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I've noticed the images used on food packaging are often accompanied by the words "serving suggestion". Some of the suggestions look quite nice, but more often it is a pretty mundane and obvious suggestion. For example, ice cream with the "suggestion" you serve it in a dessert bowl; savoury crackers with the "suggestion" you can put some cheese on a cracker ; or salt with images of things on which you might sprinkle salt (sweetcorn, potato wedges, etc. ) I can see why a manufacturer might want to show an idealised image of the product on its packaging, but is it really necessary to say "serving suggestion"? Are those particular words mandated by law somewhere, or do manufacturers think consumers are idiots who cannot work out that putting ice cream in a bowl is a reasonable way to serve it? Astronaut (talk) 02:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I rather think that it's to avoid claims of misrepresentation. If you bought a tin with a picture of some corned beef, lettuce, and buttered boiled new potatoes on it, and it turns out only to contain corned beef, you could claim that the label was deceptive and not a true description of the contents. DuncanHill (talk) 02:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Astronaut, in these days when a house burglar can successfully sue the owner of the house he has just burgled, for negligence in not protecting him from sustaining bodily harm while in the act of robbery, then truly anything is possible under the law. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I did a quick google search and couldn't find anything on that case. Do you have a link?
The earliest example I can find on Google Books (other than things like "his self-serving suggestion") for information about "serving suggestion" and the law was to this cookbook from 1983 which claimed, during a discussion of US federal law on package labelling: If a illustration shows a completed recipe or serving suggestion, it must be clearly stated.Marnanel (talk) 04:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
You see a lot of them labelled "Not Actual Size" too. It's a magic "Get Out Of Jail Free" thing that lawyers make them do whether it makes sense or not. The one notable exception to that which I have seen is that some MINI Cooper dealerships put "Actual Size" and "Battery Included" stickers on their cars. :-) SteveBaker (talk) 20:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually I don't think this is "overcautious, listening-to-the-lawyers-too-much syndrome". The FTC in the US fines companies for packaging violations, and I think it's pretty routine. I typed in an anecdote but realized it's hearsay, so I am redacting myself pre-emptively. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
i would like to post my page back up but my bio and some links to my videos and the music award shows that i was a nominee for. how would i go about doing that without being deleted once again ??
Unfortunately you can't work on an article about yourself here as it would be deemed a conflict of interest. In order for there to be a page about you on Misplaced Pages, someone else (not you) would need to find some references to yourself in a reliable source such as a book, magazine, newspaper or professional music website. The content of those references can then be used to start the article. Without these things, I'm afraid an article about you will continue to be deleted because you are deemed to be non-notable. Sorry, --Richardrj12:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
We should take this discussion to your own talk page, but I did do a little research. Chief Rock's only claim to fame is to be nominated for a Native American Music Award and a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Both of those awards accept nominations from anyone, so they don't really mean anything. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Exactly - we are an encyclopedia - not a promotional site. We do have articles about bands but there are some very clear "Notability" guidelines that must be met before we will host an article. Merely being nominated for some award is nowhere near sufficiently notable to meet our guidelines - and that's why your efforts to post here in the past were (quite correctly) deleted. There is absolutely nothing you can do about this - except perhaps to win some awards, cut some actual disks and get them reviewed in major (and I mean MAJOR) music magazines and newspapers. Worse still, we get REALLY nervous when people post articles about themselves - the probability of the article being fair and unbiassed is practically zero when people do that - which really means that you have to patiently sit back and (when you've met the notability criteria) wait for a fan or someone not directly connected with your group to create an article. If/when that happens, you should not contribute directly to it - although it might be OK to post corrections and pointers to more information on the corresponding Talk: page. But you are currently a million miles away from that. Sorry. SteveBaker (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Sadly this is what we call an ill-posed question, in that until you can provide a definition of the characteristics which make up "best", we cannot even begin to provide an answer. Best value for money? Best design? Best longevity? Best after-sales service? Best battery life? Best treatment of its third-world subcontracter's employees? --Tagishsimon(talk)13:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to assume that the OP is thinking of buying a laptop and wants to know which one to go for. This is a valid question (although it would probably be better on the computing desk), but the OP should state their budget and what they want to use it for. --Richardrj13:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
See the Misplaced Pages article List of laptop brands and manufacturers. It notes that The vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Original Design Manufacturers but it won't tell you that any one is best. You may get some guidance from the many computer magazines that print reviews and advertisements for laptops, or from the experiences of other users. (OR:) I use laptops from HP and Acer and am reasonably satisfied by both. But note that laptops emblazoned with luxury car names such as Ferrari or Lamborghini are actually common models where the manufacturer pays a royalty to add the status trademark. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Very interesting that I am the first Mac user to suggest looking at Macs. Their laptops are super. Bit pricy, but I wouldn't be without mine.86.219.33.213 (talk) 17:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
That's not interesting. Only 4 people replied before you and Macs have about 5% market share (ie. 1 in 20). --Tango (talk) 17:44, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
If only 5% of people here use Macs, then there was an 81.5% that none of the first four would use a Mac, and a 77.4% chance that the first five would not. 89.243.177.67 (talk) 01:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, according to Consumer Reports' 2010 Electronics Buying Guide, the number 1 ranked laptop in the 12-13" models, 14-16" models, and 17-18" models was made by Apple, Apple, and Apple (respectively). Of course, the downside to that is that you'd be owning an Apple which is a much less popular format than the PC. What I recommend is to do some research and figure out what you want in a laptop. There is no right answer for everyone. Aside from Consumer Reports, I'd recommend checking out CNET, PC Magazine and PC World and see what they recommend. Depending on what you're needs are, you might consider a Netbook or even an iPad. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Well THIS devoted Mac user will add his pennyworth too. Brilliant, idiot proof machines, pricey yes, but you get what you pay for and a fantastic service. Visit any Apple Store to be instantly converted.--88.110.56.96 (talk) 07:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
"Best" is a highly subjective thing. The OP's needs might only necessitate a netbook, or a maxed out MBP, or a corporate Dell Latitude, or a souped up Alienware. Without any information on the OP's needs any suggestion is only reflective on the poster's feelings and opinions. --antilived01:23, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
February 11
Cake recipe for a bread machine
Can anyone supply a recipe for something cake-like that can be made in a bread machine using the program normally used for bread? Thanks. 89.243.177.67 (talk) 00:20, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, although I forgot to add that the reason I've got a bread machine is to make salt/sodium-free bread, so I'd prefer to avoid using baking powder as it has a lot of sodium in it. 89.243.177.67 (talk) 00:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
You can buy sodium-free baking powder, at healthfood stores or online. Since baking soda, baking powder, and self-rising/raising flour all normally contain sodium compounds, you'll have little alternative if you want light cakes without sodium. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Normansmithy (talk • contribs) 12:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Or a lardy cake, though you can't leave the dough to rise in the machine as you have to work the lard, sugar and raisins into it after it has risen. The combination of sugar and lard makes it proper healthy stuff, just right for cold weather like we're having at the moment. DuncanHill (talk) 16:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I shall try throwing some sultanas and mixed spice into the bread mixture, and buy some non-sodium baking powder. I'm also trying to avoid saturated fat. 92.29.136.128 (talk) 15:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Death on two legs... with springs!
A nice simple question, which my google-fu is insufficient to answer:
Have people managed to get themselves dead while powerbocking -- that is, while using power stilts/kangaraoo stilts/jumping stilts?
A blogger here located in Wales posted "believe it or not there is a warning on the stilts saying that the stilts can cause death but theres been no inncidents(sic) this seriously so far". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I would think that two things conspire to reduce the number of deaths. First, there are not many users of Powerbocks out there. Second it's probably harder to kill yourself with them than it looks. To kill yourself you would have to be moving fast/jumping high which takes quite a bit of skill to achieve. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
AIEEE Architecture Exam
I will giving the architecture exam of AIEEE in May. I want to know whether, if I get a good rank and try to take admission in a college as an architecture student, I'd have to produce a NATA certificate. Is my AIEEE ranking enough to guarantee an admission, or is the NATA certificate mandatory? I couldn't get an answer by googling or anything.Please help! 117.194.228.199 (talk) 12:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
You will probably get a better answer by asking a few colleges this question. If you really think this reference desk is the right place to ask, more information would be useful. Remember ref desk volunteers are from all over the world so: which country are you in? which colleges are you considering? and what are AIEEE and NATA in the context of your qualifications? Astronaut (talk) 14:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm an Indian. I've been hearing rumours that the NATA certificate is compulsory for all exams other than AIEEE (very funny Edison... AIEEE stands for the All India Engineering Entrance Exams). I can't decide whether to take a risk and not sit for NATA, or whether to take it after all... 117.194.233.180 (talk) 06:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
P.S:
and what are AIEEE and NATA in the context of your qualifications?
I'm afraid I don't understand you. All those aspiring to be engineers in India are supposed to give AIEEE after they complete schooling (i.e, after class XII).117.194.233.180 (talk) 06:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
You didn't say in your original question that you were in India and I had never heard of AIEEE or NATA, so I was unsure if the wiki-links I provided were to the right articles.
Why not get a NATA certificate? I can't see it doing any harm to your prospects as an architecture student. However, if you think there might be some truth in the rumours you are hearing and you really want to avoid doing NATA for some reason, it is probably best to ask the admissions people at the colleges you are considering applying. Astronaut (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Losing one's voice (as I once did) is most commonly caused by some kind of inflammation that prevents the vocal cords from closing (adducting) enough to make the larynx vibrate: this reduces speech to a hoarse whisper, so presumably laughter in such a state (I don't remember doing so) would similarly have the usual breath pattern minus most or all of the voice (similar to that of Muttley). However, there can be other causes of losing the voice (apparently we have no separate article on this), including psychological disturbances, where this might not extend to the pre-speech expression of laughter (I say 'pre-speech' because laughter is also exhibited by non-human animals). 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Apart from working in a school herself, are there any other types of white-collar job my mum could do part-time in the middle of the day, while my baby sister is at school? My mum is a graduate, speaks two foreign languages, and has worked as a primary teacher (decades ago) and a librarian (more recently). Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.195.4.33 (talk) 14:46, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
A friend of mine gets translation jobs via this website. Your mother can put her resume on there and apply for any jobs that get posted. She'll be emailed whenever a new job becomes available. Vimescarrot (talk) 16:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
She could do private tutoring, usually an hour a week per pupil, but generally people want to do that in the evening or at the weekend. 89.243.182.24 (talk) 19:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
How about returning to teaching? The education system in the UK is in need of more teachers, the hours and holidays can be almost the same as the kids, and schools often offer part-time positions (a morning or afternoon). Alternatively, how about something like a classroom assistant - something my mother did for a long time when I was a kid. Astronaut (talk) 01:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Oops. Didn't notice you said "Apart from working in a school ..." How about some kind of part-time secretarial/office admin work? The kind of hours your mum could work might depend how young your baby sister is - is she just younger than you or a lot younger and only just started school? Could you or an older relative (eg. an aunt or a grandparent) look after your sister for a short while after school? Astronaut (talk) 02:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Evidently you do not know what sarcasm is. This is a Reference Desk for posting queries, not messages or requests for opinions. Unless you were genuinely unsure whether people in your school not knowing what a fallacy was is actually incredible or not, your 'message' as I shall call it is not appropriate here. Thank you for understanding. Everyone seems to think your message is great and worth chatting about, so I'll just keep quiet. --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 16:53, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't remember being taught the word "fallacy" in high school. It surely came from reading. Lots of people don't read a lot, you know. Have them take "Introduction to Logic". It's worth 4 credits. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, you said that; but you may be a freshman, in which case 99% of the education you have received was pre-college (i.e. high school and lower). Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
In the US (I can't speak for the rest of the world) formal logic is not taught to high school students, and is generally an elective in college (often upper division, at that). I suspect that the vast majority of college graduates have never officially learned the four primary fallacies, though I suspect most college students are introduced to the term, and the basic gist of the concept. sad, really.. --Ludwigs205:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
In my experience, formal logic classes tend to focus on teaching First-order logic with minimal attention to what it popularly called 'logical fallacies'. Being able to derive Q from a set of premises using deductively valid rules of inference is of little direct use when analyzing anything of moderate complexity (many actual arguments contain much more complicated logical systems like modal logic or are based on inductive logic). Even when the teachers do spend time on argument reconstruction, they have to carefully choose an argument so that the students can accurately represent the argument with their basic notation and skills.
If you're worried about students being able to understand and make good arguments, then formal logic probably isn't the most productive use of your time. An informal logic class which does explicitly focus on logical fallacies and reconstructing what actual arguments claim is much more useful.
To respond to the OP about how outrageous it is that many of your fellow students do not know what a 'fallacy' is, are you saying that they cannot rattle off the names of the logical fallacies or that they do not notice the error in reasoning that the fallacies describe? My mother, who has a high school education, would not say "hey, that's an ad hominem when dealing with such an argument, but she intuitively knows that attacking the person isn't the same as attacking the argument. Are your fellow students like this because there is a huge difference between not noticing errors in reasoning and not knowing the standardized names of the logical fallacies. Being explicitly taught the fallacies probably will help with structuring critical thought about arguments, but it isn't necessary.--droptone (talk) 13:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The OP's IP geolocates to Calumet College of St. Joseph. Never heard about it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, because some people there do not know what a Ref. Desk or a fallacy is. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
First Names & Last Names
Are there more last names than first names? In the United States? In the world? My intuition says that there'd be more first names but my experience seems to tell me that there exists a wider variety of last names. Yakeyglee (talk) 15:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
In the US, you can name your kid whatever you want, so it would be tough to figure out how many unique names there are, but in the world there are some countries which have an "approved" name list, so you can not name your kid A"pma(upf! which would make it easier to check in those countries. I presume though that they would not make an immigrant change their name if it was not found on that list? Googlemeister (talk) 16:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's tough, because of the U.S. Census. I don't have time this week to use the Census to search for the number of first and last names, sorry, but the data is there. Our given name article talks about the power-law distribution of frequency of first names. I don't see that we have an article on the interesting phenomenon whereby in recent times, many African American children, particularly, I think, girls, are given unique names. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I just did the following. I took the IMDB raw data files for actor and actress credits and stripped them down to just the names. The IMDB stores these in a form like "Grant, Cary" or "Ford, Harrison (II)" where "(II)" is their suffix to distinguish different people with the same name. I deleted all names that did not have the comma (some were people going by a single name; many others were things like names of bands). This left entries for 1,782,618 different people.
