Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

Type of game

I seem to recall there being Internet games where one takes the part of a world leader, and interacts with other players through e-mail, thereby dominating the globe or whatever... Anybody heard of this, or know what it is called? Tuf-Kat 05:14, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

• I know of a game in which 7 powers fight over the control of Europe called Diplomacy. I know this game to have variants in which different parts of the world (or the entire world) are used. Although originally a board game, the game is also often played online. If that's not what you're looking for you might want to ask games experts here on Wikipedia. Mgm 12:18, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Are you referring to [www.nationstates.net]? There's a Wikipedia article on it here. --Gelu Ignisque

It sounds like a type of play-by-email (PBEM) game, a development of the older play-by-mail (PBM) games. Though unfortunately I don't know any that match your description, but I'm sure there's a list somewhere on the web. -- DrBob 20:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

two main function in one c program

can one c program have two main functions ? if yes how we can achieve it.

No - the compiler depends on there being a unique main, and it uses that to align the starting segment of the code. →Raul654 06:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

What do you want to achieve? After all the main function is the function you want to be executed first upon starting of your program. So, what do you want to do? Start two functions simultaneously? Or allow to choose between two? Simon A. 09:21, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(See our article on multi-threading if you meant simultaneous execution.) • Benc • 00:34, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe he is thinking about Event handlers in some languages? func(talk) 16:31, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You can, for example, have a main and a WinMain, the latter of which will be the top-level funciton in a Microsoft Windows environment. -- Jmabel 19:13, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Also, you can use the C preprocessor for conditional compilation:

#define DEBUG_MODE 1 /* comment this line out to disable debug mode */

#ifdef DEBUG_MODE
int main(int, char**)
{
   /* debugging-only version of main() */
}
#else
int main(int, char**)
{
   /* non-debugging version of main() */
}
#endif

Note that in the compiled program, only one main() function will ever exist. Hope this answers your question. • Benc • 19:36, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You can't have two functions named main, but you could have two functions that could be main (but with different names), and have the real main choose between them. Unix sometimes does this and has the real main figure out which one to call by looking at argv[0]. --ssd 00:12, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Louvre

WHat happend at the louvre durring WW1 and WW2? Im sure the art was stolen, or placed for safe keeping, but by whom and where?

Where is the Louvre and why is it famous? What are some of the famous works? what happened to the Louvres works durring WW1 and WW2? What has the louvres been used for over the years? What is some other information?

• Most of these questions are answered in our article on the Louvre. Warofdreams 14:52, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not all the questioned are answered in Wikipedia's article, specifically the World War looting questions. According to Let's Go Paris, "Curators at the Louvre, sensing the inevitable Nazi Occupation, removed many works of art, including the Mona Lisa, and placed them in hiding." For a full rundown of what happened to what works, I would try to get ahold of the book Nazi Plunder: Great Treasure Stories of World War II. According to the book synopsis, the artwork looted under Hitler's direction "exceeded the combined collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the Louvre." Salasks 15:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

If this information is not the article, it's because no-one has added it yet. Please feel free to do so. DJ Clayworth 16:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Two really good books on this topic are:

• The Battle of the Louvre by Matila Simon. New York: Hawthore, 1971.
• The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspirarcy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art by Hector Feliciano. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

You should look in your library's catalog under the subject heading "World War, 1939-1945--Art and the war" for similar books. Ave!PedanticallySpeaking 20:33, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Who invented alphabetical order?

I imagine that it might have been invented more than once, and I'd be interested in the details. I remember reading somewhere that it was discovered (or rediscovered) in Europe in the Middle Ages, and that the author who thought it up had to include a preface in his lexicon explaining how it was arranged, and that he himself made a number of alphabetization errors in the 'A' and 'B' sections of his book, but that the errors got fewer as he got more practice with his new system. But I can't remember who it was!

I'd also be interested in hearing about the history of alphabetization in other languages and scripts. For example, did the Hunmin Jeongeum define an order for the hangul? Did Koreans alphabetize things? What about Arabic?

-- Dominus 13:49, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Elements of the order of the Latin alphabet predate the alphabet itself. Note how the Greek alphabet starts with alpha, beta, gamma (which evolved into "c"), delta, eta. That sequence goes back to the Phonetians. In recent years, national language institutions control alphabetical order in most places. Some languages hava multiple or overlapping conventions.

But, I'd be interested in the in-between period too. I don't know either.

Diderot 14:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Concur with Diderot: the Phonetian alphabet was already in a standard order when other peoples starting adapting it. Also, it just seems logical that anyone who would have to teach the alphabet to someone else would have a canonical way of representing the symbols, ie: I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet the Sumerians, (who are generally put forward as having the first comprehensive writing system), had an order in which they taught the cuniform markings. func(talk) 15:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A clarification: I am not asking about the order of the alphabet itself. I am asking about the use of alphabetical order as an organizing principle in lexicons and other reference works. -- Dominus 15:41, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have found some details about the history of alphabetization in Europe on pages 160--167 of When Information Came of Age, by Daniel R. Headrick; I will try to summarize the relevant parts on the alphabetical order page. I'm also obtaining a copy of Contributions to a history of alphabetization in Antiquity and the Middle Ages by Lloyd W. Daly. More updates as they happen. -- Dominus 15:48, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dominus, in that case, you're looking for a history of dictionaries. Ordering words in an alphabetical or quasi-alphabetical sequence started with bilingual dictionaries. Their roots go back as far as the classical Greeks at least, and I suspect much earlier. Ordering other things that way followed. For libraries, modren organisational schemes go back to the mid-19th century only. For encyclopedias - they grew out of dictionaries in the Renaissance. Diderot 16:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Apparently part of Pliny's Historiae naturalis has an alphabetic listing of plants, so the technique was not confined to dictionaries or bilingual dictionaries; the story is more interesting than that. -- Dominus 17:32, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made by Jonathon Green (ISBN 0712662162) has a chapter on this subject. It says that alphabetization was used by the Alexandrians around 250 BC, but Europe didn't catch on until the Middle Ages. Ordering by the first letter only (called "A-order") and first and second letters (called "AB-order") came in with the Corpus glossary (8th century or earlier; owned by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge). Then ABC-order and ABCD-order (sorting by first three/four letters) came along in a pre-Norman manuscript (MS Harley 3376, British Library). Full alphabetization was first seen in English in 1066. It would be interesting to know the corresponding dates for other languages.

Green says that alphabetization was slow to catch on in Europe and the Arab world because it was antithetical to the prevailing religious teachings of the early Middle Ages, which preferred to organize knowledge thematically according to the scriptures. Alphabetization was seen as a dangerous new fad that threatened to democratize knowledge. --Heron 18:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's very interesting! Thanks for the references. Apparently James Fuchs makes a similar point in Vincenzo Coronelli and the Organization of Knowledge:

The topical encyclopedia became for [Coronelli] a symbol of all the hierarchies on earth that he opposed, and correspondingly, he thought that by arranging his encyclopedia alphabetically, he was striking a symbolic blow against them. The alphabet was the great leveler. Religious matters would not be ranked above secular ones, mechanical skills would not be placed below intellectual ones, and articles on princes would appear side by side with articles on peasants.... Protestants and heretics would be placed side by side with Catholics, and this rhetorical ecumenicalism reflected the “spirit of ecumenicalism” that characterized Coronelli’s career and that placed him in the context of Leibnitz and other seventeenth-century ecumenicalists. What a wonderful justification for an alphabetical encyclopedia!

(Quoted in When Information Came of Age, Daniel R. Headrick, p.163.) But Headrick also points out that there may have been practical reasons for avoiding alphabetical order:

The reason the alphabetical order was seldom used, though it was known and understood, is quite simple. Creating an alphabetical list of any length requires much time, effort, and costly parchment, and for texts that were intimately known or even memorized, such effort simply did not pay. Not until the advent of cheap paper and especially of printing, with its larger readership, was the effort justified.

Here he cites Robert K. Logan, The Alphabet Effect. I have the Daly book from the library now and will investigate futher. -- Dominus 18:16, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Alphabetical order is a form of collation. I have also heard of the anecdote about the author who alphabetized a book partly to teach himself how to alphabetize, and I thought I'd read that on Wikipedia, but I may be mistaken. (One would expect to find it either in alphabetical order or collation.) Unfortunately, the article about collation focuses mostly on its use in computer science, despite that field being centuries younger (see Wikipedia:Village pump#The Encylopedia that Slashdot Built Awards). --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 22:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is also, as I remember, some interesting discussion of this in Michel Foucault's The Order of Things: he views the increased acceptability of such an arbitrary order as part of the ending of the medieval worldview. -- Jmabel 00:31, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

This isn't the place to mention that Wikipedia's "Categories" are an example of "all the hierarchies on earth" (see quote above), and that alphabetical order is "the great leveller", so I won't. --Heron 10:37, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't know when alphabetical order was invented, but I can tell you that it was quickly followed by Bogosort. Rhobite 23:03, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Right, and Indian mathematicians invented the zero so that they could zero-pad numbers in filenames. ;-) func(talk) 13:51, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK! According to the Daly book cited above, examples of alphabetized lists start to appear in Greek scholarship around the 3rd Century B.C. Many of the examples are from Alexandrian scholars, and related Cosian documents, suggesting that the librarians at Alexandria may have used the system to assist in cataloging the library.

Many of these lists are not fully alphabetized, but they are grouped by initial letter, and sometimes by second letter as well. Use of alphabetical order is not common, and for every document that does display alphabetization, there are dozens that could but do not.

The tax accounts in Ptolemaic Egypt also display a sophisticated organization in which daily chronological records of payments were transferred to permanent records that grouped payments by the payer's name, in alphabetic order.

I will do some more research and then summarize the most relevant and interesting points in the Wikipedia article. -- Dominus 14:31, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Coleridge

Are STC's notebooks available online? Are any commentries of them available? Thanks! Intrigue 20:35, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Will two paragraphs do? (It's the best I could manage. You could get more than that by browsing through Amazon.com's preview of the book.) -- Itai 21:10, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Saffron Growing and Hydroponics

Does anyone know any more information about hydroponics specifically involving saffron, spices or flowers, or any information about the regular growing of saffron?

I don't know if this is helpful: Hydroponics Classroom Salasks 15:24, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, anyone else got any more info?

World War I and Encyclopædia Britannica

Was the Encyclopædia Britannica affected by anti-German sentiment following World War I? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 23:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I assume you mean the Encyclopædia Britannica as a whole, and specifically editions subsequent to the 1911 one; not that particular edition. — Trilobite (Talk) 23:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dah, right. I keep thinking that war ended around 1910, for some reason. Were later editions affected? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 02:05, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Affected in what way? Having a world-changing event occur just after they published their 29-volume description of the world certainly affected the EB. Three supplementary volumes were published in 1921, which with the existing 11th edition was called the 12th edition. In 1926, a six-volume supplement was published with the 11th edition and called the 13th edition. A new 24-volume edition was publlished in 1929 which lasted, with annual supplements and other editorial changes, until 1973. I got all this from the article Encyclopedia Britannica. The 12th edition, which I own, is full of diagrams and maps and graphics illustrating the course of World War 1. Ortolan88 16:01, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bottled water vs. municipal water

1. How do regulations for the cleanliness of bottled water typically compare to city regulations for the municipal water supply?
2. What levels of contaminants are generally permissible in each?
3. How long will the two remain potable?
4. Is it healthful to drink only totally pure water?

--[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 01:37, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't know about regulations, but you might have a look at this NRDC study on bottled water. While most of the bottled waters were safe, a considerable number of them were actually sourced from municipal water schemes, and some of those without any further treatment! Dasani, for instance, comes from municipal water supplies, though it is filtered further.

You might also note that the range of tests applied to municipal water by the EPA in the United States, in cities at least, is greater than that required by the FDA for bottled water. You might want to check the FDA and EPA sites for specific maximum contaminant levels, I suppose. --Robert Merkel 02:45, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The potability of water from a municipal source would presumably depend on the conditions it was stored in; this was discussed on the village pump some time ago, but I don't recall anybody having a good answer.

As to your final question, what alternatives do you have in mind? If you removed fruit juices and milk from your diet, for instance, you might be putting yourself at risk of scurvy or osteoporosis if you didn't find alternative sources of Vitamin C and calcium. However, to the best of my knowledge there is no reason not to drink completely pure water over unpurified sources; the minerals present in other waters are present in adequate quantities in food. Completely pure water does taste quite odd, however. --Robert Merkel 02:45, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not directly related but interesting: Creating water out of thin air Salasks 00:14, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Full Wikipedia syntax

Question moved to Wikipedia:Help desk. See top of page: "This is not a help page for problems with Wikipedia." — Trilobite (Talk) 13:29, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The City of Los Cerritos

About 10 years ago or more, there use to be a city in California called, "Los Cerritos." I do not know what happen to this city. An Internet search turns more links about Cerritos, California than the now "Lost" "Los Cerritos." My guess is two things happen to the city: It merged with another city, or it changed it name to avoid confusion with "Cerritos." My question is what happen to this city? For reference, "Cerritos" and "Los Cerritos" were never the same city. The mall that was built, called the Los Cerritos Mall opened in Cerritos, California not Los Cerritos, California. I think as the Los Cerritos Mall got popular, the City of Los Cerritos disappeared or renamed itself or something... Anyway, I've lost all track of it. A map of California from between 10 and 20 years ago may reveal that Los Cerritos did indeed exist. If you read the Cerritos, California article, you'd discover that the city was originally the City of Dairy Valley. This is why I believe there was no name conflict at the time between the current Cerritos, California and Los Cerritos, California. --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 12:31, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rancho Los Cerritos would appear to be a historic cite near or in Long Beach, California. Is this possibly what you mean? {Ανάριον} 12:52, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, Los Cerritos was a city. As I stated before, this can not be done through a regular Internet search. --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 08:53, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have a German atlas from the 1920s, which does not list any Los Cerritos in California, so evidently either the city was renamed before that, was named differently in German, or was never seen as an independant city. {Ανάριον} 08:59, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Los Cerritos High School was renamed Hillview. There's also a Los Ceritos Wetlands. Salasks 15:11, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

I swear, Los Cerritos was a city. What happen to it, I have no clue. --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 08:53, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, biophysics, cell biology

Can you please explain how these fields differ in what they do and don't include? --Molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, biophysics, cell biology

It seems like they would have a lot of overlap...can you clarify?

