Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

Family Military History

My name is Chebahtah. It is a family of Native American Indian origin from Oklahoma. I am trying to find out how many members of my family have served in the United States military. What is the best way to find this information. I do not want any info except names and dates of service. This woujld include all branches of service. I have tried google and seeveral other engines.

That's not the kind of data you are likely to find online. The center for military history might be more helpful place to ask your question- http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/ . →Raul654 04:31, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Camille Pissarro's death

A newcomer to Wikipedia asked on Wikipedia:Help desk about how to get Wikipedians to check out contradictions in articles and I'm putting the queries here: When did artist Camille Pissarro die? The article gives two different dates. PedanticallySpeaking 15:14, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Funny, the death date seems indeed to be controversial...I'm not able to do any serious library research right now, but I noticed that Encyclopedia Britannica says he died November 13, 1903, while the German Brockhaus encyclopedia has him listed as having died on November 12. If two such renowned encyclopedias differ, there's probably some real difficulty in pinpointing the date. I'm intrigued to dig up some biographies and have a look, but that will take some time... -- Ferkelparade π 23:01, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your research, Ferkelparade. In that case, I suppose the article should state that the date is in doubt, unless and until we can resolve it definitively. Stephen Turner 10:06, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ellis Island

A newcomer to Wikipedia asked on Wikipedia:Help desk about how to get Wikipedians to check out contradictions in articles and I'm putting the queries here: When did Ellis Island close? The article used to say that it closed on 12th November but now says that it closed on 29th November. Stephen Turner, who posted this on the Help Desk, says he checked the web and found both dates were equally common. PedanticallySpeaking 15:16, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Both the NPS and Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Foundation use the vague "November, 1954". Rmhermen 23:25, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

I am extremely confused. I've found the 12th, the 19th, and the 29th all listed in about equal occurances. If I were to make a stab in the dark guess, one might speculate that the last detainee may have finished processing on the early date, but with the employees of the emigration service not offically moving off the island until the later date, or something like that. Just thinking out loud. func(talk) 06:55, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your research. Yes, I wondered about something like func is suggesting. Or maybe the arrival of the last immigrant on the island and his dispatch. Maybe I should change the article to say merely "November 1954" for the moment? Unless someone actually wants to call, or write to, the museum's curators? Stephen Turner 10:01, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

World Series Trophy

Is a new trophy created for each year's winning team or is it like the Stanley Cup and passed forward to each new winner? PedanticallySpeaking 15:38, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

After reading the article, I'd be inclined to say that a new trophy is created each year. It talks about recent designs, which implies more than one or two versions. Also, considering that the current design has 30 flags each representing a team in the MLB, that would mean the trophy could at most be 6 years old since the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were added in 1998. Finally, it references the 2003 and 2004 trophy as separate entities. --Cvaneg 16:38, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I had this question a few days ago before I read the article, which also gave me the impression of a series of trophies, I just was hoping someone could confirm that. PedanticallySpeaking 16:45, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Who lied to his diary?

Who was the Clinton administration official who testified to Congress, when hearings were held on how bank regulators treated the failure of the savings and loan owned by the Clintons' friend Jim McDougal, that he had lied to his own diary? PedanticallySpeaking 15:40, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

According to CNN Josh Steiner (towards the bottom of the page) --Cvaneg 16:08, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mental age

What help is available for individuals who have a high IQ but low mental age, distinct from autism; for example, a person who considers themselves to be mentally a teenager, but possessing a body ten years older and believed by society to be adult?

You may be interested in emotional intelligence, though that doesn't seem to have any practical suggestions. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 22:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You mention autism for some reason. Hmm in that case, might be a long shot, but are you looking for Asperger syndrome? Kim Bruning 22:10, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If this person actually has some sort of mental disorder, then I would recommend seeing a specialist (i.e. a psychiatrist), as Wikipedia is not the best place to look for medical advice. Otherwise, I think you'll need to expand on what you mean when you say this person considers themself to be a teenager. After all, there are plenty of teenagers who are forced into the adult world due to circumstances. What specifically, is this person having a problem with? --Cvaneg 22:46, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is difficult to answer this question, perhaps owning to the uncertainty of what you mean by considering "themselves to be mentally a teenager". Since you mention a high IQ, then it can be assumed we are talking about social or emotional skills, and since the presumed "age" of equivalence is the teenage years, then we can rule out mental handicap. Here's the thing: I am 32 years of age, but I don't "feel" like an adult. I "feel" very much like I did when I was a teenager. Now, this is all very subjective: in truth, I know that I am more mature, better read, and far more responsible than I was at that age... but it doesn't change that underlying feeling I have that I am still pretty much the same dude I was in highschool. In some people, a certain sense that they are not yet ready for the "adult world" is probably more acute than in others, but everyone has this feeling to some degree. If this person has some access to a professional guidance counselor of some kind, perhaps via a community center or even a church, they should avail themselves of it. func(talk) 02:40, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's the most helpful answer I've been able to find — thank you! Hopefully you're right and that's all it is. Autism and AS have never seemed to fit at all. There doesn't seem to be much study of conditions less severe than AS, though — I'm concerned that something severe in its own way might be overlooked.

To illustrate, the individual in question feels like she cannot progress beyond about 13 mentally, which frustrates her greatly. She has often expressed difficulty in grasping the rules of society, feeling like the world became too complex and left her behind. Otherwise she seems normal. She has gone through many therapists, who dismiss her complaint without consideration — to them, she seems like a normal, but depressed young adult. Yet she thinks this is very serious, without being able to place exactly what is wrong, and she feels like nobody understands her. There must be a way to help her function at an adult level, but there doesn't seem to be much that anyone can do.

It is interesting that you mention the age of 13, because this is around the age at which boys and girls begin to think differently about one another, (or boys and boys, or girls and girls, depending on orientation). I'd like to repeat and stress Cvaneg's concern that Wikipedia is not the best place to seek medical or physiological advice, but a few things occur to me. I remember a story told on Dateline, (or another of those t.v. magazine shows), about a guy in his 30s who had never been able to develop a close relationship with a woman. Numerous psychologists had told him all sorts of things about what was "mentally" wrong with him, but their advice never seemed to help. Finally, a doctor discovered that his body was deficient in one of the sex steroids, that is, he was hormonally unbalanced. After being given certain steroid supplements, he subsequently became, er... a bit randy, apparently. In any case, he eventually settled down and is now living a much more normal life. It has been commented upon by numerous academics that if you seek advice from a psychologist, you get a psychological answer, where as if you seek advice on the same matter from a medical doctor, you get a medical answer. Dr. Oliver Sacks has said words to the effect that there needs to be more done to bridge the gap between psychology and medicine. Hope this helps, (but remember, an open-source encyclopedia reference desk is not a substitute for professional advice). :) func(talk) 20:04, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

SPACE STATION - APPENDECTOMY?

