Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2006 November 1

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[edit] November 1

[edit] tourettes

What would be a good way, seeing as though there is no actual cure, for suppressing or maybe even stopping a coprolalia or copropraxia episode? Becuase unless it goes away on its own, this could probably be the only way to help. Just wondering. Temp i'm bored

See Treatment of Tourette syndrome. -THB 01:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the page for coprolalia mentions the use of the Botulinum_toxin in the paralyzing of vocal cords to control outbursts. Although this will help, I believe the above posted treatment link will help you best. WiiAlbanyGirl 01:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sinking a military ship

What would it take to sink an Adelaide class frigate, apart from another Navy ship? What effect would an attack on a ship by fighter jets or helicopters have on it?

Looks like basically any kind of military explosives would sink that thing: rockets, torpedos, shells, etc. Bullets wouldn't do anything of course --frothT C 04:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course, it matters with what and where you hit it, but in the Falklands war HMS Sheffield was sunk by a single Exocet missile strike launched from an Argentinian aircraft.
A helicopter is an unlikely method by which an attack on a surface ship would be carried out, as helicopters do not generally carry heavy, long-range weaponry, and are too slow, giving ample time for them to be shot down by an Adelaide frigate's anti-aircraft missiles. Those missiles also complicate an attack by fixed-wing aircraft, of course. Many defence forces (including Australia's) therefore have long-range cruise missiles for attacks on shipping, some of which are sea-launched and others launched from aircraft.
Other possible attack methods include sabotage and sea mines. --Robert Merkel 05:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

How about an iceberg ?---petitmichel

Sure, but they are a bit hard to aim. Since these ships are Australia's "primary air defense vessels" I wouldn't want to approach one in a helicopter. A stand-off weapon, like an air-launched cruise missile, would be good. Rmhermen 17:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
A trained Kraken might do the trick. The vaunted air defences woould be useless against it. But first you have to find one and catch it. Edison 18:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe you wouldn't need to train it. Just make it irate enough against Australians that it attacked anything Australian on its own initiative. Maybe feeding it a couple of million gallons of Fosters... DJ Clayworth 00:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Total number of insurgency casualties? (Iraqi war)

I've heard a lot of the US troops' total deaths, is there a source for estimated amout of insurgency deaths? The velociraptor 06:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Some data is available in The Brookings Institution's Iraq Index (PDF, p16) Rockpocket 07:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. The US casualties pale in comparison with the insurgent casualties... The velociraptor 07:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Please refer to the question below.

Where below?
I heard around 600.000. The big question is who does the tallying? For the US army there is the US army, but who collects the causes of death throughout the country? It's a big country and a notorious problem is that there is no central organisation for what ever, so not for this either. DirkvdM 08:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advice required

Hi

Need advice on the following:

1. What is the space between each step in a staircase called and also the sharp edge of each stairs?

2. When writing, do i use use "...that operates on kinetic principle" or "....that operates on kinetic principles"?

The space between each step? If you mean the vertical part, that's called the riser. And the edge of the step would be its nosing. For more info see Stairs. Dismas|(talk) 08:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

  1. Our article Stairway suggests the space is called the riser and the sharp edge is called the nosing.
  2. I would suggest that there is no such thing as a single "kinetic principle", instead it is number of principles that define kinetics, thus your latter suggestion is what i would go for. Rockpocket 08:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean "operates on kinetic energy", like a flywheel? --Justanother 14:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

1 - I'm thinking of span. -- DLL .. T 22:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A riddle

You are having a treasure hunt. After exploring a cave for days, you find yourself in front of these three doors. In front of these, there's this little bird, and also a note.

"Only one of the doors leads to what you are looking for. The others will lead to your death. The bird will tell the truth while you are pointing to the right way, Otherwise it may or may not tell the truth. You can ask only one question only once that may answered by Ay or Nay as the bird can't say more than that"

Which question should be asked? (and no, you can't train/bribe the bird.)

No, I don't actually know the answer, so any speculative guesses would be much appreciated.

