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

    • Less sure about this one than about mercury, but the single 4p electron responsible for metallic bonding in gallium is indeed in a fairly diffuse orbital (well sheilded by the newly completed 3d sub-shell). The low melting point of gallium was predicted by Mendeleev before its discovery, and well before the development of modern quantum theory of atomic structure and metallic bonding... Physchim62 10:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] blackfoot ancestry

my husband's grandmother was a black foot indian and lived in Mississippi. family moved later to texas where my husband was born. how can my husband get his papers or whatever is appropriate to name him as having native indian blood?

I'd reccomend contacting the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. I don't believe individual states tend to have Indian agencies, as they're techincally foreign sovreignties and states can't do much with them... James 21:17, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

This might be a good place to start: [19] Good luck. alteripse 21:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linux screensavers

Is there a (preferably free) linux equivalent of the "My Pictures slideshow" screensaver available in Windows XP? Thryduulf 22:30, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

XScreenSaver probably has a few modules that can do what you want. You might check the GLSlideShow one first. What distribution are you using? Are you using GNOME? ¦ Reisio 02:59, 2005 July 25 (UTC)
I do this with XScreenSaver and xv, to display a slideshow of test cards (which is particularly effective on a big CRT). I used the following entry in the "programs" section of the .xscreensaver file; I don't know how you'd create it with xscreensaver-demo.
 default-n:    "Slideshow"     xv -root -rmode 5 -random -viewonly           \
                                 -wloop -wait 30                             \
                                 $HOME/images/screensaver/*                \n\
Note that xv is doing the random slideshow. Xscreensaver is just launching xv and handling the locking aspect. — mendel ☎ 17:41, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Indian Nationality Laws- ownership of mining leases by a person who is no longer an Indian Citizen.

Father - deceased- was an Indian, Mother was not, Child presently an US Citizen desires to hold a mining lease (concession) which are awarded on behalf of the President of India- CAN SUCH A PERSON OWN OR HOLD SUCH A LEASE ? WHERE CAN THE RELEVANT LAW BE FOUND?

PRATIK GUPTA pratik_00@hotmail.com

Here are the full concession rules [20]. James 04:26, July 25, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] The Yellow Mini incident

Does anyone remember the incident of mistaken identity when the UK Police in London opened fire on a yellow mini and its driver? I am trying to recall the date of the incident (1970s?), find out if there were amendments to policy and procedure and to understand if there are similarities with Friday's shooting of an innocent man on the London Underground. - Simon Heywood

That would be 14 Jan 1983. The man shot in the ambush was later named as Stephen Waldorf; police were looking for escaped prisoner David Martin. Two officersstood trial for attempted murder and attempted wounding but were cleared of all charges in October 1983. Stephen Waldorf made a full recovery and eventually received £150,000 compensation. David Martin was recaptured soon after the shooting but hanged himself in jail in 1984 before his trial. From [21]. --Tagishsimon (talk)
Wow, that's date of my birth. ¦ Reisio 10:57, 2005 July 25 (UTC)

[edit] Fail deadly

OK, this is a serious question, and may I emphasise that I am not asking to start a bombing. It leads in from Jean Charles de Menzes talk page. If a suicide bomber is incapacitated and is being held down by police officers, exactly how would shooting the suspect bomber in the head stop the bomb from going off if it is using a fail deadly dead man's switch? And if the switch is not activated and the bomber cannot use their arms, why shoot the man in the head? Why would this be the only effective means for protecting people from the bomb? - Ta bu shi da yu 08:19, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

My understanding of how most of these bombs work is that the bomber doesn't have a switch, just a pair of wires which he touches together (or a battery which he pushes into a receptacle). The BBC discussed a common type (presumably ones used in Palastine) that had a pair of wires running down one arm, which could be detonated just by movements of one hand. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:45, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
Note also that a body shot is a) in danger of actually setting off the bomb, and b) kills, but not instantly. Anecdotal evidence abounds of people who get shot in the chest, and still have mental and physical control enough to swear about it before keeling over - if he does have a switch which can be easily set off, then he may well be capable of it despite just having been shot. As for a dead-man switch - if you don't kill him he might set it off, if you do kill him it might go off, you're screwed either way; but you have a better chance hoping he hasn't such a switch than hoping you have him incapacitated. Shimgray 12:24, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
fail deadly is often seen in movies, but rarely on the current crop of bombers (failed or successful). more often is a back-up 'phone-in' detonation setup, though these are not used much outside the Iraqi Theatre. most likely because there is sufficient ability to track the sender if used in countries like London...--Kilr0y 19:38, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Of course, even shooting someone in the head does not guarantee instant death, Hollywood movies notwithstanding. It usually does guarantee that the person will be incapacitated in every way that matters, even if only from shock impact. Those who survive usually suffer from (often debilitating) brain damage, unsurprisingly, though there are anecdotal tales of people surviving by having the bullet miss the brain completely. JRM · Talk 19:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Database rights in the United States

