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February 27

Fish eating

I have read that eating meat is not good for the environment , due to the sheer amount of resources it consumes.However, I could not find the environmental cost of eating fish. A google seearch dose not give me any answers too. Sumalsn (talk) 05:57, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, eating fish can have some impact on the environment. Over-fishing can be a problem, although places like fish-farms do not have these problems. Large-scale fishing can also disturb ecosystems as certain species of fish become endangered. Chevymontecarlo. 08:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Fish farming has its problems too[1][2]. Also have a look at [3] Alansplodge (talk) 09:14, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I would say that eating fish is fine as long as it's not farmed (it doesn't taste great for starters), and it's not too expensive. Cheap fish is cheap because it is plentiful and not endangered. Vranak (talk) 17:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what they said about North Atlantic Cod too...and now it's on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The fact is that as we overfish one species and are forced to shift to another, it too soon becomes overfished. Eventually, the only things of any size left in the oceans will be jellyfish. SteveBaker (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. Even when a population is decimated, there will always be enough survivors to repopulate. At least when it comes to marine life. You can hunt down every dodo, but not every grouper or tuna. Vranak (talk) 18:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting rather sick of you just "guessing" the answers to questions. If you don't actually know the answer - you should refrain from responding. If you'd care to glance at our Atlantic Cod article you'll discover that: "Several cod stocks collapsed in the 1990s (declined by >95% of maximum historical biomass) and have failed to recover even with the cessation of fishing." - so no, fish species don't always "repopulate" when overfishing has occurred and my response is far from "Nonsense" - please feel free to apologize. SteveBaker (talk) 05:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Are cod extinct? I rest my case, Mister Baker. Vranak (talk) 19:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe you are trying to defend you earlier lame post even after it has been so comprehensively demolished! But how about we speak only to face of actual, referenced facts instead of your mere opinions: According to the IUCN: "The collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery put 30,000 Canadians out of work and ruined the economies of 700 communities". Nobody said that the Atlantic Cod was extinct - but it is most certainly endangered (that's why it's on the IUCN "Red List"). You said "Cheap fish is cheap because it is plentiful and not endangered" - this is not just wrong - it's a dramatic misperception that was the root cause of the cod crash. Look at the graph to the right here. Cod was exceedingly cheap in the 1970's, 80's and early 90's - and as you can clearly see - it was certainly endangered. Prices very often stay low right before a fishery crashes - the laws of supply and demand only apply when the supply is known - and in the case of so many ecological disasters of this kind, they aren't. As you can see from the graph, there were massive, record catches right before the crash and even after the crash first happened in 1977, people still went on hauling cod out of the ocean in increasing numbers until the second, more final, crash in 1990. So, before you reach for your keyboard to enter some more irrelevent opinions - how about the next words you type are comprehensively referenced OK? SteveBaker (talk) 20:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

They've had less than 20 years to repopulate, that isn't long. Given enough time, I would be very surprised if they didn't repopulate. What would stop them? They may have been replaced by some other species, but most ecosystems will return to equilibrium given time unless there has been some irreversible change (environmental or evolutionary). --Tango (talk) 07:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Some species, like the passenger pigeon, exist, and evolved to exist, in vast swarms. Not only does this mean that someone hunting them gets an inaccurate picture of how many there are (see people assuming there were plenty of fish when they were catching whole shoals at a time), but these species often seem unable to function properly in smaller groups. Quite apart from the genetic problems of repopulating from a small group, some species simply will not recover from depopulation because they stop breeding. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 12:10, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

See: Depensation. When a population hits a certain low level there are two effects that can prevent them from rebounding. In the case of the passenger pigeon it was that the birds had being relying on Predator satiation - a technique that works great when a million birds arrive at a particular location - but which fails miserably when only 100 birds are in the flock. In the case of the Atlantic Cod, it's probably more to do with the Allee effect which is that when the population gets small enough, the probability of a male cod meeting a suitable female cod gets so small that they cannot increase their population fast enough to overcome the natural death rate. It's probably true that the population won't stay as it is today - but if it's not growing even after 20 years of relief - then it's probably going to crash to extinction. One weird thing about the Cod is that adult cod feed on Capelin - but the Capelin feed on juvenile Cod. So when the adult Cod aren't keeping the Capelin population in check, the Capelin can supress the Cod population by eating their young. This may have something to do with the inability of the Cod population to rebound. SteveBaker (talk) 19:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Eeeeee! Thanks Steve! This saves me asking another question lower down, since I couldn't remember or find links to any of those terms, and it was really bugging me. :D <- extremely happy face I am wearing 86.177.121.239 (talk) 00:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

See Food_chain#Entropic_losses_in_the_chain for an explanation. Basically, every intermediate step between you and sunlight introduces waste, so eating plants has the least impact, eating herbivores has more impact, and eating the things that eat them has even more. I'd love to see specific numbers for practical situations, but I bet they're super hard to estimate. Paul Stansifer 18:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The damage done by top-of-the-food-chain (principal predator) destruction is a significant theme in Barbara Kingsolver's novel Prodigal Summer. Bielle (talk) 05:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The rule of thumb is 10% for each level between you and the sun. If you're a plant, you're getting 10% of the available sunlight. If you're eating plants, you get 1%. If you're eating plant-eaters, you get 0.1%, and so on. --Carnildo (talk) 23:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It's meaningless to talk about the environmental harm of eating a particular food. You need to talk about the harm relative to the food you'll be eating instead (unless you plan to starve and die - that would benefit the environment). It is well known that a vegetarian diet is more energy efficient than one involving meat, so if you are replacing the fish with vegetables then that will almost certainly be better for the environment. If you replace the fish with some other meat, it is less clear. Since fish like cod eat meat themselves, whereas most land animals eaten for food are herbivores, I wouldn't be surprised if fish were less energy efficient. Of course, there are other factors to environmentally friendliness than energy efficiency, but that seems the most relevant to me. --Tango (talk) 07:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If you eat lots of some fish particularly those at the top of the food chain, you may die faster, which may be a net benefit to the environment. Whether that'll be worth the cost of eating the fish, I can't say. Nil Einne (talk) 08:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It appears nobody has linked to overfishing. "Ultimately overfishing may lead to resource depletion in cases of subsidised fishing, low biological growth rates and critical low biomass levels (e.g. by critical depensation growth properties)." Yes, eating wild fish has an environmental effect. In that aquaculture relies on feeding animal protein to fish, that too will have an environmental effect. You may be interested to read Diet for a Small Planet (1971) by Frances Moore Lappé and Fish_farming#Criticisms. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Vranak, yes cod have become extinct on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, formerly one of the richest fishing areas in the world. The key here is the exact meaning of "extinction": not biological but practical. From Fish#Conservation: "Such commercial extinction does not mean that the species is extinct, merely that it can no longer sustain a fishery." (Emphasis in the article.) BrainyBabe (talk) 19:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Fish (food) Bus stop (talk) 01:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

sports

In a typical leisure centre or similar such sporting venue, what sorts of activities might be available?

Tennis, Basketball, Swimming, I really can't think of many, and it seems there isn't anywhere around here where I can do some research.

Also, how much might it cost to visit such a place, on average?

148.197.114.158 (talk) 11:48, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you've been asked to find out about a "typical" leisure centre, you can probably assume your local one will be "typical". You can either ring, visit or go on their website to find out. And that's as close as we will come to doing your homework for you! --TammyMoet (talk) 11:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You could also look up leisure centre on Wikipedia.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

We don't actually seem to have one here, and if we do, it must be quite a long way away. And the article is rather short, so not much help. And there was me hoping I could get the answer today rather than after a lot of looking around on the internet. 148.197.114.158 (talk) 15:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

They have badminton, floor hockey, indoor soccer, and volleyball at my local rec centre. Vranak (talk) 17:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Racquetball is quote popular as well —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.153.209 (talk) 21:42, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Grease pencils

Does anyone know of a high-street (physical) shop in the UK where I could buy a grease pencil? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢ 17:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Also after something like this – ╟─TreasuryTag►Not-content─╢ 18:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, most medium-ish to large towns will have an art supplies shop, although I don't know of any chains (equivalent to Ryman's etc) - they're usually independent. The Yellow Pages is probably a good place to start. To give a strictly-correct but perhaps not very useful answer to your question: yes, I do, the one next to Sainsbury's in Hitchin (I won't give the name here, that might be considered advertising). But I'm sure that there'll be one nearer to you (unless you, too, live in Hitchin.) :) Tevildo (talk) 18:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

You can also get grease pencils ("Chinagraph" is a popular generic trademark) at DIY shops ([4] at B&Q, for example). Tevildo (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Non-photo blue pencils should be available at any office-supply store (I'm not British, so I don't know what the big ones there are), and I'd be surprised if grease pencils weren't available there as well. Deor (talk) 18:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I think grease pencils are used for writing on photographic film, so try a photographic shop like Jessops. 89.243.151.239 (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Worth trying camping and outdoor shops for chinagraphs. DuncanHill (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Why outdoor shops, out of interest? ╟─TreasuryTag►without portfolio─╢ 19:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

When you've got your map nice and snug inside its mapcase, you can write notes, mark points & routes on the outside of the mapcase with a chinagraph. Keeps the map clean, dry, and unmarked. DuncanHill (talk) 20:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a shop that sells diving gear would have them. 89.243.151.239 (talk) 19:32, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Why diving shops? ╟─TreasuryTag►without portfolio─╢ 19:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Because divers use them to write underwater. 89.243.151.239 (talk) 20:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

a question that involves a unique pack case

This can be seen in Chris Redfield and Leon S Kennedy's designs in the Resident Evil game series,

I am wondering what kind of packs do these two wear at the small of their backs, these are incredibly useful and would appreciate finding out more about them.

the closest thing ive seen are fanny packs, but those died decades ago and I need something like this pack for more functionality. Murakumo-Elite (talk) 19:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean, they died decades ago? I wear a bum bag when I go cycling. --ColinFine (talk) 23:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

That was in reference to WGN's Way Back Wednesdays program in which 80's movies are played, and it prompts the line, "Don't forget your fanny packs!" Actually it is kind of appropriate, they were big a long time ago, last time I saw them normally was in the very early 90s. Murakumo-Elite (talk) 16:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You can buy some very similar bags online for around $30. SteveBaker (talk) 05:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

So that's what they are! butt packs are a funny name, but I havent seen anything more useful in hiking the Smokies. Thanks! Murakumo-Elite (talk) 14:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

13 days

A film about the Soviet Missile emplacement on Cuba in 1962. There is a scene wherein Bruce Willis as political advisor to JFK speaks by phone to a young U2 Spy Plane Pilot and pleads with him "not to get shot down". - sotto vocce - (as in - don't let this become a political incident if you get shot down). Sadly, the pilot is seen, and attacked by Soviet SAM's. Oh, my question??????? The pilot in question is seen wearing a very embellished flight suit with "frills" along the arms and over the body that don't at first glance seem to serve any useful purpose other than being decorative. Any clues as to their purpose or functionality??? Thanks. 92.30.6.164 (talk) 20:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Pressure suit? 131.111.248.99 (talk) 21:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I deindented the original question. 131.111.248.99 (talk) 21:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

From Lockheed U-2:

Because of the high operating altitude, the pilot must wear the equivalent of a space suit. The suit delivers the pilot's oxygen supply and emergency protection in case cabin pressure is lost at altitude (the cabin provides pressure equivalent to about 29,000 feet/8,800 metres). To prevent hypoxia and decrease the chance of decompression sickness, pilots don a full pressure suit and begin breathing 100% oxygen one hour prior to launch to de-nitrogenize the blood; while moving from the building to the aircraft they breathe from a portable oxygen supply.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

But what about the frills? I think that was the point of the original question. Nyttend (talk) 00:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If it is a pressure suit, perhaps the 'frills' are the myriad pipes that cover the suit - or, at least, that was my thinking. Without knowing precisely what the user saw, it's hard to say (and I haven't seen the film). 131.111.248.99 (talk) 01:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The section heading says "13 days" but according to our article as well as IMDb, Bruce Willis was not in that film, as claimed by the OP. So, without knowing which film they saw, it's a little hard to find images from the right movie. Dismas|^(talk) 04:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure about the U2 but some of those spy planes had problems with pilots overheating and they had to pump cooling fluid though pipes in the suit. Alarmingly, the SR-71 pumped jet fuel through the suit! SteveBaker (talk) 05:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

. SteveBaker, kerosene being pumped through the pilot's pressure suit is totally insane and impossible. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:14, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly 'kerosine,' and not that insane and impossible. Our SR-71 article states that the aircraft used ". . . JP-7 jet fuel, which had a relatively high flash point (140 °F, 60 °C) to cope with the heat. In fact, the fuel was used as a coolant and hydraulic fluid in the aircraft before being burned." While this doesn't in itself fully corroborate the fuel also being used to cool the pilot's flight suit, it appears to me to make it plausible. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 18:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a reference for that fact: read "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos". Ben Rich was the boss of the Lockheed plant that made the SR-71, so I think we can believe him! Sure, it's a crazy idea from a safety perspective - but at the height of the cold war, using a small pump to pump readily available cool fluids through the suit was considered to be better than reducing the performance of the plane by hauling a full-blown air-conditioner in the plane. This was war - and people are prepared to take bigger risks in wartime. Besides, JP-7 jet fuel is exceedingly difficult to ignite and any crash bad enough to set it off would surely kill the pilot regardless of the suit's cooling mechanism. Remember, the SR-71 was DESIGNED to leak fuel all over the runway when parked or taxiing - only when it got up to full speed did the thermal expansion of the body panels cause the seals in the fuel tanks to be fully compressed. So they'd take off with fuel pouring out of the plane - do a quick fast run to get the plane hot - then do an immediate in-flight refuelling to top off the tanks. These machines were crazy-dangerous! Anyway - what I'm not 100% sure about is whether they used the same trick on the U-2 - it may have only been the SR-71. SteveBaker (talk) 19:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I remain shocked. The consequences in a pilot eject scenario seem awful. These are two crazy ideas, indeed. Jam them into the SR-71 article! Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

At the speeds and altitudes the SR-71 flew at - ejection would be exceedingly hazardous anyway - but JP-7 is an amazingly safe fuel. You can't set light to it with a match. I would assume that the suit connected into the seat with appropriate cut-off valves - by having it sloshed all over your flight suit wouldn't be a life-terminating experience. But those spy planes were right on the very edge of the technology of the day and there were hardly any compromises made in the area of pilot safety. SteveBaker (talk) 14:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

This webpage may be of interest re SR-71 Pressure Suits (specifically David Clark Co. S1030 Suit) 220.101.28.25 (talk) 17:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Not incredibly dangerous. In most aerial combat the planes are too high for external fires. During the Korean war pilots were amazed to hit enemy jet fighters with armour piercing incendiary ammunition and no ignition to occur despite fuel spraying all over the place. It's just too cold.--92.251.153.209 (talk) 19:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Reader's Digest archives

Are the contents of Reader's Digest articles archived anywhere? I'm looking for the text of a particular article from the British edition, somewhere between the late 1970s to the mid 1980s, and I know several key phrases from it but not the title. There doesn't appear to be a searchable index on the RD website, except for the Canadian edition, and that only indexes titles of articles since 1990. I was wondering whether there was some academic database which indexed these sorts of thing, or whether I have to contact RD head office or (gulp) do the search manually. The Wednesday Island (talk) 21:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

If you call a big library's reference desk (your local library or nearest big library, or one in New York City or London or whatever your phone bill can afford) and ask them to check the "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" for a given set of years (late 70s and early 80s), and give them a few key words, they should be able to tell you all the Reader's Digest articles that fit your description. Many libraries will take your question and call you back with an answer. 63.17.48.29 (talk) 02:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

THe British Library should have copies of it. Once you have identified the article your local public library should be able to order a photocopy for you if you are in Britain, and even perhaps if you are not. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 20:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I upload?