--218.186.8.10 09:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

one door, bird will tell the truth
two doors bird may tell lies

You need to ask the bird a metaquestion while pointing to one of the door.

Point to any door and ask "Will you say that one of the other doors will not lead to my doom if I ask you the question QUOTE will the one of the other doors lead to my doom? UNQUOTE ?" 211.28.178.86 11:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

TWO questions!!!---petitmichel
I disagree; if there is only one yes/no answer then it is one question no matter how convoluted. I doubt his question solves the problem. --Justanother 15:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem has too many variables for a single question to provide the answer. Therefore:

  • 1. See if there is an alternative route.
  • 2. See if you can retreat.
  • 3. Only if necessary consider the given problem using risk minimisation:
  • 3.1 The problem is obviously set by an evil person (a good person would simply have one door - or none). Thus:
  • 3.2 The middle door is most likely to be dangerous (since most choose the centre of three)
  • 3.3. Ask the bird of the left-hand door “is this door safe to use?”
  • 3.4 If the answer is positive, select it (50% probability). If negative select the right hand door.
  • 3.5. Pick up bird, open centre door, throw bird through.
  • 3.6 If bird lives, follow though.
  • 3.7 If bird dies then go though the door selected above - and hope.---petitmichel
The old solution I heard, although I'm too lazy to be sure if it fits here... (Can I do a spoiler tag?)
Ask bird A "Would the other bird say door X leads to doom?", If Bird A says yes, door X leads to safety, if bird A says no, door X leads to doom... (I didn't figure out this myself when I heard the question, I read the answer quite quickly...) 惑乱 分からん 14:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
What? where did he second bird come from? Philc TECI 14:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Whoops... I didn't read too carefully, and mixed it up with another problem (Two persons, two options, one person always lies, one person always tell the truth) 惑乱 分からん 14:49, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Ask Monty to open one of the doors for you. --Justanother 14:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I have been wrong about these sorts of things before but I don't think that you can get enough information to solve the problem. Better would be if the bird had to always tell the truth. Still a riddle but solvable? Try that one. --Justanother 15:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Suppose that "MQ?" is the magical question to pose to the bird. So you pick a way to point and ask the birdie: "Oh my precious pretty, prithy tell me: MQ?" If birdie says "Aye", you now perform ACTION["Aye"], and if it turns out to be a naysayer you do ACTION["Nay"], where these denote, of course, the appropriate actions to be taken for the given answers. But wait... these are only two possible actions, but we need three possibilities. Apparently there is a third possibility beyond "Aye" and "Nay".  --LambiamTalk 17:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey, it really doesn't say that the bird can only say AYE or NAY once in reply to your single question. You could probably craft a single question with an answer like "AYE, AYE, NAY" meaning Door # 2. I am joking a bit but . . . --Justanother 19:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
You can't solve this through pure logic, because you don't know if the note is telling the truth or not. Logic is a way to reach conclusions that cannot be wrong if all the assumptions are true. If any of the assumptions are not known to be true, you can't say you've applied logic correctly. See this logic quiz. --Kjoonlee 05:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English songs

I have been wondering how come music artists from non english speaking countries (like, Sweden, Germany) can write songs in good english. I believe that one must have a very good commond over the language to write lyrics in that particular language- pavanto

