Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 March 24

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[edit] March 24

[edit] NATO response to 9/11 Attacks

What's exactly The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to 9/11 attacks ? -- Thanks in advance

(Teeth removed) V-Man - T/C 02:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Please don't bite the questioner. The NATO article says "The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the attacks included the first two examples of military action taken in response to an invocation of Article 5: Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour." - it's a reasonable question to wonder what those eight things were - and the article certainly doesn't spell it out. (Not that I have any idea what the answer is either) SteveBaker 02:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Can V-Man still gum them? Clarityfiend 20:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Um num num! V-Man - T/C 09:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

What are the eight official actions taken by NATO in response to 9/11 attacks?

According to this sauce, NATO implemented upheaving changes in their concept of dealing with terrorism in "...the following eight fields: chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence; intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition; air-to-ground surveillance; command, control and communications; combat effectiveness, including precision-guided munitions and suppression of enemy air defences; strategic air and sea lift; air-to-air refuelling; and deployable combat support and combat service support units." V-Man - T/C 12:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MAT basis

Various trade magazines use the wording eg: "has grown 5.5per cent on a MAT basis". Can someone please advise what the extended terminology is. Thanks D

This (http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/mat) may help...take your pick based on context. ny156uk 12:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
From that list, the obvious choice is "Moving Annual Total". Which means that to get the statistic for any particular date, you just add that day's figure to the figures for the 364 previous days. Or 365 if there's a February 29 in there, I suppose! --Anonymous, March 26, 2007, 07:14 (UTC).

[edit] Verizon wireless billing

if i were to get a regular verizon cell phone plan do they require that i deposit some money to use for whenever i were to call someone elseware. would they deduct it. or is it just one flat rate charge that you have taken out to pay and only have to pay more if you add extras. and of course the taxes.--logger 07:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

What you will pay for is a plan. There are many plans available and each plan has it's own monthly subscription price. Under each plan you are alotted a certain number of minutes. Each time you make or receive a phone call, you are using those minutes. Once you exceed the number of minutes allotted, then they start charging you a set rate per minute that you go over and above what you have in your plan. Those charges get tacked on to the next month's bill. There are a few different categories of minutes. For instance, minutes that you use to speak to someone else on their Verizon phone are generally not counted against you. They're basically free as long as you pay your monthly bill. Although, minutes used to make calls to non-Verizon phone numbers are counted and deducted from the number of minutes allotted to you under your plan. Also, things like text messages may or may not be included under your plan. If you call Verizon or go to one of their stores, I'm sure they'll be able to explain this all to you. The plans should also be at http://www.verizonwireless.com/ Dismas|(talk) 11:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, if you prefer to pay up front, and thus limit your liability, that's a prepaid cellular plan. StuRat 18:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Allright i think i get it now Thank you.--logger 19:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MBA PROJECT

I'm doing my first year MBA under Anna University affiliated college in Tamil Nadu.

I want to do my summer project in the month of June. I'm going to choose elective as Finance and HR and planning to do the project in steel plant or in cement plant. But i have no idea about that.

Can you please help me in suggesting the topic and tell me a guideline to do the project?

How about doing a cost-benefit analysis of various upgrades to make the plants more environmentally friendly ? Be sure to include the intangible political and public relations benefits. StuRat 18:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] National Opinion Polls on Promiscuity

Does anyone know of such a poll? When I say promiscuity, I'm referring to attitudes on female promiscuity vs. male promiscuity. If no national opinion polls exist, then is a statistically credible opinion poll for a state or other division in existence?

Thanks for any replies.Robinson0120 13:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for. How are you defining promiscuity, as opposed to a "normal" sex life? The concept of what is promiscuous varies widely between cultures, and between subcultures (by age or religion, for instance) even within one culture. And for clarity, of which nation are you looking for a national poll? MrRedact 14:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe I see what you're asking for. Are you looking for a poll that gauges people's opinions on what constitutes promiscuity? MrRedact 14:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
And oh, I see from your user page that you're from Florida, so you must be looking for a U.S. national poll. I don't why it didn't occur to me to look at your user page earlier. MrRedact 14:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you asking for a poll on how common they are, on what they are, or on whether they're acceptable? Black Carrot 15:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Yes, I am looking for a United States poll if at all possible. I'm looking for a poll that would have something like, "Do you believe having multiple sexual partners is admirable in men, women, or both?" I'm trying to find out if the supposed "slut vs. stud" idea holds any truth among the American public.