I stripped nicknames (enclosed in '...') and the "(II)" types suffixes, as well as suffixes like "II" and "Jr." and "fils" that people use as part of their names to distinguish themselves from family mambers.
I then extracted the surnames and deleted those that did not contain a lower-case letter, i.e. people known by names like "Mr. T.". The result was 459,629 distinct surnames. I also tried collapsing the list by removing variations in accents (i.e. I transliterated from 8859-1 to ASCII) and capitalization. Then there were 448,725 distinct surnames.
For given names, I took the list of given names for each person -- that is, everything after the comma -- and deleted entries where none of the names contained a lower-case letter. It was impossible to distinguish whether a name like "Mary Ann" was a two-word name or two names, so I didn't try. I just took the first word of each name (i.e. after the comma) and assumed it was a complete given name. There were 120,807 different given names, or 117,465 after stripping accents and capitals. I also tried assuming that every word of the given names was a distinct given name. In this mode there were 128,797 different given names, or 125,243 after stripping accents and capitals.
So in this data set, distinct surnames are indeed more numerous than distinct given names, and considerably so. Of course, there are several significant caveats. First, the list shows stage names, not real names ("Grant, Cary", not "Leach, Archie"). Second, there should be a strong bias toward names from countries where a lot of movies are made, such as the US and India. Third, the IMDB uses the ISO 8859-1 character set, so the rendering of names in languages like Japanese or Hindu may be inconsistent; as well, the treatment of surnames vs. given names may be inconsistent. And finally, I may have done something wrong.
For those who may be interested, in the 459,629 surnames and 128,797 given names, the 30 most common among the 1,782,618 people were:
1. 6,099 Smith 19,523 John
2. 4,376 Williams 17,072 Michael
3. 4,329 Lee 17,060 David
4. 4,273 Jones 11,578 Robert
5. 4,216 Johnson 10,254 Paul
6. 3,971 Brown 9,780 James
7. 2,989 Miller 9,492 Peter
8. 2,962 Davis 8,225 Mark
9. 2,844 Taylor 8,009 Richard
10. 2,651 Wilson 7,235 Chris
11. 2,617 Martin 6,647 Mike
12. 2,566 Thomas 6,328 Daniel
13. 2,387 Anderson 6,290 Maria
14. 2,243 Moore 6,018 Steve
15. 2,162 White 5,978 Tom
16. 2,129 Scott 5,966 William
17. 2,016 Harris 5,633 Joe
18. 1,948 Jackson 5,416 Brian
19. 1,936 Thompson 5,337 George
20. 1,893 Lewis 5,060 Eric
21. 1,842 Young 5,036 Frank
22. 1,810 King 5,034 Thomas
23. 1,769 Allen 4,886 José
24. 1,725 Clark 4,837 Charles
25. 1,701 Hall 4,831 Bill
26. 1,667 James 4,826 Scott
27. 1,659 Kim 4,803 Andrew
28. 1,658 Roberts 4,716 Tony
29. 1,639 Walker 4,700 Mary
30. 1,624 Robinson 4,668 Jim
There were 307,438 surnames that occurred only once in the list,
but only 164,049 given names. Just for fun, here are 30 surnames
and 30 given names chosen randomly from each of those categories
(undertand, the surnames and given names shown here do not go
together with each other).
Because there are more roles for men than women in movies and TV -- something else I should have mentioned as a source of bias, I guess. How often do you see a movie or TV episode where a majority of the characters are female? But a majority of males, that's common.
I still have the files from before, but I combined the men and women before I did the cleanups described above, and I'm not going to repeat them on the two sexes individually. However, based on the un-cleaned-up data, the actors (male) list includes 1,157,156 names with a total of 8,215,483 credits, while the actresses list has only 676,765 names and 4,783,479 total credits.
After a quick attempt at a cleanup (so the numbers may not exactly match those above), here are the top 20 given names for each sex:
1. 19,508 John 6,002 Maria
2. 17,050 David 4,659 Mary
3. 17,038 Michael 4,623 Anna
4. 11,570 Robert 4,056 Jennifer
5. 10,245 Paul 3,879 Sarah
6. 9,753 James 3,816 Laura
7. 9,488 Peter 3,747 Lisa
8. 8,223 Mark 3,164 Anne
9. 8,005 Richard 3,159 Barbara
10. 6,979 Chris 3,128 Marie
11. 6,647 Mike 3,026 Elizabeth
12. 6,321 Daniel 2,978 Susan
13. 6,017 Steve 2,944 Ann
14. 5,969 Tom 2,905 Michelle
15. 5,954 William 2,778 Jessica
16. 5,610 Joe 2,625 María
17. 5,413 Brian 2,615 Linda
18. 5,317 George 2,440 Julie
19. 5,059 Eric 2,430 Nicole
20. 5,026 Frank 2,415 Karen
--Anonymous, 06:26 UTC, February 12, 2010.
For the "around the world" bit - in Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea and China, there is a limited set of surnames but almost infinite variety of combinations for given names. Some given names are more popular than others, but there are plenty of people with unique combinations of names. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:38, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Some of those IMDB ones might be typos. "Abdeltif" is probably "Abdelatif". And when transliterating into Latin letters there is a large variety of spellings for the same name. Sticking with Abdelatif, it could be Abd al-Latif, Abd el-Latif, Abd ul-Latif, Abdalatif, Abdulatif. There is a discussion on the language desk about how to transliterate Chiang Kai-Shek. Are these different names or not? Adam Bishop (talk) 22:03, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Anonymous, can you quickly calculate out the variance on that file? I recently did wonder which name showed more variability and would love to have some actual data on it. If it's too much trouble then don't worry about it (or post a link to a file of the frequency counts and I will do it myself). Thanks for any help!--droptone (talk) 13:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't have the files online any more, and I don't understand exactly what you mean here by "variance". --Anonymous, 00:13 UTC, February 13, 2010.
Prince Phillip's Gaffes
Does he realise he comes across as very racist and arrogant or does he do this in humor?
Like asking an African Lady - " You are a woman arent you?"
and asking a backpacker in Papua New Guinea " So you managed not to get eaten"
And asking a woman in the Nigerian Presidents entourage, who was draped in her national dress " You look like you are ready to go to bed"
And while talking to some British staff based in China " If you dont leave this place soon enough, you might end up getting slit eyed" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.130.123.12 (talk) 16:37, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
There's lots more at his article at Wikiquote, if you scroll down to "Other". Wow, he's awesome. Good thing he has no powers or authority or can get impeached. My favorite is, "In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation." I'm thinking that all 3 of your speculations must be correct. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I think he's trying to be funny, he just doesn't understand that these things might be funnier in private. But for such a public figure maybe it is hard to distinguish public and private. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:49, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
If Prince Philip is not Greek despite having been born there, because his great-grandparents were Danish, then by the same reasoning the royal family is not British, but German! Unmasked at last! 92.29.55.65 (talk) 11:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
His real name, the one he was born with before he changed it, is Prince Philippos of Greece. (I wonder why he fought on the British side in WW2 despite going to school in Germany and having two brothers in law who fought on the German side?) 92.29.136.128 (talk) 15:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Pure speculation, but I suspect that his closeness to his uncle Louis Mountbatten, a naturalised British citizen, had a lot to do with it. It seems that when the Jewish founder of the German school fled to found Gordonstoun, it was Mountbatten's decision to move Philip to the Scottish school, and that would have made fighting on the British side in WWII pretty much essential. Warofdreamstalk17:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Wow! So Mountbatten's real name was "His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg"! Another German! The article about him does not say what country he was born in, but you say he was only "a naturalised British citizen". It's rather sinister and manipulative how our (German) rulers change their names and their nationalities so readily, to sucker us in as their loyal syncophants. 92.29.82.48 (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
A few points. The Duke of Edinburgh was born Prince Phillipos of Greece and Denmark. People always seem to forget that, despite being born in Greek territory, he is actually more Danish than Greek (as were the entire Greek monarchy). But "Prince Phillipos of Greece and Denmark" has not been "his real name" for over 60 years. It was his birth name, that's all. Louis Mountbatten was most definitely not a naturalised British citizen. His father Prince Louis of Battenberg "joined the Royal Navy on 3 October 1868 and thus became a naturalised British subject, at the age of fourteen". By the time of Louis jr.'s birth, at Frogmore House (see the infobox), his father was a very senior British naval officer, so there's no way he could have fathered a child who was not also British. Unless the birth took place in a foreign country (but it didn't) and the mother was not British (but she was). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:55, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I've always found the style "serene" a little quaint. It gives off a certain impression of supreme detachment and perhaps arrogance: "our monarchy will last forever, so we can afford to be very complacent", or something to that effect. (And it's not just monarchs; the Republic of Venice called itself "Most Serene". Perhaps it had to do with the view.)
In any case, I tend to be rather annoyed when I hear people calling the current royal family "Germans". Ignoring the fact that all royal houses are multi-national (princesses were often brought from abroad to ensure good royal blood for the heirs), and that much of Europe's royalty was German for the simple reason that Germany was occupied by dozens of states (each ruled by its own monarch), the Queen Mother's ancestry alone ought to dilute George VI's remaining German blood by half. I suppose the "modern" habits of not necessarily marrying royals will have a rapid effect upon the monarch's genetic nationality, to put it this way; William's heir will very likely be essentially British in this respect.
(It's certainly interesting how much progress has been made on the marriage front in the last century. Elizabeth was the last one to marry a royal, and between royals it seems that one could not go very far below Philip.) Waltham, The Duke of09:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
It does suggest, however, that he's unlikely to ever get that long-desired promotion from Prince to King, a job which has a much better dental plan. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 21:44, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Not that it's in any way relevant to the topic ... but since you raised the issue, Camilla will most definitely be a Queen Consort; but whether she get's called Queen Camilla is another question. As of now, she won't be called that; but by the time it happens, who knows what might have changed. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
It isn't, but one enjoys the discussion. :-)
And yes, I suppose that is what was wondering aloud about: will she ever become popular enough to be called "Queen"? One can only guess, but I have my reservations. After all, one cannot expect Charles' reign to be nearly as long as his mother's.
Back to Philip... I wonder to what extent the Queen has tried to control him. I cannot imagine she approves of all this... Unless she secretly enjoys his spicing things up once in a while. Mind you, some of the things he says aren't really that outrageous. For example, I partly agree with his statement on overpopulation, and people like David Attenborough seem to share at least the sentiment. Waltham, The Duke of06:54, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I suspect that HRH never actually said half of the things he's supposed to have said... but you have to realise that he grew up in an age and society that no longer exists, and what was acceptable then is no longer acceptable in the UK today. Many older people come out with stuff us young uns would consider to be racist, but which to them is normal. "The past is another country: they do things differently there". --TammyMoet (talk) 06:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
In the Cup (volume), it is claimed that some countries use an unofficial "Imperial cup". Which countries are these? I'm rather sceptical that an "imperial cup" exists after metrication. Please note that I am not talking about the "cup" used in the United States. 89.243.182.24 (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't know, but I think the metric conversion was patchy in places, so I wouldn't be surprised. Here in the UK, I'd measure my height in feet and inches, my weight in stone, buy a kilo of flour but a pound of sugar. I'd say the nearest service station was 5 miles away, but that she was standing just metres away from me. I buy a 500ml bottle of Coke, but 2 pints of milk. And so on... 131.111.248.99 (talk) 23:41, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I expect the imperial cup is used in the same countries as always: cookbooks didn't magically change their print just because the country went metric. --Carnildo (talk) 02:17, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
In Canada there are lots of people old enough to have grown up when metric was only used in science classes, if that; based on conversations with family members I guess the age cutoff would be around 35-40. Anyone of that age who deals with recipes or knows the units used in recipes would know very well that a cup is 8 fluid ounces, and those would be imperial fluid ounces, of course. (Not that the difference between US and imperial is significant for culinary purposes when dealing with cups or fluid ounces. Pints and up, that's another matter.) --Anonymous, 06:35 UTC, February 12, 2010.
