Ancient olympics.

When and why did the ancient olympics stop.

The last ancient Olympics were held in AD 393. They were thereafter banned by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I because of their frivolity and non-Christian basis. - Nunh-huh 07:44, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Frivolity? My television has been telling me they used to break each other's fingers. None of this namby-pamby, pyjama wearing Judo nonsense. If not being able to sign autographs afterwards is frivolous in your town...  ;o) --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 23:46, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

I recall hearing one historian's description of ancient olympic 'boxing' which had become so stylised the boxers took turns to hit each other. The first man struck a powerful blow to the head. After recovering his balance, the second man jabbed through the wall of his opponent's stomach, and pulled out his intestines - killing him on the spot. (For more, see for example Damoxenos of Syracuse and Kreugas of Epidamnos). That's the sort of frivolity that should be stopped... -- Solipsist 10:13, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

People are killed for many frivolous reasons. That death ensues from a pursuit makes it a costly pursuit, not a worthy or serious one. "Young boys throw rocks in jest, but the frogs die in earnest." Theodosius certainly did not consider the olympics less frivilous because athletes died in them. - Nunh-huh 02:22, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

IIRC, the pagan connections of the Olympic Games (eg, sponsored by Zeus with that famous temple there and all) was the critical point. ww 17:59, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Complete Summer Olympics on media?

Is there any legal way to get the complete Olympics anywhere from the first recordings to current from opening to closing ceremony on media? --Brian

I very much doubt it. You seem to be asking for all footage of every event. That would be a very expensive stack of DVD media even if you only bought cheap blanks and had someone at a network TV channel copy it all down for you. Probably the best you can hope for is a DVD or VHS tape of the highlights from any particular year. Anything beyond that would require a contact in the media and a bloomin' marvellous research reason why you needed them. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 23:50, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

the IOC is particularly paranoid about the rights to their material. Ultimately, you could try the Olympic museum in Lausanne, which would probably have the most comprehensive collection of this stuff. --Robert Merkel 16:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Who boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics?

Our article says "Tanzania led a boycott of 22 African nations".. but searching around the net I've found numbers ranging from 17 to 29 countries boycotting! Argh, it was only 28 years ago, is it that hard for people to agree?

And while we're at it.. our All Blacks article says "many African Countries boycotted the 1984 Olympics" in protest at New Zealand not being excluded after allowing a tour by the South African rugby team - but I can't find any mention of anyone other than the Soviet bloc boycotting that one.

Can someone clear it up for me? —Stormie 11:49, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

1976 - Montreal, Canada

Participating Countries - 92¹

¹ Most sources list this figure as 88. Cameroon, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia all boycotted the 1976 :Games. However, their athletes had already competed before the boycott was officially announced.

There seem to be many numbers floating around. Probably the most authoritative number is from the :IOC's UK website:

"Despite there being no African athletes present (they participated in a boycott organised by :Tanzania, in which 22 countries came together to protest against a tour of South Africa by the New :Zealand national rugby team), the standard of the competitions at the 1976 Olympic Games was very :high." Link.

--inks 00:54, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On a related topic, I've been trying to work out how many countries were at each olympics, using a variety of sources. Of course, they all disagree. Check the bottom few rows at Template:WikiProject Olympics Country Table -- Chuq 06:22, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

fransiscan barotrice

John Carmack "Carmack the Magnificent"

my name is john carmack. I was trying to find a way to get in touch with "Carmack the Magnificent" to see if we are related. If you could help me my e-mail is JDC1954@yahoo.com. Or my sister Pamela Carmack at sissypp1@yahoo.com. Thank You

I assume you mean this John Carmack? It is well known in certain nerdy circles that Carmack regularly posts to to sci.space.* hierachy of Usenet. Here is a post from Carmack with an email address on it, but I don't know if it's valid. If it bounces, you might try just contacting id Software; if your story's genuine, I don't see why they wouldn't pass the message on. --Robert Merkel 16:07, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Now do a google search on "Carmack the Magnificent", and you'll likely see that this page you are reading shows up, complete with your, and your sister's email address... might be a better idea to just come back later to retrieve your answer...Pedant 17:13, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)

Subacoustic psychopathology of sheep

Hello, I'm currently researching atypical herd behavior in sheep and need information about individual noncooperation with flock coherence, factious imprinting, subversive malignancy of bellwethers, and competitive collaboration, especially as related to destructive interaction with herding or guard animals such as dogs, subvocalisation, and pathological predator emulation. Your help is appreciated.

~ V. Guillermina.

I could give you some similar information about a herd of goats I spent some time with in the High sierras. They were the companions of a young woman who was goatpacking the high sierras. One of the younger goats would sneak off, and circle (in really rugged territory) around in front, and hide behind things making noises, noises that the woman explained were 'her scary sounds'... stuff like that. I never ever expected that I'd hear about anything remotely similar. It seems like it might have been "predator emulation". I assume you don't want anecdotal information though.Pedant

Well, I'm researching classification schemes for the application of adaptive random testing to nonnumeric data types, ranking algorithms for context-free languages, and am currently kicking round the idea of incrementalizing RPO trees. However, I don't think I'll be getting much help on any of them here...

Seriously, while there a quite a number of active researchers who contribute to Wikipedia, it's neither a repository of current research nor a forum for discussing active research or such highly specialised topics in animal behaviour. There might be a real expert on animal behaviour topics here, but I don't like your odds. Sounds like you need to locate a real university library and start combing the textbooks and, ultimately, the journals. I don't know what the good databases in the animal behaviour/ag science areas are; your librarian should be able to point you in the right direction. A good general tool is "Web of Science", which has details and abstracts in a ridiculous number of scientific journals, going all the way back to 1945 if your library has a subscription going back that far.

Good luck with your research.--Robert Merkel 15:55, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Fairly Odd Parents" or "Fairly OddParents"

I recently moved The Fairly Oddparents to The Fairly Odd Parents, but I'm a bit unsure of my move now. I did a google search prior to my move, and "Fairly Odd Parents" gave me about 94.000 hits and the official site as the number one, while "Fairly OddParents" showed me around 66.000 hits with the official site on the second place. The title of the official site is "Fairly Odd Parents", while the text inside says "Fairly OddParents". IMDB lists it as "Fairly OddParents" again, so.. anyone knows for sure what notation is the right one..? --Conti|✉ 02:34, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

I'd say "Fairly OddParents" would be correct. It is used on the official site many times with the exception being webpage titles. The name is a play off of fairy godparents. --Idiotfromia 02:07, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am a writer on the Fairly Oddparents. Oddparents is one word.

It's OddParents, capital P. RickK 21:15, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Social Trauma in France after WWI

The Aftermath of World War I article claims,

"The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought in the war became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully recovered from their experiences. This was especially acute in France where a huge number of their young men were killed or injured during the conflict. For the next few years the nation became obsessive in its mourning and thousands of memorials were erected, one for each village in France."

Is it in fact accurate to say that the French experience was more traumatizing than that of other countries with similar levels of casualties? Lets say Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia?

Peregrine981 02:41, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

This should probably be raised on the talk page of the article in question. But to your substantive point, I also wonder about this claim. WWI memorials in every little town aren't exactly unique; I've seen them in a lot of towns in Germany and certainly most small towns in Australia. Melbourne's own Shrine of Remembrance, initially in honor of the fallen in WWI, is enormous. --Robert Merkel 07:19, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have arbitrarily removed the "especially acute in France" bit, since I see no real justification anywhere. Thanks for the ideas,

Peregrine981 02:45, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Longest Serving Democratically Elected National/Regional Leader

I'm in the process of writing an entry for Sir Thomas Playford, who served as Premier of South Australia for nigh on 27 years, and referred to at Political families of the world as the "longest-serving Premier in Australian and British Commonwealth history". Does anyone know whether any nation/state/territory etc outside the Commonwealth has been led by someone for 27 years or more? --Roisterer 03:28, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Jyoti Basu remained the Chief Minister of West Bengal for a record period of 26 years. He later resigned voluntarily due to advancing age and CPI (M), the political party to which he belongs, still rules the state.

-- Sundar 05:03, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

If this is correct, Playford's been beaten; India is most definitely in the Commonwealth. --Robert Merkel 15:56, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I had a look around and found this article (www.flonnet.com/fl1723/17230210.htm) which has Basu in power for 23 years, so while commendable, no banana and Playford's 26 years, 124 days still looks the goods. Hmm, I think I can see a List of Longest Serving Democratically Elected National/Regional Leaders article in the making. --Roisterer 22:13, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On alternating current (AC): the "hot wire"

The alternating (two ways) current arrives at the consumer's home along one wire only (the "hot wire").

Questions

1. What is the route the current follows to reach that wire.
2. How does it "alternate" in that wire.
3. Where does the other wire (the "neutral") go, how and why.
4. Where does the "earth" wire go, how and why.
5. How does the current (the flow of electrons) finally return to the generator in the power station so that there is a continuous, uninterrupted flow, a sine qua non condition for the flow to exist?

user:Ghitis, 17 Aug 2004, 10:20 (GT)

Have a look at this diagram (click on it to see it full-size).