Well, there are the Masters and Johnson and Kinsey reports, although those focus more on actions than opinions. StuRat 18:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, at least among college students in New Orleans in 2003, it looks like people believe that other people accept male promiscuity more readily than female promiscuity, but people actually accept male promiscuity and female promiscuity equally! With a definition of "promiscuity" as "casual sex with multiple partners in a short time period, outside of an exclusive relationship", and a score of 1 for "strongly disagree" to 5 for "strongly agree", the mean response to the statement "I think that males who are sexually promiscuous are socially accepted" was 4.04, compared to 2.36 for the comparable question about females. But the mean response to the statement "I personally think that promiscuous males are acceptable" and the comparable question for females had practically the same mean (2.68 to 2.61).[1]

Actually, thinking about it, the study doesn't really show that the students' belief that other people accept male promiscuity more readily than female promiscuity is wrong. The phrase "are socially accepted" refers to all people, not just other college students. I presume the older generations have more of a double standard than do the younger ones. MrRedact 21:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two Questions On A Guy Named Wendall Running A Business

I was wondering two things. Let's say, a guy, let's call him Wendall, founded a company, that makes, lets say, toilet seats. He owns 100% of it. His company is now worth millions. 1) Let's say, Wendall sets his salary at 3 million dollars. After the financial year, there is a large amount of profits remaining that were not spent. What happens to the money, would Wendall be allowed to keep it. 2) Wendall decides to retire, and he decides to sell off his existing stock, sell the factories, fire the all the workers, and essentially break apart his company and sell it. Can he do this?

1 The profits of a company in general are given out to the shareholders in dividends. If your Wendall owns 100% of the shares, he gets 100% of the dividends. Duomillia 15:21, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
2) Yes, since he owns 100% of the business, he certainly is allowed to dissolve the business, in the process firing all the workers and selling the business' assets. If it's a large, profitable business that's been doing well, it would probably make more sense for him to instead sell the business as a whole, since he could probably get more money for the business as a whole than from its individual assets, but that decision is purely up to him. MrRedact 15:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I assume there might be heavy retrenchment fees for firing all your staff. I can see why there may be some obsticles there. I think there may even be union law that prevents a company from just closing like that - it may be contested. Rfwoolf 17:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

And he certainly needs to cover all the company debts, including taxes, pension liability, etc. StuRat 18:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
If he runs a private company (and is the sole investor) then I understand he can pay whatever salary he can afford from the profits. If he decides to retire he can sell the business, or close the business down - but workers will have 'rights' involved in the 'firing' process. If it is public firms take a look at our articles on things like asset stripping, special dividend and also stock. The process of 'breaking' a firm entirely is fraught with laws and regulation and I suspect what you propose is much harder to achieve. Of course on retirement Wendall's best bet would be to sell the business to another individual/group who can continue the profit-making (and service/employment providing) enterprise. ny156uk 19:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the laws pertaining to dissolving a business vary by country. The anon who asked the question has a New Zealand IP address (125.238.24.143). I own two tiny U.S. businesses, so I know a little about U.S. business laws off the top of my head, but I know nothing about New Zealand business laws. So just disregard my comments above.

The question, however, is a little vague. Are the business' workers unionized, and has Wendall signed a contract with the union? If so, what does the contract specify? Has Wendall distributed an employee handbook that specifies a severance package, and if so, what are the details of the severance package? Does the business offer its employees health insurance, which would be subject to something comparable to COBRA? Those details all make a difference as to how difficult it would be to dissolve the company, at least in the U.S. MrRedact 22:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind replies so far guys, I have another question. Let's say that poor old Wendall dies in a boating accident, and he has no living relatives, and no will. What becomes of the business?

I would expect it to revert to the state. StuRat 07:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pets

How do you convince a pet to be careful when crossing the street? With a kid, you can just tell them not to cross without an adult around, and when they get older you can tell them to wait until no cars are coming, but I can't think of any way to translate that into what a cat understands. I ask because almost every cat I've had that has died, was hit by a car. Black Carrot 15:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

