Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

Math Question

How many three digit numbers can be named using the natural numbers 1,2,3,4,5? 67.80.209.134 (Moved from Help Desk by Alphax)

125 (5*5*5, or 5^3). I think. It shouldn't be too hard to just write them out (111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 121 etc). Alphax (t) (c) (e) 00:00, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it also depends on whether or not you can reuse a number, so it may be 5!/2! or 60 --DaveC 00:15, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

An early-1970s dinosaur TV show

I remember there was a TV series in the early 1970s that involved with some teenagers in a dinosaur valley. These kids were taking a boat (or rubber raft) ride in a river. They entered the valley because they were too dumb to see the waterfall. I think they had found a flying saucer man in the 2nd season of the show. That's all I can remember. -- Toytoy 01:57, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Are you thinking of Land of the Lost (1974 television series) ? Joyous 02:14, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

It sounds right, Joy! If it helps Toytoy, the alien reptiles were called "Sleestaks" or "Sleestacks". It was a truly dreadful series! - Nunh-huh 02:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, the Sleestaks were generally played by college (or high school?) basketball players. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 07:02, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I smite the person who besmirches the fair name of Land of the Lost!! Joyous 02:32, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking that what you were smitten by was Wesley<g>. - Nunh-huh 03:10, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's it! You can watch the theme song at http://www.landofthelost.com/LOTL.rm ! I didn't notice that show's unbelievably low quality at that time. -- Toytoy 02:38, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Spiders

Do web-spinning spiders reuse remaining materials from old webs? In other words, if they have a web from a few weeks ago, that still has strands remaining, might they utilise it in a web? If so, might a spider reuse webbing remainder from another spider's web? Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 07:06, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I believe spiders sometimes eat their old webs, so I guess that could count as "reusing." I don't know of any that actually recycle old webbing. Joyous 12:15, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I'm by no means knowledgeable about spiders. But having observed them in the bath I can think of a couple of problems with something of such size and physiology trying to carry bits of old web about for reuse in new construction.

First webs are made of pieces that are bound to many other pieces. If it tried to carry a piece about it would bring the rest of the web with it. If it cut the web at its joints with other sections it would have a short piece of web, which may not be up to new placement.

If our spider had a bit of web, would it be the right size for the gap it wants to fill?

So, my instinct (founded on no book learning at all) is that our spider would expend far too much energy in recycling jobs and would survive much longer if it built webs the way it knows best. What could be less elegant than a spider huffing and puffing about, carrying bits of second hand web? If they could emply staff, perhaps...

Of course a spiderologist will come along now and say "well, of course you're quite wrong..." --bodnotbod 18:46, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

They call themselves arachnologists ;-) ... --Gelu Ignisque

naming a firm

Any suggestions for naming a trading company mainly deal with China and Western trading?

1. Must be easy to remember
2. Easy to pronounce
3. Easy to tell the nature
4. Trustworthy
5. Fast and good services

If you're dealing with Chinese customers primarily, there is the "Chinese Restaurant name scheme", which essentially is to use one or more of the words "Lucky", "Golden", "Star", "Dragon", and "Palace". So call your company sells injection moulding machines, call it "Lucky Golden Injection Machine Corporation". If your business runs hotels, call them "Lucky Dragon Palace Hotels". On the other hand, if you're dealing with western customers, they like made up words that sound like they're greek or latin (which makes them think the company is run my some ancient, kindly uncle). Words like "Omnium", "Hypron", "Superiax" work well. To this one might often add "dynamics", "systems", "technologies" etc., producing "Omnium Dynamics" or "Superiax Systems". For truly international customers, mixing the two can be difficult but effective; "Omnium Dragon Technologies", "Superiax Lucky Star", etc. -- John Fader 12:25, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As a reader of Private Eye I have to warn you against using the word Solutions. Here in the UK we have companies providing seasonal decorations calling themselves Christmas Solutions, others selling doors calling themselves Access Solutions and companies selling boxes calling themselves Storage Solutions. This must be avoided.

One route you could take as to use a part of your name and add Co. So if your name is Edwards, you might choose Edco, Edwarco or something. Amstrad, I seem to recall, stands for Alan Michael Sugar Trading.--bodnotbod 19:01, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Acronyms and pseudoclassicisms can indeed be effective. Omnium, for instance, is technically Latin for "of everything." --Gelu Ignisque

There is a demo in Java 1.4 which does this exact thing, IIRC. User:Alphax/sig 22:25, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

What do Vietnam veterans do with dead animals?

I need to know what veterans do to dispose of the dead animals they have for one reason or another. I know for a fact, that in the US, very few dead housepets end up at rendering plants. I'm pretty sure that they don't go into regular landfills. So, where do they go?

They let them rot for a few weeks, then force-feed them, maggots and all, to people who don't know when to give it a rest. You're not funny, pal. Keep your bad jokes for your own blog. --Robert Merkel 10:49, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would think that there would not be a huge difference between Vietnam Veterans and any other section of the population in disposing of dead animals. I am guessing that you mean house pets that are deceased? Roadkill, or animals that simply die in yards etc I would imagine do either go in the trash, or get burried in the yard. The Recycling Troll 12:31, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to know what vegetarians do with dead animals. Or what Wikipedians do with dead jokes. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:34, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Send them to BJAODN. User:Alphax/sig 08:14, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Qui and que

Can someone give us an explanation of when to use que or qui, in French. Its for my 70year old dad, to whom I was trying to explain in an email. I think I may have gone into too much detail, especially after divulging into dont, a laquelle and en for little extras. I'm sure its as simple as qui for subject and que for object, but somehow that isnt getting across. And no, he's not senile (yet). Go on Jmabel, this is one for you.

Yeah, that's right. "L'eglise qui est magnifique!" (subject) ("the church that is magnificent", the church is the subject) against "la fille que je voudrais" (object) - the girl that I like (I am the object, the girl is the subject). Dunc|☺ 18:00, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In that example, I is the subject (Surely this is one of the only times it is correct to say "I is") and the girl is the object. But then again, girls are always objects non? HAHA --Wonderfool (talk) (contribs) (email) 11:04, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

German genders

Who decides the genders of completely new words in German? For example, who decided whether Ipod should be a male, female or neutral word?--213.18.248.27 11:05, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In German, one would say der iPod (see de:Apple iPod). If a word sounds like another German word, then it often receives the same gender. If a word refers to something which has a biological sex, then it often receives the appropriate grammatical gender (male or female). Certain combinations just sound right, and so neologisms in German have often received their grammatical gender long before they reach a dictionary. I think Deutscher Sprachrat would be the most helpful place to find out about the language. Gareth Hughes 12:36, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But who officiates it? What government body decides?--213.18.248.27

Some languages have academies that prescribe correct usage. I've always thought it was a bit of a silly idea. Duden is generally considered to be the authoritative source on matters of German language. In 1902 and 1955, Duden spellings were declared to be the authority for Germany, but not other German-speaking countries. The German spelling reform of 1996 required multilateral agreement of the German Bundesländer, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. This remains the case today. Gareth Hughes 17:12, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hm, there seems to be a remarkably similar question to this, with different answers, further up the page! - IMSoP 00:46, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

CALLING ALL WAR BUFFS--Fronts of World War I

I always thought World War consisted of primarily - the Eastern and Western Front. Suddenly it has been brought to my attention that perhaps there were four fronts. Could someone please: (1) identify by geographical description the location of the four fronts and (2) who the belligerents at each front were? I am quite a bit confused. Thanks! --anon

Don't forget the Ottoman Empire was in the First World War too. So there were also the Salonikan Front in Greece and whatever General Edmund Allenby's front in Palestine was called. adamsan 15:14, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See Dardanelles Campaign. There was fighting in Iraq and across the Middle East. There was fighting in colonial Africa, specifically an invasions of the German colonies of Tanganika (?sp) ( now Tanzania) and German South-West Africa (now Namibia). Dunc|☺ 17:50, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh and Italy joined the war and opened up a front along its northern border with Austria. Dunc|☺ 17:55, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Off the top of my head:

• Western Front - North Sea coast to Switzerland
• Eastern Front - Baltic to Carpathians
• Alpine Front - Italy vs Austria-Hungary (mainly)
• Caucasian Front - Turkey vs Russia
• Dardanelles
• Sinai and Palestine Campaign plus Arab Revolt
• Mesopotamian Front
• Romania
• Balkans - Serbia & Salonika

Campaigns against German colonies:

• German Southwest Africa
• German East Africa
• Kamerun (Cameroon) and Togoland
• Pacific - German colonial possessions including northern New Guinea, Bismarcks, etc.
• Tsingtau - Japan and others vs Germany

There was also a campaign against the Senussi in the western desert of Egypt. Geoff/Gsl 03:28, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Archive?

What is the archive tag on windows files for? Thanks, The Recycling Troll 15:08, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's a holdover from DOS, but still has some utility. Essentially a backup program would search your drive (or some directories) and would store all files that have the archive bit set. So you'd "attrib +A" a file if you wanted the backup program to include it. -- John Fader 15:38, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So unless I have a backup program, it doesn't do anything? Thanks! The Recycling Troll 17:19, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. And I expect modern backup programs work in a rather more sophisticated way anyway. -- John Fader 17:28, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if there are still some utilities, especially in closely controlled corporate environments, that make some use of this as an available spare flag. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:37, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

As I remember, the archive flag is turned on by all normal file operations. Backup programs turn it off after a successful backup. After that, if any other program modifies the file the archive flag will get turned back on. On the next backup, any files with the flag off can be ignored, since there has been no change since the previous backup. -- Bavi H 01:45, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

other measure computer speed

What are other measures of a computer speed other than the clock cycle?

In addition to clock speed (cycles per second) other measures are (instructions per second) each of which may take 1-4 cycles; and (floating point operations per second) or "FLOPS". Some measures (called benchmarks) measure the time taken to do other typical computer operations such as (database transactions per second). --Blainster

see the articles Benchmark, MIPS, FLOPS, SPEC, HINT and 3DMark for the most important ones - Marcika 18:41, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

off topic

i was on yor web site today and i was looking for where to find certain climate zones in north america and i was almost there when your website got off topic. i simply can't find what i want and i expected better from you people.why don't you fix this problem?

Why dont you fix the problem? Dunc|☺ 10:01, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Which buckethead came first?

I remember an advertising campaign for Church's chicken that featured the tagline "Don't be a buckethead, eat Church's chicken." It was when I was a child, sometime in the '80s I think. I don't remember any other content of the commercials, but I have a sticker with a logo from this ad campaign which I like very much. It has a man in a suit wearing a red-striped bucket over his head, enclosed by a 'no' sign. (The red-striped bucket was what Kentucky Fried Chicken used at the time, i.e. Church's competition.) Here's a small scan of the sticker: buckethead.jpg.

I tried to find some better images of this logo online, but all of my searches for "buckethead" have returned results about the musician with this name (see Buckethead). This lead me to wonder which came first: the Church's ad campaign or the Buckethead guy? Does anyone else remember the ads and can say with certainty which one inspired the other? -- Bavi H 02:03, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sermons in Song

I have a book that I am trying to find information on. It's called Sermons in Song. It was published in 1893 by two guys named Grant C. Tullar and Isaac H. Meredith. Apparently, it was used by both men and has original songs written by them. If anyone has information about the authors please let me know. Also, it was published by Meyer & Brother company in Chicago, Ill. 108 Washington St.. I would like information on the company too. thanks. User:70.33.2.94 01:30, 2 Mar 2005 (moved here from Interested in History by Rlandmann 02:24, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Found it at Bookfinders.com. Here is the listing: Author is Tullar, Grant C. & Meredith, Isaac H. (Editors) Title is Sermons in Song... For Use in Gospel Meetings and Other Religious Services Bookseller: Book Haven, CA via Abebooks Publisher: Chicago: Tullar-Meredith Co. 1898; Hard Decorative Covers. Good Plus/No Jacket. No Edition Stated. 8vo - over 7 3/4 " - 9 3/4 " tall. 207 songs plus index. Covers are soiled and worn and four pages have had tears repaired with archival tape. Price: $20.00 (The same listing turns up on Alibris.com) --Blainster

Microsoft Access database

How do I build such a database?

• Employee's id (number)
  • Employee's name (string)
  • Employee's customers (unlimited number of names)

The point is some employee may have only 1 customer, while others may have tens or hundreds of them. I don't want to set an upper limit. -- Toytoy 03:17, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

That depends - can 1 customer be assigned to two employees? If yes, create a table storing the relations. This table contains one EmployeeID and one CustomerID per row, with both fields constituting the primary key.

If no, put an extra field in the customer table, indicating the ID of the assigned employee. --Pidgeot 04:06, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

British media and courtesy titles

Why doesn't the BBC use the courtesy title 'Dr' for people like Condoleezza Rice, Ph.D., Howard Dean, M.D., and others while using it in other instances? What sort of rule are they following? Politicians cant be called doctor? The New York Times uses it... --Jiang

In the cited example, Dr. Clark is speaking as a scholar. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:14, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

I don't have the BBC style guide available to me, but I do have those for the Times and Economist, both Good Users Of British English.

The Economist says [1] - "The overriding principle is to treat people with respect. That usually means giving them the title they themselves adopt. (...) Use Dr only for qualified medical people, unless the correct alternative is not known or it would seem perverse to use Mr. And try to keep Professor for those who hold chairs, not just a university job or an inflated ego."

The Times, OTOH [2] - "the title Dr should no longer be confined to medical practitioners. If a person has a doctorate from a reputable institution, and wishes to be known as Dr Smith, he or she should be so titled. See appellations".

Okay, two different approaches there. The rule I suspect we're groping towards is -

• Medical doctors are always called Dr., unless they are most commonly known by a different name. Howard Dean would be an example of that; he's very rarely seen to use the title, as I understand it. As such, people would be confused by "Dr. Dean".
• People with PhDs and the like may be called by their title, or may not; it depends on the journalist and the context. The rule for a long time was not to use it unless it was explicitly relevant (a scientist talking about their research) or they'd be very offended and annoy the editor if you missed it out; nowadays this is more flexible, but a lot of journalists stick with the older approach for simplicity. This is especially notable if you happen to deal with a lot of academics - as the Economist does - where every second person quoted has a PhD. Note that, as Jmabel points out, Dr Clark is speaking as a doctor in that context; were he being interviewed about something else, they might not have used it.
• As for politicians - yeah, they'll probably tend towards missing it out. The reason for this is, as mentioned above, that most politicians aren't known by that name, so it would be confusing to use it (...one of Major's cabinet was generally known by Dr., I think, but I draw a blank for other examples. David Owen? But he was an MD anyway. The BBC certainly misses it out for Paisley [3]).