Lots of overlap. Molecular biology and biochemistry are virtually the same field with the two terms being more a matter of fashion and generational preference. Those who claim a distinction would have trouble describing a research report that would be identifiable as biochemistry but not molecular biology or vice versa. I doubt any institutions grant equal degrees in both biochemistry and molecular biology: some call it one, some the other. Biophysics focuses on the more "physics" related phenomena of biology such as electrical gradients and potentials, with much overlap with biochemistry. It is often offered as a separate degree from biochemistry/molecular biology. These three are the fields that have in the last 2 generations yielded most of our new knowledge about genetics and cell biology, so that much genetics and cell biology research is conducted with the methods and knowledge base of biochemistry/molecular biology. Genetics is the field of knowledge related to inheritance; it has been enormously amplified in the last 50 years by the techniques and knowledge of biochem/molec biol, and this new knowledge has in turn revolutionized physiology, medicine, and evolutionary biology. Cell biology focuses on the function of the parts of the cell, but these are primarily investigated and described by the methods and terms of biochem/molec biol and biophysics. Does that help? Alteripse 17:09, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

my almamater (SJSU) grants degrees in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Both are concentrations of either a biology or chemistry degree, respectivly. So a Biochemisty student takes the core Chemistry cources, with electives and requirements in Biology, and recieves a BA or BS in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry; while a Molecular Biology student takes the core Biology courses, with many chemistry electives and recieves a BA or BS in Biology with a concentration in Molecular Biology. However, about 80 or 90 percent of the cources required for each are the same, many of the differences have nothing to do with the science requirements (for example, I took 10 units of Russian because a Chemistry degree required study or either Russian or German, while the Biology degree doesn't have that requirement). Gentgeen 23:03, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The fields are indeed very close. But they have different points of focus and methods of researching things. Nevertheless, I'm studying biochemistry and I might be getting involved in a Biomolecular project. And Cell Biology focuses on biological processes (not chemistry) It's all about how you see it. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 13:59, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Is there any significance (weather) when three 2's (i.e.222) are in alignment with hurricanes?

I understand how to read numbers relating to birthdates, but when binary numbers are aligned three in a row, in this case, specifically 222, does this have any specific meaning when relating to the weather? I ask this because I had specific insight into the last three, the last being Ivan, now I am questioning Jeannie.

Does the lineup of numbers 222 mean anything at all?

Thank you, Lauren (loves to learn)

Um... what? I will address the only part that I understood: "2" is not a digit used with "binary numbers". "0" and "1" are used in the binary number system. func(talk) 23:50, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm guessing this question is astrology-related. Rhobite 02:02, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Sounds more like Numerology --Kundor 05:42, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Or kabbalah, or mysticism. --Gelu Ignisque

Stomach protector

I read a novel about an American translator in China recently (I can't remember the name) but she had a thing about romanticising historical China. She had an 'antique stomach protector', which was described as a piece of silk tied in some way so as to cover her stomach as a piece of underwear. I cannot find any reference to this. Is it real? Can one buy one? Thank you. Gretchen Gardner.

I have a flannel "thing" that wraps and ties around the stomach and over the kidneys that was worn by German soldiers (so says the war surplus catalog) to keep them warm, those two areas being the ones that the body most desires to keep warm. I have two, actually, but you can't buy mine, although it's possible that these surplus items are still available. Good luck, winter is coming! Ortolan88 02:23, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think the book is Lost in Translation (book) by Nicole Mones. A picture of the woman wearing the item (from the rear) is on the cover - you can see it here. I don't think the German army item is the one Gretchen is looking for, but I have also been unable to pull up anything. Mark Richards 12:52, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Motorcyclists sometimes wear kidney belts that serve a similar purpose. adamsan 14:40, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The kidney belt seems to serve the same purpose as the German military thing, but be unrelated to the Chinese thing, which, so far as I can see, serves a primarily spiritual value? Can anyone find any references to this asside from this book? Mark Richards 18:06, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Anterior and nonanterior consonants

In Vowel harmony#Consonant harmony, the article refers to anterior and nonanterior classes of sibilant consonants. What is an anterior consonant? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 02:26, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe an anterior strident (or sibilant) consonant is one pronounced in front of the alveolar ridge, e.g., an alveolar (IPA) [s] as opposed to a palatal [?] ("sh"). --Gelu Ignisque

Two syllables in squirrelled

Part of Talk:List of the longest English words with one syllable:

I'm think there are two syllables in squirrelled. [195.92.194.12 19:43, 23 Sep 2004]

Me too. [130.230.1.90 19:39, 23 Sep 2004]

Me three. However, speakers of some dialects, notably Canadian English, pronounce the word as a single syllable. • Benc • 20:43, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd love to hear an mp3 or something of someone managing to say squirrelled with only one syllable, I'm not sure how it can be said that squirrelled is the longest english word with one syllable when the correct pronunciation of the word has 2 syllables. Suppafly 23:20, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

First of all, since I'm a descriptivist at heart, I don't believe that there is such a thing as a "correct" pronunciation. Everyone talks differently; no pronunciation is more "correct" than another except within the context of an established dialect (e.g., Received Pronunciation).

But I do agree that an mp3 would be an excellent addition to the article. It's a vital piece of evidence; many sources I've read claim that squirrelled is a single syllable, but I've never actually heard it being pronounced, myself. Any Canadians (or folks from anywhere else) out there who pronounce it in a single syllable willing to give it a shot? • Benc • 00:56, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I assume it sounds something like "skworld". — David Remahl 02:45, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Would it be unhelpful at this point for me to mention that I've never heard the word at all? ;-) In any case, as I look at it, my impulse would be to pronounce it as a single syllable, in the way that David Remahl suggests. What would be the alternative, "squirrel-lead"? func(talk) 03:02, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, when I try to pronounce "skworld", it comes out with a schwa, as in "skuh-world". I'm thinking some folks can do it in a single syllable, though. • Benc • 03:03, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Im Canadian, and I would concur with the the one syllable pronounciation, it would be like Skwurlld with the r-l combo being pushed into a slight extenstion over the second L. ( West Coast Canadian )Bob535 03:16, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm Canadian, and I would pronounce it like "skworld" as well, but I don't think there is a schwa there (nor is there with squid, or squall, or anything else that starts with squ-). If there is a second syllable there, it's with the -ed at the end, I guess. Adam Bishop 03:21, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think it's possible for the schwa to appear in either (or neither) place, depending on the dialect: "skwir-uhld", "skuh-world", or "skworld". Or even the archaic-sounding "skwirl-ed" (long e instead of a schwa). I definitely use the "skuh-world" pronunciation, myself. I'm from the southeastern United States, by the way. • Benc • 04:11, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As a Canadian, I'd pronounce it as two syllables, although I can imagine a possible pronunciation which would be one syllable. -Josh Raspberry, 3:38, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What's the mystery? If you pronounce "squirrel" as one syllable, you'll pronounce "squirrelled" as one syllable. Enough people do the former: Merriam Websters Collegiate offers both a one-syllable and a two-syllable pronunciation for "squirrel". - Nunh-huh 04:16, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, not necessarily. Some people see that it's such a long word on paper and have a mental block, forcing themselves to split it into two syllables somehow. I think that's what I do. :-/

Anyway, I didn't really do a good job of stating the question in the first place, so I'll try to do so now. Would someone who pronounces squirrelled using a single syllable be willing to upload a recording of their pronunciation?. If you could, please pronounce the word three times into the microphone. (This is a standard linguistical technique to account for variations in pronunciation due to being at the beginning of a sentence.) If you have any technical questions, feel free to ask (e.g., how to convert and upload audio file). Many thanks, • Benc • 04:11, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just in case anybody (Canadian etc.) is wondering where the "two syllable claim" comes from, let me explain that British English is one of the dialects in which squirrelled has two syllables. --Heron 09:20, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm a South East Londoner (England). We'd pronounce it Skwih-rawled. [Before doffing our cap to you, leaping in the air, clicking our heels and then doing a jovial dance down a poorly lit cobbled alleyway.] --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 11:25, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Don't you rhyme it with "twirled" and then say "baton"? Anyhow, I would say that "squirrelled" rhymes exactly with "twirled" and "whirled" and "world" (the latter two being identical in my pronounciation). Just put "sk" on the front of "world" and there you are, stashed away in a hollow oak. I would say the vowel is a schwa, or whatever a schwa becomes when it's with an r. Sharkford 16:10, 2004 Sep 24 (UTC)

Rhotic, or r-colored. And I would say that the syllabic nucleus in squirrelled corresponds to orthographic <irr>, a syllabic [r] (symbolized in IPA as an [r] or upside-down [r] with a small vertical line underneath). The sounds I hear in the word are [s], [k], voiceless [w], syllabic [r], [l], and [d]: a single syllable. --Gelu Ignisque

"Squirls?" ...I guess if ya shoots 'em an' eats 'em in a squirl pah. ...Our President refers constantly to "terraced attacks" a terrifying thought for those living in fancy high-rise apartments: "Now they're smashing the flowerpots, and there goes your market umbrella, Agnes"... Wetman 05:40, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh, is that what he means? I thought he had a thing against tourists. ;-) --Heron 21:31, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The word squirrelled has two syllables, just like 'squirrel'. It's kinda difficult to pronounce because an r between two vowels, so it's often shortened to 'skwurl'. At anty rate 'skwurld' looks completely different, and what happened to the i anyway? It's clearly

skwi - ruhld, and even that's difficult. In some dialects maybe, but not the one I speak. It's silly to give it one when it should be two.

Oh look, it's a skwurl. I'd think it was some kind of

Three syllables in squirrelled

Part of Talk:List of the longest English words with one syllable:

I don't wish to be willfully perverse in raising this alternative, but to my untrained ear there are clearly 3 separate sounds in squirreled.

Sound one: scwi Sound two: rell Sound Three: duh

• I don't think a trailing 'd' is usually, if ever, regarded as a syllable. You wouldn't argue, for example that "wood" has two syllables. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 12:52, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

You're right, Bodnotbod (Gawd bless yer, mite), and our own article on syllable agrees. A syllable has a vowel or quasi-vowel in the middle, with optional consonants on either side. However, from a purely phonotactic point of view, this does make it hard to justify calling squirrelled a single syllable, unless you classify the whole of uirrelle as a single quasi-vowel. Perhaps our "syllable" article needs to say that the definition of a syllable depends on the dialect of the speaker, if this is true. --Heron 13:05, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What you think you say and what you actually say is usually different, so everyone who has commented here (including me) is probably wrong about how they pronounce this word. Even if one of us were to record it and post it, that pronunciation would not be normal speech, because we would be thinking about it and saying it more slowly and purposefully than in normal speech. Adam Bishop 16:40, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's probably true. I said above I pronounce it skwih-rawled. But I think, if I were saying it less consciously the L would go missing, and I also doubt that my Rs are very distinct. So it would probably be more like skwiwwed. Frightening thought, really. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 14:37, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Well. I'm certainly not Canadian, and I pronounce it "skworld". RickK 06:15, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

I would also like to add that I pronounce it "skworld" and I'm in Seattle, Washington.--Trypsin 08:54, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm a Minnesotan and I pronounce squirreled "squir-relled" or in IPA, [skʷəɹ.ɫd], with two syllables, but I might pronounce it as one syllable when speaking quickly. Gandalf1491 21:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Fans, fluorescent lights, orange and blue

This is something I've been wondering about since I was a kid.

When a fan is running under some fluorescent light, it leaves a trail of blue and orange. This happens with any object moving fast enough, actually, under fluorescent lights. Some kinds of lights don't produce this effect, though, but I have no clue of what differs them from the rest.

I know fluorescent lights oscilate in high frequencies (120Hz, I think), but I was never able to relate this fact with the appearence of the colors. Interestingly, the colors don't vary, being always orange and blue.

Anyone knows what I'm talking about and why this happens? — Kieff | Talk 04:28, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

You might be seeing some variant of the Benham's disk effect. (Seems like a ripe topic for a Wikipedia article.) --Matt McIrvin 13:31, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

...Ah, I see there is one for "Benham's top". I'll make a redirect... --Matt McIrvin 13:40, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hey, look at this online demonstration (Java required). The effect is called Fechner colors; I just made a stub. --Matt McIrvin 14:04, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is not, I think, the Benham's disk effect; this is more about how fluorescent lamps work. The fluorescent powder does not fluoresce white (ie, broad-spectrum); rather, it's a mix of phosphors that each fluoresce a single wavelength, and which have been mixed to produce an acceptably white light. More expensive lamps have more kinds of powder, more carefully chosen; for example, those that simulate sunlight for raising plants. Cheaper ones are just two primaries that add up to approximately white; eg, yellow/orange and some kind of blue. Further - and I'm not sure why this might be so - the different phosphors light up at different points in the phase (perhaps they fluoresce at different temperatures, or intensities of RF, but I'm guessing). Thus your fluorescent lamp is not a solid white light, but rather an alternating orange and blue strobe. Your eye freezes the sequential images accordingly.

