Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 July 4

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[edit] CD-MP3

I just bought a music CD and I want all the songs on the CD to be on my MP3 player. How may I go about doing this? Russian F 02:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You need a Ripping program. There are a bunch o' links in the article. --Howard Train 02:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Including, but not limited to, Windows Media Player and iTunes. Once you've got the files on your computer, read the MP3's instruction booklet for the procedure of putting songs onto it. --Killfest2 11:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
You will need a USB plug to connect your mp3 player to your computer (which should have come with your mp3 player). —EdGl 02:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, a ripping program will suffice. --Proficient 11:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Unless the disc has been corrupted with some type of "copy prevention" program. --LarryMac 14:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1956 cheverlot engines

ŔÒÝĴÔŃŚÒŃdid g.m. use the 283 c. inch in some of the late 1956 chevo--216.45.162.158 02:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)rlet

According to our article Chevrolet_V8_engine#283, that engine was only introduced in 1957.-gadfium 03:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links & Underlines

All of the links I see on pages (blue, red, and external) have underlines. How do I fix this?--Porsche997SBS 03:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The appropriate place to ask this question would be the Help Desk or Village pump (technical). As it happens, it's a frequently asked question, and the answer is near the top of the Village pump (technical), in the third bullet point.-gadfium 03:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll be sure to ask a question like this there next time!--Porsche997SBS 03:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I thin you mean: "how do I change this?" Underlined links have been standard for a long time, since long before it could be removed. There's really nothing broken to fix. - Mgm|(talk) 05:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
When logged in, click on My preferences → Misc → Underline links → Never. –Mysid(t) 06:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Witchcraft

I have two questions to ask you about witchcraft:

1.Christians claim that witchcraft is evil.Do people who are practice it "know" that it is evil?

2.If you ask a people such as "witches",sorcerers,fortune-tellers, and psychics if they believe there's a God or not, what would they say?If you ask them if they believe in creation or evolution, what would they say?I wonder, how many of them have heard about evolution?

60.241.147.187 06:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

  • You are overgeneralizing. Some Christians believe witchcraft is evil, but not all of them do. People who practice it generally believe in paganism. According to our article, "Paganism is a polytheistic, panentheistic or pantheistic often nature-based religious practice, but again can be atheism sometimes as well." So whether they believe there is a god would depend on the type of paganism they believe in. Most people in the western world nowadays are pretty well-educated, so I would expect anyone over the age of 12-15 to have heard about evolution unless they were forcefully raised without any awareness about other beliefs than creation. BTW, creation and evolution don't need to be mutually exclusive. One of those paganism forms beliefs God is the driving force behind the universe, which could make evolution and creation equally true. - Mgm|(talk) 07:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure they're too goth to care. hahaha, I crack myself up. --mboverload@ 07:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)* I think most would say they believe in a Goddess rather than a God and evolution rather than creationism because they don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible.On the other hand I've met Christian Tarot readers.hotclaws**==(81.134.113.184 08:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC))

The Bible does say that these people have brought it upon themselves and should be stoned to death. (Leviticus 20, 27). Iolakana|T 12:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
The Bible is actually very confused on this subject. There are instances of witches being condoned or even consulted in the Bible, such as I Samuel 26. The main problem is with mistranslation (as it often is with the Bible). The translation of the word "M'khasephah", meaning "one who malevolently curses others" as "witch" is one which goes against the wiccan credo of "do what thou wilt but harm none", and is about as accurate as (to use a modern equivalent) translating the word "terrorist" as "moslem". It is for this reason that you will hear of "white witches and black witches" or of the "right hand path and left hand path" - that is, witches who do not harm (who, in the original text of the Bible remain unmentioned) and those who do harm (who are anathema to both Christianity and true witchcraft alike). As to the lack of mutual exclusivity between evolution and pantheism, see my comments further up this page. Grutness...wha? 13:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

beautifully answered, a true work of wisdom/art. more questions should be answered this throughly on the ref desk

:) thanks Grutness...wha?