Single-phase mains supply

The transformer in your local power substation is on the left, and your house with all its appliances (labelled "load") is on the right. The transmission line is a pair of wires, live and neutral, as shown, although in practice there may be more wires than this. The substation, transmission line and load together form a circuit.

You see that link to earth in the bottom left corner? Without that, the live and neutral wires would both alternate positive and negative, so they would both be "live". This would cause safety problems, because if a fuse in either wire were to blow, the other wire would remain live. The link holds the neutral wire at earth potential, so that only the live wire alternates. This does not affect the current in the loop, which reverses periodically just as it would if the link were not there.

To save on wiring costs, the earth wire in the consumer's property is not normally connected directly to the power company's earth. The system relies on a reasonably good conduction path through the ground. This is why it is not a good idea to touch the neutral wire, unless you are very confident about the quality of your local earthing.

There is another reason for holding the neutral wire at earth potential, which is connected with the need to save on the quantity of copper wire, but I won't go into this here. -- Heron 09:24, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Thank you, Heron. I wonder what your qualifications are; you certainly surprised me. I'll erase this when I present soon a dialogue with your explanations.-- Ghitis 16:01, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Other questions

1. What is the other reason for grounding the neutral wire? Is it connected to the earth wire in some way?
2. In a system with two live wires, why would one wire continue to alternate if the other had been broken by a fuse? --Eequor 14:35, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My drawing is a simplified version of the actual system used. In most power transmission systems there are actually three live wires (called 'phases') and one neutral wire. Each domestic consumer gets a pair consisting of one phase and the neutral, and the system is balanced so that the loads on the three phases are about equal. The result (to do with vector addition of complex numbers representing the three phases), if the system is perfectly balanced, is that the current in the neutral wire is zero. Thus, if the balance is good enough, you can omit the neutral wire altogether, and use the less reliable conductivity of the earth to carry the small neutral current instead. If you do this, then the neutral wire is at earth potential, by definition. This is the "other reason" I referred to. Don't ask me what happens if all the consumers connected to one phase suddenly switch on all their power tools at once. I suspect that the power companies gamble on this not happening. I think it was Nikola Tesla who invented this idea, or at least first put it into commercial use. I might have to draw another diagram to illustrate how three-phase transmission works, but I don't have time just now.

I'll come back to your second question later, if nobody else answers it. -- Heron 15:04, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. Why is a separate ground wire needed for wall sockets? --Eequor 16:17, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Because you want any dangerous voltages to be shorted straight to your local earth, right under your house, before they do any damage. You don't want your safety to depend on a variable-conductance path back to the power company's substation, which could be miles away and is not under your control. -- Heron 16:28, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Since nobody has jumped in to answer your second question, I'll have a go. Imagine a single-phase transmission line, supplied by the secondary winding of a transformer or even direct from a small generator. Imagine that the power company doesn't earth either side, so both sides are "live". Imagine you connect a load across the wires, and a fuse blows in wire 1, breaking the circuit. Now imagine that you touch wire 2. The naive view is that, since there is no circuit, no current will flow, so you won't get a shock. However, this is wrong. There are two reasons why a current, although smaller than normal, will flow through your body to earth. These are (1) resistive leakage and (2) capacitive leakage. (Actually there is another one, inductive leakage, but I think it's negligible.) (1) means that, due to imperfections in the insulation of the wiring, there is a weak conductive path from every point in the wire to earth. Over hundreds of metres of wire this adds up to enough to kill you. (2) means that, even if the insulation were perfect, the alternating voltage produced by the transformer would cause a small current to flow through the empty space between the wires and the earth. This might sound like witchcraft, but actually it's called capacitance. Again, this small current would be enough to kill you. -- Heron 08:52, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is more than one way to provide AC. Increasingly the developed world uses the system described above for Live and Neutral (as I understand it) - in domestic situations (although with varying voltages and frequencies). In industrial situations the norm is 3-phase wiring, again there are different solutions, "star" or "delta" wound generators deliver different phase/neutral patterns. In the realm of earth bonding things change again, and become more complex. It just so happens I have asked a friend to write up his wisom in the area of earthing for the wp, I hope he does. Rich Farmbrough 21:23, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• The only thing missing is the list of suggested readings:

• alternating current -- where any new ibsight from Heron's explanations probably should be added. (any volunteers?)
• three-phase electric power which explains some more about this subject
• ground-fault circuit breaker which discusses the differnce between neutral and ground wire -- see also its talk page

Simon A. 18:00, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Homeostasis

Hi, just wondering if anyone could help me with an assignment.

I'm having trouble finding information on this question:

"Mammals maintain a thermal homeostasis, but they do it only be expending considerable amounts of energy. Would you consider this a handicap?"

Thank you so much for your help, and i just want to say, thank you also for a great website!

Keep up the good work, ella.

Questions are usually not answered by email; also, please be aware that content on Wikipedia is fairly extensively copied on many websites, and so making your email address public here may make it very public throughout the internet. Please check this page occasionally for answers to your question. --Eequor 14:35, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would answer this by pointing out that it is a question that invites the answerer into a misunderstanding of comparative animal physiology and evolution. All life exists within environmental constraints. If you judge it a handicap to be unable to thrive at boiling temperatures then all life forms except the bacteria that live in thermal vents are "handicapped;" if you judge it a handicap to be unable to survive freezing, then all life forms not equipped with "antifreeze" in their systems are handicapped. Ongoing thriving of a species in a given environment demonstrates that the "energy cost" of a trait like active homeothermia is affordable. Considering whether it is a "handicap" seems like a dumb question. But I used to piss off my teachers with answers like this when I was in school. Use it advisedly. Good luck. Alteripse 14:39, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I second Alteripse; the expenditure of energy is a handicap only if the cost is not affordable; the question is ill-posed (i.e. badly phrased, inviting a dismissive "stupid question" answer) But before your conclusion, you should probably run through what are the costs involved, and demonstrate their affordability as evidenced by the continuation of species, whilst pointing out that it becomes a handicap only at the malthusian limits - when food runs short, or the population increases beywond the supply of food; or when environmental conditions change such that species are taken out of their "affordable" zone into, well, depopulation and death, I suppose. Have fun writing it! --Tagishsimon

And be sure to browse the Wikipedia, start by reading thermal regulation which mentions the benefits of a stable body temperature. Simon A. 18:05, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why "the" dictionary?

On hearing an unlikely sounding word, some people will say it's not a real word because it's not in "the" dictionary. We often say we're going to check a word in "the" dictionary. Why do we say this, when we all know that there are thousands of different dictionaries out there, all with content that is different from all the others? Why do we profess to believe that the only dictionary there is, is the one on our desk or in our own library? Cheers JackofOz 14:59, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Because all dictionaries (ideally) should contain all words in the language, so they should all be equivalent. Of course, this won't happen in real life, but our ideal is reflected in our speech. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:59, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

As far as I know there is only one truly important dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary. If it's in there it's English, if it aint it aint (I wonder if aint is?) theresa knott 19:24, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ain't is in my medium sized Oxford Reference Dictionary, so I could safely bet my trousers on the fact that it would be in the full OED. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 23:58, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Although I have made the concession to have a British-type dictionary (OED) on my shelf at all times, if only because it's cool to be able to drop "OED" casually in conversations at cocktail parties (Hey, how come there's no article for cocktail party?), I have through the years found terms that weren't in there that were in Webster's. I'm not sure that I know the definitive American dictionary, though. But when I mean "if it's in the OED", I say such; if I mean "if the word exists," I revert to "in the dictionary." Actually that gives us Scrabble(R) players some wiggle room, because unless specified beforehand, that really means "in any English-language dictionary." Elf | Talk 00:43, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The OED is an English language dictionary, and as such it contains American spellings as well as British ones. The official scrabble dictionary for UK players (and I guess Aussie's and Kiwis too) in Chambers Dictionary, which is strictly a British English dictionary. Mintguy (T)

There were until recently two lists of words for tournament play Scrabble: SOW (Scrabble Official Words?) and PODS (I think), for the US and the rest of the world (not necessarily respectivley). Last I had heard they had been merged into "SOWPODS" which is used in all international tournements and in all countires except the USA. I expect someone will be along to correct this shortly... Rich Farmbrough

The phrase indicates a popular opinion of the role of dictionaries as defining normative language. People seek advice on usage from whatever authority has managed to persuade them of its sagacity. The OED has certainly done this quite successfully. Of course, many people these days are of the opinion that dictionaries should reflect usage.