Does the US have any specific protection of databases equivalent to European Union database rights? Physchim62 10:48, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I pretty sure the answer is no. There has been a lot of precedent to say that just compiling information (however laborious) does not in itself create a copyright claim under U.S. law, which seems different than the E.U. law — see, i.e., Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service. The page for Feist v. Rural also says, "In the late 1990s, Congress attempted to pass laws which would protect collections of data, but these measures failed. By contrast, the European Union has a sui generis (specific to that type of work) intellectual property protection for collections of data," which would seem to imply specifically no again. --Fastfission 11:19, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
There were a few bills introduced towards this end in the 108th Congress, but they don't seem to have gotten very far. See H.R. 3261 and H.R. 3872. Chuck 18:38, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fiddler on the Roof

Why is "Fiddler on the Roof" called "Fiddler on the Roof"? How did they get the name? What is the connection? Thanks!

I saw a stage play of this many years ago. At one point there is a man playing a fiddle (a stringed instrument) sitting on a roof. It is a apparent to me that many books, plays, movies, are named after some unusual event within the story that may or may not be the main event of the story.
Can the Duplicate entries be removed> AlMac|(talk) 15:00, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


  • Opening lines to the show: A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask 'Why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?' Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition! (break into song...) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I am looking for liberty texas

can you please tell me about liberty texas and the minerals&other drilling sites

           Thank-You 
              Resrectfully Kathleen Cashman

See Liberty, Texas. Neutralitytalk 15:39, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aposiopesis

What is the Ancient Greek rendering of the word aposiopesis, and what is its IPA prounciation? Neutralitytalk 15:36, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

It's Αποσιωπησις. I'm not sure quite what is wanted in an IPA transcription: a stab at how an Ancient Greek might have pronounced it, a Modern Greek transcription or how it's normally pronounced in English? --Gareth Hughes 15:48, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
The Greek is actually ἀποσιώπησις with accents and breathings. My best guess on the IPA transcription of how it was pronounced in Classical Attic is ɑposi↑ɔpesɪs. James 17:48, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French idiom

Is there an English idiom which would be equivalent to the French idiom: "Cela ne mange pas de pain."? It means approximately: "It is worth trying, and it does not need much effort." --Edcolins 16:14, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit more pedestrian, but I think "[It] can't hurt to try" is one of the more common ways to express that sentiment. — mendel ☎ 16:31, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
Or possibly, "It's a piece of cake" which means something can be easily done. Dismas 20:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
"What do we have to lose?" comes to mind. -- Essjay · Talk 00:37, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks all for your answers! --Edcolins 06:50, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where to find these Bach music?

Where do I find free (beer) piano partitures (or MID files, for that matter) of the Well tempered klavier?

My music teacher says the first Bach musics for piano is something called "Anna Magdalenna Bach", teached to first year undergarduate music students. But I didnt find nothing in the Bach article. Any clarifications?

More: Where do I find partitures or MID for the music The Entertainer, by S. Joplin? It must be the complete part/MID with about 5 minutes running time

Michael User:Mdob

Mutopia is your friend - http://www.mutopiaproject.org/piece-list.html
Also, our article on Bach contains a fair bit of music (put there by yours truly). →Raul654 17:19, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
On the other, you should probably take a look at Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. --Camembert 01:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] oil sand companies

How do I find a list of large and small oil sand companies that are publically traded ?

[edit] Wild Things South Florida Courthouse

In the film Wild Things, there is a trial in an incredible south Florida courtroom which has a massive mural right behind the judge. Anyone know where this location is? 66.213.99.30 18:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The Filming Locations for Wild Things page at the IMDb doesn't answer your question but it may help narrowing the search. David Sneek 18:42, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
According to Jeff Peel, director of the Miami-Dade Film Commission, it is in the David W. Dyer Federal Building and Courthouse, 300 NE First Avenue. (Details here. See illustration of the mural, "Law Guides Florida Progress" by Denman Fink, here PedanticallySpeaking 15:12, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] belief

Hi all, Please can you help me , i understand there is a definition concerning a person holding opposing beliefs about the same subject , and that it has a name . for example i believe in ghosts / ghosts may not exsist. Thank you very much for your time .