A dog can presumably be taught by use of a 'lead'. This way it will come to realise that when it gets to a road it should stop and wait. It is in its own survival-interests to not just walk out so all animals will actively 'try' to avoid cars, but if you can convince the animal to stop and look, then it will 'naturally' do the rest. I have no idea how you do this with a cat, or whether cats are taken for walks (?), but that would seem the best method in my eyes. ny156uk 16:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
This wasn't quite your question, but I'm going to interpret your question as being how do you keep your cat from getting hit by a car. The most reliable answer is to keep your cat indoors. According to estimates by the Humane Society of the U.S., the life expectency of a free-roaming pet is only about 3 to 5 years, compared to an indoor cat which can live for 17 years or more.[2] Besides being hit by cars, there are also other reasons why outdoor cats don't live very long.[3] If a cat has never been outdoors, they usually have no desire to go outdoors. If you already have an outdoor cat, here are some pointers on how to go about bringing an outdoor cat indoors.[4] MrRedact 16:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought, maybe put your cat by your car and rev it up and make some noises and hoot at it - and possibly scare the crap out of it. Then put it in the middle of the street and drive towards it while hooting and getting someone to shout out the window at it. All this bad association (especially from people it doesn't know) can only impart a message of cars being incongruent to cats Rfwoolf 17:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

We had this problem, and reluctantly concluded that we couldn't get another cat until we had moved house. Now we live in an area where there is a busy road within cat-walking distance, but there is a lot of quiet, interesting area between us and it, so the cat usually stays safe. Short of this, you can try keeping an indoor cat (although I would say this is only kind if you pick a breed that is suited to this, and bring it up only ever staying in. I would think it cruel to bring an outdoor cat inside forever.), or make sure you only let the cat out during the day, bringing it in before the light fades. This is easier if you've trained the cat to come when you call, or feed it at a set time (which it will come in at). You can walk a cat on a lead, but you have to introduce it carefully when the cat is young. You can buy harnesses for this at pet shops. If you're keeping a cat inside, make sure there are lots of interesting things for it to do inside, lots of space to run, scratching posts, towers, perhaps special sisal-covered cat-shelves :-), and that you spend plenty of time playing with it. Cats can get very bored. Skittle 18:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Cats do like to go outside, but you can only let them out into a small fenced garden instead of giving them run of the neighborhood. However, as cats are good climbers, you will need a fence designed to prevent this. For example, a set of vertical steel tubes, only attached at the top and bottom, wouldn't allow them to get a claw-hold. It also needs to be higher than they can jump, say 8 feet tall. This is likely to be expensive, but you can make it quite small, say 5 feet square, to keep the cost down. Make sure they can't climb a tree or the side of the house to get out. Another alternative is to provide an inside "jungle", with some plants they can play with. Expect some spilled dirt, though. Cracking a window with the screen in place will at least give them a whiff of the outside air. You can also give them a few plants from your garden to play with from time to time. Incidentally, the reasons pets are so often killed by cars are their low POV (which makes it difficult to see cars at a distance) and their lack of instincts for dealing with cars. The closest thing to cars they had around when developing their instincts were large predators. Unfortunately, some of the strategies for evading predators, like constantly changing direction, are counterproductive when dealing with cars. StuRat 18:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, I saw a fox which was actually using a road to hunt. He would wait at the shoulder, and when a loud truck went by it would stir up the rodents in the grass, which he would then catch. StuRat 18:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Spank it if it goes near the road to enforce disaplin.

In a book or documentary about dogs, a master followed his dog on his nightly rounds. The dog (a smart fellow) crossed the street in the middle of the block, because he could easily see if cars were coming. A human would cross at the intersection, but had a better expectation of cars stopping to let him pass. Edison 05:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I'll summarize, if I may. 1) Keep it indoors, 2) Keep it in a carefully enclosed area, 3) Keep it indoors at night when visibility is low, 4) Let it out only under supervision, 5) Let it out, but teach it to avoid the road entirely. Good suggestions all. Are there other options? I'd rather give my cats as much freedom as possible, if I can come up with a way to keep them safe. One thing I can't figure out is why they survive for so long, yet still die. I've never been there when it happened, nor when it didn't happen for that matter. I don't believe I've ever seen one of my cats in the act of crossing the road. So, I'm not even sure what it is that does them in. Do they not look both ways? Are they only injured by that rare person who aims for them? Had they fallen asleep in the middle of the road, for the first time in a three-year lifespan? Or had they been playing the odds for a long time, dodging traffic? Did dozens or hundreds of people have to brake for them over the years, or was the first time the last time in each case? I don't suppose anybody's studied this. 129.110.193.153 10:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I would assume that as this is just an average, some of the cats would live a lot longer than others, instead of all cats dieing at 3-5 years old :] HS7 15:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