This arose, likely because at one point, there was only one. Rhymeless 03:09, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The OED does reflect usage. [[User:Theresa knott|

yes... for instance "d'oh!" is in the OED. ain't is too...(contraction of am not)

but I would say that dictionaries cannot have every word in the Language, any living language, because any new word will at some point, not have been added yet.Pedant 17:28, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)

And in following usage, it's following Samuel Johnson's principles. If you don't believe it (and hardly anybody does), read Boswell's Life. Dandrake 01:41, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

True but you have to have some kind of quality control. I could make up a word quankert say. Is is English? No of course not, for it to be English people other than me have to use it. The nice people at OED constantly looks at the developement of the language and add a word as soon as enough people start to use it, and as long as it's been around long enough not to a silly fad. This does mean that words can take a couple of years to get in, but how else can it be done? [[User:Theresa knott|

That sig thing scares me. I'll have nightmares. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 22:38, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

If you can think of a less scary anagram let me know. Theresa knott

How about:

Good admin anagrams:

• TOKEN THREATS or
• THE TOKEN STAR

or the bewildering, but provocative:

• HOT NET STREAK or
• TEST THE KORAN

• --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 03:34, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

I would blame this to the Scrabble rules which advise the players to have a sufficently complete dictionary handy to setlle disputes about whether a word exists or has been made up by a player. After all, Scrabble is a well-known game, has been around for quite a while, and -so it seems to me- has indeed left some subtle imprints on English culture. Simon A. 18:09, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In the same way we say "I'm going to the shops" or "the library" or "the moon". In context it's clear what we mean, in general. "The dictionary" is special because we imply a sort of platonic ideal dictionary. Nontheless the following annoying phrases are common among columnists - "According to my biggest dictionary" and "at least in any dictionary I could find". Rich Farmbrough 20:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I doubt if anyone has the OED on their desk. With half a million words listed in 24 volumes at a cost of around £6,000 it's a highly specialised document. But even this one isn't complete. There are over 2 million life forms on earth each of which has its own name and virtually none of them are listed. A more interesting question about the definite article is why pub names don't use it but church names do; for instance we go to 'The Rose and Crown' at night but go to 'St Mary's' on Sunday.

Driving abstract

I am writing from Illinois; I work for the McHenry County public defenders, who defend people with low income. I need to get someone's driving information. I need to know what I have to send and where to send it.

I'm not sure this is something we can legally obtain for you. Presumably if the subject does not have car insurance, it might be possible to find information from his credit, or by petitioning the state. Rhymeless 03:29, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Random Royal Navy question

I was wondering, for no particular reason, what the last conventional surface action ever to be fought by the Royal Navy was? I seem to have a vague memory of once reading that it was some sort of night-time destroyer action against the Japanese navy in the Pacific towards the end of World War Two. Anyone able to point me at a helpful article? Angmering 19:54, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Falklands maybe? 1982? Alteripse 00:05, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ship to ship surface engament? I'm not sure. Definitely not the Falklands, The only direct contact between vessels was the British sumarine action. HMS Ameythst and the Yangtze Incident don't count either. (hm.. no link for those, poor show) , they were bombarded by Chinese guns on the river banks. Mintguy (T)

Well, by that criterion you wouldn't consider Midway a "conventional surface action" either, would you? If you exclude actions that involved airplanes and submarines, there have hardly been any naval battles fought by anyone since world war I. Maybe Angmering could clarify which he was looking for? Alteripse 01:13, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I was talking about surface ships firing guns against enemy surface ships. I'm almost certain, as I said, that it was some sort of 1945 destroyer action against a Japanese force, but I cannot remember where I read that, when and where it might have happened exactly, or what ships were involved, etc. Angmering 09:51, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's right. Midway isn't considered a "conventional" surface action, because the ships didn't make make "contact" with each other, but there were plenty of WWII battles in which ships did. Like the Battle of the River Plate and Sinking of the Bismarck to name two off the top of my head. Mintguy (T)

Yeah, conventional ship-to-ship Trafalgar style naval engagements died a death during WW2. All those fancy battleships Hitler built, hoping to win a repeat of Jutland, almost all sunk by itty bitty aircraft. Much the same was true in the pacific. The Belgrano doesn't count as a "surface action", methinks, and the last Cod War is even less militant than the Ameythst thing. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:20, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Name of a piece of music

I can't think of a better way to word this question, so I hope it makes sense: What is the name of that piece of music that is used stereotypically or satirically for people falling in love on TV? For example, it was in the first episode of South Park, and it's in commercials all the time (I saw it on some car commercial recently). I hope this question is not too vague :) Adam Bishop 22:28, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I can hear the piece you mean in my head too, I think. It's often used especially when love is illustrated by a man and woman running towards each other on a beach. Various comedy endings have been used to subvert this:

1. They run past each other (possibly one of them ending up in the arms of someone else).
2. They get soaked by the sea.
3. Er, that's it.

It's a violin piece you mean, isn't it? Lar-deeee, da-da-da-darr-di-dee, da-de-dar-daaaah, da-dee-da-dee-dee-dee. Don't laugh, it took me a couple of minutes singing to get those das and dees in the right place. In case you haven't gussed by this point... I have no idea what it's called or who it's by. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:08, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

I know the music you mean. I thought it was called "Hearts and Flowers" but Googling doesn't seem to confirm this. Mintguy (T)

Sounds (to me) like Percy Faith's "Theme from 'A Summer Place'". It appears (among countless other places) in the Buffy episode "Him" (a poor ripoff of the earlier episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"). If you're in the UK, you could always try shazaming the South Park pilot.

chocolateboy 01:00, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bodnotbod has the melody (more or less :)), but it's not Theme From a Summer Place, that's different. Adam Bishop 01:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've had this idea for years that we ought to have a Music Google, where you just hum a few bars and it tries to match it to known songs. I'm sure there would be obscene amounts of copyright difficulty with implementing it, though. -- Wapcaplet 02:11, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I can't quite hear the theme you're trying to get at (though I can think of others like it)--is it any of these, by any chance? (Now it's gonna bother me that I can't figure out what song you're talking about :-). -- Wapcaplet 02:20, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I was right! It is called "Hearts and Flowers". Go to http://www.parlorsongs.com/issues/2002%2D1/thismonth/featurea.asp and scroll down the page a bit to hear a midi version. Mintguy (T) 03:29, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Are you sure? The midi version of "Hearts and Flowers" doesn't sound right to me. I would have though the piece you are looking for is commonly called "Theme from Love Story", which is also the film that popularised it. See for example Love Story, The (piano-only). -- Solipsist 10:29, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hm... well it's difficult to match up the 'lah de dahs', so perhaps you're probably right. But the tune I was thinking of is Hearts and Flowers anyway. It it often used for silent films or parodies of such. Mintguy (T)

The Love Story Theme sounds right, although as Bodnotnod said it is usually on violin, so I'm not sure. Adam Bishop 15:07, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

the overture to romeo and juliet, or whatever it's called? try that one on.Pedant 17:35, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)

Ah, of course! That's exactly what it is! Pedant wins! :) Adam Bishop 18:14, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is the Romeo and Juliet by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, by the way. (Quite famously used in the computer game, The Sims. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 18:16, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is a (sadly out-of-print) reference book called A Dictionary of Musical Themes which lets you look up classical compositions by theme... requires some musical knowledge to use in the same way that an English dictionary requires familiarity with English; you have to be able to correctly identify the notes of the theme, transposed to C (major or minor), and from there themes are listed in the book alphabetically, pointing you to suggestions of what they could be from. Often frustrating, but also quite useful. Wish there were some sort of comparable free online resource; then again, even this book's publishers could not include some entries because of copyright issues. 65.33.39.84 20:26, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hm, I seem to have gotten logged out. I also want to note that I may have to check myself into musicians' rehab, given that I recognized the theme immediately from "Lar-deeee, da-da-da-darr-di-dee, da-de-dar-daaaah, da-dee-da-dee-dee-dee". Mindspillage 20:28, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh. Ta. I'm rather delighted by that. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 16:38, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Could it be the Love Theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet? That's played all the time in movies and tv, usually as two lovers run towards each other in slow-motion? PedanticallySpeaking 19:40, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Korean symbol using I Ching characters

Hi, I'm creating a logo for my Taekwondo club, and I was wondering if there was any specific configuration that I should use for arranging the eight I Ching trigrams. Currently, I have them corresponding to the 4 trigrams in the corners of the South Korean flag plus the 4 additional trigrams in the north, south, east, and west. So, starting from top left corner and proceeding clockwise: ☰ keon, ☴ seon, ☵ gam, ☳ jin, ☶ gan, ☷ gon, ☲ ri, ☱ tae. For comparison. imagine this image rotated such that 'heaven' is where 'lake' is ('wind' topmost, 'thunder' bottom, etc). Please leave your comments on my talk page. Thanks --Wasabe3543 23:39, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What is a hispanic?

What is a hispanic? I don't think that word should exist. I mean when you say hispanic is like saying european. There are many europeans with different cultures. The so called hispanics all look different and have different cultures. For example the Mexicans and Central Americans have dark skin and have an Indian heritage. The people from the Dominican Republic are black and have African heritage. And how about some of the South Americans like Argentina? People from Argentina are as white as Europeans and they look like Spaniards or Italians. So why are they called hispanic if they all look different?