Antoinette

A person who consciously cannot decide between two conflicting beliefs has ambivalence. A person who holds two contradictory beliefs, or whose actions are incompatible with their beliefs, and becomes aware at some level of the incompatibility, is said to experience cognitive dissonance. alteripse 22:18, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

In addition, a person who publicly promotes two conflicting beliefs ("Mr Smith, I adore cake." vs. "Mrs Jones, I cannot stand cake.") may be said to be hypocritical, though this is very rarely something people use to refer to themselves (as it's a term with quite negative implications). Shimgray 01:58, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A scavenger hunt - science pictures for Wikipedia

I am trying to find pictures related to tritium and gold to add to Wikipedia, but I have not been very succesful. Here's what I'm looking for:

  1. Find a picture of a block of ice with a high concentration of tritium atoms, so that it "glows" in its own radiation.
  2. Find a picture of an extremely thin square of gold foil so that it looks translucent.

I'm pretty sure I've encoutered these before, but I can't find them anymore. Any ideas? --HappyCamper 22:53, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

You can try requesting your images to Wikipedia:Requested pictures, though I wouldn't expect a quick response for a request like that. — Asbestos | Talk 13:40, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, if you think about getting a hold of the subjects you are requesting, they would both cost large sums of money (well moreso the first one) to obtain for the photograph. I don't think anyone here is simply going to have photos of them or be able to take them. Do you have some reason to believe they might have been photographed as part of some government funded work, and thus PD or something? - Taxman Talk 14:28, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rachel's baby on Friends

What happened to Emma, Rachel's baby?

I assume you're referring to the final two-part episode, appropriately titled The Last One. This transcript has the explanation:
Rachel: Hi! So I just dropped Emma off at my mom's.
Ross: Okay.
Joey: Oh, you're not taking her with you tonight?
Rachel: No, we decided that I would go ahead and set up first, and then my mom would bring Emma to Paris on Sunday.
-- Cyrius|✎ 03:11, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar - Subject/Object = Nominative/Accusative?

I have read List of grammatical cases, and the articles nominative case, accusative case, but I cannot seem to be able to differentiate between "subject"/"object" and the "nominative"/"accusative". Could someone explain the difference? I'm interested in this primarily so I can understand German grammar better. Thanks! --HappyCamper 00:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