Personally, I've heard that most "witches",sorcerers,fortune-tellers, and psychics,etc, are pantheists rather than atheists or theists.But why?Is it because they believe that nature has magical properties, and that their "magical" powers came from nature?If so, then how (according to their beliefs)?

It's far easier to harness the untapped power of nature if you believe such power exists. If you believe that everything that can be done by science has been done, you won't look for other forms of knwledge within nature. If you're a pantheist, you know that science hasn't formularised everything in nature, and that there may be other applications within nature that can be used. Witches do that. I'm not sure about "sorcerers", since they only exist in fiction. As to fotune-tellers and psychics, well, that all depends on whether you believe that such things are possible. If there is a way that the laws of nature can accommodate such things, then yes, it would make sense for pantheism to be associated with them. if there isn't, then there is no such thing as a successful fortune-teller of psychic. But people who believe that such things are possible are more likely to be the people attracted to any religion which says that there are natural phenomena beyond our curent understanding. Oh, and in future, sign your posts, and find some other topic, since you seem to have an unhealthy obsession since this topic. Grutness...wha? 07:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solar Power!

Does solar power damage the environment?

Solar panels take much more energy to make and transport than they will ever generate (probably a huge amount of fresh water too for the manufacturing). Using solar power to "save the environment" is a pretty stupid idea, probably worse than running cars on ethanol, and that's up there in the stupidity scale. --mboverload@ 07:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
The above statement is highly exaggerated. It is true, though, that manufacturing and transporting the solar panels takes a lot of energy and natural resources. The mining of those semiconductor metals also may damage the environment. I guess the impact of manufacturing is not that different from any other energy source, though. –Mysid(t) 08:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I assume mboverload was joking. Either that or he's a blithering idiot - his call. :) DirkvdM 09:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Whilst I charitably assume mboverload is a blithering idiot, the point he raises is of interest: do we know whether & when solar panels "break even" with respect to the energy cost of their manufacture & installation. --Tagishsimon (talk)
The payback time changes greatly depending on the location, but, funnily enough, we have an article on solar cells which indicates the typical payback time is around three years. ---Robert Merkel 11:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Who'd have thought! Thanks. So, err, Mboverload, care to add anything to your original response? --Tagishsimon (talk)
=( Thanks for the link to the solar cells link, which does say they will give out more energy than they take to make. However, I am sceptical of the claims, they only measure the electricity and not all the electricity to get the raw materials and run the whole plant. Due to the bulk nature of coal production I am pretty sure the energy cost is lower. Oh yeah, and thanks for calling me a blithering idiot =D --mboverload@ 23:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome. :) DirkvdM 04:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, try this link for the Uranium Information Centre in Australia, which is a collection of results from published energy analyses for various power sources. In the three studies they report, solar is a net energy producer. Or do a google search on "EROI solar cell", and get a huge pile of numbers all saying that solar is a net energy producer. It's an extremely expensive energy producer, but it's an energy producer. --Robert Merkel 04:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
There's all sorts of solar power. Even wind energy is basically solar power because the Sun creates the heat differences that drive the wind. Actually, all power sources except tidal forces and the Earths heat are based on solar power. Even oil, which is plant residue that contains solar energy once stored by these plants. And Uranium is formed in stars.
But I suppose you're talking about direct solar power, and there are loads of varieties for that too. There's high tech stuff like solar panels, that convert the sunbeams directly into electricity and there's the solar power tower, which simply reflects and concentrates sunlight in one point, where it heats water to thousands of degrees Celsius, which then dives a turbine. Or you can simply heat water running through black panels and use that to heat your house.
Anything you do has an impact on your environment and therefore on 'the' environment (whatever that is). The bigger the scale of what you do, the bigger the impact will be. For example, a while ago I proposed to fill the Sahara with reflecting surfaces (paper) to counterbalance the heating of the Earth. Later, I realised that that would cool down the Earth at the wrong spot, which could have any sort of outcome. Ice is melting at the poles, which consequently heat up (causing more melting etc), so that's where we need to counteract. Leaving the poles to heat up and cooling down the equator at the same time will probably cause the major air currents to change, which could alter the climate even more, causing crops to fail worldwide, and all that jazz. So probably the best thing to do would be to use a bit of everything, where and when most appropriate. Some tapping of geothermal power here, some solar towers there, windpower, biomass, tidal power, hydroelectrics, what have you. And maybe develop nuclear fusion for the long run.
Impact depends not just on what you do, but to a large extent how much of it you do. This is a general rule that applies to many aspects of life that is all too often overlooked.
By the way, the amount of power the Sun poors down on us is about 10.000 times the world's present power demand. Capturing it efficiently and at the right spot at the right time is the tricky bit. But we've only just begun to explore these possibilities (the amount of money put into them so far would be laughable if it weren't so tragic). At the moment mboverload might even have a bit of a point, but judging solar power by the present state of affairs would be like assessing the potential of cars by the model T Ford. DirkvdM 09:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
...the amount of power the Sun poors down on us is about 10.000 times the world's present power demand. This is actually quite sobering. I would've guessed it to be much larger. Is this an "actual" figure, or just a throw-away? –RHolton≡– 14:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I got that from the book 'Understanding renewable energy systems'. I'm not sure what you mean by 'sobering'. Maybe you're confusing power and energy. Power is energy per unit of time (eg Joule per second or J/s). Thus, te Sun is a constant source of energy (or 'renewable', although that's a bit of a strange term here). It's not like solar power will run out in 10.000 years (or days or seconds). :) Something like that will, however, happen to fossil fuels. The total amount of energy stored in fossil fuels plus uranium is just a few percent of the amount of energy the Sun poors down on us every year. Put differently, the total energy we will ever be able to get out of fossil fules and uranium is equal to about one week's sunshine. I don't know if this is sunshine hitting the atmosphere or the Earth's surface, but it's impressive either way.
That said, the Sun will run out in another 5 billion years. I suppose by then there will be another buch of mboverloads saying "no, that will never happen, don't believe what all those crazy scientists are saying, what do they know?" :) DirkvdM 15:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course, that's only if we're even around in 5 billion years to be using solar power, I guess if a nuclear war occurs or a large asteroid hits the Earth before then, that would solve the problem. :) Yeltensic42 don't panic 06:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Twilight Zone Episode !!!!