What happens if someone on the space station requires an emergency appendetomy or other life-saving operation?

I imagine it's very much the same as people stationed in Antarctica. Which is to say that they try and get them out as soon as possible, and in the intervening time they will have to figure out a way to make do. Jerri Nielsen, for example, contracted breast cancer while at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and had to self-administer chemotherapy until she could be airlifted out. --Cvaneg 21:14, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Immediate transport to earth, unless an experienced surgeon is member of the team and he/she has the right (sterile) material. Until then normal non-surgical management applies (fluids through drip, no oral intake, broad-spectrum antibiotics, medication to maintain blood pressure eg adrenalin). In theory, appendicitis could be lethal in space. JFW | T@lk 22:14, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The ISS has a Soyuz escape module which can return the station occupants to Earth at any time, in a matter of hours. NASA are also developing a new escape capsule to be available by 2006. (As a side note, "fluids through drip" could be difficult, given that most drips rely at least partially on gravity feed. I'm sure someone at NASA has considered this, perhaps they have some sort of pressure-driven system.) -- FirstPrinciples 00:41, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

IVs run on pumps even in hospitals on earth, and antibiotics could be given to buy time. Alteripse 01:06, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe that all astronauts have one before they go, just in case. I'm not sure about this though. Alphax (talk) 08:51, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Have an appendectomy? Even the South Pole winter-overs don't have to have a healthy appendix or wisdom tooth removed. Pakaran (ark a pan) 22:18, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I had heard this too - it could be an urban myth though. Intrigue 19:15, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New York tax code change

What changes in the tax code spurred a speculative building boom in New York, which led to a great supply of apartments on the market prior to 1987? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 02:33, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

There was some legislation about real estate partnerships that created an interesting loophole in the federal tax code for much of the '80s that was closed around '86-'87. I don't remember the details, but it should be possible to find; same thing happened here in Seattle. As I remember it, the loophole had been there for a while, but hadn't been much exploited until the '80s, so it would be easier to start any research from the closing of the loophole. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:51, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

• I'd have to check, but I think its the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the big tax reform bill, you're talking about, the struggle for which was detailed in the book Showdown at Gucci Gulch by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Alan S. Murray (New York: Random, 1987). As I recall, it had to do with banning certain tax shelters, including changing the passive loss rules, changes that helped cause all those Texas S&L's that had gambled on the real estate market to collapse. You might also try the superb Skyscraper Dreams: The Great Real Estate Dynasties of New York by Tom Schactman (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991). That book also says that buildings whose foundations were poured by May 13, 1988, got to be 20 percent larger than the zoning would ordinarily allow, some sort of waiver Ed Koch and the City Council approved to spur development in Midtown Manhattan. PedanticallySpeaking 15:29, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
  • Yes it was a change in the treatment of passive losses by the IRS. Thus it was not just a New York change, but it may have affected New York specifically in the way you refer to, DropDeadGorgias. Basically, for a while passive losses could offset taxable ordinary income. So limited partnerships were set up to invest in real estate and throw off tremendous tax losses. The investments themselves either lost a lot of money or made very little, but the tax savings could be so substantial that they were advantageous for investors to put their money into anyway. Money was solicited from individual and institutional investors for these limited partnerships. The law was then changed, causing many who had put their money in these tax shelters to lose a lot of money, since the investments themselves were typically poor. Limited partnerships live on in the form of successful real estate investments nowadays, but that term can still be used to find more information about the issue. - Taxman 20:40, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
    • I corrected the name of the act you referred to, PedanticallySpeaking, and linked to it. TEFRA, the name you had before was actually the name of the 82 act. The article currently mentions nothing about closing the passive loss loophole, but it should. I found a reference that does mention the tax reform act of 86 was the one to close the passive loss loophole. All of the above could be used to improve that article by the way. I will see what I can do. - Taxman 16:43, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Douglas MacArthur's middle name

Moved to Talk:Douglas MacArthur

Music markup language

Is there such a thing as a unified markup language for music? Or is this covered by LaTeX? -- Alphax (talk) 09:12, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

GNU LilyPond may be what you have in mind. You can find examples and documentation on Wikisophia. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 21:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Excellent! Thankyou. Now all I need to to is actually learn LaTeX. Alphax (talk) 03:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

evolution

Is evolution taught at Catholic universities in the US? --Tothebarricades.tk 22:01, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's taught at catholic universities in the Netherlands, Is there any reason why universities wouldn't have a course on Evolution as part of their Biology curriculum? Kim Bruning 22:31, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's taught. The church has officially decided it is compatible with belief that God created the universe. (Read this fast, before Eequor censors it). Alteripse 23:13, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand the joke about Eequor :-[ ... please explain? --Gelu Ignisque

Eequor has taken it upon herself to censor and remove two of my answers to the reference desk over the last couple of months. I'm not sure whether she has appointed herself political correctness police or whether she has decided she gets to say who is privileged to answer these questions. Anyway, my note is the verbal equivalent of a vertical digital signal to her offensive behavior. Most people on wikipedia can disagree without feeling that they have to remove someone else's remarks. alteripse 00:46, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Journal articles on impact of information technology

Unfortunately, Wikipedia isn't a "reputable source". Anyone know of any scientific journal articles on the impact of information technology on human behaviour, work and biology? Alphax (talk) 03:41, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Broad subject - I'm not sure exactly what kinds of examples you had in mind, but Scirus is the best place I know to go to to search for academic papers. Salasks 06:25, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

I need articles on the impact of IT or other communications technology on:

• work
• social life
• biology

Can anyone think of specific articles? Alphax (talk) 22:26, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

for Biology journals, try [PubMed]. Searching for "Information Systems"[MeSH] AND impact gives:

The impact of communications and information technology on organisations.

Stud Health Technol Inform. 2002;65:407-21. Review. No abstract available.

PMID: 15460239 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

- Key45 23:28, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zirconiumnitrite

Is there anyone swedishspeaking who knows if the swedish "Zirconiumnitrid" would be "Zirconiumnitrite" in english?

--Bong 12:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't speak Swedish, but Google tells me that Zirconiumnitrid = ZrN, and that ZrN = "zirconium nitride" in English. --Heron 13:43, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! I found that through another source as well. --Bong 13:59, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Middle East

  Is Mideast another name for the Middle East?