The Exploratorium in San Francisco has (or had) an exhibit, in an out-of-the-way corner of the acoustics section, in which a guitar string tuned to 120 (or perhaps 60?) Hz was illuminated by a single fluorescent tube. It appeared to the eye as two strings, each showing the opposite extreme of waveform, one red and one green. Sharkford 15:04, 2004 Sep 26 (UTC)

• "Thus your fluorescent lamp is not a solid white light, but rather an alternating orange and blue strobe. Your eye freezes the sequential images accordingly." - My God! No wonder people complain of headaches! I don't usually get a headache from fluorescent light, but I used to work long hours under them and sometimes start to feel rather... odd. Sort of as if the world around me were at a slight remove. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 18:00, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

There is a solid base of non-fans of fluorescent light, especially for reading and studying. I don't know how well this has been studied by "mainstream" researchers but every so often you may see an article or documentary on possible negative side effects of fl. light. I think I saw one once (there's scholarly rigour for you!) claiming a relationship with hyperactivity in the classroom. Of course, fl. lighting is on the upswing owing to its energy efficiency. As I hear it, California now mandates that the "primary" light source be fl. in kitchens in new home construction.

After posting the above ("This is not..."), I'm now thinking that what the original poster is seeing are orange and blue afterimages of the fan blades, after they were strobed blue and orange, respectively; not that that adds materially to the situation. Sharkford 13:27, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)

does less or more testosterone increse or decrese insghtfulness ina person?

does less or more testosterone in a person increse or decrese insghtfulness ina person? can this hormonal difference be stated as the reason for women being more thoughtful and better at analysing situations and people than men?-Anita

Dear Anita, if I understand you correctly, you are asking if testosterone somehow "decreases" insightfulness, since you have this bizarre, sexist, and probably totally accurate idea that women are "more thoughtful" and "better at analyzing {social--right?) situations and people?"

A tantalizing array of possible answers come to mind, ranging from a Dave Barry-type response about the apparent neuronal toxicity of testosterone, a plea to forgive whichever haplesss guy in your life just blew it again (since he couldn't help it due to his testosterone handicap), to quibbling about whether "insightfulness" equates to "thoughtfulness," "analyzing situations" and "analyzing people" -- in other words, dodging the question. Reluctantly, I'll opt for the straight answer.

1. What are the cognitive differences between men and women?
2. What role does testosterone play in these differences?

As it happens you are not the first person to wonder about this and there is a lot of research on the relationship of testosterone to various aspects of personality and cognitive skills (e.g, Halpern DF, Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities. 3rd ed. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwaw, NJ, 2000, plus dozens of other books and thousands of research articles in the psychology literature). The short version of the answer to the first question is that research, repeatedly, and across cultures, shows that sex differences cannot be found in general intelligence, but in patterns of cognitive abilities. On average, females outperform males in measures of verbal fluency, verbal memory, emotional perception, and perceptual speed. On average, males outperform females on measures of spatial, mechanical, and mathematical abilities.

So to what extent can testosterone be blamed for these differences? In 1970, if you asked any psychologist, social scientist, politically correct academic, or card-carrying feminist this question, the answer was a big "NO! There are NO biological differences in brain function. Any appearance to the contrary should be attributed to sexist expectations, culture, or social learning or a patriarchal plot..." (I am not kidding here, as neither were they). There is in fact much evidence that these differences are largely biological whatever we might wish. Testosterone is a good candidate for being a major factor in these differences. T levels between males and females vary during 3 periods in life: from the 8th week of gestation to delivery, from 2 weeks to 4 months after birth, and after the onset of puberty (average age 12 years). The brain has both testosterone and estradiol receptors present from the first half of gestation onward. Conditions in which T levels are atypical for age and sex shed some light on when and how testosterone might work these differences. For examples, girls with high prenatal and childhood testosterone levels due to CAH show some of the "male" cognitive advantages such as better spatial abilities than ordinary girls. Conversely, boys with congenital forms of hypogonadism show less spatial abilities than ordinary boys. What seems to be important is prepubertal testosterone, since men and women do not lose or gain these abilities if testosterone is removed or added after childhood. Luckily, losing testosterone does not improve a guy's social skills. For more on this type of research, see one of Sheri Berenbaum's reviews (e.g., Berenbaum SA. Prenatal androgens and sexual differentiation of behavior. Chapter 13 in: Eugster EA, Pescovitz OH, Developmental Endocrinology: From Research to Clnical Practice. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2004). A final caveat: many factors that contribute to brain differentiation. One of the most important changes in our understanding of brain biology is our realization that brain reshapes its capabilities in response to experience and use in a way that can make partially environmental or experiential factors appear to contribute to "hardwired" functions. Alteripse 12:38, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd also add another caveat - the differences in abilities Alteripse refers to are statistical averages and there is wide individual variation between people that can swamp the gender differences.

One final thought. If I recall correctly, psych research has shown that the "male" approach to psychological disturbance (bottling it up) can actually be healthier than the "female" approach (nattering on about it endlessly), in at least the cases of depression, and dealing with trauma. So give us men a break the next time we're not interested in discussing your feelings. We're doing you a favour :)--Robert Merkel 12:57, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Can you back that up with any references? I find it rather surprising that not talking about depression is an effective way of treating it. My understanding was that research actually pointed at the exact opposite conclusion. [1] On the other hand, if you are trying to say that different people have different methods of coping and that it isn't constructive to try and get them to utilize other methods, I could see that, but would still be interested in seeing the references. Cvaneg 15:04, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's what I recall from my undergrad psych lectures. I'll try to see if I got it right, and go look it up in the textbooks...

Question about color film

I had a problem with my camera recently: it wouldn't "click" anymore (probably because of low battery). Now, when I rolled back the film (plain vanilla Kodak 35 mm color) and took it out, the whole film was inside the cilinder. I don't take photos very often, so I may be wrong, but shouldn't there be 2 or 3 cm of brown foil sticking out (like it is when you buy it)? At the development lab, do they need those 2 cm to take out the film or can they develop it anyway?

Thank you in advance and keep up the good work, 80.127.226.15 12:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC).

This is normal and helps protect the film frombing ruined by stray light. Rmhermen 12:33, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, light issues aside, you can tell whether film is exposed by whether it has been fully wound in, preventing mixing of used and unused film.

Let's be more detailed on this: the lead-out on an unused film allows you to easily load it into the camera. When winding back the film (unless your camera has an electric winder) you will continue until you feel the film first tighten and then loosen; this looseness is the entire film rotating freely inside the cylinder - you can carry on turning the handle forever, and it will have no further effect. You can then store the film with no worries about light getting at your precious prints, and no risk of mistaking it for undeveloped film.

In a professional photo lab (or a well-equipped amateur one) will be a tool for breaking open the film canister to get at the developed film. Less well-equipped amateurs often try to leave the lead-out sticking out of the canister (by knowing the feel of their winder very well, I guess; leave too much out, and you could ruin photos at the start of the film) so they can pull it out in the darkroom. If they fail, they may have to fiddle for a long time with a special hook trying to fish it back out. (Really ill-equipped amateurs get a photo lab to develop the negatives, and just use an enlarger to do some fancy prints). - IMSoP 21:37, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rupert's Land map

I would like to use your map of Rupert's Land in a book. Is it possible to get an image copy with a higher density scan? Is there a fee for service? Thanks. Peter Murphy

There's no fee; the Reference Desk is a free and volunteer-done service. --Gelu Ignisque

Peter, the map in question was created by User:Decumanus, and has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which means it can be used by anyone as long as several conditions are met, including giving attribution to the copyright holder and that any derivative works are also licensed under the GFDL. I am not a lawyer, but I don't think including the map in a book would make that book a derivative work, but you might want to check with your publisher's legal department. You could also contact Matthew Trump (Decumanus's real name), and ask if he'd grant you a seperate license to use the map or if he has a higher quality version available. Gentgeen 21:03, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Beat LA sign

I'm looking for a picture of the "Beat LA" sign from the Braves 1991 march to the playoffs for a blog post. Salasks 14:44, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC) (blog)

Latin Translation

This is an emergency—how would you say "Down with the officers" or any other "down with" in Latin? Thanks! --Gelu Ignisque

You would "pereat (whatever)" (or pereant for plural). That really just means "may he/she/it (or they in the plural) die/perish/be ruined." I'm not sure what kind of officers you mean, but "pereant magistratus" is I suppose what you are looking for. Adam Bishop 16:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank you so much. The subjunctive of perîre fit the meaning I was trying to express perfectly. (Although it's an irregular verb, what a terrific coinage: per-îre, "to go-through" (across, beyond, etc.). The officers was just a noun I stuck in there so that the intransitive verb would have a subject, so what kind of officer I meant is irrelevant. --Gelu Ignisque

Down with Latin teachers! Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:43, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Old Latin teachers never die... they just decline and fall. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 23:21, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I love people who know Latin: how would one translate "red star", referring either to the planet Mars or to, well, a literal red star, like the stars from Soviet-era flags? P.S. This is not an emergency. :) func(talk) 05:34, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, for "red star" I guess I would say "stella rufa," and for "Mars" I would say "Mars" :) Adam Bishop 09:03, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

LOL! I apologize. I understand that "Mars" is itself Latin, but I have also heard that the ancients called it (in a descriptive or poetic sense) the "red star". When I've tried to look this up on the Internet, I have found that there are, like, a billion different names for "red" in Latin, and the whole system of declensions is just way beyond comprehension for me (I took a little Latin in junior highschool, but not one bit of it has stuck in my head). "stella rufa" is interesting. I had guessed something like "stellum rubellum". I guess I was wondering if there was a canonical spelling "red star" in general, for instance, several actual stars were called "red stars", such as Sirius. P.S. Still not an emergancy. ;-) func(talk) 16:19, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, and you could also say "ruber" (or rubra in this case), along with rufa or rubella. And star could also be "sidus" or "astrum" (which are neuter so "red" would be rubrum, rufum, or rubellum). My dictionary says "stella errans" (wandering star) for "planet", I guess that is just a literal translation of "planeta" which means the same thing in Greek (and was borrowed into Latin too). Adam Bishop 16:30, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Other adjectives meaning "red" include rutilis (neuter rutile), rubeus (neuter rubeum), and rubidus (neuter rubidum). So with all the possible translations for "red" and "star," that works out to a lot of permutations, but I don't really care to calculate how many ... --Gelu Ignisque

Oh, I forgot—the masculine form is irrelevant if you're translating "star" as stella. If that's the word you're using, then your possibilities for "red" that have been listed so far are rufa, rubra, rubella, rutilis, rubea, and rubida. If you'd rather use astrum or sidus, then your possibilities are rufum, rubrum, rubellum, rutile, rubeum, and rubidum. Nice, huh? --Gelu Ignisque

I'm glad I'm not "Latin." ;-) Thanks, everyone. func(talk) 15:56, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

IBM PS/2 series backup battery

Hey, does anyone know where the clock/BIOS backup battery is on an IBM PS/2 motherboard? I have one of these (ancient) computers in my basement and when I boot it up, I get error codes 161 and 163, which I have determined to mean the BIOS battery is dead. However, I cannot find the battery's location in order to replace it. Does anyone know where the battery is on one of these boards, or have a link to a site telling one how to change it? Thanks! Suntiger 22:12, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, according to this list the battery you want is probably one of these; I wouldn't be at all surprised, however, to find it is actually some fairly standard model of button battery that you could buy at a high-street store if you could look at it and read a more generic part number (like what you get in watches, PDAs, digital cameras, etc; there's plenty of types, but none seems to have ever become unavailable).

As for locating it, I didn't manage to turn up a very good diagram: the "Systems" section on this site has them, but doesn't label the battery; the image on this wonderfully ancient hardware tutorial seems to suggest the battery is somehow bundled in with the "speaker assembly" and then wired onto the board. It's worth noting if you want to keep searching that IBM appears to have called the motherboard the "planar board".

There also appears to be a still-active newsgroup for PS/2 owners: news://comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware (Google archive) Good luck! - IMSoP 15:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks like it should help. Suntiger 13:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Julius Streicher at Nuremberg

Why was Julius Streicher, publisher of Der Stürmer, at the Nuremberg Trials? He was just a publisher of the Nazi German equivalent of a tabloid newspaper. Why was the publisher of the Völkischer Beobachter not also on trial?