Hi,,,, I need your help...For 32 years my wife told me that she had seen an episode that really liked... She said the title of the episode was " Hell's Bells" she thought. \ The story line is about a rude and crude Hell's Angel biker... whose reputation grew throught the years as being the meanest person on the face of the earth....

One day he had a horrendous accident and killed himself on his bike... When he woke up he found out the Devil told him that he the Devil is the sole ruler and leader of all the bikers on Earth...and further stated that he was to remain there through out all eternity...

With this the dead biker was elated... He told the Devil that he always wanted to go to hell for this would be the place he could get away with all his meaness.... The Devil chuckled and told him that things may not appear to be what you may think they are..and laughed in the bikers face and then he disappeared...

As the dead biker wandered aimlessly thru out he began opening doors to find some of his dead friends.... but all he could find were people and places that were law abiding people..church's that preached the Golden Rule.. and each and every time a door was opened he was greeted with the holy sounds of church bells....

It started off slowly and the bells rang softly along with the sound of the devil.s chuckle,,, As he searched and searched the bells got louder and the people he met were getting nicer also....

My wife says..the last shot in the show showes the dead biker sitting in a corner and he had gone absolutly mad...and all you could hear was the devil saying repeatedly in his ear... "Your mine for all eternity..all eternity all eternity... heheheheheheheheheh"

At the onset of this letter I said my wife has been telling me about this episode for 30 odd years and I have tried to explain to her that Twilight Zone never had an episode as she described....

Could you please research this for me and advise me if she was right or wrong.... There is a cruise pending on this bet...