The relative levels of importance attatched to the two may well be one of those transatlantic differences; the distinction between "real doctors" and PhDs is one I hear expressed occasionally. (Often by PhDs, come to think of it) Shimgray 04:43, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

American papers, with the exception of the NYT and possibly others I'm not aware of, don't usually use courtesy titles 'Mr', 'Mrs', 'Miss' etc. In the US, the common title for Dean is "Governor Dean" (as governor is among those positions that grant their holders the title for life). Even though these salutations aren't normally used, "Dr. Dean" seems much more common than "Mr. Dean": about 3:1 in favor of Dr Dean. It also appears not infrquently in headlines in american papers. --Jiang 04:58, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Many people who have earned academic doctorates through research resent that those with vocational qualifications are also allowed to use them. The Recycling Troll 15:15, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oddly enough, if you run the same comparison of "Dr. Rice" and "Ms. Rice", the results are only about 2:1 in favor of "Dr. Rice". I don't know if this says something about women in politics or just something about Condoleezza Rice. -Aranel ("Sarah") 04:17, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

binomial expansion

$(p+q)^{2}=p^{2}+2pq+q^{2}$

and by extension:

$(p_{1}+...+p_{n})^{2}=\sum {p_{i}^{2}}+\sum {2p_{i}p_{j}}$

(where $i\neq j$)

And to a bigger power:

$(p+q)^{4}=p^{4}+4p^{3}q+6p^{2}q^{2}+4pq^{3}+q^{4}$

But what about:

$(p_{1}+...+p_{n})^{4}$ ?

The coefficients for $p_{i}^{4}$ is 1, $p_{i}^{3}p_{j}$ is 4 and $p_{i}^{2}p_{j}^{2}$ is 6.

But, what are the coefficients for $p_{i}^{2}p_{j}p_{k}$ and $p_{i}p_{j}p_{k}p_{l}$?

(I'm trying to get the Hardy-Weinberg law for tetraploid plants, but can't quite get my head round it)

Once you've done that we can do hexaploid and octoploid and decaplod and dodecaploid... Dunc|☺ 10:20, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'll chance my arm - the key is to find the combinations of the $p_{i}$ in each of the four parentheses. So, as you say

• there is only one way of creating $p_{i}^{4}$, taking the $p_{i}$ from each of the four parentheses
• there are four ways of creating $p_{i}^{3}p_{j}$, since there are four choices for the $p_{j}$ and then you have to take the same $p_{i}$ from each of the three other parentheses, and there is only one way of choosing the same $p_{i}$ three times
• there are six ways of creating $p_{i}^{2}p_{j}^{2}$, since there are four choices for the first $p_{i}$ and three choices for the second $p_{i}$, and two choices for the first $p_{j}$ and one for the last $p_{j}$; but the two $p_{i}$ and two $p_{j}$ are identical, so it doesn't matter which order you choose either of them them in, so you have to divide by two twice (4×3×2×1/2×2=6)

so, I think the answer is:

• there are 12 ways of creating $p_{i}^{2}p_{j}p_{k}$: four choices for the first $p_{i}$ and three for the second $p_{i}$, two choices for $p_{j}$ and one for $p_{k}$; but the two $p_{i}$ are identical, so it doesn't matter which order you choose either of them in, so you have to divide by two (4×3×2×1/2=12)
• there are 24 ways of creating $p_{i}p_{j}p_{k}p_{l}$: four choices for $p_{i}$, three for $p_{j}$, and two for $p_{k}$, leaving one for $p_{l}$ (4×3×2×1=24)

Now someone point out where I am wrong ;) -- ALoan (Talk) 11:12, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, I think that's right (it certainly makes sense anyhow). The next problem is to find the generalised expansion of $(p_{1}+...+p_{n})^{c}$ Dunc|☺ 19:12, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmm - my notation is probably wrong, but the coefficient for $\Pi _{i}\,p_{i}^{n_{i}}$, where $n_{i}$ is the power to which $p_{i}$ is raised in the composite product (so $n_{i}=0,\,...\,,c$) seems to be $\Pi _{i}\,c!/n_{i}!$ - that is, you divide $c!$ by the factorial of all of the powers of the $p_{i}$ included in the product you are looking at. Does that make sense? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:02, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Multinomial theorem, a generalization of the binomial theorem, may be of assistance. Dysprosia 05:22, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Excellent - thanks; I think that confirms that I my analysis above is correct. It is nice to be able to derive these sorts of things from first principles, rather than simply looking them up. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:48, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

writing out single-digit numbers

Is it correct that single digit numbers should be spelled out when used in a written work? e.g., 5 should be written "five," but 25 (being more than one digit) should be shown as "25?"

This is a matter of style, and it is totally up to you (or your editor, if you have one) if you adopt it. Almost all English-language newspapers, news agencies and publishing houses insist that single digit numbers be spelled out, while greater numbers be given as digits. It is a matter of style: Maximillian spent twenty-five pounds on those 5 tickets or Maximillian spent £25 on those five tickets: I prefer the latter. Gareth Hughes 16:08, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A related punctilio: Numbers of whatever length are generally spelled out at the beginning of an orthographic sentence, my guess would be to avoid confusion with the preceding period. --Gelu Ignisque

Some style guides set the write-it-out cutoff at eleven, and some at fifteen; and most say to use digits for all numbers in a list or where the reader needs to do a quick comparison ("John had 25 and I had 2", not "...I had two"). Newspapers, whose style optimize for narrow columns, may prefer digits where other formats would prefer words. I will add that I prefer written-out numbers in dialogue so I know if the person is saying "eleven hundred" or "one thousand one hundred" but that doesn't come up much and nobody asks me anyhow. 142.20.196.190 20:45, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Every number except one" does not mean the same thing as "Every number except 1". Michael Hardy 22:36, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the Victorian style of writing out every number less than 100. e.g. Seven times seventy is 490.

What instrument/effect is this?

Haghllllright, I found (and was intrigued) by these two songs on the internet, one, a cover of "Supper's Ready" by genesis found: here and another song by Trismic of Songs to Wear pants to fame here.

So, question no. 1, on the "Supper's Ready" cover, what the heck effect is he feeding his vocals through? It sounds insanely cool, and if you can, could you direct me to a retailer or method of producing it by manipulating my vocals post-production?

Quesion number two- what instrument is Trismic using on "kazoo"? is it a sampler, a mellotron, what? I'm stumped, but I want one of these too, so any information on where to get one would be a godsend.

Thank's a bunch, quite a website you run here.

24.17.219.13 03:22, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First one sounds like ring modulation. It's rather too fast to be a Leslie rotating speaker. -- John Fader 03:32, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Although the more I listen to it, the more it sounds like someone just pulling on the magnetic tape with their fingers during an overdub. -- John Fader 03:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually- I listened to some of this guy's other material, and he can apparently turn the effect on and off at will, I dunno, beats me, could it be some sort of vocoder? -- 24.17.219.13 03:44, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the second one is a sampler. The kazoo instrument is a recording of someone saying "Kazoo!", the violin is a guy singing "Violin", etc... Key45 01:34, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Does anybody have any idea where I can get a sampler with those capabilities? (I.e. Recording actual noise samples and playing them on a keyboard, as opposed to using pre-synthised/sampled instruments) 24.17.219.13 03:38, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To make one, dive into the joys of DLS Bank construction (see Microsoft's Direct Music Producer, for one example). To play them, add a MIDI keyboard to your computer. Key45 01:55, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wow, thank God for wikipedia, haghallright- I just thought of this new question: What the Hell is the effect Peter Gabriel is constantly feeding his vocals through, specifically, I mean when he was in Genesis, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway era, and it's most present in the song "The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging" (you can hear a sample here-> [4]) 24.19.163.195 04:49, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Best page ever

What, in your humble opinions, is THE BEST PAGE on Wikipedia? Don't ask me to define what I mean by BEST, I just wanna know, what page is really really good and better than everything else? I dont want a list of featured articles, I want one page only. And yes, I do mean to sound agressive--Wonderfool (talk) (contribs) (email) 11:14, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You wanna sound agressive? Right! The best page on wikipedia is this one dummy! the reasons are pretty obvious I think. If you want the best page on the web however, they don't come much better than this Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 20:09, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That one is very very funny Theresa, thank you for sharing it. Trilobite (Talk) 14:22, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if it's the best but this is the one I seem to visit the most. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 20:30, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

NO YOU ARE ALL WRONG, I HAS THE SOLUTION. Click here, please -- 24.17.219.13 23:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You could try this one. If you don't think it's the best page on its subject, please improve it until it is.-gadfium 23:58, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Death Valley National Park -- John Fader 01:03, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is my favourite. --bodnotbod 03:37, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Arabic calligraphy is probably the most beautiful. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 02:55, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I second Arabic calligraphy

Enigma machine. - Taxman 14:24, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

This page. Anyone with a modem (or access to one) can ask the most bizarre and arcane question they like, and often as not, we knock it out of the park. I've seen everything from writers getting help with a plot device to inexpensive counseling going on here simultaneously. If there is another page on this site more ideal in exemplifying the quest for free knowledge and the willingness of Wikipedians to share it, I can't think of one. Jwrosenzweig 02:15, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs - Bevo 15:26, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nietzsche's ideas on 'bank notes'

I am reading Chekhov's 'Cherry Orchard' and found in Act iii, the following quote 'Nietzsche...says in his works that there is nothing wrong with forging bank-notes'; of course Chekhov might have purposefully made his fictional character to misinterpret Nietzcshe, etc. But does anyone know in what work by Nietzsche, if any, is there reference to this? or in what context was it elaborated? Thanks

I can't find the answer. However, I'm grateful to you, as I have discovered (through searching) that The Cherry Orchard is available online to read. I have not read any Chekov, and would like to. --bodnotbod 06:37, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Wehrmacht Symbol

Does anyone know what the symbol's name/origins are? My friend has told me that it's a variation of the Iron Cross, but I'd like to find out for sure. Like the black cross with a white and another black stripe following the perimeter. A good picture of it is (wait until it's done it's little spinning) here. If animated .gif files don't work for you I also found another on a picture of a book cover here. Thanks --Colonel Cow 00:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for sending me researching this! This form of the cross is known in English as the Greek Cross, and in German as the Balkankreuz (Balkan Cross). Until WWI, Germany used the form of the Crusader Cross that we recognize from the Iron Cross; this had been the emblem of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick the Great. In 1915, the simpler Balkankreuz was adopted, as it is easier to recognize from a distance. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:39, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Cool, I couldn't find any information anywhere about this. Thanks very much for your help --Colonel Cow 01:10, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Fascinating. I hope someone finds time to write it up into an article. If you need a GFDL version of the image, let me know, and I'll see if I can cook one up. -- John Fader 14:22, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure it needs an article in itself; a brief mention in Cross and perhaps references in Heer, Reichswehr, Wehrmacht, and Bundeswehr would suffice. (How would such an article be titled, anyway?) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:20, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Iron cross said "The insignia of Germany's military forces (the Bundeswehr) is a stylized Iron Cross" so I've added some info there. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:29, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • But I think maybe what you said isn't accurate, nor was the earlier form. The insignia is not an Iron Cross; the Iron Cross is in the form of a Crusader Cross, as is the Bundeswehr emblem, unless I'm missing something. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:54, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • Just a suggestion, I think that if the cross isn't to get it's own article it would still be appropriate to possibly put up a picture of the cross on the Wehrmacht page along with the added description of the cross, or on any other page where it's deemed relevant. Just a suggestion --Colonel Cow 21:54, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
            • I've added comments to Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr. -- ALoan (Talk) 01:16, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OPML - RSS feeds for Firefox / Thunderbird

Does anyone know how to import an OPML set of RSS feeds into either Mozilla Thunderbird or Mozilla Firefox? User:Alphax/sig 09:34, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

OK, the Sage extension for Firefox does it. User:Alphax/sig 23:17, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Sage's UI never seemed very satisfactory to me. If you're feeling brave, there's a javascript patch which reportedly adds OPML import and export to thunderbird (which, IMHO, has an adequate RSS ui). -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 23:29, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've given up on RSS in Thunderbird - if your feed target needs a login, you are screwed. User:Alphax/sig 09:05, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

D.R.M.

Is it posible to add a D.R.M. to a ring tone to enable me to use it on my mobile phone, i have a sony erricsson k700i and it came with a vodaphone block to stop me using certain ring tones,the ringtone i want to use is the crazy frog.

Please show mercy to your fellow citizens and shun the crazy frog. --bodnotbod 06:43, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Please, shun the whole idea of ring tones. Yes, it is possible for a provider to block you using certain features of the phone. Some phone shops will remove the block, usually resulting in reflashing a chip in the phone. Mark Richards 11:50, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

International Voting data

I am looking for electoral data for the years 1990-2000 for the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA. In particular, I would like to find the votes for each political party as a percentage of total votes cast in each national election in the listed countries during the years 1990-2000. For earlier years, these data were published in 'The International Almanac of Electoral History', compiled by Thomas T. Mackie and Richard Rose, but no updated volume is apparently planned. Is there a source wghere these data can be found?

Wikipedian Adam Carr has an extensive archive of election results at his webpage: http://psephos.adam-carr.net/ -- John Fader 15:57, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Elections in France has links to the relevant official sites (which are probably in French only, but you can always use online translators). David.Monniaux 10:15, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New Zealand general election 1999, New Zealand general election 1996 and New Zealand general election 1993 cover the elections in New Zealand for your time period. Lisiate 21:37, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Boston Red Sox in 1903??

See Image:1903 world series poster.jpg. I'm hesitant to delete it, since it appears on several pages, but the discussion seems rather convincing; the Boston Red Sox were the Boston Americans in 1903.

So, were the Sox referred to as such prior to being officially named the Sox? Is this a shoddy piece of fake memorabilia manufactured in good faith many years ago that needs to carry a warning label? Or is this an egregious fake that needs to be deleted? grendel|khan 18:59, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)

I have no idea on the authenticity of the poster, but I'm pretty certain that "Red Sox" was already around as a nickname. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:38, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

definition of..... ne plus ultra......

