Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 July 19

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[edit] Genealogy research - Frederick Rogerson

Good day, I am looking for anything on the above person who was born in Forbes, in 1893. He married a Lillian Weeks from Young in 1932.

According to Frederick's father William John Rogerson's Obituary in the Forbes Advocate of 18 June 1943, Frederick Rogerson was with the R.A.A.F. at the time.

I am from South Africa and it is my Husband's family that I am researching

Your kind help and assistance of any sort will be gratefully appreciated

Regards J.D Rogerson

Forbes, Young. What countries? --GangofOne 02:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Forbes, New South Wales, I assume, from the RAAF reference. And so Young, New South Wales. --Tagishsimon (talk)
I anticipate the best we can do is point you at our Genealogy article and the links therefrom. We're not actually very good on what we term non notable persons. Good luck with your search. --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] Recording a DdoS attack.

Hello, I've recently been packeted by a user on IRC who had my IP (via a botnet). I've been disconnected from the Internet for over an hour. Is there any way I can record the incident? Should I let the FBI know? I don't know his ISP or IP or anything because he was using a vhost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NealIRC (talk • contribs) 23:42, July 18, 2006

I suggest you phone your own ISP first. They can probably look at your incoming traffic. SeahenNeonMerlin 05:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
The FBI probably doesn't care that much. You might want to install a firewall. --Fastfission 16:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the idea with a DDOS is that it can overwhelm the firewall, necessitating some filtering of traffic before it reaches the victim. This is where an ISP could probably help. They might also be able to trace the traffic and provide some info to help local law enforcement. SeahenNeonMerlin 23:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Open-source book classification?

The Dewey Decimal System appears to have become a commercial product that is jealously guarded when you get past the units digit. The same seems to apply to Library of Congress Classification, despite that works of the US government are normally in the public domain. Has there been any move to create a completely open-source system for the subject classification of non-fiction books? If so, are there any open-source metadata-bases that use it? SeahenNeonMerlin 05:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought isbn classified all books, so what is the use of another system? It's an ISO system and I'm still not sure what to think of ISO. It certainly isn't Open Source, but it's not entirely private either, in the sense of owned by one company. I would strongly support an Open Source version, so I'm looking forward to other answers. DirkvdM 07:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
ISBN serves to identify books, but not to classify them. Well, it identifies the publisher. A typical use of a classification system is to file books in a library according to category (taking guesswork away from the librarian, who doesn't have time to read them all). The real question surely is not whether the Dewey system is proprietary, but whether it is broken? I think keeping very tight control over a classification system is highly desirable, myself, to avoid every author who thinks they are writing on a unique subject from creating a new subcategory. Also, professional librarians are trained in the existing systems. Notinasnaid 07:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually an ISBN doesn't only identify the publisher, it also identifies whether the book is hardcover or paperback, it's number of pages and its edition (all the stuff that's listed in Books in Print in the United States). If any of those characteristics change, you need a new ISBN to identify the resulting new version of the book. - Mgm|(talk) 10:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
The ISBN allows you to look those up, but it doesn't represent it - the only thing you can tell by looking at an ISBN, without looking it up somehow, is the publisher and country of publication (which means you can also make a guess at language). Shimgray | talk | 21:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
An ISBN is essentially a semi-random number; ISBN 1884718132, ISBN 0198181507, ISBN 1584560363, ISBN 187304030X, ISBN 1873040407, and ISBN 1873040326 are all the same book - the only reason the last three are similar is because they're from the same publisher. It's of no use at all as a classification system, since it bears no relationship to the content of the book.
The reason Dewey is an expensive proprietary system is because it's essentially a software license; you're paying for updates to the product as time passes (and believe me, it can need it - I work with a two-editions old version, and you'd be surprised at the fundamental problems that poses). There's no "open source" version I'm aware of - conceptually one could be developed easily enough, since there's no shortage of home-rolled classification systems out there, but maintaining it would be a real headache, and I doubt it would ever reach a standard as opposed to an internally-used quirk. Shimgray | talk | 08:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do people still use this system? I've just read the Melvil Dewey article and the guy was a Nazi! --81.79.204.130 09:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We should suppress the ideas and discard the inventions of anyone whose morals later become unfashionable. Isn't it shocking that people take children to see the Jungle Book? And Pope Gregory XIII might have been implicated with the Massacre of Hugeonots; we can't afford to take any chances, that Gregorian Calendar has to go. Notinasnaid 10:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
The Gregorian Calendar went for me about 2.5 years ago; I've been in a twilight world of wikipedia ever since. --Tagishsimon (talk)
It doesn't need to become a standard as far as I'm concerned. Wikibooks and Wikisource could use it in addition to Dewey and/or LOC. (I think Wikibooks' bookshelf system works fine on the Web, but Wikibooks' needs differ from those of a paper library in that a single copy of the same book can be on more than one shelf.) The use I'm thinking of is actually a large private library (around 50 feet/13 meters of occupied shelf space), where each book should be related to not only the ones to its left and right, but also the ones above and below it. In response to Shimgray, an open-source project doesn't have to be wiki; and even if it is, Wikipedia has done a decent job of eliminating unencyclopedic content, so why couldn't the classification system do the same? SeahenNeonMerlin 15:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand where "open-source has to be wiki" comes into it. I do, however, work with cataloguing and classification for a living - believe me, maintaining a system like this would be a complete headache. Indeed, maintaining any classification system would be a headache, one without a single centralised controller substantially more so, hence the predictions of dozens of home-rolled forms. The inclusion or exclusion of content is simply the beginning; the entire point of classification is to organise it, and believe me that's a lot tougher conceptually than it looks.
If you're only wanting this for dealing with electronic materials, you'd be best off working with some kind of faceted system, I guess. Using LOC or DDC in the first place, even were they free, simply wouldn't be the most appropriate tool; it's linear and hierarchical, which is a constraint you don't need. Shimgray | talk | 16:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
An open-source project can have a centralized controller. From what I've read, Linus Torvalds fills that role. And to a lesser extent, so does Jimbo Wales. What I'm looking for is something I can use for the books at my house, and ideally something that public and school libraries can use as well, with print materials. SeahenNeonMerlin 00:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Are you striving towards Benevolent Dictator For Life here? --Sam Pointon 00:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I just mean that my dad and I will probably end up building our own classification system anyway, and I think it would be good if we weren't the only ones working on it and the only ones benefiting from it. NeonMerlin 05:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
As for Rudyard Kipling, I can't agree. Little Black Sambo is considered extremely offensive now; why is The Jungle Book different? It doesn't have to do with his politics; it has to do with the content, which hasn't changed. --ColourBurst 17:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of the konkani family name Karvy