How do I upload my articles to add to our community? As well as my retail lines? Thank you.. annett strahan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Letsbefrienz (talk • contribs) 22:37, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Replied at Wikipedia:Help desk#Upload support. Please keep discussion there. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Please don't post the same question on multiple desks - you have a helpful answer to your uploading query at the WP:Help desk. As regards your "retail lines", if you're hoping to use Wikipedia to advertise your business and products, I'm afraid this is not allowed. Wikipedia is not your webhost, and it does not accept advertising. Karenjc 23:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Identify axe-like object in photo of gun collection

This photo (sfw) shows of some chap's extensive collection of guns and related accoutrements. In the centre, at the bottom, there is an odd object which resembles a cross between an axe and some kind of pipe bending device. From context alone I can only guess that this is some instrument used in the maintenance of firearms. What is it? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Not a tool for firearms maintenance. Some sort of hammer/pry bar combo. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Found it: Stanley FatMax® Xtreme™ FuBar™ Utility Bar.[5] ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks incredibly handy; I still have a gift card and they are in stock locally. Guess I'm going shopping. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to be concerned that, with so many rather® macho™ names®, that it might be the Hummer™ of prybars. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

In particular, the FuBar™ part somehow doesn't inspire much confidence in me. Deor (talk) 01:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed, that's it exactly. That thing looks more dangerous (at least to the user) than most of those guns. Thanks for your swift help. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:34, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm a tool nut - I have one of these. I'm still not quite sure why I need it - but you can't have too many tools! SteveBaker (talk) 04:44, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Is the guy in the photo worried that the godless commie terrorist liberals are going to leap out of the TV, or something? FiggyBee (talk) 07:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC) AlexHOUSE (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have never seen a regulation US flag with those proportions. If it is correct then someone please go change this one. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That is a weird looking flag. The star spacing is off, and there's the weird blue space around the edge of the star field. Clearly this man is a communist infiltrator. Luckily we were here to spot his one error. APL (talk) 17:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I thinks he's waiting for an excuse to shoot the TV so he can get a nice flat-screen one! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Did nobody else notice that he also happens to be watching Glenn Beck...?AlexHOUSE (talk) 23:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

LGBT acronym

Why do we use the term "LGBT" rather than "TBGL" or any of the other 14 ways that the letters can be arranged? Our article on the subject says that it's often preferred over "GLBT" possibly for feminist reasons, but it doesn't address other combinations of the letters. Nyttend (talk) 23:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

There isn't necessarily a reason. It helps to be consistent, but it doesn't matter which order is used so whichever become popular first wins. --Tango (talk) 23:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The article LGBT gives the history of variants of the acronym. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Where? I've read the "Variants" section and don't see anything except the GLBT bit that I already mentioned. Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The article does not analyze all 14 mostly non-notable permutations of the letters LGBT. You can investigate their relative popularities yourself using www.google.com. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait, how are we getting 14 (or is it 15?) permutations here? I count 4!=24 different orders: BGLT, BGTL, BLGT, BLTG, BTLG, BTGL, GBLT, GBTL, GLBT, GLTB, GTBL, GTLB, LBGT, LBTG, LGBT, LGTB, LTBG, LTGB, TBGL, TBLG, TGBL, TGLB, TLBG, and TLGB. Buddy431 (talk) 01:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking 16 (14 was 16 minus LGBT minus TBGL), but of course you're right: for some reason I was taking 2×2×2×2. And I'm not asking which permutations are more common than others; I simply wonder why LGBT became the popular term, but the article only explains why it's more popular than GLBT, not why it's popular in general. Nyttend (talk) 01:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Please be nice to me; I was a history major in college, and I've not had a math class since I was in high school :-) Nyttend (talk) 01:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that either 1. there is no reason other than tradition, or, 2. there might be some psychological/linguistic reason that certain acronyms sound better (to English speakers) than others. GBLT sounds like a sandwich, for example. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps lesbians organize the meetings and are thus entitled to the first spot, with bisexuals and transvestites being less common than gay males. Edison (talk) 03:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The "T" is for "Transgender" and not "Transvestite". There is a big difference. Dismas|^(talk) 04:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Ed Wood was a transvestite and was straight, so that's a whole different story. As is the main character in the "Lumberjack Song". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:41, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Psychoanalysis of the lumberjack's statement 2:49 "I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Mama"[6] reveals the transvestism syndrome to be a product of repressed Transsexualism. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It just seems wrong for them to exclude transvestites from their meetings. Edison (talk) 01:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Where does it say they "exclude" straights from their meetings? I would think anyone interested could go to those meetings. (PFLAG, for example.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

LGBTQ. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 03:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If you google [LGBT GLBT], you'll see a number of questions like this with no answers, including on answers.com, which I think is the one that speculated that the "L" was kind of a bone tossed to the lesbian side in connection with women's lib; while also saying the GLBT is also acceptable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

There are 4 ways to pick the first letter, then, when you've chosen the first one, that leaves only 3 ways to pick the second, 2 ways to choose the third and then the last letter is a 'given'. Hence there are 4x3x2x1 ways (4 factorial) which is 24 ways. SteveBaker (talk) 04:41, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

By contrast, there are over twice that many ways to leave your lover. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm coming to this discussion a bit late, but I have personal experience that sheds light on this. I came out in 1981, at which time my university had a (tiny) Lesbian-Gay Students' Association (LGSA). Based on my experience of the movement at the time, I think groups chose to put Lesbian first because women tended to avoid mixed-gender groups, fearing male dominance, unless the group made an effort to give lesbians prominence. One way to do this, of course, is to put lesbians at the beginning of the group's name. Back then, bisexuals were not really fully accepted as part of the movement. During the course of the 80s, they gained acceptance, and more and more groups added Bisexual to their names. So, there was a transitional LGB stage. Then, around 1990 or during the 90s, LGBs moved to embrace transsexuals, and LGBT was born. Marco polo (talk) 02:40, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

February 28

Pioneers by Frank Hudson

Pioneers by Frank Hudson is an Australian bush ballad but what I want to know is when it was published or written (what year will do) because i've searched in quite a few places and can't seem to find the date? 220.233.83.26 (talk) 01:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I've had a look and can't find it either. It is mentioned as being taught in schools in the 1950s HERE. "Images of Australia: an introductory reader in Australian studies" Ed. By Gillian Whitlock, David Carter,University_of_Queensland Press might help. Otherwise I suggest trying the WP:language desk. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 20:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Oil and Natural Gas

Coal makes less US electricity than I had thought.

And makes less French electricity than I had thought.

Coal is used to generate electricity. But do all power stations that use fossil fuels to generate elctricity use coal? Are there any power stations that use oil or natural gas to generate elctricity?

Oil is used to power transports. But are all transports powered by oil? Are there any transports that are powered by natural gas?

Bowei Huang 2 (talk) 04:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If you Google "natural gas bus" you can see many images of public transport buses that use natural gas. Dismas|^(talk) 04:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

And googling "natural gas power plant" will bring up links about plants powered by natural gas, while "oil power plant" finds a couple of plants where electricity is generated by burning oil (both of which do exist, though are less common than coal fired plants). And of course, some transports are powered by coal, some use rubber bands, and I even have one that runs on Cheetos. Buddy431 (talk) 05:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Coal is abundant in America, and thus is used in many American power plants. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC with below) I'm pretty sure the 'though are less common than coal fired plants' is not applicable everywhere, although in terms of the overall world situation it's perhaps true given the US and China's high usage.

I don't believe it's the case in NZ for example. Take a look at Category:Power stations in New Zealand & List of power stations in New Zealand, while I'm not sure if these are complete I believe they're probably not that far and likely cover all the major plants. In terms of amount, our article Electricity sector in New Zealand supported by this ref shows 23.7% is from natural gas and 10.5% coal. It's possible/likely there was even less coal used in the past, diminishing natural gas supplies have meant that Huntly Power Station for example is increasingly turning to coal and this may or may not get worse as time progresses (see [7] for example and the last paragraph of our article).

I believe it's also the case in Malaysia. Again take a look at List of power stations in Malaysia and Energy policy of Malaysia which mentions 62.6% gas, 20.9% coal possibly supported by this ref (there doesn't appear to be any overall figures, you may be able to work it out from the other figures given but I'm not sure since there doesn't seem to be figures given for the generation mix from IPPs and it's not clear to me where/how the 20.9% figure came from). As with NZ, coal usage is increasing [8], given increasing power demands, diminishing local supplies and its relatively low cost.

Somewhat illustrated by these two examples I guess, it depends significantly on factors such as local supplies particularly historically. BTW, as mentioned in this answer, there are coal/gas power plants and even coal/gas/oil plants, a plant doesn't necessarily only use one.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

For a good example of natural gas use, try the UK. Here is a graph. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 11:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

How about a reference from the reference desk? Here are two graphs from the Electricity generation article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:14, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Are there any cars that are powered by natural gas?

An Unknown Person (talk) 03:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. See natural gas vehicle. 06:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

John Terry v Wayne Bridge

I'm not asking for moral or other opinions here - simply to ask for a bit of clarity over the timing of the "alleged" relationship between John Terry and his former team mate Wayne Bridge's ex-girlfriend. Did the "alleged" relationship take place before or after the the ex-girlfriend became the "ex" girlfriend? Thanks. 92.30.7.27 (talk) 10:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Considering the extent of media hype over this so-called "news story", concrete detail is surprisingly hard to find. This report states that the relationship between Bridge and Ms. Perroncel ended in December 2009, and that the relationship between her and Terry began "after Bridge moved to Cheshire when he joined Manchester City". Our article Wayne Bridge puts Bridge's debut for Manchester City in the first week of January 2010. Assuming both sources are correct then the anwer to your question is just after, not before. Karenjc 11:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Nah, rereading it I'm out by a year. Bridge joins City in early 2009, so if the other source is correct the relationship began almost a year before Bridge and Perroncel split, with no indication how long it lasted. But there's no guarantee the source is correct. Karenjc 11:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Difference between hits and visitors

I joined a fanfiction site where you can see the number of people visiting your pages. Can anybody tell me the difference between "hits" and "visitors" in such sites. Often, the number of hits is higher than the number of visitors in my page. What does that mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.194.233.206 (talk) 12:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If Jenny visits a site and views ten pages, that's just one visitor (Jenny) but ten hits. A big visitor:view ratio is generally taken to mean that visitors liked the site and stayed for a bit to look around; a low ratio that they weren't very taken by what they got and left soon after they came. But the collection and interpretation of these statistics is confounded by so many technical and social factors that relying on the raw numbers to tell you all that much about who is actually visiting a site and what they're doing can be very tricky. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually that's page views and not hits. "Hits" is the number of file requests, so a single page view might involve 1 "hit" or 55 "hits". Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Which is why, for example, Google Analytics and other services break down the numbers into finer categories, like "How long do people stay on the site?" and "Do they immediately close the site's window when they see it? (did they get the page accidentally?)" and things like that. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Webley-Fosbery

Hi, I don't know if I'm in the right place for this question, but is the Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver auto or semi-auto? The name would suggest that it is fully automatic, but it never clearly states the rate of fire or type of fire. Thanks --Amendola90 (talk) 12:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-auto: Automatic as in automatic pistol. With the Webley-Fosbery, the cylinder is rotated and the hammer cocked by recoil, rather than by the trigger pull as with normal DA revolvers. FiggyBee (talk) 13:19, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Map distance marker

Is there a name for the bar on a map that indicates distance? Thanks. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Linear scale. FiggyBee (talk) 13:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

More commonly just "scale". On some maps you may see "scale of miles" or similar -- I don't think I've ever seen this with metric units, so I guess it's an old-fashioned usage. --Anonymous, 17:10 UTC, March 1, 2010.

Prices

Suppose I aim to buy a particular thing. Before I go out looking for it, I think about how much thing costs. I decide that I'll probably have to pay 70 currency units for it. That's OK, I think, I'm happy with that price. So I go to a market, and see the thing I want on a stall. Now instead of saying "I'm willing to pay 70 for that," I ask how much it is. The guy says it costs 50. "Great!" I say, hand over a fifty currency unit piece, and walk away with the thing, having concealed the fact that I was willing to pay more. Question is, was this dishonest of me? 213.122.31.82 (talk) 13:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

No. I don't see how that could be interpreted as dishonest. Even if you knew that what you were buying for 50 units was actually worth 50,000 units, it wouldn't be dishonest.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it generally dishonest to conceal beneficial information from the person it concerns? 213.122.31.82 (talk) 13:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I think your question is a bit vague, and there are several possible scenarios. If you've merely slightly overestimated how much a low-value, commonly available item costs ($70 vs $50), then there's no dishonesty in taking it for the lower price (but you might want to wonder why it's being sold cheap; maybe the seller's being dishonest!). On the other hand, if "you knew that what you were buying for 50 units was actually worth 50,000 units", but the person selling it doesn't know the true value of what they're selling, then you're definitely taking advantage of them in a dishonest way. FiggyBee (talk) 13:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

See also information economics, information asymmetry, and linked articles. Conversely, if the shopkeeper would have been happy to sell the item for 45 rather than 50, did he cheat you — even though you would have paid as much as 70?