Question moved from WP:HD. Asked by anon 66.183.189.123

Could someone please create a good definition of the phrase "ne plus ultra"

Create? Do we need a page ne plus ultra? Is there one on Wiktionary? In the meantime, dictionary.com will tell you what it means. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:52, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

yeah...this is a very Wiktionary thing. Not very suitable for an encyclopedia. --Menchi 05:04, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

nec plus ultra, you mean. The nec plus ultra means what is top notch. Must be from latin. Tobu 02:31, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Geez, guys, let's just answer the question. The phrase means "nothing more beyond" literally, but figuratively it means the best or most extreme example of something. I'll put it in the List of Latin phrases. alteripse 02:44, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dying computer

My primary computer will run fine for a minute or five before suddenly shutting off the monitor and freezing up. I put in a new hard drive and power supply and even disconnected the CD, disk drive, video card, and modem but it still occurs. Any ideas what the problem may be? This is really slowly down my ability to edit Wikipedia. I'm on an old slow computer with its problems until I fix this. Rmhermen 23:47, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

I have one that does much the same. I even changed the memory (try memtest86 to verify yours) but even that wasn't enough. It's either the motherboard or the CPU. A new motherboard and CPU combination is cheaper than the diagnosis effort to figure out which. -- John Fader 00:05, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Note that critical motherboard, CPU, or RAM problems are usually apparent at boot. If it fails with time under minimal load, then heat is a strong possibility. If heat is not the cause, then yes try memtest86 and more importantly Prime95. 119 00:14, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree that heat is the most likely cause, with RAM the second most likely. Turn off the computer, remove the case, and then restart it with the case off. Check that the fan (or fans) on the motherboard are turning. If it isn't try tapping the fan blade gently with the back of a pencil or similar. Of course, if the fan only works if you tap it every time you start, you need to replace it, but this may show you where the problem lies and let you use your computer in the short term.-gadfium 05:02, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oligosaccharides

Does anybody happen to know how oligosaccharides might be obtained? I know they occur naturally in various foods, but I was wondering if there was either an easy-to-moderately hard way to manufacture them or a way to extract them from organic sources. Any ideas? -- 12.5.49.10 01:29, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Oligosaccharides come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Is there any specific one you'd like to get? Mgm|^(talk) 08:12, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
• A limitied hydrolysis of starch will produce some oligosaccharides. You could accomplish this with acid and water. You could neutralize the solution to prevent the starch from hydrolyzing all the way to the glucose monomers. ike9898 14:28, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

I think he is referring to a trendy dietary supplement [5] which will tune your immune sytem and find your lost socks. However, see the concise explanation by Thomas Wheeler near the bottom of this page for a skeptical view. [6] But never let it be said that we don't let our readers make their own decisions: here is a recipe for do-it-yourself oligosaccharide jam: [7]. Of course caveat faber. alteripse 03:07, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New York City Hall's address

What is the street address for New York City Hall? From what I've seen (e.g. the Postal Service's address database and others) it does not appear to have one, "City Hall" being its official address. Perhaps it is like the U.S. Capitol, the Old Executive Office Building, and the Ohio State House in not having a number. PedanticallySpeaking 15:56, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

It's on Chambers Street. I cannot find a number[8]. JFW | T@lk 03:25, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Getting My Blog Indexed

I started a blog but so far it's not showing up in any of the search engines (e.g. Google, MSN, Yahoo). Would anyone be able to point me to information about how to get it indexed and noticed? Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 16:58, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Generally speaking Google will "get there eventually", although they may for a while just have the URL of your page listed, having not had a chance to index it yet (lots of Wikipedia articles are in this state, presumably because WikiSlowness means they can't get round our site as fast as they'd like). It can take them a while to work out exactly what your PageRank should be and therefore where you are placed in search results. If they haven't come across you at all you can prompt the Googlebot to come your way by putting your site in here. The most important thing however is to make sure there are incoming links pointing to your site, in which case they will find you sooner or later. I don't know about MSN but I'd assume they use a similar crawler system. Yahoo get their index from Google AFAIK, so Google is key. — Trilobite (Talk) 20:07, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually I have just checked the article on Yahoo and apparently they use their own technology now, but it's made me realise just how much Wikipedia has on this kind of thing. The PageRank article, for example, has loads of formulae you may or may not be interested in. — Trilobite (Talk) 20:09, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia for organizations [9]

Wikipedia for ogananizations

How do you implement Wikipedia in an organziation? Typically this would be for a business organization out to make money. Large organizations have their SME's (Subject Matter Experts), but when they move on to another job within the company or outside the company, they take their expertise with them.

Also, organization are high on centralized, authority control (in spite of what they say about empowerment).

All central ogranizations could use a living database of what their processes are for people to do their jobs. This would be ideal for new people to the company, people who change jobs within the company and even those who want to stay current on what works best for performing any job. This would apply to efficiency, safety and all aspects of an oragnization that need processes that need to stay current.

How about a start off structure for Wikipeia for organazations to document their processes such as this, so that they stay current, dynamic and relevant?

1. The recognized, formal controllers: 1. Sales person 2. User 3. Front Line Manger 4. Upper Manager They would start, create and control the formal, recognized page(s) of information

2. Unrecognized users. Hyperlinks from the formal page where they could submit their way of doing things without being controlled by the formal users. This page must also have a "hits" counter and a "ratings" counter. That way if internal users are using or rating it higher that the formal page, then it must be a sign that it should be implemented or intergrated into the formal page. The unrecognized users would be temporarly brought into the group of the formal controllers to do this.

3. You have to be able to track who makes the entries. One for accountability and two to recognize those who make significant or conistent useable entries. ( 16:55, Mar 5, 2005 User:199.126.216.26 )

I'm not sure what you're asking. Do you want a wiki for your organization (Wikipedia and wiki do not mean the same thing)? The restrictive formal structure with approval systems that you describe is not consistent with wiki operation. You'd probably want a more general Content management system, but I'm not familiar enough with them to make a recommendation. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:38, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What you are describing (sort of) has already been formally implemented as ISO 9000, the standard for documenting corporate operating procedures. This is widely used and required by many European (CE) organizations. Since the written documentation of all procedures is required for suppliers to a company, the standard has spread rapidly around the world. This would be difficult to implement as a Wiki system, because the ease of editing would make auditing (an important part of verifying compliance) problematic, even though changes are tracked. But it might be fun to try to get certified this way. --Blainster 23:58, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A hierarchy that is not an inheritance hierarchy

A classic question in Computer Science: give an example of a hierarchy that is not an inheritance hierarchy. Thing is, I can't think of one. Any ideas? User:Alphax/sig 03:07, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine why you would have a hierarchy with nothing inherited, but a close approximation is when a tree is used simply as a means of sorting. The only thing the "children" inherit from their "parents" is position, relative to some other element, according to a sort criterion, but the arrangement of nodes is hierarchical. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:37, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

It's funny that this question seemed like a strange thing to ask until I realized that everyone in CS classes nowadays learns to program in Java or other OO languages, so the novice programmer's first formal experiences with trees are typically with inheritance hierarchies and not data structures. The times, they are a-changing. In any case, it's pretty simple. Consider a hierarchical filesystem, in which there's no inheritance implied in the directory hierarchy; daughter directories don't inherit any particular properties other than their location from their parents in the hierarchy (excluding 'heritable' operations like changing ownership or permissions, which are usually done by recursion and not by inheritance). — Ts'éiyoosh 15:33, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Perhaps their is something here that could be added to the hierarchy (computer science) article... User:Alphax/sig 22:21, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

How about a KD tree? - Sundar 11:46, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Orthodox Church architecture

What are the good articles/categories in Wikipedia to look up for traditional architecture of orthodox churches? No articles on architecture or church seems to turn up good hints. Circeus 04:40, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

You have discovered a bit of a hole in Wikipedia. There is a decent article on Byzantine architecture, but there could be a lot more written around this. Gareth Hughes 12:36, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've actually nominated religious architecture for COTW. Circeus 20:19, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Chinese proverb: "A true traveller..."

There's a Chinese proverb which could be translated to "A true traveller has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving" and attributed to Lǎo Zi. Does any body know how to write this in Traditional Chinese? (What language would it have been written in? Mandarin?) Also, Is there a traditional Chinese computer font that is recommended for its aesthetics? --Alif 04:45, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can't say as to the proverb, since I don't speak Chinese. But having learned Japanese, which uses similar (or the same) characters, I'll say that there are various choices for fonts just like for Latin or Cyrillic characters. Typically for something traditional like a quote of an ancient source you'd use a brush-style font, which imitates traditional brush writing. For maximum decorativeness and unreadability, use a seal-script font which imitates the oldest written Chinese characters. And as for what language the proverb was originally written, well, it would have been Old Chinese, wouldn't it? :-) Check on the time period that he was alive and see if there's a corresponding dynasty, then check the historical linguistic literature for reconstructions of the Chinese languages of that dynasty. Mandarin didn't exist back then, by the way, and neither did any of the other modern dialects of the Chinese family. — Ts'éiyoosh 15:13, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lao Zi's proverbs are invariably recorded in some form of Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese for the most part uses the same characters as modern Chinese. Traditionally it was written using traditional characters. I'm not familiar with that particular saying, but Wikiquote lists it as unverified. Chinese WIkiquote doesn't have it at all. Diderot 22:55, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

May be it is from Lao Zi's main work Tao Te Ching, the 27th article "善行,無轍跡", simplified characters are "善行,无辙迹". The literial traslation is "A true traveller left no tracks of his chariot". Mandarin is a kind of oral language. All Chinese dialects use same characters including ancient Chinese language. There is only a small difference between traditional and simplified characters not depend on different dialects but political areas. They can understand each other. Traditional characters see this font--Fanghong 05:27, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The earliest unearthed versions of the Tao Te Ching were written in a script foreign to today's most Chinese readers. In the very beginning, different scripts were developed specifically for different writing tools and materials. For exampls: oracle bone was carved on the turtles' belly shells (later caligraphers developed a similar brush-writing style). One of the earliest version of the Tao Te Ching found in an ancient tomb (郭店楚墓竹簡) was written on the inner surface of bamboo sticks. Its script looks very different from today's Chinese letters to an untrained Chinese reader.

• http://www.yingbishufa.com/ldbt/PIC/0018_01.jpg
• http://www.yingbishufa.com/ldbt/PIC/0018_02.jpg
• http://www.yingbishufa.com/ldbt/PIC/0018_03.jpg

Another version written on silk rolls (see Ma-wang-tui Texts) are much easier to understand by today's readers.

• http://www.yingbishufa.com/ldbt/pic/1054_1.jpg
• http://www.yingbishufa.com/ldbt/pic/1054_2.jpg

These scripts can usually be converted to today's simple or traditional Chinese letters easily. However, some ancient letter forms were not standardized. It may require some educated guesswork to do the job properly. Anyway, medieval monks were also known to use all kinds of imaginable ligatures extensively. -- Toytoy 23:24, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Criticism of scientific writing style

I'm writing a paper which discusses various criticisms of the modern scientific writing style, such as is found in the typical scientific journals like Science or Nature. This isn't the scientific journalism or science popularization, but the research oriented style with lots of passive voice, copious citations, dense specialized vocabulary, and the like that working scientists in various fields produce. I know I've read objections to scientific writing from literary critics and postmodern philosophers in the past, but I'm not getting any particular answers from Wikipedia that discuss scientific writing, but only discussions of criticism of science in general. Any pointers to particular works or people who have complained about modern scientific writing style? Defenses of scientific writing would be welcome as well. — Ts'éiyoosh 15:44, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As someone who reads lots of both basic and clinical science papers, and occasionally some things outside my expertise, and am doing this instead of writing one this afternoon, I would offer:

In defense:

The things that people find daunting about scientific writing arise from the nature of the communication, mainly its intended recipient and the nature of the information to be conveyed. The majority of papers reporting research are reporting small steps, not breakthroughs and are of interest only to a handful of others working on the same topic. The "point" of the report, the new piece of information offered by the author to the reader is often a couple of graphs or tables of numbers representing a novel observed relationship between two things; everything else is heading, enough context to orient someone already familiar with the field, and enough support to convince someone familiar with the field that the observation is valid. Someone familiar with the field usually doesn't need to read the discussion, because he/she will already know enough that it won't represent additional information. The best data "speak for themselves" and don't need much discussion to explain or justify them.

The "boring" sameness or predictability of structure allows the reader to more quickly determine the central message.

This is why you need to know some background and context to understand them. If every paper included enough additional backgound information to bring the educated, intelligent non-specialist up to speed, it would be far longer. Good papers often reference context sources in the introductory paragraphs.

Think of the big words as "macros" or subroutines. As soon as you know the meaning of the word, the sentence structure is usually fairly simple.

Any real breakthrugh articles tend to be accompanied by editorials or commentaries explaining the significance to a larger set of readers.

Finally, not all articles in scientific journals are reports of new research. Many journals also publish reviews, which are overviews of a field, to give someone the background to understand the research, or editorials/opinion articles, the purpose of which is to persuade the reader to understand something the way the author does.

In criticism:

There is undeniably a lot of trivial and redundant junk published.

The excessive quantity of published research on a topic arises from the academic custom of requiring a high number of publications for promotion, whcih sometimes persuades people to report their research in "least publishable units"-- parceling it out in the smallest pieces that might be perceived as justifying publication as a separate paper. Secondly, the proliferation of more and more specialized journals tempts people to submit basically the same work to multiple journals with different audiences, finding a slighlty different twist for each. When the author misjudges and some readers see the same info in both places, he gets accused of duplicate publication, but the line is not always clear.

alteripse 17:39, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Buddha Shakyamuni Link

Just writing to let folk know that there's a bogus article linked to "today's featured article" (6 March 2005) via the Buddha Shakyamuni link, q.v. Looks like it ought to go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha and purge/redirect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_Shakyamuni. I'm new to this and don't know how to do it.

The featured article blurbs for the main page can be accessed by going to the featured article archive. The archive is protected though, so only an admin can do it (I have made the correction so that it goes straight to the Gautama Buddha article). →Raul654 19:26, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

Stephen Crane-died at 28

I was just reading up about Stephen Crane (writer of Maggie: A girl of the Streets and Red Badge of Courage) and I read that he died at 28 - does anybody know why/of what?

Tuberculosis. adamsan 21:30, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Malaria joined in to finish the job [10]. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 21:32, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Background of Saami people

I thought I knew that the Saami people of northern Scandanavia and Russia were descended from the Mongols. The Wiki artical on Saami doesn't say anything about that, but through extensive googling, I did find some references that suggest that. Seems like the older the source, the more declarative of this relationship. Can anyone point me towards modern, credible sources that confirm or refute the Mongol - Saami link? Thanks if you can help.

anon

No, there's no special relationship between the Saami and the Mongols. The Saami, like the Finns, are believed to have roots in some unidentified northwest Asian area. In the old days, it used to be believed that their language was related to the Altaic languages, which include Mongolian, but this is no longer widely believed anymore. The article on Altaic languages covers the linguistic history, which was really the only link between the two groups. Diderot 22:45, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Help requested identifying evil spirit

I am interested in looking into all psychological and/or paranormal explanations for the following situation, a task that is quite daunting, to say the least, because Google searches for spirits tend to yield sites related to gaming, sites written as fiction, etc. and I have no idea where to start looking for psychological explanations.