hi, I would want to know the mening of the konkani family name Karvy, they are the natives of bhatkel in karnataka, I want to know to which cast they exactly belong to according to the hindu and what are their customs.

Please help me in answering the above as this is urgent.

Thanks, Kavitha.

[edit] Kevlar, Ceramic, and Titanium plates in Body Armor

There is much hubub about now about which one of these three are the best, if I needed full body armor with protection from rifle bullets, which should be used?

A. Are these synopsis correct?

Kevlar is strong and light, but usually will not stop rifle bullets or bullets of a large caliber handgun.

Ceramic plates are much better, but will usually only absorb one direct hit from a bullet or projectile. They are also heavier.

Scales or 'sheets' of titanium plate will absorb multiple hits, but are rather bulky and heavy.

B. I am aware of vests designed to protect the neck, chest, back, and ribs of the body, but how about body armor for the thighs, shins, forearms, and etc? Is this available? Who manufactures it? If so, how much protection do these provide in terms of bullet caliber?

C. What are some examples of companies who manufacture body armor? Are all manufacturers basically the same, or do the quality of protection differ from place to place?

Thanks. 68.52.187.248 07:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you read the relevant articles, especially body armour? They are fairly comprehensive and include links to several manufacturers.--Shantavira 09:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Pidgeon

My friend was telling me to read this book, it is called the pidgeon, and all he told me it was about was, a pidgeon. can any one tell me more about it or who wrote it?