I'm an Australian young enough to have always used metric, but I have a set of imperial measuring spoons and cups which I use when cooking from older cookbooks. --Polysylabic Pseudonym (talk) 07:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree that cups are now rare in British recipe books, though they were used in the past. I've just found "breakfastcupful" in 700 Cookery and Household Recipes published about sixty years ago, and cup as a measure in a local recipe book published in 1949. (These were just the first two old recipe books that I found in a drawer. Perhaps they were influenced by American wartime presence?) A breakfast cup was usually about half a pint (284ml), and a standard cup about a third of a pint (190ml), but modern usage in the UK varies. There is no mention of cups in my great aunt's confectioner's recipe books, hand-written in 1903. Dbfirs10:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
On further reflection, I do recall having seen quantities such as "a teacupful" or "a small coffeecupful" in some old (1940's) recipe books compiled from farmer's wives' traditional recipes, but they are the sort of recipes that also have "enough cream of tartar to cover a penny, but not too heaped up", or "a good handful of chives, cut up small", so I doubt the cups were any particular standard, just what the cook in question had in her kitchen and found handy. DuncanHill (talk) 11:17, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
So to re-ask the original question, what countries use an "imperial cup" in 2010? I suspect that none do. (And I'm doubtful that an "imperial cup" existed even before metrication.) 92.29.136.128 (talk) 15:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I told you above, the cup is still a familiar unit in Canada among those familiar with pre-metric measure. The pound of butter in my fridge has markings on it for those who want to cut it into cups. (Those are approximate, of course; they actually assume 1 lb. butter = 2 cups = 500 ml.) --Anonymous, 00:17 UTC, February 13, 2010.
I tried searching for "imperial cup" in some anglophone commonwealth Google variants, and filtering out irrelevant (mostly sports) results. It doesn't seem particularly common in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the UK or Canada. Though there are some results (NZ e.g.) even some of the results that are there (Oz e.g.) are clearly referring to US measurements. This isn't a comprehensive answer of course. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 16:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Read Imperial units; although a cup doesn't appear in the chart of fluid measurements, I expect that it was commonly used, since "pint" and "quart" and "gallon" were names of units of fluid measurement in the Imperial system. I would guess that an Imperial cup would be 10 Imperial fluid ounces. The measurements in the chart seem to me to say that the size of the fluid ounce is almost identical to the previous size of the fluid ounce, which is still used in the USA; consequently, a cup in the Imperial system would be approximately 25% larger than the cup used in the USA today. Nyttend (talk) 17:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, nice try, but guessing or expecting is not good enough. You are trying to extrapolate from American experience to the UK. I do not remember any standard "cup" before metrication. The size of cups varied and was not standardised. I think a half a British pint, in other words ten fluid ounces, would be seen as large for a tea cup. 92.29.82.48 (talk) 21:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Maybe it wasn't in the UK (or wherever you are; your IP address says you're in the UK), but I have equal reason to say that you are trying to extrapolate from British experience. It appears that the cup is used in various Commonwealth countries, and as it's not a true metric unit, there's good reason to believe that its existence preceded the metric system; and as fluids were measured in the Imperial system, such a unit of measurement would be an Imperial cup. Lack of references could be explained by the context: unless you're distinguishing it from non-Imperial units, you have no reason to call a cup "Imperial" — you'd simply call it a "cup". Nyttend (talk) 06:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. --Anonymous, 07:50 UTC, February 13, 2010.
No Nyttend, if it's not one of the Imperial units then it is not an "Imperial cup". I'm certain there wasn't a Troy, or Avoirdupois, or Apothecary's cup either. There does seem to have been an informal "cup" of varying size used in various countries, but for it to be an Imperial cup it would have to have been defined in the Weights and Measures Act which established the Imperial System of weights and measures. DuncanHill (talk) 07:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Quite right. You might as well say that there was an unofficial "Imperial bucket". People use buckets, and sometimes they may be referred to in recipes such as "two buckets of cement, one bucket of water", and if you try hard you may be able to find something on the internet or in a book that says a bucket is X pints or whatever, but the bucket volume has never been standardised. 92.29.55.65 (talk) 11:20, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I hope the patronizing tone there is accidental. From the point of view of someone actually using a unit of measure, it's not important who defines it. A US cup was 8 US fluid ounces, a normal cup was (is) 8 normal fluid ounces, the normal fluid ounce is the Imperial one, therefore "Imperial cup" is the only sensible name for the thing. (Again, I'm talking about Canada here.) I have no idea whether the cup was ever an officially defined unit; it doesn't matter as long as its value was well understood. --Anonymous, 05:28 UTC, February 13, 2010.
Repeatedly. (Except for the "unofficial" part, which I can't comment on since I haven't looked up the actual laws. It may be that they defined the unit as a "cup", for example, or that they didn't define it.) --Anonymous, 21:48 UTC, February 14, 2010.
Ah, you have fallen into my little trap! Bwahahaha! Because if it was eight fluid ounces, then that would be an American cup. The British pint is 20 fluid ounces. 89.240.201.172 (talk) 12:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Ah, you have fallen into my little trap! Bwahahaha! Because an American cup is 8 US fluid ounces. And we are not talking about half a pint, which is a different amount. --Anon, 20:00 UTC, February 16, 2010.
Is/was there a shortage of scales in North America and the Antipodes that forced people to use a volume measure for things that normal British people weigh, such as flour, sugar, etc? DuncanHill (talk) 18:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Is/was there a shortage of measuring cups in Europe that forced them to have to weigh things when measuring volume is easier? (Not a call for debate.) --Anonymous, 05:18 UTC, February 14, 2010.
I don't know, but let me quote from the Australian Heritage Cookbook (Gaslight Publishers, 1988): "The English cup measures 10 fluid ounces (300 ml), whereas the Australian cup measures 8 fl. oz. (250 ml). The English tablespoon measures 14.8 ml against the Australian tablespoon of 20 ml. The American reputed pint is 16 fl. oz. ... the Imperial measurement is 20 fl. oz to the pint. The American tablespoon is equal to 14.8 ml, the teaspoon is 5 ml. The cup measure is 8 fl. oz. (250 ml), the same as Australia."
(a) There's a real mix of exact and not-so-exact measurements there. (If 8 fl. oz. = 250 ml, then 10 fl. oz. cannot = 300 ml.; but they get down to 14.8 ml.)
(b) The term "fluid ounce" seems to mean different things in different countries. On the face of it, it's a measure of weight (or mass, if you prefer) - whereas it really seems to be about volume.
(c) The term "imperial" in some cases means "anything that's not American" - whereas, it's clear that Australian and UK usage differs, so it's not that simple.
It's all too complicated, which is why no cook ever refers to these terms in the back of a cookbook; they simply make it up as they go along, using their gut instinct (very appropriate) and their experience as guides. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
... and another minor correction: there isn't really a difference between the Australian cup and the UK cup. The size varies in both countries according to usage. People like to make up standard equivalents (hence the invention of "Imperial cup" presumably from "Imperial pint", but, as pointed out several times above, a cup is not a precise measure. Some teacups are less than a quaretr of a pint. I recall (but can't find at the moment) recipes that require "a small cup". Dbfirs00:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
What are we talking about here? The standard metric (measuring) cup, used in a number of Commonwealth countries is 250ml. (The US uses 240ml for labelling purposes, not sure about measuring purposes according to our article they may still use 8 fluid ounces or about 237ml.) If you buy a measuring cup in such a country, this is what it should be (sometimes it will even be written on it) although cheaper stores may sometimes have imported products that don't meet local norms. It is what the vast majority of modern recipe books define it as. In most of the same countries including I believe the UK (who don't use cups much as this discussion has pointed out) the metric measuring teaspoon is 5 ml (legally for labelling purposes the US uses 5ml teaspoons, not sure about measuring teaspoons our article suggests they still use customary ones). In the same countries bar Australia, the tablespoon is 3 teaspoons and therefore 15 ml (in Australia it's 20ml which doesn't follow the tradition of the tablespoon being 3 teaspoons but does have the advantage of 1/2 tablespoon being 2 teaspoons. Note we are talking about instruments intended for measuring, not normal cups, spoons etc which are obviously the source of these measurements and some, particularly experienced, cooks may use for measuring instead (depending on the precise ingredients and other factors, although from my admitedly limited experience even many experienced cooks will have a set of measuring cups and spoons even though they may not use them much). 'Imperial cups' or 'teaspoons' (which are fairly similar to metric ones anyway) are probably a mishmash that I don't want to get into although you don't see them in modern cookbooks from New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia or Singapore from my experience. Nil Einne (talk) 17:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
A "tablespoon" in American English is called a "dessert spoon" in British English. A "tablespoon" in British English is something much larger. I've never heard of a "metric tablespoon" before - I doubt there is such a thing. I do not think that cutlery or cups were defined in at least Britain in either metric or Imperial, formally or informally. If such things had existed, they would have been in the Weights and Measures Act, which defined Imperial measures, and as far as I know, they are not. 92.24.131.69 (talk) 00:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
We've been through this on the tablespoon talk page. It is simply not the case that an American tablespoon is a British Dessertspoon. A British dessertspoon is 10 ml and a British tablespoon is 15 ml, as standard measures used in recipes. I have provided references to cookery books that are indisputably British, some of them only use Imperial measures and spoonfuls. This idea of a much larger British tablespoon has been unsupported by any references, and if followed would throw any of the recipes in any of my British cookery books, going back to the 40s, out of proportion. I think you are thinking of serving spoons, which are much larger and not used in any recipes I've seen. The measuring spoons I was given as part of a government initiative, and which were specially made for this purpose, define a tablespoon as 15 ml. 86.182.209.69 (talk) 01:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
What would you use your "15ml" spoon for if you've already got a "10ml" spoon? It does not seem worth bothering to make one that's only 5ml bigger. Would you put the 15ml spoon in your mouth, or does it have some other purpose? If so, what would that be? At least we're not arguing about soup spoons and fish knives. 89.240.201.172 (talk) 13:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Heh, I have soup spoons and fruit spoons and grapefruit spoons, but not fish knives because that would be silly ;) A 15 ml tablespoon is broad and shallow, much too big to comfortably fit in the mouth: it is used to serve things, or put on the table to spoon vegetables onto your plate. A 10 ml dessertspoon is deeper and narrower, fitting comfortable in even a child's mouth: it is ideal for eating cereal or ice cream or crumble or trifle or... I don't make the convention; it is what it is. I can image that tablespoons were once bigger, but they are not currently so in the UK and I haven't found any sources to support their larger size. 86.176.48.57 (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you're confused about what I mean by a metric tablespoon. I'm not necessarily referring to any sort of legal definition (although as I already pointed out, the US has a legally defined teaspoon for nutritional labelling purposes which is 5 ml although I'm not sure whether this is directly or the fact that a fluid ounce is defined as 30ml for nutritiona labelling purposes) but rather a tablespoon which is defined by a round metric number, the two examples I referred to were either 15 ml (in most commonwealth countries) or 20 ml (in Australia). (As I've already mentioned, the more accurate definition may be 3x or 4x a teaspoon with the teaspoon defined as 5 ml.) These may simply be de facto rather then de jure but I don't personally consider that matters. The classic US tablespoon as may still be used in the US for measuring purposes (and what Google gives) is defined by US customary units, i.e. 1/2 of a fluid ounce which is ~14.79 ml. From a quick search, imperial tablespoons seem to vary (between the UK using 5/8 fluid ounces and other places using 1/2 fluid ounces although the imperial fluid ounce is different from the US customary fluid ounce so either way you end up with a different tablespoon from the US) and I'm not particularly interested in but as I've mentioned, I'm not sure if anyone still uses these in modern recipe books anyway. Things were probably less standard at the time and likely less people had measuring spoons anyway. Similarly to 86, I can show modern cookbooks from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and possibly Malaysia that clearly define the tablespoon as 15ml or 20ml (quite a few will mention both). I even had a set of spoons that had the values on them (5ml, 15ml etc) once. From what I've seen the desertspoon is normally defined as 10ml although it's something I rarely see actually used in recipe books and I haven't even seen a physical desertspoon before either (I'm sure they exist), using 2 teaspoons is probably seen as easier and less confusing. While I admit, I don't have any knowledge of the UK outside of wikipedia I think (lazy to check all my books) but considering 86's answer and the fact that several of the books do I believe include the UK in the places that use the 15ml tablespoon I don't have any reason to believe things are different there. Nil Einne (talk) 08:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I do not think post-metrication measuring spoons would be reliable in determining Imperial spoon sizes, as they have been too affected by American goods being sold here. (We stopped using most Imperial measurements about forty years ago.) For example I have a set of cheap plastic measuring spoons in my kitchen that were manufactured in China. Its very likely that they were designed for the American market and also incidentally sold here. 89.240.201.172 (talk) 13:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
This is probably a stupid question, but, if you've never seen a dessertspoon, what do you use to eat ice cream and cereal? I also have never or very rarely seen them used in recipes. 86.182.209.69 (talk) 12:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The problem seems to be that the North Americans here, and the one's who've taken over the tablespoon article, just cannot get their heads around the idea that different countries have different conventions, even if they speak English, and that words that mean one thing in North America may have different or lesser meanings in other English-speaking countries. (Somewhat complicated by the huge import to other English-speaking countries of American films, tv, books, ideas, cheap measuring-spoons, etc etc). I've given up on the tablespoon page, and I'm now giving up on this "unofficial imperial cup" nonsense. Life's too short, even though its a pity that misleading information is in Misplaced Pages. But I will finally add, if its not in the appropriate Weights and Measures Act, then its not an Imperial measurement. 92.29.62.115 (talk) 14:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I am very British and while the claims of an Imperial cup are ridiculous, you are just plain wrong about tablespoons. In any case, it would be very sime for you to get your view added to the tablespoon article: find a reliable source or two that supports it. Since you have't even provided a questionable source, I conclude that you either haven't looked or have found reliable British sources disagree with you. My cheap measuring spoons were provided to me free of charge, having been specially made for the government scheme involved. They were not existing measuring spoons bought up: they were branded with the name of the scheme. And, like every measuring spoon and every equivalence chart I have ever seen in this country, they take 1 tbsp = 15 ml. If you have a source of any kind which shows otherwise, please mention it here so we can use it in the article. 86.182.209.69 (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the British tablespoon has shrunk! (I'll try to find evidence). When I was young, it was the same as the Australian tablespoon (about 20ml). Dbfirs10:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I wonder what Mrs Beeton says about this in her cookbook? Since British Imperialism was at or near it height around the time she wrote it, then she ought to be the "bible" on the subject. If she does not mention them, then they were not standardised. 89.240.201.172 (talk) 12:47, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
February 12
Haiti hurricane