You may send you answer to [Deleted for your protection] Thank..John from NC

There is an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery called Hell's Bells: see http://www.scifilm.org/tv/nightgallery/nightgallery2-9-1.html. Notinasnaid 08:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
That's based off a short story, which your TZ episode may also be based off of. In any case, your wife certainly isn't just making it up. --Froth 06:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Twilight Zone was also created and introduced by Rod Serling. It seems less likely that he would use the same story for both, than that, seeing Rod Serling's name 30 years ago, one might misremember it as his best known show. So both are right, near enough! Notinasnaid 07:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help

Hey do you know of any songs that involve the word rubbish, garbage etc without swear words in? 213.122.20.12 10:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting question in so far as it (appears to me) hard to google for this. What technique would you use to mine lyrics sites? Best I can come up with is to search through specific lyrics sites with advanced queries such as [1]


  • Yeah. Spirit's Fresh Garbage. Notinasnaid 10:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Alice's Restaurant ... though I couldn't swear there's no swearing. Probably not suitable for your purposes, which is a shame 'cos it's otherwise right on target. Lyrics here. --Tagishsimon (talk)
  • Mr Green Genes ("Garbage truck/ MMMMMMMMMMMMouldy" [2]) and I'm the slime ("You will obey me while I lead you/ And eat the garbage that I feed you" [3]) by Frank Zappa both discuss the consumption of garbage. David Sneek 11:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
  • No Restrictions by Men at Work - "Derelict across the street in the garbage bin / Looks like he's found something neat judging by his grin". Dismas|(talk) 12:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
  • "The Garbageman Can" from The Simpsons episode "Trash of the Titans" (based on "The Candyman" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) sung by Homer Simpson and U2. --Canley 02:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)*
  • My old Man's a Dustman-by Lonnie Donnegan? Very clean as I remember.hotclaws(81.133.206.137 06:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC))
  • Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

Would not take the garbage out! - Shel Silverstein Bunthorne 04:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can't open Realplayer

Hi, I am trying to play some stuff on realplayer, but i can't get it open. I clcik the icon for the player and my mouse has the little sand thing and then nothing, it sinmply doesn't open. Is there anything I can do to open it? 86.129.78.63 12:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You could reinstall it. –Mysid(t) 13:17, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Restart your computer? — QuantumEleven 14:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd use another media player. RealPlayer is (but argued) adware. You get ads adding "[Inster band name here] is available on [RealPlayer's network name]." Use Apple's iTunes or Windows Media Player. Iolakana|T 15:23, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I use Media Player Classic. The k-lite mega codec pack is a nice collection of codec (that includes media player classic) and can play almost anything. Jon513 22:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Windows Media Player 11 is available in Beta form, and it's very good; I'd suggest downloading it. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 07:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Let me add a lone voice in support of Real Player. I use it in preference to WMP and I have to say I prefer it. I unticked all the adware options when I installed it and I have never been bothered by a single piece of spam. You can change the views so that you never get bothered by ads and I prefer the GUI as well (matter of taste I know). --Richardrj 07:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh yes, the black is very sleek and retro. Iolakana|T 14:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
First of all, RealPlayer is, and I am putting this as nicely as I possibly can while still being truthful, a pile of steaming shit that makes self-mutilation seem like an attractive alternative to using it. If I had a child -- I don't, possibly for reasons that may be self-evident to anyone reading this, but if I did have a beautiful, beautiful, positively angelic child, and I caught that absolutely sublime progeny of mine using RealPlayer, I would instantly use my angelic child's angelic face to completely destroy, nay, demolish the computer with all the force in my formidable body, because that would be preferable to allowing my beloved son or daughter continue to use such a terrible, terrible piece of software. As a responsible father, I could do no less. (You can tell that I'm working hard to maintain NPOV here, can't you? Good!)
However, do not despair! There is an acceptable alternative. Real Alternative plays back all of those choppy and ugly Real Media files without any complaints. Parents, take note and put down those power tools! There is hope yet! -- Captain Disdain 13:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nuovo Cinema Paradiso

Can someone please enlighten me as to what the angled red boards are in one scene from the film? Thank you Gillean666 12:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you able to tell us what time/scene the boards are seen? For the benefit of others, the film is also know simply as Cinema Paradiso.  SLUMGUM  yap  stalk  23:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Music videos