As well, our article on supply and demand (and linked articles) touch on how prices are determined within a free market. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, those are good links. I had information economics in mind, actually, I love me some Hayek. My concern was that it would be more rational to reveal the prices we would be willing to accept and pay up front; but then I can't see how negotiations would proceed from there, unless we just agreed to settle for whatever the market price appeared to be, which doesn't take into account local conditions like how much the thing costs on the next stall along, how much I want it and how sore my feet are - but I'm concerned that price gouging destroys information too - but I've probably got it all backwards. 213.122.31.82 (talk) 14:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Let the buyer beware - and also let the seller beware. If he doesn't know the value of the stuff he's selling, he ought to find another line of work. Buying something at the price it's marked is not being dishonest, it's being smart. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Remember that supply and demand curves are just an aggregation of the reserve price of buyers and sellers. Almost every sale involves a buyer paying less than their reserve price and a seller selling for greater than their reserve price. In fact, economists argue that this difference is the value to society of that trade (see economic surplus)203.217.33.23 (talk) 08:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

In addition to all the good links so far, check out consumer surplus. -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if any of you remember a legal brouhaha over a Nolan Ryan rookie baseball card a decade or two ago. The shop owner wanted 2,500 for it. The customer paid an ignorant clerk 25 for it. But the shop owner had written the price as 25 with the two 00's underlined. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Economically, the key to a good (i.e., unbiased) transaction is a willing buyer and a willing seller. If you're willing to buy at the price he's willing to sell, that's just fine. There is no reason why either of you should be at the extreme of your price ranges. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

At the article economic surplus there's a nice graph showing that equilibrium is where producers are willing to sell X units at Y price and consumers are also willing to buy X units at Y price. In order for this to work, there have to be some failed transactions: some of the producers weren't willing to sell at that price, and some of the consumers weren't willing to buy, hence a particular quantity is sold. In my scenario there is only one producer and one consumer, so I have to think in terms of probabilities: the equilibrium is the price-quantity pair at which I and the stallholder are equally likely to agree to the deal. What bothers me is that individual transactions hardly ever occur at this price, even if we go through a haggling process, since we conceal information about our reserve prices. Surely by sharing information (and behaving unselfishly) we could arrive at equilibrium with great accuracy - somehow? I guess information about reserve prices isn't sufficient, though, it's only the start. I'm not sure what information we'd need to find equilibrium: some kind of quantifying of amount of preference (for each possible price). 81.131.42.83 (talk) 12:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be mixing theoretical and real world concepts to the point of confusion. In the real world, there may well be failed transactions, but that isn’t theoretically necessary for the analysis to work. In addition, the concept of “failed transactions” is just another way of saying “bargaining,” which is not a transaction but the means of getting to a mutually acceptable price (or, failing to do so). Whether laying all of our cards on the table every time would benefit society as a whole (faster and more accurate pricing) is irrelevant: I’m not going to show you my hole card unless it is obviously to my advantage. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

When you see it...

Can somebody tell me what is supposed to be so shocking in this picture? It's bugging me!--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 15:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S. If you feel this would be better under /Entertainment, please do not hesitate to move my post.

Using Tineye, the only thing anybody seems to have seen is the face beyond the upper right border of the picture. It has not caused anybody to shit bricks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You mean the cloud formation that vaguely looks like a skull or something? That can't be it. Either that, or someone is too easily startled. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That TinEye looks pretty nifty. Now if someone e-mails you some weird photo, you could look for it on the internet and maybe even figure out where it came from. In the case of this one, it looks like that company that parodies "Successories". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you mean the little blurb that's in the black part in the upper right? I downloaded the image and it's just a few lighter-colored pixels. It doesn't look like much of anything. Maybe you have to have the original? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If I may, I would like to add that 'When you see it, you'll sh*t bricks' is an internet meme.--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 16:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if you put that in Google, you get a gazillion references. This site [9] discusses the photo in question and some others. A seriously overactive imagination in some cases, including this one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That first one is outstanding. The one linked by the original poster is superlame. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If you have to brighten a photo extensively in order to see the thing that's supposed to scare you, it kind of takes the punch out of it. You're right, the werewolf thing is pretty good, although it's nice to know a werewolf can be defeated by a golf club. Now, this thing,[10] if it still works, is fairly scary, or startling at least, especially if you have the sound up. FYI, a friend once sent me this with no warning. I'm at least warning you. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If you pull the image into a paint program and dramatically boost the image brightness, you'll see that the vague spodge outside the frame to the top-right is indeed a picture of a face. I'm not sure what's special about it though...just a lame piece of photoshoppery. You can see what I found here. So far, no bricks have been shat. SteveBaker (talk) 18:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't even need a paint program; you can see it if you zoom in using a web browser's zoom. Vimescarrot (talk) 19:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I just looked at it at an angle and my LCD screen made it stand out without any adjustments at all. --Tango (talk) 20:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeh, you have to brighten it. Pretty lame. "Officer, there's a couple making love in the apartment across the alley, and I can see them through my window!" "Ma'am, I can't see anything." "Well, you have to stand on this ladder..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:32, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The green tree to the right of the tower looks like a face. Try magnifying the image to 400%. Not scary though. -- SGBailey (talk) 11:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Read Pareidolia. No the face off the top-right corner is the thing we're supposed to be scared by...again, look at the brightened version on my web site here. SteveBaker (talk) 13:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I hope I'm not the only one that finds a lot of these sorts of things vaguely racist. "Oh look here are a bunch of happy white folk .... ON NO THERE'S A BLACK PERSON IN THE BACKGROUND!" Scary. (Hopefully this is a parody.)

On the other hand, the golfer/werewolf one is pretty damn cool.[11] The first couple of times I saw it totally didn't see the werewolf and assumed it was just someone's imagination playing up. Then I noticed it just now. Awesome. (The wolf's pointed ears are at the top of frame just opposite the "UC", his scary face is right below that.) APL (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Quite some of the stuff that's been popping up in the Cloaca Maxima of the Internet featuring black people in a more or less subtle racist manner is IMO actually anti-racist - it's playing on racist stereotypes and to an extent used to troll people that actually are racist. Consider the similar vein of pedophilia humor - it seems very warped and just plain wrong to a casual observer, but when push comes to shove, the same people who post pseudo pedophilic jokes on the Internet have been responsible for the arrest and incarceration of at least two actual pedophiles. Of course, the disdain for pedophilia is much stronger than the disdain for racism, so the subtle anti streak is more easily discernible, and on the other hand it's easier for actual racist people to get on the bandwagon, creating their own image macros (not even realizing they are being trolled), so the situation with black people image macros is much more muddled. Ultimately, I think of it as coping with difficult issues through humor. I've seen this before with Bosniaks, they are capable of poking fun out of some of the most gruesome moments in their history, the Balkan wars - not because of irreverence or ignorance, but to cope with it. Or I could be just too optimistic regarding the human race and it's actually just plain old racism, who knows. TomorrowTime (talk) 08:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Not very scary. Maybe I'm too much of a literalist. The faces peeking around the corner are a bit spooky, just because of expressions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Multi-storey car parks

What is the multi-storey car park with the most levels? --88.76.18.70 (talk) 16:48, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

According to this site, the Hotel Harrison in Chicago, at 21 stories. There were apparently taller ones in Chicago and Cincinatti which were demolished in the 1960's, and there are taller vehicle storage facilities (such as the one in the Volkswagen adverts, which is a real building, not CGI), but they're not really _car parks_. Tevildo (talk) 20:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

thee Volkswagen thing is a Autostadt (Car Silo i've heard it called). ny156uk (talk) 23:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the split-level multi-storey car park with the most levels? --88.76.18.70 (talk) 02:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Found copy of New York Bill Of Rights

Where can I have a copy of the NY Bill Of Rights reviewed for it's value? I purchased a copy at a local Goodwill Store in January. four tildes —Preceding unsigned comment added by History1700 (talk • contribs) 18:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You could take it to an antiques dealer. Be advised, though, that barring some exceptional chain of events that leads to a 200-year-old original document not just reaching Goodwill but physically surviving the process, it's just a print-out and of no monetary value at all. — Lomn 17:59, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Mikado

Back in the 1918's the US took over the Railroad System under USRA. One of their designs was the 2-8-2 USRA Light Mikado.

What is the origin of the name 'Mikado'? Why did they use this particular name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.194.15.141 (talk) 18:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

2-8-2#History. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

From [12] mikado 1727, former title of the emperor of Japan, from mi "honorable" + kado "gate, portal." Similar to Sublime Porte, old title of the Ottoman emperor/government, and Pharaoh, which literally means "great house." By 1918 the name was best known as the title of a comic opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to make the point explicit, "Mikado" was a name for the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement -- that is, for any steam locomotive with 2 leading wheels, 8 coupled driving wheels, and 2 trailing wheels -- and not for any particular model of locomotive. It was customary with steam locomotives to invent a new name for each widely used wheel arrangement. Sometimes there was more than one name and some of the names were more widely adopted than others. For example, a 4-4-2 was an "Atlantic", a 4-6-2 was a "Pacific", a 4-6-4 was a "Hudson" or "Baltic". See Whyte notation#Naming. --Anonymous, 21:21:21 UTC, March 1, 2010.

How to sleep cheaply overnight in London?

I will need to sleep overnight once or twice each week during May and June in London. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can arrange this cheaply? I only need somewhere from about 10pm or 11pm until the morning. I would be happy to sleep on a clean floor, or even in a small tent, provided it is safe. I would not want to be in a Salvation Army hostel or among down-and-outs though. Thanks 89.242.47.252 (talk) 18:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

YMCA? Youth Hostels Association (England and Wales)? --Dweller (talk) 18:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Or other "backpackers hostel". There is one in Earls Court, for instance. 81.131.41.170 (talk) 18:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If you have a tent and don't mind commuting, there are several campsites within 10 miles of central London.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 19:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Bunk down in Hyde Park, or any other. If the police bring you in, well, that's still a bed. Vranak (talk) 19:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Hyde Park would not generally be considered a safe place to spend the night, even if the police were not extremely likely to move you on. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a friend who's stayed in a youth hostel in London a few times when visiting friends. He hasn't been brutally murdered. Yet. ;-) 131.111.248.99 (talk) 21:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Also see Wikitravel. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm no longer a youth unfortunately. I'd prefer somewhere I could book now. I wish there were "tube" hotels as in Japan. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 22:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

There are such things in London - they are called "Capsule hotels" (presumably because "tube" has an entirely different meaning in London). Here is one [13]. Google "Capsule hotel london". (I checked on Google maps - there are four "easyHotels" in central London and another in Heathrow. SteveBaker (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Youth hostels no-longer cater only to youths; anyone can use them. And (for a very modest increment) you can get your own room (or share a two-person room) rather than sleep in a big dormitory. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Do they still have bunk beds in YHAs? I wouldn't like to sleep on the top bunk, I'd be worried about falling off. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 23:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

When I was going back and forth to London (a few years ago, mind you), the cheapest option turned out to be University Halls of Residence, which are often let for general use over the summer months. The one I used was very close to Russell Square tube, and cost about £20/night including breakfast/linens for a single room. This website provides some links. As far as I know, there is no age restriction. I would also second the suggestion about youth hostels; the ones I've used have had a wide variety of guests (including families with children) and have been fairly reasonably priced. One issue can sometimes be noise - check out reviews on a site like hostels.com for pros and cons. I've also used capsule hotels in London; very nice, but ended up rather pricey (for me, at least). --Kateshortforbob _talk 12:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

How about looking into Couchsurfing? Not sure about coverage in London though. Astronaut (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Would like suggestiosn for history investigation

Alright I'm studying history and as part of our exams we must do an investigation and write up about some event (It can be literally anything from a rugby tour to a ship sinking to a battle) before 1993. I need to write about 1,500 words on the subject and I need have a couple of sources. The more obscure the subject the better, stuff liek the berlin wall, holocaust, lusitania etc that everyone knows about usually do very poorly, while stuff about some submarine accident nobody has heard of usually do quite well. So basically it shouldn't be too well known, but there needs to be books and other sources on the subject. I'm not quite sure what I'm interested in, but I would prefer to do it about soemthing that happened after 1919. I would really appreciate it if you could suggest a few things. Thanks!--92.251.180.170 (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Any country in particular? And from 1919 until what date? BrainyBabe (talk) 22:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The OP indicated 1919 to 1992. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I've always been fascinated by the rise and fall of Leon Trotsky, especially the gory death. Historians do love a gory death. And most of your peers are more likely to focus on Stalin or Lenin than Trotsky, so your bored teacher may be pleasantly surprised. --Dweller (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Beware that teachers don't generally consider copying from Wikipedia to be proper investigation. Taking the example of Leon Trotsky mentioned above, look at the list of references given on that page. Such references contain a wealth of information sources that go beyond what Wikipedia has, some of it as obscure as you could wish for. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

For a couple of UK events, how about Ronan Point or the Munich air crash? 1960's architecture and (especially) football are potentially interesting subjects to write about after you've covered the facts of the event. Tevildo (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're in the UK, you could look at Timeline of British history, pick a period (say, 1970-89), pick a year (say, 1986), find a topic that looks interesting (say, "17 April, Journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in Beirut, where three other hostages are found dead"), do some reading around the subject, and take it from there. Obviously, there are similar articles for other countries as well. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Ooo, you could research the Windscale fire. It's the first of the three big nuclear reactor accidents, the worst in the UK, and happened in 1957 - meaning it's well within your timescale and there's lots written about it. It also has the advantage that the BBC made a pretty good documentary about it in 2007: if you can get your hands on that, it will give you a lot of context and a good overview to get you started. It has all sorts of links to WW2 and the Cold War, if you want those, and to the generally political situation in the UK at the time. Plus, you can make it very relevant to recent problems at Sellafield - showing the importance of learning from history. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 00:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