See Hispanic American. Elf | Talk 00:47, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Technically it simply means someone who speaks Spanish. As your question shows, and the page to which Elf refers compounds, its use as an ethnic group is bordering on meaningless. A similar confounding diversity is found in "african", "european" or (worse yet) "caucasian". But really all racial groups are taxonomic chimeras, wrongheaded holdovers from silly nineteenth century desires to reverse-philosophise the state of the world. If Hannibal the Cannibal were here now, I'm sure he'd say that everone is the same colour when you cut their skin off :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:59, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

So a Brazilian is technically not a Hispanic? Anárion 12:50, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

see also: Ashley Montague's Man's most Dangerous Myth: Race

To just add an anecdote: When the head of the research group, I did my Master's thesis in, got a professorship in California, we all happily moved with him from rainy England. A collegeue, from Spain, also always wondered about this question, because the califonian state asks on virtually every administrative form to voluntarily state your race (to help with statatisics evaluating race euality measures). You can check 'White/Caucasian', 'African', 'Native American', 'Asian', 'Hispanic', 'Mixed' and maybe something else. She always several times and was always explaind, that she, being from Spain, counts as Caucasian and not as Hispanic, which she found quite amusingly absurd. (But, of course, it made sense, as any affirmative action for Hispanics was targeted at the (in CA very large) population of Mexican-and-the-like immigrants, and not so much at her as a scholar from privileged Europe.) Simon A. 18:19, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Shakespeare in common use

Could you please point me to resources that can help me with common English phrases or words that originate or were popularised by W.S.? Thank you!

Here's quite a few...--Tothebarricades.tk 03:51, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! That's what I wanted!

Damn. How frustrating. I remember reading a couple of reviews of a book which is specifically about how Shakespeare developed the English language. I don't doubt there are a few such books but this one was fairly recent (published in the last 2 years or so) and the reviews held it in high esteem. I've been doing a site search of Guardian Books which would have been where I saw at least 1 of those reviews but can't seem to narrow the search enough not to have to wade through 200 links. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 16:51, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

translation please

Please tell me what 'verae nomerosque modosque ediscere vitae' means. I can be contacted by email at peter.tuckfield1@btinternet.com. I hope you can help, thanks.

Nimirum sapere est abiectis utile nugis et tempestivum pueris concedere ludum, ac non verba sequi fidibus modulanda Latinis, sed verae numerosque modosque ediscere vitae. Horace epistle 2

the phrase sort of means "to study the ways and numbers of the true life" but you can probably find a better english translation. Alteripse 12:20, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

John Conington's rather loose translation of 1869 is:

Wise men betimes will bid adieu to toys,

And give up idle games to idle boys;

Not now to string the Latian lyre, but learn

The harmony of life, is my concern.

(Found at [1]) --AlexG 00:02, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Vision

1. What is the effective resolution of the human eye, supposing a pixel to be a circle with radius equal to the smallest distinguishable angular distance?
   1. Should this be simply proportional to the density of receptors in the retina, or might it be more complex?
   2. How is this affected by the changing lens?
   3. What is the density of receptors, particularly in the macula?
   4. What is the resolution in voxels (three-dimensional pixels, presumably truncated cones) provided by depth perception?
2. How would the information capacity (in bits per second) of the retina and optic nerve be measured?
3. How much of the brain is dedicated to processing information from the macula?
4. What filtering and postprocessing is known to be performed on human vision before the image is consciously perceived?
5. What are the dimensions of the human field of view, in degrees?
6. What are the dimensions of the field of view of the macula?
7. In general, which units and other technical terms are most convenient for discussing the visual field?

--Eequor 16:00, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

These questions are far more complex than they appear at first sight (excuse the pun)... for instance, the resolution of the eye is not uniform. The central point (the macula) has high resolution and high colour sensitivity, whereas in the peripheral regions the resolution is lower, but light sensitivity is higher. And the blind spot region obviously has no resolution at all. Also, remember the resolution of the eye is not neccessarily the same thing as what can be percieved: your brain has to extensively process something before you 'see' it. Furthermore, resolution can vary depending on the intensity and wavelength of light being viewed, as well as ambient conditions. There are many other complications, like pupil diameter and image alignment, that I won't even go into. And, to further complicate things, different researchers use completely different critera to measure the eye's resolution! Nevertheless, if we ignore all the provisoes, then the best estimate for the eye's pixel-resolution is in the order of 1 pixel per arc-minute. (I believe that Carl Sagan discusses the resolution of the eye in his book, The Dragons of Eden.) -- FirstPrinciples 06:05, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Here is a page that discusses many of your questions: http://www.wdv.com/Eye/EyeBandwidth/ . (I'm not sure I agree with all the reasoning, which is often rather spurious, but it is interesting to consider.) It claims the eye consists of around 100-200 million pixels, or a 'resolution', in computer terms, of roughly 10,000 x 10,000, with a central 'refresh rate' of something between 60 and 120 Hz. The author goes on to speculate (somewhat whimsically) that the bandwidth of the visual system is in the region of 600 terahertz. -- FirstPrinciples 23:38, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! That is fascinating. It seems that a more accurate description of the bandwidth would be:

Which leads to the second half of #2; is the optic nerve capable of transmitting that much information?

There's a discrepancy between the minute of arc calculation of pixels and the receptor calculation; as I recall, the human field of view is not 180° &times 180°, but rather 180° × 2°. This gives 1.3 million square arc-minutes, one-hundredth the number of receptors, though I'd expect some overlap with increasing receptor density. --Eequor 00:59, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No sure I would be entirely eager to apply computer terminology to the visual system, it is not really analagous, and behaves very non-linearly. The number of 'bits' of information is not a very useful measure.

Phosphenes

1. Which colors are usually perceived in phosphenes?
   • For example, I mostly see indigo or blue, lesser amounts of cyan and yellow-green, very rarely orange-yellow, and never red, ignoring light passing through my eyelids.
   1. Might the brain naturally filter out spurious red signals?
2. What might cause this range of colors to change?
   • E.g., at one time I mainly saw colors between yellow and green, with neither blue nor red.
3. What patterns are frequently observed?
   1. What might cause a square grid pattern?
   2. What might cause a single, centered ring?
   3. What might cause a set of concentric triangles?

--Eequor 16:00, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Looks to me like some assigments for an undergrad visual perception course - most of this could be found in a textbook on that subject, I could look it up for you, but don't have mine to hand right now. Out of interest, are you studying this? Are these questions that you couldn't find the answers to in a textbook? The answers to all of them are going to be relatively involved.

Afraid I haven't a textbook, nor am I taking a course about it. I am generally curious about the subject, though. Are there books you would recommend? --Eequor 11:25, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Smoke rings

• How do they hold together, even if only briefly?
• And why should smoke emanating from your mouth come out in the shape of your lips?
• Shouldn't it more or less congregate towards your upper lip and just come out looking rubbish?
• Could you make a really big smoke ring and keep it stable in some kind of wind tunnel? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 22:45, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

The smoke in a smoke ring is trapped in a toroidal vortex of air leaving your mouth. The vortex starts with the air in the centre of the stream moving faster than the air in contact with your lips. I guess this is more influenced by the shape you hold you mouth, rather than friction against the lips.

Could you make a really big smoke ring and keep it stable - I imagine a reasonably stable ring could be made if you set up a wind tunnel to blow a central core of air against a larger ring being blown the opposite way. In the mean time you could try a Zero Blaster. -- Solipsist 23:34, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, no. I believe there exists an obsenely complex aerodynamic proof that no smoke ring can exist indefinitely, even in ideal circumstances. They inevitably "collapse". I can't find a source, but I remember seeing an article on this in about 2002. --FirstPrinciples 05:00, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Cor. That's a lovely pair of articles. Thanks very much. It's exciting my brain trying to merge the two articles into the one happenstance, which is just what I need. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 01:20, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Largest things made by humans

What is the most voluminous human-made object, and what is the heaviest? elpenmaster

See also: orders of magnitude (mass), orders of magnitude (volume)

Agglomerations

• I should have thought of this sooner - The most voluminous human-made object would most likely be the telephone network. It is certainly the biggest and most complicated machine. You could definately argue that it is comprised of every PSTN which are totaly interconnected, plus the whole of the physical internet, with more tenuous links to the wireless networks and geostationary satellites. If you separate it from the planet its embedded in, you would have an object which is mostly a big hollow ball of wire with a volume about the same as the Earth (perhaps chop a bit off if the poles aren't connected). Anybody care to estimate how much it weighs? -- Solipsist 13:44, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To which you would have to add the electric power grid, parts of which are fed off oil pipelines, (artificial) rivers and dams, gas networks and tidal races. Plus those items whic are fed by these power sources. Rich Farmbrough 20:59, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

But I don't think the power grid is so interconnected. The power grids for most US states and Canada are interconnected, as is much of Europe. There is a cross channel electricity link between Britain and France, and I recall a gas pipeline being proposed too, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a transatlantic link, and I doubt much of Africa is interconnected. -- Solipsist 13:18, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would propose that the largest agglomeration ever constructed would be the system of paved roads and highways; either the system in North America or Eurasia. It would surely weigh more than the telephone network. Whether it could be considered one object might depend on whether there is a single name for everything from freeways to asphalt-paved trails. The Interstate Highway System or Pan-American Highway alone might qualify even if smaller roads are not included. GUllman 19:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Extended structures

• The Suez Canal is 165 km × 325 m × 14.5 m (average), with a volume of 777 million m³. These numbers might represent only the interior of the channel itself, so its total volume may be greater than this. This volume of water masses 777 billion kg; if accompanying structures are included, it may be more massive than the Great Wall of China (and keep in mind that the Wall is not solid granite, as is used below for convenience). --Eequor 16:37, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• The Panama Canal is 81.6 km × 150 m × 30 m (average), for a volume of 367 million m³ and mass of at least 367 billion kg. --Eequor 16:47, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• A classic answer to this is the Great Wall of China. I've heard that you can see it from space, although I've also heard that you cannot. Either way there's an awful lot of it. Rhymeless 03:24, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Its visibility from space is mostly an urban legend. From the article:

One shuttle astronaut reported that "we can see things as small as airport runways [but] the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles up."