There's nothing really to differentiate between a case and a part of speech. It's like comparing apples to oranges. A case is a set of inflections (in German mostly the article, but also adjective endings) that indicates what part of speech a word is, or what its role is in the sentence. The nominative case is the case of the subject, i.e. all subjects are in the nominative and all nominatives are subjects of their clauses. The accusative case is the case of the direct object, so all direct objects are in the accusative and (generally) all accusatives are direct objects. There are a few cases where an accusative is not strictly a direct object. In German, those instances are:
  1. Accusatives following an intransitive verb, such as Er starb einen schweren Tod, "He died a difficult death."
  2. Accusatives by themselves, such as in Guten Morgen. A verb such as wünschen, to wish, is to be understood as governing this object.
  3. Accusatives are used to denote adverbially length of time or a point in time, a measurement or value, and to express distance with verbs and adverbs denoting motion.
  4. The greatest and most common exception of all is that the accusative case follows some prepositions. In German, they are: bis, durch, für, gegen, ohne, and um. There are also certain "swing prepositions" that can be followed by accusatives if they're communicating movement in a particular direction, or the dative if they're denoting location: an, auf, entlang, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, and zwischen.
Another thing to note is that "object" covers two different kinds of objects, direct and indirect. Accusatives are of the direct sort, while datives are of the indirect sort. James 02:41, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Part of the reason for the confusion is that the terms nominative and accusative were originally part of the description of latin and greek noun declensions. As opposed to English and German, latin and greek are strongly declined (e.g., the ending of the noun indicates whether it is nom or acc). In latin and greek, nom and acc are almost synonymous with subject and object of sentences (or at least of transitive verbs). The nomenclature makes less sense in languages such as english and german where word order may be more important than ending (e.g., man bites dog and dog bites man). So despite the exceptions and elaborations in german, in the languages in which nom and acc cases originated, they do roughly indicate subject and object. alteripse 03:03, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to your responses, both! I think it's going to take some time before I can absorb this information. Grammar is not a forte of mine right now, and I guess I am finding it difficult expressing what it is I don't understand. In a lot of German language textbooks I've read, they seem to be very unclear about nominative/accusative cases being related to subject and (direct) object. Maybe some examples would help.
Sie hat das Auto. (Nominative?)
Sie sucht den Hörsaal. (Accusative?)
First of all, does "nominative case" and "accusative case" refer to the entire sentence, or only to the nouns? What part of the sentence is in what case? Thanks for your help! --HappyCamper 04:48, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Every noun, pronoun, article, and adjective has its own case. Adjectives that are paired with nouns must always be the same case, number, and gender, as the noun, which is called "agreeing" with the noun. So, in your examples, Sie is the subject and is thus in the nominative. In both sentences, sie is the singular feminine nominative pronoun, "she." Das Auto and den Hörsaal are the direct objects and are thus both in the accusative. The car is what she has and the lecture-hall is what she seeks. A good help to determining the case of a noun is that it is usually preceeded by an article, which narrows down your possibilities. There are only two instances where das is used, the neuter nominative and accusative singular. There is only one instance when den is used of a masculine noun, in the accusative singular.
Also, word order helps alot, because, even though German is freer with word order than in English, there are some very general guidelines. The subject in the nominative almost always is the first part of the clause or the second if it is a question. The objects almost always follow the verb of the sentence and the indirect objects, in the dative, are followed by the direct objects, in the accusative. An example is Ich gab dir einen Apfel, "I gave you an apple," where dir is in the dative and einen Apfel in the accusative. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but that will help 90% of the time. James 05:12, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
light starts to turns on --> OH! Now I think I understand. Every part of the sentence has a "case". Would it be correct to say this? Loosely speaking, the subject of a sentence in German is in the nominative case, and the direct object is in the accusative? (Is this the same as in English, or are other cases used instead? The two langauges seem to be quite similar...) Thanks again for your help! --HappyCamper 12:45, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Grammatical case is, strictly, applied to nouns, pronouns, articles and adjectives: prepositions and finite verbs do not have grammatical case. A simple sentence may be thought of having up to four parts:

  1. the subject (the dog) is the actor of the sentence: in German and English this usually goes before the verb, and it is marked with the nominative case,
  2. the verb (bites) is essential to the construction of a (major) sentence,
  3. the object (the man) is what is acted upon, usually coming after the verb and is in the accusative case,
  4. the adverbial (on the knee) is extra information, if needed, it often contains a preposition (on) and its own prepositional object, which, in German, are put in case determined by the preposition (certain prepositions demand that their object take a certain case).

Thus, case is a way of marking parts of the sentence (the dog bites the man on the knee). Pronouns are a shorthand: it bites him on the knee. The subject and object can both be a 'noun phrase' made up of a number words: we could replace the man with the noun phrase the tall, flamboyant man, and that phrase would be the new object. --Gareth Hughes 13:06, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a decent way to think about it is that every "thing" in a sentence has case, while actions do not. So in Ich gab dir einen Apfel, Ich, dir, and einen Apfel all have case, because they are "things" of some sort. Gab, on the other hand, is an action, and doesn't have a case, but is instead conjugated English does not have case in exactly the same way. A subject in English can be said (and often is in grammars) to be in the nominative, but it is somewhat misleading because there is no discernable difference between the various cases in English. One exception is the pronouns. You say, "Who is that?," but "Whom shall I see," because who is the nominative form and whom is the accusative form. Likewise, "He went to the store," and "I sent him to the store." "He" is nominative and "him" is accusative.
The question word "who" reminded me of an excellent way to remember the cases. In German, they are often called Werfall (nominative), the "who case", Wenfall (accusative), the "whom case", Wemfall (dative), the "to whom case", and Wesfall (genitive), the "whose case". James 18:12, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

(I moved James's post here so it could be commented upon) In the example sentence above, Ich gab dir einen Apfel, we can see four parts:

  • Ich, the pronoun I, which is the subject and is in the nominative case.
  • gab, the verb.
  • dir, the pronoun you, which is the indirect object, and is in the dative case.
  • einen Apfel, a noun phrase consisting of the indefinite article (einen) and a noun (Apfel), which is the direct object, and is in the accusative case.

The difference between direct and indirect objects is quite straightforward. The direct object is always that which is acted upon by the verb (the apple is given). The indirect object is usually a recipient. --Gareth Hughes 18:30, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the explanations everyone. It's really cleared up some of the concepts I have in German grammar! --HappyCamper 00:55, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
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