  1. Live where there are no roads.
  2. Live where there are no cars.
  3. Get a pet that does not prefer the outside.
  4. Get a pet that lacks the ability to get around much.
  5. Get a pet that cannot die.
  6. Use a sonic repeller (where is that dad-blasted article??) to discourage the pets from accessing the road. Depending on your desires for their territory, you may need quite a few of these.
  7. Use an invisible fence. (Jeez, where is that article??)Oh, it's a brand name. V-Man - T/C 10:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The invisible fence idea actually has some merit, at least for dogs -- I know plenty of folks Who let the dogs out unleashed and can trust absolutely that the dogs will stay on the inner perimeter. The fencing is expensive, and it requires burying wire pretty deep in the ground all around your house, so it's not the cheapest option, but if it works for cats, I'd say this would be an actual solution to the actual problem. That said, it also requires Walking the dog to some extent while it gets used to the fenceline, so I have no idea if it does work for cats; I'd look for actual research first, or call the company. If it does work on cats, you're Golden. Jfarber 13:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The variety of 'invisible fence' that we have does not require that the wire be buried at all (I can imagine wanting to push it a half inch under the soil to stop it from getting broken or whatever - but "deeply buried" seems unlikely given how they work). I was rather unimpressed with ours (although we did persist with it with our first dog). The thing people don't understand about these gizmos is that you can't just lay the fence, put the shock collar on your pet and expect it to work. To the contrary - you have to train your animals (dogs, cats, etc) to use it. You start off with little red flags all along the 'invisible' boundary so the animals can see where the line is - and you take them up to the line and show them it - then you have to endure deliberately shocking your poor pet over and over during training...it's not a nice process and it takes WEEKS of hard work for you and weeks of getting shocked for your pet. Personally, I think the shock collar is only a 'reminder' for the pet - it can easily cross the invisible fence line if it really wants to - it's the process of training it not to go where the fence is that's actually doing the work. Evidence of this is that our first dog no longer wears his collar because the battery went dead and we didn't notice - yet he still stayed within the boundaries. Our second dog was trained exactly as if the fence were there - but we long since turned it off - and she stays pretty much within the area we trained her to stay within without fence or collar. Furthermore, the invisible fence has a major downside. If your dog gets VERY excited about chasing something, it may be prepared to endure the shock collar in the heat of the moment and run right 'through' the fence. Once the squirrel (or whatever) has vanished up a tree, the dog will try to come back home again - only to discover that the invisible fence is now keeping them out every bit as effectively as keeping them in. The range of the shock collar is at least ten feet - you can't use one of these devices to enclose a medium sized back yard because your pet may end up confined to an area just a few feet across! If your pet actually needed the collar, you'd have to check the battery in the collar regularly - it only lasts a few weeks. As you can probably tell, I'm not overly impressed by these devices. SteveBaker 16:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

My brother (who is 3) sometimes runs into the road too :( He seems to think it is a good idea as he is told not to, so maybe if you just let your pet do what it wants, it will stay away from roads :] Obviously cars are scarey to most animals (eg Hedgehogs) so they try to avoid them, would showing your pet another animal being squashed, or that has been squashed, by a car help :? If all this fails you could get a cat like the one on the film about the witches that gets squashed by a lorry and just gets up again :] HS7 14:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Cats aren't stupid, they know it's not a good idea to stand in the middle of the road while some giant noise-making thing on wheels is coming towards it. That said, idiots can drive too fast and other animals can chase your cat onto the road and into harm's way. If you live near a busy road then it's probably not a good idea to let your cat outside, but if you don't then let it go outside because being inside all the time is depressing for the cat. --124.181.131.222 11:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] doctor degree?

I was wondering if recieving a doctor's degree would raise the amount of money that a master's degree would be paid. Is it true that by recieving a doctor's degree, you earn more money?66.157.26.246 17:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)Student T.