. . .

Regardless of how visible the Great Wall is when viewed by the unaided eye from low earth orbit, the notion that the Great Wall has a unique and superlative visibility, exceeding that of other great public works, is a myth.

I agree its mostly a myth, but this story contains a current counter claim. -- Solipsist 12:15, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The main difficulty in seeing the wall from orbit is that it was constructed using rock quarried near the site of its construction, so it is roughly the same color as the surrounding landscape.

As for its volume and mass, the average height of the wall is 10 m and the average width is 5 m, while its length is 6,400 - 6,700 km, so its volume is 320 - 335 million m³. Assuming it to be composed of solid granite with a density of 2691 kg/m³, its mass is up to 861 - 902 billion kg. --Eequor 11:56, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Biology

• The entire human population. As there are around 6.3 billion humans, total mass is somewhere above 200 billion kg (Orders of magnitude (mass) suggests 400 to 500 billion kg, but obviously that isn't considering children). The average density of a human body is 985 kg/m³, so the total volume is at least 203 million m³. --Eequor 01:23, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Just a note: these calculations show that the Great Wall of China is about 50% larger and more than twice as heavy as the entire human population. - Plutor 17:04, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Single structures

• The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest concrete structure, containing 28 million m³ of concrete. It masses about 60 billion kg. --Eequor 01:38, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Zones of effect

• The biggest is surely the hole in ozone layer but I don't know how you would measure that volume. Too complicated for someone as dense as me.Scraggy4 00:04, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The "hole" isn't really a physical hole in any normal sense of the word. The ozone layer is a region of the atmosphere between 10 and 50 km above Earth's surface, containing trace amounts of ozone. Out of every ten million molecules in Earth's atmosphere, ozone accounts for three of them. An "ozone hole" is really just a portion of the atmosphere where ozone molecules (O₃) have decomposed into normal oxygen molecules (O₂); the amount of gas is unchanged. --Eequor 02:25, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• if you're willing to take this most liberal definition of "object", then the emission shell created by Marconi's first radio transmissions (a hemisphere with a radius of over 100 lightyears) would be a "zone of human effect" of titanic size. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:32, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • What about the Zone of the light of the first forest fire started by a human? Rich Farmbrough 21:02, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Related questions

How much space underground is typically used by cities? Is Mumbai the largest city? --Eequor 17:09, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comments

I was going to say something twatty like the Golden Gate Bridge (which is rubbish compared to the Great Wall... but I saw a film the other day where the bridge seemed to go on forever... but I realise that won't wash with this forensic bunch. But I suppose I feel obliged to ask it as a supplementary question now. It would have been an American bridge. It wasn't suspended, very flat, 2-4 lanes... it just seemed to go off into the horizon. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 01:26, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

That bridge might have been the one that goes over a lake about 30 miles across just north of New Orleans, Louisiana. The bridge is about 30 miles long and does seem to go on forever. If the Great wall of China is the heaviest/most volumnous thing made by humans, it seems strange that those titles should go to something made so long ago! elpenmaster

It's mentioned in the last para of Lake Pontchartrain, but doesn't appear to have a name. I've found some more details here, which I'll add into wikipedia (after making sure it isn't already there). It's the longest bridge in the States. And it's definitely the one I was thinking of, so thanks for that. This is what I was thinking of, thanks - Lake_Pontchartrain_Causeway --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 16:40, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

You've found what you were looking for, but there are also the interconnected bridges over the Florida keys, individually up to 7 miles long but altogether including roadway on some really tiny islands about 128 miiles I think. list of bridges Elf | Talk 23:45, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What is a "matched pair" of RAM modules?

Someone has asked on Talk:random access memory what a "matched pair" is. If anybody knows, perhaps they could add the answer to the DIMM or DDR SDRAM article? Thanks. -- Heron 08:29, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A matched pair is generally just two RAM modules of the same size (and best-case, exact same latency, CAS level, etc). Some modern motherboards support a "Dual Channel" architecture, which uses two memory controllers to make memory access almost twice as fast as a single module of twice the size. [2] - Plutor 16:59, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A lot of the old beige macs supported 'memory interleaving' and gave a (slight) performance boost if you installed memory in matched pairs of slots [3] adamsan 20:05, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I added a note under DDR SDRAM with Plutor's information. Adamsan's note probably belongs in a different article, but I'm not sure which one, not being a Mac person. Perhaps we need a new article on interleaved memory? --Heron 21:13, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As the above posters mention, many computers access RAM modules in pairs, putting half of a nominal storage unit (byte) in one and half in the other. Allow me to add that with such machines, it's often very important that the two modules respond to a request at very, very close to the same time (measured in nanoseconds, of course); failure to do so can lead to system hangs and crashes, often intermittent and hard to diagnose. Modules with identical nominal ratings of type and speed can respond very slightly differently, even though they're within specification for the type. It is thus common advice to add memory in modules taken from the same manufacturer, even the same batch, to decrease the risk of problems. This is hard to quantify and at times verges on the superstitious; it's strongest for systems at the (current, ever-changing) high edge of performance. Similar advice circulates for CPUs in multi-processor systems, with some vendors advising against buying a system with one CPU installed and planning to add a second later. These vendors claim that CPUs are individually tested and paired for installation together in a system; I have not heard of this happening with memory but it's certainly possible. Sharkford 17:11, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

Henry Baldwin illustration

The illustration on Henry P. Baldwin, a Senator from Michigan, which is on the Bioguide site appears in my Oxford Companion to the U.S. Supreme Court as that of Justice Henry Baldwin. The illustration on the Supreme Court Historical Society site could be the same fellow. Can anyone clarify?PedanticallySpeaking 17:31, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Huh. The Bioguide entry for Senator Baldwin has that picture, but no picture for Justice Baldwin. Either they looked virtually the same, or, more likely, some intern put that photo in the wrong place. Unfortunately, I can't clarify more than that. You might have to contact the Supreme Court site and or the Bioguide people to get it checked out. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 18:27, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

Yesterday I e-mailed the Heather Moore, the U.S. Senate Historical Office's photo historian, to enquire about this discrepancy. If I get a reply, I'll post it here on on the two Henry Baldwin's pages. In the interim, if anyone knows anything, please let me know. PedanticallySpeaking 14:55, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

I've contacted Heather Moore, photo researcher at the U.S. Senate Historical Office, and she e-mailed me on August 31, 2004, to say she'll look into this. PedanticallySpeaking 14:15, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Tidal channels

What is the proper term for an underwater channel between locations which experience different levels of tide at the same time, causing a stream to flow through the channel at high speeds toward the endpoint with lower water level? --Eequor 18:02, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Children's Short Stories

OK, this is driving me nuts. When I was young I read a collection of short stories. The main character was a kid who wore overalls and chewed stalks of straw. He lived in a small midwestern town and worked at the local donut shop, where there was a jukebox that featured in several of the plots. The covers of the books were black and white illustrations (the books themselves may have been illustrated as well. I think that in one story he gets uncontrollable hiccups, and in another story the whole small town becomes obsessed with a song on the jukebox. I seem to think that the kid's last name was "Price", but I can't seem to find this on google anywhere. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:58, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

The stories you are thinking of are probably those collected in "Homer Price," by Robert McCloskey. I remember the book well from my own childhood -- I loved it. Here is a link to the Amazon record: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140309276/102-3693234-7076925?v=glance Also, fyi, this is the type of question that a public library is well equipped to answer! Brassratgirl 04:52, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. I was adding to the article on Motif of harmful sensation and I remembered the short story when everyone can't stop singing the catchy song, but I couldn't remember the guys name. I figured Reference desk here was as good a place as any. Thanks again! --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:57, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

'Impossible' Rainbow

In September of 1999 I saw an 'impossible' triple rainbow. The third bow was only a small arc inside the primary bow. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera available. Worse, having trained as a scientist, I've been kicking myself ever since for not at least documenting the features.

Now I have read much of Greenler's book on rainbows, so I understand how a rainbow is formed from reflections from near spherical raindrops. The first internal reflection produces the primary bow, the second internal reflection produces the fainter secondary bow, and the hypothetical third internal reflection would produce a rainbow in the opposite direction looking into the sun and so is not observed. I'm pretty sure that this sort of triple bow is not described.