Yes, but both terms assume a certain vantage point. The politically correct term for the region is Southwest Asia. --Gelu Ignisque

Which of course, almost no one in the US uses. I don't know about the rest of the English speaking world. Valid point, but another that has not gained popular usage. - Taxman 20:45, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

We of the United Kingdom use "Middle East" both in conversation and in the media. Never heard "Mideast" or "Southwest Asia" used. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:32, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

The term "Middle East" is used in Arabic and Persian as well, nowadays - Arabic "ash-Sharq al-Awsat", Persian "khavar-e-miane" (I think). It's not too Eurocentric, considering that the traditional Arabic term was "al-Mashriq" - the east (as opposed to al-Maghreb.) - Mustafaa 00:38, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Besides, how can "Southwest Asia" be correct? Has Egypt been excluded from the Middle East? --jpgordon{gab} 16:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Making sure you don't use 'Midwest' in any similar way. DJ Clayworth 04:35, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Obtaining copies of medical records from Cuba

I need to know what the status, procedure and/or legalities of getting copies of medical records are for individuals who had medical care in Cuba. Specifically in Matanzas, Cuba. Is there anyplace that I can go to research this subject?

Lisa K. Goodwin goodwinlk { at } bipc.com (813) 222-8188

Requested article

I had no clue where to categorize this at the appropriate page. Could someone please add the following request to where it belongs (List of Pokémon name etymologies) or create the article? Thanks a lot, --anon.

There is also a Pokemon project somewhere around here. The people who are working on that are bound to be interested. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 08:40, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Fake products on TV & blurring logos on TV

Sometimes on TV you will notice that the characters are using 'fake' consumer products. For example, it may look like a box of Wheaties, but if you look closely it has some generic name (Wheat flakes). Also sometimes on TV, logos on clothing will be blurred out.

So my question is... if you are making a TV, and you have a trademarked image in it, do you have to pay for permission to use that image? If so, isn't it difficult to film anything on a normal urban street, which has trademarked images all over? Or... is it just that the television stations don't want to give free advertising? ike9898 21:56, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Well, if you have a trademarked image in a TV program or film, it will most likely serve as advertising for the product. If you don't want to be providing this 'free' advertising (as opposed to product placement), you would change everything to invented brands or generics. Alphax (talk) 22:35, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Free advertising is definitely a part of it. Here's a syndicated article from the LA Times on the subject. Another factor to consider is that FCC rules regarding the promotion of alcohol or drug use can be a bit restrictive, so standards and practices may insist on blurring marijuana leaf logos and things of a similar nature. --Cvaneg 22:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Some other reasons:

• In some cases the filmmaker is making a point - i.e. it's a statement against product placement in movies. Alex Cox movies show products labeled with simple generic label (the Repo Men in Repo Man drink cans labelled "BEER") rather than even trying to fake a brand.

Actually, in the 70's in the US there was a trend of truely generic grocery store products. Often they had a plain white or yellow label with the name of the contents in plain black letters. And on top of my fridge at home I have an empty can of generic BEER. It may still be available some places, but if memory serves, it was terrible! ike9898 14:41, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I believe it was Ralph's Supermarkets that sold (still sell?) very generic products like "BEER" and "CHEESE". Repo Man took it to another level though, with cans of "FOOD" and bottles of "DRINK". -- DrBob 22:12, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Similarly, it can be a parody of said placement (more making fun that a political point). VIZ comic (particularly oddball soccer story Billy the Fish) shows advertising hoardings with the usual niceities removed ("DRINK BEER", "SMOKE TABS", etc.).
• some public-service broadcasters (I'm thinking of the BBC here) have policies against advertising so strong they try not to so it even incidentally (so the fairy-liquid bottles in the model castle that Lesley Judd's had prepared earlier were painted-over to hide their brand).
• And there's also legal issues. If you make a movie in which the villains drink Coors before they go out and shoot someone, you might get sued by Coors, their lawyers claiming you've unfairly painted their fine product as the chosen drink of murderous gangmembers.

This answer was brought to you by Corona Extra, the beer that murderous gangmembers definately don't drink. Honest.- John Fader

To expand on John's point, I don't even think you have to depict the logo in a bad light for a company to sue you. In the US, if a corporation feels that you unfairly capitalized on their logo or trademark without their permission, then they can sue you. Of course in these litigious times, you can get sued over pretty much anything. Sony was sued by various property owners in Times Square over Spider-man for digitally editing out billboards and other advertisements in their shots of Times Square. Admittedly the only reason Sony did it was so they could work in their own product placements, but the point is that they got sued for removing logos rather than leaving them in. --Cvaneg 23:57, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is the area explicitly referred to as Times Square in the movie? Sony could argue that the entire shot was CGI and wasn't actually Times Square at all. Or, it was set a few years into the future, an alternate future where different advertisers were renting billboard space :) -- Chuq 23:29, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've often wondered if there are actual regulations against brand-name promotion. In an episode of the Good Eats show on Food Network, Alton holds up a familiar round "Ritz cracker" as they're so widely known, but makes a point of not mentioning them by name. I'm sure I've seen similar instances of deliberate brand-name avoidance. -- Wapcaplet 23:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, you probably could go ahead and say that they were Ritz Crackers, as long as you added a long legalistic spiel explaining that your use of Ritz Crackers did not constitute and endorsement or any connection between you and RJR Nabisco. Otherwise, Nabisco might complain that you were boosting your own profile by riding on their coattails, or maybe that you were making their product look bad with whatever culinary atrocity you were committing on your show. --Cvaneg 00:07, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

An episode of Alan Partridge makes fun of the BBC's regulations about mentioning products. Partridge keeps naming a car manufacturer as a barely concealed attempt to try and get a freebie. One of the more blatant, genuine product placements I can recall is in Back To The Future where Marty McFly is "attacked" by a holographic advertising hoarding featuring a shark... I think it was an advert for Coke but I may be wrong. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:46, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

It was an advert for Jaws 19 :) -- Chuq 23:29, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The most blatant project placement is FedEx in Castaway. The whole movie was one long commercial. Salasks 00:55, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but wasn't Castaway based on a true story? Was the real castaway a FedEx employee? ike9898 14:24, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Wiccan Rede

I am trying to find out when the original version of the Rede was written.

• According to a quick google search back into the origins of this ancient religion, it dates back to about 1975, which probably puts it within a generation of its inventor. July '98 Note: Although the origin of the 'Rede and just who rewrote it has been up for debate for many a year, We just received this info via email... "The Rede of the Wiccae should be credited to Lady Gwen Thompson for originally publishing it back in 1975 edition Green Egg Magazine". - Arion Rhys http://www.starkindler.org/arion/
• Found at http://www.witchvox.com/basics/rede.html, an ye hav no idee how hard it is to present this with a strate phace... alteripse 02:15, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I have to say, the capitalization bothers me, as does the use of words like "thou", "ye", and "doth". You know, it should be perfectly possible to create a modern religious creed without copying the 17th century English of the King James Version of the Bible. func(talk) 04:33, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Shall we call it the "faux fey affectation"? alteripse 12:19, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • ;-) func(talk) 15:25, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maximum size of a fat32 hard disk in Win98?