The situation is thus: my friend (teenager, female), when she was very small, had a series of extremely terrifying nightmares in which she believes she may have been confronted with some manifestation of evil, possibly some evil spirit or some such. In any case, she is unable to shake the feeling that these dreams were different from others she has had, and that in them she was confronted and attacked by a malign presence. She is sometimes subject to seeing this malign presence in other people if the circumstances are similar to those in the dream (I am unsure if she realizes the circumstances are similar before or after she recognizes the presence). I am not sure with what frequency this happens, but it has happened only once that I know of since I have known her (nearly two years). She confirms that it has happened before, however. It is of particular importance that we clear this up straightaway, because she recently observed this malignant presence in someone who is our very close mutual friend, and unfortunately can no longer enjoy spending time with her because she reminds her of the dream and the malicious spirit, which causes her great distress.

I am inclined to accept either a rational, psychological explanation for this phenomenon (some kind of neurosis or paranoia?) or a paranormal one as equally helpful, and several options that I could look into further would be appreciated. Attempts to narrow this down on my own failed pitifully; my list for the paranormal possibilities alone went something like demon, ghost, faerie, monster, something else...

"The hag", Scandinavian origin, there have been some interesting psycho-physiological explanations. But I see that our article covers none of this. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:48, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

See Sleep paralysis, which some psychologists think may explain reports of alien abductions, sexual interference by demonic entities, and Michael Howard. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 22:49, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, she needs to get to know the real person, not the fantasy, better to dissolve the first impression. Don't encourage the nonsense by trying to strengthen the fantasy with bogus folklore identification. alteripse 22:57, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Suggest some qualified advice, whether psychological, spiritual or both, might be in order here. Manifestations, whether real or otherwise, are clearly a need for help. I would suggest that an online encyclopaedia is not the best resource for dealing with this problem. Smoddy (t) (e) 23:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A good pastor, priest, or other spiritual leader (one who is fairly easy-going and flexible, I would imagine) would be a great resource, especially if there is someone that you or your friend already knows and trusts. Random people on Wikipedia, not so helpful. ;) -Aranel ("Sarah") 23:37, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

origin of fuck

Does anybody know the origin of the word "fuck"?

See Fuck. 119 00:55, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See fuck. Neutrality^talk 00:56, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

LOL. Apparently 119 and I both edited at the same time! :) Neutrality^talk 00:57, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

How come you didn't get a fucking edit conflict? --bodnotbod 06:50, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

See, the first fucking reply was done on 00:56. After 119 has done his fucking edit, Neutrality, unaware of that edit, clicked Edit in his fucking browser and continues editing. He finished that edit in one fucking minute and hit the fucking Save page. That's the reason they did not fuck each other. My fucking theory has still one fucking big plot hole. But I don't give it a fuck. See, as a non-fucking-native Engfuckinglish speaker, learning to use the word fuck made me at least half as fucking good as everyfuckingbody else. :) -- Toytoy 07:25, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Don't you absobloominlutely love tmesis? - Nunh-huh 04:55, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now, the real test to imitate a native English speaker is to correctly be able to use the sentence "Fucking fucker's fucking fucked!", the eternal complaint of the British soldier... Shimgray 13:39, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Blimey!--bodnotbod 18:56, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... you did make one common non-native mistake: when you wrote "they did not fuck each other" you may have meant "they did not fuck each other up". Taken literally, the former means "they did not have sex with one another", and the latter means "they did not cause one another to make a mistake". Hope I fucking helped. Fucker. – ClockworkSoul 05:49, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Atoms, atomic masses and moles( chemistry)

Please help me with these questions...I really do not know how to do them...Please give me the steps and explanation on why that step is done to my questions...:

1)How many moles of NaOH are there in 1 cubic decimetre of 3.0M solution? Answer:3.0

When you are working in term of molar solutions, there's no reason to use units of volume other than liters. If you convert everything to liters, it will be much less confusing!

1 liter = 1000 millilters

1 liter = 1 cubic decimeter

1 milliliter = 1 cubic centimeter

So the first question can be restated as:

How many moles of (anything) are there in 1 liter of solution, if the solution has 3 moles in 1 liter?

stated this way, the answer is obvious: you don't even need to do any calculations. In one liter of 3M solution, there are 3 moles.

2)How many moles of NaOH are there in 20 cubic centimetre of 0.1M solution? Answer:0.002

Restating:

20 cubic centimetres = 20 ml = 0.020 liters

How many moles of (anything) are there in 0.02 liters of solution, if the solution has 0.1 moles in 1 liter?

set up a ratio:

x / 0.02 = 0.1 / 1

multiply both sides of the equation by 0.02:

x = 0.1 x 0.02

x = 0.002 moles

3)How many atoms are there in 18g of water,H2O? Answer:1.8 multiply by 10 to the power of 24

The question as worded is peculiar; they ask how many ATOMS, not how many MOLECULES.

given the atomic weight of hydrogen as 1 and the atomic weight of oxygen as 16, the molecular weight of H₂O is 16 + 1 + 1 = 18. There are 18 grams per mole of H₂O. (that is, the molar mass of H₂O is 18 grams/mol.

You know (or will look up) that there are 6.022 x 10²³ molecules/mol, and you have one mole of water...

So you have 6.022 x 10²³ molecules. In this case, there are 3 atoms per molecule, so multiply by 3 and you get 18.066 x 10²³ which equals 1.8 x 10²⁴.

4)How many atoms are there in 0.44g of carbon dioxide,CO2? Answer:1.8 multiply by 10 to the power of 22

Again, the question and answer are peculiar because they are asking about ATOMS. not MOLECULES. T

The atomic weight of carbon is 12, and oxygen is 16, so the molecular weight of CO₂ is 23 + 16 + 16 = 44.

There are 44 grams per mole of CO₂.

You have 0.44 grams, which is 0.01 moles, of CO₂.

There are 6.022 x 10²³ molecules per mole, and you have 0.01 moles, so you multiply them and find you have 6.022 x 10²¹ molecules in 0.44 g of CO₂.

Here again, there are three atoms per molecule, so you multiply this by 3 and get 18.066 x 10²¹ atoms = 1.8 x 10²².

More generally, if you are given the grams of a substance, you divide it by its molar mass to obtain the number of moles of the substance, and multiply it by Avogadro's number to get the number of molecules you have.

For question 3: 18 grams divided by a molar mass of 18 grams/mole = 1 mole, and 1 x Avogadro's number is 6.022 x 10²³ molecules (and you multiply by 3 to get # of atoms)

For question 4: 0.44 grams divided by a molar mass of 44 grams/mole = 0.01 moles, and 0.01 x Avogadro's number is 6.022 x 10²¹ molecules (and you multiply by 3 to get # of atoms)

at least I think that's right. If you use Google to search for "mole gram weight" you will find lots of tutorial pages that may be worth working through and may explain better. - Nunh-huh 09:39, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--Sasuke1990 08:48, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)Sasuke1990

• You may find our articles on concentration, mole (unit) and volume helpful. Mgm|^(talk) 09:15, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Removing alcohol

Is there any relatively simple way to remove alcohol from drinks (rum, wine, etc)? DO'Neil 08:52, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Heating - that's what they do with non-alcoholic beer. Other than that it's hard because ethanol and water have a strong affinity for one-another. Guettarda 08:55, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Heating can be used because ethanol (alcohol as found in drinks) boils at about 20°C less than water. Seperating the two liquids is the textbook case of fractional distillation. Wikipedia's article on this describes this process, including the diagram that everyone draws in school chemistry. Apologies if you knew of this and were looking for a simpler way. I don't know of one. — Trilobite (Talk) 00:49, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Freezing works for the same reason. The alcohol freezes at a lower temperature usually, so you can take a cocktail, part freeze it, throw away the ice, and you have made it more alcoholic. Oh, sorry, that's the opposite of what you want to do... Mark Richards 19:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Be advised that any of these processes may also remove other volatile non-alcoholic ingredients - i.e. fractional distillation is not necessarily a "pure" process. Also be advised that the resulting alcohol-free beverage will not taste the same (and will probably taste quite unpleasant, depending on the original beverage). -- FP 04:08, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Vacuum distillation will remove things at lower temperatures. If you want to be really sophisticated about it, distill it several times, putting anything that isn't alcohol back into your beverage. Then again... some drinks have alcohol in them for a reason. To make them drinkable. User:Alphax/sig 23:28, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

What I'd do is to drink some of the booze, then water down the bottle. This way you get a bit druk do, and so everyone's a winner--194.167.114.2 16:17, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stick the liquid in a pan and heat it up on the hob; you don't need to bring it to the boil. Set fire to the fumes and let the alcohol burn off (this is a flambe), if the flames go out do it again until the doesn't light. I do this all the time when making sauces. Adding a drop (or several) of port to a gravy does wonders. Jooler 12:31, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How do I download wikiwiki for personal use.

I been given a project to use wikiwiki for knowledge base. can you give me instruction how to download wikiwiki software?

Thank you.

You can grab Mediawiki software (the software that runs Wikipedia) here. -- — I. Neschek | talk 02:18, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

However, Mediawiki is by no means the only wiki software available. There might be another that is more suitable for your purposes; see Wiki software as a starting point. --Robert Merkel 12:16, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mystery book

Samuel Shem (Dr Stephen J. Bergmann MD PhD) is well known for The House of God and several other books. On de:Samuel Shem he is credited with a 2001 title "Orville's Heimkehr" (Orville's Return), which is corrobated by search engine results. However, I am unable to find what the English title of the work is, where it was published, and what it is about. (Please respond on my talk page.) JFW | T@lk 03:16, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia demographics

Is anyone aware of useable studies on Wikipedia's demographics (editors)? 119 07:11, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The data is not likely to be very good. I could claim to be a 75 yr old Indian American, and few people could verify or repudiate that. The best you could get is a list of what editors claim they are, and an awful lot of editors don't even mention that. - Taxman 13:26, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_Wikipedians has a fair deal of info, but not all users are listed, and not everyone is on every list. -- user:zanimum

My subjective experience suggests we are overwhlemingly male and Western (including quite a lot of non-native-English-speaking European contributors), age ranging from mid-teens (some admins are this age) up to middle age and some older, mainly "tech-savvy" computer-literate types who either work in computers or are students or minor academics (not too many professors) with a bias towards scientific areas. None of this is any help if you need statistics of course, but you could I suppose go through the top contributors list and ask people a few demographic details - getting a few of these people to respond would account for a significant proportion of Wikipedia's edits. — Trilobite (Talk) 19:22, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would strongly concur with having the same subjective view. There are of course lots of exceptions, but it probably holds true on the whole so far. - Taxman 21:55, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

For a highly-unscientific and self-selecting sample, take a look at the photos of past meetups at Wikipedia:Meetup. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 21:06, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As the person who took most of the meetup pics, I can tell you that meetups are distinctly biased in favor of older wikipedians. →Raul654 21:12, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Facebook for an amusing look at the gang... — Catherine\^talk 00:22, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

North Korea

Would the United States consider using tactical nuclear weapons on N. Korea?

I don't think so. The capital of South Korea, Seoul, is right next to the border, and will get blasted all to hell in the event of any war (the North Koreans have lots of missiles, rockets, and artillery pieces pointed right at it). There aren't any simple, technical solutions to this problem. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 01:18, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't even take into account the general furor that would arise in the global community if the US utilized a nuclear weapon, current administration policies notwithstanding. --DaveC 01:37, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Consider, sure. Use, in the absence of anything short of a nuclear attack (or a very large-scale chemical attack against Seoul) by the North Koreans? I doubt it. Yet another factor counting against their use would be that the nuclear fallout could well blow straight onto Seoul or even to Japan if the wind was blowing the wrong way. Or China, for that matter, who might not be too pleased. And when DaveC says "general furor" he's understating the case (unless there were compelling reasons such as the kind mentioned above). One could easily imagine oil-exporting nations imposing a trade embargo with the US in such circumstances (remember, a lot of them don't like the US much anyway), to give some idea of the geopolitical turmoil such an action might very well cause. --Robert Merkel 04:41, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yet another factor counting against their use would be that the nuclear fallout could well blow straight onto Seoul or even to Japan if the wind was blowing the wrong way. During WWII, the US considered launching gas attacks against japan prior to the invasion. It was considered a very good target, beacuse the winds in that area of the world are very predictable. If the US were to use nuclear weapons, the fallout pattern could be very reliably predicted. →Raul654 04:51, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

As you'll gather from the responses above an all-out war would be a horrific event, 9/11 would pale in comparison to the deaths inflicted on both North and South Korea, and the global situation afterwards would be very significantly destablised. If the invasion of Iraq could be said to have led to "rifts" in the world a nuclear strike on North Korea would in all but the most compelling circumstances make the US a pariah state in the eyes of the "international community", all while it was still the world's most powerful country. If the US had no means of importing oil the world would become a dangerous and unpredictable place. Whether a tactical nuclear strike is on the table or not, you can bet it's been considered and planned very carefully, just in case. I wouldn't underestimate North Korea's ability or willingness to wreak utter devastation if backed into a corner, so my guess is that the best we can hope for is negotiations that prolong the stalemate and the uneasy peace that's lasted pretty well for the last 50 years. I don't think there will be a tactical nuclear strike, but I can't help but feel a little relieved that I don't live in Seoul. — Trilobite (Talk) 05:46, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Somebody mentioned China may not be too pleased, I don't know whether that's true. But I've been reading some reports lately (I'm in the UK, not the US) that a large amount of the US debt is currently owed to China. Whether that's of relevance I don't know. Hey, how about nuking China: "We owe who money?" --bodnotbod 07:05, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Weapons such as the nuclear bunker buster are worth noting, as I believe that they are still somewhere in the US defense budget. Assuming that they are successfully developed, they make the deployment of nuclear weapons (albeit low-yield ones) in any US conflict more likely (Although hopefully not too much so). --DaveC

It is extremely unlikely that the US would take military action against NK, because the latter actually does have weapons of mass destruction. Mark Richards 11:55, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like to think that we are all smart enough not to use nuclear weapons against anyone, regardless of whether they are capable of nuking us back. (Because there would always be someone else capable.) This may be overly optimistic of me, but it allows me to sleep at night. -Aranel ("Sarah") 22:09, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anagrams

I've been curious about this for a couple weeks now: What is the verb form of "anagram"? Or IS there even a verb form?