I can't find any books spelled pidgeon, though there is a band by that name. There are however a series of children's books by Mo Willems about "The Pigeon". Check out http://www.amazon.com/ - you can search for Pigeon there and might find other books (Amazon gives 1000+ hits on the word). Notinasnaid 09:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks anyway it was a guy called suskind, got it ordered it will read cheers dudes

[edit] SOLUTION TO POV WHEN IT COMES TO IMAGES

hey i just read the wikipedia list of controvesial topics.and i thought that one way to solve the problem at least when they are images involved would be to add to pov images at every article about a controvesial topic.

  • I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I've never seen a POV image (only the way it's used can be seen as POV), but really, tagging an image as controversial won't do anything to lift that status. You do know Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors or anyone else, right? - Mgm|(talk) 10:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I don;t understand the poster's solution either. But I recall that there was a long term POV war over Image:Milius.gif on John Milius - seems to have been solved by having the image deleted. It was Milius with an AK47, being a ging-ho NRA supporter. Just thought I;d share what appeared to be a POV image with you. --Tagishsimon (talk)
      • There was a picture I deleted for being POV a few days ago; it showed a dog, wearing a US flag scarf taking a dump on a photo of bin Laden. While the image was a copyright violation, it showed a POV that Wikipedia should not contain. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 07:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a pov template, if that's what you mean? It's a sign you can add at the top of an article. See here: Template:POV. Sometimes you see it on something like weather Gibralter is British, or not - especially if it is controvertial. --martianlostinspace 14:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Storage for LPs

Hey gang. I may possibly be able to come into possession of a collection of ≈10,000 LPs. I've never had many LPs before, so I'm curious if any big time collectors can give me some advice. I have a couple of specific questions:

1. How much will 10000 LPs weigh? 2. How much shelf space will they take up? 3. Are there affordable shelving units available (in the US) for storage?

If the cost of storing them is prohibitive, I may not take them, or at leat, take them and try to sell them off.

Any help will, as always, be appreciated! Brian Schlosser42 13:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

A cubic foot of albums (well, around 13" cubed) weighs about as much as I could carry when I was younger. Carrying two boxes would have been out of the question. This would probably hold 50-100 albums, depending on the kind of sleeve. So that's around 100-200 feet of shelf space, big deep shelves; in a house with 7'8 ceilings that would be be around 14-28 feet of wall. So this is a huge collection. Also bear in mind that album sleeves don't like damp, and excessive heat can ruin albums (being tightly packed is an advantage). This sounds like a very special collection and may well have some considerable value, and very rare items along with generic lps that are virtually worthless (probably a few cents); it might even be known in collecting circles. Don't take the first offer. If this is to be an inheritance, it would be as well to discuss this while the owner still lives, as they will have the contacts. Notinasnaid 17:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
In case you don't know from inches or feet, I just measured 100 lp's and they took up 50 cm. I once figured out that lp's consume about as much wall space as cd's (in jewel boxes) because they are about 2,5 times as high but also about 2,5 times as narrow. They just protrude more into the room. So for 10.000 lp's you'd need 50 m of shelf space. I've got my lp's on 6 shelves from floor to ceiling, so that would then cover about 8 m of wall. That's not counting any separating planks, which you need to keep them upright. But I don't use planks for that. I made two cupboards with holes through the planks at 10-15 cm distance and threaded rope through them (two rows - one a few cm from the front and another just behind the centre of the lp). Another solution I've used is aluminium rods - looks prettier, but is more expensive, more work and you have to think it through (you can't bend those rods the way you can rope).
Also consider that you probably won't need to have them all on display at the same time. In the late nineties I bought so many records that I decided to only play the first sides. Only after a few years did I start to play the other side - quite interresting revelations on some occasions. Remember that 10.000 lp's means over 6000 hours of music. If you play 6 hours of music per day that's three years. And then you've heard them all just once. So you could just put one or two thousand on display and put the rest in boxes (which takes up much less space) until you feel like 'rotating'.
Also think about the future. A player may last about 10 years. How much longer will you last? (Or your kids who inherit the lp's.) And will you (or they) still be able to buy players then? If you buy these lp's, buy a collection of players too. A bunch of second hand ones shouldn't cost too much, compared to the price of the lp's.
I have to ask. What's the asking price? (And which country are you from?) DirkvdM 18:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Great advice, gang. As always! This is not a definite yet, and my spouse is griping about the expense of moving them and the fact that they'll take up so much space. But as I see it, how often do you get a chance like that? The LPs belong to a friends father, who is moving and has no room. If I don't take them, or he doesn't find someone else, he's going to throw them out (!). Of course, chances are that SOMEONE in the NYC metro area will take them if he looks hard enough, but hey, I've got first dibs. Dirk, I'm in Kentucky, USA and the albums are in New York, so it'd probably be prohibitive for you to take them off my hands...--Brian Schlosser42 13:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Aaarghhh! He's throwing them out? How can someone build up such a collection, and therefore be a music lover (right?) and them throw them out? Has he bought cd-versions of them all? I wonder what it would cost to ship a bunch of lp's. I do occasionally come across second hand US imports at fair prices, so it may not be prohibitive. What does shipping a big crate cost? By sea I suppose that goes by volume, not weight. DirkvdM 06:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All results from Wimbledon