It is not yet the hurricane season but there is concern that a hurricane could exacerbate the earthquake disaster. The concern is reasonable because Haiti lies near the main storm path. Today the CNN weather lady said that the chance of a hurricane this year had increased because Haiti has not had a hurricane for several years. Does this "increased chance" conclusion make sense? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:11, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Only if dice have a memory. If you flip a coin that is known to be fair 20 times and it lands heads 20 times, your odds of getting a heads result on the next flip is still only 50/50. Googlemeister (talk) 14:17, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Worded like that, no. But if there's a pattern of hurricanes striking Haiti at specific intervals, similar to that of a volcano erupting on an interval basis, then one can conclude that Haiti is "overdue for a hurricane," but nothing more.--WaltCip (talk) 21:52, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Something like that. Again, in the absence of a strict formulaic pattern, an occurrence being overdue does not necessarily equal its imminent occurrence.--WaltCip (talk) 02:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Presumably there is kind of a "probability" associated with Haiti being hit by a hurricane, based on various factors, including how wide Haiti's island is in proportion to the Gulf, and also on possibly observable patterns of wind and water currents. But each hurricane situation would carry its own st of factors, none of which is likely to be that it's "overdue". Each event should be considered independent. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 08:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you could also predict, using some kind of statistical correlation, the probability of a hurricane occurring with a particular interval, such as 25 years. If Haiti tends to be hit within some range of occurrences within each 25 year span in recent history, you could project the probability of a particular quantity of hurricanes occurring sometime within the next 25 year span. But as you say, "overdue" does not mean "imminent". It just means that conditions have not been right. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 08:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
It is easiest to treat each event as independent but long-term (longer than a year) oscillations or trends might exist. The longer the historical data the more certainly an oscillation can be detected. Could the non-occurrence of a hurricane last year further confirm a hypothesis of an oscillation that makes a hurricane likely this year? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
There could be "memory" in cyclogenesis, if no cyclones form and the ocean gets hotter and hotter the chance of a severe one forming increases. So there may be a truth in what she says. --Gerrit14:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
McDonalds
I have heard that McDonalds (the restaurant) was not doing so well and needed to be saved, so the government helped bring it back up. Is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.45.107 (talk) 16:23, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems likely that in the next few months the Prime Ministership of the United Kingdom will pass from Gordon Brown to David Cameron. Both men had eldest children who died, Brown's a few days after birth and Cameron's after a few years of severe health challenges. I have a couple of questions. Is this unique in post-World War II developed countries, for two successive heads of government or of state, to have suffered this loss? And have the two men ever referred to it? Has it given them a sympathy for each other, away from the world of party politics? BrainyBabe (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
'or two successive heads of government or of state, to have suffered this loss' - that's extremely specific, so I would guess it would be about as rare or not rare as you can imagine. As for whether the two men have ever referred to their loss, to the best of my knowledge, it has hardly been mentioned by either of them, probably partly to avoid being accused of trying to gather sympathy from the public but also because it is, in fact, not exactly a relevant topic in most conversations about politics (though it may be perfectly relevant in some). Sympathy for each other? Yes, I have heard of both men referring to each other's loss in light of their own experiences. I hope this answers your question. I would look around for some links, but I'm a little busy now. Maybe someone else can find something. --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 17:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Certainly they express sympathy for each other, for example, as recorded in Hansard on February 25th 2009, when Gordon Brown said: I know that the whole House will want to express our sorrow at the sad death this morning of Ivan Cameron at the age of just six, and our condolences go out to David, to Samantha and to the Cameron family. I know that, in an all too brief young life, he brought joy to all those around him, and I also know that for all the days of his life he was surrounded by his family’s love. Every child is precious and irreplaceable, and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure. Politics can sometimes divide us, but there is a common human bond that unites us in sympathy and compassion at times of trial, and in support for each other at times of grief. Sarah and I have sent our condolences to David and Samantha, and I know that the whole country, and our thoughts and our prayers, are with David, Samantha and their family today. They probably don't talk much to each other in an informal non-political environment. The forthcoming election is very likely; the outcome less so. Dbfirs00:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I meant, had they referred to the coincidence, the potential bond if you like, rather than each referring to his own loss. Brown's condolences for Cameron hints at the shared experience ("common bond"), but if you didn't know of it, you wouldn't necessarily be enlightened. I am curious of other countries too. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:46, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The child morbidity rate in the UK is around 5 per thousand for children under 5 years of age - and the average family size is 1.8 children per couple. So there is a 1:200 chance for a child to die and about a 1:100 chance for a family to lose one of their children. So for any prime minister to have lost a child is 1% and the probability of two successive prime ministers to do that is 1:10,000 - so I'd say the odds of this ever happening before in the UK are rather slim - but there are around 200 countries in the world - almost all of them with much worse childhood death rates and almost all with larger average family sizes. Assuming two such "important" people per country (King + Prime Minister, President + Prime Minister, etc), and 200 countries and these people changing office (let's say) once every 5 years - we're seeing about 100 changes of leadership every year - and that means that this probably happens every 50 to 100 years. Worldwide, it's almost certain to have happened many times in the past - in the UK, it's almost certain that it hasn't. SteveBaker (talk) 03:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Steve, your numbers make sense. If you are correct that it probably happens every 50 to 100 years, then it is about 50/50 whether it has actually happened since 1945, other than in this example. It's not entirely an arbitrary date: the last great war of the developed world was over, and antibiotics had been discovered. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
E.Howard Watch Co.
Please be advised that in your list of "Watch Manufacturing co's A-Z",
someone has missed one of the most important Watch Makers (if not the most important)of early
American pocket ,Wall,Gallery,Bank,Regulator,Train Station,etc.timepieces ever made ! The E.Howard watch CO.of Boston Mass!!! In their day, E. Howards pocket watches and all other timepieces,were the best ever made!! Thank you! Mr. Stewart —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.40.83 (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
In the future, please be bold and just click "edit this page" at the top of the article you're reading, and make the changes yourself. And be sure to include inline citations to support the claims you include in the article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
There is also the E. Howard Hunt "watch" "company" -- it's called the CIA. (Sorry -- couldn't resist.)
Sorry never heard of them!!!!!! Mr. S.
Taser
Hello. My uncle is a paramedic and last night he told me a story that I dont think I believe. Last week they got a call that someone's pacemaker had stopped. They got to the house and the heart was going again. The son had used a taser to start the heart again. This does not sound true. Can someone comfirm or not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.123.84.125 (talk) 20:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I was told when I was in 10th grade the soda machine people have to sign a contract with schools "The machines must stay until 2009" why is this illegal to pull away soda machines befor the cutline violation of law to yank off items?--69.233.255.251 (talk) 21:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
If the claim heard at the schoolyard is true, then probably a soda machine operating company signed a contract with the school board or school district by which the company said they'd maintain and stock the machines at the schools through the end of 2009 and give the school X% of the revenue; and the school said they'd let them. In the US, if two parties (like, the company and the school district) sign a contract, then both sides must honor their side of the contract, or the injured side can sue for damages. That may be the reason the school didn't want to remove the soda machines before the contract expired. (Though many service contracts like this are renewable, contracts always have a limited term.) It would not be illegal for the school to remove the soda machines — no criminal charges will be filed, and nobody is going to go to jail — but the soda machine company would be able to sue the school for damages. What I don't understand is that if there is political pressure to get rid of the soda machines, why the school didn't just come to some settlement with the vendor, pay them 90% of the profit they would have realized during the year or whatever, and get rid of the machines. You know — won't anybody think of the children? Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
We went over this a couple months back. There were many explanatory answers given, so you might want to search. Dismas|01:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
This is another thing I would like to see tested in court: School district takes out the soda machines, soda machine company sues for breach of contract, school's defense lawyer asks company rep "are you really putting your company's profit ahead of the health of children in this school district?", dumbstruck silence from the rep, end of case. Astronaut (talk) 02:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Soda company rep to school board: "Why did you think when you signed the contract that soda is good for children?" Dismas|02:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Just saying "Think of the Children!" is not a get out of jail free card that allows schools to make any contract they like and then break it whenever they feel like. APL (talk) 16:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Different news reports I looked at in Google News are showing different times from 5:30 to 6:00 PST, which would be 7:30 to 8:00 CST. --Anonymous, 7:20 pm EST = 00:20 UTC, February 13, 2010.
Highly likely to be a rope bondage position. Two subjects placed back to back, tied together then hoisted into the air using an overhead pulley or block and tackle. This is an advanced type of rope bondage and should only be attempted by someone knowledgeable and experienced. The fact that the OP is posting here and not on a specialist board indicates that they do not have the experience or knowledge to safely perform this. They should go to a series of local rope bondage demonstration lectures and gain much more knowledge and experience before they even consider this. Exxolon (talk) 14:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Whats are the chances of Canada hosting another Summer Olympics and which city will be the one hosting it? Especially, since their 1st one (Montreal, 1976) and there only one was a totally disaster for them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mybodymyself (talk • contribs) 01:20, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Would they want to? Our news has been full of Canadians moaning about the expense and disruption - this may be because Londoners are already moaning about the same things with two years to go. Alansplodge (talk) 20:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanx for all of your answers to my question. Interesting and I'm highly aware of what goes on during bid process. Other hand I vaguely remember that Toronto wanted to host 2012 Summer Olympics during 2012 bid process. New York City also wanted host 2012 games, but in the end they didn't get it. Have to say I would love to see both New York City and Toronto to host games some time in the future.--Jessica A Bruno (talk) 23:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Unless something happens to doom the bid, it's almost a foregone conclusion that the 2020 Olympics will go to an African city, likely either Cairo or Johannesburg. The IOC is on record as wanting to put an Olympics in Africa. Woogee (talk) 23:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The crystal ball is cloudy, but it would be surprising if the next Canadian city to make a bid wasn't Toronto. Vancouver is hosting the Winters right now, Montreallers would never stand for another bid, probably the same applies to Quebec, and there probably aren't any others big enough. Canada is too spread out for a group of cities to get together and make a joint bid (except maybe Montreal and Quebec, but see above). Plus Toronto has got the Pan Am games, so they've got experience. However we're probably talking twenty years in the future. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Did you try searching? Boston University appears to offer an MA in Chemistry. The details are here. If you want any further syllabus details, they are the best people to ask. Karenjc11:56, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Did you try searching? Harvard's information page on postgraduate Chemistry programs is here. They "do not offer a terminal Masters degree" but a PhD is available. If you want more detailed syllabus information, they are the best people to ask. Karenjc11:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
To explain a little deeper, Harvard (like many schools) does not offer a Masters degree in many hard sciences as a normal graduating degree. If you are a graduate student in Chemistry, you should be enrolled in a PhD program. Many such schools grant a Masters degree to students who do not complete their thesis, but still complete their coursework, often derisively known as the "consolation Masters", but students are expected to be working towards their PhD. Such special masters degrees are usually automatically granted to students after their second or third year in their PhD program, or they are granted to students when, after several years of research, it becomes apparent that it will be impossible to write a thesis (for example, if someone "scoops" their research and publishes first, or their research ends up at a dead end). I have known several people who have such "consolation masters" degrees for those reasons. --Jayron3219:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Hard cheese without the saturated fat?
I like hard cheese, but I do not like the very high amounts of saturated fat it has in it. Is there any kind of cheese without any saturated fat in it, perhaps artificially produced? (Compressing cottage cheese perhaps?) I would not want to eat any hydrogenated fat either, or more than trace amounts of trans-fat. Thanks 92.29.55.65 (talk) 12:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
As an ex-dieter of many years standing, I share your frustration! The only thing I found that worked was to use very strongly flavoured cheeses (such as Parmesan or Cheddar) in small quantities, thus reducing your intake of saturated fats but also ensuring you get some of the nutrients (such as calcium and Vitamin D) contained in hard cheeses. The hard cheeses with the least fat, such as Edam or Gouda, simply aren't tasty enough for me. Commercially available reduced-fat cheeses are likely to contain trans- or hydrogenated fats. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Half-fat cheddar is available in the UK from any supermarket. You'd struggle to taste the difference too, but it costs a bit more than bog-standard mousetrap cheese. Alansplodge (talk) 20:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Yup, they're the "commercially available reduced-fat cheeses" I was mentioning above. You can tell the difference - they seem more rubbery to me, and a quick read of the label puts me off them. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:13, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
It would appear, but I have not been able to find a definitive statement, that the on-time statistic reported for the U.S. major airlines is a binary value: OnTime means within 15 minutes, Not OnTime for everything else. Thus, being 3 hours late (or being cancelled completely) both count the same as being 16 minutes late.
Is this actually documented someplace? I can find lots of reports of what the statistics are; a few sites state the within 15 minutes phrase and thus imply the statement; but nothing that actually documents the latter statement. DaHorsesMouth (talk) 17:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
"A flight is counted as "on time" if it operated less than 15 minutes later the scheduled time shown in the carriers' Computerized Reservations Systems (CRS). Arrival performance is based on arrival at the gate. Departure performance is based on departure from the gate." (From the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics) --- OtherDave (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
When did Suffield, MA become Suffield, CT?