What he did just seems minor in comparison to the doings of people like Rudolf Höß, who were not at Nuremberg. [[User:DO'Neil|DO'Иeil]] 22:39, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Um... did you actually read the articles that you wikified above? The publisher of Völkischer Beobachter was put on trial, and Rudolf Höß was at Nuremberg, before being sent off to Poland; and after reading Julius Streicher's article, it seems entirely clear to me why he was put on trial. Der Stürmer was not just a tabloid, it was an active advocate of the vilest of Nazi propaganda. Have I misunderstood your questions? func(talk) 00:22, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

List of English auxiliary verbs, list of English copulas

What are the most commonly used auxiliary verbs and copulas in the English language? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 00:31, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To answer half of your question: I'm not sure that it's possible to give you an answer beyond what our auxiliary verb article already says. The three verbs have, be, and do are the only auxiliary verbs used in standard English. However, there is such a thing as a modal auxiliary verb, such as (pairs of words are the non-past and past forms of the same verb):

• can, could
• shall, should
• will, would
• may, might
• ought
• must

There are a few others. Interesting factoid: grammatical sentences in standard dialects never have more than three auxilary verbs, plus at most one modal. Example (auxv underlined, modal italicized): "He could have been being beaten up, but he got away." Additionally, some non-standard dialects use the double modal, as in "I might could have caught him." • Benc • 10:13, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think you've said it all. Additionally, in tree diagrams, modals are placed in the I or infl node (standing for inflection and signifying an abstract category specified by a subject noun phrase and complemented by a predicate verb phrase); when there is no modal present, the I category—which is mandatory, like all heads—is realized as a silent tagmeme containing information about the infl phrase's tense, which in English can be past or nonpast. On the subject of copulas, a copula is a linking verb, one that takes not a direct object (complement noun phrase) but a predicate nominative, which is a restatement of the subject. English copulas include be, become, seem, appear, smell, taste, etc. --Gelu Ignisque

HTML colors

α Δ ο

<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3"> <tr> <th align="center" colspan="2" bgcolor="#fda">α</th> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#fed">Δ</th> <td bgcolor="#fff">ο</th> </tr> </table>

1. What is the lowest version of HTML this table conforms to?
2. Which browsers cannot interpret three-character color codes?

--[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 03:29, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it conforms to any HTML version, since the colors are in three-character format, which AFAIK is only valid in CSS (though some browsers obviously have no problem with it). I'm afraid I don't know what browsers will or won't accept that notation, though chances are it's correlated with whether or not (or how well) a browser implements CSS. As for the rest of it, the table elements have been around since HTML 3.2 I believe. -- Wapcaplet 03:45, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Firefox 1.0 PR has no problems with it, which is odd. -- Alphax 15:55, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

In IE6, #123 outside of CSS is equal to #010203. Goplat 16:47, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Opera correctly ignores the colour values, and thus presents illegible black-on-black text. As noted above colours must be six characters or a known name in HTML, the three-char notation is only valid in CSS (which also offers other mechanisms to define colours such as rgb) {Ανάριον} 21:59, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Norton LiveUpdate

I have Norton installed as part of my defence against viruses. Every day it seems to download around 700-800k of virus definitions and updates. This seems to me an extraordinary amount of data per 24 hours. Is someone able to help me account for this? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 18:25, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

• It's not all that much if you realize how much new virusses are discovered every day. It's only the big ones that get media attention, but Norton needs to protect you from all of them. You don't need to be worried about the content of the files anway. Norton is definitely a source you can trust. Maybe you can send in a question straight to the creators of the files? http://www.symantec.com ? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 12:07, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)
  • Are there really that many every day? And even if there are, surely most of them are just minor tweaks to existing ones. I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with that answer (though thanks very much for giving it, of course). Any other takers? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 01:33, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)
    • I also use Norton, and my updates only come down the pipe two maybe or three times a week. I can't say what size they are (small enough to not be noticed on a high speed connection), but it does seem a bit odd that you would be getting a higher frequency of updates than me. Cvaneg 17:26, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • Ah. I think I might have an issue around a (seemingly non-critical) error message that has been appearing and I keep meaning to investigate. I'll look into it. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 16:30, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Numbers

I read some where that the number 0 wasn't use in Europe untill I think the 17th century. Before the Europeans used the number 0, for example for writing the year 1600 how would they write it? Where was the number 0 started and when?

We have a bit of info on this in 0 (number). Before Arabic numerals, they would write years in Roman numerals (MDC for 1600, for example). And before they used that system of dating, they would refer to the year in a number of different ways (the fifth year of King So-and-So's reign - but they would still use Roman numerals for the numbers). Adam Bishop 18:14, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What are you talking about? King So-and-So only reigned for 4 years.... ;-) func(talk) 04:11, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually he reigned for 4 and a bit years. Which takes him into the fifth year of his reign, so Adam is perfectly correct ;-) Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 14:24, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Right. I had been thinking about his son, Crown Prince Thiss NThat. func(talk) 15:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Or maybe he started his reign before his new year started but after ours did...like in February. To give an example of how they used to write dates (this is, sadly, from homework I had to do last week): "Anno ab incarnatione domini MCLXIII, Era MCCI, Indiccione XI, Ciclo XVIIIVI, Feria V, X Kalends februarii." That's the normal year 1163, the year 1201 in Spain (since they used a different dating system at the time), the 11th year of a 15-year Indiction cycle (whatever that is), I forget what Ciclo is (something about Easter, probably), and Wednesday (the fifth Feria, or festival day, just a day of the week for them, but they started on Saturday), the 10th day before the Kalends of February, i.e. January 23. So, no zeros at all, and a bunch of other crazy kinds of dates that we don't use anymore. Another example is "III Kalends Iulii pontificatus domini Honorii pape III anno primo," which is the third day before the Kalends of July (June 29), in the first year of Pope Honorius III's reign. If you look him up on Wikipedia or anywhere else, he began his reign in 1216, right? But he wasn't pope yet in June of 1216, so the year here is actually 1217, but still within the first 12 months of his reign. Anyway, my point is, there is a lot more to know about figuring out dates than their lack of the number 0. Adam Bishop 16:47, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's been a while since I did much with my graduate thesis, but as I recall the Arabic numerals were used for dates in the account books of English churchwardens in the mid-1500s. I'd suggest that the questioner's suggestion of the 17th century is too late by 200-400 years, depending on location and other variables, as a reference point for when the 0 was put in use for dates in Europe. Jwrosenzweig 22:15, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor introduced the zero in bookkeeping clear back in the 13th century, but it didn't spread at that time. -- Jmabel 00:47, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

The article on Roman numerals says that the Arabic numerals (and hence 0) came into common use in Europe in the 1300s. Before that Roman numerals were used there. -R. S. Shaw 00:20, 2004 Sep 29 (UTC)

Necker's cube

What is Necker's cube? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 19:00, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's more commonly referred to as the Necker cube. - 19:15, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)

Cartoon with polar bears=?

I saw a cartoon movie several years ago, where there was a bunch of polar bears living in Alaska or somewhere snowy and then some hunters came to kill the polar bears, but one polar bear saves all the others. Does anybody know the name of this caartoon movie?--elpenmaster

thermoregulation

I had a question in my anatomy and physiology class can you help me?

Which of the following is "heat given off as particles or waves"?

a. conduction b. convection c. radiation d. evaporation

A good idea would have been to read the articles on conduction, convection, radiation and evaporation. You can think of heat transfer like this: imagine I have a load of cakes and I want to give them out to people. I could pass them along via other people (conduction), take them to people myself (convection), or throw them (radiation). Of these, evaporation is most similar to convection. — Trilobite (Talk) 17:46, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Trilobite are you sure? Particles and waves sounds more like radiation to me. Isn't convection more like "conduction by a flowing substance" (such as air or water)? Alteripse 18:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Numbers Again

 The way we write the number system we use today, where and when did it originate?

Try the article Natural number. --Heron 18:04, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Also look at Arabic numerals for the specific glyphs we use to represent numbers today. Cvaneg 18:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And look at numeral system. Note that there is a difference between numbers and numerals. I haven't looked at the article titled natural number, but that's definitely not the first thing that comes to my mind in response to this question, since natural number is about numbers rather than about numerals. Michael Hardy 21:16, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Temples at Abu Simbel

Can anyone offer a contact where I can purchse a film in dvd or video format (UK version) of the dismantling and reconstruction of the temples at Abu Simbel when the Aswan High Dam was built.

• I don't know with certainty, but you might ask New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, who salvaged one of the other temples and brought it to New York. -- Jmabel 00:50, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

• • A web search turned up a documentary specifically on this, called 'Abu Simbel', made in 1966 by William MacQuitty. It's available (though "temporarily out of stock") from facets.org. No idea about video formatting issues. Various possibly easier to find videos on Ancient Eygpt appear to cover it at least briefly; I found one from the (US) National Geographic Society, for instance.

• • MacQuitty also did a book on Abu Simbel, and other documentaries on Ancient Eygpt. The photo of King Tut's funeral mask that was much-used for the king Tut exhibit back in the 1970's was by him. He also produced the film "A Night to Remember". Loren Rosen 07:27, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A look at tomorrow's papers

On late-evening radio and TV news discussion programs (e.g. Newsnight), there is often a section where presenters read tomorrow's newspapers. In a column in the Guardian, I once read that part of the night editor's job is to look out for stories that they can poach from such editions of rival papers. So why do the papers bother making these early editions public at 10PM the night before? How did this tradition begin, and what's in it for the publishers? - IMSoP 00:18, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm just guessing here, but I would be willing to bet that night editors don't poach stories so much as they syndicate them from the original copyright owner. For instance, I know that my local paper often runs stories from the New York Times and Washington Post, occasionally adding some locally relevant content. This makes more sense to me than the liability involved with stealing the story in its entirety or the effort and money necessitated by having a reporter rewrite it so as to be unrecognizable. The benefit to the issuing paper comes in their syndication costs, and maybe in creating a wider reader base for their writing. Cvaneg 00:51, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You've obviously not seen the UK tabloid circulation wars! :) -- Arwel 21:52, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm well due to be off to bed now, but I found the column I was remembering. The relevant quote is:

"...while the home news night desk might spend the evening chasing stories in other newspapers that need to be investigated (the night editors usually get their first look at rival publications at about 11pm, leaving little time to react)."

You could be right about the syndication thing though; I'll reply again when I've slept and can think properly... - IMSoP 01:29, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To answer the other part of your question, major newspapers are often available to the general public on the evening before the 'date of publication'. So it's not that the TV shows have got a paper eight or nine hours in advance. Obviously there are good business reasons for your paper being first on the streets. DJ Clayworth 13:44, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So why do the papers bother making these early editions public at 10PM the night before? Geography is the reason. It takes time to get the papers from the printing plant to the newsagents' shops (and remember, in the UK the papers have to reach the shops by about 5 am in order to be sorted into delivery rounds in time for breakfast deliveries). I don't know current printing practice, but a few decades ago the national papers were printed in London, Manchester, and perhaps Glasgow, so the first editions would be produced by about 9 pm in order to get the overnight trains to the far end of Cornwall in time. Many's the time I've bought tomorrow's paper at Euston Station at 10 pm. -- Arwel 21:52, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• This practice of making the front pages available is of long-standing. I recall reading in someone's memoirs about working for the New York Times or the Washington Post in the 1970s of how those papers and I think the LA Times sent copies of their front pages out to one another. I don't recall exactly how, whether it was as a wirephoto or telecopier or what they did, but it's nothing new.
  As for poaching stories, Richard Kluger's book on the old New York Herald Tribune talks about the competition between them and the Times. He writes of how each other would get the first edition, find some story they missed and write a front page story for their own editions. Sometimes, he claimed, they would wind up bumping the story the other guy added. The Associated Press will often send out a short story if one paper has a big story, say the results of a big investigation, so editors will know what's out there and possibly request reprint rights.
  The Cincinnati Enquirer, which Aaron Brown shows from time to time, goes to press around ten p.m. So that front page is locked well before he does his round-up. A great site for looking at front pages from around the globe is at the Newseum site. They receive PDF files from about 200 papers every day and post them on the web. If you couldn't tell, I'm a newspaper junkie. Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 16:54, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

If you see the London Free Press in Newseum, it used to be my job to send the front page there :) I'm not sure this will help answer the question here, since in London we were really the only major paper in a fairly minor market, but I do know that the paper had to be finished by about 1:30 am. There was a regional edition as well that had to be finished around midnight (the city paper would have updated sports scores and a late story or two). They would be delivered from then on, until about 6 am - so, there was never a paper available the night before. And since there are no other dailies to steal stories from, stories come from wire services or local reporters. I don't know specifically how the Toronto Sun works, but I assume they do compete with the other three major newspapers in Toronto...the Journal de Montreal has early and city editions like London, but the Journal de Quebec doesn't, and they don't seem to compete with each other but they often have the exact same stories (and apparently share some columnists). Anyway, there's some useless info for you, I hope that's not too irrelevant :) Adam Bishop 22:55, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Organizational Structures

I need to find specific information about organizational structures/models. Models such as a Federated Models of Service, an Amalgamation and outsourcing of administration tasks to larger organizations. What I am getting at is I need information about organzational structures as a non for profit organization I am doing work experience for is looking to change its management structures and possibly amalagamate with 3 other organizations. I need clear answers about what types of organizational models exist. For example an organization with a CEO and a Board of Directors and then its management is called.... I wonder if you could help it would be greatly appreciated.

• The article Organization has lots of interesting information. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 07:33, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartic_equation / mistake?

I think Ferrari is cited not correctly here, but I do not know, where the mistake has been made (I cross-checked twice if I made a mistake when I copied the formulas to my caculator...).

On

 Italic texthttp://mathworld.wolfram.com/QuarticEquation.html

they cited him correctly, I think...

Does anybody see the mistake quickly (I would need at least several days, because: I am not so good in mathematics)...

-Arne

There is indeed a mistake somewhere. I think the solution of the nested depressed cubic is wrong. I wrote a note on Talk:Quartic equation; hopefully somebody will take it up. -- Jitse Niesen 16:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Day-glo colours

How do so-called day-glo, fluorescent, or neon colours (as used in hi-vis jackets, packaging, signage, highlighter pens, and what have you) achieve their high visibility?

Mechanisms I can think of include: real fluorescence from ultraviolet light, similar to the effect achieved by "whiter-than-white" ingredients added to washing powder and toothpaste; or some particular quirk of human colour perception. I've not been able to find anything explaining it (in Wikipedia or on the web).