Anagrammatize, according to the American Heritage Dictionary; although in UK English it is Anagrammatise. Alexs letterbox 03:23, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. Do you know of any sites where I can find a thing the anagrammatizes names?

I, rearrangement servant -- FP 04:03, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

A Google search for "Anagram generator" finds many, many links. A few are Anagram Genius, Brendan's On-Line Anagram Generator, Inge's Anagram Generator and FP's Internet Anagram Server. — Asbestos | Talk 12:33, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It can also be simply anagram: We stayed up all night anagramming our classmates' names. --Gelu Ignisque

Scripts of British Sitcoms

Are the scripts of either Fawlty Towers or Yes, Minister online and free?--anon

Probably unlikely to find full collections, as they will be covered by copyright. Try here for yes minister. There is one episode script for Fawlty Towers here. You might find a lot more information at this helpful site. -- FP 08:48, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

The Python scripts were printed in a two-volume set some years ago; I see it around fairly often, but I don't think they're currently in print. Fawlty Towers ditto (well, one-volume), if memory serves, as well as Blackadder.

Yes (Prime) Minister, OTOH, never had published scripts; it did have the "Diaries of Jim Hacker", or something similar, which effectively served as retellings of the episodes as dictated by Hacker for a diary, complete with footnotes by the "academics" (at "Hacker College, Oxford" in the mid 2010s) who'd compiled it, occasional press cuttings, interviews with Sir Bernard Wooley, &c &c. It's a very well-done trick, playing off the habits of politicians to produce long and tedious memoirs; they're not actual scripts, but work as much the same. This was reprinted in two paperback volumes fairly recently, and I think is probably still in print; they're definitely worth tracking down. Shimgray 21:06, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, just spend the money for crying out loud. --bodnotbod 00:32, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

prison

So some Argentinian guy got sentenced to 9000 odd years in prison! Has anybody been sentenced for longer than that? Similar question: Whats the longest anyone's actually been in prison for (criminals, not prison officers)

I will be interested to find out as well. So far I have noticed Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, Driss Chebli and Ghasoub al Abrash Ghalyoun who are indicted for helping in the 9/11 attacks are facing 74,000 years and fines of $1.17 billion weach if convicted in Spain. Mounir el Motassadeq was given 3066 concurrent 15-year terms (45,990 years total) in Germany for his suspected role but his conviction was overturned. Rmhermen 15:45, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Concurrent sentences are served at the sime time, so Mounir el Motassadeq will be out in fifteen years. If his sentences were consecutive then he would basically have to stay in jail until he died.Lisiate 00:08, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In what language it is and what mean?

It's in knowledge managment: SUCCINCTLY (concise, terse)?...................

Basically, yes. (Strangely enough, one of the students here asked me that last week...). "Terse" implies sharply worded, so doesn't give quite the same idea; "to express the concept using few words", which is pretty much "concise", is about as good as you'd get, I think. It has vague overtones of being good, satisfactory, but they're less important. Shimgray 21:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Find

Where do I find the petition on leaving Tien Lung Tao as a legitimate martial art on wikipedia?

We don't seem to have any reference at all on our site. Are you sure you're spelling this martial art correctly? -- user:zanimum

Camembert cheese

I just bought some Camembert cheese. I have heard it is better to wait to eat it until it is runny. Is this true? How long does this take? Should I leave it in the refrigerator or out? Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 15:18, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

The cold impairs the flavour, so it should be eaten at room temperature. Do not heat the cheese: just leave it to warm up. However, cheese left at room temperature deterioates very quickly, so it is often best to leave the cheese in the fridge if you are not going to eat it all at once. This requires planning: remove the cheese from the fridge about half an hour before you want to eat it. I'm sure you'll find that Camembert at the right temperature is worth the effort. Gareth Hughes 15:50, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. What about this "runny" business? Are you saying that letting it get runny is just a matter of letting it warm up to room temperature? I was under the impression that you had to let it sit several weeks after buying it. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 19:10, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think it is a temperature thing, rather than any bacterial decay / hung game type thing. The difference is that a ripe Camembert is creamy with a taste of mushroom, whilst a refridgerated Camembert tends to taste chalky. It only takes a day or two at room temperature. If you cut a slice from a full round, you can see when its ready when it begins to ooze out of the cut.

If you are impatient, you can try a recipe for baking a Camembert in the wooden box it comes it (assuming your've bought a full one). For example [11]. If you get ambitious, you can move on to the Swiss Raclette which really needs a special grilling machine to gradually melt throught the round of cheese sideways, but a vertical stand placed in front of an open fire works well too. -- Solipsist 20:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Zinc vs aluminum

Can anyone enlighten a layman regarding where i can find help on annealing temperatures and heat dissapation properties of Zinc Alloy vs Aluminum alloy. I am working with a product that is both price sensitive and heat sensitive and am trying to determine heat tolerances that will affect my decision on component material used. -- User:69.196.124.196 08:39, Mar 9, 2005 (copied here from deleted article by Derek Ross | Talk

At my work, we use a service called Knovel. You can licence access to technical reference books that have this type of information. I don't have specific titles to recommend; some of these same references would be available in the libary of a university with a stong engineering program. ike9898 14:38, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

PTEN

In patients with prostate cancer, one change that can be seen at the molecular level is the loss of the PTEN tumor suppressor gene, a gene responsible for restricting cell proliferation. One or both copies of the PTEN gene are found to have been lost in 70 percent of prostate cancer patients at the time of diagnosis. It has generally been believed that one remaining copy would still protect against tumor progression to advanced metastatic cancer

And the question is? Mark Richards 18:59, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Law & Order

Two questions about Law and Order:

1. When the detectives pull someone's phone records they call them the "L.U.D.'s" (that's how it appears in the close-captioning, at least). What does that stand for?
2. Does the sound that opens each scene (the DOINK-DOINK noise) have a name? I want to call it a "stinger" but I am doubtful.

Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 19:10, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

As to the first question look at LUD. It looks like it actually needs the definition of the acronym (Local Usage Details). I can't say anything about the second one. --DaveC 21:54, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The actors, on commercials for TNT, have described "the sound" as a "doink-doink." To me it sounds like a gavel being pounded on wood or stone.

I read once that the "doink-doink" was supposed to imitate the sound of a cell door being slammed shut. I believe the earler episodes use that sound instead of the current ones. As for what it's called, the best I can come up with is "dun dun." Sorry. -Jen Moakler 04:24, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think "stinger" would be a reasonble characterization of File:Doink doink.ogg - Nunh-huh 02:15, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Are you looking for the name of that particular sound, or for sounds like that (i.e. sounds used to mark scene changes or at certain important points in a TV show) in general? -Aranel ("Sarah") 03:27, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• It's a stinger, unless it comes right after (or before, though not in this case obviously) a commercial, in which case it's a bumper, sez (or vaguely guesses) my TV-composer brother. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:21, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ninjas vs. Pirates

Did the whole "ninjas vs. pirates" thing originate with the pro-ninja, anti-pirate Real Ultimate Power; the pro-pirate, anti-ninja Best Page in the Universe; or does it predate both of these? Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 21:42, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

port blocking

Perhaps you are looking for Firewall (networking) or even Chastity belt? - Taxman 23:04, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Changing Resolution in iTunes

I am using the Windows version of iTunes (yes, I know already - don't tell me to use a Mac), and whenever I choose full screen for the visualization I find the resolution is 800x600 (or so), when my normal resolution is 1280x1024. I've searched extensively, but can anybody help? I think it might need a registry hack. Alexs letterbox 07:42, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Indices and surds(additional maths)

Please help me with these questions and explain each step to me...

1)Express the following fractions in the form a*b^1/2 + c*d^1/2

   (i) [(1 + 2^½)/(5^ ½ + 3^½)]+[(1 - 2^½)/(5^½ - 3^½)]
    
    So let's start by saying that x = 2^½, y = 3^½ and z = 5^½
    
    That gives us (1 + x)/(z + y) + (1 - x)/(z - y)
 
    Our common denominator is (z + y)(z - y) and if we apply that we get
 
    [(1 + x)(z - y) + (1 - x)(z + y)]/[(z + y)(z - y)]
     
    This is the same as
     
     [(z - y + xz - xy) + (z + y - xz - xy)]/(z^2 - yz + yz - y^2)
   
    Which simplifies to 
   
     (2z - 2xy)/(z^2 - y^2)
 
    Substituting back in our original values
  
      [2(5^½) - 2(2^½)(3^½)]/ [(5^½)^2 - (3^½)^2]
  
    Simplfy a bit and get
  
      2(5^½) - 2(6^½)/2
 
    Simplfiy a bit more and get 5^½ - 6^½ 
  
    --DaveC 15:37, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  
    Ans: 5^½ - 6^½

 (ii) [(2*6^½ + 1)/(3^½ + 2^½)]+[(2*6^½)/(3^½ - 2^½)]
      Ans: 11*2^½ + 3^½

2)Find the square roots of the following expressions

 (i) 6 - 4*2^½
    Ans:±(2-2^½)
 
 (ii) 7 + 2*6^½
     Ans:±(1+6^½)

 (iii) 17-4*15^½
      Ans:±(5^½ - 2*3^½) 

---~~Sasuke1990

Thanks for you help and effort...:)

By the way, don't say x^1/2 when you mean (x+1/2), since x^1/2 means the square root of x. Dysprosia 22:39, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Since this question is regarding surds and indicies I believe x^1/2 (i.e. square root of x) is correct, unless you are referring to a specific problem that you think is misstated. --DaveC 23:00, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gah. The use of the word "fractions" violently threw me off ;) Dysprosia 09:20, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Derivative Works from GFDL Images

Can I use a GFDL image (from wiki commons) as a base to an ilustration/logo to be used for commercial purposes (to represent a given company)?

I wish GFDL had a human readable license (opposed to lawyer readable :) )like creative commons..

--Alexandre Van de Sande 15:26, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In a legal sense, yes. In a practical sense, no. The lawyer-readable terms of the GFDL require including a copy of the license and all contributors with any mass distribution. Given that it would thus apply to magazine ads and such, it just doesn't really work. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

new words for the Wikipedia

New Words Invented on March 9, 2005

Many people have developed a strange fear of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, but until this day there was no name for the phobia. These words are dedicated to Kim E. Blaine who was born on this date 50 years ago.

aeropetes flying

pithekos monkeys

Oz Oz

phobia fear of

phobiac person in fear of

Aeropetespithekosozophobia: fear of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz Pronunciation: er - ō - Peets - pith - kōs - ăz - O - fōb - E - ă

Aeropetespithekosophobia: fear of all flying monkeys Pronunciation: er - ō - Peets - pith - kōs - O - fōb - E - ă

Aeropetespithekosozophobiac: person afraid of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz Pronunciation: er - ō - Peets - pith - kōs - ăz -O - fōb - E - ak

Aeropetespithekosophobiac: person afraid of all flying monkeys Pronunciation: er - ō - Peets - pith - kōs - O - fōb - E - ak

Thank you so much for sharing. --Tagishsimon (talk)

I moved this things to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Aeropetespithekosozophobia continue your good work there (before it's all deleted..)

If these words are novel coinages, and are not in use except by their creator, then I would suggest it's premature to put them in either wiktionary or (much less) wikipedia. Sharkford 21:33, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

I would expect the word to end up aeropithekophobia due to common practices such as elision and the formation of prefixes. Also, the Oz part strikes me as superfluous. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 21:47, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

According to normal Greek rules (some of which Dante described above), the products would most likely be aeropet{oz}opithecophobe/-phobia, with the part in braces removed in the non-Oz-related coinages. --Gelu Ignisque

See, I knew there was someone who knew better than me... Thanks Ignis. :) --Dante Alighieri | Talk 17:19, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

People like you, Gelu, is why I love Wikipedia. – ClockworkSoul 05:53, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

cell replacement

I'm trying to find the origional basis for the claim that every seven years (virtually) every cell in the human body has been replaced. Where was this origionally suggested?

I'm not sure where it was suggested, but from what I know it's false. For example: Blood cells are replaced much more often than brain cells. Once they are damages chances of them recovering are pretty slim. It all depends on the kind of cell you're talking about. Mgm|^(talk) 18:49, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

To be more specific, I'm looking for validation of the original work done to provide this claim: "The atoms in your body go through a complete turnover about once every seven years. As with the loss of RBCs, this does not mean that your body is rebuilt miraculously on your 7th, 14th, 21s, 28th, etc. birthdays. Rather at any given time, most if not all the atoms that were in your body seven years ago will have been lost through metabolic turnover." While the rate of any given set of cell may be different, can anyone find the original basis for the over all idea? Are brain cells/nerve cells also replaced in this way?

Many of the individual components of each cell are replaced preiodically. For example, the individual phospholipids in the cell membrane of a cell degrade, and are replaced at a regular rate (I do not know the rate off hand). It's hard to say when and if you have a new cell in this manner, however. This isn't true of all cellular components, however: many of the complex molecules, like DNA, do not go through this kind of cycling – at least not at a rate even close to that of more disposable components. – ClockworkSoul 05:59, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Federal Judges Killed

A story on the news yesterday regarding the threats to federal judges said only three had ever been murdered. One I know was John H. Wood, Jr., the one Woody Harrelson's dad killed. Who were the other two? PedanticallySpeaking 18:45, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

According to [CNN] Robert Vance in 1989 and Richard J. Daronco 1988 --DaveC 19:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cadavers and the law

I am taking a human gross anatomy course, and I've found that seeing the real thing is invaluable compared to diagrams in a book. Accordingly, whenever I find something that illustrates a concept more clearly than a diagram can, I photograph it. (For example, the tenia coli.) My question is, what is the legal status of these photogrphs? The cadaver is unidentified, and there are no identifying characteristics in the photos. Can I get in trouble for this? My professor is concerned, but I don't feel there is any reason to be. Thanks! - 701122 22:58, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

P.S. I'm in the United States (specifically, Virginia). And I've read the disclaimers about legal advice and such. I'm just looking for any leads at all.

Well, aside from whatever federal, state, and local laws governing your area, I would imagine that these people signed a relatively detailed contract detailing what would be done to their bodues when they donated them to science. Your best bet would probably be to contact the department at your school in charge of such things and ask them.