I have a formatted 40gb usb external hard disk (fat 32), I have the right drivers, but win98 refuses to recognise it - win2k does though. Is it too big? If so, how small does it need to be to be recognized? Thanks, Mark Richards 14:16, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) The original win 98 doesn't do USB very well, does it? alteripse 14:19, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I did some hunting, to determine the maximum partition size under FAT32, and found this Microsoft page, which says that it's a lot bigger than 40GB, and certainly wasn't increased under Win2000 (the amount you can format was decreased). I'd tend to go with Alteripse's suggestion that the USB support in Win98 is to blame; or, you have some other problem with the drivers. - IMSoP 14:53, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks - I have a cd of win98 drivers that came with the drive, and the computer recognizes it, but says that it is unformatted. Any clues? Work-arounds? Thank you! Mark Richards 15:56, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Looking at the article you link to, I am wondering how it came to be a 40gb fat 32, since the article says that 32gb is the largest that can be formatted. Is this right though? You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 FastFAT driver can mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file system (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create one using the Format tool. This behavior is by design. If you need to create a volume larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system instead. Mark Richards 16:06, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You've been skim-reading haven't you? Let me emphasise the key part of that quotation: "You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000". Because Windows 2000 is based on Windows NT, Microsoft prefer you to use NTFS, especially for large partitions. Windows 98 didn't support anything better than FAT32, so won't have had that particular restriction. - IMSoP 21:03, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, no, but I was confused - I was confusing 'use NTFS' with 'format as NTFS'. That clears it up though, thank you. However, my drive still doesn't work... Any clues on how to fix the USB issues with win98? Thanks, Mark Richards 21:39, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Faces of criminals in crime reality shows (COPS)

Oftentimes in the American TV show COPS, the criminal is shown without their face blurred out. I am wondering if the (alleged) criminal must give his consent for this to be used on TV?? ike9898 14:46, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Is news public domain?

It seems from the public domain article that facts are in the public domain, but reporting of them may not be. A news agency might do a lot of work to collect some news and expect just compensation. So how is it that news stories can be "picked up" by competing agencies, e.g., the Associated Press picking up a story in a local newspaper? Isn't that local news story under copyright? Is there a fee involved or some sort of professional agreement? Thanks. Mjklin 15:10, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

As you can see from the article on the AP, it's owned by its contributing newspapers. A local newspaper allows its stories to be used by the AP because it has the opportunity to use AP wire stories itself. So, the answer is that the news story is certainly under copyright, and the only fees/professional arrangements involved are the money and agreements necessary to maintain the AP. :-) Jwrosenzweig 15:16, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, but the AP seems to be a special arrangement. Does "picking up" happen in any other situation, say, between Newsweek and Good Housekeeping? What about if Newsweek picked up a story from a British paper?

In cases other than AP - and in some cases involving AP - there is simply a price schedule for using articles established in advance. You can publish AP articles on your own personal website if you pay the fees. Or, a bunch of newspapers will be owned by the same company which will share articles among its different papers. American papers in particular are often part of large chains, where two newspapers in cities on the opposite sides of the country may have identical news stories on the same day for all or nearly all their non-local news.

In short, it all stays under copyright but the rights are presold or prelicensed because news breaks too quickly to ask for explicit permission. Selling news stories is a source of income for some newspapers.

There is no special reason why newsmagazines can't do this too, but magazines don't usually buy stories from wire services (sometimes, but not usually). The fees are proportionate to mean circulation, so Newsweek would have to pay a lot if it used wire articles, and people wouldn't read it much for last week's AP wire feeds. So this sort of thing doesn't much happen. Now, magazines do sometimes exchange stories, but then it's usually negociated specifically for that article and money changes hands. There are sometimes standard fee schedules for reprinting and translating stories, but that means publication in a different market or at a later date. Diderot 16:01, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Just yesterday, The Cincinnati Enquirer carried an AP story from Akron, Ohio about a big series on home-schooling the Akron Beacon Journal is doing this week. The AP routinely moves stories that tell everyone else what is being reported on. One reason is to let editors know there's something they might want to get reprint rights on.
  Now as for a story being picked up by the AP, one of the conditions of membership, is that the AP is entitled to exclusive rights to distribute breaking local news. So if a plane crashes in Seattle, the AP could pick up everything the Post-Intelligencer and the Times wrote and every AP subscriber would be free to use it. This does not apply to where a paper's bureaus elsewhere break a story, investigative reports, columns, reviews, and the like. (Thought syndication deals often exist for this material, just not through the AP.)
  Facts are in the public domain. And for an older Associated Press story you needn't worry so much about infringement because the story has gone stale. However, the AP and others have won court cases--I don't have the citations at hand--where radio and television stations who weren't subscribers simply rephrased AP stories and put them on the air; these precedents are from the 1920s and 1930s. The courts have reasoned that if everyone were allowed to piggyback on the AP's labor then nobody would go into the business of newsgathering and there would be no news since everyone decided to be a freerider rather than a subscriber. The Toledo Blade newspaper got a settlement from a tv station a couple years ago that was basically reading the morning paper on the air.
  Again, I don't have the citations, but a long time ago--in the 19th century, I believe--the courts ruled you couldn't copyright information such as stock quotes, commodities prices, prices quoted on merchandise, etc., notwithstanding the disclaimers you see today on Bloomberg and CNBC.
  As for the workings of the AP, it is a non-profit memership co-operative. Every general interest daily newspaper in America (there are around 1,500) is a member plus some college and weekly papers. Their fees are determined on circulation, so USA Today (circulation 2 million) pays a lot more than The Battle Creek Enquirer (circulation 9,000). (This is how rates for features such as comics and columns are determined, a small paper might only pay a couple dollars a week for them.) Broadcasters, internet sites, and others can subscribe to the AP, but the service is run primarily for the benefit of the newspapers. Back in the 1920's the AP resisted letting radio subscribe until it realized the cash cow it could be and now the income from broadcasters and the rest is icing on the cake. PedanticallySpeaking 17:08, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Richard Nixon on November 22, 1963

This discussion moved to Talk:Richard Nixon by User:PedanticallySpeaking

who is the auther

Ah, our frequently asked question again. Try Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Intrigue 19:12, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

E-MC2

This was posted to the talk page, and Jimaginator asked me to post it here for him. Intrigue 19:12, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering if someone could explain the units used in this equation. I have never seen an explanation which includes the units. It would seem that the equation would not hold if the units changed. jimaginator