How obscure your event can be depends on your access to sources. If you can get to the important repositories like the National Archives or the British Library then you could do some really good digging and uncover a story that hasn't been written about extensively. Otherwise make sure you pick something where there are lots of contrasting viewpoints available - look for a subject on which there has been a lively debate in the history magazines and journals. There was quite an interesting spat about the BBC's suppression of The War Game in the Journal of Contemporary History not that long ago (abstract here). Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You want obscure? Interesting? Unlikely even? How about the Boston Molasses Disaster (which happened on January 15, 1919...not exactly "after 1919" but close enough!) - there are plenty of references for you to follow - even a relatively recent book on the subject. Somewhat more obscure (and in a similar vein) is the London Beer Flood. SteveBaker (talk) 02:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I saw a TV show about the Romanian Revolution of 1989/downfall of Nicolae Ceauşescu and found the events really interesting; outside of Romania they are probably not nearly as well known as events like the fall of the Berlin Wall or end of the USSR. AlexiusHoratius 02:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Learning about Bretton Woods will introduce you to many of the most important subjects of the post-WWII era, at least in the "western world." It's obscure to most people (though standard stuff to the better-educated), and will impress your teacher. AND you can do a good 1500-word summary. 63.17.36.101 (talk) 04:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If you can understand Bretton Woods, you belong in a master's program, not high school. One interesting UK item that's kind of obscure (at least in North America) is the Great Smog, an air pollution event that killed thousands of people in London. Another environmental tragedy was the Bhopal disaster of 1984 which got a lot of attention at the time but is hardly ever mentioned now (again in North America). One thing you could do is focus on something that is obscure in your country (Ireland, judging from your IP address) but well-known elsewhere in the English-speaking world, ensuring there will be a lot of sources to work with. The racial integration of baseball is a fascinating topic. So is Operation Entebbe and Canada's October Crisis. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I suspect your teacher is more interested in how you set about your investigation than in the obscurity of the facts you collect. Your 1 500 words goal seems adequate to include your own account of what you set out to do, what leads you followed and how far they took you. End with a summary of what you gained from the experience. I describe what I would try but it would be wise if possible to check first whether your teacher is okay with that approach. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Given this is specifically a history course, about GCSE by the sound of it, I doubt that is what the teacher wants. Far more likely that they want them to demonstrate the historian skills of researching and writing up what sources say, weighing them and reaching a conclusion. The teacher doesn't want to know "...and then I went to the library and looked for books on 20th century Britain. I found a good one and checked the index..." 86.177.121.239 (talk) 15:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

...and definitely don't tell your teacher "what you gained from the experience." That is a recipe for disaster with even a high school history paper unless it is explicitly asked-for. It will be seen as a way to pad out any other kind of paper. --98.217.71.237 (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Another possibility (if you don't want to go with any of our suggestions) is that you can type any year number into our search box (over on the left there) and hit "Go" and you'll get to an article with all of the events of that year laid out. So if you want something after 1919, just look at the 1920 article and you'll see a LONG list of notable events, births and deaths of notable people, who won the Nobel prizes that year, etc. SteveBaker (talk) 13:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Submarine accident you say? This is quite possibly the most catastrophic death ever experienced by a human being. LargeScaleForest (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Able Archer 83. "This relatively obscure incident is considered by many historians to be the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I recommend some sort of local history event. It's obscure, because no one cares about local history anymore, but it's easily researched in the microfilm room of the local library.

One of those sepia-toned books from Arcadia Publishing would be a good start.

Or just pull a random roll of microfilm from the local library's collection and write about the most interesting event that you happen to notice. APL (talk) 18:46, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Haha I would have liked to do the london beer flood but unfortunately I'll have a hard time finding sources for that. According to references section in our Operation Entebbe article, however, there are a lot of books on the subject yet it's still quite interesting an different/ I'll go with that. Thanks a lot!--92.251.153.209 (talk) 23:33, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Start with your available sources, since you probably don't want to spend a lot of time searching for basic information. If you have access to a library, get the bound copies of a magazine for 1946 and write about what happened at a particular time -- everything from fashion to politics, economics and sports. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

March 1

When did Wikipedia get talk pages for their articles?

These edits from 2001[14][15] show editors discussing an article in the article itself. Did Wikipedia not have article talk pages back then? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

No, we originally used manually created subpages. You added /Talk to the article and created an Article/Talk subpage for the discussion. Sometimes people tried to split the discussion by also adding a /Discussion page or whatever as a second subpage! Rmhermen (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The legacy of which is that talk pages are called .. well, Talk pages, that is, their actual title is "Talk:<article name>", yet to get to such a "Talk" page you click on a tag called "Discussion". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

An etymological mixed metaphor, I expect: "talk" would likely be from Anglo-Saxon, "discussion" would likely be from Latin via French. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Are there no references anywhere for what Wikipedia was like in the early days? That's something I'd love to read... Vimescarrot (talk) 21:34, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Did some Googling, and...ewww! [16]! Vimescarrot (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey, that looks familiar. Guess I must have been there :-) 93.97.184.230 (talk) 19:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I was going to make a hilarious joke about how Israeli–Palestinian conflict probably didn't even need to be semi-protected at that point; and then I looked at Israeli–Palestinian conflict just now, only to find: It's not protected at all! Good for Wikipedia. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 22:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I just checked the date on the first linked edit - Wikipedia was only 8 days old at the time. There wasn't a lot of procedures and rules back then! Rmhermen (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Still in nascent stages but I started "Wikipedia:Time machine" some time ago. About half the links on the page point at the versions of the pages as they existed as of April 28, 2002.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The earliest versions of Wikipedia ran on Hollerith cards. It could get a little tedious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Hollerith cards? You were lucky to have Hollerith cards! We had to make paper tape out of wet seaweed! DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Seaweed would have been a luxury for us. We were so poor we had to run Unix on an Abacus with rusty wires and one bead. No I tell a lie, we couldn't afford a bead. Or wires. But we were happy. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:42, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The earliest surviving version of Wikipedia Announcements [17] has part of the explanation for the move away from subpage in article space (while being full of links to non-article subpages including /Talk) Rmhermen (talk) 13:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In the very earliest days, discussion did take place on articles, but editors were already being asked to use /Talk subpages by early March 2001. Warofdreams talk 16:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Paper US dollars in cents

Can you tell me if there was ever paper US dollars printed for value of 10 cents? My friend found a bill like this in her attic in her grandfathers wallet and we would like to know if it is real or not? Reesie123 (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, such bills were printed in the 19th century. See Fractional currency, and also Shinplaster. If it doesn't look like the one in the first article, does it have the name of a bank on it? --Anonymous, 21:30 UTC, March 1, 2010.

Before that, also. Though most of them proved to be "not worth a Continental". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

People who write essays for money

There are loads of "buy your term paper" websites out there, and I'm just wondering where they find their staff? By kidnapping PhD students and getting them hooked on smack? Or do they just take your money, send out a page or two of word salad, and do a runner? 89.195.94.188 (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Our article R2C2 is about a firm which runs several of these web sites, and which is being attacked via copyright infringement claims. The article claims the practice of selling the term papers is illegal in 17 U.S. states. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I see, so they are taking essays that already exist and reworking them just enough to pass through a copy detection program. Thanks, though I'm disappointed. I did hope there was some kind of secret society of geniuses dedicated to saving college slackers (for a suitable fee ;-)) 89.195.94.188 (talk) 23:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I recently came across a listing for a term paper writer on Craigslist. It was a piecework payment offer. Woogee (talk) 23:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

There are ads for this kind of thing posted all over university campuses (well, mine anyway). Sometimes it's a company, but it usually seems to be grad students looking to make some extra money writing for undergrads. I had a friend who did this for awhile. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you know if your friend earned a decent hourly rate doing that, and if he got in trouble at all? 89.195.71.84 (talk) 13:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

He didn't get in trouble but it wasn't financially worthwhile. Whether the students got in trouble for submitting something that obviously wasn't their own work, I don't know...it seems to me that this would be the biggest problem. From my limited teaching experience it is pretty easy to tell when that happens. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

There are two types of things here. One is where you buy "pre-written" essays (e.g. essays that other students wrote for their own classes). The other is where you pay someone to write them for you from scratch. The latter necessarily will cost a lot more—you are paying someone to do significant work for you—than the former, where the work has already been done. There was an article about this... somewhere. Maybe in the New York Times, a year or two ago? I can't find it on a quick search, but I definitely read something on this. Note that for a graduate student in a given discipline, writing a passing undergraduate term paper is not very hard. They write a lot of papers over the course of their graduate career (assuming we are talking about humanities here), they grade a lot of these kinds of papers too, and thus they know the genre and expectations for undergraduate work quite well. (Indeed, a large part of graduate study is just learning the particular genre of the field—what the "right" type of question to ask is, how to answer it correctly, how to structure the paper so the logic goes in the expected order, etc.) Writing a solid 5-15 page essay is not a big deal for an English or History Ph.D. candidate and can be done over the course of a day or so.

I agree that as a teacher these things are not too hard to spot. When student essay quality goes from "barely paying attention" to "clever and articulate" in one fell swoop, you know something is up (unless the student has met with you, shown signs of new interest/improvement, etc.). Unfortunately this is basically impossible to prove, and so plagiarism accusations are going to be basically nil (unlike, say, copying things off of the internet or out of library books, which is increasingly easy to diagnose thanks to Google). Even in cases where such things are egregious (I know of one student who went from being totally incomprehensible to being able to tell witty jokes in their analysis of a complex subject in one paper), they get passed on by, at worse with a somewhat diminished grade. (As compared to the dummies who copy off the internet and get kicked out of school.) --Mr.98 (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure, one might have to consider that a very sharp student is putting forth minimal effort, and then concentrates on their final paper so that they get a passing grade. That might appear to be someone else writing the paper, but there should be signs of that. Googlemeister (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In my experience, if you have read a few papers by a given student, you can usually tell when they make a quantum leap that is unusual, to say the least. It might be for legitimate reasons—they started early, got tons of input from writing tutors, etc.—or it might be for illegitimate reasons. Either way, if you can't prove the illegitimate reasons, you can't make the accusation. (Universities are afraid of being sued, etc.) You can always find ways to dock points on any essay (hooray for subjectivity and impossible standards), so if it is something where there is clearly something shady going on, you can give them less than an A, but that's about it. Even then you probably don't want to go too far. In the one case I know of, a heavily disabled student had what I would consider to be egregious help from a tutor, who basically wrote the essay as an "interpretation" of the things the student said to them. (Obviously students suffering physical disability are welcome to help... but in this particular case, the tutor was clearly involved in basically writing the entire thing themselves, including improving vastly on the student's reasoning abilities.) Even with that admission on the books (from the tutor), it was too much of a hot issue to do much with. Student got a passing but not stellar grade on the paper. Life goes on, nobody dies, the standards of the academy get a tiny bit smaller, the kid learns the wrong lesson, etc., etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

March 2

Tarim River, Lop Nur and Yellow River

Any ideas on if the Tarim River in the Taklimakan Desert in northern China reaches the Yellow River during extreme floods, or if the Shule River draining out of Lop Nur, which Tarim empties into, is hydrologically connected to the Yellow River's upper reaches? Shannon^talk _contribs 01:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Seems to go a different direction. See Tarim River and Godzareh depression. Rmhermen (talk) 02:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

As our article on the Lop Nur states, the lake is endorheic, that is, it has no outlet to the sea. The Shule River drains into the Lop Nur, not out of it. The entire Tarim Basin would have to be filled with an inland sea whose surface was more than 1000 meters above sea level before water to flow into the Yellow River. Marco polo (talk) 03:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Wait, one problem: The article about the Godzareh Depression says that it's in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the Tarim River is in Xinjiang, China and is nowhere near the Godzareh Depression, so how could the Tarim and the Godzareh be related? Nor does the Godzareh article mention Lop Nur. Shannon^talk _contribs 06:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Marketing

A large number of multiple choice questions

Marissa goes to Target to purchase school supplies for her two children. As she is approaching the check-out counter, she sees a vase she just has to have and buys it immediately. Marissa's purchase of the vase is an example of A) limited problem solving. B) impulse buying. C) routinized response behavior. D) addictive consumption.

In the consumer buying decision process, the information search stage A) yields a group of brands that a buyer views as possible alternatives. B) involves a buyer becoming aware of the need for a product. C) is not necessary when the buyer is involved in extensive decision making. D) occurs immediately after evaluation of alternatives.

The actions and activities associated with a position one holds within a group, organization, or institution constitute A) personality. B) a role. C) a motive. D) perception. E) an attitude.

Extended problem solving is the type of consumer problem-solving process that A) involves no conscious planning but rather a powerful and persistent urge to buy something. B) is the most complex problem-solving behavior, which comes into play when a purchase involves unfamiliar, expensive, or infrequently bought products. C) requires a moderate amount of time for information gathering and search.

As Brianna walks to classes, she selects, organizes, and interprets the sensations she is receiving through her sense organs. Brianna is experiencing the process of A) exposure. B) motivation. C) learning. D) attitude formation. E) perception.

Changing people's attitudes toward a firm and its marketing program is A) simple when advertisements are used. B) impossible, even if the firm uses advertisements. C) a long, expensive, and difficult task that may require extensive advertising campaigns. D) unnecessary, since consumer attitudes are of little importance. E) rarely attempted through the use of marketing practice.

Assignment of meaning to organized information inputs is called A) motivation. B) redefinition. C) learning. D) interpretation.

Temporary and dynamic factors that result from a particular set of circumstance a consumer is facing when making purchase decisions characterize A) enduring involvement. B) extended problem solving. C) selective exposure. D) situational involvement. E) selective retention —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sefcikd (talk • contribs) 03:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Marketing

When shopping for detergent, Josh looks at Tide, Fresh Start, Surf, and All and chooses the one that is on sale. These four brands make up his _________ set. A) alternate B) purchase C) consideration D) problem E) imposed

Katie is buying her first car and has narrowed her choices down to a Honda Civic, a Toyota Prius, or a Volkswagen Jetta. Katie goes on-line and posts questions to others who have experience with any of these cars, asking for reviews. Katie is most likely A) using a blog. B) an opinion leader. C) using her reference groups for information. D) experiencing enduring involvement.

For which of the following products would a consumer most likely use limited problem solving? A) Detergent B) Toothpaste C) Automobile D) Hair dryer

Jose and Teresa are searching for a new cellular phone. They will most likely engage in which one of the following forms of problem solving? A) Extended problem solving B) Limited problem solving C) Impulse buying D) Routinized response behavior

When individuals choose which information inputs will reach their awareness and ignore other inputs, they are using A) perception. B) selective distortion. C) selective exposure. D) cognitive dissonance. E) selective retention.

Johnson's Industrial Pest Control Service wants to meet its customers' expectations with regard to the quality of service it provides. How should Johnson's identify these expectations? A) Conduct market research. B) Use management judgment. C) Trace existing service levels. D) Stress quality service with employees. E) Train employees better.

Kroger Grocery Store is an example of a reseller. Which of the following factors concerning reseller purchase decisions is false? A) Resellers are concerned with the level of demand for the product. B) Resellers are not concerned with how much space the product takes up as long as it has a high price. C) Resellers want producers to be able to supply adequate quantities of the product. D) Resellers are concerned with the availability of technical and promotional assistance from the producer. E) Resellers are concerned with the markup percentage they can get on the product.