Why do bands often produce different versions of music videos for different regions? For example "Hysteria" by Muse has a European version, where a man smashes his hotel room upon finding films of a woman in a camera plugged into his TV, and an American version, which is simply the band playing live in front of a screen of red dots. As the American version seems rather more boring and it would be cheaper to make only one version, why not make only the European version? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 13:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Possibly the record industry thinks that more "interesting" videos will not get airtime in puritan USA. --Tagishsimon (talk)
Well, in some cases, such as Mr. Brightside and All These Things That I've Done, the opposite seems to be the case, so it can't purely be censorship. Some of them seem to be baffling; Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm has two idential videos except that in one, a person is seen wearing a surgical mask and in the other he isn't, and I can't see why they would bother with something like this. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 14:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I vaguely recall that according to a MTV policy a video must prominently feature the band performing. Just showing an interesting little film won't get played. Maybe the rule is different in different countries, explaining some different versions. Can anyone confirm my recollection...? Weregerbil 14:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
A couple of guesses: if the band is touring in one part of the world a more performance-oriented video might be used there to sell the tour. And market research: different videos sell the album in different places. Weregerbil 14:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Tagishimon is right for at least one video - Lovefool by the Cardigans, the European version is pretty bizarre. Adam Bishop 15:58, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
MTV still plays videos?

[edit] Tour de France question

Is there someplace I can get an answer on how the numbers are assigned to the competitors in the Tour de France.

I believe it works like this: last year's winner gets number 1, his teammates numbers 2-9; last year's number two gets 10, his teammates number 11-18 etc. This year of course last year's best three (Lance Armstrong, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich) did not start. But their teams Discovery Channel, CSC and T-Mobile do have the numbers 1-9, 11-18 and 21-27 respectively. (There are no competitors with 10, 19 and 20 because Basso, Ullrich and Oscar Sevilla were expelled at the last minute). David Sneek 19:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually the captains' numbers always ends with 1, and numbers ending in 0 are unused in TdF. see here for full rider list. --Eivindt@c 05:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] limes (fruit)?

I thought that the reason that tomatoes were actually a fruit was because they have seeds/pips. In light of this, how can a lime be a fruit? since i have done bar work for some time and have never seen a pip/seed in a lime. This has been bugging me for some time and i have tried to get this information everywhere. Thankyou for all your efforts to solve this for me. Rhona x

The fruit article discusses seedless fruits. David Sneek 19:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
With regard to, e.g., tomatoes, it's also worth keeping in mind that vegetable is a culinary term while fruit is a botanical term, so a given food can belong to both categories. Other common examples are squashes and bell peppers. 128.197.81.223 21:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
A tomato is just the most prominent item for controversy. --Proficient 11:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fahrenheit 9/11 :scene with singing people on fox+man on tank

Hi,

I have a question about Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore, in the second half of the film, he talks about the media subjective. It begins with a group of people in uniform singing. Now I can't hear what song it is (you can tell me if you know). What Michael Moore doesn't say is : is this an event just filmed by fox, or also orchestrated by fox? And when exactly was it recorded/broadcast?(just before the war in Iraq started, or before the war...?)

And then another question : with one scene between them, there is another scene with a man on a tank saying : "and we're gonna win!" while looking at the camera. Is this man a soldier oe an embedded journalist? Does anyone know his name?

I searched [4] but to no avail.

ThanksEvilbu 20:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Average Height for Kurds, Turks, and Persians

Does anyone know the average height for Kurds, Turks, and Persians that live in Kurdistan? -Javad 20:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this will help: human height. --Proficient 11:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I checked the page, but it was not the information I requested--Javad 14:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I checked on this and according to Mehrdad R. Izady’s book "A Concise Handbook – The Kurds", average height for Kurds as follows. --71.222.83.53 01:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Average Height for Kurds. Note this is for both genders!
  • City and sedentary village people (5’ 6” to 5’ 9”)
  • Mountain-dwelling people (5’ 7” to 6')