Does anyone know any sites which provide the results of all the matches played at a particular Wimbledon tournament ? I found this link which covers 1978-2000 (see this example) but I am looking for results from a tournament from the early 1920s. Tintin (talk) 13:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/museum/index.html -Didn't have time to search it thoroughly but someone at the club will have the info you need-hotclaws**==(81.134.116.29 07:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC))
Thank you, but while that page contains some interesting article, it does not contain results of matches other than the finals. Or do you suggest that, I email them ? ~
Might I suggest a library reference desk? They might have books with this information. Or maybe even an almanac? User:Zoe|(talk) 20:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] biology

how to increase our memory power...is their any physical methods....

Learning a different language increases your memory. I forgot where I heard that, though.Russian F 16:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Obviously you haven't learned enough languages then :) Ziggurat 21:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mails

how to know the password in tahoo mail ..since i have forgetten the details i have given..is their any way ,..... i have an important photo ...please help ...

That sentence was incoherent. Please try again as if this is something you would submit to school. —Mets501 (talk) 14:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a link in Yahoo Mail which says "Forget your ID or password?". If you can't use this to get your password, then you are out of luck. --Fastfission 16:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title for a school magazine

Would you please suggest some interesting titles for a school magazine covering interesting events for a year and a half. Something trendy. Thankyou........--125.23.61.210 14:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

  • 18 m0nthZ roxxorz-hotclaws**==(81.134.116.29 07:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC))

My high schools' magazine was Called: Noir de Blank or Black on white. I went to Kimberly Boys' High school South Africa. Best school in the world!

[edit] Psalm 129

The following joke got circulated around our office today:

“ A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg. The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again . The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?" The priest apologised "Sorry sister but the flesh is weak." Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory." ”

Funny stuff, but I looked up Psalm 129 and sadly it doesn't say anything of the sort. Does the passage have any basis in the Bible or is it just a complete fabrication? --Sam Blanning(talk) 15:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

A search at Bible Gateway in the KJV and NIV shows no such verse. A Google query give over 600 results, but they mostly appear to be copies of the joke. So, I conclude that this verse is totally spurious, not wholely unlike the oft quoted Ezekial 25:17.--Brian Schlosser42 16:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I doubt that it is a dirrect quote. But it may be based loosely on a verse like Quentin Tarantino quoting ofEzekiel 25:17. I could not find any verse that it could be based on. Jon513 18:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


Which number doesn't fit in this sequence: 8, 13, 19, 26, 42? I'll give the answer tomorrow. DirkvdM 19:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Any particular reason this is nesting into this section? Anyway, the answer is obviously 42, as 42 is always its own series, etc, etc. — Lomn | Talk 19:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Lomn is correct about 42 being the odd one out (and I love that reasoning). The number after 26 should have been 34. 8+5=13; 13+6=19; 19+7=26; 26+8=34. SWAdair 03:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Nah, it's menu 19, because that's with noodles. All the others are with rice. :) Lomn, the relevance here is that the original question was a hint that the answer would not be of the kind you'd expect. I tried to make a series that didn't have a pattern, but spaced the numbers too evenly, leading to SWAdair's answer. Silly me. And why did I include the answer to everything (and therefore also to this)? Maybe that was something freudian. Anyway, I hope I haven't made myself too unpopular this time. DirkvdM 06:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I see patterns pretty quickly. I will never be able to forget the phone number for Domino's that delivered to my barracks when I was in the army. It was 864-1725. 8 (skip 7) 6 (skip 5) 4 makes the first three digits 864. The first number skipped was 7. The seventh prime is 17. The next number skipped was 5. The fifth square is 25. Put it all together and you get 864-1725. Have I mentioned that I love numbers?  :) SWAdair 07:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I actually saw the pattern as well, and decided to justify my pick in a less-spoilerish way. However, in full disclosure, I still screwed up the math and decided "the next term should be 32, because that's 26+8". Err, oops? — Lomn | Talk 14:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