When did Suffield, MA become Suffield, CT? I am doing genealogy and need to know which colony or state to put with Suffield at various dates, please. Thanks - Janice e-mail deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.114.2.203 (talk) 18:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The Suffield historical society website is here: http://www.suffieldhistoricalsociety.org/ it says they switched states in 1749. You could also email Arthur Sikes Jr., Suffield Historical Society Trustee at ArtSikesaolcom
Have taken the liberty to make his e-mail address a bit more obscure... don't want the man getting more spam than he already does, eh? If you feel this is an intrusion uncalled for, feel free to undo. --Ouro (blah blah) 22:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
This is off-topic but: (a) His email address is already perfectly visible - so spammers who crawl the web will have found it already and (b) you don't seriously think the evil spammers didn't think to convert and to the corresponding characters? Evil!=Stupid (c) My email address is on LOTS of web sites - it's everywhere on a bazillion forums, web sites, etc and has been for 10 years or more...but my wife's address is almost nowhere online...she gets about the same amount of spam as I do. QED. SteveBaker (talk) 00:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I actually had similar thoughts cross my mind when I did that edit, but I also thought-- what the heck. Point taken, Steve. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
In his 2008 book How the States got their Shapes, Mark Stein (who doesn't seem to have a Misplaced Pages article) says that the Massachusetts-Connecticut border was disputed until 1804 when the two states agreed on the present line. Suffield and three other towns in the disputed zone declared their intent to be considered part of Connecticut, and when the border was settled, they got their way. --Anonymous, 05:38 UTC, February 14, 2010.
Right of way
Okay, here's the situation: Eastwest Road is a through-street - no stop signs, traffic lights or anything. Southnorth Road intersects Eastwest at a right angle and has stop signs so that cars crossing Eastwest in either direction are obliged to stop. Now, let's say we're in a car on Southnorth and we're going to cross Eastwest, continuing straight on Southnorth. We pull up and stop at the stop sign and see that another car, travelling in the opposite direction on Southnorth, is already at the intersection and indicating a left turn. We all sit and wait until Eastwest traffic is clear. Who has right of way? I was taught that it goes in order of arrival at the intersection (i.e. the other guy should go first), but every time I sit there waiting for the other guy, it turns out that he figures I have the right of way because I'm going straight.
We're in Ontario, Canada. Is there a law relevant to this, or maybe one of those unwritten rules of driving? The norm here seems to be "straight has right of way", so I'll just get used to it, but it seems very odd to me. Matt Deres (talk) 20:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Social conventions differ between different regions, which causes some confusion. In California, social conventions generally hold that straight-through people get preference over left-turn people (though there are exceptions), but that wasn't the case in Massachusetts, if I remember correctly. Don't worry about it - do what feels right, because the worst that can happen is you'll get honked at. --Ludwigs220:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
This is my understanding of general procedures in the US: The stop signs are there so that Southnorth Rd. traffic does not intrude on the right-of-way of vehicles on Eastwest Rd. Since all Eastwest traffic is clear, the only conflict is between the cars on Southnorth. The car turning left across opposing traffic must always yield right-of-way to opposing traffic going straight (or even turning right). The only time that "it goes in order of arrival at the intersection" is when the intersection is a posted 4-way stop. --Thomprod (talk) 20:47, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
... and similarly throughout the UK (though we would be turning right). It seems strange to me that an alternative rule would be possible. Are there really regions where turners have precedence? Dbfirs00:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
In the US (at least) the "The person who arrives first has priority" rule only applies to four-way stops. In the situation you describe, the person going straight has the right of way unless the other car is already moving past the stop sign when you arrive at the stop sign. But these detailed rules vary from place to place - so you should really find out the rules in your local jurisdiction - and no matter what, drive defensively - don't assume that the other driver knows the rules. It's better to be alive than to be right but dead! SteveBaker (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Contrary to Ludwigs2's memory, this rule applies in Massachusetts, too, according to the driver's manual. However, Massachusetts drivers are often unaware of or unconcerned with such rules. In practice, it depends on things such as who is driving, what they're driving, and who moves first. For example, old ladies in compact cars generally yield to young males in large pick-up trucks, especially when the young male's vehicle starts moving. The only way that the old lady would go first, regardless of the law, is if the young male waits and either flashes his high-beams or motions to indicate that he is yielding right-of-way (even if legally he never had it). Hopefully, it is not so complicated in Ontario. Marco polo (talk) 03:28, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
According to the BC Motor Vehicles Act, in British Columbia, if there is sufficient space for the left turning vehicle to safely turn, he may. Once he begins, regardless of what controls may exist, he has the right of way. If you arrive at the same time, the idea is that you figure it out between the two of you. There is no legal preference. But in your case, he has the right of way. I forgot what section it is, though. I'm sorry. Aaronite (talk) 04:40, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The relevant Ontario law is the Highway Traffic Act, which can be downloaded under the "current consolidated statutes" section of www.e-laws.gov.on.ca, and the relevant subsections are 136(1) and 141(5).
136. (1) Every driver or street car operator approaching a stop sign at an intersection,
(a) shall stop his or her vehicle or street car at a marked stop line or, if none, then immediately before entering the nearest crosswalk or, if none, then immediately before entering the intersection; and
(b) shall yield the right of way to traffic in the intersection or approaching the intersection on another highway so closely that to proceed would constitute an immediate hazard and, having so yielded the right of way, may proceed.
141. (5) No driver or operator of a vehicle in an intersection shall turn left across the path of a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction unless he or she has afforded a reasonable opportunity to the driver or operator of the approaching vehicle to avoid a collision.
So the stop sign becomes irrelevant once the two cars have stopped and waited for traffic on Eastwest Road. They are effectively approaching the intersection at the same time and therefore 141(5) requires the one turning left to yield (although it does not actually use that word). Thus, Matt's instinct is wrong.
... unlike in Massachusetts where (according to the claim above) everyone assumes that they have right of way unless the other vehicle is bigger! Are there more collisions at intersections in that state?
Thanks for the responses, everyone, especially Anon for quoting an actual regulation. And to Cuddlyable for the nice diagram; I think I can see my house there! I've been driving for years but have seldom had to face this situation so often. My "Eastwest Road" is a very busy street (so it's often the case that traffic on "Southnorth" is backed up a bit) and "Southnorth" is also fairly busy, so it's not unusual for there to be traffic both turning and going straight, etc. I guess my confusion came, as others mentioned above, with the rules for a four-way stop. This was combined with puzzlement over why turning left is such a horrible act; both the person going straight and the person turning left are going to cross all lanes of perpendicular traffic, so using FIFO would seem fairer. Well, I know better now, so thanks! Matt Deres (talk) 14:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
If each street has one lane each way, the straight-through person has conflicts with two lanes of traffic while the left turner has conflicts with all three others. It's only when wider streets are involved that a left-turner may conflict with fewer lanes, and then only if you don't consider lane changes before and after the turn. By the way, that was a law I quoted, not a regulation. --Anonymous, 21:57 UTC, February 14, 2010.
If the intersection was a four-way stop, then the guy turning left would have the right of way. Otherwise you get to go first. As far as I remember this is how we learned it in driving school in Ontario. But I would probably sit there too, as confused as you. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
We have a similar confusion in the UK with "mini-roundabouts" where a similar "first come, first go" rule seems to apply. Using the Highway Code can result in stalemate where everyone sits there giving way to everyone else. Dbfirs09:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
A bit tangential, but I've always relied on the philosophy of my long-ago driver's ed instructor: You never have the right of way, you can only yield the right of way. --- OtherDave (talk) 15:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Watching tv
Resolved
Would it be possible, assuming average sleep requirements and average life expectancy, for someone to watch every episode of every television program produced up to this point in time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 20:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Without even doing any back-of-envelope calculations, I say the answer is a most definite NO. Just think of how many different stations there are, how many different programs and episodes there have been, how long TV has been around (well over 70 years in some cases) - and that's just English-speaking countries. No way. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
George Carlin, in a lengthy routine about radio ("Wonderful W-I-N-O-o-o-o..."), included a fake ad in which you could order "every record ever made!" TV in its early years only broadcast for part of the day, but even at that and if home recording existed, you couldn't watch every TV show ever made. Even considering downtime for reruns. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 21:18, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I was just thinking that. That's about the only way you could have done it. Might be kind of hard to concentrate on 3 shows (assuming 1960s TV scenario). It's tough enough to concentrate on 2. Although perpetual channel surfing is kind of in the neighborhood, it's kinda like cheating, as watching little time slices of episodes is not the same thing as watching the episode. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 01:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
MLB - World Series
How is it fair that one of the divisions of the AL has only 4 teams and one of the NL divisions has 6 teams? Why don't they move one to the other division/league to make all MLB divisions have 5 teams. This is especially outragious considering only 8 out of 30 teams make the playoffs and winning your division in the regular season has higher importance than in the NHL and NBA. In the NHL and NBA, if every game's outcome is random, all teams have an equal chance of make the playoffs, and winning the championship. In the MLB, teams in the divisions with 4 and 6 teams are statistically significantly more/less likely to make the playoffs, and to win their league, and the World Series, especially compared to teams in the other unique division. Does this issue apear in other major leagues, namely, the NFL and CFL? Do any of the leagues where this is an issue make exceptions to the playoff qualification rules to solve this problem and put all teams on a level playing field? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 21:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I've failed to notice this. You are absolutely right. Tuesday, I'll make some calls and see what can be done about this. Thanks for the insight. John Zajc (talk) 22:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.100.214.133 (talk) (Blocked as sock)
In the case of baseball, if there were 6 divisions of 5 teams each, both leagues would have an odd number of teams. This would require an interleague series taking place at all times, as teams play just about every day during the regular season. This is considered more problematic than having two leagues with an even number of teams, but unequal divisions. The justification is that the cream will rise to the top, and that if a team finishes 1st in a 4-team division (the AL West), chances are it deserves a shot at the postseason, while a team that is 3rd in the 6-team division (the NL Central), is unlikely to be a serious contender for the World Series. The NFL used to have divisions with unequal numbers of teams, but did not adjust playoff structure as a result either. --Xuxl (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Not to mention that the AL went and changed the rules of the game. What self-respecting, baseball-loving team would want to leave the National League? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 00:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC) (Go Cubs!)
The source of the "problem" is that the leagues need to have an even number of teams. Y'know, cause it takes two teams to play a game. Right now there are 30 teams in 2 leagues, but 15-15 is not an option, so they go for 16-14. In the infinite wisdom of the baseball gods, it was decided that each league should have three divisions, which pretty much forces you to have divisions of 5, 5,and 6 and 5, 5, and 4. If MLB were to expand again, it's most likely that the AL would get two teams, creating divisions of 5, 5, and 6. Now, the whole issue would also go away if interleague play was to be done on a constant basis, but this is unlikely for historical and logistical reasons. In my opinion, it's probably more likely to have the leagues dissolve as separate entities and reshuffle the entire arrangement, though by "more likely" I mean "slightest glimmer of a vague possibility" versus "just not in the plans". When the AL expands, all will be well. Matt Deres (talk) 04:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
They only need to have an even number of teams if there are dates when all teams are expected to play. The CFL for many years had 9 teams total -- 4 in the Eastern Conference (later Division) and 5 in the Western. The NHL had a total of 7 teams at one time and a total of 21 teams at another time. Concern with unequal size divisions is rare. Teams tend to be more concerned with which teams they share a division with -- either wanting weak opponents so they have a better chance of winning the division, or wanting opponents that will attract more fans to their games.
Anyway, teams do not all have equal abilities, and it's entirely possible that competition in one division will be much tougher than another no matter whether they are equal size or not. In fact, there's been at least one case where they were deliberately made unequal. When the NHL expanded from 6 to 12 teams in 1967, it put the 6 new teams in a separate division, the Western Division, thus guaranteeing that one of them would make the Stanley Cup finals no matter how weak the division was compared to the established Eastern Division teams. The 12-team league lasted for 3 years and in all 3 years the Eastern Division team (Montreal or Boston) won the Stanley Cup Final 4 games to 0 (in each case against St. Louis). (Of course there are also leagues with First and Second Divisions and a promotion system, but that's not what I'm talking about here.) --Anonymous, 06:12 UTC, February 14, 2010.
The difference between baseball and other sports is that every team plays about 28 games per month (they get one day off every two weeks or so). At that rate, there is almost no time when they could work out two teams that just wouldn't play. No team has any down time with which to make the "odd number of teams" work. So, as already noted, a 5-5-5/5-5-5 arrangement would require that teams from opposite leagues play each other all the time, not just during the two weeks per year designated as "interleague" weeks; entirely possible but for traditional reasons unlikely to happen. It certainly make more 'logistical' sense to just do it that way, but the people interested in preserving the "history and tradition of the game" would never let something like that happen. Oddly enough, other baseball leagues also have weird divisional alignments, also for historical reasons. C.f. the AAA International League which has a 6-4-4 alignment rather than the more logical 5-5-4 (or even 7-7). --Jayron3219:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The NFL had an odd number of teams during 1999-2001, after they had added their 31st team (the Browns) and before they added their 32nd team (the Texans). They had already been doing a bye week since 1990, and it became a necessity during that three-year period. The NFL had 15 in each conference for several years in the late 90s, but they play many inter-conference games, so that was not an issue. If MLB ever realigns along NFL lines, it might become "fairer" than it is now. But as with any sport, the bottom line is you have to win. The NCAA basketball tournament, every year, leaves a few "borderline" teams behind from their 65-team chart. It's just how things go. (Let's not get into the BCS, which is an abomination unto itself.) ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 08:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Eek. Why not just double it again, to 192, and invite pretty much everyone. Unfortunately, that would reduce the NIT to a couple of all-star teams from neighborhoods, playing H-O-R-S-E or half-court or something. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 01:39, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Comparisons to the CFL and NFL should be taken under advisement; baseball teams play every day while football teams only play once a week. Giving a linebacker an extra week off is a gift; throwing an extra three or four days off straight would not carry the same benefit to baseball players and would throw the pitching rotation out of whack. Nobody in baseball would want to have leagues with an odd number of teams. Matt Deres (talk) 14:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Another question that could be asked is, "How fair is it that MLB plays about twice as many games as NHL and NBA, yet only 8 teams qualify for the post-season?" Baseball has an incredibly long season, playing nearly every day for 6 months, and the post-season runs barely a month. Consider the old days, where 16 teams (20 in the 1960s) would play 140-154-162 games and only have TWO qualifiers for the post-season "tournament", which consisted of one round, a best-4-of-7 World Series. In baseball the post-season was almost like an afterthought. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 01:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Computer gaming good for the mind?