Goodyear is a manufacturer and marketer of tires for new passenger cars. In recent years, the company's business has declined because of the overall decrease in consumer demand for new cars. In this case, the demand for Goodyear's tire products is said to be _______since it depends on the demand for new cars. A) inelastic B) fluctuating C) derived D) elastic E) nonderived

Which of the following would be considered an institutional buyer? A) The University of Illinois B) The Environmental Protection Agency C) Apple Computers D) The United Way E) City of Greenville

Business markets are typically divided into four categories. These categories are A) retailers, wholesalers, services, and nonprofit firms. B) producer, manufacturer, reseller, and government. C) producer, reseller, government, and institutional. D) manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, and services. E) reseller, retailer, government, and institutional. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sefcikd (talk • contribs) 03:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This is an example of:

A) homework B) blatant homework C) cleverly-disguised homework D) not homework (honest!) E) all of the above. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Marketing

Perry Supply's sales and sales force have continued to expand. Now, the firm plans to add a fleet of company cars as part of its sales compensation package. For Perry Supply, these vehicles would represent a ____________ purchase. A) modified rebuy B) straight rebuy C) new-task D) reevaluated E) repetitive

Retailers like Target and Kmart are considered to be members of which business market? A) Reseller B) Customer C) Producer D) Institutional E) Services

If a business owner buys parts by specifying the quantity, grade, and other attributes, which buying method is he or she using? A) Description B) Sampling C) Negotiation D) Ordering

A friend of yours starts his own business. He would like to expand his client base to include the government, but he believes his small business would be ignored. Based on your knowledge from the text, you tell him A) that he's absolutely right, the government doesn't deal with small businesses. B) although the government will deal with small businesses, he will never make a profit off a government contract. C) that any government, federal, state, or local would laugh at the size of his business. D) the government rarely considers new suppliers when making purchasing decisions. E) the government buys products from all sizes of business, but there is some red tape.

_________ is(are) a major threat to the sales success of jointly demanded products. A) Price changes B) Shortages C) Economic instability D) Inventory buildup E) Proliferation of brands

Safeway Supermarkets recently placed an order with the Kahn Corporation. Safeway has ordered these same products before under the same terms of sale. What type of purchase does this situation represent? A) New-task B) Repetitive C) Institutional D) Straight rebuy E) Modified rebuy

The stages of the business buying decision process, in order, are A) recognizing the problem, establishing product specifications, searching for products and evaluating possible suppliers, selecting suppliers and products, and evaluating performance. B) recognizing the problem, searching for products and evaluating possible suppliers, selecting suppliers and products, establishing product specifications, and evaluating performance. C) recognizing the problem, selecting suppliers and products, evaluating performance, establishing product specifications, and searching for substitute products. D) establishing product specifications, recognizing the problem, searching for products, evaluating possible products and suppliers, selecting suppliers and products, and evaluating performance.

Individuals and business organizations that buy finished goods and resell them to make a profit without changing the physical characteristics of the product are classified as ___________ markets. A) consumer B) institutional C) producer D) government E) reseller

When a business routinely purchases the same product with similar terms of sale, the purchase is called a A) new-task. B) repetitive purchase. C) straight rebuy. D) modified rebuy.

Christy Bridgman is considering the purchase of a new fax machine for her real estate office. She is considering a machine that doesn't have as many functions but is available at a considerably lower price than her current machine. She is engaged in ___________ analysis. A) vendor B) downsizing C) strategic D) value —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sefcikd (talk • contribs) 03:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Marketing

Many companies choose to standardize their _____ across national boundaries to maintain a consistent and well-integrated corporate culture. A) technology B) ethical behavior C) language D) dress code

Organizations that employ standardized products, promotion campaigns, and prices for all markets are practicing what is known as A) customization. B) internationalization. C) globalization. D) regionalization.

Which of the following lists the levels of involvement in global marketing from the lowest to the highest? A) International marketing, limited exporting, domestic marketing, globalized marketing B) Limited exporting, domestic marketing, globalized marketing, international marketing C) Globalized marketing, international marketing, limited exporting, domestic marketing D) Domestic marketing, globalized marketing, international marketing, limited exporting E) Domestic marketing, limited exporting, international marketing, globalized marketing

How does using an exporting intermediary limit the risk involved with global marketing? A) Most exporting intermediaries assume all financial risks on behalf of their clients. B) Exporting intermediaries are not subject to the same laws as companies, and therefore limit the legal risk involved. C) Using an exporting intermediary restricts a company to being involved with joint ventures and not direct ownership. D) Exporting intermediaries guarantee that the products a company is selling will be a good fit for the foreign markets they are entering. E) This approach involves limited risk because the company has no direct investment in the foreign country.

Use the following to answer question KFC opened its first franchised restaurant outside of North America in England in 1964. Now, over a billion KFC chicken dinners are sold annually at more than 80 countries and territories around the world. KFC has established its own processing plants in these countries to ensure the quality of its chickens and other food items. In the U.S., the menu at KFC is usually the same in all restaurants, with only a very few additional items available in different regions. However, when KFC first franchised into Asian countries, it added many unusual local delicacies to the menu -- items such as fried octopus and squid. Additionally, the franchised stores in Asian countries display cooked food in "plates" near windows at the front of the store. This is a tradition for many restaurants in these countries -- to offer the customer passing by a preliminary view of their product.

The practice of offering fried octopus and squid at Asian KFC's is best described as A) a strategy of standardization. B) a strategy of globalization. C) a strategy of some customization. D) competitive advantage. E) internationalizing the franchise.

If a U.S. bicycle tire manufacturer has to form a partnership with the government of Indonesia in order to gain access to the country's rubber, a _____ has been formed. A) multinational enterprise B) contract manufacturing arrangement C) strategic alliance D) franchise E) joint venture

Many marketers claim that ____ will become the world's largest market. A) Japan B) the United States C) China D) Thailand E) India

Another name for the European Union is A) the Common Market. B) the European Market. C) the Euro. D) NAFTA. E) AECO.

Which of the following would be a benefit to a franchiser, such as Jiffy Lube, in expanding into international marketing? A) There are no risks involved with allowing a foreign franchisee. B) The franchiser does not have to put up a large capital investment. C) The franchiser does not have to share its name or operational procedures. D) The franchisee only pays a set fee every month to the franchiser. E) An equal partnership is formed between the franchiser and franchisee.

Standardizing many Nike and Adidas shoe models worldwide is an example of A) globalization. B) customization. C) nationalization. D) culturalization. E) internationalization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sefcikd (talk • contribs) 03:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Marketing

____ refers to the idea that morality varies from one culture to another and that business practices are therefore differentially defined as right or wrong by particular cultures. A) The self-reference criterion B) Global ethics C) Economic relativism D) Cultural relativism E) Moral relativism

If Tasmania levied a duty on all goods purchased from the United States and other countries outside its borders that were brought into Tasmania, its businesses and citizens would be paying a(n) A) embargo. B) import tariff. C) travelers' tax. D) export tax. E) foreign duty.

If Hyundai, a Korean automobile manufacturing firm, started selling its cars at unfairly low prices to Germany, Hyundai would be engaging in A) quota-enforcing. B) embargoing. C) shoveling. D) dumping. E) dipping.

If The Limited Company relies on hiring a foreign textile manufacturer to produce a designated amount of clothing for its Express, Limited, and other stores, it is using A) exporting. B) franchising. C) contract manufacturing. D) a joint venture. E) licensing.

Use the following to answer question Harley-Davidson Motors manufactures all of its motorcycles in the U.S. at one of four sites. With a large number of its bikes sold in markets all around the world, it still retains the manufacturing close to the headquarters for several reasons, one being that its management wants to keep close watch on the quality of its products. However, for all the accessories, apparel, and other riding gear, Harley-Davidson contracts out to other manufacturers to produce the items with the Harley name and logo. Some of these items, particularly the apparel, are made in China. Lately, some members of the Harley Owners' Group (HOG) have been complaining to the company about this practice, citing that "everything Harley should be made in America".

Harley-Davidson's practice of having manufacturers in China produce apparel items with the Harley logo is an example of A) contract manufacturing B) globalization C) direct ownership D) joint venture

E) exporting —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sefcikd (talk • contribs) 03:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. -- 174.21.237.55 (talk) 03:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

13 (number)

Is 13 an unlucky number??? why do you think so? according to whom it is unlucky??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.241.195 (talk) 06:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Read Triskaidekaphobia and see what you think. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Many people (myself included) consider it to be a lucky number. Dbfirs 08:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

13 has associations with pagan and witch rituals - there are 13 lunar months in a year (more or less) and a lot of pagan rituals and festivals follow the lunar calendar. further, witch covens supposedly contain 12 witches, with the 13th person being the invoked devil or demonic figure, and also gather on a lunar cycle. superstition...--Ludwigs2 08:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Just want to enlarge on Ludwigs2's "supposedly." From my studies of historical and current Paganisms and Witchcraft/Wicca, those traditions themselves did not and do not attribute anything negative to the number 13, 'covens' never had any set number of members, and the various relevant religions/traditions did not invoke "the devil" or "demons," which were Judaeo-Christian concepts alien to them. Wiccans generally assume that the 13−witchcraft association was like much else attributed by mediaeval churchmen inventing excuses to persecute, who derived it from their own 'number at the Last Supper' superstitions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

yes, that sounds correct. sorry, I was speaking from the Christian subjective, and I expect that non-Christians have a decidedly different view of it. --Ludwigs2 02:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No apology necessary, Ludwigs2. I was as I said "enlarging" on an aspect of your answer, not objecting to it per se :-). 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It is only "unlucky" (whatever that means) insofar as the group of those who agree to it being unlucky agree. It's sort of not different than a club forming whose basis is to detest the unluckiness of the color green. Unless such information has been provided from outside the vagaries of human intellect (such as by divine revelation, perhaps), how could the whim of a person contact and affect the infinite, intangible nature of a number to define it as unlucky? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a poser. I'll have to get back to you, after I've studied my astrology charts, tarot cards, and several Bazooka bubble gum wrappers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It's sort of the rationale I give to why a time machine is impossible. Now granted, Aristotle would have denied the existence of the possibility of one object moving another object without physically touching it (something we can today describe as magnetism)...and perhaps I will be similarly disproved when the time machine is indeed built, but I'd sure like to know how it works. Because time literally exists outside of our existence, in that time is independent of our actions, how could one so to speak "tap into it" -- how would that possibly be accomplished? How would a time circuit be linked to time itself? So how could a number be unlucky, and if it 'twer, how would we ever know about it? Unless such information originated from a similarly independent, pervasive, all-powerful entity (similar to the rules of math, I mean), how could/would we justify such an assertion? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Because space literally exists outside of our existence, in that space is independent of our actions, how could one so to speak "tap into it" -- how would that possibly be accomplished? How would a space circuit be linked to space itself? I just don't see how we could ever possible build a machine to travel through space. :P I've seen a lot of objections to time travel (beyond that which we do automatically in one direction at 1 s/s), but this is the first time I've seen someone use 'time exists' as the reason! 86.177.121.239 (talk) 02:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Making a white mask that drapes over one's whole head

Guy Fawkes masks

Hi, I'm looking for a cheap way to make a mask that drapes over your whole head, prefably with cloth, like how the Slender Man looks like. Any way I can go about doing it? --116.14.194.30 (talk) 06:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Buy a single bed sheet from your local market. You can stick it together with sticky tape. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

And stay out of the Southeast US. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In case you didn't catch it, DRosenbach is almost certainly referring to the ku klux klan. And his advice is very good. I have no idea what "Slender Man" you are talking about, but the white mask symbol is considered to be extremely hateful (I'd say in all of the USA, but especially the Southeast) and this is not a message that you want to convey unwittingly. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 14:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

From my understanding of the "slender man", the OP is looking for something more like the headpiece of a Zentai suit than a KKK hood. FiggyBee (talk) 14:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, from looking at Ultra_Monsters and Ultra_series I gathered that this character is from a Japanese genre. Given that the IP maps to Singapore, the OP "ain't from around here" (to use the Southern vernacular) so it probably won't be an issue. We're just being a little over-cautious, I suppose. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 14:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I had no idea what the OP was talking about, so I Googled "Slender man" and got something entirely different from these "Ultra" things that you're referring to. It's been a few days but the Slender Man that I came up with was a creation of a discussion forum from what I recall. They made him up only to have people start reporting "sightings" later on. Dismas|^(talk) 05:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

These not good enough? (attached image to the right). --Mark PEA (talk) 18:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Help finding a BBC news story?

In the car just a few minutes ago, I heard a news story from the BBC about the Boy Scouts in Palestine. They were talking about how the people from England brought the scouting movement to Palestine. And then the Scouts were part of the riots against the people from England. I'd like to find a link to that story online but I can't seem to. Can anyone lend me a hand? Dismas|^(talk) 09:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Which BBC radio station were you listening to? You can probably listen to the broadcast again for the next few days on the BBC website. I can't find an online news source either. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It was on the American NPR affiliate near me. Dismas|^(talk) 09:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I remember hearing the item, which included a clip of a Palestinian piper playing "Scotland the Brave". I think that the original item was broadcast on the 1st March edition of BBC Radio Four's daily Today programme. Programme is available on BBC iPlayer here. The whole programme is 3 hours long, but the item you want is probably between 30 minutes and 1 hour in. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Finding items on Today is easier than that if you refer to the daily summaries on the Today page of the BBC website. Yesterday's summary is here, with links to sound files. Unfortunately, however, there's no mention of Boy Scouts or Palestine. I've checked the previous few days' summaries as well, no sign of it there either. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I've tried searching the BBC website for Scouts+Palestine but nothing looking like this came up. Dismas, do you remember who the reporter was? It sounds to me more like a FOOC item than a Today item. DuncanHill (talk) 10:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That's From Our Own Correspondent, for those not in the know. The FOOC website here divides recent shows up into chapters as well, but nothing about Scouts or Palestine is coming up there either. What strikes me is that this doesn't sound like a news item. Unless I'm missing some present-day angle from Dismas' description, it sounds like a historical thing. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I had a quick look on teh BBC website but couldn't find anything. we do have Palestinian Scout Association, but its history is weak; if the audio is found, could a link be added to our article? BrainyBabe (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I have now confirmed that the item was broadcast on the 1st March edition of Today; BBC iPlayer link is here; timestamp from 0:47:15 to 0:51:20. No point adding link to article, though, as BBC iPlayer only makes programmes available for a limited time after broadcast - generally a week or so for most things. Warning - contains bagpipes. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Looks like those daily summaries I mentioned don't include every item broadcast, which seems pointless. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all for the help, especially to Gandalf! Sorry for the delay in getting back to this subject. Dismas|^(talk) 05:42, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing euro coins and banknotes

Why aren't there any regular euro coins with the nominals ½ eurocent (or 0.5 eurocent), ¼ euro (or 25 eurocent), or 5 euro? Why aren't there any euro banknotes with the nominals 1 euro, 2 euro, or 1000 euro? --88.76.18.70 (talk) 09:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

There would be no demand for the first two coins, since they are too small to be worth bothering with. A 5 euro coin would be nice. 1 eur and 2 notes aren't necessary because we have those as coins. (Interestingly, the British £1 note fell out of favour and was replaced with the coin, but in the USA the $1 bill still holds sway over the corresponding coin.) Much of the eurozone is more cash based than the UK or USA, but I'm not sure there would be much of a demand for a 1000 eur note either. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The pound note didn't fall out of favour, it was just cheaper to make coins than notes. DuncanHill (talk) 10:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It fell out of favour with me. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

If any other British banknotes fall out of favour with you, I'll take them off your hands for a very reasonable fee. DuncanHill (talk) 17:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) My completely unreferenced answers:

• ½ eurocent - because the coin would cost more to make than it'd be worth (negative seigniorage). In some countries, low-value coins which are no longer worth producing have been withdrawn from circulation. For example, the smallest circulating coins in Australia and New Zealand are now 5 and 10 cents, respectively (and see also Efforts to eliminate the penny in the United States).
• ¼ euro - most currencies use 20 and 50 cent denominations rather than 25. The US 25 cent coin is a relic of the "piece of eight" origins of the dollar (with a decimal quarter being the equivalent of a 2 real coin).
• euro banknotes with the nominals 1 euro, 2 euro - because there are coins of those denominations, which are cheaper/easier to make (compared to lifespan).
• 1000 euro - because there's not much demand for high-value notes with today's credit and debit cards, and they'd be prime targets for counterfeiting and organised crime. I'm surprised that the 200 and 500 notes exist (see the 500 euro note article for the problems associated with it), but they may be in more demand in the more cash-heavy societies of the EU.