13 as it is a prime.

Damn! DirkvdM 06:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Video Games

What was the domestic gross of the first Matrix game? Brittany

see Enter the Matrix. If that does not have an answer to you questions go the links in the article. Jon513 18:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Make sure you know which game you're thinking of. So far there are 3: Enter the Matrix, The Matrix Online and The Path of Neo.

[edit] Changing keyboard shortcuts

On Windows XP, can I or can I not change the way keyboard shortcuts are handled? This means: I have downloaded and fallen in love with a file manager which is different from the standard one, is there a way to set WIN+E to open this new file manager? I know that there are programs that do that, but I would like to do it "in windows". Cthulhu.mythos 15:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure, but my guess is no. see here (support.microsoft.com). Jon513 18:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I remember reading about a program. I think it was called WinKey. Look it up and see if it's any good. --Optichan 21:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

try autohotkey, here: http://www.autohotkey.com/ it's very complicated though.

Thanks. It's not what I would have liked, but it does work. Cthulhu.mythos 12:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia policy on strong language

Please forgive me if this is addressed in the FAQ section, but I cannot find it. What is the wikipedia policy regarding strong language in articles? For example, when editing the Bono (U2) page, I included a reference to his "fuck the revolution" speech. This was changed by another user to "---- the revolution". I believe that strong language should be justifiable in the interests of accuracy. Where does wikipedia stand on this issue?

Thankyou,

Macphisto12

Please see Wikipedia:Profanity. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Fun Fact: A quick search shows 8500 instances of the word "fuck" in this encyclopedia. Just thought everyone would like to know...--Brian Schlosser42 16:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

If that includes the ref desk (plus the archives) I'm not surprised. DirkvdM 19:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors (or something like that red link) --Nelson Ricardo 17:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

This question doesn't belong here, and would be better on Wikipedia:Help desk. DJ Clayworth 17:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is NOT censored. If the speech was called "fuck the revolution", then that's what it should be called in the article. - Mgm|(talk) 14:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about Geography

Question: When you have a chance, would you send me the Atlantic ocean shore length (miles or kilometers) for: Brazil? and for The United States? Thanks in advance, Nicole

"The measured lengths of coastlines and other natural geographic borders are dependent on the scale of measurement" - from How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension Richard Taylor 17:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
On Brazil's east coast, the Atlantic coastline extends 7,367 kilometers see Geography of Brazil. Jon513 17:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
coastline of US is 19,924 km see Geography of the United States. Jon513 17:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

This is probably not a popular remark, but reading a little introduction on fractals, I read that questions like" how long is the beach" are quite hard to answer : the closer one looks, the more irregular the coast appears, the longer the edge of the country becomes. One of course ignores this, and roughly gives a number, but who decides how rough? Why not leave all of Florida out? Evilbu 18:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

That's basically the answer Richard already gave. And I wanted to give. But I got beaten to it - twice. However it is not really any harder to answer than the question how long something is. When you give the lenght of something, yo implicitly give the precision. You could say it's 230 m, or 232, or 232.4, or 232,38, etc. With the coastline you just have to specify the precision more explicitly. For example by stating the length of the measuring stick. Of course this assumes the coastline is well defined. But if there's a wide flood area, where is the coast? Do you measure it high or low tide? And what to do with estuaries and rivers? If your measuring stick is just a few metre long, then how far do you go upriver? Until it is only a few metres wide and can 'cross the gap'? DirkvdM 19:05, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy on links (Style or Formatting)

I am probably asking a silly question but what is Wikipedia’s policy on linking.