Abba are a good example. Yes, I'm sure they do have a very good command of English. Is that so surprising? --Richardrj talk email 10:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Also songs by a major band pass by lots of eyes before they get published. Any remaining grammatical errors can simply be considered artistic license. Songs and poetry easily get away with sentences that would be considered ungrammatical in prose. Weregerbil 10:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Hehe, yeah, even in your native tongue. Consider The Beatles' Ticket to Ride:
She's got a ticket to ride,
But she don't care.
That can't be correct, can it? Or am I just showing a lack of command of the English language (as opposed to other Swedes, like ABBA)? —Bromskloss 12:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
That's the Beatles writing in colloquial English. Actually, foreign language singers are usually more prone to accentuate words incorrectly than to use jarring English. --Dweller 16:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Japanese artists often write songs in bad English, though... ;)
We don't really need another words!
We can see the another world!
                                      (Gackt)
惑乱 分からん 14:08, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, it's amazing what a small lexicon lyrics have (in whatever language they're written). I used to study opera, so I sang in French, German and Italian, but I didn't speak any of them (well a little French). Just for fun, I wrote a song in Italian just based on the libretto lexicon I'd learnt from the Italian opera I knew, plus a bit of modern Italian slang. I showed it to a couple of native Italian speakers, and they said that it would pass. If you're familiar with a lot of songs and a little bit of slang in the language you're shooting for, you can go pretty far. Anchoress 10:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
No non-English speaker will dare to come up with lyrics like Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are; Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are Tintin (talk) 13:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Poetic licence has always been used in songs especially modern songs I think. The correct grammar in Ticket to ride would of course be: She does not care. That sounds a bit old fashioned and awkward though as it has too many syllables.--Light current 13:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
If you want bad grammar, I think the king is Louis Jordan's "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" howcheng {chat} 23:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
What is the more common practice - do they compose the music and write lyrics to fit it, or set the lyrics to music ? Tintin (talk) 13:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the music's usually written first, but that probably depends. For text-based writers such as rappers and Bob Dylan etc. (?) it might well be otherwise... 惑乱 分からん 14:08, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
In pop music, it's actually very common for the words and music to come together. Often the hook (either musical or lyrical) comes first, then the rest of the song is written at once. Anchoress 14:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Of the two areas you mention, English is very widely and well spoken as a second language, particularly in Scandinavia. In my travels in those areas, many people you meet could just about pass for native speakers. --Robert Merkel 14:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
“We don’t need no education ...” – Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall (Part II). — Michael J 20:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Addiction to Infornography

Do wikipediholics suffer constantly from an intense craving for explicit infornography? 211.28.178.86 11:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

yes by definition--Light current 12:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I made the redirect. -THB 20:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-religious leaders?

Are there at present, or have there ever been, any atheist or non-religious world leaders? --Adam (Talk) 13:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Duh? The velociraptor 13:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't describe either Bush or Blair as "religious". But I suspect you're looking for Communism. --Shantavira 13:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
N.B. Bushy= Some american Xtian Denomination (quite devoupt). Tony Blair = Catholic (or soon to be converting from angliganism to,)
Maybe the questionner means if there have been world leaders who do not believe any sort of god or other higher power exists. Bush and Blair certainly believe God exists, as far as I know. They just don't keep bringing religion into everything they do, I hope. JIP | Talk 14:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Jawaharlal Nehru was an atheist. Tintin (talk) 14:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, there is also a Category:Atheist politicians Tintin (talk) 14:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
What defines world leader? As there technically is no such position, just of their respective countries. Philc TECI 14:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Isn't George W. Bush a world leader? Even if he really isn't, he acts as if he is. JIP | Talk 14:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
By "world leader" I mean the leader of a country. I thought this was common usage? Anyway, Bush and Blair are always bringing religion into everything (e.g. I remember a headline on the front page of The Independent about a year ago: Bush: God told me to invade Iraq). Thanks for the responses. --Adam (Talk) 16:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
A world leader is someone who thinks he rules the world.--Light current 16:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
According that definition, I've met dozens of world leaders. --Dweller 16:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
We all have. I ve met a lot here 8-|--Light current 16:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

There are many levels of religion influencing politicians:

  • A theocracy is ruled by religious leaders. Iran is an example (although they also have a parallel "pretend" democracy).
  • Other countries are not ruled directly by religious leaders. However, their leaders may have deeply held religious views which stronly influence their policies, such as in Saudi Arabia. There is some concern, that under Bush, the US is becoming like this.
  • A secular nation is not ruled by religion and tries to keep religion out of politics. Note that under such a system the individual leaders may have strongly held religious views, but don't try to impose those views on others. Or, the leaders may themselves be atheists or agnostic.