FiggyBee (talk) 10:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The logic may be clearer if the example of Britain is used, where coins and notes occupying similar positions have been discontinued. The halfpenny was eliminated because it was of too little value, the twenty-five pence was discontinued because it was uneconomic to make such a large coin of such small value, and the twenty pence was instead introduced soon after, and the five pounds is only issued for commemorative purposes, but could conceivably at some point follow the two pounds into general circulation. Although there's never been a two pound note, the one pound note was replaced by the one pound coin, except in Scotland where both notes and coins circulate. Scottish and Northern Irish banks also issue one hundred pound notes, but the Bank of England removed them from circulation during World War II, in the face of counterfeiting concerns, and have not issued them since. Warofdreams talk 13:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Some of us are (in my case only just) old enough to remember the withdrawal of the Farthing. As that article states, continued inflation has rendered the real worth of the current "one pee" less than half that of the farthing at its withdrawal. The logic of value alone would suggest that the 1p coin should be discontinued, though this would also make the sum of 3p unattainable.

After UK Decimalisation on Decimal Day in 1971, which both increased the value of the smallest available monetary unit and removed an entire 'step' in the currency (since £1=20s=240d → £1=100p), many of the public formed the impression that retail prices began to rise more steeply. My conjecture at the time was that the removal of the 19 'psychological barriers' of the shilling steps made price increases less noticeable and memory-based comparative shopping more difficult.

I have never seen a formal study of this, although text near the end of Decimalisation - "decimalisation in the United Kingdom . . . studied by the European Central Bank . . . the likely effects on inflation . . . where one euro cent . . . was greater in value than the smallest coin in circulation before the transition." - suggests that there have been some. Anyone got a link to such? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

A Song of Hope Oodgeroo (Kath Walker)

Does anyone know when the poem "A Song of Hope" by Kath Walker, was first published? If you can tell me from what book, of which Kath Walker wrote, it comes from then I can work it out from there? Thanks. 220.233.83.26 (talk) 11:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This (page 2) says that it was written in the 1960s. Perhaps first book publication was in The Dawn Is at Hand (1966)—at least, it's in a 1990 edition with that title (page 65, according to the Table of Contents). That's not conclusive, since sometimes the same title is used for collections with different contents, but it's suggestive. Deor (talk) 12:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Choice

What is the term used to describe a choice were either option is as bad as the other? Think it might be a biblical term thanks. Mo ainm~Talk 12:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a no-win situation to me, but I can't come up with a Biblical reference. Morton's fork and Hobson's choice are not quite the same thing; in the former, all roads lead to the same (bad) conclusion, and in the latter you don't really have any choice at all. FiggyBee (talk) 12:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Not choosing should technically be considered a choice. Googlemeister (talk) 19:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

... a choice that's clear — I will choose free will. Hope you're happy; no telling how long that'll be playing in my head now :-). --Trovatore (talk) 00:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Scylla and Charybdis? (Though that's from Greek myth.) More prosaically perhaps, Between a rock and a hard place. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Between the devil and the deep blue sea is another one, though again, not Biblical. Alansplodge (talk) 12:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Zugzwang is one possibility, but it quite specifically refers to a situation where one player [in a game] is put at a disadvantage because he has to make a move – the player would prefer to pass and make no move. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

If biblical you want perhaps you are thinking of Balaam's ass more about someone trying to force you into a bad choice really though. meltBanana 12:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Classically, this is a dilemma. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The Talmud uses the term mimah nafshach, although this doesn't refer to bad choices -- it's loose translation would be, "either way, it makes no difference." As that's the Oral Torah of Judaism, I'd say it meets the biblical criteria, but it probably wasn't what you had in mind...but it could be now. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Or as the sage Yogi Berra said, in one of his more famous comments, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Could it be the term "splitting the baby"? It comes from the Judgment of Solomon in the Book of Kings where two women were arguing over which one was the mother of the baby. Solomon wisely decrees that the baby be cut in half, whereupon the real mother, in order to save the baby's life, instead begs for him to give the baby to the other (false) mother. Solomon used this deceit to discover the true mother's identity and the baby was returned to her. Apparently the legal profession sometimes (mis)uses this phrase in situations where something must be divided. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 13:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

First thing that came to mind was Sophie's Choice. Livewireo (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You could be between a rock and a hard place, or about to jump from the frying pan into the fire. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Or damned if you do, damned if you don't. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

My folks' favorite: "Between the devil and a man eating possum" (which somehow calls up the image of a guy with a cooked possum on his plate.)Edison (talk) 20:45, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Fun Websites

Big fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson. What science websites are similar to his approach to astronomy?--Reticuli88 (talk) 14:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. For some reason a link to www dot badastronomy dot com comes back as being on the blacklist, yet it's linked in Phil Plait's article. If you're looking for more astronomy, that's a site I'd check out (and associated blog). Matt Deres (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

How about Sten Odenwald's Astronomy Cafe? [18] --TammyMoet (talk) 17:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be about astronomy. Just something to do with science. Thanks tho, Tammy! --Reticuli88 (talk) 18:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Underground levels

What is the structure with the most underground levels? --88.76.18.70 (talk) 15:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean? Please be more specific. Do you mean underground levels in a carpark, a building or something like that? Or do you mean an underground railway like the London Underground in the UK? Chevymontecarlo. 16:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

What is the building with the most underground levels? --88.76.18.70 (talk) 17:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in this discussion thread (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/archive/index.php/t-281375.html) which covers this. The link to here (http://www.hep.umn.edu/soudan/brochure.html) shows a building which is apparently 690m below the surface. ny156uk (talk) 18:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, the Petronas Towers have the deepest foundation of the world's above-ground buildings, so it may have the most underground levels. According to this site, there are nine underground levels, five of them for parking. Marco polo (talk) 21:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm currently working onsite at an almost finalized pumped-storage power plant, and we have twelve floors underground. Well, seven of those are just for the staircase, the lift shaft and for access to pipes and ducts, but still. There is a powerhouse with the control center and transformers on top of all of those floors, so technically it is a building with that much underground. Of course that may not be what the OP is looking for, but I'm sure there's even deeper PSPPs out there, this one is relatively small. TomorrowTime (talk) 07:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

YouTube quicklist auto-delete and YouTube HD

Is there any way to set quicklists up to auto-delete videos after they have been viewed? Also, just what type of monitor would you need to use YouTube HD and watch videos that have been filmed in high definition? Thanks. Chevymontecarlo. 16:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

See the article YouTube for a table of the formats used. PC monitors including laptop screens are available to display the formats up to HD (High Definition) 1280x720. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Police officer regulations regarding running red lights:

I'm trying to find out whether highway patrol officers in California are required to have their flashing lights and/or siren on when going through a red light. I'm in California but the law may be similar elsewhere, so anything you know would be appreciated. (I need this information quickly.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.249.101.212 (talk) 23:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be normal way in the UK.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This link is the California Vehicle Code. This section of it is titled "Authorized Emergency Vehicle", which has three links by "Rules of road applicable to". This link is a list of rules that such vehicles are exempt from, if "the vehicle is being driven in response to an emergency call or while engaged in rescue operations or is being used in the immediate pursuit of an actual or suspected violator of the law or is responding to, but not returning from, a fire alarm..."; and if "the driver of the vehicle sounds a siren as may be reasonably necessary and the vehicle displays a lighted red lamp visible from the front as a warning to other drivers and pedestrians." To answer your question, I think the answer is yes; but you'll need to read through more of the vehicle code to be sure; I only browsed it for a few minutes. There may be some other regulation filed under "traffic signals" or the like that lists exemptions to the rule you have to stop at a red light. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That sounds to me like they have to have their lights going, but the siren is at the discretion of the driver. --Tango (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In Ontario both lights (specifically, a flashing red light; blue is for snowplows) and siren are required and they also have to stop before entering the intersection. By the way, police can do it anytime they're on duty, but ambulances and fire departments can only do it in an emergency (e.g. going to a fire, not back to the fire station.) Highway Traffic Act, section 144, subsections (1) and (20). --Anonymous, 04:28 UTC, March 3, 2010.

March 3

international airport

When was the first international airport opened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 02:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

From WP's Airport: "The first international airport to open was the Croydon Airport, in South London, although an airport at Hounslow Heath had been temporarily operating as such for nine months." It opened on 3/29/20.63.17.41.138 (talk) 03:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually it opened on 29/3/20, since it was in the UK. Please use internationally recognised forms of dates, such as "March 29, 1920", or ISO 8601 1920-03-29. --ColinFine (talk) 13:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeh, that's confusing. So what does the UK call the 29th month of the year? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

We call it the "we are not so stupid as the yanks when it comes to date formats" month. A long name, I grant you, but boy do we celebrate when it rolls around. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I just think of it that the Brits are right 1 day per month (coincidentally, today), we are right the rest. Googlemeister (talk) 21:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The "we are not so stupid as the yanks when it comes to date formats" month is also known as Vigintiseptember. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 12:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

How long is a Yuga?

I'm reading the Wikipedia page on the Mahābhārata, and I don't understand how far Kakudmi and his daughter traveled. It says they traveled forward 27 catur-yugas, and then the Wikipedia page on yugas and Hindu units of measurement does not make calculating easy. From what I can glean, a catur-yuga is 4 yugas or 12,000 divine years, so if they traveled 27 of them that makes 27 X 12,000 = 324,000 divine years. And since 360 human years equal 1 divine year (it says 100 divine years = 36,000 human years so I divided), they really traveled 324000 x 360 = 116,640,000 human years? Did I do that right? Over a hundred million years? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 02:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Encyclopaedia of Hinduism, Volume 3, By N.K. Singh, p. 1273, states that catur-yugas are also known as Mahayugas, which are 12,000 divine years, which in turn are 360 human years each. If the source is correct, then the answer is 116,640,000 -- as you said. 63.17.41.138 (talk) 03:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Why don't Databases use a Google Search Algorithm?

Why don't scholarly databases like PubMed use a Google-powered search engine? Why must its users contend with very nit-picky Boolean search engines? Acceptable (talk) 04:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

For one thing, PageRank is patented by Google, so others would have to pay Google to use it, if Google would even license it to them. (e.g. Google has Google Scholar, so they may not want other competitor companies like Web of Science to have access to it.) It's not just access to PageRank. Google has a lot of tweaks and adjustments in their search engine, most of which fall under the category of trade secret, which they may not want competitors to have. A government-run system like PubMed might be different, but even then, it's at the whim of Google - for example, a university web director told me that even though Google was freely offering site search for internal university web pages, they were sticking with their old search engine, as the lawyers didn't like Google's terms and conditions. Additionally, places like PubMed have been around long before Google came into being, and may keep the same search system they have had under the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy. -- 174.21.237.55 (talk) 06:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid 174 is a bit out of the loop. Anybody can buy a Google Search Appliance. Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:11, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Scholarly database searchers frequently don't care about the popularity of articles, and are often deliberately looking for obscure articles. They may also want to exhaustively search for articles mentioning a term. So the page rank algorithm may not always be appropriate. Additionally page ranking relies on there being links between the articles, which may not be the case - or rather when it is the case, it is explicitly done through citation, which PubMed etc. already takes account of.

As an example of why page ranking is not good for scholarly searches, I have frequently tried searching (Google) for scholarly articles to fill out an unreferenced Wikipedia article; however thanks to page ranking Wikipedia itself and its many clones often "pollute the google space", occupying hundreds of the top spots, and non-relevant popular pages get promoted over relevant but unpopular pages. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem generally is that many of these private databases have been using their own do-it-yourself databases and engines for a long, long time. The result is that even if their pages could be easily indexed by the Google Search Appliance (which may or may not be true based on how they are currently designed), there is often institutional inertia and uncertainty that makes them go with the system they have been using for a long time. Additionally, they are probably afraid of breaking backwards compatibility for those users who have spent the requisite time learning how to use their engine. And it might also be the case that a Google-like engine won't produce the kinds of results that are specific for their usage. Lastly, they might not have the IT support they'd like, and converting your entire database to a new format is a non-trivial task when it involves things people care about. And there is something to be said for avoiding buying into dependence on another company's work... Google is great at what they do, at the moment, but one still might not want to put all their eggs in that particular basket. (Even Google can falter in its decisions, as its Buzz episode indicated quite clearly.) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

What is the highest bit rate Possible of a Youtube Video

When streaming Youtube videos, what is the highest possible audio bit rate of the videos? Does SD vs HD make a difference? Acceptable (talk) 04:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

1500kbps —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 11:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

For the audio? I doubt it Nil Einne (talk) 11:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The properties of a video that I downloaded from YouTube via a 3rd party site are MP4 610kbps. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 00:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Business Studies

- What are the importance of business studies to junior secondary schools in Nigeria.