(I've noticed that one time when I scanned a document with highlighter pen markings, they came out as a rather ordinary yellow. Would it even be possible to display "day-glo" colours on a computer screen using ordinary display technologies? I'm guessing not.)

Possibly related: there seems to be some disagreement among people I know as to whether "fluorescent yellow" is perceived as yellow or bright green.

--JTN 01:53, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

This person claims to have tested highlighter ink under UV, and says that it is fluorescent. This is a more scholarly paper that says the same thing. If you Google for "highlighter ink fluoresce" you get a few other sites. --Heron 13:55, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's likely to be real fluorescence, probably the items have various organic dyes (such as fluorescein for yellow/green, or rhodamine for orange/red) added to them. -- DrBob 17:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks both. If it's real fluorescence, then presumably under purely incandescent lighting, it shouldn't look special (assuming that bog-standard incandescent has negligible UV content? Is that right?). Unfortunately most of the lighting here is compact fluorescent (which I'd imagine might have noticeable UV), so I can't check easily - I suppose I could use a torch. --JTN 17:25, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

There is some UV emitted from an incandescent light, but you can reduce it by passing the light through thick glass (or water would work, too). Bear in mind that you don't actually need UV for fluorescence, any shorter-wavelength light can (potentially, depending on the material) be converted to a longer wavelength. So the yellow fluorescent materials might work by absorbing blue light and emitting yellow, for instance. -- DrBob 17:55, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Filenames in websites, length of...

If I'm building a website, and I don't care about people with browsers older than a couple of years old, do I still need to worry about the length of filename for the HTML docs and images? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 02:16, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

No, not for any major browsers. -- Jmabel 05:25, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

It looks like you're talking about something like the 8 character limit for old DOS file names. Well, you don't have to worry about that today. Rest assured you can put a filename up to a hundred bytes long, without big issues regarding to browsers. Unless, of course, the server is really, really, really old, then it could have some filename size limit. — Kieff | Talk 06:04, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Excellent. That will help me a lot. Thanks folks --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 01:46, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

apa referencing

How would I APA style reference something from this website?

see Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia — Kieff | Talk 07:54, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Sulphuric acid

How would you test to identify a fluid as sulphuric acid? I already know it's acidic, so I only need to differentiate between common acids. Could this be done with simple household chemicals, or would I need to go to a laboratory? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 07:38, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Sulphuric acid is a powerful dehydrating agent, so it will caramelize sugar. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 14:09, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Only true for concentrated sulphuric acid. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 14:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Also, if you happen to have barium chloride, adding it to sulfuric acid will produce a white precipitate (also hydrogen chloride gas; use ventilation and small amounts of chemicals). Also see stoichiometry. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 14:35, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For this test to be effective as a general test for sulphide, add something like HNO3. (Nitric acid) This is to rule out the possibility of a carbonate precipitate. The precipitate in this case is of course Barium Sulphate.--Fangz 16:02, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lacking nitric acid, could sodium chloride be used to differentiate between sulphuric and other acids? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 22:18, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No it won't produce hydrogen chloride gas, because HCl is highly soluble in water (hydrochloric acid) Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 14:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Name of a pendulum trap

There's an ancient kind of trap that was a pendulum with a large and heavy axe-like blade that moved around, chopping whoever and whatever was in the way (I'm sorry but this is the best description I can give). What is the name of this trap? — Kieff | Talk 08:00, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Ancient as in 1993? Play less videogames. Read more books. Yrs trly, Inlocoparentis.

Don't forget The Pit and the Pendulum from 1842 by Edgar Allen Poe. Rmhermen 13:24, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

OK, that's pretty close, but if I remember right the guy was immobilized. However, it's actually from a book, so good suggestion! Inlocoparentis

The Pit and the Pendulum is available at Wikisource. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 16:43, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ha! Amazing! I thought it was an actual ancient trap. Thanks everyone :) — Kieff | Talk 03:49, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Futurex Coal

I'd like to find out the composition of Futurex coals. Google links to Futurex weren't about coals and the Coal and Coke articles didn't help. Does anyone have any other ideas? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 11:35, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

A slightly more sophisticated Google search [2] gets you to SSM Coal, the manufacturers of Futurex coal, which turns out not to be coal at all. I'll leave the rest of the solution for your browsing pleasure. DJ Clayworth 14:12, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While you're there, take a look at the whole site: it took me a moment to realise that my eyes were not playing tricks on me, those little people really were moving about :-) --Phil | Talk 14:26, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

What a strange, but fascinating, user interface. DJ Clayworth 19:38, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Thanks! I haven't found the composition yet, but I'm sure having the official site handy is gonna be helpful. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 20:57, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Need help re: old Gibson Mandolin

We have an old Gibson Mandolin which belonged to my wife's grandfather. The label inside bears a hand-written serial number 50737. The style entry seems to be A2 1.

Can you provide data as to when it was made and possible links to learn more ? Thanks.

Max Young

According to Gibson Serialization (found by googling for "gibson serial number", your mandolin would appear to be from 1918-1919. Their customer relations department seems quite willing to help you pin down more information about your old instrument. --Jpgordon 02:11, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Carpet History

  What is the history of carpet?

Wow. It looks like our article on Carpet needs a bit of work, as do some of our other articles relating to Textile_arts, especially in the area of history. func(talk) 16:20, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I've put carpet up for Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week. It needs to get five votes every week to stand a chance of making it so go and sign your name Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 22:20, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Abbreviation and pronunciation

Is there a word to describe initialisms, such as IEEE (pronounced "eye-triple-e") and IEE (often pronounced "eye-double-e"), which are pronounced with a "shortcut" ("-double-", "-triple-" and so on)? Are there other famous examples of such initialisms, especially with more than three occurrences of the same letter? --Edcolins 21:47, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

NAACP - N-double-A-C-P. Intrigue 22:40, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't know the word for this linguistic quirk, but I imagine it's similar to the phenomenon of reading off of certain numbers, such as addresses, in two digit groups, (e.g. 1452 becomes Fourteen-Fifty-Two). As for other examples of this: AAA Triple-A, NCAA N-C-Double-A Cvaneg 23:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Double-D? ;) Intrigue 05:23, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Slightly related is the abbreviation i18n for internationalization (because 18 letters are omitted). --Heron 13:54, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have never heard of a standard coined word or phrase to describe this. Incidentally, my American friends seem to consider this habit a Britishism—especially in numbers, as in "dial eight double-zero triple five double twelve"—so it's interesting that these very well-entrenched examples come from the U.S. As a data point, I have never heard the Canadian Auto Association called the "C double-A". Sharkford 16:11, 2004 Sep 29 (UTC)

Certain combinations of 2 or 3 letters are just difficult to say, like "A A A," which usually is just "triple A." Contrast with "AA," one attends "A A meetings," and not "double A" meetings. My preference for IEEE would be to pronounce it as "those damn Americans who don't know how to properly round a number!" ;-) I can't recall the context, but I've heard people spell out the word "hell" as "h e double hockey sticks." func(talk) 15:46, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See also: Acronym and initialism, where I inserted the above information to a certain extent... --Edcolins 12:28, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Vedas

ॐ सह नाववतु	Om saha navavatu
सह नौ भुनक्तु	Saha nau bhunaktu
सह वीर्यं करवावहै	Saha viryam karavavahai
तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु	Tejasvi navadhitam astu
मा विद्विषावहै	Ma vidvishavahai
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः	Om shanti, shanti, shanti
-- Krishna Yajur Vedataittiriya Upanishad 2.2.2

1. Line by line, what is a literal translation of this verse?
2. Is this the complete verse?
3. How is it written in other writing systems?

--[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 22:04, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Om saha navavatu; ("May we be protected together.

Saha nau bhunaktu; May we be nourished together.

Saha viryam karavavahai; May we work together with great vigor.

Tejasvi navadhitam astu; May our study be enlightening.

Ma vidvishavahai; May no obstacle arise between us.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti; Om peace, peace, peace.

Asato ma sada gamaya; Lead us from the unreal to the real.

Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya; Lead us from darkness to light.

Mrityor ma amritaam gamaya; "Lead us from death to immortality.")

- I have this - but there are a lot of translations on the internet, just type the first line into Google. Intrigue 22:38, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 02:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What kind of writing systems do you mean? (Probably not Tengwar, right? ;) [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 01:06, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hee, that at least looks somewhat similar. Would this usually be written in Devanagari? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 02:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I found it! It's so hard to find actual Unicode-encoded Hindi text online (or even accurate transliterations). It'd be easier if I could actually read Devanagari, I suppose. X)

--[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 18:53, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

qulifications for a cartoonist

Two articles that may be what you're looking for:

• How to become a cartoonist - written by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert
• How TV Animation Works - from HowStuffWorks.com

-Salasks 23:07, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

None, really. You need talent, not eduction.Nelson Ricardo 02:18, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Marques and makes

I happened to read the marque article and learned that it described what I would call the make of a car. Are they really the same thing? [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 01:26, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

I've never heard of this term, perhaps it is realted to 'maker's mark'? Is it a USism? The Recycling Troll 19:22, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A citation in the OED2 says that marque entered English from French around the early 1900s, probably through international motor racing. --Heron 19:34, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Marque" is used in the U.S. auto magazines; I've always taken it to be a ten-dollar word (the "qu" alone is worth at least $8.50) for "brand" or "make". The three are interchangeable in casual use, but on closer inspection, "make" has a problem: the name on most cars is not that of the company that made it. Chevrolet, for instance, is a brand/marque, but isn't (today) a company; it's a brandname of GM's, and appears on cars made by GM factories and on cars they buy from others. Of the U.S. marques, only "Ford" is the name of a company and a name found on cars.

In usage, "make" is used on registration documents in the U.S. and Canada, and is what I'd expect to use with a car salesperson or mechanic; though the salesperson might use "marque", especially with high-end models. "Brand" is perhaps in the domain of marketing professionals. Sharkford 20:37, 2004 Sep 30 (UTC)

Same goes for British English. Make is vernacular, and marque is used by specialists. --Heron 21:40, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Anthocharis Sara and English common names

I'm trying to untangle the different Sara Orangetip butterfly subspecies and what their English common names are. Web pages aren't helping one bit. Does anybody know where I can find the current concensus about them? Williamb 04:29, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are you talking about Sara's Orangetip (Anthocharis sara)? The Recycling Troll 21:15, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Cultural anthropology and sociology

What is the difference between cultural anthropology and sociology? Neither one of our articles about the topics makes any mention of the other. I'm guessing the subtle differences between community, society, and culture are involved, which I roughly understand. I'm no expert though, so I figured I'd best ask here. • Benc • 06:47, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The differences are mainly historical, in that they came out of two different disciplines. Their subject matter has tended more and more to overlap. Sociology began in the study of contemporary societies in the developed world. Cultural anthropology began in the study of cultures characterized at the time as "primitive". -- Jmabel 07:09, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Operating system

What is the algorithm in C for to find page faults in paging scheme?

Well, for starters, any such thing would be operating-system specific. On anything but an open-source OS, this info would be proprietary. What OS are you asking about? -- Jmabel 18:49, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Page faults aren't handled detected in software, so there isn't a C algorithm for it. When your operating system is setting up a program (or allocating memory, or a couple of fancier things we'll skip for clarity) it puts your program and its data into memory, and sets up the CPU's memory management device (variously called the TLB, the hardware-pagetable, and other things) to permit your program to read, write, and execute from the appropriate pages of memory. If your program subsequently tries to access memory outwith these pages (or to do something else that's silly, like writing to a read-only page) the processor's memory management chip will notice and will immediately throw an error. That error is handled by a piece of the operating system, which often (it depends...) forwards the error to your program. So, while there isn't any software to detect the page fault, there is :

• software in the OS responsible for loading your program, and binding the correct page-table entries
• software in the OS which handles the page-fault signals from the CPU, and does the "appropriate" thing
• software in your program (in unix, it's usually a signal handler) which runs when the fault is detected. As (from an application's perspective) a page fault is generally a fatal error, all this software can really do is tidy up a few things before the application is finally torn down by the OS.

Now, if your question is instead how to find memory errors (which isn't the same as page errors at all: CPU page sizes vary, but they're generally several kilobytes, whereas a given malloc might be only a few bytes) the page hardware is only rarely going to find your problems. You can use an ICE (a super-expensive hardware thing), the CPU's trap functionality (some have this, many don't), an alternate allocator which inserts "canaries" (little markers which bookend allocations, and which it periodically checks to see are still intact) (there are versions of MSVC and GCC which do this, and you can rebuild using Rational Purify on many OSes) or you can use an allocator which (rather inefficiently) puts only one allocation per page (I think this is how ElectricFence works, but I'm not sure). If you've got the money for it, Purify absolutely kicks butt. - John Fader

Oh, and for windows only (I believe) there's also NuMega's BoundsChecker, which works like Purify, but which you might get cheaper (I've never used it). - John Fader

Riggs Bank

I am trying to find out information about the original Riggs Bank family. Yes, the family that found the Bank. I know that they were a very wealthly family in the Washington DC area at the time. I am not interested in know about anyone that currently owns the bank. I am basically interested in knowing who they were, where they lived and how they became to the founders of Riggs bank. Also I might like to know where they are buried and if there are any important landmarks or structures still standing that represents the life and times that they had in the Washington DC area.