It depends on the field of study, and the what the person does with the degree. A person with an MBA is likely to earn as much (or more) than a person with a PhD in some business-related field. --TotoBaggins 17:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
In general, however, PhD's will get paid more than those with Master's degrees in the same field. StuRat 18:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
If your life goal is to die with the maximum possible amount of money, don't get a PhD. You'll get paid a little more when you graduate, but not enough to compensate for the money you could have been socking away during the years you were working on it. On the other hand, if you're really interested in your field in addition to money, and can find a good advisor and other good people to work with, you can get a lot of satisfaction out of your PhD work, and a possible entry into jobs you could never have gotten otherwise (though you might have found better-paid ones, they might not have been as interesting). --Trovatore 18:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
In my line of business (computers, etc) the PhD helps you get your first job - perhaps at a slightly higher pay grade than someone with just a Batchelors degree. But from your second job onwards to the end of your career - it's not worth a damn - almost all that matters is your past experience - and if you've spent all of those extra years in college, you have less experience than other people your age. The same is true of a Masters degree but to a much smaller extent. Get a PhD if you want to teach - do it for the fun of it - do it to please your Mom - but don't do it to increase your future earnings. It's not worth it. SteveBaker 20:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
In the engineering world, you generally get a Ph.D. if you love research and either want to teach or want to get into a higher design capacity sooner. M.S. is generally considered the "professional" degree. -- mattb @ 2007-03-25T00:21Z
New Scientist has some interesting survey results on this, contained in their careers guide; you have to sign up for it, but they won't flood your inbox with junk if you tick the right boxes. The gist of it is that getting a masters can lower your earnings (over a bachelors) in some fields, and getting a PhD will raise it in all. The same trends apply (more or less) across business, academia and industry all; but for a given qualification, business and industry will earn more (all on average, of course).
As has been pointed out though, if money is all that motivates you, you'd do better putting your hard work towards getting where you want to be, not spending (or losing, depending on your attitude) a few years doing research you've little real interest in, and possibly being rather poor at the end of it. Spiral Wave 00:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Since we're naming professional fields, and the effect of a PhD on potential earnings in each field -- I've been in the US educatonal field all my professional life, and here's what I know:
  • In public k-12 education in the US, every union contract I've ever seen grants about 8% higher salary a year for PhDs than for Masters degree holders with the same number of years teaching. HOWEVER, the increase in salary fo having three extra years under your belt is about 7%. Assiming it takes three years to GET the PhD, it would take you your entire teaching career just to pay for the degree. You end up with no overall financial benefit to the advanced degree. (The only EXCEPTION here is that if you want to be a higher level administrator, like a superintendent, you can EITHER teach for 30 years, OR you can get an EdD and try jumping right in. But here, too, having a masters or a doctorate isn't the real difference -- superintendent salaries are not based on degree background.)
  • In private k-12 education, having a higher degree matters very little. Most schools give you an extra thousand dollars or so a year for a PhD, and $500 for a Masters. This is WORSE than not getting the degree.
  • If you wanted to teach college, of course, you absolutely need the PhD -- as Masters candidates can sometimes teach at the college level, but the possibility of tenure for non-PhDs is essentially nil, and so you likely won't get full professorial status (which is the highest paid status in the university). But then, most college profs don't make a lot of money, even if they're tenured. The perks here are really job security and academic freedom, not pay.
In sum, then: if money interests you, going into education is probably not the best strategy. But even in education, the PhD rarely means more money, at least not of any significance. Jfarber 00:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect to my fellow RD users, I find it odd that people are putting up semi-informed answers when hard (if not necessarily timely) numbers are available with an easy Google search on /educational attainment income/. According to a 2002 US Census Bureau study, people with a master's degree made an average of $54,500 in 1999, while people with doctorates made an average of $81,400. The bureau estimated a person with a doctorate will make $900,000 more in his or her lifetime than a person with a master's. The highest wages, unsurprisingly, went to people with professional degrees (presumably MDs and JDs). -- Mwalcoff 06:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes - but if you read what the preceeding three or four respondants actually wrote - we were talking about specific fields - and qualified our remarks accordingly. We were not talking about the generality of all workers - which would indeed be harder to answer from personal experience. There is a major glitch in using the numbers you quoted (which is why I did not do so). We can reasonably assume that only the smartest people are able to get PhD's - and that the average intelligence/intellect level (or whatever) of people with BSc/BA's is lower. That's a pretty reasonable assumption because (for example) only the top BA/BSc folks are invited to do PhD's - and some of them fail to get one. We're not interested in whether the average person with a PhD-level intellect earns more than a less intelligent person who only has a BSc/BA. The question is whether someone with a PhD-level intellect who actually bothers to get a PhD will earn more than someone who could have gotten a PhD but decided instead to go straight into industry after they got their BSc/BA. That is the question we've been asked here - not "Do smart people earn more on average than less smart people?" - which they obviously do. So you answered the wrong question. Accusing those of us who tried to answer what was actually asked "semi-informed" is insulting and wrong. Feel free to apologise at any time! SteveBaker 13:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