I believe gaming is nothing more than a waste of time and energy so I've been abstaining from it consecutively for over two months now. But since then, I seem to be doing worse at school work, frequently making stupid mistakes on exams and homeworks and having a generally harder time with being on top of coursework. I also seem unable to derive satisfaction from my academic work and have a lowered short-term memory and decision-making skills.
Are some, though not all, people actually better off by playing computer games? Long time ago, I read somewhere that no play but only work creates dull mind and that a playful mind is a necessary requirement for being smart/creative/genius. I suspect this has something to do with my decline in academic performance. So I'm considering if I should resume my computer gaming to get my playful mind back (while making sure to keep gaming to a minimum, not like over 10 hours a week as I've done in the past when I played games). But before I really decide to get into gaming again, I want to know if there is any research or evidence that actually deals with this, because my worse academic performance might merely be due to some other factors like difficulty of courses I'm taking this semester instead of being due to stopping playing games. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.120.162 (talk) 21:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
There are definitely studies about the effect of gaming on the brain (Googling "video games effect on brain" turns up lots of studies—a nice general article on the ups and downs of such conclusions is this one). Some suggest they help with learning, but you'd really be hard-pressed to know if that applies in your situation, with your life, your brain, your games. These kinds of studies make meaningful data only when applied to large groups of people. As an individual, such studies will not be able to tell you anything about your own situation, your own habits, your own performance, your own life. Your university likely has ample mental health resources available for discussing things like this—you would probably get better, more personalized, more sensible responses from them than anyone on the internet. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Any activity that requires concentration is "good for the mind", so yes computer gaming is. There are some side effects to very prolonged periods of play however (as there are to any activity).--92.251.207.52 (talk) 01:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
What activity isn't a complete waste of time? There are good games and bad games, but, as often overlooked by anti-game people, there are also crap books and good books (I'm not suggesting classics are good, by the way, or that silly books are bad; just that there is a broad range in quality within each genre). Don't dismiss any form of media for any other reason than personal preference, or your just denying yourself some potentially great stuff. Aaronite (talk) 04:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest, humbly, that the local pro-gaming contingent posting here do not really know what they are talking about. Again, if you are finding your academic studies troublesome, I recommend speaking with one of the many professionals who are no doubt at your educational institution, rather than listening to fools on the internet. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The decision to give up gaming should be balanced against what you're going to do with the spare time you gain back. Going to use the time to study, or read good books, or engage in challenging conversation? Then the time spent gaming is probably of little use to improving your brain. On the other hand, if you're going to use those extra ten hours or whatever to drink yourself into a stupor or watch Fox network television? Well, maybe firing up Oblivion would be a better option. Regardless of whether gaming or reading or anything improves your brain in some generic way, poor grades should probably be discussed with a teacher or counsellor. Matt Deres (talk) 14:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
February 14
Flowchart
my question is..How can I make a flowchart and algorithm about a system programming about a cash register that you can buy a product and you will have a change after you have tendered the product.! please answer of help me in my question..! thank you very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenno15 (talk • contribs) 07:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Homework question, right? The purpose of such an exercise is to get you to think logically, to think like a programmer. Think of the various steps involved and the flowchart will emerge from that process. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 07:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, and "play dumb"; try thinking out the steps as if you were explaining them to a small child. Break the process down into the tiniest, easiest steps you can and then chain them together. Matt Deres (talk) 14:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Nobody seems to know, including people that work in pubs! I've just tried to find out and have found several websites, all of which look reliable and all of which give different answers. The law seems to be that you can go into a pub and order soft drinks and food from age 14, but not all pubs know that (I've been asked for ID when I ordered a coke once - I was over 18 at the time, so it wasn't an issue, but had I been younger I think I would have had to stay thirsty). I suggest you phone the pub in question and ask them. --Tango (talk) 13:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I should first state that Misplaced Pages cannot give legal information, and you would be advised to check any information you receive here at another source before taking any action. I think it depends on the type of licence the bar has. I may be wrong, but I think if the bar serves food and is considered a 'family pub' they can, if it is a bar that serves some food they can't. Large chains like Weatherspoons definitely don't seem to have an objection, and I think they have the right kind of licence. Finally, if in doubt they could always call the pub before hand and ask. Prokhorovka (talk) 13:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Back to the point. Are you sure that this is a UK question? The "United" Kingdom is not quite united in several aspects. Back when I was in Edinburgh, Scotland had very different laws about pub opening (or rather closing) hours, for example. No "last orders, please" north of the border - or at least not at times I was awake (and I'm a night owl). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:20, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
It's perhaps also worth remembering that while the above answers are concentrating on the legal aspect, the pubs are likely ultimately entitled to deny service if they desire. I'm not sure if the UK has age discrimination laws but even if it does, these most likely won't stop them denying service based on age, they could easily argue there are legitimate reasons for their policy, e.g. to make it easy for their staff or for the benefit of their clientele, they may check ID at the door or automatically remove someone who is either underage or looks like they could be underage and doesn't have ID. Some may offer service but only when accompanied by an adult. Trying to argue with them in such cases is likely to be futile. Some may also be confused about whether they can offer service but even in such a case, most likely the person who you'll be arguing with lacks the authority to change their policy. To put it simply even if a pub can offer service, it doesn't mean they will. If you have a specific pub in mind, I would agree with Prokhorovka you should call first. Else my summary of the above is some can, some can't Nil Einne (talk) 19:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not really sure how that works. The price receives DNA from both parents, but only a haploid set of chromosomes and single set of genes from each parent. Even presuming these traits are perfectly/100% heritable (which was never specified), without knowing how many genes are involved in the 4221 and 21451 traits, whether these genes are linked (if there are multiple genes involved), how the genes and alleles interact and what alleles each parent has, (and probably other things I forget and excluding odd/very rare stuff happening like mutations) it's impossible to know how they will combine although most likely there will be several possibilities and it is unlikely the only possibility will be the 25672. In fact in many cases it won't even be possible. In the absence of anything else, I'd go with something in between as the most likely answer. In conclusion, the answerer of that question on answers.com might want to take more care before they go saying "u stupid idiot" Nil Einne (talk) 19:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Depending on how you interpert the question does vary the anwser. In humans, when two Gametes meet to form a Zygote, it takes roughly half of it's genetic material from either parent. (I think, but my biology may be rusty.) That being the case, if figured into the answer, you may use (4221+21451)/2 to get 12836 as your answer. -ennasis @ {{subst:CURRENTTIME}}, {{subst:#time: xjj xjF xjY }} / @ 19:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Avicennasis—did you even read the page that you linked to? It hardly looks like a very good answer. It is certainly not a reliable source in any sense of the term! Just putting things blindly into Google is not very helpful. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I did indeed review it. From the search terms I used, it seemed the only probable result related to the query - and the answerer, while rude, seemed confident of the conclusion he reached. If nothing else, it was a start to understand the nature of this code, even if link has an incorrect answer. -User:Avicennasis/sigsmall @ 01:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Surely it's some sort of code per letter? Not really much to work on - but only numbers up to 5 are used, N is encoded differently twice, but there are one per letter in the word. - Jarry125008:49, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Are you asking the right question? It is phrased completely differently on Wikianswers. The way it's expressed could be significant.--Shantavira|16:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The truth about Colonel Sanders
Does anyone know if there's any truth to the stories that Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame) was a Nazi sympathizer who lied about his military exploits in WWI and service record? I was told that some journalist pulled his records several years ago under freedom of information and that they showed that the guy had never actually been promoted above Private, spending less than a year in the army and never once being deployed overseas. I was also told that in the 1930s, he gave speeches and interviews in which he stated that he believed that the Nazi ideology could help America. Just heard this from a guy I was getting drunk with in a bar last night and I thought I'd come check it out. Thanks. --95.148.107.118 (talk) 14:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I heard he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly. Was the guy in the bar, like Colonel Sanders, too drunk to taste his chicken? Adam Bishop (talk) 14:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the relevant link Gadget. Looked like this was going to spiral in fast. I was surprised that Bugs hasn't added his "lost in the sauce" 2 cents yet. John Zajc (talk) 15:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC) This template must be substituted. (Blocked as sock)
(EC) To put it a different way, there doesn't seem to be any dispute that he was never promoted above Private. Therefore, any 'revelation' that includes this fact as something special is automatically suspect Nil Einne (talk) 15:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflicted)So the guy never actually claimed to be a US Army Colonel? In this conversation (the man I was talking to is ex-British Army) was saying that Col. Sanders was the olden days equivalent to one of those guys who says he was a POW in Vietnam, who killed his guards and escaped after walking hundreds of miles through enemy territory and was awarded the Medal of Honor for it - or the Navy SEAL Black Ops guy who brags of his Rambo-style assassination missions (i.e. lying scumbags). --95.148.107.118 (talk) 15:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Pfft. I'm an honorary Alabama Colonel, and have the certificate to prove it. All I had to do was to write to the Governor's office and ask for one. Woogee (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
wow - do people still use the term 'Nazi sympathizer'? next you're going to start in with something about 'stopping the Hun' or maybe 'remember the Maine!'. (sad that I have to link those, but I don't think most people will get it if I don't)--Ludwigs218:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
You mean people have actually forgotten about the Maine? For shame, for shame! What would our President think? He probably wouldn't give even half a damn for one thing.--WaltCip (talk) 18:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Erm... surely it would be possible to oppose both the Nazis and the Communists for the terrors that both acting regimes in WW2 committed?--WaltCip (talk) 05:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Lindbergh's view was that it was better for Europe to be overrun by the Nazis than by the Communists. A lot of folks modified their views once the US entered WWII. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 06:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
What most people forget is that Nazism in the early years had a lot of appeal as a political philosophy. It presented itself as a populist, moralist approach that privileged liberal ethics over corrupt, decadent, violent ideologies. The Nazi (fascist) promise was that citizens bound together behind a 'pure' nation would be stronger than citizens acting alone, and that all would reap the benefits of that strength. It wasn't until later that the 'pure state' officially morphed into the 'pure race' and the collective empowerment turned into a de facto form of oppression (and it was that transformation that lead all the later atrocities). --Ludwigs206:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, that's pretty much Neitzche's point at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra: There's just no point in having smart ideas if you only have stupid people to tell them to. --Ludwigs207:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The above is very far from the truth. Anti-Semitism, racism and virulent nationalism were part of German Nazism from the start. Italian Fascism also included virulent nationalism from the start. Those "all" who would "reap the benefits of that strength" were limited to the nation (in an ethnic, and, for Nazism, racial sense). From the start, both ideologies were pronouncedly opposed to liberal democracy - or any kind of democracy for that matter - and advocated a dictatorship with iron discipline (even while they were also populist). It was egalitarian democracy and individual freedom that they viewed as "corrupt and decadent", as well as most other ideas stemming from the Enlightenment. At no point could their ideologies be described as "liberal ethics", they despised liberal democrats almost as much as they despised communists and regarded them as two sides of the same coin. I won't argue about this any further, but for evidence anyone can just search for the relevant words within an online edition of the Mein Kampf. (Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism" is also instructive in this regard.)--91.148.159.4 (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The whole discussion of Nazism is tangential. The questioner asked whether Colonel Sanders was a Nazi sympathizer. I can find no reliable source indicating that he was or that this rumor is anything other than libel or slander. We don't want to reinforce this by discussing reasons why some Americans might have sympathized with Nazis, implying that this is somehow relevant to Colonel Sanders. Incidentally, 91.148.159.4 is quite right that Nazism was antiliberal and racist from its inception. Marco polo (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Michelin stars
What, in 2007, became the first city to gain more Michelin stars than Paris.17:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)17:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.8.153 (talk)
Welcome to the Misplaced Pages Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Intelligentsium20:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Read everything on the Yankee Stadium. Am searching for the Greek family that had the rights to the concessions stands at the Old Yankee Stadium in 1972. I have a list of the vendors but they had concession stands, not the overall rights. Not sure how that worked.