I had the same question. For the unit of mass, it seems like electronvolt (eV) is normally used in particle physics.Units: E (http://) c is a constant the speed of light(m/s). But when calculating the energy of a nucler fission of a chunk of plutonium for example, eV is not suitable to use because the unit is too small. According this website E=mc^2 The Basics (http://www.btinternet.com/~j.doyle/SR/Emc2/Basics.htm), Kg is used in that instance. Both are SI units and are convertible, so I guess that explains it.--Nc622 16:58, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. The E=mc2 Basics website states that it's Energy in Joules, mass in kg, and speed in meters per second. So far so good. Now Wiki says a Joule is: "One joule is the work required to exert a force of one newton for a distance of one metre". ---So now we have: 1N x 1m = 1kg x (m/s) x (m/s) A newton is a SI derived unit defined as the amount of force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram at a rate of one metre per second squared. ---So now we have: 1kg x m x s^-2 = 1kg x (m/s) x (m/s). So, both sides end up being defined with kg,m,s; the basis of the SI units in the first place. It all seems rather circular in structure to me. If the units are picked to have some inherent relationship in the first place, anything can be used. And I suppose the squaring of the right side is where the really big energy quantity comes from, but somehow it's not all that satisfying. I guess it's the nature of the concept of energy in the first place, since this is more abstract than a meter which we can pace out, or a second which we have all have a subjective feel for. I had always felt that the simplicity of the equation was due to something simple in the fabric of the universe. When I first heard the equation in junior high, it was a wow moment, how could it be so simple? But really it isn't. What would the equation look like in other measurement systems? I suspect not so elegant. I wonder if Einstein was using SI, or even if he was thinking in terms of any particular system at all at first. Jimaginator 14 Nov 2004 UTC

Er... The equation would look the same in any unit system, with the addition of a dimensionless constant k as factor (E = k M C²). In fact, some physicists choose to place themselves in another unit system where they consider C=1 and some appropriate constant k. David.Monniaux 19:52, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Noting that c is also a constant. (So you can call it c²—which I prefer because I know what c is—or you can call it k or you can call it "Bob". It's still the speed of light. You can report it in different units, of course. Whether you stick a k in front or not is purely cosmetic.) -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:55, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Indeed - the units are pretty much irrelevant, so long as you are consistent or convert properly - the point of the equation is that energy and mass are, in some senses, equivalent. In SI units, energy is measured in kg m² s⁻², and mass in kg and c in m/s, so it all works; in particle physics, "natural units" are used where c=1, energy is measured in electronvolts, and mass in eV/c² (these are not the same as the units explained at natural units, but you could use those instead, or Imperial pounds and feet, or whatever) . -- ALoan (Talk) 20:03, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The short version: It really doesn't matter, so long as you are consistent (that is, the units must be the same on each side of the equation).

You could literally make up your own units if you really, really wanted to. (Example: If you declare that c is measured in oranges and m is measured in apples, then E must be measured in apples*oranges^2.) Of course, there would be some wacky conversion factor involved in changing c from m/s to "oranges". ;)

The "inherent relationship" between mass and energy, is, in fact, the point of the equation. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:50, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How many active cargo ships are there world wide?

I am involved in a project that requires the following information:
1. How many cargo ships are active world wide?
2. How many cargo ships are at sea at any one time?
3. How many merchant seaman are at sea at any one time?

The CIA World Factbook list merchant marine for each country but doesn't total it on their "World" page. I guess you could go through each country and total the number of ships. Rmhermen 18:38, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

American school system

What grade would a 10 year old American kid be in and what would a regular curriculum look like? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 21:33, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

A 10 year old will typically be in 4th grade. As for the curriculum, it will vary depending on the federal, state, and local decisions. To give you a general idea you can look at the California Department of Education site which has fourth grade content recommendations for math, english, history, and science. --Cvaneg 21:59, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To clarify, 10 is the age of most children starting fourth grade. (You are generally supposed to be five years old in order to start kindergarten.) Unless they have been held back, the oldest in the class will be nearly 11 and the youngest might be just a little short of 10. Most 4th-graders will turn 11 sometime during the school year.

So technically, there will be some 10-year olds in third grade, especially toward the end of the school year, and possibly a very few in fifth grade (at the very beginning of the year), depending on the rules in that area for starting kindergarten (which is the year before 1st grade). -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:39, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think for the most part you are correct, but with the ages shifted one year. I agree that most children start Kindergarten at 5, but that would make kids starting 4th grade 9. (K=5, 1st=6, 2nd=7, 3rd=8, 4th=9, 5th=10). --Cvaneg 22:54, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Er, right. That would be right. (I don't pretend to be able to count.) But in that case, I would say that the more typical grade for a 10-year-old would be fifth, wouldn't it? -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, not to bring counting back into this, but to answer that question, you would have to calculate the probability that a child has a birthday within the first half of the school year (approximately Sept-Feb) rather than the second half of the school year (March-June) :P I'm going to go ahead and call it a uniform distribution and say that it is equally likely that a child spend the majority of his or her 10th year in 4th grade as it is that they spend the majority of it in 5th. --Cvaneg 23:12, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I thought about it. Your assumption is a good first appproximation. However, a better approximation would be to start by saying that children born from June-October will probably be 9 for nearly the entirety of their 4th-grade years. (June/July/August because their birthday will be after the school year is over and September/October because of regulations that one must turn 5 by, say, mid-October during kindergarten). That's 5/12. Of the remaining 7 months, say that students are equally likely to be either 9 or 10 for the majority of the year. You still have 5/12 + 3.5/12 = 8.5/12 of students who are 9 for the greater part of their 4th grade year. You can adjust the first approximation, but as long as it is > 0, the result will be the same. This is an effect of the existence of summer vacation. If school were in session year-round, the probabilities would, indeed, be equal.

It might help to know the reason for the question. If you're trying to compare different education systems, it would probably be best to look at the start of the school year. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 20:06, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for all the info, if you have any more, keep it coming :-) [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 09:38, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

In terms of curriculum, there are a number of US organizations that develop so-called national standards -- essentially recommendations for where students should be at a given grade level. A list of the various national centers can be found here, and an overview of the standards is available here. Beyond that it's hard to say what a typical 4th/5th grade American education looks like since states have their own standards that almost always eclipse national standards in terms of determining the curriculum.

My own Californian 4th/5th grade education (before the No Child Left Behind nonsense) was essentially math (multiplying/dividing, simple algebra, order of operations), early US history (Columbus, colonization, etc.), English/language arts (parts of speech, short compositions, book reports), physical education (stretching and running), fine arts (band and chorus with a hint of musical history), geography (what's a strait?), and sex education (what's a nocturnal emission?). Of course, that was some 15-odd years ago, so your mileage may vary. --David Iberri | Talk 18:11, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Menachem Begin: Bounty from the British?

For whatever reason, I remember reading somewhere that Menachem Begin had a $50,000 bounty placed on him by the British authorities during the Mandate period. Can anyone confirm or deny the veracity of that? Also, if it's true...What's the current status of it? --Penta 22:37, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I imagine the reason would be the terrorist attack on the King David hotel, of which Begin was the author. I hadn't heard about a specific bounty. One would imagine that, as Begin is long dead, so is any bounty. - John Fader

Yeast Fermentation

Can Anyone PLease Help Me Fast ???

what happens to the ethyl alcohol produced by the yeast when you make bread? what happens to the ethyl alcohol when yeast is used to make beer?