(edited after EC to distance myself from SteveBaker, and respond directly to Mwalcoff)
While I accept the chastisement (this is a place for real data), Mwalcoff's own last sentence above shows why those statistics are horribly misleading and do not actually address the question as asked. The querent wants to know if recieving a Doctor's degree raises the amount of money that "a masters degree" would be paid -- which I take to mean someone who currently HAS a master's degree. But the overall numbers the US census provides are significantly affected by pay scales in fields which cannot be practiced without a master's degree! In other words: using these statistics to answer this question is a misapplication of statistics, because (for most people) getting a JD or an MD does NOT RAISE the amount of money someone can be paid, but makes them ELIGIBLE for employment in their respective field. On the other hand, statistics would be useful if we could find some statistics for which we knew that professional degrees of that type were left out of the data. Is such data available? Jfarber 13:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
This is what the census says about the term "professional degree": "Some examples of professional degrees include medicine, dentistry, chiropractic, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, podiatry, veterinary medicine, law, and theology. Vocational and technical training, such as barber school training; business, trade, technical, and vocational schools; or other training for a specific trade, are specifically excluded." So a "doctoral degree" in the census's stats apparently refers to those professions where it is not necessary for the profession, such as school administration, research, business, etc.
This chart shows the difference in average monthly income by field of degree and educational attainment. This tells us a little about how much educational attainment matters in specific fields. The Census Bureau appears not to have published anything that tells us how much educational attainment matters in specific occupations. But the original question does not make it clear if the person asking needs that kind of detail.
I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I just get frustrated sometimes at how the RD is working... -- Mwalcoff 18:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit question

I thought I was still logged in, and I made a bunch of changes to a page, but I wasn't logged in. This oversight was unintentional -- is there anything I can do to fix the history?

If not, I suppose it doesn't matter so much, but I didn't mean to make this mistake.

Thanks!

I've done this myself. You can make some minor edit after you log in, and can then add the edit summary statement that that previous editor was you. StuRat 18:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Last time someone complained about having done this, I suggested they just delete everything they did and reedit it, maybe this would work for you :) HS7 14:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Idea on defining political positions

Hey, I had this idea, that instead of a political position being defined as a large number of positions on various issues, it could be defined as one or a few basic goals, from which all other positions are inferred. For example, the basic goal could be, "Total happiness should be maximized," or "the power of the state should be maximized" or "human rights must be protected." Does this idea already exist?

I am not aware of a 'statement' based scale, but you would be hard pushed to tie most political parties/mindsets to one sentence and be able to distinguish them. For intance even as little as they agree the right-wing and left-wing essentially fight for the same thing...the best possible situation for the country and its inhabitants. At their most basic roots the major political ideologies revolve around organising the world in a way that helps people. The difficulty comes in answering "how" you help, what consitutes "help" and who are "people". You could present a list and ask people which is the most important to them, but your political ideology is your theory of organising society and that will be hard to define in one statement. ny156uk 20:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
You can say everyone wants to maximize total happiness, from anarchists to human rights proponents to communists to capitalists to terrorists to nazists to skinheads to proponents of slavery. They just see differently their way of doing it. Obviously every one of them thinks they´re improving total happiness. Maybe some of them are solipsists and think that total happiness is their own happiness. Maybe some of them think that total happiness is their own happiness but they discover that they can only be happy if their family is happy. So they care about the happiness of their family as well. All political positions can be said to derive from the goal of improving total happiness, which only means it´s a loaded term, it has no meaning in itself whatsoever.
Your idea ia a very insightful and intelligent one. But that is far from meaning it doesn´t already exist. Of course it does. Millions of human beings must have thought that very same thoughts you had over the last thousands of years. If I were to name it, I would call it "political reductionism". Of course, when I googled "political reductionism", it found half a million websites with this term. I just saw I had searched using the two words, and not them together as a term. As a term, there are only 900 pages! A.Z. 22:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

up until a few years ago most british political partys had intentions like this, and some of the smaller ones eg UKIP, Green party, still do, but I think they also have a few other ideas too, that don't come under a single heading :) Of course it is more like that now as every serious party has just one intention- 'get as many votes as possible' :( HS7 15:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be too simple to express politics like this sadly. Even left/right divisions tend to be seen as too simplistic, hence things like the political compass which uses 2 axes, often with general statements like yours describing the axes, such as 'economic freedom vs planned economy' or 'social freedom vs stronger laws' or something like that.

[edit] MyNetworkTV's ratings

Without advertisements on MyNetworkTV, would the ratings have been higher than CBS and NBC combined?