Fortunately, I have just seen the another 'impossible' triple rainbow. Unfortunately I again didn't have a camera available. However, this time I did record the details:

• Time: 18:46 UT - 19 August 2004 (about 45 mins before sunset)
• Location: Cambridge, UK
• Rain clouds were mainly to the south and east, with a patch of blue sky to the north, and patchy cloud in the direction of the sun, although the sun was below the height of nearby buildings.
• Primary bow clearly visible over 80% of full arc from S to N.
• Secondary bow diffuse, but visible at ~50% brightness over 40% arc from S to N, about 10° above the primary bow with the order of colours reversed (ie red on the inside of bow)
• Tertiary bow clearly visible with a brightness only slightly less than the primary bow (ie. much brighter than the secondary bow), covering some 60% or the arc from S to N. The third bow was about 1° below the primary bow, with colours in the same order. That is to say the primary bow merged with the tertiary bow, and the colours from top to bottom were (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)^1st, (green, blue, indigo and violet)^3rd.
• After about one-two minutes the tertiary bow faded and disappeared. After another five minutes the secondary bow became less distinct, but came back again later.

When I saw the similar phenomenon in 1999, the tertiary bow was only a small arc of 5° although the primary and secondary were more or less full. On that occasion, I have the impression that the tertiary bow may have been more clearly separated from the primary bow, but it was definitely inside (below) the primary. I didn't make a note of the order of the colours, but now I have seen it again I would think the tertiary bow had the same order as the primary.

Does anyone know what is going on? -- Solipsist 19:45, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm assuming you don't wear corrective lenses, and you weren't looking through a window (so we can rule out some kind of internal-reflection artifact. And naturally you'd mention if you'd ever had eye surgery, particularly laser vision correction (as people who've had that see all kinds of crazy stuff around the Sun). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:56, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Good questions - but no, I've got pretty good vision. An optitian (inaccurately) described it as 20:22, although I have a mild astigmatism which can cause a little blurring, but isn't worth correcting. No eye surgery, and all these bows were in the normal direction opposite to the sun. I was outside in my garden at the time.

I thought about an eye defect. If you have every tried to focus on a single colour band of a rainbow you'll know that it can be a little disorienting. However, a carefully counted the ~11 colour bands at several places along the arc. Also I'm pretty sure that an eye defect would not have produced an arc centred on the anti-solar point over such a wide arc and I shouldn't have been able to see the tertiary bow fade out. Further, I would expect to have seen a similar distortion replicating the secondary bow. -- Solipsist 20:47, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Could there have been some large reflective object nearby, such as a building with mirrored windows? Reflected images of the sun can sometimes cause "extra" bows (for instance, reflection of the sun on a very calm lake can produce an inverted bow). Or perhaps mirage-like diffraction (you do say it was nearly sunset) might produce a "double sun", which could produce the sort of effects you saw. -- DrBob 16:18, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Also a very good question. This is one of the possibilities I was wondering about. On both occaisions I was within 100 meters of a river (the river Cam), which could have been a reflector. That could fit the the 1999 rainbow, however I have trouble reconciling this with such a wide tertiary arc yesterday and wonder whether the brightness of the tertiary arc would be so strong with a reflection off water.

I can't say whether there was a double sun or not. The sun wasn't directly visible due to neighbouring buildings, but I doubt it - a double sun requires high stratospheric ice cystals which (I think) usually occurs on stable, high pressure, cold winter days - somewhat incompatible with the turbulent heavy rain storm fronts we've been having in the UK this week. As you say, perhaps some other 'mirage' effect could do it. -- Solipsist 23:39, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This rang a bell for me -- I know I have never seen a third rainbow, but I had read about it. So I tried to look it up, and found a sentence about it in my physics book. In a caption to a picture of a double rainbow, it says (translated from swedish) "Triple rainbows can also be seen, but under very special conditions. This is very rare.". So, as I suspected, you don't have to seek any disturbance to explain your sight. (By the way, a Google search turned up this: [4] [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 23:32, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yup, that looks a good match for what I saw. Possibly my third bow was brighter, but I couldn't be sure. However, I don't think his internal reflection suggestion is correct — the third internal reflection produces a bow at an angle of 40° in the opposite direction, around the sun. -- Solipsist 13:25, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Can I use the word Xenotheism?

The word exists only once on the internet and that was on a website called god wars. If this is not allowed can someone tell me the term used to refer to alien-based religions. Xeno is the latin word for stranger so I don't know if it fits totally. --metta, The Sunborn 03:14, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you don't know what "xenotheism" means, how can you expect the reader to know? Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for the general reader. If you mean "worship of extraterrestrials", use that clear phrase instead of an opaque neologism. (In any case, "xenotheism" ought to mean something like "belief in foreign god(s)"). Gdr 12:07, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

I think the more common term is "UFO cult". And you mean Greek, not Latin. -- Heron 12:17, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

xeno and theos are both greek, not latin. Yrs truly, nitpicker patrol.

Theos means "god," by the way. If you want a neologism for "worship of extraterrestrials," how about exobiolatry? Exobiology is the study of life beyond Earth (Greek -logia, "study," from logos, also meaning "word," from legein, "to speak"). Your neologism would be composed of exô, "outer," + bios, "life," + latreia, "worship."

Shi-Tsao Natural Preserve

Does anybody have any information on Shi-Tsao Natural Preserve, Taiwan? I can't find any info on it at all! - Ta bu shi da yu 03:43, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Penguin sweater

Anyone know the backstory behind this? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:27, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I only know that that is just adorable! If you google for it, you get quite a few news stories: [5] --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 14:41, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Change in Los Angeles Times comics section

This week the newspaper Los Angeles Times replaced the comic strip The Wizard of Id with a comic strip called Brewster Rocket: Space Guy. Does anybody know why this was done? Why would the LA Times stop running such a funny and classic cartoon as The Wizard of Id? --elpenmaster

You could phone them and ask for the Comics Editor. They should be braced for inquiries whenever they swap out a strip (many papers include a note when they do this, so check the paper just before and after the switch was made). Typical reasons include a mix of things like "our research showed less interest in that one" and (rather more concrete) "the contract came up for renewal and another paper in our coverage area outbid us". Sometimes as papers grow, coverage areas come into overlap and the strip's syndicate/publisher decides to renew only one of them. Sharkford 16:56, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

There was an article in the New York Times this past week (8.22.2004) that indicated that a lot of papers are dumping more than just "Wizard of Id." The Dallas Morning News recently ditched a dozen strips, including Mary Worth and Jump Start. The article attributed the move to "sluggish advertising revenue and sharply rising paper costs." The editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer was quoted as saying, "We’re struggling with both the cost of the comics we buy and the cost of the newsprint we use to run them. We think readers still care a lot about the comics. Although in the long term, we're thinking of them in ways like stock agate, which had usefulness, but the usefulness is dropping off." In any case, it sounds like a newspaper industry trend. ffirehorse 16:50, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There was a note in the LA Times saying that The Wizard of Id was being replaced, but it didn't say why. The LA Times has replaced several comics recently, swapping them with different comic. Untilthe replaced The Wizard of Id, however, all of the comics they had replaced hadn't been particularly funny ones. I had thought that the cartoons were being replaced because polls had found them to not be very funny. But obviously The Wizard of Id is a very funny comic, so it's replacement with a lesser-known cartoon like "Brewster Rocket: Space Guy" seemed rather strange. If there is a major trend of dropping comics in newspapers, I am deeply saddened. I read the LA Times almost every day, and the comics section is one of my favorite parts! -- elpenmaster

Fashion manual for men

I am wondering if someone at Wikipedia could point me to good resource for men's wardrobe. I'd like to know especially:

1. Which kind of suits (black, gray, navy blue, with or without waistcoat) is expected at what kind of places,
2. What kind of shoes one should wear with what kind of suits,
3. How to select a tie (but I can tie a tie),
4. What shirt colour goes with suit colour.

I am currently working as a system administrator, but I was accepted as a part-time prosecutor trainee. So you could imagine how this will affect my fashion habits, and how puzzled I am. Only thing I decided so far, is that I should propably wear black suit and tie for sworn-in ceremony.