  1. Should every word be linked?
  2. After the first occurrence of the word should subsequent ones be linked?

Is there a limit to the above question… like if a word is in two different sections or if it is found at the beginning of the page and then at the bottom.

I am concerned because I am beginning to see some pages written in “link-blue”. Also links are included on common-place-nothing-to-do-with-the-subject words. Or the same word linked 5 words after the first.

I’ve already looked all over the WP:WP pages, in the tutorial and elsewhere. External is discussed extensively Wikipedia:External links. I remember seeing it discussed somewhere but I cant find the page.

Help, Please.

--SvenGodo 18:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. Jon513 18:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Repeat linking, in my opinion, calls for good judgement. There's no reason to link a word every time it appears, but a technical term could easily be linked both in the article summary and farther down in the relevant section(s). — Lomn | Talk 18:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
A good rule of thumb for repeated linking of the same word or phrase in an article is to link to it approximately once every screen of text. Of course, a 'screen' of text varies greatly depending on your resolution of your monitor, but as a guideline I think it's pretty good - that way, on average, a reader will find a link to the word in question without much scrolling. Also see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) for some more tips. — QuantumEleven 10:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] diving

How many dives in each categories are there?

Perhaps clarifying your question would elicit the answer you're looking for? EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE TALKTOME | EMAILME | IMPROVEME 20:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I'll hazard a guess at what you mean: 3m springboard, 10m platform, 3m springboard synchronized, 10m platform synchronized. BenC7 03:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I mean like how many types of dives like forward dive, for example, are there?

Sitting, Kneeling, and Standing. And off a diving board. And those fancy ones I can't do.

[edit] Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

How many did Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sang in Urdu in the following components of Qawwali:

a)Hamd
b)Naat
c)Manqabat
d)Marsiya
e)Ghazal
Is this a homework question or in a quiz? User:AlMac|(talk) 16:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When is a person considered a diabetic

A fellow employee just got his result from a blood test and his sugar level was over 160. When I had a level this high, I use to say that I had high sugar level and denied that I was a diabetic but a nurse told me I was a diabetic.

My question is: What sugar level would a person have to have to be considered a diabetic and if it went below that level would he be still considered a diabetic? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Defein (talk • contribs) .

You may want to try asking this at the science desk- the volunteers may know more about your question's topic there. EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE TALKTOME | EMAILME | IMPROVEME 20:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
You should probably check our article on diabetes, but as I understand it, diabetes isn't a condition of a high/low blood sugar level but rather an inability to regulate the level properly. In short, you seem to have the cause and effect reversed. — Lomn | Talk 20:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

No Lomn, diabetes is persistent high glucose, period. Repeated fasting levels above 125 mg/dl confirm diabetes, as does a 2 hour glucose tolerance test level above 200, or repeated random levels above 200, or a single level above 200 with evidence of recurrence or persistence (such as symptoms of hyperglycemia). See the diabetes mellitus article for details. alteripse 00:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Lomn point was that merely having a high blood sugar level didn't necessarily confirm diabeties, without knowing the situation at the time of testing. If I pig out on a sugary dessert, than I've got a high blood sugar level for a little while, but I don't have diabeties, I was just hungry. If I haven't eaten in a while and STILL have that high sugar level, than that could be an indication (as you said, fasting levels). But since the original poster didn't say anything about fasting times, there was no way of knowing if that was a one-time spike, or a long-term problem. --Maelwys 11:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • There's also a condition were people have consistent low sugar levels, right? Isn't that a form of diabetes too? - Mgm|(talk) 14:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Maelwys has explained my thought process more clearly. Yes, what I was trying to point out what that the original question seemed to imply that, test-to-test, a person would be diabetic or not (if it went below that level would he be still considered a diabetic), which I understand to be plainly untrue. Give a diabetic his insulin and his tests will fall below the relevant thresholds, but he's still a diabetic. Some of the confusion may also be over what constitutes a "test" -- after living with a diabetic for several years, I'm used to seeing him test himself several times a day (where the result varies wildly), though these aren't the controlled tests for diagnostic purposes. — Lomn | Talk 14:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Longest/shortest odds winner?