--DaveC 23:20, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd say your anatomy professor is right to be concerned. The bodies were donated to the medical school, and the medical school would probably be within their rights to make such photographs. You, however—not so much....unless the school authorizes it. Realistically, the likelihood that you'd get "in trouble" for this is low, simply because no one will be checking. (Assuming they're digital or you're developing them yourself). On the other hand, if you get stopped for speeding on the way home and have them in the car, you may have some 'splaining to do. - Nunh-huh 05:30, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First woman in the U.S. Army

When I did research for the Edith Nourse Rogers article, I was under the impression that Oveta Culp Hobby, the first director of the WAC, became the first woman to be officially part of the U.S. Army when she was commissioned on July 5, 1943... not Mary Hallaren as the blurb in DYK claims. As I understand it, Hallaren was actually the first woman to become part of the permanent army -- the whole point of the move from WAAC (Auxiliary) to WAC was granting women military status. (See chapter I and II here) But I don't know much about the military, so could someone verify that? 68.81.231.127 01:55, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article says that the WAC was not part of the Army until 1948. So while Hobby was a female officer, she was not a female Army officer. Rmhermen 04:59, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

There were also women who served before this...for example, in the Civil War. See this page for some examples. They were female Army soldiers, though perhaps they were not "officially" women. - Nunh-huh 05:04, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to myth, Mary Hays McCauly (aka, Molly Pitcher) fought alongside her husband at the Battle of Monmouth during the American Revolution. →Raul654 05:11, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Upon further reading I found this -- "Margaret Corbin was the first woman to fight in the American Revolutionary War" →Raul654 05:12, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Every article upon Halleran's death indicated that she was the first woman to join the regular US army. Hobby was the first woman to join the Women's Auxiliary. It was not regular army. RickK 05:25, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

"General Marshall decided to ask Congress to give the women military status. The auxiliary system had proved complex and unwieldy" and "the new law deleted the word 'Auxiliary' from the Corps title... the distinctive WAAC grade titles vanished; the officers and enlisted women now used the same military titles as men."[12] The whole point of replacing the WAAC with the WAC was getting rid of the auxiliary status. Then "Oveta Culp Hobby was appointed Director, Women's Army Corps (DWAC), and was commissioned a colonel in the Army of the United States on 5 July 1943".[13] Most of the second chapter discusses the fight to make the WACs a permanent part of the regular army and reserve, which is where Hallaren fit in. My reading is the WACs (not WAACs) were regular army... it's just the bill expired with the cessation of hostilies, and the army would become all male again (except the Army Nurse Corps) -- just like the women in the Navy and Marine Corps in WWI (who were regular military) were disbanded after the war. And neither of the external links in the Hallaren article say she was the first woman in the US army. 68.81.231.127 06:47, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here are some quotes from a different source: "Congress opened hearings in March 1943 on the conversion of the WAAC into the Regular Army. Army leaders asked for the authority to convert the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps into the Women's Army Corps (WAC), which would be part of the Army itself rather than merely serving with it" and "On 3 July 1943, after a delay caused by congressional hearings on the slander issues, the WAC bill was signed into law. All WAACs were given a choice of joining the Army as a member of the WAC or returning to civilian life". Then Hallaren's part again: "Earlier in 1946, the Army asked Congress for the authority to establish the Women's Army Corps as a permanent part of the Regular Army.... Although the bill was delayed in Congress for two years by political conservatives, it finally became law on 12 June 1948. With the passage of this bill, the Women's Army Corps became a separate corps of the Regular Army."[14] I could be mistaken, but that definitely sounds like Hallaren was just the first woman in the permanent corps. 68.81.231.127 07:04, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Should it be changed? 68.81.231.127 00:23, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Outlook Express backup

I'm trying to backup Outlook Express files without having to backup the attachments. I receive many emails with attachments. Because I download the attahments I have no need to back them up with the emails. Does anyone know of software that will do this. My OS is Win XP. ---helpjohn

Since the attachments are stored in OE's data files, this is not a one-click job - unless you can find some utility to do this for you. Nevertheless, it can be done - although it is rather cumbersome.

One way is to forward all the messages to yourself (making sure to remove the attachments), then delete the original message and save the data files once the forwarded messages arrive.

Another way is to save all the messages as .EML files, then edit them with a text editor to remove the attachments manually. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 11:59, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Names of countries

Does anybody know how countries recieved their names. For example who named France, France or who named Italy, Italy, ect?

The answer is different for every country. France was named for the Franks who lived in the area during Roman times. Frank meant "free" in the Frankish language. I don't know about Italy, but I suspect the name Italia also goes back to Roman times.-gadfium 04:02, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Country names etymology. --Menchi 07:15, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What he means is List of country name etymologies.-gadfium 07:22, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

British Civil Service

Could someone please provide me with an ordered list of grades in the British Civil Service in ascending order of seniority?--anon.06:45, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC) (The time is now 20:49)

Wikipedia Virus

A while ago, some Chinese newspaper printed "Wikipedia virus" (See Wikipedia talk:Confessed wikipediholics#The "deadly Wikipedia virus"). Despite being a longtime Wikipedian, I don't get this Wikipedia joke and it's been bugging me! O the itch! The itch! Please explain!  :-o) --Menchi 06:55, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Heh heh -- I infected someone yesterday, the unsuspecting wretch:

[02:21] me: heh.  :) I'm trying to limit my online addictions, thank you.....My worst is Wikipedia....evil, evil, wikipedia!

[02:22] her: Hmm, I will have to check it out!

[02:22] me: No! Don't go! I'm warning you!!

[02:22] her: LOL

[02:23] her: But I have an advanced degree in Lurking!

[02:23] me: No, no, you don't understand. See this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkwind -- Looks normal enough, doesn't it?

[02:24] her: Okay, that does look dangerous... so many links!

[02:24] me: But if you see a mistake....look up at the top of the page. That innocent-looking "Edit this page" link.....

[02:24] her: Woah

[02:25] her: How have all the entries *not* been messed up by idiots if anyone can edit them?

[02:25] me: LOL -- that was my question too. It shouldn't work at all. But it does. Magnificently.

[02:26] her: Freaky

[02:27] her: What a really cool idea!

[02:35] me: Still there?

[02:38] her: ya, I'm just fixing something in their Ghost In The Shell article...

BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! — Catherine\^talk 23:17, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, that's brilliant. It's a virus because one addict has just spread his/her addition to another, and a new Wikipedian is born! It's funny because the original addict was complaining about the evils of WikiAddiction. – ClockworkSoul 06:02, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See also: meme. -- Solipsist 09:00, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Photo of woman with hat

I'm trying to find that picture of a woman wearing a hat... you know the one. She's naked, but you only see her from the shoulders up (though there's apparently an "original" in which she's all naked). It's often used to demonstrate image manipulation software, etc. Thanks.

Lenna, also [15] and [16]. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for.

Dear me, that's eerie that you knew what heshe meant from that description. Methinks that needs to be added to WP:UA... grendel|khan 20:06, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

Egyptian cat

It's probably an odd question, but I'd really like to know. Ancient Egyptian could simply use the drawing of a cat to represent the word cat, but suppose they used the hieroglyphs to represent the sounds of the ancient word for cat, what glyphs would they use? Mgm|^(talk) 11:28, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

The hieroglyphs for cat, miw, combine the glyphs for m, i and w with a picture of a cat. For a picture, see here (search for "picture of a cat"). - Nunh-huh 01:58, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you. Much appreciated! Mgm|^(talk) 10:05, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

I thought I'd chip in that Wikipedia can deal with Egyptian hieroglyphs: the word for cat is:

which must have sounded remarkably like 'miaow'! Gareth Hughes 23:32, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, btw, the signs are a milk jug with a net over it, a reed, a quail chick and a cat. I'm not sure about the reed, but my cat would love the other two...Gareth Hughes 23:37, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

the tallest rolercoaster

• Hi, 198.234.202.131. It's apparently the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, though the Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure (456 feet, 139 m) will be taller when it opens this spring.[17] 68.81.231.127 19:05, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure, NJ will be the tallest rollercoaster in the the world when it debuts this year. The current record holder (for the next couple of months anyways) is the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point outside of Sandusky, Ohio. --DaveC 19:08, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

protien hydrolysis

When hydrolyzing protein with alkali (or acid), is the hydrolysis of the peptide bonds completely random, or are the bonds between certain amino acids more (or less) susceptible to lysis? ike9898 18:40, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Different bonds have different energies. Also, different areas are exposed and more vulnerable according to the tertiary structure of the protein. alteripse 03:14, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If the concentration and amount of acid or base is large enough you may just break the thing down to its individual amino acids. Certain bonds are indeed more susceptible to breaking, but as Alterprise said, which part of the protein is exposed to it plays a role as well. Mgm|^(talk) 15:33, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Indices and surds(a maths)

Please help me with these questions and explain each step to me....

1.Find the square roots of (i)6 - 4*2^½ (ii)7 + 2*6^½ (iii)17 - 4*15^½

Ans: (i) ±(2 - 2^½)
     (ii) ±(1 + 6^½)
     (iii) ±(5^½ - 2*3^½)

(a + b^½)^2 = (a^2 + b) + 2a*b^½

So for example, in the first question, solve 6 = a^2 + b and -4*2^½ = 2a*b^½

-Fangz 10:58, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

2(a) If (a - b*5^½)² = 49 - 12*5^½ , find the values of a and b.

Ans: a= ±2, b=±3

(b) Find the square roots of 19 + 6*2^½

Ans: ±(1 + 3*2^½)

--Sasuke1990Sasuke

Who is the Author?

Can you tell me the author or authors of the page on "Articles of Confederation" and "Declaration of Independence"? I would like to cite these works, by author, if possible in a bibliography. My paper is due in 10 days, so a timely response would be appreciated.

Thank you.

cindi.mitchell cox.net

Please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, but keep in mind that many professors discourage the use of Wikipedia as a source for papers. You should independently verify the accuracy of the articles you cite. Rhobite 06:41, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Emailed. 119 06:44, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Silver badge" - Yes, Minister

In the Party Games (Xmas special) of Yes, Minister, the minister said theat he got away with drunk driving because he had a "silver badge". What is (or was) a "silver badge"?

A silver badge probably designates a police officer, don't you think?alteripse 15:04, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If only I hadn't left the DVDs at home this term... From hazy memory, it'd be a badge, or card, or something similar they're given to identify themselves as a minister, the idea being that there may be times when a Minister of the Crown might need to encourage the local police force to be helpful and, eg, help get them somewhere fast. Whilst it almost certainly isn't intended to wave the police away once you get caught drunk-driving, showing it will have much the same effect... the average police officer is likely reluctant to arrest a senior politician unless there's not much option to do otherwise (in this case, a blind eye and a "mind how you go, sir"), since it tends to get embarassing and involve a lot of paperwork. Shimgray 15:20, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's a badge given to Cabinet Ministers to identify themselves to police officers. If a police officer wanted to identify themself, they would show their warrant card, as the helmet badge is purely symbolic. Gareth Hughes 15:32, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Boston (Evening) Transcript

From when to when was the Boston Evening Transcript published? Was this indeed an afternoon-only newspaper, colloquially referred to as the Boston Transcript, or were there separate papers? (I'm not talking about the collection of genealogy columns extracted from it, which is also called the Boston Transcript). JRM 14:54, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

• According to the catalog records of the Library of Congress and in the OCLC WorldCat database, the paper was published from July 24, 1830, to April 30, 1941, under slightly varying names, e.g. the Boston Evening Transcript, the Boston Daily Transcript, etc. The catalog also turns up a history of the paper: The Boston Transcript: A History of the First Hundred Years by Joseph Edgar Chamberlain, published by Houghton, Mifflin in 1930 which has been reprinted subsequently. There was also a short lived monthly magazine in 1946 called The Boston Transcript. PedanticallySpeaking 15:11, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Which Governor or Connecticut proposed merging all New England states?

I'm told that a few years ago a governor of Connecticut proposed that all the New England states should join into one big state. It was rejected because there is strength in differences. I am asked: which governor? RJFJR 19:00, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

You may be thinking of the colonial Dominion of New England? Rather locally unpopular.

In a modern sense, it's not so much strength-in-differences as the fact that under the US political system merging states would reduce their power - each state would lose a large chunk of its voice in the Senate. Shimgray 21:27, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is disputable. If those states merged and they were a "swing state" presidentially, they would have a tremendous power (I'd expect presidential candidates to pander to the new entity). David.Monniaux 10:34, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But they wouldn't be a swing state. They'd lean strongly Democratic. The main result would be the loss of ten senators, not all of them Democrats, but none of them currently (that I can think of) being much right of center. It would push the Senate hard to the right. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:14, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

And since electoral votes are allotted to the states in proportion to their representation in congress, they'd lose 10 electoral votes as well as 10 senators. Merging states quite clearly would reduce their political power, both in Congress and in elections. - Nunh-huh 01:19, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Greek "thiokol" - sulphur and glue?

I read that the name Thiokol is a portmanteaux of the greek words for sulfur and glue. What are the greek words for sulfur and glue (I'm hoping to add this to the article)? Thanks. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 20:37, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Well, sulfur is Θειο -- theio -- and glue is κολλα (I think), "kolla", as in "collagen" or "colloid". --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 21:45, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks awfully. It's amazing the gravitas that a few letters in an alien alphabet lends an article :) -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 21:56, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The theion + kolla theory is certainly a reasonable and plausible one, but we can't know for sure because trademarks don't have definitive etymologies. --Gelu Ignisque

I guess I'm missing your point; some trademarks do have definitive etymologies, and Thiokol is one of those. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:05, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

VC holders who are Olympic Gold Medalists

There appears to be conflict between the entries for Philip Neame and Albert Hill. The Neame entry states that he is the only VC recipient to win an Olympic Gold Medal. The Hill entry shows him as winning 2 Olympic Gold Medals (four years earlier than Neame).

My understanding is that Albert George Hill the Olympian is not the same person as Albert Hill the VC winner though they both served during WWI. See Talk:Albert Hill. Geoff/Gsl 23:23, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Using the GIMP or another such tool for a crazy idea...

Hey guys,
I recently discovered a fantastic origami model. It is a modular origami work made of simple line units which connect together to form 60 degree angles. The units are used to create five interlocking tetrahedra (triangular pyramids) which together form a dodecahedron.
Here [18] is a picture because the shape is hard to imagine.
Now what I want to do (because I'm crazy ;-) is to make a picture on each face (A pentagonalisation of the Wikipedia logo, most probably). As the faces are not formed from a 2d surface, you cannot just print the picture onto the dodecahedron. Instead, you would have to take the picture and break it up into the different sections and print each onto the parts of the units which constitute the face. However, as the units are at angles and as such parts of the unit which form the face are further than others, you need to distort the sections of the picture so that when viewed from the correct angle and distance the composite image is formed.
Mathematically/Logically, I can see that there is no reason this isn't possible, all it would take is some mathematical transformation of the sections based upon the geometry of the model. However, I can't think how to begin solving the problem. Do me proud, Wikipedians!
nsh 23:58, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

I did some stuff about a year ago on how the geometry of shapes changes when viewed from different angles. Basically you need to draw up some diagrams of whatever is being rotated or transformed, looking along the axis of rotation, and then (insert trig here). User:Alphax/sig 05:26, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Citation

I found an excellent definition and I want to cite the website. Where can I find this information? -Cortney

Assuming you mean you want to cite Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. If you mean to say that you are writing a Wikipedia article and want to make a citation in it, see Wikipedia:Cite sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:24, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Cleopatra: great beauty or seductress?