- Vividly explain the challenges of business studies in Nigeria.

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

secret underground tunnles

Are there many secret underground tunnles in london? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 11:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

We don't know. If there are, they're secret. --Anonymous, 11:06 UTC, March 3, 2010.

What i mean was mostly secret from like the public and stuff but some people might know. You know like those ghost underground stations that they closed down years ago and sometimes film harry potter in them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 11:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Most of Britain's secret underground tunnels (which we know of) were a little west of London, near Corsham in Wiltshire. The Central Government War Headquarters was an entire underground city intended to provide continuity of government in case of a nuclear attack, and also housed a strategic steam reserve until the 1980s. The only part of the base still operational is the Corsham Computer Centre. FiggyBee (talk) 11:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a bit of information on rumoured tunnels in London here. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting – just checked Google Street View for one of the areas mentioned in the above link, around the Mall, Horse Guards Parade and Buckingham Palace. There are no street level views of this area, although pretty much the whole of the rest of central London is covered. Terrorism concerns, perhaps? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

"ghost underground stations that they closed down years ago and sometimes film harry potter in them": Most film work on the London Underground is done at Aldwych or the Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross, both of which were closed in the 1990s (but could be reopened in the future). FiggyBee (talk) 11:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly secret, but see closed London Underground stations and Post Office Railway. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Not in London (and not secret), but interesting - Williamson Tunnels. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Subterranea Britannia is your friend. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Also see Subterranean London, and a good read is "London Under London: A Subterranean Guide", Richard Trench and Ellis Hillman[19]. Alansplodge (talk) 15:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• So long as you don't trust it on matters of fact. Where it covers subjects I know something about, such as the Underground, I've found quite a few errors. In the section on electrical distribution I found four errors in one sentence. --Anonymous, 17:50 UTC, March 3, 2010.

Of course, some are REALLY secret...[20]. Alansplodge (talk) 15:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

[21] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.242.68 (talk) 04:56, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Rush hour

Why is the time when traffic travels slowest called the rush-hour? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendalonger (talk • contribs) 13:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Because it's when people are rushing (or trying to rush) to and from work. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Some comedian raised that question decades ago: "How come it's called rush hour when there's no moving?" It's a bit like the McDonald's "rush", i.e. lunchtime, when the lines are long and the workers have to hustle. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Dendalonger, next time you ask a question here (and you're very welcome to do so), please head it with something more meaningful than "Question". Just imagine if everyone who asks questions here called their questions "Question". Searching for a particular one would be a Kafkaesque nightmare. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

pocket money

how much pocket money does an average american kid aged 15-18 get? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.50.141.124 (talk) 15:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not have an answer for you (Sorry), but many Americans aged 15-18 have part-time jobs, They may have incomes up to a couple of hundred dollars a week, none of it coming from their parents. APL (talk) 16:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that varies pretty widely from kid to kid, depending largely on their parents and whether or not the kid (or the parent) has a job. I know when I was sixteen I was living with my folks and working part-time at a grocery store, pulling in about a hundred fifty dollars a week. This is in no way a scientific answer, but for an unemployed high school student living at home, about twenty dollars a week sounds pretty safe. AlexHOUSE (talk) 17:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Here are some facts on teen spending, which I assume is similar to teen income.

*Teen Market to Surpass $200 Billion by 2011, Despite Population Decline This is a summary of a national survey by a profesional pollster agency.

*Teen Spending Survey here is a survey run by a local (to Los Alamos) branch of the YMCA.

Hope this helps. APL (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict but I spent a while typing it out so I'm throwing it in here anyway) An average American kid that age would likely have a part-time/after-school job, and the kind of jobs most people can get at that age are usually not much more than minimum wage so... whatever minimum wage is in that particular state? If by pocket money you mean getting an allowance from parents, then it might be a little harder to find numbers for that, especially since by 15-18 I don't think most kids are relying on their parents anymore, so I'm not sure whether that would be an "average American kid." Then again, if they're only making minimum wage, they might still be getting a (smaller) amount of "pocket money" from their parents. So you see how this question gets more complicated than you were probably expecting. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Unless things in the US are even more different to the UK than I had thought, the idea that "teen spending" = "teen income" could only have come from a non-parent. ;-} Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't imagine that anyone would organize a formal survey of this information, as it falls outside the purview of regular economics. You could be the first though. Subryonic compound (talk) 18:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You can't imagine why anyone would study a $200 billion sector of the economy? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Please, prove me wrong! Anyway, there is just no money to be had in looking at how kids get their money. Getting it away from them is where the profit lies. Subryonic compound (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Not American, and I gave up long reading it closely long before it got to formula for Nash equilibria: Teenage Income, Turning 18, and Transfers within the Family 75.41.110.200 (talk) 19:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Our article allowance (money) indicates that "pocket money" is the UK term for what we call an allowance in the US. If this is correct, then income earned at a job should not be included. There are some allowance statistics here, but they're generally old and Canadian. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is an answer. "Boyhood in America" gives historical figures. In 2000, 26% of 12 to 19 year olds in the U.S. received allowances. Boys 10-12 received an average $21.90 per week. Those 13-15 received $30.50 per week. Those 16 to 19 received $41.15 per week. They saved some (to buy big-price items). In today's economy, part time jobs can be very hard to get. I wonder if some of the money counts toward "lunch money." "Girlhood in America" has similar info for girls. In 1999, the typical allowance for a high school student was $30 to $46, with girls getting $5 more than boys. I expect that teens often had more money to fritter away on things they wanted (rather than needed) than their working parents had, week in and week out, since a parent did not want his children to feel deprived of the comforts their peers had, such as the ability to go the mall and buy snacks, go to the movies, or just buy "stuff." Edison (talk) 20:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Who gets dividends?

Shares of publicly traded companies are constantly changing hands so who actually gets the dividends? Is it just whoever happens to have the shares when the dividends are issued? --212.120.245.17 (talk) 16:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Essentially yes; see ex-dividend date. -- Coneslayer (talk) 16:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

case study on human resource planing

Amar is a stenographer-working as P. A. to the Marketing Manager in Nitco Ltd. Re is an under graduate, of 32 years, unmarried, energetic and competent is his work. He is looking forward to get an executive position in some reputed company at a salary of about Rs. 12,000 p.m. He comes from a middle class family from a small town. At present he is staying with his elder brother who is married, has two children and lives in a two-room apartment. Both the brothers have to send financial assistance to the parents who are stilt staying in their home town with their youngest daughter. Amar's present job consists of secretarial work which requires a lot of typing and personal service to the Marketing Manager/and Amar does not enjoy it much. Yet he works very hard and, so far, the Manager is fairly satisfied with him. Two year back, one of the colleges in the city started evening courses, Amar's working hours were usually between 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. On some exceptional occasions, he was required to wait till late in the evening. With the encouragement of his boss, Amar joined the evening college and graduated in Commerce. He continued his studies and obtained a Law degree also. He was hoping that his education in Commerce and Law would be useful for getting an administrative job. Nitco Ltd., did not seem to provide him opportunity for advancement in an executive position. He waited for two years as the company had given him ail. the facilities and encouragement to complete his education. Later he left the organization reluctantly and joined another company where he has since become Sales Manager. Question: 1. What is the case all about? 2. Analyze the main problem in the case. 3. As a manager how would you deal the case. 4. give me the other questions that can be asked from this case study? 5. give a short summary of this case?

give the answer of all this question Prasenjitghosh (talk) 17:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Even if you were to ask politely, I'm afraid nobody here will do your homework for you. Karenjc 18:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Why the hell would he become a sales manager if he has a law degree? --Nricardo (talk) 02:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Errors in QI

I'm watching all episodes of QI and they sometimes make mistakes or contradict things they said in previous episodes. Is there a list anywhere of all the errors and false information QI has made over the series? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 18:11, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

If you go to Google and type qi errors then several websites are served up for you. The first link has what it calls a brief list. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

QI#Corrections.2C_mistakes_and_retractions. Vimescarrot (talk) 18:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The show also has a site (no idea if it's official but it has a 'qibbles' section which is kinda like what you're after). http://www.qi.com/ 18:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Arizona seat belt laws

Hello! Having read through our article on seat belt legislation in the United States, I'm under the impression that in Arizona one can ride in the backseat without a seat belt on without being fined (provided they're older than fifteen). Furthermore, since it's a "secondary enforcement," you could really only be in trouble if you were stopped for some other (primary) infraction. Is this correct, or am I way off? I'm a California native who will be cramming into a van in AZ with some friends for a trip across the border, and the concept of legally going without a belt is totally foreign to me. Thanks! AlexHOUSE (talk) 18:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Is this question out of a desire to try it? Can't see the point myself. I'm against seatbelt laws on general liberty grounds, but personally I wouldn't be comfortable riding unbelted. --Trovatore (talk) 00:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

This question is out of the necessity of transporting eight people in a seven-person van for a stretch of road through Arizona. I, too, enjoy the liberating feeling of riding unbelted (when I'm feeling rebellious enough, of course). AlexHOUSE (talk) 07:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

In that case, regardless of whether seatbelts are legally required, you (well the driver) may still be guilty of overloading. Incidentally, I don't think Trovatore intended to suggest he felt riding unbelted gave him a liberating feeling. Nil Einne (talk) 09:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Right you are, Nil. My folks raised me to always buckle up, and something just wouldn't feel right if I didn't. Especially when I'm driving — the belt gives me a sense of connection to the vehicle, makes it an extension of my will, all that nonsense. --Trovatore (talk) 09:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The death penalty

Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Transfigurations (talk • contribs) 18:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

When the state deems a man unfit for survival, they want to keep everything as legitimate as possible, which means last suppers, hearing requests for clemency, and sterilizing needles. There does seem to be a severe disconnect in ethics though, I grant you that. I suppose the MO is to be as humane as possible, even when killing a man in cold blood. It's probably best not to think about at length. Subryonic compound (talk) 18:59, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Copied straight out of our very own lethal injection article:

"Cannulae are sterilized during manufacture, so using sterile ones is routine medical procedure. Secondly, there is a chance that the prisoner could receive a stay of execution after the cannulae have been inserted, as happened in the case of James Autry in October 1983 (he was eventually executed on March 14, 1984). Finally, it would be a hazard to prison personnel to use unsterilized equipment." AlexHOUSE (talk) 19:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't mean to keep plugging Cecil Adams, but he's covered a lot of topics like this with interesting, easy to read articles, (Even if they're only occasionally sourced.) When someone is executed by lethal injection, do they swab off the arm first? APL (talk) 19:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I would also suggest that the authorities use disposable needles. These are not commonly available unsterilised, they are packaged and sold sterile. I would be very surprised if any establishment, whether correctional or healthcare, uses re-usable needles for straightforward venous cannulation. There was a large scale trial done in the USA in the (I think) 60s or 70s, can't find any reference, which showed no difference in infection levels between injections with a prewipe and injections without. As a nurse I can tell you we did it more for the patients' distraction than infection control. Richard Avery (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The negative reaction of most people to an execution where the victim is not treated with respect up their last moment, as in the atrocious example of Saddam Husein (video) is the answer. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:11, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

To the families of the thousands of people Saddam murdered, he got what he gave. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

_{but not everyone is a fan of retributive justice 203.217.33.23 (talk) 02:56, 4 March 2010 (UTC)}

It's easier to oppose the death penalty if you've never been a victim or known a victim. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly difficult to oppose the death penalty if you've been murdered, yes. OTOH, there are as many anti-death-penalty family organisations out there as there are pro. FiggyBee (talk) 03:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Which is why the families don't get to decide. Theoretically disinterested parties decide. And keep in mind it's not exactly "punishment" - it's permanent removal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:11, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You just said that he "got what he gave", referring to the way a man was treated before his execution! And your earlier point is silly as well. You could just as easily say "It's easier to support the death penalty if you've never been wrongfully executed or known someone who was wrongfully executed." and it would have just as little meaning or relevance to either the point it was replying to, or the original question! More importantly, this is all an off-topic political soapbox tangent which started when Baseball Bugs replied to an on-topic post.APL (talk) 06:09, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

"The negative reaction of most people..." is a supposition. It would be interesting to take a poll and see what percentage of people actually were upset over Saddam being taunted. I suspect the average reaction to anything connected with Saddam's execution was "good widdance to bad wubbish". Read about John Wayne Gacy's execution for a vague comparison. The average citizen of Illinois would have had no sympathy for Gacy being stuck by a dirty needle. They just wanted that scumbag dead. The law decides who dies for his crimes, not the families. But that doesn't mean the families can't celebrate when a human dog is put to death via legal means. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:16, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

If that's the case, I feel sorry that the average Illinoisan still is stuck in the early middle ages. I don't think it is, however, when people are given reasonable time to reflect on the issue. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Given the fact that some people have been executed and later found to be innocent, there is no moral grounds for supporting the death penalty. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Reading rights to deaf people

If the police arrest a deaf person, how are their rights read to them? Do all police need to learn some sign language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aject8886 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No, not all policemen know sign language. But reading of their rights (Miranda warning in the U.S.) doesn't have to happen immediately when you come into contact with police. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 19:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I've got a funny feeling I heard somewhere that many deaf people can read. Richard Avery (talk) 19:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

And I've got a funny feeling the OP is yanking our chain. "You have the right to remain silent." Yeh, sure. Like saying to a corpse, "You have the right to remain dead." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

It's also only required in cases where an interrogation is to be held. So, I'd guess they'd work around it by having the Miranda warning given to the suspect the same way they'd interrogate him (presumably with an interpreter). AlexHOUSE (talk) 19:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Lots of people are arrested, and never read any rights at all, since they can be released without being interrogated. Police can even ask you questions or interrogate you without reading you your rights. Miranda warnings are only read before an interrogation when the police believe they will be asking questions which have a material bearing on a potential criminal prosecution. If they are going to be interrogating a deaf person, they would need an interpreter anyways (as with anyone who does not speak a language the police speak) and that interpreter would assisst in the reading of the rights. --Jayron32 21:59, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Aject8886, next time you ask a question here (and you're very welcome to do so), please head it with something more meaningful than "Question". Just imagine if everyone who asks questions here called their questions "Question". Searching for a particular one would be a Kafkaesque nightmare. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Clockwork mice

The the clockwork mouse been perfected since the initial concept was shown a few years ago? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 701-DENT-SSU (talk • contribs) 21:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Clockwork mice have been around for years; I don't know about perfected, but they work well enough. On the other hand, this article from January notes that Logitech are currently looking at the feasibility of clockwork computer mice, so it doesn't sound as though they have been perfected. Warofdreams talk 22:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

What is humor?