In exchange for help, I declare that I'll create Fashion tips for men or any other fashion related article. Przepla 19:18, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

where? as well as varying over time, fashion varies from place to place as well; to take a simple example, in Melbourne black is the only appropriate colour, in Sydney the more incandescent, the better! --Robert Merkel 17:46, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We certainly don't give tips, tops we would have an article on authorative and (non-) tips with a NPOV discussion. A fashion article would be Men's fashion, but as above, there is no "one" fashion. [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 01:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I see. Maybe then someone explain me what the terms: white tie, black tie and coat and tie? Przepla 22:18, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia? (White tie and Black tie — unfortunately, these articles need some work to make them neutral). Gdr 23:00, 2004 Aug 22 (UTC)

White tie and black tie are evening wear. While your new job is undoubtedly more formal, lawyers don't generally wear tuxedos to work. I think your best bet is to ask your colleagues - in law, appearance is part of the job and I'm sure they'll be happy to give you some tips about what is appropriate when. Rhobite 17:07, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

2004 Summer Olympics delegation size by country?

Hello, I am looking for a list of the delegation sizes for each country participating in the 2004 summer olympics (I think they showed it on TV for the opening ceremony when each country entered). Also, are delegation size and number of athletes competing the same thing? Or does delegation size include coaches and trainers? Thank you, --68.60.164.27 20:49, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you click here you can view every team by athlete. coach, manager and olympic committee. Delegation as far as I am aware includes every from the athletes to the physios.Scraggy4 21:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

George Lerner

Anyone got any more information on the inventor of Mr. Potato Head? - Ta bu shi da yu 09:48, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Have you tried Googling for it? --Slowking Man 22:20, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Historical Olympic medal counts

Does anyone know where I can find the previous best number of medals won by country by single day of an Olympiad. Without manually having to add them all up. As I would like to know when Great Britain last won as many gold medals in one day as they have already and will later today. I can't remember us winning four golds in one day before as well as having the individual eventing gold awarded to us in the Court of Arbitration for Sports. What a refreshing change.Scraggy4 15:19, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to reports today, a British IOC member and BOA official is quoted as saying GBR has never won as many medals in one day as yesterday. The BBC last night reported that the BOA had checked the records back at least as far as 1924 without finding a more successful day. -- Arwel 13:25, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanx Arwel, no wonder I couldn't remember it then.Scraggy4 21:18, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Mysterious figure

I found this geometric shape in one fo those scinece and miysticism houses which gave courses in relativity theory and acunpunture. It was a poster for something else.

They told me that this symbol is also present in rosicrucian books

There they told me that this figure represent the alchemic squaring the circle method. That I doubt as after reading those articles, it seems that they have nothing to do.

and that in ancient (old egypt? old india? middle ages? renaissance? I don't know, old times that's it) architechts would wander around with this shape and it would serve as a tool to make measures about the sizes and proportions of things, something as a shape that had all the golden ratios used to construction.

And that's a really interesting point , because it's plausible that there was a tool who incorporated all the divine mathematics of architechture, and this kind of things inspire legends of divine inspired architechs.

Anyone knows anything about it, so it could be a fact in somewhere? (it's hard to do a google search for something that has no name) --Alexandre Van de Sande 19:20, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Looks to me like a distorted rendering of the so-called Philosophers' Stone. See also this explanation. No clue if it's supposed to be the same figure, though. -- Wapcaplet 19:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that most of the explanations on the Claus Furstner page is bogus. The claimed difficulty in constructing the figure is totaly false - its actually trivial. It could easily be solved from first principles by anyone having read Euclid and by most highschool mathematicians. It is more likely that the gap at the top of the 1618 drawing is deliberate. The split between material world and spiritual world sounds plausible, but once we get into the Modern Interpretation section he's lost the plot entirely. -- Solipsist 08:48, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Scroll down on this page http://fusionanomaly.net/alchemy.html also found on this interesting site http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/24/2414.html Mintguy (T)

Odd. The explanation claims matter and antimatter exist in the universe in equal proportions, further claiming dark matter has been observed and is composed of antimatter. Also, the weak nuclear force affects molecules. That's so fitting for a site which discusses alchemy. Heheheh. --Eequor 00:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This must be right. I supose that i mistaked the order of the triangle and square when redrawing form memory. I did remeber that the seconde figure did not touch the upper part of the circle wich amuzed me, making it a non rigid geometric shape. It's the philosopher stone surely. All the stories to explain it comes form a time when people had to read uneditable books with unclear explanations, ages before wikipedia

I'm partially convinced, but its not the whole story. The Philosopher's stone is actually supposed to be a material, but there were alchemical documents and diagrams that contain the 'secret' of how to make it. However, I don't think there is one canonical source. This diagram isn't one I recognise, but the four shapes could represent the four Aristotelian elements which should be a feature (it also looks reminiscent of a 2D version of Kepler's platonic solid model of the solar system [6]). However, beyond that it doesn't contain much information that could be used to guide the chemistry required.

Here is a drawing of a Philosopher's Stone diagram I came across a few years back, which is completely different. The black/green/blue/red circle at the centre are the elements earth/water/air/fire (apart from air, I'm not totaly sure that order is right). It comes from Isaac Newton's alchemical notes held at Babson College library. -- Solipsist 17:41, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I see this symbol a lot in the windows of cars. Black with silver markings -- a square decal, with a circle, and inside the circle a triangle. What's going on there? RickK 06:28, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

Well I've looked on http://www.symbols.com/graphicsearch.html and I can't find it. Mintguy (T)

Donkey Engine?

Does anybody remember a film that may have been by Disney that was on TV in either the late 80s or early 90s. It dealt with a lake monster that turned out to be a steam shovel called a Donkey Engine. I also think there was some old aborigine in it.

A good place to go to find the answer to this sort of question is the I Need To Know board on IMDB Mintguy (T) 08:48, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

FYI and AFAIK, a Donkey Engine is an engine used to start another (larger) engine. Your common or garden car/automobile has an electric starter motor. Your huge earthmoving vehicle will have a huge engine, which is started initially by another, small, internal combustion engine (the donkey engine), which in turn is started by its electric starter motor. FWIW. --Tagishsimon

I found it! It's called "Frog Dreaming" or "The Quest" (1986) I remember this one from my childhood and it took some searching to find.

"American boy, Cody, whoose parents have died, lives in Australia with his guardian, Gaza. Cody is very imaginative, inventive, and inquisitive. He comes accross some strange events happenning in Devil's Knob national park associated with an aboriginal myth about "frog dreamings". Cody tries to investigate..."

IMDB here

Shrek 2 - minor Spanish translation

Hey all. I watched Shrek 2 some time ago, and there's one thing I'd like to know. About halfway through the movie, Shrek the human stops a stagecoach and takes the clothes from one of the passengers. As he rides off after saying some words of thanks, Puss is thrown off the horse, and walks after it, muttering something in what is probably Spanish. What does he say? --inks 02:53, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As above, a good place to go to find the answer to this sort of question is the I Need To Know board on IMDB Mintguy (T) 08:51, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer - however if anyone does know, I'm still interested in the answer! :) --inks 05:08, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

7744

The square of 88 is 7744. This number is said to be the only known square number with no isolated digits; what exactly does this mean? --Eequor 17:10, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There certainly aren't many square numbers in which every digit is found adjacent to at least one identical digit. The first few are shown at right.

Something's odd here, even if 7744 isn't so unique (though it does seem to be the only one with only two digits). Runs of odd lengths seem especially rare. --Eequor 18:32, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Machine-readable boundary outlines

I've seen several of the maps on Wikipedia and they looked like they must have been drawn electronically. Where in the Internet can one freely get data files for country/region boundary outlines? [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 17:19, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

Should be at Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources#Locations. I haven't checked. If it isn't there, say so here & I bet someone will remedy that. -- Jmabel 19:32, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

There's the famous CIA world data bank: see http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/data/WDB/

You Brits

What do British people mean when they say "New England"? I know that the northeastern region of the United States is called New England, but I wasn't sure if that's what they meant across the pond/lake. Ilyanep — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ, cοηtrιbs) 17:59, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We mean New England as do you. New Britain though, has a "new" relatively recently coined meaning, related to New Labour, which I've just noticed isn't coverd on the disambiguation page. Mintguy (T)

Billy Bragg is presumably just punning on the place name when one of his songs ("Looking for Another Girl") says, "I'm not looking for a new England." Yes to what Mintguy said. -- Jmabel 19:27, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

There is also a New England in Australia. It is in northern New South Wales and the area narrowly missed out on becoming a separate state of Australia in the 1960s (hmm, at first glance, there doesn't appear to be an article on this). Armidale is the unofficial capital of the area and the city hosts the University of New England --Roisterer 05:11, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Check out (New England (Australia) RickK 22:28, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

There is a New England in Peterborough. I've added it to the Diambig page.Rich Farmbrough 22:19, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Eggs

You know those questions kids ask and you think... "buggered if I know the answer to that". Well here's one that got me the other day.

Sometimes you get a double yoke in an egg. If an ostrich egg (she needs to know for ostriches although I guess this applies for any bird) had a double yoke could it mature and produce two ostrich chicks inside the one egg, or would one or both of the chicks die in the egg or what? Mintguy (T)

As long as both are viable I suspect the two embryos would probably mature until constrained by the shell. However, some websites suggest that to exit the egg, the chick needs to be able to push on one "side" of the egg to exit from the other side - in the case of twins, the chicks would only have each other to push against, and so be unable to exit, or die trying. --inks 05:22, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Anyone got anthing else to add to the above? I can't imagine two chicks growing large enough within one ege and not causing problems with each other. Mintguy (T)

ALmost never hatch acording to http://www.backyardchickens.com/media/L-5323.pdf. This was ref from http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/wonderquest/2003-10-13-wonderquest_x.htm which claims "Yes but rarely. The two chicks are always tiny and usually hatch from a double yolk egg. Often only one embryo survives and sometimes neither does." and that "Ordinarily they aren't identical twins but fraternal. "A double yolker forms when one egg follows another down the shoot a little too closely and they both get wrapped in the same shell," " Rich Farmbrough 18:01, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There's a refernce here to Siames Twin Chicks http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/10/20/beware_the_threeyolk_egg.htm and some general info here Rich Farmbrough 18:05, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. Mintguy (T) 09:24, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Looking for Family

What year did the O'Hagan Family come to America? I am a decendent of the O'Hagans from Ireland. I would like to learn more about my family's history. Can anybody help me?