(e-mail addreess deletedCuddlyable3 (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC))
Retailers such as avsupply.com of surveillance (?) cameras seem to have a fairly standardized terminology; for example, "megapixel camera" and "megapixel lens" pop up all over the place. Googling for these terms takes me to descriptions of consumer cameras with this or that number of megapixels -- not obviously explanatory, because after all if your DSLR offers 12.8 megapixels, you hardly say that the lenses designed for or usable with it are 12.8 megapixel lenses. I'm sure explanations for ignoramuses of industrial video terminology are out there on the, er, information superhighway, but I know so little about the subject that I don't even know how to google for it effectively. Tips? -- Hoary (talk) 00:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I can't find any mention of megapixel in lenses in my cursory search on the website, perhaps you can provide a link to a description with that phrase? --antilived06:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, here is Kowa's range of "1″ megapixel" lenses; here is a list of products sold by avsupply.com, in which "megapixel lenses" (together with "megapixel cameras" and other inscrutable stuff like "telecentric lenses") is a major category; here is another retailer's list of lenses, including Pentax/Cosmicar "MegaPixel" lenses (the odd capitalization suggests a brand name, but even if this is so the name must have been chosen for a reason); here is Fujifilm's blurb (in somewhat dodgy English) for its range of Fujinon megapixel lenses. And there's more. (Incidentally, "1″" in the first example means "one inch" and I believe it somehow indicates the maximum recommended image circle. I think that rather than the diameter it's the length of the side of the largest square that would fit within the image circle, but I'm not sure.) -- Hoary (talk) 12:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
This is apparently a "3 megapixel lens" and has "High image-quality monitoring with optical performance supporting 3 megapixels." I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean. A lens is a piece of glass that changes the direction of light, it is an entirely continuous structure. It is not divided into pixels. Presumably it has something to do with the active mechanisms for improving the image quality, but I can't work out why they would work in pixels. --Tango (talk) 13:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes indeed. It all sounds quite potty. Of course more pixels don't mean higher quality, but all right, there is some sort of vague correlation between number of pixels (and "resolution" in the computer graphics sense) and image quality (and "resolution" in the lens testing sense). So if a company were to market a range of, say, "20 megabyte lenses" I'd know what impression they were trying to make. A single megabyte sounds like something from twenty years ago. On the other hand these lenses are intended not for still but for videophotography; for all I know one megabyte may be an impressive figure for one "frame" (?) of a surveillance video. -- Hoary (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
As a hobbyist photographer, I have to agree that I don't understand how megapixels could be related to lenses. In fact, the only digital part in a lens is communicating with the camera to let the lens know what aperture and shutter length it should use, and none of these have any relation to pixels - a film camera would do the exact same thing. In my opinion, the term "megapixel lens" is either meaningless marketing-speak or simply a recommendation about the class of cameras it should be used with. JIP | Talk20:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The concept of a 'megapixel lens' appears to primarily originate in the CCTV camera arena I think because many earlier lens were crap and couldn't realisticly work well with megapixel CCTV cameras. These links may be of interest, particularly to Hoary. (also look in the comments and check out the links) Also I guess because the CCTV camera market cares a lot about cost and does actually consider what the benefit is to their high megapixel setup particularly given the data rates it would entail (unlike the P&S market where for most people 12mp camera=sounds good, regardless of whether their 12mp camera is actually really any better then the 8mp camera ).
While I agree the idea of a 'megapixel lens' is mostly nonsense and there doesn't appear to even be an consistent way of rating a lens's 'megapixel rating', the general idea is that the manufacturer recommends these for use with 1 megapixel (or higher depending on the rating) CCTV cameras (without the lens being a significant limiting factor). The quality of the lens does of course make a big difference to the quality of the image and if you have a very shitty lens, using it with a higher megapixel sensor (depending on the size of the sensors as well) would have limited benefit (although I think in most cases is still likely to have some benefit in a few circumstances ).
There are of course real world measurable parameters about the lens that have far more meaning but understanding how these relate to their specific purpose is perhaps fairly confusing partially why 'megapixel lens' marketing speak arises. And manufacturers prefer made up stuff which makes it easier to 'bend the truth' anyway (the comments in one of the early links mentions the Australian standard plan to require some of the specs be published).
Incidentally from the earlier links, the megapixel rating appears to relate primarily to the resolving power (which of course does make a big difference in whether you'll get any benefit to a high megapixel sensor) but also other factors like optical distortion and chromatic aberation.
Hey so this isn't legal advice, it's more "activism" advice. I really believe I've discovered an elaborate fraud which involves a "seemingly" legitimate charity organization. There is a website called malariainitiative dot com which claims to be part of the "Lutheran church charities" . Under their links to malaria treatment science they proclaim the efficacy of a substance known as Acidified Sodium Chlorite, a common disinfectant, as an effective cure for malaria. This is actually marketed as "Miracle Mineral Solution" by a guy called "Jim Humble" which after a bit of investigation I have come to the conclusion that he is a total fraud and MMS is a scam. My evidence is that he claims it not only cures Malaria, but also AIDS, hepatitis and most cancers and of course there is not a single piece of evidence to support any these claims, and I have done a lot of searching, including in the medical literature. malariainitiative don't mention Jim or MMS by name, but they are obviously talking about the same stuff. The evidence on their website includes videos and links to "research" is probably enough to fool most casual observers. If they are using this as a "cover" it's anyone's guess where the donation dollars are going. Feel free to look up Jim Humble and MMS, there is a mountain of websites full of personal accounts that this stuff works, but of course none of it is backed up by a shred of evidence. There is another website called lutheranmalaria dot org which seems like a more legitimate version. So if the two are linked, or if the 1st is just masquerading as the 2nd I don't know. I'm going to email united nations foundation and the Lutheran charities but I was wondering if there was more I could do. I live in Australia so I'm not familiar with the laws and stuff of American charities. Is there a charities ombudsman or some sort that could be made aware of this? I've posted on SGU (sceptics guide to the universe) but only got a luke warm response, I'm also going to email quackwatch. Does anyone else have any suggestions? I'm a bit outraged by all this, it all just started when a close relative of mine actually bought some MMS and tried to sell me on it. Vespine (talk) 05:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
If I were you I would indeed start by contacting a Lutheran church. I'm sure they would be very interested to know if someone is using their name for fraudulent purposes. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 05:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The website is registered by a John Peterson in 405 E. Pierce St. Elburn, Illinois 60119. If that makes any difference. I've looked on Google maps and it looks like a regular house in the burbs. Vespine (talk) 05:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Or if you don't feel like calling long distance, start with a Lutheran official website and see if there's a "contact us" on it somewhere. I keep saying "a" Lutheran church because there is more than one "sub-denomination". ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 05:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Lutheran Church Charities appears to be a specific, real organization, presumably with a trademark on its name, and a legal interest in not having it misused. There is no one Lutheran organization, so "Lutheran" is presumably not trademarked, so I believe that neither the ELCA nor the Missouri Synod (the two major Lutheran denominations in the US) will be able to help. (But I am nothing like a lawyer.) PaulStansifer13:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Boys Town is an "organization in District of Columbia, providing more than 400,000 children each year with a safe, caring, loving environment where they gain confidence to get better". I got that quote from the official Boys Town website and from what I can gather the organization houses homeless youth. But the question I want to ask is that in the Chris Riley (priest)article is states that he was the "Principal of the charity Boy’s Town" but how can that be if the organization isn't a school of some kind? Unless i'm not getting the right impression of what a principal is. 220.233.83.26 (talk) 07:04, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Boys Town does operate some schools. Perhaps the meaning is that Riley was the principal of one of those. According to the Boys Town web site, the present head of the organization is called the Executive Director, so presumably that's not what was meant. --Anonymous, 08:08 UTC, February 15, 2010.
I've done some research and found thae answer for my self. In an article it says: "he came to Boys' Town as school principal in 1986". 220.233.83.26 (talk) 10:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Principal has other meanings than headmaster or leader of a school. Principal is merely the head person or authoritative person associated with any group or organisation. --Tagishsimon(talk)10:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Need help naming a hairstyle
Hey, I'm trying to find the name of a certain haristyle, Here's and example of an action figure with the hair, Rick O'Connell] from the Mummy kind of has it as well, if you wanted a picture of a real person. What's the name of this hairstyle? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 10:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
But hard to tell off A) a Lego figure and B) a picture when his hair is messed up because of the movie he's in.I'd go with "curtains" myself.hotclaws15:47, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
If you read Pint, it's rather confused, especially for beer; a pint or "une pinte" can be 20 fl oz (an English pint), 500 ml, 375 ml, 952.1 ml, an imperial quart, or any large glass. According to the Vancouver Sun, it's legally 20 fl oz in British Columbia, but this is not a universal standard, and it probably varies from province to province, particularly in the French bits. --Normansmithy (talk) 14:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Canadians tend to avoid the pint, for exactly those reasons. Most things are bought and sold by the litre, and the one that isn't (beer) is generally measured in floz. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Not at all true. I buy all my beer in pubs and restaurants by the pint or glass, which are relatively consistent in size. The glass is smaller than a pint, but they don't vary from pub to pub. Aaronite (talk) 00:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
A pint in Canadian measure is 20 Imperial fl.oz., same as in England. Any other usage is informal. --Anonymous, 09:51 UTC, February 16, 2010.
From reading the pint article, it seems that in Canada other sizes of pint are the formal ones - defined in law - and that a 20 fluid ounces pint would be the informal one, and apparantly rather rare as well. 78.147.202.148 (talk) 13:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Sentence formation
Hi, i am assigned to train a felow who has weird sentence formation ,while speaking professionally,(verbal and written)which gives me a chill whenever i assign a task with a customer,is there something i can do,maybe that way i can improve him —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 16:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid that your own sentence formation is nonstandard. Before you try to train someone else, I would suggest that you study English grammar yourself. I am guessing that your spoken English is fine, but it would be worth your while to learn about English punctuation and how to avoid run-on sentences. Marco polo (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
That aside, we'd need an example. I'll point out, though, that I have some friends who are professional academics who use odd sentence structures (mostly due to ESL issues. They communicate perfectly well in spite of it, though. remember that the goal here is to be understood, not to be proclaimed the next William Butler Yeats. --Ludwigs217:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
There is no quick fix; perhaps enroll him in an English class that emphasizes spoken communication. If you have an unlimited budget, send him on a year's vacation to Topeka, Kansas with the provision that he has to insert himself in the culture, marry an American, and otherwise maximize his spoken interaction with others. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
So he can learn English with a midwestern flat-as-the-prairie accent; pick up American cultural tips on political matters such as race and evolution; and also to experience some good old American tornadoes. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 09:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes, managers put people who have a certain flaw with someone else who also has this flaw with the instruction that they are to get this person to improve. The thinking is that, in teaching someone else how to do things, you improve your own skills as a by-product.--TammyMoet (talk) 20:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Depends on who's insulting them. If it's you, and you tell them to grow a thicker skin, that's just another insult. If it's someone else insulting them, presumably you're trying to be helpful. I wouldn't tell them to grow a thicker skin. I'd say something like, "Don't let 'em know if they got to you." ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 18:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Where am from we tend to either say "Don't break down the touch fuzz" or "Pal, your hands leak shard 'o glass ampoule" to either the most touchy of people and they're putty in your glassy hands. Ice Pencil Made of Glass (talk) 18:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't an insult I told someone else that their company's work from before this person joined the company was unsatisfactory and the company should improve its quality, she heard it and got all insulted--92.251.233.135 (talk) 18:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
If that's all accurate, I'd say her irritation has a basis: By casting aspersions on a company that she (probably recently) decided was good enough for her to join, you indirectly insulted her judgment. That said, maybe she does need thicker skin, and I think Bugs's line is nicely indirect. Ice Pencil Made of Glass is trolling. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Well considering I'm a big customer of her company and I was simply critizing it's work not the actual company I don't think she really should be irritated but I'd like to calm her down gently.--92.251.233.135 (talk) 19:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
If you're a third party to the exchange, Illegitimi non carborundum or its translation is a good one. Won't help much in this case - I'd just keep my head down for a bit if I were you. "When you're at the bottom of a hole, stop digging!" Alansplodge (talk) 19:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Why does it matter? You told her your opinion of her company, which you are entitled to and is indeed very relevant since you're a big customer. It's her problem if she doesn't like that, give her the opportunity to retort if she's that sure you're being unfair. But ultimately, it's her problem, not yours: it's her company that has a shitty reputation, if anything she should be glad you brought that to her attention. Of course if this person is an old friend, family or romantic interest, things become a little less straightforward. But otherwise, maybe it's you that needs to stop worrying so much about hurting someones feelings with the truth, when it is in that person's best interest to know the truth. In short, you are the "customer" in the relationship, she's the one that should be worrying about all these nuances about personal feelings. TastyCakes (talk) 20:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Depending on the situation, words to the effect of "nothing personal, just business" may make things either better or worse. APL (talk) 21:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Once a bank forecloses on a home it becomes REO (real estate owned). Prior to that the bank may refer to it as a PPO. What does PPO mean in this context? Could it be private party occupied?