I read up on Cleopatra on Wikipedia and did not find anything about her legacy as a great beauty/seductress - maybe something about that should be added by someone who is knowledgable about Egyptian history etc. BUT my question is was she a great beauty? I have heard that she was quite plain and not very attractive but that she was seductive and confident and therefore exerted sex appeal and THAT alone is what has made her so famous for her looks. Does anybody know which is true was she beautiful or did she just have sex appeal?

Yes. User:Alphax/sig 23:48, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

I can't find a good source, but I believe that archaeologists have found out (though how I don't know) that she was pretty short and overweight. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To give a classic example, Rubens nude models are, by contemporary standards, pretty chubby. At one time Chinese men thought that women with feet bound so tightly that they became deformed were incredibly attractive. To take a contemporary example, to some "Supermodels" are supposed to be the epitome of beauty and/or sexual attractiveness, but generally they have very small breasts for the size of their bodies - and to other women larger breasts are so important that they'll have surgery to create them! And then there are innumerable factors other than that make women (or men) attractive to some, in completely different ways. Compare the appeal of, say Marilyn Monroe with Mae West. Heck, some men fantasize over Condoleeza Rice in boots [19] (Washington Post article, safe for work), or Margaret Thatcher back when she was Prime Minister. Beauty, sex appeal - who can say? --Robert Merkel 06:48, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If memory serves, Cleopatra was famed for her nose as much as anything else... however, accurate portraiture wasn't common in those days, so all we have to go on for her beauty are contemporary descriptions (by people who arguably had a vested interest in making her look good) and a couple of busts (no, not like that...). [20] mentions a couple of descriptions and has photographs of two of the carvings accepted to be of her. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions... Shimgray 12:07, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Green skinned oriental woman painting

What's the name of , and/or who is the artist who painted, that picture of an oriential woman with green skin that was very popular in the 1970s? Jooler 22:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think that you are thinking of The Chinese Girl, by Vladimir Tretchikoff. See http://www.tretchikoff.co.uk/, and fix that red link! —AlanBarrett 18:49, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's the one, link to picure - it was either that or Constable's Hay Wain on everybody's wall in the 70s. Jooler 22:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That picture... on everybody's... wall... huh. The reference desk tells me everything. This morning, for example, it tells me why not having lived through the 1970s is probably a net positive. :-) Shimgray

It sure wasn't on my wall. AFAICR, that's the first time I've even ever seen that picture before! RickK 23:02, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

I remember seeing it many times. After a little research I've discovered that the Chinese Girl print used to be sold in Boots during the 1960s and 70s. This painting was apparently the biggest selling print in the world, but maybe this phenomenon was greatest in the UK. Jooler 23:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

French empire

How big was the French colonial empire at its peak, like in terms of square km and population? Not as big as the British one, thats for sure--Wonderfool (talk) (contribs) (email) 11:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• By 1914, France had amassed an empire incorporating over 10,000,000 km2 (4,000,000 mi2) and 60 million people from [21] --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 18:58, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

European Script : Torma Zsofia

To Whom It May Concern, Recently I edited "European Script" changing "Romanian archaeologist Torma Zsófia" to "Hungarian archaeologist Torma Zsófia" without naming my sources.

Her they are: Uj Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon (Neues ungarisches biographisches Lexikon in 6 Bd. Bd.4; ISBN 9635478917); also please see Hungarian Science and Technical workshop: Torma Zsófia (Magyar Tudomány és Tecnikatörténeti Mühely: Torma Zsófia)

The confusion is probably due to the fact that Transylvania today belongs to Romania and the time of her working was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Her last name actually has a meaning in Hungarian (horseradish), and still a pretty common name in Hungary. More data about Torma Zsófia: Born in Csicsókeresztúr in 1840. She started excavating the area of the Maros (Mures) flood zone in 1875, extended her work later to the caves of Nándor. In 1876 she was asked to organize and supervise the "Archeological Artifacts found in Hunyad County" for the International Conference of Archaeology and Anthropology held in Budapest, 1876. She found at Tordos the remains of a cca. 4500 years old prehistoric culture, with the well-known written tablets. See her article about this in the "Ethnographische Analogien, Jena 1894.” She had a role in founding the Kolozsvári (Cluj-Napoca) Muzeum, which inherited her archeological findings after her death. (called the Torma Zsófia Collection) She is considered the first Hungarian woman archaeologist, although a self-made. Her life is well documented by Márton Roska archaeologist and ethnographist in 1941. Her letters was collected and published by Pál Gyulai (1972).

My intention was (is) not to offend anybody, but make the article more precise.

Judith v. Hetenyi JVHxy@aol.com

Why don't you use that information to create an article on her: Torma Zsófia. Rmhermen 14:14, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

A for 'orses

I saw a spelling-alphabet (similar to the NATO phonetic alphabet) that had letters such as the one above. Can anyone explain?--212.100.250.208 17:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's an old joke. Each letter sounds like a line from a child's alphabet, but also has another meaning. So

• A for 'orses (Hay for horses)
• B for mutton (Beef or mutton?)
• L for leather (Hell-for-leather, probably the only one that actually works as an alphabet entry)

DJ Clayworth 18:12, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[22] has a version. "T for two" also works. Shimgray 19:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I reckon U for mism would've been lost on the kids.--Wonderfool (talk) (contribs) (email) 12:38, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't get all of them. Could someone please write an explanation of all of the letters from this website? Sorry to cause trouble.--anon

1. Hay for horses
2. Beef or mutton?
3. See for miles
4. Teeth or dentures
5. Evening Standard
6. Effervescence
7. G4 Police
8. Age for consent
9. Ivor Novello
10. Jaffa oranges
11. Cafeteria
12. Hell for leather
13. Emphasis
14. Antelope
15. Oh for the wings of a dove
16. Performing seals
17. Cue for snooker
18. "Half a mo" (moment)
19. Es formidable!
20. Tea for two
21. Euphemism
22. Vive la France!
23. Double you or quits -- I think that's "double or nothing" in American
24. Eggs for breakfast
25. Wife or mistress?
26. Zephyr breezes

--jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:17, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There's also <z> for the doctor, where the British name of the letter, zed, sounds like a nasalized pronunciation of send: "Send for the doctor." --Gelu Ignisque

I think that would be:

• Chief of Police (not G4 Police)
• Envelope (not Antelope - it works better with the British pronunciation)

(both of them stretching the pun N for lope a bit). DJ Clayworth 15:16, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

One-child law in China

Where will I find a WP article on the one-child law in China (modern day)?--anon

• Some searching in the China article led me to One-child policy. Mgm|^(talk) 18:24, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Warhol: Desacralizing The Scream and the Mona Lisa?

I was reading about The Scream and how Andy Warhol made a series of silk prints in the 80's of many of the works of Edvard Munch. The page stated that "The idea was to desacralize the painting by devaluating its originality and making it into a mass-reproducible object." Why would Warhol want to devalue or desacralize such a great work? I can understand wanting to mass-reproduce the painting so that the masses could enjoy it but why would Warhol want to desacralize and devalue such a great work?

Also, on the page about the Mona Lisa it said: "Warhol thus consecrated her as a modern icon, similar to Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley. At the same time, his use of a stencil process and crude colors implies a criticism of the debasement of aesthetic values in a society of mass production and mass consumption. Today the Mona Lisa is frequently reproduced, finding its way on to everything from carpets to mouse pads." So Warhol criticized degrading great works by mass production and mass consumption but then he directly contributed to the degradation of many great works of art? I don't understand. Since Wikipedians are smart people, could somebody clarify all the questions I brought up - I hope it wasn't too hard to follow. Thanks! --anon

Well, two things: for one thing, that's kind of the point of pop art - everyone's an artist, great art does not exist, a can of Campbell's soup can be a greater work of art than the Mona lisa depending how you look at it (which is of course debatable, but it was obviously Warhol's opinion). The other thing is that criticism, devaluation and irony of course go hand in hand in this process - saying that Warhol's use of stencils implies a criticism of mass reproduction assumes that this criticism is taking itself entirely seriously, and i doubt that thta is really the case -- Ferkelparade π 10:03, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not strictly relevant, but interesting none the less - at the National Gallery of Victoria there is currently an exhibition of what could best be described as random junk hoarded by Warhol [23], of which I attended the opening of last night. Amongst the news clippings, happy snaps, endless photos of the Beatles and Stones, ticket stubs to Bette Midler, weird fan mail, and other assorted guff, were some random jottings by Warhol. One of a list of dot points was "What is art?????" or something to that effect. Maybe in his private moments Warhol himself wasn't exactly sure what he was on about :) --Robert Merkel 23:46, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Warhol was often maddeningly ambiguous, much more a poser of questions (or a pointer to questions... or an outright poser, for that matter) than a giver of answers. His works repeatedly raise interesting questions about the philosophy of art. They do not tend to answer them. The same could be said of his words. Interviewers learned that they could always get a new answer for Warhol if they asked him "what is art?" They most famouse Warhol answer? "Art is anything you can get away with." My favorite? "'Art' is a man's name." -- Jmabel | Talk 01:22, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Small rolling printer

This is probably a long shot, but here goes: has anyone ever heard of a small handheld printer machine that you can roll over some text, and it will copy it and print it out right there? (From a small roll that is part of the machine). I swear I heard about something like this years ago and I'm wondering if the idea caught on or not.

Cheers me dears, Mjklin 21:42, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)

I've heard of scanners that work that way, but never one with an integrated printer. Doesn't mean they don't exist though. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:47, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First usages of the word "creationism"

(Originally mis-posted to the talk page.)

I'm curious to know when the word "creationism" was first used in its modern sense. Creation beliefs date to time immemorial, but it seems to me that the idea of creationism must be post-Darwin. --FOo 21:59, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it would be worth finding out if it was in common use at the time of the Scopes "Monkey Trial". -- Jmabel | Talk 06:56, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

The OED cites the following quotations:

1847 BUCH tr. Hagenbach's Hist. Doctr. II. 1 The theory designated Creationism..was now more precisely defined. 1872 LIDDON Elem. Relig. iii. 102 The other and more generally received doctrine is known as Creationism. Each soul is an immediate work of the Creator. 1880 GRAY Nat. Sc. & Relig. 89 The true issue as regards design is not between Darwinism and direct Creationism.

Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 13:01, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

See history of creationism. Advocacy of God the creator of souls as opposed to ... was used up til the 1920s, when the usage of the word was changed to god the creator of everything. I think it slightly post-dated the Scopes trial. Dunc|☺ 16:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Go and fractal

Do anyone ever done anything that mixed fractals and Go? I am wishing to do something like that someday (any year now, no rush). --Alexandre Van de Sande 22:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You could try turning a Koch snowflake into a Go board. User:Alphax/sig 08:48, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Since a traditional Go board is only 19 x 19, I'm not sure that it would be possible to represent a fractal in an interesting way. Of course, you could always remove that constraint. --DaveC 14:59, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Linux Partition sizes

I've recently installed Red Hat Linux (with many other GNU tools), and was told that "40GB is more than Linux needs". Mind you, this is spread over 4 partitions - root (/), /swap, /home and /usr - so how much do I need for each? What will each have in it? Does Linux need that much? For reference, the partition sizes are:

• /(root): 5GB
• /swap: 2GB (with 1GB of RAM)
• /usr: 12GB
• /home: 20GB

with 80GB left over for use by Windows (which is on a seperate HDD; the extra 80GB is for more programs). What should I do? User:Alphax/sig 05:18, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Mind you, "/root" is different from "/". "/swap" should be large and 2G should be sufficient. "/usr" should also be large, but probably should be larger than "/home", which will have your files and other stuff. Now, be mindful that directories such as "/etc" and "/bin" will go under "/" if they have no other partition - this should be fine. Since "/etc", "/bin", "/var", etc. will not be necessarily big (unless you want to do server-type stuff), you shouldn't need to make "/var" so large. So, you shouldn't need to dedicate a lot of stuff for "/". HTH Dysprosia 10:14, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Whoops. OK, so:

• 2GB for /swap
• x+y, y > 0 for /usr - packages go here, right?
• x for /home - where personal files go (1 GB be enough?)
• z for / (5GB or so?)

Next question: How do I resize the partitions? User:Alphax/sig 10:41, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

What, have you created them already? I don't actually use Linux (BSD), so I wouldn't know if it's possible under Linux. But the way BSD-based systems work is that you have a general partition for the whole of your BSD install, which you divide up into "slices", also called "partitions" (confusing, huh ;). Once you've created your slices, I think it is nontrivial for you to resize them, afaik. :(

But if you haven't, you can use a partition resizer (backup first!), then the install program should step you through it. Dysprosia 22:05, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I installed it on Saturday. If I do re-install, I won't lose anything. The next problem is to get a dual boot working. User:Alphax/sig 05:34, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Usually the installer will step you through installing a bootloader. You can also do this manually, but it is more fiddly. Have a look at GRUB, but if your distribution installs lilo, it will be possible to dual boot with this also, but I believe GRUB is more flexible. Dysprosia 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

something to do with sound

With all these recent developments towards hypersonic speeds many articles were printed in news papers. not one of them explained SONIC BOOM.can anybody tell me what it is?

---

Rohan

See sonic boom. Frencheigh 07:02, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Don't you love the easy ones? -- Cyrius|✎ 07:45, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

History Project-1985-HELP!

Hallo

I'm in Grade 10 and I'm currently doing a history project where I have to make a Canadian and world timeline of the year 1985. I've found Wikipedia very useful in doing this but I need more specific dates. For example, Wiipedia gives the grammy winners for this yead but doesn't give the exact date on which the grammy's were actually held. Here's an example of what I need:

-The exact date of sports events such as the day when the Stanley Cup Final (Hockey) took place -The release date of music albums by artists -The day of the Grammy's and Oscars

Thanks for your time-Uzair

Does 1985 help? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:16, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• The 57th Academy Awards were held at 6 PM on Monday, March 25, 1985, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles, California. The host was Jack Lemmon. Remember that the awards for 1984 were presented that night, so the best picture was Amadeus. PedanticallySpeaking 16:39, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Moderation

I have just been to a presentation on "Change Management". In one part of the session the presenter mentioned a technique called "Moderation" which seemed to be a form of leadership training designed to help elicit better information either from meetings or the workforce in general. Unfortunately I did not have an opportunity to ask the presenter for more information and I have not had any luck with search engines etc. Can anyone out there help point me in the right direction??? question asked by Philipn

List of Jewish American business figures

I do not think Larry Ellison should be listed as a Jew...