There's pretty much no way to help except to tell you you have to trace your ancestry backwards, from you. There's no way to leap-frog to the guy who immigrated to the U.S., because, frankly, there are so many O'Hagan's that did so in nearly every year you can imagine. You may want to take a look around this site for hints about ways to start. And don't forget that other ancestors may be easier to find: seven of your eight great-grandparents were not named O'Hagan. (Well, presumably<g>). Nunh-huh 00:48, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

strangling for beginners

How's that? I see the birth of a new book in the "For Dummies" series. Rhymeless 09:31, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We have an article on asphyxia, but it's short on practical details. There are probably military manuals on how to do it efficiently. --Heron 12:56, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Or just go into any disreputable bar. There's always, in my experience, some morbid, muscular man in any nasty pub willing to tell you how he can kill a man with a single blow. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:04, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Or perhaps a Greatist Hits album would serve as an introduction. -- Solipsist 17:21, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Whatever happened to the Heroes? All the Shakespeare-o's? --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:39, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

Bounds of (standard deviation divided by mean), given that there are no negative samples

What are the bounds of (standard deviation divided by mean), given that there are no negative samples? —Rajasekaran Deepak 06:30, 2004 Aug 23 (UTC)

I am writing a program for the Term-Vector Model http://students.iiit.ac.in/~deepakr/term-vector/ . Each term occurs in multiple documents. I am taking the statistics of number of occurences of a single term across all documents. I am using (S.D. divided by mean) as a measure of dispersion. I am getting large values like 3.87. I want to know if this indicates an error in my program. —Rajasekaran Deepak 06:41, 2004 Aug 23 (UTC)

Am I missing something here? Won't it depend on how your data is distributed? If your mean is low but your sd is high you could get very high values.

And there are long-tailed distributions where the variance (and hence standard deviation) is ill-defined or tends to infinity, whilst the mean remains well-defined and finite, so I don't think there is any theoretical limit to the standard deviation/mean ratio. -- The Anome 10:38, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The greatest lower bound is zero. I'm going to have to think about the least upper bound.... Michael Hardy 01:55, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, simple example: the Pareto distribution whose probability density function is 1/x³ for x > 1, and zero elsewhere, has a finite expected value, but infinite standard deviation. So the least upper bound is infinite. You can't narrow it down more than that. Michael Hardy 01:59, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Differences between Southern and Central Dravidian

What are the differences between the Southern Dravidian and Central Dravidian languages? —Rajasekaran Deepak 18:00, 2004 Aug 23 (UTC)

May I recommend an excellent site where you can ask this question? Right here: [7]. --Gelu Ignisque

What was the battle of Troy?

What was the battle of Troy? I know part of the answer: It was a battle by the Greeks. --Patricknoddy 20:56, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)User:Patricknoddy --Patricknoddy 20:56, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)User talk:Patricknoddy 16:56 August 23, MMVI (EDT)

Well, I know "battle of Troy" is on the List of battles page, although that's not really the best way to describe it - you should look at the Trojan War article. It is not a "real" war or battle - a war might have occurred, but the story that we know is actually mythology. Adam Bishop 20:59, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Food colouring.

Say, I have something of a hypothetical question here: If food colouring was introduced to a freshwater aquarium, how damaging would it be to the fish? Rhymeless 00:26, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I once saw a toilet in a nightclub in Leeds that had a transparent water resevoir with goldfish in it, when the toilet was flushed, the fish were left flapping on the bottom for a few seconds while it re-filled. While tripping, this was awsome, but in the cold light of day, it seems rather cruel... Mooo! 07:15, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is a trick you can play with a Carnation and other flowers, where you split the stem and stand each half in separate vases of water coloured with ink or food dye. The carnation sucks up the different dyes and results in a two-tone flower. I doubt it translates to fish though. -- Solipsist 22:30, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I somehow doubt the hypothetical nature of this particular question, but I imagine that it depends on what the food coloring was made of. I'm pretty sure that not all food coloring is made out of the same additives, the ingredient list probably varies across both brands and colors. You can probably be reasonably sure that there aren't explicit toxins in it, after all it is food coloring, but individual substances may be dangerous to fish.

Free Aquarium Screensaver for Mac OS X

Where can I find a free downloadable aquarium screensaver for Mac OS X? --Gelu Ignisque

There's some Apple-endorsed shareware available here. It's $20 (US) but it looks quite realistic (I still don't know if I'd shell out the bucks for a screensaver, though). --Diberri | Talk 02:07, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to find a comparable one, but free. :-\ --Gelu Ignisque

Insult to Canadians?

I'm completing a registration form for a Logitech video game controller, and the bottom of the form says:

Canadian entrants must correctly complete the mathematical skill testing question: (2 x 3) + 24 - 5 = ______

I've seen this in the past too, but let it slide as a bad joke. But it keeps cropping up. Is this a slap in the face to Canadians? --Diberri | Talk 02:35, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

• For real? That's sort of funny and disturbing. I wonder if there's a place in Wikipedia for "inside jokes found in product instructions." Reminds me of this one. -- Wapcaplet 02:52, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Ah, there's no better humor than anti-presidential humor :-) That one is great. And yes, this Logitech one is real (see scan at right). Humorous, yes; but a tad bit too disturbing. Could it really be a joke? --Diberri | Talk 03:37, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

• It's probably not an insult, there is probably some legal basis for it, like they can't give prizes or whatever to people outside the US. In Canada contests are often not open to residents of Quebec, and similar things happen. Adam Bishop 04:45, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • I think Adam is right on this. I've seen cases in the US where residents of certain states had to answer some trivial math question in order to qualify for prizes, etc. RickK 05:04, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

    But why? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 05:15, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thats just hilarious — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 05:15, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's to get around gambling laws. If it is simply a draw, it comes under different regs to if it is a test of skill. Mooo! 07:05, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How does it get around gambling laws? Do you mean the math problem allows Logitech to disguise the registration form as some sort of math contest? Doubtful. --Diberri | Talk 17:08, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

I believe that the say "if you register, you might win XXX". Their legal folks tell them that this counts as a lottery, for which they'd need a licence. But if they make it a "game of skill" then they're okay. Clearly the law doesn't specify the degree of necessary skill (that's a hard law to write, after all). They do similar things in the UK - you'll get phone-in things on the TV, for which you could win a holiday (and for which the phonecall costs a pound or so). To get around the lottery law, they make you answer an incredibly simple quiz (e.g. "who is the Prime Minister: a) Tony Blair b) Tony Martin c) Tony the Tiger"). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:25, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Of course, this begs the question: if games of skill, even trivial ones, are more loosely regulated in the UK and Canada, what's to stop operators of real lotteries (such as scratchcards, for example) for including just such a silly question (the answer is c, btw). Hmm, that I don't know. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:40, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I suspect that it is a question of scale. Nothing, in principle, stops the lottery scratchcard people from doing this, but, while Logitech doing it on a registration probably does not attract the ire of anti gambling folks, these sorts of things not really being the ojbect of gambling laws anyway, the UK National Lottery circumventing lottery laws probably would attract lawmakers to change the law and get rid of the loophole. While the effect of people using the loophole is small, no one will bother to change it, since these things dont intutively look like gambling anyway. If things that did look like gambling started doing it, I think legistaltors would change it.

Of course, people may not know the answer (half the people walking around on the streets of New York don't know who the hell the vice president is. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 19:24, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's exactly what it is. Canadians tend to use a simple math puzzle. If you read the small print of the Tim Hortons "Roll up the rim to Win" contest (you'll know what that is if you are Canadian) you will find that technically you have to answer a math question to claim your prize. No-one ever does, of course. DJ Clayworth 17:36, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this sounds like the sort of rule that applies in the UK. We frequently have television programmes where the production company raises funds for the show by giving away a prize, for which viewers need to phone a premium rate (ie expensive) phone line. However, it must be a game of skill, so you frequently see pathetic contests such as:

• What is the capital of France?
  • Paris
  • Plutonium
  • The Titanic

Similarly, when you get cash prizes given away by discovering the correct ring pull or crisp (potato chip) packet the packaging has to say no purchase necessary - as a purchase implies you're taking part in a lottery. However, this also leads to some enterprising souls opening the packaging in the shop without wishing to buy the items (well, perhaps the winning one). --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:49, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

I'm told that when it says this you can play without purchase by phoning the manufacturers and having one of the open a packet of crisps for you, and tell you that you haven't won. DJ Clayworth 16:37, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hey, I just spent the summer drinking free roll-up-the-rim Cokes where I work and they asked everytime me to fill a form with a math question. (They told me the answer before I asked or tried to make the calculations though. :-) --Valmi 00:41, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad this wasn't just an example of a joke gone awry; it's good to know that we Americans have some limits when it comes to bad taste :-) Thanks for the explanation! --Diberri | Talk 21:47, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

We actually have an article on this at skill testing question. - SimonP 03:13, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

hi, how r u?