Thank you Stephen Hosmer

• Riggs Bank's own timeline should get you started. Thanks for asking this -- my Dad always banked with Riggs, and I was always curious (though never curious enough to actually look it up) what the history of this bank is. --Jpgordon 16:58, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• The Riggs Bank article actually has a lot of info on the original founders, including:

The earliest incarnation of Riggs Bank was formed in 1836 when William Wilson Corcoran opened a small brokerage house. In 1840, Corcoran and George Washington Riggs, the son of a neighbor, formed "Corcoran & Riggs", which offered checking and depositing services. The bank got a major boost in 1844, when The U.S. government assigned Corcoran & Riggs to be the only federal depository in Washington. In 1854 Corcoran retired, and the bank changed its name to "Riggs & Co." After accepting a government charter, "Riggs National Bank" was born in 1896. By 1900, Riggs was twice as large as any other bank in D.C. Riggs embarked on a successful project to become known as the bank of embassies and diplomats, and by 1950 most embassies in Washington were customers.

Salasks 19:32, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

The same question was answered on Google Answers here. It mainly discusses the bio of George Washington Riggs. Salasks 19:40, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Clark Griffith

I am trying to know where Clark Griffith the one time owner of the Washington Senators lived in Washington DC. I would like to find a map that would show me this. Does anyone know if his home is still standing today. Also I would like to know if there are any memorials, monuments or plaques in his honor that might still be around in the Washington DC area. I believe that he is buried in a mausoleum but I really would like to be sure. I would also like to know why he buried in such a large mausoleum. Is he buried alone or with other family members. Any help you could give me on theses items I would greatly apprecaite it. Thank you Stephen Hosmer.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2386&pt=Clark%20'The%20Old%20Fox'%20Griffith - that website lists his burial site as:

Fort Lincoln Cemetery

Brentwood

Prince George's County

Maryland, USA

In the list of deadball era owners' burial sites, it says he's buried in the Griffith Family Mausoleum.

I'm not sure how big it is, but it seems Clark's adopted son Calvin was also buried at Fort Lincoln Cemetary, possibly also in the Mausoleum.

Salasks 19:10, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

East Chicago data, source desired

Greetings and fabulous site - I bookmarked. I found census data for East Chicago, Indiana. The last graph talks about poverty data - precisely what I was seeking. But it does not reference the source. I'd like to know how to find that source so I can be very sure of the data. The rest is cited as Census - but not the graph I want! It's very important my information be accurate. thank you if you can help - Darby

The statistic was put in by User:Ram-Man (talk). You can leave a message on his talk page to ask him directly. Salasks 19:21, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

According to the last item on Ram-Man's talk page, the statistic should actually read "33.3% of those under the age of 18 are in poverty and 15.6% of those over the age of 65 are in poverty" and not "Out of the total people living in poverty, 33.3% are under the age of 18 and 15.6% are 65 or older." Salasks 19:26, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Greek Grammar

If in ancient Greek an orator is rhê-tôr and a word is rhê-ma, then is the process of oration called rhê-sis? Thanks in advance, Gelu Ignisque

My lexicon of New Testament Koine Greek gives rhêma and rhétor as you say (the former is also "saying, expression" and the latter in Koine has a different meaning but was originally "public speaker, orator"). Rhêsis is "word, expression" and no differing "original" meaning is given. Nothing conclusive, but a start. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:46, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your best synonym in Attic greek might be agoreusis. Rhesis is given a synonym for rhema by Langenscheidt and would mean oration secondarily as a metonymic figure of speech. In Homeric greek the primary definition of rhesis is "speaking or speech." Alteripse 23:29, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Brainy kids and dots and stuff

Years ago I remember seeing a documentary about parents trying to turn their kids into geniuses by showing them flash cards with dots on them and saying the number of dots out loud and making the kids listen to classical music etc.. Did any of these kids turn out to be geniuses or was it just a big waste of time? Mintguy (T) 21:39, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, regarding the classical music aspect: A small study done with college age students showed a temporary uptick in performance in certain tasks (Short term memory and IQ, IIRC) while they listened to classical music. They named this quirk "The Mozart Effect" which the press jumped on and turned it into "Listening to classical music makes you smarter". The general populace took this and interpretted it to mean "Listening to classical music must produce child prodigies". The problem is that, even if you accept the giant leap in logic required to correlate college students performing better to producing a mini-einstein, no one was able to reproduce the results of the original study. So, in regards to your initial question, I'm going to say that in all likelyhood, none of those kids turned out to be geniuses, or at least no more than would be statistically significant. Cvaneg 22:48, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In general, exposing children to a wide variety of different stimuli is good for their development, but it's not a simple relationship. The Recycling Troll 03:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd still like to know what happened to all these kids and the dotty flash cards. Mintguy (T) 10:33, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's a book out there called "Einstein Never Used Flash Cards." The authors are early childhood education experts. You can guess which point of view they took. moink 01:35, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is the term "balkanization" offensive?

I used the term "balkanization" on another message board, and I was scolded by someone of Balkan descent, who said that the term offends him. My impression is that it references the historical division of the Balkans, as opposed to some characteristic of people from that region. I didn't believe it was offensive. WP's article, although short, doesn't mention that it's offensive to some people. Should I stop using the term, or is this just more PC policing? Rhobite 23:03, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

I say it's PC policing. That doesn't mean you won't offend someone, and it certainly refers to the breakup into small countries, nothing more sinister. For similar reasons, in Spanish (and, I believe, in several other reasons) a salad of chopped up mixed fruits or vegetables is a macedonia. -- Jmabel 23:07, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Is there even a similar word or term with the same meaning? I'm all for altering my vocabulary as necessary to be more sensitive to others, but in this case, I don't think you could without becoming unecessarily long winded or losing some of the meaning of what you are trying to say. Incidentally, the American Heritage Dictionary which usually denotes if a word is offensive has no such note for balkanizationCvaneg 23:19, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's about as offensive as "Finlandization". --Jpgordon 00:49, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's a matter of opinion, some people in that part of the world preffer the term 'South East Europe' to 'Balkan', because the word 'Balkan', and 'Balkanize' have come to be associated with the (often violent) breakup of regions into smaller areas. It certainly has taken on negative conotations. I think it is acceptable to use the word, but be aware that folks that come from these places may not like the term. Mark Richards 15:48, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Krishna Yajur Vedataittiriya Upanishad 2.2.2

1. What is a translation of this?
2. Should that be Krishna Yajur Vedataittiriya Upanishad?
3. How are the verses numbered?

--[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 02:57, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Chimes at Midnight

Is there a song with this title?

Once I saw a documentary in Discovery Channel about war strategies in medieval times, and they had this song playing all the time, with choirs and timpanis... At the end credits, I saw credits to "Chimes at Midnights" close the the "music" credits. So, I suppose is the name of the such song. Searching for this I could indeed find references to a song, but nothing too substantial.

Err... What could it be? — Kieff | Talk 05:46, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

There is, of course, the Orson Welles 1965 film Chimes at Midnight. Possibly the credit referred to music from the film, which was composed by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. Gandalf61 11:41, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

I believe there is a Jethro Tull song by this name. And I believe it was one of their pseudo-medieval things, so it might be the one. -- Jmabel 22:42, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Since the phrase is from a moderately famous Shakespeare quote, there could well be multiple songs by that name. --Matt McIrvin 23:01, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

article and picture on the king crab?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to request an article, but I'm wondering if we can get an article on the king crab? I heard it was supposed to have up to a 12ft armspan...

According to our article the largest crab is the Japanese spider crab with a legspan of 13 feet and weight of 44 lbs. Rmhermen 15:42, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

King crab is another name for Horseshoe crab. It is more closely related to spiders than crabs. It has nothing like a 12 foot legspan - can you describe the thing you are talking about? It certainly sounds like a Japanese Spider Crab. The Recycling Troll 15:55, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The last time a question about large crabs came up here, it prompted a community effort to flesh out the article on Coconut crab - it doesn't have the reach of the Japanese spider crab but it wins on bulk. -- Solipsist 17:39, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The article says the coconut crab only gets to 4 kg (less than 9 lbs.) - a long way from 44 lbs for the Japanese spider crab. It is the largest land crab, though. Also something else is called King Crab as can be seen at [3]. It apparently has several species. Rmhermen 21:35, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

ITIS gives five valid species called king crabs:

• Blue king crab, Paralithodes platypus (Brandt, 1850)
• California king crab, Paralithodes californiensis (Benedict, 1894)
• Red king crab, Paralithodes camtschaticus (Tilesius, 1815)
• Scarlet king crab, Lithodes couesi (Benedict, 1894)
• Golden king crab, Lithodes aequispina (Benedict, 1894)

Rmhermen 21:40, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

It seems like we have some work to do on crabs... ;) The Recycling Troll 23:25, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just for ducks, I changed King crab from a redirect to Horseshoe crab to include the above list. WormRunner | Talk 05:07, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quartic Equation

I would be glad, if somebody with good math skills could check, if I changed the article Quartic equation correctly, and if yes: Why is it correct? Thank you. --Riddick 20:57, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Weena Mercator a.k.a. The Hopping Woman

Who is Weena Mercator: The Hopping Woman? I've seen reference to her in the show Freakazoid. I believe her name also appears in the credits to the game Star Wars Shadows of the Empire for the Nintedo 64 gaming console. I can't seem to find the origins of Weena Mercator. Who is Weena Mercator and where did she come from? ~ Joshua Renaud.

aka "la femme de houblonnage" I think it's just an in joke from Freakazoid, that has spread a little. She is listed in many places as playing 'a hopping woman'. The Recycling Troll 23:33, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Deciphering Chinese

I've received sth in Chinese and, not knowing the language at all, have no idea what it says. This is especially confusing because it's the name of whoever sent it, and sent from an invalid address.

儂融國際股份有限公司

What is a rough translation of this? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 00:00, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you don't get a reply, you might want to try the Chinese Wikipedia. The Recycling Troll 00:14, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here's what I can tell you from a rough knowledge of Chinese: the first two characters are just a name; the second two mean "international"; the next two mean "investment" (I think); and the last four mean "limited company". So it's the So-and-so International Investment Company. Mjklin 11:19, 2004 Oct 2 (UTC)

It's Taiwanese Spam, I believe.--Fangz 20:51, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

kidney cancer

Kidney cancer? Mark Richards 17:22, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

can anyone help

social and cultural factors that impact on contemporary health status of inuits.(Canadian)

Didn't we just deal with this one? Mark Richards 17:20, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Referencing

What is the convention for referencing quotes and paraphrases of articles in Wikipedia?

• Have a look at Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 16:44, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

Fountain dedidcated to Africans in Paris?

Can someone tell me the name of the two tiered monument(fountain) located in a around about (rotory) that is surrounded by black statutes. It is very ornately decorated with gold and the statutes are all facing outward. It looks maybe to be dedicated to Africans but I'm not sure. I was in Paris and took a picture of it while driving but never could find reference to it. I can send you the picture if it would help.

Thanks In advance.

Post the picture, if we don't have one already, it can go into whatever article comes from this... This site might help. Intrigue 23:04, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pre-Gregorian date confusion.

Before the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar the new year began in March (at least in England and a a number of other European countries). I was just looking at 1066. January 6 - Harold II is crowned King of England the day after Edward the Confessor dies. - Presumably this was actually 1065 and has been retrospectively "corrected" to follow the convention of the new year beginning in January. Can we be sure that this has been followed consistently? I mean can we be sure that there arn't articles and timelines where the chronology is skewed because of confusion over this issue? Should we make a note of this possible confusion in our articles on years and dates?Mintguy (T) 10:38, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Hoo boy, talk about a can of worms. See, for the man on the street, the year always began on January 1, since 45 BC or so. (Before that it started in the spring -- hence "September", "October", etc. as seventh and eigth month.) The Church, however, didn't like the festivities which accompanied this, and so at the second Council of Tours in 567 (according to one source; another says it was the third) they decided that having the year start on 1 January was an ancient mistake that should be corrected. Chaos and confusion ensued until everyone caught up with each other and the Gregorian calendar was adopted ... well, actually, that wasn't global until 1924 or so, and even then only mostly ... so, in other words, it's a mess, so we can't assume one way or another about Edward the Confessor's dates, without synching it with other dates (like, "in the fourth year of the reign of blah blah, Edward the Confessor died.") Me, I prefer to use Julian days, which does puzzle people because they confuse it with the unrelated Julian calendar, but which lack the whole concept of "year". --jpgordon 05:54, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • What you have to watch though is that some historians will use the ecclesiastic calendar starting on 25th March (Lady Day) while others will stick to 1st January. It all depends on what angle they're looking at history from, at the end of the day. In family history, a standard that is used is to use the date 6th February 1645/6, i.e. 6th Feb in 1645 in the ecclesiastic calendar, or 6th Feb 1646 to every bugger else! -- Graham ☺ | Talk 12:59, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Then should we not also follow this convention for biographical articles? Mintguy (T) 18:05, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The maintainers of the Samuel Pepys' Diary blog use that convention with the slash when dating entries from the early months of each year. --Matt McIrvin 13:14, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd go with it. Something to watch is that different countries in Europe made the change beteen Julian and Gregorian calendars at different times: in England it was in 1752 but was one of the last countries to do it. Where do we propose this as policy? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why do we roll our eyes?

Does anyone know why we roll our eyes at certain things? It seems to go across many cultures and I'd think it has some sort of brain/cognition reason. Any have any clues? Thanks. JoeSmack (talk) 22:50, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it really seems like some natural behaviour. Perhaps by rolling our eyes we're avoiding to see the thing we're not interested in... I dunno, probably a stupid guess... hehe, oh well... — Kieff | Talk 23:04, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

This is interesting. There is a tendency for people to physically react when they think soneone is lying to them, or is simply incorrect about something. Various reaction behaviors include crossing one's arms, scratching one's ears or nose, rubbing one's eye, etc. You may want to read our articles at gesture, nonverbal communication, body language, and facial expression, however, none of these articles seem to cover eye rolling. func(talk) 01:49, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Bike wheel problems

I have an old cruiser, and I just got a new single speed rear wheel for it. I put it on, and tightened the bolts, but the wheel moves in the frame. I tightened them as far as I dare without threading them, but no joy, it still moves - any tips? Thanks, Jordan.