PLEASE ANSWER FAST !!!!

Well since you asked for a fast answer rather than a well researched one. I believe the alcohol in bread evaporates during the baking process, while the alcohol in beer is what makes it beer as opposed to wheat and hops tea. --Cvaneg 01:36, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mmmmm. Wheat and hops tea! - Homer Simpson.

Hey, can you please please please provide a more depth answer? :) i have do a damn lab on this

Not really. "Baking evaporates off any alcohol and inactivates the yeast. It also causes bubbles of carbon dioxide to move through the dough, giving the bread a spongy texture after baking." [1]. So what do you propose to do? Bake bread and collect the fumes? - Nunh-huh 04:11, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

and what about beer?

What about it? The alcohol and carbon dioxide dissolve in the water, which is the whole point with beer. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:18, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

aiite smarties...answer this: could flour function as the carbon source for the yeast to break down? how would you set up the experiment to test this in the laboratory?

Yes, it does. Did you follow the link? It details the chemical reactions. Maltose in flour is catalyzed by the maltase in yeast to form glucose, and any added sugar is converted from sucrose to glucose and fructose by yeast's invertase. Then the yeast's zymase catalyzes the sugars to CO₂ and alcohol. Proving this, however, must be left as an exercise for the reader. I suppose one might use isotopes of Carbon to prove it, but I suspect you're being asked for something more practical. - Nunh-huh 04:33, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

aiite...you guys are hecka smart...anyways...one last question: will too much sucrose in a solution decrease the amount of yeast fermentation?

Well, probably there's an optimal concentration. If you put too much in, you could probably kill the yeast by osmotic lysis. But I would think that the amount that would be normally added to a recipe would be expected to increase the fermentation. - Nunh-huh 04:50, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Alright, thanks a lot man....now i can finally do my formal lab write up... damn ur smart

Theoretically, using wheat flour should produce some sort of Hefeweizen (a favorite of mine). Of course, I imagine true Hefeweizen is made using wheat that has been milled in a specific way or perhaps malted so as to maximize its potential. --Cvaneg 06:33, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Legal smoking ages

Wikipedia has info on the legal drinking ages of countries, but (as far as I know) none on smoking ages. Does anybody know where I can find a list of international legal smoking ages? Thanks.

(Moved from VP by JesseW 01:52, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC))

Well, I presume you mean the legal drinking age article - which I think is currently far from perfect, and possibly rather misleading (see its talk page for what I mean). Nonetheless, perhaps we should start a legal smoking age one to go with it; a quick googling reveals this article which mentions the current US limit as 18 in most states, with a couple having 19 instead; the UK is currently 16, although there seem to be murmurings about it becoming 18, Canada seems to vary by state between 16 and 19.

Wait, I think I've "struck gold": ASH pointed me to this WHO report - specifically, Appendix B (warning: PDF), which summarises tobacco laws and regulations all over the world, as of 2003. Apparently Sri Lanka, for instance, has a limit of 18... - IMSoP 17:00, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Typically, this will be a legal age to purchase tobacco, so "legal smoking age" might be a good redirect, but shouldn't be the title. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:27, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think you have put your finger on one of the problems I have with the existing legal drinking age article: the distinction between "legal to drink" and "legal to buy", and which this article is talking about, is very unclear. - IMSoP 20:42, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

where did the name flyback tranformer come from?

A quick google search turns up the Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ's entry on Testing of Flyback (LOPT) Transformers. It has a pausible explanation of the term's origin. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:43, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We now have an article - flyback transformer - that mentions the most likely origin of the name. --Heron 09:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dred Scott Descision

What was the Dred Scott Descision i'm looking for a semi-detailed answer

See Dred Scott v. Sandford. →Raul654 04:43, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

thanx - i thought of that after i posted the question.....stoopid me

Maltose vs. Sucrose

are sucrose and maltose isomers?

No - their formulas are different. →Raul654 05:05, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Their structures are different, though their chemical formulas are identical (C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁). Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of glucose & fructose; maltose is a disaccharide composed of two molecules of glucose. They are structural isomers, but not stereosisomers because they are topologically different. - Nunh-huh 05:33, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My bad - their formulas *are* the same (I read the wrong one) -- yep, they are isomers. →Raul654 05:38, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

The sound of one hand clapping

Are there certain hereditary traits which prevent the ability to produce a sound by clapping with one hand? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 06:20, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was not aware that anyone was able to perform such a feat. Presumably, the question 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' would not figure so prominently in Zen Buddhism if there were a straightforward answer. --Smack 06:37, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well (taking my cue from the source of modern philosophy, The Simpsons), if you mean bending the fingers of on hand so that they come in contact with the palm of the same hand, I imagine that there are plenty of muscular and bone disorders that prevent a full range of hand movement. Also, any sort of condition that brings about paralysis would pretty much do the trick. --Cvaneg 06:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Simpsons episode referred to is Dead Putting Society (#7F08). -- 82.36.26.32 07:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Simply put - the sound of a clap is made by hitting two parts of your body together with a moderate force. I assume that by one hand clapping, you mean mean stretching out your hand and then curling up your fingers very fast to make a colliding sound against your palm. Simply put - your hand is not designed to do such an action effeciently. The skeletal muscles in your hand were not designed to isotonically contract at such speeds required to produce a reasonably sounding clap. →Raul654 06:46, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

These are very interesting answers! As for myself, I have no difficulty producing an appreciable sound with either hand (bending all fingers to meet the palm), so this particular koan has always seemed a little strange to me. Certainly there are any number of disorders which would prevent this, but is it common to not be able to clap with one hand? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 07:06, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe this question was postulated so as to assume that clapping consists of two hands striking each other. Based on that assumption, you can either clap with two hands, or not clap at all. You cannot have a half clap involving one hand, but you are supposed to consider what that means. --Cvaneg 15:04, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Einstein's IQ

What was Albert Einstein's I.Q. ?

Interesting question. No-one seems to know for sure. Various sources give figures from 150 to over 200, but none that I can find are backed up with any hard evidence. The most common "guesstimate" seems to be "just over 160", but it is possible that someone plucked this figure from mid-air and then other sources just re-quoted it (as I am doing !). Gandalf61 11:06, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

As Gandalf61 noted, there's a lot of speculation. I doubt it'd be a useful figure anyway, seeing that as problematic as IQ is for quantifying anything apart from ability-in-making-this-specific-IQ-test for people with near average IQs, it's even worse for outliers. --fvw* 11:20, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

If Einstein had taken an IQ test during his time, (the first half of the 20th century), it is quite possible that he would have done poorly on it. IQ testing has a long history of criticism, stemming from precisly what is being measured. Among other things, critics have argued that many IQ tests are culturally biased, measuring one's experience in a particular society rather than in pure problem solving, logic, etc. You may also be interested in our article on intelligence (trait):

Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, for example, breaks intelligence down into the seven different components: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, intra-personal and inter-personal intelligences. Daniel Goleman and several other researchers have developed the concept of emotional intelligence and claim it is at least as important as more traditional sorts of intelligence.