No. Corvus cornix 21:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Though I agree the answer seems most likely to be no, the reference desk is not a Magic Eight Ball -- predicting "what if" scenarios is really a question better asked in one of numerous Internet forums. If you'd like help on finding a forum appropriate to this topic, or in locating rubrics by which you might answer make more accurate predictions for this question yourself, let us know, and we'd be happy to help. Jfarber 14:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] moose in Newfoundland?

Hello, the following question was originally posted at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines. I'm reposting it here in hopes of getting a better response. I hope that this is the proper place and not the science desk...I'm not sure if this more of a science question or a history question. --Kyoko 21:58, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

My son is doing a heritage project for his grade eight fair, and has decided to write about the moose in Newfoundland. Although we have found tons of information about our moose, we cannot pinpoint exactly whose decision it was to introduce the moose to our province. I'm sure it was because of the people's demands, but who made the decision? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.162.42.212 (talk • contribs)

Your best bet is probably: Pimlott, D.H. (1953) "Newfoundland moose" in Transactions of the North American Wildlife Conference, OCLC 1596454. I also found a New Brunswick government site with some Miramichi history (unfortunately now an expired domain) and a page describing the capture transport of the first moose in 1904. Here's a wayback machine link: [5] —eric 23:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Salaries, NYPD

The article on the New York City Police Dept has very little salary information. It would be useful to some readers to include more. I had pointed out to a young man that promotions up to Captain were civil service test related, a big advantage, but have been able to find no information on the internet regarding the salaries of the sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. 24.19.0.66 22:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC) tom

This question would be better posed at the talk page. Splintercellguy 01:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers on cricket shirts

What do they mean? I'm talking about the (usually) 3-digit number under the crest. Thanks in advance! 82.19.25.50 22:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If you are referring to the English test team, it's the number of players that have represented England. So if the number is 541, that player is the 541st player for England [6]. - Akamad 01:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
What Akamad said, but with a bit more. Google may or may not be your friend (apologies for the incivility of some of the content of this link), but CricInfo is your deep extra cover.
Anyways, here we go...
Near midnight, here. Time for bed, said Zebedee. For more, see:
See also:
--Shirt58 13:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks everyone! 82.19.31.55 14:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] peter graves documentary

some time ago peter graves did a documentary on all life coming from the ocean. he quoted a poem that i would like to find. any ideas how i could contact peter graves or find the poem. thanks

I think it wasn't Peter Graves in the documentary you're thinking of. None of the five documentaries Peter Graves has been in has to do with all life coming from the ocean.[7] MrRedact 00:47, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The only thing I could find with the Google keywords "Peter Graves", ocean, marine, and life was a 1953 review of Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. IMDB also shows him as host of a biography of Noah. I bet neither of those is it. But I note that your goal here seems to be a poem, not the documentary. Is there any other information you can give us that would help us find it? Maybe a half-remembered line from the poem in question? Jfarber 01:53, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fighting

What would be a good martial art to learn that tries to keep the fight off of the ground, but if you can't, good techniques for ground fighting?

Learn to fly like superman? What do you mean by off the ground? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


Not rolling around brawling. Like Jiu Jitsu, but not only ground oriented. Good striking, but comfortable fighting on the ground.

Then mixed fighting is probably best. Probably a combination of Muay Thai and either Judo or Jiu Jitsu. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 02:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
WingTsun is a good form of self-defense, and easy to learn. (I assume that you are thinking about how to deal with trouble, rather than going around starting fights!) Adrian M. H. 21:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Look into Sambo, it's exactly what you're talking about. If that article doesn't convince you look up Fedor Emelianenko on youtube. Vespine 23:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aiki Jiu Jitsu

What are some of the techniques of Aiki Jiu Jitsu? In the page it just tells you about the origins and history. Do you have any pictures or video showing it?

[edit] Age of majority

In Canada, the age of majority (age at which you are legally an adult) is 18 in some provinces and 19 in some. I have a few questions about this--answer as many as you can please.
1.

How's it fair 18 year olds can vote in a federal election in some provinces but not others? What if they travel (or even move) to another province just to vote? Or is there a seperate age of majority for federal matters?
2.

What hapens if you're 18, you sign a contract in one province and then you and the person you signed with move to another province where the age of majority is 19? Does that void the contract? If you're 18 and you commit a crime, are you prosecuted as an adult or child based on your province of residence or the province where the crime was commited? Or pretty much any other situitation, isn't there too much confusion over which age of majority applies?
Wikipedians from the US or UK feel free to put some input on how stuff works in your country. Hey what about states, do they each set their age of majority or does the US (federal) goverment do so?