You need to tighten the cones before you tighten the outer nuts. The cones are the cone-shaped nuts that go between the wheel bearing and the frame. On an assembled wheel, the sloping parts of the cones point inwards, so you can only see the outer ends of the cones, which look like cylindrical nuts with two flattened faces. Tighten these gently until they are just finger-tight, then tighten the outer nuts. Check that the wheel still turns freely - if it doesn't, loosen everything and try again. --Heron 08:22, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Copyleft Logo Designer - who was

Seeking information on who actually came up with the idea and execution for the reversed © symbol. If you also know the origins of the copyright, trademark, patent and registered symbols, it would be helpful. thanks in advance.

[email protected]

I don't know, but it was in use informally in the protest / anarchist movement for a long time. I would not be surprised if there is no one person who claims to have done this first. The others should be easier to track down, have you looked on the articles about those things here? Mark Richards 21:47, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

i've searched wikipedia and the web in general for information regarding these designs but can find nothing - Marcus

Some guy on talk:copyleft was claiming it was a logo he made or something similar, you might want to look at the history or archive for that page.

Definately an interesting idea - thanks for pointing me to that (how do i contact "Iseeaboar" as there was no edit facility on the article? Also, I've contacted many of the governing bodies too - the copyright office etc but none appear to have any specific information either.

SPECTRE COMPUTER

Hi,

I'm a CS student. I wanna know more about the SPECTRE and its functioning priciples. I searched online, but there's few.I'm asking where we can find more about this SPECTRE computer system.

Many many thanks!! Danny Calden

I don't think there is enough information here for people to help you - can you be more specific? Mark Richards 19:40, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gregorian Calendar

Did the Gregorian Calendar originate in Rome or Vatican City?

• The Gregorian Calendar was proposed by a physician from Calabria, Aloysius Lilius. --jpgordon 17:02, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Also, at that point in time, I believe the use of the term "Vatican City" would be anachronistic. Prior to the founding of the nation state of Italy, that whole region would have been part of the Papal States. I believe that the Vatican City was set aside at the time of Italian unification precisely so that the Pope would retain sovereignty over this complex of buildings. -- Jmabel 17:57, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
• Later than that. The Vatican City was established as an independent state in 1929 by the Lateran treaties. --jpgordon 19:27, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
• Italy got unified during about 1860 - 1870 (unification was completed in 1870 when the kingdom's military forces captured Rome with little resistance). The pope refused to recognize the new state and forbade Catholics to vote in Italian elections. The popes relaxed that prohibition, allowing voting in local elections, but peace was not made until the treaty of 1929, in which the king recognized Vatican City as an independent state. Since the Gregorian calendar originated in the 16th century, it could not have originated in Vatican City. Michael Hardy 02:13, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Supermarket headquarters in Spain

Hi. My family and i have just relocated to spain where i am looking to set up a business retailing seafood to majour supermarket chains. If anyone knows of anywhere that i can find a list of adresses for any supermarkets headquarters in spain please contact me at [email protected] (sorry, this is my da<ughters address as i have yet to have my home computer connected to the internet) thanx

By anonymous; moved from the Village Pump. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 16:16, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

• You might have better luck on the Spanish-language wikipedia. Or by contacting the Spanish equivalent of a Chamber of Commerce. -- Jmabel 18:00, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Musical term "to go gold"

Related to reaching a certain number of sales but i) how many and ii) does it apply to only albums or do singles count too? --Cfailde 16:37, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

See RIAA certification. It appears that albums and singles are counted separately. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 16:44, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. --Cfailde 16:59, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

how do i

how would i cite the article coming from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Company

• See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. -- Wapcaplet 19:45, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dorothy Parker quotation (again)

About a month ago I asked about which book Dorothy Parker was referring when she wrote this is not a book to be discarded lightly, it should be thrown with great force and the answer came back as The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne.

I have since managed to get hold of a copy of that review, and that sentence is not mentioned anywhere. Does anyone have any other ideas? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:40, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

'Fraid not. The quote is not, unless I missed it, in any of the reviews reprinted in The Portable Dorothy Parker (though it doesn't cover all of her Constant Reader columns). The net is no help. Books of quotations track it down only as far as being quoted in R.E. Drennan's The Algonquin Wits, which has it succinctly as "Book Review: This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." -- DrBob 01:27, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

alternate names for "lifejacket"

I want to expand the article lifejacket (actually, I want to move it to Personal flotation device, THEN expand it). I cannot believe that this stub is all that exists on this topic in Wikipedia. I've checked under PFD, Personal flotation device, life jacket (a redirect to lifejacket), and life vest for duplicate articles. Are there any more names that I just haven't thought of? Joyous 02:48, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

To me, "personal flotation device" appears PC-synonymous with "lifejacket". [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 03:14, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Nothing at Mae Wests either. Rmhermen 03:20, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

There is a brief mention at Mae West however. -- Solipsist 12:33, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what's (negatively) PC about it; "lifejacket", "lifevest", "Mae West" etc are handy nicknames but PFD is specific and, perhaps most useful, the term that's actually printed on the product, so I would agree that it's the right name for an encylcopedia article. Having said that, I can't say I know it's called that outside the U.S. and Canada, but that's what the web is for. So I'd say go for it. Sharkford 13:41, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

There is a policy (not one which I'm happy with, but there you go) which says that articles should use the most common name: thus lifejacket would be more appropriate than "personal floation device". --Tagishsimon

I don't think that PC has anything to do with it (unless someone can come up with something offensive regarding the word life or vest). In general, though, I think that the term "personal flotation device" covers a category of objects including life vests, life preservers, and other buoyant objects for individuals. A life vest, though, specifically defines a type of personal flotation device that you wear around your shoulders and body. Cvaneg 18:09, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A ray of light strikes us. Lifejacket (or Life jacket, which actually gets more Google hits) is a subcategory of PFD. The latter should definitely have an article. Whether there's enough to say about LJ by itself, I dunno. Sharkford 19:14, 2004 Oct 5 (UTC)

Blasphemy?

The contents of the Koran in this library says that Jesus has no share in Divinity and that He never went to the cross. It also says that Allah has no sons whereas the Christian faith states that '...Jesus is the only (begotten) Son of God.' The Christian Scriptures also state that there is no other name than Jesus by which men and women can be saved from eternal damnation and benefit from the love of God in Heaven. What do you think of the above? Regards, FJL

I think that you shouldn't create duplicate entries on here. Also it is profoundly irrelevant for followers of one religion to criticise another, and remember that Christianity is a heresy to the Jews so the saying about motes and beams comes to mind... -- Arwel 12:51, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it shows that different religions don't agree on points of doctrine, but then, that's kind of what it means to be different religions... Mark Richards 19:27, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is very little that can be said about this "blasphemy" from an NPOV. Therefore, this is probably not an appropriate question for the Wikipedia reference desk. ike9898 21:44, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

FJL :- (I would first point out that the Reference Desk is designed for factual queries, not as a forum for extended discussion or debate.) You might want to read Isa and Jesus as Christ and Messiah. The sacred writings of Islam and Christianity contain very different viewpoints on Jesus; no doubt both consider the doctrine of the other to be heresy blasphemy. Muslims consider Jesus to be one of the Prophets of Islam. As you point out, traditional Christian doctrine is that Jesus was divine and that he died on the cross (see, e.g., Nicene Creed). You also allude to Acts 4:12, which, in reference to Jesus Christ, states that "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." (NIV). — Matt 23:03, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Don't be so sure that each considers the doctrine of the other to be heresy. Islam arose too late to achieve the status of "heresy" by being condemned by an Eccesiastical Council. Considerable Christian ink has been shed over whether it's a pagan religion or a heresy: Hilaire Belloc notably held it was the latter; I think (but cannot swear) that the Catholic Church tended to believe that a Christian who embraced Islam was an apostate, not a heretic. - Nunh-huh 01:53, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Interesting! (Although, annoyingly, I actually meant to write "blasphemy" above, not "heresy"). — Matt 09:17, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Setting up a private wiki

Can someone give me some idea of how hard it would be to set up a personal wiki system? I am interested because I think it would a very useful way to organize some on-going personal research. At this point it would be fine with me if it 'lived' in my personal computer, rather than on a web server. To help you gauge your answer, it am a technically-minded person, but not a computer/database/web-site specialist. If this would be very challenging, can you suggest another simple set up lots of related pages of text with links between them? ike9898 21:39, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Is it just for you, or do you want it available to others? There is a Wikibook on how to set up a wiki I think. Mark Richards 23:42, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Wikibook that Mark refers to is at b:Wiki Science (note, this is an external link to our sister project, Wikibooks). Gentgeen 23:59, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

help

what are california pods/chile pasilla? i know it is a food but i don't know what

This page [4] seems to have a good explanation for you. Pasilla is a name given to a number of peppers. The chilaca pepper when dried is a pasilla. In some places the ancho pepper is called the pasilla roja. In Oaxaca there is a pepper that, when smoked and dried is called a pasilla de Oaxaca. Liblamb 18:30, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quillaia

What is Quillaia? It's apparently in my root beer, but beyond that.. [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 06:02, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Our List of food additives says that E number 999 quillaia extract is a humectant. Which leads to the question -why do you need a humectant in a drink? Rmhermen 13:20, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

I found out more - it is a foaming agent. Also called China bark extract, Murillo bark extract, panama bark extract, quillai extract, Quillaia extract, quillay bark extract, Soapbark extract. So it is a bark, not a root. The World Health Organization[5] says "milled inner bark or of the wood of pruned stems and branches of Quillaja saponaria Molina (family Rosaceae). The term ‘quillaia’ refers to the dried inner bark of the tree, which is a large evergreen with shiny, leathery leaves and a thick bark, native to China and several South American countries, principally Bolivia, Chile, and Peru." It contains a high quantity of saponins and has some use in vaccine preparation. Rmhermen 13:28, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Silent Film Stars

Are there any silent film stars that are still living today besides Anita Page?

This might be stretching the description of "star" somewhat but the Australian actor Bill Kerr (born 1922) is still around and kicking (IMDB gives his latest film role as "Fairy Guide" in the 2003 version of Peter Pan). While IMDB lists his first role as the 1933 Australian film "Harmony Row", I read a while back that he started his film career as a child actor in short films in the silent period. The article also pointed out that he held the record for the longest active film career (70+ years). --Roisterer 01:33, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• It's funny, I was just yesterday thinking about the very topic of who is the oldest actor still around since Ronald Reagan and Fay Wray died this year. Luise Rainer is still alive--she's got to be 85 at least. Eddie Albert is 95. Gloria Stuart must be about 90. Sir John Mills is about 90. The oldest I know is Charles Lane, who acted from the 1920s to the 1990s. He will be 100 next January 26. I'd love to know if anyone knows any other nonagenarians or centarians from the movies. Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 18:43, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

• • Al Lewis is 94... [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 06:23, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • Just remembered another one: Dickie Moore is 80, and made his debut in 1927. Moore was in the Our Gang comedies of the early 30s and is most famous for being the first person to kiss Shirley Temple on screen. --Roisterer 07:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I ran through the list of "entertainers of the present" in the World Almanac last night, and the oldest one entered still living was Hildegard, the singer, born February 1, 1906. Those born in 1910 or before I spotted were:

1. Charles Lane (not in Almanac), born January 26, 1905 ()first credit on IMDB in 1931, last in 1995)
2. Sir John Mills, February 22, 1908
3. Eddie Albert, April 22, 1908
4. Luise Rainer, January 12, 1910 (oldest living acting Oscar winner)
5. Al Lewis, April 30, 1910
6. Constance Cummings, May 15, 1910
7. Katherine Dunham, June 22, 1910 (IMDB says June 24, 1909)
8. Gloria Stuart, July 4, 1910
9. Kitty Carlisle Hart (tv personality), September 3, 1910
10. Dame Alicia Markova (dancer), December 1, 1910

Other older living Oscar winners are Karl Malden (March 22, 1912, Jane Wyman (January 4, 1914), Olivia de Havilland (July 1, 1916, her sister Joan Fontaine (October 22, 1917), and Jennifer Jones (July 1, 1916). The oldest entertainer the Almanac listed besides the above was bandleader and composer Mitch Miller, born July 4, 1911. PedanticallySpeaking 16:12, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Remembering

  Can a person remember something when they were 1 year old of age or younger?

We ought to be able to point you at a Wikipedia article called Infantile Amnesia, but there doesn't seem to be one. The Amnesia article has a very brief mention of "Childhood amnesia", but IA is the common term used for what mainstream psychology considers the normal inabililty to form or retain memories from early childhood. Putting that phrase into your favourite search engine should bring you to lots of info. At a glance, there seems to be a lot of sites taking issue with the mainstream approach. How about making sense of it all and writing the article for us?! Sharkford 16:36, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

Army Shoulder Cords

What are the guidelines and regulations for wearing the Army Branch Shoulder Cords on the right shoulder. Can't find anything on this.

AR 670-1 only specifies the guidelines for wearing them on the uniform, not for earning them.

These are not aiguilettes, which Staff wear, These are shoulder cords of of the color of every Branch in the Army. The most prevalent is the Infantry (Light Blue).