Maybe this is an extremely difficult question to answer, as I've researched and googled fruitlessly, so I'll ask it here. My question is: What is, in the most general terms, humor? What does make people laugh? Is it something that could be labelled as "surprising"? unexpected? witty? Sometimes, something can be humorous but if you changed it just a little it would be offensive. Some other thing could be funny... or simply strange. I've tried to think about it... in vain. Humor is definitely subjective, because people have different cultural backgrounds and somewhat different tastes. Also, there are very different forms of humor. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that a "general rule" could be established.

So, guys, help me, please. What do you think, in the most general terms, humor is? --Belchman (talk) 22:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing you're not happy with the dictionary definitions (http://www.google.co.uk/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en%7Cen&hl=en&q=humour) or the wikipedia article Humour? ny156uk (talk) 23:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Laughing Matters explained[22] [23] [24] [25] [26] (videos) Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally, the free e-book this month from University of Chicago Press is Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters, by Ted Cohen. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I recommend Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, specifically the part where Graham Chapman delivers a professorial lecture on The History of the Jape.Starts at about 4:00 ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:51, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

From our article on humour, I found one passage that resonates with my understanding:

Humour frequently contains an unexpected, often sudden, shift in perspective.

Basically, humour is good insomuch as it stimulates a new way of looking at things. Which is why jokes are funniest the first time. Vranak (talk) 02:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, which I very well could be, it was one of the Marx brothers who said something along the lines of "All humor is based on pain, whether physical or emotional". Dismas|^(talk) 06:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

For more accurate quotes on the subject, you could see Wikiquote's page on humor. Dismas|^(talk) 06:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Without looking at it first, I'm thinking of one from Mel Brooks: "Comedy is if you get killed. Tragedy is if I have a hangnail." Or maybe the sentences are switched, I forget now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

They have a similar version there. Also a similar kind of comment by Will Rogers. Here's something to consider: There were lots of gruesome jokes after the Challenger disaster, most of them centered specifically on the civilian, Christa McAuliffe (sp?). Now why would that be? Maybe first because she was a civilian. And maybe also because we wanted to save her, and we couldn't, so instead we ridiculed death. "What's funny" is different for everyone, and there are many styles of humor. Whether one can laugh at a Christa McAuliffe joke is a test for that particular style. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow I'm surprised I'm going to be the first on this. Humour of course is an alien experiment. I offer no proof however because that will end it forever Nil Einne (talk) 09:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I remember reading that story, but couldn't remember what it was called or who wrote it. Thanks for the reminder. (Of course I should have known that Wikipedia has an article on everything, and just searched for it.) Mitch Ames (talk) 10:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

staring

Is there, or has there ever been a law against intently staring at someone to make them uncomfortable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crockadoc (talk • contribs) 22:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Laws on Intimidation would almost certainly cover staring at someone with the intent of making them 'uncomfortable' if it got to be enough of a problem. ny156uk (talk) 23:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Laws against threatening behaviour may cover this kind of intimidation which may include conduct which annoys, threatens, alarms, or puts a person in fear of their safety. Scientologists pay to have other scientologists do this to them and call it "auditing". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're refering to. Scientologists practice staring at eachother for hours but that's not auditing, it's TRs. Entheta (talk) 23:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, specifically TR-0. The TRs are early stages of training to be an auditor. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

True. Although auditing isn't staring per se. :) Entheta (talk) 23:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Staring is apparently the 2nd-most commmonly-used tactic in workplace bullying, which is illegal. Vranak (talk) 01:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

What about counter-staring? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Generally a person will not engage in bullying if they believe the treatment will be returned quid pro quo. Vranak (talk) 02:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I know staring back works with kids. Never had to do it with adults. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Common assault is "committed by a person who causes another person to apprehend the immediate use of unlawful violence." If a reasonable person would believe that, in the circumstances, that staring amounted to a threat of immediate violence then it might just be a crime in many common law jurisdictions (not to mention a cause of action in tort.203.217.33.23 (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Cuba - closed economy.

This may be a wasted question - if so - so be it. Having recently travelled to Cuba for one week on the mainland staying in several towns and villages and seeing the real poverty there; followed by one week on one of Cuba's fabulous islands and experiencing wall-to-wall luxury, fabulous food, drinks, service, accommodation and entertainment, I am drawn to discover what the real economy of Cuba looks like. As in, what is the average annual value of Cuba's exports (sugar, rum, tobacco, medical exportees etc.), as opposed to the value of foreign hard (and other) currency imports via tourism and related industries (food, roads, drinks, toilet paper etc.); and lastly, if there is a surplus of income versus expenditure, where does Cuba invest that surplus? I want to emphasise that I have no political agenda in asking this question, merely curiosity, having seen both sides of Cuba (which I enjoyed immensely BTW). 92.30.141.97 (talk) 23:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Our article Economy of Cuba is a good starting point, with 40 references to enjoy at the end. It says the balance of trade is currently going the other way, with US$3.2 billion of exports and US$10.8 billion of imports. I tried comparing related stats to those of other Latin American countries, with the table at Latin America#Standard of living, consumption, and the environment, but unfortunately, while that table shows a poverty index, that table doesn't have any GDP values for Cuba. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:11, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course exports and imports are not the only measure of an economy. Things that are produced domestically for internal consumption (which, in the case of Cuba, probably includes nearly all food) also add to the economy. For most of history, that was the most important sector, with long-distance trading being mostly in luxury goods and tourism (except for the fire-and-sword variety, which is rarely a positive economic factor in visited lands) being essentially unknown.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:45, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

March 4

Art

What is considered as 'good art/painting?> The well known masters are considered to be 'art' at its best, In order to replicate the considered good art what should be understood?

thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.19.233 (talk) 04:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The "Value judgment" section of the Art page looks like editorializing, so it may not help that much, but at least it's a start. Read the full article for possibly more insight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The object of art is not replication of someone else's Artistic inspiration. It is having your own. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 04:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

So to "replicate good art", using essentially the xerox machine approach, is not really what it's about. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

in the eyes of the beholder —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ditreaium (talk • contribs) 10:56, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous porn help

Okay I know the title sounds like an intro to trolling. I'm not. Serious question. How do I truly anonymously sign up for and pay a pay porn site? I mean really anonymous. Paypal is not anonymous at all for example. Yeah, it's more hidden than just paying with your credit card but whose account logged the transaction is still out there. Can anyone help me?--162.84.166.14 (talk) 04:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Unless you're engaging in illegal activity of some kind, what's the problem? And how can you pay on the internet without having some kind of identity? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

That's what he's asking! APL (talk) 06:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Not precisely the same. I'm raising a logical question. We'll see if it has an answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:06, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

No, seriously, you just rephrased his question.

He said "How can I anonymously pay for a porn site?" and you said "How can you pay without having some kind of identity?"

Unless you think that someone was confused about what "anonymously" means, you did nothing but rephrase his question! (Well, not 'nothing', you did prepend a subtle insult.) APL (talk) 06:20, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

So what's the answer to his question and/or mine? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The short answer is: without engaging in fraud, you cannot. I suggest making use of the endless supply of free pornography available on the internet to satisfy your needs. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 05:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that you can buy American Express gift cards for cash at places like grocery stores. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The OP could go to his favorite site and simply start the process and see if gift cards are an option. I would guess not, because there's no way to deduct the amount. But there might be a subtlety there I'm overlooking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

A money order would seem to be the way to go. In the US, you can get them from most any grocery store, bank, or Western Union office. If you can't pay the site directly, maybe you can send it to Paypal or some other service and then pay the porn site that way. I don't know the minimum info that PayPal requires or if you have to prove your identity in the least. Dismas|^(talk) 05:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Why wouldn't a Visa gift-card work? I've never had one, but I've always understood that they worked just like regular Visa cards. APL (talk) 06:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure, in a physical store, where they can swipe it and deduct from the amount on it. Maybe there's a way to "virtually" swipe it? Like if there's an instantly-updated central database where the remaining balance on all gift cards is stored? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You don't seriously think that the cash value is encoded on the card do you? If only Visa had a gigantic financial database with computer terminals at every point of sale and every online merchant that they could use to track when a card was used and subtract that from an account of some kind. APL (talk) 06:20, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I do. But you're obviously smarter than I am. So what's the answer to the OP's question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, as I said, before the OP rushes out to buy gift cards, he should go to his favorite website and see if the use of gift cards is an option. Although, given that this OP's IP has only this one entry, I wouldn't count on him reporting back to us. But maybe he'll prove me wrong. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be the wrong advice. As I hinted earlier, the cards work with Visa's pre-existing payment network. His favorite porn site wouldn't do anything special to accept them.

The place to check would be Visa's website about the cards. Here is the link right here : Using your gift card. To summarize, the name you give the porno site will need to match the name you use to "register" your card.

It's not clear to me if it's legal to use a pseudonym for this process, but I seriously doubt if they check it out, so I suppose you could just go for it. It's not like you intend to rip anyone off. APL (talk) 06:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Since a gift card is already paid for, I don't know why they would care, other than the possibility of counterfeiting (hopefully they have safeguards for that); and if you say your name is John Smith or Sig Sackowicz or whatever, how would they know whether it's true or fake? Unless they can ask you to hold your drivers license up to your web-cam. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

While it is probably more trouble than you want for this particular transaction, for anonymous transactions people sometimes hire lawyers to perform the transaction for them. The lawyer would be identifiable, but as long as what you are doing isn't illegal, the lawyer is generally precluded from revealing his client's info under attorney-client privilege. Such methods are sometimes used for truly anonymous donations and the like. Of course, that would generally be a very expensive way to obtain anonymity since lawyers are almost never cheap. Dragons flight (talk) 06:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Hiring a lawyer to buy porn for his client. Interesting idea. Getting back to Apple, he's correct that Gift cards generally connect to a database. So, in theory, they could be used online. But there's no substitute for a test. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

In order to use a Visa gift card online you generally have to register an identity for it. In other words, you still need to have something set up that you fill in when they ask for name and billing address on the card. Visa gift cards generally come with instructions on how to set this up, but of course if one is being honest then it would defeat the point. I don't know how difficult and/or illegal it would be register a gift card for online payments under a false name / address. Dragons flight (talk) 06:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The last time that I saw a Visa/Mastercard gift card, which has been some time I'll admit, it didn't have an expiry date which any online pay system will require. Dismas|^(talk) 06:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

They do nowadays. And they're advertised as working online, so presumably they've thought of all that. APL (talk) 06:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, I don't have the details handy, but I believe that it's possible to use paypal such that they don't won't reveal information other than your email address. (Unless there's a fraud investigation.)

So depending on why you wish to be anonymous that may be acceptable to you. (ie: If you're worried that the Porno owners will rat you out or send you incriminating junk mail, then that'll probably work out for you. But if you're secretly a high ranking government or church official worried that anyone might blackmail you, then it probably won't work out for you, because the folk at Paypal would still know.)

APL (talk) 06:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

If someone is trying to hide his activities from his church group, he has bigger issues than how to use a gift card online. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

[27] APL (talk) 07:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Whatever point you're trying to make, you're smarter than I am so I don't understand it. What I'm getting at is that if he's engaged in deception, he might want to question his own supposed Christian ethics. Which might have nothing to do with the drive-by OP, who might simply be paranoid about discovery just because he's like that, or at the very least, he might worry his Mom will find out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

In terms of these Visa etc gift cards, even though they are like credit cards it's my understanding any business can choose to reject them. In particular, since they don't provide any real age verification, many porn sites may choose to reject them for that reason. PayPal for example and other auction sites generally do as well as other sites that rely on credit cards to connect to a real life identity [28]. (As mentioned there you don't however need to register a name here, you simply enter 'Prezzy Card Holder'.)

Also it's it's my understanding that in the US, they're not truly anonymous since you need to provide identification when buying one due to US law related to money laundering and terrorism. There aren't I believe directly connected to the card, but the authorities and perhaps someone with enough resources and willingness to do questionable things could I presume easily track down who bought the card.

Here in NZ, you can buy them without identification and with cash provided the amount is $50 or under (or something like that), although as they're sold by the post office which also operates KiwiBank the vast majority of places would have security cameras and for the same reason trying to hide your face is likely to be a bad idea so while harder, probably not impossible to track you down. Perhaps you could randomly get someone else to buy one for you, but I suspect if some random stranger hidding their face and disguising their voice goes up to someone in the street near a post office and asks the person if they could buy a Prezzy card for them here in NZ, most people are either going to ignore them or inform someone like the police, the people in the shop or any security if present so again, probably not a good idea.

There are of course various other systems designed to offer some degree of anonymity. E.g Category:Digital gold currencies (although e-gold is dead) [29] [30] however the authorities in many countries generally dislike truly anonymous systems so tend to put up laws to block them, and although there's a a number of consumers interested in such systems since by their nature they tend to be open to fraud, run the risk of being shut down at any time and are often run by companies and people many would be reluctant to trust, they haven't tended to work very well. Some porn sites may accept some of these systems, so you're welcome to look.

Ultimately, as with most things where anonymity comes up, it really depends on who your hypothetical adversary is. If it's a government agency or someone with access to a significant amount of resources, getting true anonymity is difficult. Also, it's pointless being too worried about anoymous payment, if you haven't worried about other aspects like ensuring your computer system used to access the porn won't give you away. For example, presuming you live in Brooklyn or somewhere else in New York and use Verizon as your ISP, then you probably shouldn't have asked a question like this here without an account if you're worried about anonymity.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Interstate bus fares in India

Can a user please tell me by approximately what percentage have interstate bus fares in India increased in the course of the last five years. Thank you Simonschaim (talk) 08:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I did a little search on google and got an average from various sites as 17% —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ditreaium (talk • contribs) 10:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Ditreaium. Can you please let me have details of the sites you found. Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 12:54, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Longest steam railway in UK

Which currently in operation stream engine line in the UK has the longest route? (in miles) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kandorko (talk • contribs) 10:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

West Somerset Railway, perhaps? Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Surely that would be the main line along which Tornado travels from London to York and sometimes further. Seems to have a regularity of around once a month, though, so maybe this doesn't count. 213.122.14.243 (talk) 11:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

According to the note in the North Yorkshire Moors Railway article, the West Somerset Railway is the longest heritage railway in the UK, although the North Yorks Moors regularly runs trains along six miles of Network Rail tracks which, if included, would make it longer. Warofdreams talk 12:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)