There have been many nations with all levels of religious influence. StuRat 17:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

You never, ever, ever hear any mention made of God in Canadian politics. Perhaps swearing-in ceremonies, that's about it. -- Chris 17:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Stephen Harper was invoking God in nearly every speech he made prior to the last election, actually. Stockwell Day is a former pastor (google search him for some fascinating stories). To answer the original question, though: I think you'd find that most communist countries are led by people who could be considered atheists. I'd be surprised if Kim Jong-Il professed any kind of religious beliefs. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Has he made much mention of God since being elected though, I wonder? -- Chris 21:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't know; I tend to block most of what he says out of my mind ... Tony Fox (arf!) 17:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
From my part of the world, both Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke are avowed atheists. While he was PM (1972-75), Whitlam even went so far as to make a statement to the effect of "anyone who believes in God is an idiot". I don't remember his exact words. He copped a lot of flak, rightly so. Funnily enough, Bob Hawke's current wife Blanche d'Alpuget is a lay preacher. JackofOz 21:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Is a "lay preacher" one that's allowed to marry ? StuRat 22:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Slightly ambiguous question. Any adult is allowed to marry (subject to the usual conditions such as not already being married). Maybe you mean people who are not ministers of religion but are allowed to conduct marriages (of other people, of course). We call them "Civil celebrants" - see Marriage Act 1961 for details of how it works. Blanche may well be a civil celebrant as well as a lay preacher, but I don't know. There's no necessary connection between the two things. JackofOz 22:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
My impression is that most of Europe is governed by secular politicians, not even Christian Democrats seem to talk much about God. 惑乱 分からん 22:49, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Many of the early U.S. political figures were only nominally Christian. See List of United States Presidential religious affiliations. -- Mwalcoff 23:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] okay i need help

i have 5 questions which av tried researching but nuthing doing,

1. morse code dash dash means what

  • According to Morse code, it's the letter M. How did you miss this ? StuRat 16:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

2. which team is reffered to as the aints when they r losing

3. the nike tick stands for what

4. who is the patron of saint of carpenters

Joseph is one of several patrons of carpenters. See [1] for others. Rmhermen 17:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I've always known it to be Saint Peter. Englishnerd 17:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

5. which is the first pre historic animal on a show n by who?

  • Do you mean the first fossils of an extinct prehistoric animal shown on TV ? StuRat 16:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Prehistoric animals on TV?? and it should be by whom.lol Englishnerd 17:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Don't quite understand the question but one of the first prehistoric animals regarded as such is the ichthyosaur found by Mary Anning. MeltBanana 19:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

- - = M--Light current 16:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

A show by Who, eh? That'd be one of the Tribe of Gum :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 01:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deer Hunting

What kind of 12-guage slugs are preferred for deer hunting? Musli Miester 16:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

12-guage slugs would be too messy. A 12 on the International Guage Scale, is one of those big huge gooky things that you can find in your garden. --Zeizmic 17:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Ew. Ah, to actually answer the question (minor spelling nazi aside: it's "gauge" - hey, I'm an editor, I can't help it): here's an article that discusses slug guns and other topics; an interesting article on slug guns from Game and Fish magazine; this one actually talks about slugs... that should give you some places to start. Cheers! Tony Fox (arf!) 17:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, my bad! We have this Shotgun slug. --Zeizmic 17:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Halloween - the movie