Dr. Oliver Sacks, (who I recently mentioned elsewhere on this page), has also written about multiple intelligences.

func(talk) 16:12, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As the answers above point out, the question points out the flaws in the measure 'IQ'. Since Einstein is not known to have taken an IQ test, no one will ever know. Even had he taken one, the unreliability and variation in test scores would not give any very useful result. The notion that you could rank people by 'intelligence' is probably bogus. Intrigue 05:32, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Folk_och_Rackare

Moved from article namespace: Appeal for help to "Swedish" folk (rock) fans

In the Seventies folk rock group "Scafell Pike" made 7 albums. Even in 1997 a CD with "The best of Scafell Pike" was released (record label unknown).

Albums I know of are: With You In Mind (Colombia LP) 1972 Month Of Maying (Epic LP) 1973 Four’s A Crowd (Mercury LP) 1976 X-Ray Vision (unknown) 1978

I am only familiar with the LP "Lords Rake" from 1974. If I am informed well, Scafell Pike is formed by two Swedish and two English men, all with professional education. I am very curious to learn more about their music, but every attempt on the Internet stranded so far, whatever way I tried. Last year I thought to have found a connection: the e-mail address of one of Scafell Pike's members (Roy Colegate). Unfortunately the reply stated: "Saw your posting, and I'm afraid that I can't help you; but I think you would like to know that Roy Colegate passed away in Stockholm on Thursday the 28th of February 2002. He was 53." Such an early age to die, how sad. I cannot believe that all the master pieces of this group fell into oblivion. Are there more people interested in Scafell Pike's music or am I the only one?

Furthermore, there is the leading Swedish folk rock group also from the seventies: "Folk Och Rackare". It is pretty much the same story like with Scafell Pike. The group made 7 albums of which a CD with a composition of songs ("Folk & Rackare").

Albums I know of are: Med Rotter I Medetiden (Sonet LP) 1974 Folk And Roques (YFT LP) 1976 Rackarspel (Sonet LP) 1978 Anno 1979 (Sonet LP) 1979 Stjarnhasten (Sonet LP) 1981 Rackbag (Amalthea LP) 1985

I cannot find a single trace on the internet of these albums.

I would appreciate your help in telling me who is familiar with these fantastic bands? Who could provide me with an elaborate discography of these bands (songs per album)? Your information would be highly appreciated.

m.d.kemp@chello.nl Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_och_Rackare"

Thumbs up

Do we have any article related to the Thumbs up / Thumbs Up gesture ? Jay 10:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There's not a single article devoted to it, but there is a section in gesture. --Cvaneg 14:38, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And two images in thumb. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Theo van Gogh

I have a cottage in Alma New Brunswick Canada. I was talking to someone a few times this past september from Amsterdam. Was Theo van Gogh there? --65.184.199.143 16:47, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)Donald K Roche. donroche@hotmail.com

He was working on a Dutch film if I remember correctly, so I'd find it highly unlikely for him to have been in Canada. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 08:24, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Those Seas

I am doing research about the South China Sea and the East China Sea, I would like to know how long the South China Sea and the East China Sea been called those names of the 2 seas

South China Sea and East China Sea don't seem to help much. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:20, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Want to learn more about general concepts "Forest" and "Trees"

Where can I learn more about the concepts "Forest" and "Trees" as the terms were used in one of the links in the "Computer Security" article:

"SecurityForest (http://www.securityforest.com) is a collaboratively edited Forest consisting of Trees which anyone can contribute to." Dennis (talk) 18:56, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Well looking at the link, it seems that they are using standard Wiki software and that the concept of trees and forests is, in this case, merely a reference to a data structure. You can look at our tree category for more info. --Cvaneg 19:15, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Printing

Hey y'all I'd just like to print a page, but I don't see the 'printable' link. What Do I Do?

Hi. Long before peolpe thought it was a good idea (tm) to have a print button on a webpage, browser designers put a print function, generally uder the file menu, and often also as a button on your browser. Go look - File, Print from the menu at the top of your broweser will probably be your friend. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Actually there used to be a "printable version" link on every article which would remove all the meta stuff (logo, links etc), but i don't know what happened to it. Theresa Knott (Tart, knees hot) 23:42, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If you use a reasonably modern browser it is supposed to automatically use the printable CSS when you tell it to print. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:18, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You can use your browser's File/Print Preview command to see what the Wikipedia print CSS (indeed, minus all logos, menus, and so forth) looks like before you print -- [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine\^talk]] 09:13, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Logitech z680 5.1 packaging

Hi does anyone know the packaging size (dimensions) of a logitech z680 5.1 speaker system. would be much appreciated. Please email me <email removed>

You might have better luck mailing Logitech about this. The Recycling Troll 23:36, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Words like "doppelganger".... WHOEVER SOLVES THIS IS THE MASTER

Please help me... My teachers and I have been trying to come up with the word that describes words that cannot be translated from their original languages. For example: doppelganger, ect. Can anyone answer this? I need the word that describes words like "doppelganger". Any help is much apreciated. Can anyone figure this out? Another example is "plenipotentiary"

In a philosophical sense, it is unlikely that any word can really be translated with 100% accuracy - are you sure that there are no other languages that have words that roughly translate as 'doppelganger'? Intrigue 03:34, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There are certain words in every language which cannot be translated, beacuse they are either too specific or there is no word in other languages meaning relativley the same thing. These words have been categorized, but I cannot find the word that classifies them. The definition would be "untranslatable words..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm

I'm thinking the classification might be "lexical gap"... any thoughts? They also may be called "lacunae"---- I need a linguist!!!

I'm not sure there is a quick and easy term for such words; rather I think the original question is ill-posed. As Intrigue implies, translation deals as much with culture as it does with simple mapping of words; idioms in one culture may be mapped with greater or lessor ease to idioms in another language. Even doppelganger (A ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart) and plenipotentiary (Invested with or conferring full powers) can be translated, albeit as sentences and not as single words. That said, doubtless a word that cannot be translated as a single word in another language calls out for a generic term to describe it. --Tagishsimon (talk)

I just think that there should be a classification for these words, as they are somewhat frequent and posess very unique characteristics. There has to be a word for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability

English is full of "untranslatable" words from other languages. For instance, even words like mattress, robot and police were originally taken from another language; they slowly became integrated over the years. These have been described as "borrowed words" and I think that term is a good description of what you're referring to. -- FirstPrinciples 04:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

"Borrowing is a translation procedure whereby the translator uses a word or expression from the source text in the target text holus-bolus. Borrowings are normally printed in italics if they are not considered to have been naturalized in the target languages." I think "borrowed words" may be a different concept than untranslated words which are accepted in common use

So then, would you all agree that it is fair to conculde that no one has perfected a kind of linguistic science for that classification of these specific types of words, or even a criteria for them. A one-word name categorizing these words....