Why not? He's Jewish by adoption. Does he practice his religion? RickK 22:55, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

"Jewish American" is an ethnic designation, not a religious one. Jewish law and tradition considers someone adopted by Jewish parents (more precisely, by a Jewish mother) to be fully a Jew, and whether they practice the religion is actually irrelevant to the ethnic inclusion. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:12, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

well...

$B4_{i}{\sqrt {u}}{RU \over 16?}$

• And what exactly is the question? Mgm|^(talk) 13:15, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • "Are you over 16?", obviously. Kiddie stuff, with a Wiki twist. --John Owens (talk) 13:23, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)
    • Er, John, getting to the root of the matter, somehow I don't think that's the "root" that was intended there... and somehow I don't think this question is really suited to the resources of the Reference Desk... Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:46, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Ummm...if he's asking the whole of Wikipedia, I'm afraid we're not old enough to be consentually rooted :P -- Ferkelparade π 09:23, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Are you suggesting he might think 4 is old enough? I dunno, a four-year-old might be kinda too mature for his/her tastes. --John Owens (talk) 10:19, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)
        • Well, he either read meta:Help:Formula, or The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e. User:Alphax/sig 15:08, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
          • Let us hope that is not the only latex with which he is familiar. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:16, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ham County, Germany reference/genealogy

Moved from village pump by Trilobite 16:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC).

Where to I find any reference to "Ham County, Germany?"

Whereabouts is this place supposed to be? Where have you heard the name? I can find no evidence that such a place exists, and in any case, Germany doesn't really have an equivalent to the concept of a county as used in either the UK or USA. Is it a Kreis or Gemeinde that you are looking for perhaps? If so there doesn't appear to be one by the name Ham. Could you make your question a little more specific maybe? — Trilobite (Talk) 16:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There's a landkreis called Hamm in Northrine-Westphalia, maybe that's what you're looking for? -- Ferkelparade π 12:09, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ah, that's probably the mystery solved then. — Trilobite (Talk) 13:00, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Might also be a mangled reference to Hamburg which is similar to a county and a major emigration port for Europe. Rmhermen 13:11, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

TV star, who is this

File:Tv guide 50 greatest.jpg

TV Guide cover of the 50 Greatest TV Characters Ever, which includes a photo of Spock

This TV Guide cover has a lady in it, as you can plainly see. What is her name? I know that I know her, but I'm too young to remember the show. She isn't Mary Tyler Moore, but that's the only name that comes to mind. -- user:zanimum

What makes you think she isn't Mary Tyler Moore? I may be wrong, but she looks a lot like Mary Tyler Moore to me. She starred in the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" from 1970-1977. --Nadsat 16:04, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I believe it is MTM too. Here's the list of those 50 characters from TV Guide and Mary Richards is listed at #21. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 16:12, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock from Star Trek, Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing from Dallas. PedanticallySpeaking 16:35, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, that all! I always get her and some other 1970s American female comedian with her own show mixed up, but I guess I didn't this time. -- user:zanimum

Wine Maturation

Although I don't really have the palate for such things, it seems like common knowledge that wine, particularly red, continues to mature after it's been bottled. What process is at work here, and does it work for other alcoholic beverages? It doesn't seem like I should be able to turn my 12 year old Scotch into 18 year old Scotch with nothing but patience, and many beers are not worth drinking a couple of months after purchase. --DaveC 20:28, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The analogy to scotch is misleading, as it matures only in the cask (indeed, maturation of whisky really means interaction with the cask and little else). Consequently whisky remains at the "age" it was when it was bottled - so you'll see "18 year old" on the bottle, whereas you'll see a calendar date on wine. In contrast, wine is bottled immediately after production and "maturation" is a self-contained reaction. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 21:02, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not true. Much wine is initially aged in wooden barrels -some specifically in used whiskey barrels. Wine also ages after it is bottled. This includes interaction with and through the cork but is mainly chemical redox reactions among the various organic compounds present. Distilled beverages contain far less of these coumpounds and so are less subject but not immune to bottle ageing. Rmhermen 16:04, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

NCAA b-ball tournament

Which conference has the most teams participating in the NCAA men's tournament? The only one I know for sure is the PAC-10 with 4 out of 10 teams in the tournament (Arizona, Stanford, Washington, and UCLA).

You can find a list here and count them yourself. I haven't done a complete tabulation but the Big East, with six teams, is probably the highest. JamesMLane 08:46, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

new owner

i have gotten a new dog from a friend I want to know is there any way to change his name. If so how do I go about doing this.

Well, assuming your dog is already licensed where you live, you could re-license him with a new name. If this dog is purebred, I you could probably contact whatever organization he was registered with (most likely the American Kennel Club if you live in the US) and re-register him there too. (Note that both these measures would probably be wastes of money as licensing and purebred registries usually rely on some sort of serial number to track the dog rather than the name). On the other hand, if you just want to call your dog something else, there's nothing to stop you from doing that without filling out any documentation whatsoever. If your dog isn't a puppy, though, be prepared for at least a little bit of confusion. Most full grown dogs recognize their own names and will not understand when you start calling them by some other name. --DaveC 00:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[24] -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 00:42, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If the new name is similar to the old one it helps. A friend got a dog who'd been given the name Rex which they didn't like. It didn't take the dog too long to get used to being called Reg and then Reggie. Jooler 12:22, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Math questions

A few math questions I'm having trouble with. Can you explain how do them, and explain their answers? Thanks. --Anon

---

Simplify.

1. ${\sqrt {1}}8-3{\sqrt {5}}0+5{\sqrt {8}}$
2. $2{\sqrt[{3}]{x}}=16$
3. $3x^{2/3}+1=10$
4. $8^{2x}={1 \over 16}$
5. ${\sqrt {2}}7-27^{x}$

---

Expand

1. $log{x \over y^{2}}$

---

Solve for x

1. ${\log _{5}7}+0.5{\log _{5}4}={\log _{5}x}$

Remember, root(a x b) = (root a) x (root b)

So... ${\sqrt {1}}8-3{\sqrt {5}}0+5{\sqrt {8}}$ can be rendered as ${\sqrt {9}}{\sqrt {2}}-3{\sqrt {2}}{\sqrt {2}}5+5{\sqrt {2}}{\sqrt {4}}$

then ${\sqrt {2}}({\sqrt {9}}-3{\sqrt {2}}5+5{\sqrt {4}})={\sqrt {2}}(3-(3*5)+(5*2))={\sqrt {2}}(3-15+10)=-2{\sqrt {2}}$

For two, three and four, you should be able to reduce it to x = something (or x^2 = something) by simple algebraic manipulation, and then solve for x. Five, I may be missing something, but I don't see how to solve it - if it's "that equation = zero", then it's simple - remember that the square root of [number] means the same as [number]^(1/2), and an answer should be immediately apparent.

It's 5.30am and I don't feel up to logarithms, so that's all you get for now :-) Shimgray 05:30, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Simplification #2:

$2{\sqrt[{3}]{x}}=16\,\!$	$\Rightarrow \;\,\!$	${\sqrt[{3}]{x}}\,\!$	$=8\,\!$
	$\Rightarrow \;\,\!$	$x\,\!$	$=8^{3}\,\!$
			$=512\,\!$

I am right in correcting #3? Is it 3 times x to the 2/3, or 3 times x squared, on three? User:Alphax/sig 14:46, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

$x^{1 \over n}={\sqrt[{n}]{x}}$, so that; $x^{m \over n}=x^{m}\times {\sqrt[{n}]{x}}$ Dunc|☺ 16:08, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'll do it for you;

$3x^{2/3}+1=10$

$3x^{2/3}=9$

$x^{2/3}=3$

now cube both sides:

$x^{2}=3^{3}=27$

$x={\sqrt {3^{3}}}$

Did you also want #4 to be $8^{2x}={1 \over 16}\,\!$?

If so, take the log of both sides, which by $\ln {a^{b}}=b\ln {a}\,\!$ gives:

$2x\ln {8}=ln{1 \over 16}=-\ln {16}$

$x=-{1 \over 2}{ln{16} \over \ln {8}}$

User:Alphax/sig 07:03, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Questions about SPAM and forwarding in Gmail

1. If I have message forwarding enabled, does SPAM still get forwarded?
2. Is there a way to disable the SPAM filter?
3. Is there a way to forward an entire thread in Gmail?

Thanks, User:Alphax/sig 05:16, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

• You can make personal filters and decide what to do with a message on a case by case basis (which I believe includes forwarding). Also, if you forward all the messages in a thread, you are effectively forwarding the entire thread. Why would you want to disable the spam filter? Mgm|^(talk) 09:51, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

1. No. Messages matched as spam are not forwarded, or downloaded over POP3.
2. No. Why would you want to?
3. As per Mgm. User:Anárion/sig 10:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

One might want to disable the spam filter if there were too many false positives. I've personally found many instances where Gmail put valid messages of mine (even after they were labelled by my filter!) into the spam folder. Of course, false positives do occur in most anti-spam systems. -- Sundar 10:31, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Good point. I had one mailing list which Gmail labelled as spam, after clicking 'not spam' once however it never marked it as such again. Likewise I've so far had one false negative. All spam filters must be trained. User:Anárion/sig 10:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1. Just checking through my mailing lists... I think that everything gets forwarded.
2. If it was having lots of false positives, and this was preventing forwarding, it would be very annoying, as there is no "forward to address" option in the Inbox view.
3. Again, it's quite difficult and annoying to forward 20+ messages one at a time.

User:Alphax/sig 13:58, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Download problems

This week I've been trying to download the video from the video section of Sclubbers.com (the current file is for the song "Back off" by Jay Asforis from S Club 8 in the television program "I dream"). Somehow downloading isn't working. While I have a cable connection, it takes ages to download ca. 30% when the download times out. Is it a connection or site problem?

If it's a site problem, could someone provide me with a video of the song, I have it on video already, and it's not otherwise available here in the Netherlands.

It's the site that's having problems; and major ones at that. Look at these wget outputs to see that they're performing really poorly:

$ wget sclubbers.com
--20:15:41--  http://sclubbers.com/
           => `index.html'
Resolving sclubbers.com... 12.168.33.202
Connecting to sclubbers.com[12.168.33.202]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]

    [      <=>                            ] 12,740       647.36B/s

20:16:17 (647.36 B/s) - `index.html' saved [12740]

$ wget sclubbers.com/videos/idream012.zip
--20:20:32--  http://sclubbers.com/videos/idream012.zip
           => `idream012.zip'
Resolving sclubbers.com... 12.168.33.202
Connecting to sclubbers.com[12.168.33.202]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 18,850,710 [application/x-zip-compressed]

 1% [                                     ] 225,267        1.24K/s  ETA 3:25:10

The speed DOES seem to be increasing slowly, so I'll leave this download running for a while to see how much of it I'm able to get. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 19:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Update: So far, it's been about 10 minutes since I posted that above. My speed is pretty much unchanged, and I'm up to 1.2MB. I suggest trying the site tomorrow, or maybe Monday, if they still have what you want at that time. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 19:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That breed of cat that likes the water

I seem to remember that there's a particular breed of domestic cat that actually enjoys swimming and water in general. If this is true, could you tell me what breed(s) that is? Thanks much. -- — I. Neschek | talk 21:29, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Bengal cats and Turkish Vans are both known for swimming. -- Cyrius|✎ 21:42, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hot dog! It was the Turkish Van I was thinking of, but good to know there's more than one. Thanks a whole bunch. -- — I. Neschek | talk 22:20, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Free "Take A Rest Break" Software?

Can someone recommend some free software that will remind me to take periodic breaks from my screen and keyboard etc? --bodnotbod 23:39, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

OK, you need a wife, a kid or a dog. You may also move to a country where there are plenty secret cops who are willing to knock your door any time of the day.

One way to build a software that does it without the re-re-re-re-election of GWB is to write a HTML page that contains a REFRESH command and a noisy multimedia file (QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, ...; have to use a plug-in). You load that local web page in a browser window. The file is loaded and played for the first time. You go on with your work. Then in 10 minutes (you can set the time), the page is reloaded and the noise file is played again. You know what to do. You smash your computer and live a happy and meaningful life ever after. -- Toytoy 01:38, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's a solution. But I'd like to hear other ideas. It's just that I appear to be getting early signs of Repetitive Strain Injury. I've moved some of my equipment and my chair to "safer" positions, but I need to get a new chair and things it seems. Thanks. --bodnotbod 03:27, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Isn't WorkPace a free program? It should help in all regards. Mgm|^(talk) 08:20, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Shame on me: I appear to have found some options through our very own article on RSI. I'll come back if I don't like them. --bodnotbod 11:57, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

If you're using a Unix or Unix-like operating system, GNOME provides some periodic-break software built in. Dysprosia 12:22, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Birthday cake picture patent

The U.S. patent no. 6,319,530 teaches a "Method of photocopying an image onto an edible web for decorating iced baked goods". In plain English, this invention enables one to inkjet print a food-grade color photograph on a birthday cake's surface.

I think we can write an article for this interesting technology. -- Toytoy 01:41, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Armed forces

An anon left this question on Jimbo's talk page, but I said I'd copy it to here: Do you know where I can find a List of countries by size of military? JamesMLane 05:12, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You can get the top 5 or so from this search. --bodnotbod 12:03, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Longest word in English language

What, please is longest word in english language?--anon

There really is no "longest word". Several disciplines have well-defined ways to form words to describe certain things, such as the rules in chemistry for the canonical names of molecules. These can generate almost arbitrarily long words.

Aside from technical scientific terms, a classic example of very long English word is the 28-letter word "antidisestablishmentarianism" (opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England). I'd be interested in seeing something longer that was neither a technical scientific term nor made up for the purpose of deliberately creating a long word. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:14, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Try Longest word in English.-gadfium 08:19, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Civil War Navy Jacks

(Moved here from Wikipedia:Village pump.)

I need some info on the Union navy Jacks from the civil war. The ones i need are the 34 star navy jack, the 35 star navy jack, and the 36 star navy jack. Can you give me info or point me towards a goood site to find info. Thanks

Flags of the World is a good web site to look for information about flags. It has pages on the 34-star, 35-star and 36-star flags. According to the U.S. Naval Historical Center the U.S. naval jack (with the exception of the First Navy Jack) is identical to the canton of the U.S. flag. Gdr 12:01, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)