I just watched the movie halloween. It's about a guy who kills people. There's no plot. There's no special way in which he kills people. He just sneaks up on them and kills them. His psychiatrist tries to catch him by waiting for him to appear. The sound and acting are lousy (in keeping with the budget). The teenagers aren't teenagers. And things only get going in the last ten minutes. I don't get it. What made this movie such a success? DirkvdM 16:54, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Because we like to be scared: [2] Rmhermen 17:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Check out the IMDB page for the film, including the "Check for other user comments" subpage. A bunch of people explain what they liked or didn't like about the movie. The article on Halloween (film) also suggests that the movie originated much of the now-cliche guy-wastes-people-one-by-one horror genre. So it was much more original back in 1987 than it is now. Weregerbil 17:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't get the entire slasher genre, myself. I understand suspense and mystery, but just racking up a large body count hardly seems like entertainment to me. About the only mystery in those movies is whether the next victim will be hung by their intestines of thrown live into the wood chipper. StuRat 17:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's part of my point. I'm not into horror movies either (unless they're funny, like from dusk till dawn)), but this one is so famous that I forced myself to watch it. But nothing much happens in the film. There are no special ways in which people get killed, no gore at all, no attempts even at special effects, only four people in all get killed and the only action is in the last ten minutes (apart from the opening scene) and even that was rather slow. Even people who are into horror should be bored to death by this. It's a 1987 film? That makes it even worse (because it is set in the sixties and because of the image and sound quality I assumed it was a sixties movie). I thought that maybe the fact that it pioneered the genre explains its classic status, but for that it would have to have been an oldie. Hell, even pre-war dracula movies look better. DirkvdM 18:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
It's the start of the slasher sub-genre of the much older horror movie genre. StuRat 21:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
1978, not 1987. Rmhermen 21:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I've never seen it and don't plan to. But as a general comment, you could probably criticise a classic like Citizen Kane, on the basis that most if not all of its innovations are now either standard, or even passe. People seeing it for the first time in 2006 may well say "what was all the fuss about?". But at the time, and for a long time later, it was a groundbreaker. JackofOz 21:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, so everyone says. But let's be honest--Citizen Kane is a horrifically dull movie. Granted that it's historically important for the filmic techniques it introduced, it's still a snoozer, and I think it's just absurd that it keeps getting trotted out near the top of those "best films of all times" lists.
There must have been a time in the Seventies when everyone thought art films were supposed to be boring, because there was a whole run of them -- 2001, Silent Running, Duel, Vanishing Point, and I assume others that didn't manage to take two hours of my life I'll never get back. --Trovatore 17:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and even Shakespeare just threw together plays out of a bunch of common phrases and stereotypes, right ? :-) StuRat 21:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not that nothing new happens, it's that nothing happens at all in the movie, but I now realise that that may just be it. First, the 'normality' of everything you see (well, to a US audience anyway) makes you identify more with the people in the story. Next, you know that the killer is (or will be) in town. So I regularly thought "Ah, someone is going to appear behind you now". When that doesn't happen again and agian, I get bored (because I only believe what I see, that sort of thing), but others may tense up every time. And then when the killer finally appears, they're so tensed up they'll be standing on their chairs, despite how lousy the scene is. Something like that maybe? DirkvdM 08:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This is so funny. This reminds me of the time when one of my friend finally decides to read "The lord of the rings" (note: this was before the Peter Jackson movie came out). And what was his reaction to reading the book. It was hilarious.

He said that The lord of the ring books was so cliche, it was obvious a utter ripoff of all the other fantasy books that was around back in the eighties. There is hardly anything original in The lord of the rings. Ha. Ha. ha. 211.28.178.86 09:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

While we're on that subject, Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin was revolutionary for it's time because it used a moving camera. But I found that boring too. But I can't remember now why that was. It can hardly be for the lack of things happening, because it was about a revolution. :) DirkvdM 07:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brits wanted to identify celebrities

Please watch the Make Poverty History Click ad on YouTube and complete (or correct) the following list: Ewan McGregor, Rachel Stevens, McFly, Lemar, Sugababes, Craig David, Ana Matronic, Steve Jones, Faithless, ?missing?, Girls Aloud, Daniel Bedingfield, Natalie Imbruglia, Ronan Keating, Estelle Swaray, ?missing? 18:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/t4/stars/events/mph.html Billie Piper, Cat Deeley MeltBanana 19:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
They don't look anything like Billie Piper and Cat Deeley.

[edit] Pretty Baby

What happens at the end of the story ( Brooke Sheilds movie ) ? Does Violet go back to her Husband , or is it an open ending ?

Pretty Baby (1978 film) may assist. --Tagishsimon (talk)

It doesnt give the ending ..

I saw this film quite a while ago, but can't quite recall. I believe Violet goes back to her family, then her husband pursues her and they all live happily ever after.

End of spoiler. -- DLL .. T 22:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)