As for the question about what it's like in the U.S., most of the ages are standardized across the country. At 35, you can be president. 21 you can drink legally. 18, you can vote. I think the driving age is universal at 16 but I've heard stories of people who had to wait until they were 16 just to get their learner's permit. Age of sexual consent is different according to state law. See http://www.ageofconsent.com or I'm sure Wikipedia has an article about it. Probably at Age of consent. Dismas|(talk) 01:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it's kind of interesting that when the US and Canada both lowered their voting age from 21 to 18 in the 1970s, one of the arguments put forward was "If 18 is old enough to drink, why shouldn't it be old enough to vote?" -- And now you can't drink at 18 in either country (except in Quebec, I think). Say, doesn't this mean we should now raise the voting age again, now that I'm not 18 any more? --Anonymous, March 26, 2007, 07:29 (UTC).
In the U.S., the driving age varies by state. →EdGl 02:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
In almost all US states, the age of consent to make or execute a contact is 18. The legal exceptions are Lousiana, where it depends on the type of contract, and Nebraska, where it is 19 years of age. In all other 48 states, the age of consent for a contract is 18, which is actually defined as the day before one's 18th birthday. Any good Business law or Contract law texbook will back me up on ths one. Bearian 18:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure you can vote at 18 in every Canadian province, regardless of the age of majority. -- Mwalcoff 05:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and [8] if you want a source. Federal elections are covered under federal law, not provincial. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
This issue was relevant in Australia around 1973. I'm hazy about the details, but in essence it went something like this: The voting age was 18 in South Australia, but 21 for Federal elections. Section 41 of the Australian Constitution says "No adult person who has or acquires a right to vote at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of a State shall, while the right continues, be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth from voting at elections for either House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth". A South Australian citizen aged over 18 but under 21 took the new Whitlam Federal government to the High Court of Australia for denying him his constitutional right to vote in Federal elections. The Whitlam government had already signalled its intention to lower the Federal voting age to 18, and it later did so, but had not done so at the time. The High Court rejected the case. JackofOz 13:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
In the UK it is 16 for smoking and sex, 17 to drive, and 18 for almost everything else :) No idea what it is for crime, but I think it is quite young :) HS7 13:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The age of criminal responsibility is 10 in England and Wales, 7 in Scotland, but people are only sent to adult prisons at 18. Also, you can get married at 16 with your parents' consent, or at 18 without it (unless you're the monarchs' children in which case you can't get married at all without the monarchs' consent!). Voting age is 18 in the UK (except in the Isle of Man, where it's 16), and you can now stand for election at 18 too (used to be 21) - though whether anyone would vote for such a young candidate is another matter. -- Arwel (talk) 20:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the marriage age may be slightly lower in Scotland as well (16 regardless of parents consent), hence people running away to Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border in order to marry without their parents permission.137.138.46.155 08:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually no, forget the last bit, I was thinking of how old you have to be to be punished for a crime, to be treated as an adult having commited a crime is probably also 18 :) HS7 14:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I just want to correct a misconception, here. Our article on age of majority draws an important distinction. To wit,
"Age of majority pertains solely to the acquisition of control over one’s person, decisions and actions, and the correlative termination of the legal authority and responsibility of the parents (or guardian(s), in lieu of parents) over the child’s persons and affairs generally."
On the other hand, there is the similar (but separate) concept of an age of licence.
"As a legal term of art, "licence" means "permission," and it can implicate a legally enforceable right or privilege. Thus, an age of licence is an age at which one has legal permission from government to do something....
...the age at which an individual is allowed to exercise the franchise (vote), leave school without taking a diploma, enter into legally binding contracts (other than for necessaries, to which no age of licence applies), operate a motor vehicle, purchase and consume alcoholic beverages, and so on – these are all ages of licence, at which the law permits an individual to perform certain acts and exercise certain rights, with or without any restrictions."
In the case of Canada, for instance, the age of majority varies by province, while ages of licence are decided by both the provinces and the federal government. To take some specific examples, the age of majority in the province of Nova Scotia is 19, but Canadian citizens in Nova Scotia can vote in both federal and provincial elections at the age of 18. In the province of Ontario, the age of majority is 18, but one cannot purchase alcoholic beverages until the age of 19. Meanwhile, the age of consent for sexual activity of most types is 14 all across the country, as it is determined by federal, criminal law. The age of criminal responsibility, meanwhile, is 12, but individuals under the age of 18 receive special handling in the judicial system. Confused yet? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

14!!! That would be so not fair, if I had wanted to do anything like that that young :( HS7 15:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)