Thank you 70.103.20.224 (talk) 20:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Good question. Whoever finds the answer could add it to PPO. That page lists several other items, include the 2 different but synonymous health-care related term that's what I think of when I see it. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 07:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
According to this site, anyway, PPO is being used in real estate the same way it's being used in health care: Preferred Provider Organization. I have not spent much time googling this, so I can't say for sure that it's definitive. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 07:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
This, from Yahoo answers (which might be a wikipedia mirror for all I know) said a month ago that it was Percentage Price Oscillator. So far I'm not convinced that any of the above answers fit. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 08:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
"Bund" vs. "Reich"
Is there any instance in current German society where people refer to the country of Germany with the term Reich (realm) instead of Bund (federation), in a neutral context, without even the slightest connotation to World War II era Nazi Germany? The only thing that comes to mind is the name Reichstag, which has come to mean the building where the Parliament of Germany assembles, whereas Bundestag refers to the Parliament itself. I think I once called the eagle on a German 2 Euro coin Reichsadler when speaking with an Austrian, but would Bundesadler have been a more correct term? JIP | Talk20:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The short answer to your first question is no. The only exception would be perhaps a Neo-Nazi or perhaps an archconservative royalist, who might use the word as a kind of political statement (indicating that they desire the restoration of the second or third Reich). Even the word Bund is not often used to refer to Germany or the German state. The more common words used today are, simply, Deutschland, or, if a person wants to refer to the German state, they might use Bundesrepublik. With the sole exception of the Reichstag, which is the name of the building, you really want to avoid compounds using the word Reich because of its nasty connotations. For example, referring to the Bundesadler as the Reichsadler might make someone wonder whether you are a Neo-Nazi. (If you are a foreigner, they will probably give you the benefit of the doubt.) The Bundesadler actually has a different appearance, by the way. Here is the Bundesadler. Here is the Reichsadler of the Kaiserreich (1871-1918). Here is the Reichsadler of the Third Reich. Marco polo (talk) 22:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
A proper name that seems to turn up is Himmelreich, which I take to mean "Kingdom of Heaven". I'm guessing that's considered an honorable use of "Reich". ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 01:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree that it is not problematic to use the word Reich in historic or religious contexts. It just means "kingdom" or "empire". Himmelreich does mean "kingdom of heaven". There is also das Reich Gottes—"the kingdom of God". The problem comes if you use the word Reich to refer to present-day Germany or its official symbols. Marco polo (talk) 01:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Use of "mainframe" or "main frame" in Technical Publications
I am a technical writer stumped on the use of mainframe and main frame. We use this term in the sense of a large mobile construction type machine that is welded together and then we install drivetrain (crawlers) and many other components. It is the same as a frame in an automobile including drivetrain but "main" has always been added in one form or another in our business.
All references to "mainframe" mention the computer use. I can find nothing on the use of "main frame." Presently I use "main frame."
I am a little confused by the question because you seem to be saying that the term for it in your business is indeed "main frame". I think you have answered your own question, no? Are you just worried that the term "main frame" is wrong because of your Googling? It sounds like you must be the expert and should use the term you think is right. Incidentally, googling "main frame" -mainframe will get rid of all the pages talking about a "mainframe" (1 word). Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
A "main frame" can simply mean the main metal frame of a construction. A "mainframe" usually means a computer server. I think you should use "main frame".--Dacium (talk) 01:41, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I will stick with main frame. People get so picky on the use of a word in my business it can cause arguments and ill will. I needed agreement from outside sources on whether to use it as one word or two for my own well being. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.141.157.77 (talk) 14:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Poison Sumac
I live in California and I've gotten many rashes that I believe are caused by Poison Sumac. Also, all the Sumac plants I've gotten rashes from live in dry areas. However, the Misplaced Pages article (and most other sources) state that Poison Sumac only lives on the East coast and prefers wet, marshy areas. Is it just the article that is incorrect or am I mistaking some other plant for Poison Sumac? Could somebody who also lives on the West coast confirm that Poison Sumac does actually grow here? If it helps, I'll see if I can get a picture of one of the plants I think is Poison Sumac.--ChromeWire (talk) 00:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I may have seen somewhere the claim that Toxicodendron species other than poison oak are occasionally found in California, but overwhelmingly the most important one is poison oak (which our article idiosyncratically names Western Poison-oak, a spelling you won't see many places other than here). Poison oak is a sumac; if it's a time of year (like now) that you can't usually see the "leaflets three", then I wouldn't be surprised if it looked a lot like poison sumac at the same time.
(ec) The chemical in poison sumac that causes a rash in most people is the same one found in poison ivy and poison oak. Apparently there is a variety of poison oak toward the west coast. I have no idea about poison sumac or poison ivy in that part of the country. And, as a standard Misplaced Pages disclaimer, we can't identify what's causing your rash. We can only confirm that certain plants that are known to cause rashes in some people are known to be present on the west coast. Falconus00:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it's not poison oak. It looks pretty similar to the picture at the right but it's leaf is a little more taco shaped and has a more rounded tip. --ChromeWire (talk) 01:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I am an avid hiker and used to live in California. I'm fairly sure there is no poison sumac there. But there is plenty of poison oak. Poison oak leaves come in all kinds of shapes. They generally have rounded edges, unlike poison sumac. In drier areas, the leaves do tend to curl into what you might call a taco shape. Though this is the rainy season in California, so I'd expect the leaves to be green and flatter at this time of year. If you are in an area that has not had much rain, though, the leaves could be a little curled up. This site has a couple of pictures of different types of poison oak. Marco polo (talk) 01:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I went hiking just the weekend before last — there weren't yet many leaves on the poison oak. However there were lots of little green buds, and it looked like it was getting ready to burst forth, so there might be by now. Here's a shot of it: . --Trovatore (talk) 03:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility if it turns out that this is not poison oak. Please do not rely on a plant not being poison oak, just because it doesn't look like this. --Trovatore (talk) 03:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
According to page 136 of the Jepson Manual of Higher Plants of California (1993), which is the major complete flora for California, there is only one species of Toxicodendron found in the state: T. diversilobum (Western Poison Oak). None of the other species of Toxicodendron (vemix, rydbergii, radicans, and pubescens) found in the United States are found in California. Therefore, the plant that is causing your rashes is either Western Poison Oak, OR (as pointed out above) some other plant that you are personally sensitive to. The photographs in our article Toxicodendron diversilobum give a you a good idea of what it looks like. Also, as Trovatore points out above, it is deciduous and without leaves at this time of year; it will still cause rashes even when it is leafless.--Eriastrum (talk) 18:41, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Identity
I have been asked to identify myself, as in what my Ph.D. is in. It is in military/naval history from London University. I have published 8 books and variius peer-reviewed articles on the subject. You can also look me up on the net.
I was asked this quesiton at the head of an article, but the questioner did not identify him(her) self.
Might I suggest your self-identification would be most appropriate on the talk page of that article you referred to, not here. This is a Reference Desk, where we answer general questions, just like in a library. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:10, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
There is never any need to identify your self on Misplaced Pages, so don't do it unless you really want to for some reason. remember, as a wikipeida editor you are just presenting material available in sources; who you are as an individual is irrelevant. --Ludwigs201:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, that's one view. Personally I don't buy it. When I'm evaluating an editor's contributions, there are a couple of things I frequently want to know, to which his identity is not irrelevant. One is, is this person expert enough in the field to be able to deeply understand the source material, and therefore interpret it correctly in context? Another is, does this person have a strongly-held view on the merits of the question, that might color his interpretation and/or presentation? --Trovatore (talk) 02:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but the problem is that identity is not in itself sufficient to trump reliable sourcing of articles. Being a PhD and well respected in a field is not enough to say "I don't have to provide sources for my writing because I am an expert". I am not saying that is what the OP is talking about, but having witnessed some conflicts at Misplaced Pages, that is most often the biggest problem. People believe that because they have personal knowledge about a subject, it absolves them from having to provide reliable sources to back up their writing. I agree that identity is not irrelevent, entirely, but we should also not place too much emphasis on identity. The primary concern is, and should always be, on faithfully representing the existing published knowledge which exists in reliable sources; and on avoiding original research or other unreferenced information in Misplaced Pages articles, even if the editor who writes that information is an expert or whatever. --Jayron3205:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I agree completely — I'm not suggesting that we let people add whatever they want to to articles based on credentials. That's not the point at all. My point is more that I don't completely trust editors who won't say anything about themselves. I don't know where they're coming from, what background (or agenda) they might have.
Your next point is going to be that I don't know that even if they do say who they are, and of course that's true. But I at least have a starting point. --Trovatore (talk) 07:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, yes, of course, what else could it be? I am making an assertion about my own attitude, my own approach to evaluating the contributions of others. I am not making an assertion about the others per se.
However, first, it is an attitude I consider justified and encourage others to adopt. And second, I encourage those who have been reticent to let others know some basic facts about themselves, to be aware that this may come with a cost. --Trovatore (talk) 10:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Plus, you can say you have a PhD. That doesn't prove anything. I can say I'm a man (I am), but let's see you prove it. This isn't to say that our OP isn't a PhD, it just means that people can say lots of things. It doesn't just doesn't advance their credibility. Aaronite (talk) 05:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you're all missing the point. People without PhD's can understand and fruitfully contribute to any topic on wikipedia. any editor who doesn't understand a topic will rapidly expose the fact that s/he doesn't understand in discussion, through the misuse of concepts and the misapplication of sources. The only assessment you ned to make about any editor is that they are using sources appropriately, without misinformation or misrepresentation. Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source: we don't do peer review here, we don't engage in research, and we don't make novel conclusions about topics, so there is never any reason to be concerned about whether a given editor is qualified to do those things (which are the primary functions of a PhD). --Ludwigs216:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Solar Energy
I have heard that one of the sources of energy is solar energy. You can use solar energy for generating electricity, heating water, and cooking. But what about when it's at night or raining? What do you do about solar energy then?
Solar energy is best used in conjunction with means of storing excess energy during sunny times for use at times when it is not. If you generate electricty via solar power, you often generate lots of excess energy which can be simply wasted by letting it drift off as heat energy. However, lots of solutions to this have been proposed, and implemented to various degrees:
You can use solar power to generate hydrogen gas for use in fuel cells, see this device from Honda, that does exactly that.
You can use excess electrical power to pump water into a large resevoir; you can then release the water at night to run a hydroelectric plant.
Wind power can be used in conjunction with solar power to fill in some of the gaps, for example it is often windier when it is cloudy and raining.
No single energy resource is really a great idea in isolation, the idea is to develop a system using multiple systems which can introduce enough redundancy to smooth out the problems with each other. A hypothetical fully "green" energy system that was devoid of fossil fuels would require contributions from hydroelectric and solar power and wind power and fuel cells and nuclear power and biomass power to be successful. Solar is a necessary part of this equation, but it is not the ONLY part.--Jayron3205:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
You missed one important method of storing energy from solar cells: batteries. Solar power is often used in places where other ways of getting electricity are not feasible (on satellites, sailboats, or remote weather stations, for example). In many cases, the small amount of electricity generated is easily stored in a chemical cell.
To minimize the problems from clouds, many commercial solar arrays are built in areas that are very sunny. For example, the Nellis Solar Power Plant is in the desert in Nevada. This still leaves the obvious downtime during the night, however. We recently had a post about a proposed system to put solar cells in space (where there are no clouds, and it's nearly always day), and beam the energy down to Earth. This obviously incurs other costs though. Buddy431 (talk) 06:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Cost is a primary deterrent against alternative energy sources. If and when fossil fuels get too expensive, other sources will gain popularity. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 07:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I have a solar water heater on my roof. I have hot water 2-3 hours after sunrise. Unless I plan on showering during the middle of the night, I generally have hot water. On cloudly days it can take 4-5 hours (after sunrise) to get hot water, and I can also heat it electrically. Save monkey love 4 me (talk) 10:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
You've kind of hit on what's really going on, which is convenience. People have gotten used to being able to do what they want, e.g. showering anytime of the day or night as needed. Having to plan things around restrictions like that is something a lot of folks just plain don't want to do. ←Baseball Bugscarrots→ 10:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Solar panels do generate electricity when it's raining - after all, you can still see, so there must still be light. They generate less, of course. --Tango (talk) 13:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
menstrual period
This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page. —Akrabbim06:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis or prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page. —Akrabbim06:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)--~~~~
Does any one know what year Fr.Chris Riley became a priest? Also I read somewhere what kind of priest he became but I forgot so could you answer that too. Thanks 220.233.83.26 (talk) 07:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know of a high-street (physical) shop in the UK which would sell this American brand of pencil? Or, failing that, a relatively cheap and reputable online store? ╟─TreasuryTag►presiding officer─╢ 09:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I am investigating whether desalination application in the developing world would be profitable if the water produced was used to make crops that produced biofuels. So I am looking to know how many cubic metres of water would be required to produce a hectare of rapeseed crop grown annually in the developing world to add to my calculations to see if this option was economically viable. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.113.181 (talk) 13:10, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Mouthwashes without alcohol or chlorhexidine, available in UK
According to the article here, http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/32/6/162/4/ using an alcohol-based mouthwash increases your chance of oral etc cancer by five to nine times. Regularly using mouthwashes with chlorhexidine may also be harmful according to both the linked article and the Misplaced Pages article.
I was using the alcohol-free variant of the brand "Dentalux" sold at Lidl UK, but I see it includes chlorhexidine digluconate. Does anyone know the brand name and/or UK retailer of a mouthwash that contains neither alcohol nor chlorhexidine please? Thanks 89.243.72.5 (talk) 15:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Not an answer, but a suggestion. Mouthwashes marketed for children are less likely to contain alcohol, so it may be worth reading the labels of some of those next time you are out shopping. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to ask at your local chemist's. DuncanHill (talk) 15:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Is our recession over yet? The list say the economial black this time last from December 2007 to December 2009 it seem it just end. Until how long will the economy grow again and everyone to have a good amount of jobs again? Is unemployment still rising or is it dropping? how much is US deficit right now, still rising or it is starting to fall now--209.129.85.4 (talk) 17:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Is there anything in particular that the link article and references doesn't answer? "By July 2009, a growing number of economists believed that the recession may have ended. This view was bolstered with the initial estimate of a 3.5% rise in the GDP (Q3 09). As is often the case at the end of a recession, unemployment is still rising. The National Bureau of Economic Research will not make this official determination for some time." We obviously can't offer personal predicitions on the RD Nil Einne (talk) 17:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Resolved
--Ludwigs2 07:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