Any ideas for the longest or shortest odds winner in a major sporting event? So far I'm going with Ben Curtis(500-1 winner of the 2003 Open) and several winners at evens but there must be more... 88.106.177.130 20:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Lemon

I'm reminded of this amusing (or cautionary) tale. In a cricket match between South Africa and Australia back in March, South Africa was trailing 4-434. Bookmakers were offering odds of $1.01: a dollar for every hundred dollars wagered. A couple of Australians each took them up on it to the tune of $20,000. South Africa came back to win 438-434. Ouch. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Your terminology is a little off beam here. South Africa weren't 'trailing' 4-434, that was Australia's score at the end of their innings - 434 runs scored, four wickets lost. (The idea of one side being in the lead, and the other trailing, doesn't really apply in cricket.) Nor would you say that SA won 438-434. Rather, SA reached their target of 434 with one wicket remaining. Hence, they won the game by one wicket. --Richardrj 10:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Do people really bet on golf? Anyway, I bet you'd have won quite a bit of money had you bet on the 1969 New York Mets to win the World Series before the season. The Mets were a 7-year-old expansion team that had never finished higher than ninth out of 10 teams in the National League. I don't know if they took those kind of bets back then, though. -- Mwalcoff 22:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
This doesn't really count, but the combined Sydney Swans (AFL) and Wests Tigers (NRL) premiership-double was 1000-1 midway through 2005, and they both won their respective comps. Another would be the Canterbury Bulldogs to collect the wooden spoon in 2003... they won (I think) 16 matches in a row and then had all their points deducted as the result of the salary cap breach. Bookies paid out on both Bulldogs and South Sydney (who would have finished with the spoon). – AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 07:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Not quite the answer to your question, but if it was possible to go back in time to bet on a sports event (without doing so actually changing the outcome), I'd go back and bet on the centenary test match between Australia and England in 1977. Australia won by an identical margin (25 runs) to their victory in the first ever test in 1877. The odds on the same margin occurring must have been immense (mind you, in 1977 betting on a margin wasn't generally possible). Grutness...wha? 07:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if the odds were indeed immense, Grutness. They were independent events, so the odds of winning by any particular margin in 1977 were probably about the same as winning by the same margin in 1877. I think. JackofOz 09:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I think he means that the odds of the same winning margin occurring in the 1877 and 1977 matches are immense. --Richardrj 12:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
If you were placing a bet before the 1877 match on that match and the centenary test both ending in the same (unspecified) margin, you'd have got very long odds. And if you could have bet on who the winners would be, and what the exact margin would be, this would have got you astronomical odds. But placing a bet before the 1977 centenary test that Australia would win again, and the margin would again be 25, would have got you much shorter odds. Still a very brave prediction, though. JackofOz 00:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
You guys are engaging an a fallacy that must have a name (although I don't know it). You see this happen all the time; a ball bounces off one player's head, another players's elbow, the top of the backboard and then into the basket, and the announcer says, "What are the chances of that?!" Well, one in a zillion if you had bet on it before it happened; but then, you never would have thought about it before it happened. Imagine the last license plate I saw was "AXUE-231." Theoretically, seeing a license plate with that specific code is like a 1-in-300-million event, but only if I predict it before I see it. Otherwise, it's just another license plate. Creationists fall into this trap all the time when they say that the chances that humans would evolve just how they are would be 1 in 10^75 or something, so it couldn't have happened without divine intervention. (Maybe there was divine intervention, but that's a bad argument to prove it.) -- Mwalcoff 23:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sound file for "CNN's The Situation Room" intro

Hi, I am looking for the raw sound file of the CNN The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Who is the composer of that (rather dramatic) intro? -- 84.176.247.19 23:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] gmail

I need a gmail account. could somebody please send an invite to: b a l l f i n d @ h o t m a i l . c o m ? thanks

As a rule of thumb you should NEVER post ur email in a forum, because spambots will pick it up in half a second. If u allow me I'll separate the letters so this doesn't happen.

--SvenGodo 03:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Googling "free gmail invite" should give you several websites that can help. Ziggurat 03:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Or you could take the initiative and email me to get one. Remember, that the instructions tell you to check back for answers. I doubt multiple people will send you an invite if there's a chance you already got one from someone else. - Mgm|(talk) 14:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


Sent you an invite incase you still need one.