Please respond to [email protected].

Reserved Words

User func here. In programming languages, I understand that a variable cannot have the same name as a language key word, or reserved word, such as "if" or "while". There would not be enough context for the compiler/interpreter to disambiguate the difference between "if" as syntax-glue and "if" as variable. What I don't fully understand is why an object-oriented language also doesn't allow the methods and properties of objects to use the reserved words. For instance, I have often wanted to create object methods in JavaScript called things like "char" or "int", but the language doesn't allow for it, ("char" and "int" are reserved for future use):

	var o = new Object;
	o.char = function( ... ) { whatever } // throws a reserved identifier error

Consider, the dot-syntax (or whatever object-syntax is used in the language) should make it clear and unambiguous to the compiler/interpreter that "char" is being used in an "identifying" way and not in a syntactic way.

	if ( test ) { whatever } // no ambiguity,
	myValue = myObject.if;   //        right?

As compiler design is way above my head, I was just wondering if there was any reason why methods and instance variables are constrained in this way? func(talk) 17:16, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)== Reserved Words ==

Computer languages don't have to have reserved words. For example FORTRAN — or at least FORTRAN as it stood back when it was widely used, I have no idea about newer FORTRAN standards — does not. For example, the following is perfectly good FORTRAN.

        IF = 7
        FORMAT = 3.17

So, infamously, is

        DO 10 I = 1.10

Because FORTRAN ignores spaces in variable names, instead of being the top of a loop (as it would be if that period were a comma) this assigns the value 1.10 to the variable DO10I. Charming.

Probably things like this are why most later languages followed Algol in having reserved words instead of FORTRAN's approach.

By the way, the way FORTRAN compilers cope with this is that they first try to parse every statement as an assignment and only try parsing it other ways after that fails. -- Jmabel 17:34, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Note that, in C++ at least, you can refer to members of a class without the "class_name." in some circumstances (inside member functions). Also, constructions like char(x) are valid for casting variable types. So there is potential ambiguity between char() as a cast, and char() as a member function. I don't know about Javascript, but possibly it has something similar. -- DrBob 17:53, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In a nutshell: reserving keywords results in fewer headaches for syntacticians, compiler/interpreter software engineers, maintenance programmers, and others. Reserved keywords make life simpler for all involved.

The long explanation: to generalize on the language-specific examples given Jmabel and DrBob, one important reason why keywords are reserved is to allow the language syntax to be extended without breaking old code. For any given language, it is often possible to write a non-standard compiler or interpreter that allows the use of reserved keywords as variable, method, or attribute names. But when and if the language syntax is extended, it may very well break your code. Reserved keywords are basically the language spec authors' telling you: "These keywords are part of the syntax, which may eventually be extended to use the keywords in new ways. We could say 'use these keywords as variable names at your own risk.' Instead, to make everyone's job easier, we're saying 'thou shalt not use these words as variable names at all.'"

A slight tangent: sometimes new reserved keywords are added to the language. This often does break old code, although the newly reserved keywords will help maintenance programmers quickly find and fix the problem. A real world example: in Python, the keywords as and None are currently part of the syntax according to the latest language spec. They are not yet reserved keywords, though they will be, eventually, by which point maintenance programmers will have to make sure that they aren't using any variables named as or None. • Benc • 00:07, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Tesla Coil as a school project

My school begun with this creativity fair thing... I suggested my group that we made a Tesla Coil, since hey, Tesla DOES deserve any kind of recognition, and it'd be nice to show people how important he was.

The problem is, we need a transformer and I'm not sure what exactly I'm needing here. What should be the power and the output voltage and current? The input must be 220V, and we're not planning to do anything big here. As long as the coil works, and as long as we can make experiments showing the energy transmission through distance (using fluorescent lights, for example), we'd have enough. Though, it'd be nice if the coil was safe enough to put our hand close to it.

Also, i'd like to know if we can put some glass bowl above it to give a plasma lamp effect. I've heard somewhere that these plasma lamps are nothing but a tesla coil with a bowl around, and if this is true, we could make it even more pleasent to the look.

But anyway, about the transformer, my physics teacher hasn't helped much about this aspect since he's having to ask other people, and this takes some time we don't have.

The transformers I could find already (I've asked for 5000V transformers, though this might be either too much or too few, so that's why I'm asking) are being extremely expensive (about 800 bucks), and I was thinking there could be a better option... Is it safe to make our own tranformer? If so, how should we proceed?

Well, that's pretty much what's worrying me right now, since we don't want it to be too expensive, but we do want something interesting.

Any help is appreciate. Thanks in advance. — Kieff | Talk 05:06, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

There's a good article on the subject here, that suggests you can use a flyback transformer from a CRT. I would give it a safety rating of 0/10. If you touch it, it will knock you across the room and possibly kill you. --Heron 08:44, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I was afraid I'd have to end up using a flyback, which is too dangerous. Any other option besides that? — Kieff | Talk 09:00, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

You can also use a pair of MOSFETs to drive the primary, as in this article. I tried this once, but it didn't work for me - I think I wound the secondary wrongly. --Heron 12:40, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

what type of processor?

hi what type of processor can i use to connect to 20connections which are connected to a 12 v motor and to gun aiming target and someother connections like that?how they can be connected and what is the reason to connect that only? - Anonymous

I'm afraid I don't understand what this question is asking. -- Cyrius|✎ 05:59, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sterile Uterus

Is the inside of the uterus sterile? If so, how does it stay sterile if it is open at the cervix? Kusskeeper

No part of the human body is sterile. Mark Richards 23:59, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's true, and the reason it doesn't get full of nasty bugs is that even though it's technically "outside" the body, elements of the immune system such as antibodies and white blood cells are present and functioning there - just as they do in other regions "outside" of the body such as the gut and lungs.

So when a window is open, do you feel the entire house is "outside"? -- Jmabel 19:18, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

The cavum uteri (inside of the uterus) is practically sterile due to various protective mechanisms. The commensal lactobacilli of the vagina produce lactic acid, and the cervix likewise is hostile to pathogens. Infection of the uterus occurs in endometritis (a rare complication of childbirth), and chlamydia infects the uterus before it can affect the Fallopian tubes to causes salpingitis and pelvic inflammatory disease. JFW | T@lk 16:12, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A Doctor without licenses

In Reference desk on ja.wikipedia, A question was posted and no one knows the answer. please help us. The question is below;

Please tell me a name of a swindler in U.S., who had IQ 200 or 300. He joined the army as a doctor. Although he did not have any medical licenses in fact, he succeeded operations with referencing books. Later he was taken into a court because of arrogation, but he was adjudged not guilty with many supports who had been saved by his operations.

If you know him, answer on this page, I'll translate it into ja. Sketch 15:51, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It took awhile, but I think I've found him: The US television program The Pretender was based on a 1961 Tony Curtis film The Great Impostor, which in turn was based on "one of the world's greatest impersonators and hoaxters of the 1950's", a guy by the name of "Ferdinand Waldo Demara," (sometimes spelled "Demarra"). Here is an external link. func(talk) 16:56, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Frank Abagnale also pretended to be a doctor - but not in the military. He was the subject of the recent Catch Me If You Can. Rmhermen 21:06, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

---

Thank you for your researches. I'll show these answers to the first questioner in ja.wp. - Sketch 06:44, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cordell Hull and the Japanese

And the question is?

authors of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge article

Check out the history of that article. Mark Richards 23:59, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If your question has to do with citing the article for a paper, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. If it's purely for interest or other purposes, go to the Samuel Taylor Coleridge article as Mark suggests, and click on the link labeled "history" (it is probably in a tab at the top of the screen, depending on the layout you're viewing us in). Jwrosenzweig 14:10, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Late 19th-Century England Etiquette

Good day,

I've been trying to find the etiquette of late 19-century hand-holding in England. More specifically, I'm looking to find out how a man was to take a women's hand or a woman to take the hand/arm of a man. I have searched books and the internet exhaustively and can find nothing specific in answer to my question.

If you have any answer at all, I would be much appreciative!

Sincerely, Searching

It would be nice to have some articles about prevailing etiquete in different times / places - our current one is kind of weak. Intrigue 17:36, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

differentiation between window xp and linux

You could check out the Windows XP and Linux articles as a start. More specificity would help to avoid a long and complex flamewar! Intrigue 17:36, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You might also check Operating system advocacy. As a group, while Wikipedians probably skew towards open source OS's (partly because many of the early Wikipedians came out of the open source community), most of them are long past operating system flamewars (I hope...) --Robert Merkel 03:08, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

vodka etc - alcohol from potatoes or other complex carbohydrates

Okay, I know that the yeast we use for alcoholic fermentation transforms simple sugars into alcohol. I also know that it cannot do this with complex carbohydrates like starch. That is why when you make beer, you have to malt the barley (to make a long story short, it helps transform the starch in the barley into sugars the yeast can use). So, my question is, some vodka is made from potatoes - how is the potatoe starch made available to the yeast?? ike9898 14:02, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but maybe the complex carbohydrates are first treated by an enzyme that breaks it down into less complex units before the yeast is added?

According to [6] they add either malted grain or enzymes from a packet to break down the potato starch. --Heron 16:28, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Another vodka question

I've seen vodkas made from potatoes, grain, and at least one that was made from grapes. So, what defines vodka? Is there something distinct about the process used to make it? There is a partial answer in the vodka article, but I'm not sure how this is different from clear rum. Why isn't clear rum considered sugarcane vodka? ike9898 14:15, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Vodka#Vodka today explains, A common property of all vodkas, compared to other spirits, is that before any flavouring is added, it is neutralized as far as possible. This is often done by filtering it through charcoal. --jpgordon {gab} 15:41, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Kerberos

Moved from Kerberos (protocol) — Matt 14:36, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can anyone give me some more material about Kerberos Protocal? thanks! [email protected]

What butterfly species ?

User Donarreiskofferhas uploaded several butterfly pictures and released them under GFDL. Pictures were taken in a butterfly garden, so they don't have species information. Also it is not known where on the Earth the species are from. Does someone recognize what species they are? I think Image:Butterfly_zwin2.jpg looks a lot like zebra heliconian and Image:Butterfly zwin8.jpg thoas swallowtail. I need other people's estimates. Then the pictures could ideally be used in species articles or genus articles. -Hapsiainen 17:03, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Numbers Design

The numbers we use in the U.S.A. what place were they design at and when? And the naming of the numbers we use in the U.S.A. where were they named at and when?

Some places to start:

• Arabic numerals
• Decimal
• English-language numerals
• Names of numbers in English -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 19:33, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Generating a sine wave in a circuit

On a circuit, how do I generate a sine wave output signal using basic electronic components? — Kieff | Talk 06:28, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

How basic do you want the components to be? -- Cyrius|✎ 16:29, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I dunno, nothing too expensive. It'll probably involve an IC, so I'd like to know where can I get it as well. — Kieff | Talk 17:31, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Here's one based on a crystal and two transistors; this one uses a 555 timer IC and a filter IC, but is more versatile and conceptually simpler. You could order the components from somewhere like Digikey. -- DrBob 19:48, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The reason I want this is to produce a sine sound wave output. Here's a thought: the AC mains are sine waves. Is it possible to make use of this fact to produce a sine sound wave? How should I proceed then? Is it possible to make a circuit to decrease\increase the output frequency using this method? — Kieff | Talk 20:05, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Looking for an completed banner image

Hey, im looking a complete image that i've seen on a Wikipedia page: Triple J, by Chuq. It's a banner that has a the front part cut off it, and i was hoping that someone may know or have the full banner. It's for a project im doing on Double J.

Thanks!

Nia-maria

Pumice

Would it be possible to construct a boat or other seaworthy craft, using pumice or some similar rock? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 23:00, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I suppose so. Remember that the density of the building material is largely irrelevant (ships are, after all, made of steel). Numerous caissons, and the mulberry harbours are/were built from concrete, and all floated very nicely thankyou. But stone/concrete are rather inflexible, so a large vessel made from them is liable to snap in heavy sea conditions. John Fader

More bizarrely, various civil engineering organisations sponsor annual concrete canoe competitions in which various university teams design, build a race concrete canoes. See for example [7] -- Solipsist 06:50, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking of how practical it might be, to make some sort of floating raft or platform, made from a latticework of (something. bamboo?) that would use pumice or some other buoyant stone for the joints.... In other words, pumice, like any other rock, wouldn't be especially convenient for such use, right? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 04:23, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Then again, the more I think about that, the more it occurs to me that one might as well ditch the pumice altogether and make a bamboo raft. Of course, some enterprising wikipedian ought to make that concrete canoe article. [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 07:32, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

difference betweeen indian american and britain english.

hello, i am intrested in knowing about the quality of english as an language,my concerns are which is the standard english language spoken, is it britain english or american english?,because i heard about u.k english is considered as the standard english used in world, and american english is the slangest english,i just want to know that is that true.It would be great if you tell me where do indian english lie in all the three. hemant. you can mail me on [email protected]

Are you trying to start a flame war? ;-) Both UK and US English enjoy wide currency throughout the world. In many nations like India, UK English tends to be the "flavor" (or "flavour") of English taught. I'm not going to respond to your question regarding "quality", as it is obviously a very subjective matter of opinion. I will say this, however: I love listening to Indians speaking English, they give the language a beautiful lilt. Here is something interesting. func(talk) 14:16, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Homeopathy

What is homeopathy ? Jeanettesundby

See homeopathy. HTH, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 16:06, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Meelar, you're too quick :-) JFW | T@lk 16:08, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)