Funny story. I remember hearing an interview in English with a native German speaker, who obviously had a little trouble working out what the English translation for the familiar German word was. This is what she came up with: "The children were very young, only old enough to be going to the .... children garden."

Of course what we really should do in order to coin am English word for words such as these is to find a language where they have such a word and use it. DJ Clayworth 04:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I would go so far as to say that no one has perfected a science for translation of any words. I am not aware of a name for words that are considered especially hard to translate with one word equivalents. Intrigue 04:29, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Where is Noam Chomsky when you need him....

We'd in any event need Stephen Pinker to translate Noam...does anyone else agree that Stephen really should get a good haircut?

OMG - I had no idea. Call 911! Intrigue 05:36, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have a book about these words that I got in the bargain bin at B&N a while ago, They Have a Word for It ISBN 096508079X, but the introduction doesn't give them a name, despite dropping a few terms in linguistics. - RedWordSmith 04:51, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

In a more general sense, these words are called 'adopted words' or 'loan words' and any language is full of them. I guess it is always possible to translate a word into a couple of words or short phrase, but the results might be clumsy. When you introduce a new food into the country, such as the avocado, what else are you going to call it if you don't use the Spanish word. Sometimes, we use a couple of words to relate it to something we are familiar with, but language changes over time. A good example is the kiwifruit, which I recall being introduced into England in the 1970s as a Chinese gooseberry then later remarketted at the Kiwi fruit and is now compounded as kiwifruit or contracted to just 'kiwi' (or perhaps the marketing was always kiwifruit and it just frequently get separated). The fruit is a native of China, so we could have adopted a chinese name, but it was the New Zealanders doing the exporting and marketing.

As Tagishsimon says, if there is anything interesting here, it is in describing a one word -> one word mapping. But even that is not so simple. For example Doppelganger, adopted from German, could easily be translated as body double (now commonly used when filming nude scenes in Hollywood) or perhaps ghost double or spirit clone, but we have got used to Doppelganger and the obviously foreign word helps to add a nuance of discomfort. Those are all pairs of words, but in a way so is the original German - its just that German routinely compounds nouns. Try going the other way with 'bus stop' -> 'Bushaltestelle' and see who has the better word.

If no one else can find a succinct word for the one->one mapping problem, you could always adopt one as a neologism - unübersetzbar perhaps. -- Solipsist 06:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Y'all are being silly. Of course the word can be translated. Either as the English word "Doppelganger" or as simply "double". Wierzbicka has some good stuff on what's wrong with the whole notion of untranslatability. Think of a natural language as having a property kinda like Turing completeness. You could write a PC emulator for the ENIAC, if you were willing to do such a painstaking and ultimately meaningless task. In the same sense, any word's meaning, whatever it is, you can be explained in any other language. It may be a pain in the ass to do, involving long, complicated discussions of cultural anthropology, physics, economics and what-have-you, but if it has a meaning, you ought to be able to describe that meaning in any other language you like. Diderot 15:51, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Assimilation (from Latin assimilatio) might be a better term for this than borrowing. Also see List of German expressions in English. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 15:58, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, just to give a bit of a devil's advocate response to Diderot's comment above, I would like to point to linguistic determinism, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and related topics. Basically, the concept of a linguistic equivalent of Turing complete-ness is somewhat debatable: the true nuances of a word, including its denotations, connotations, associations, and even phonetic characteristics, may be impossible to iterate, and thus translate. And is a description of a word really the same as the word itself?

It depends on what you mean by translate. Can you get across all the nuance and connotation in the word? Yes, if you have enough time and paper to explain it. Yes, doing so as necessary is translation. That doesn't mean it's neat, poetic, short, edifying, or easy to do. But can you say what you mean? In principle, yes, always. The necessary semantic primitives are always present in any reasonable language. By some critera, that's what defines a language. ASL is a language for exactly that reason, while home signs aren't.

Is it the same? No, not necessarily, but two speakers of the same language may not always mean the same thing by the same word in the same context. But, I maintain that the extent to which something is untranslatable is equal to the extent to which any two speakers of the same language will not be able to communicate all that they intend to mean by some expression when they use it. The degree to which translation is impossible is the degree to which communication is impossible. Diderot 14:37, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The difficulty of translating poetry, or indeed any literature, demonstrates this nicely: it may be that, given enough knowledge, a treatise could be written explaining to the reader every aspect of the word used in the original, but the actual impact of the word would then be lost For example, you could write: "the word in the original means X, but also Y, and sounds like Z; it was also chosen to rhyme with A, thus highlighting the similarity of that to B, and to alliterate with C and D; it is also an unusually long word, and contains the letter J, which is rare." But can that really be considered a translation of the original word? Can the human mind really go from an abstract description like this to an imagination of the qualities described?

Which, in turn, puts me in mind of the recent theory that language may have evolved from a kind of synaesthesia - words have some kind of instinctual connection to their referents. Certainly the power of poetry demonstrates a certain musical / artistic element to language, and such qualities are arguably lost whenever a word is translated... - IMSoP 16:37, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The phrase "words which cannot be translated" is a poor one. Of course any word or idea can be translated into any human language. The point is that some ideas have very concise expressions in some languages, owing (one presumes) to the importance or relevancy that the cultural group puts on them. In many cases I think this amounts to a specific connotation that transcends the objective meaning of the word. "Alien", for example, to many English-speakers means, first and foremost, an extraterrestrial sentient being, despite longstanding use in more general meanings. "Doppelganger" likewise has come to mean a particular supernatural thing (perhaps it was coined for that thing, I wouldn't know). But the direct translations of these words (English "double-goer", for example) do not conjure up the same ideas in cultures that don't have the dubious benefit of 20th-centure UFO culture or European supernatural tradition, respectively. The ideas would have to be explained in full, with a bit of context, even editorializing, added in. But to say "oh, Doppelganger, and alien, and zen, and raison-d'être, cannot be translated!" cannot be supported.

That little rant over with, I agree we should have a word for this situation. My first preference would be to borrow a word from some other language, if there's one out that that's thought of this already. But I don't know of one, and since ignorance is the midwife of invention, I will propose one. Thinking of the well-accpted use of false friends, I propose: friendless.

Sharkford 17:13, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

Someone should establish a criteria for these words, and once they do the terms LEXICAL LACUNAE or TRANSLATIONAL LACUNAE should be used to describe these words, and their class. But what elements would be listed in the criteria?...

<pedant>Ahem: one criterion, several criteria</pedant> - IMSoP 01:50, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was wondering weather I was using that properly. It is a common mistake though...

• THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP

YEAST FERMENTATION

IS THERE AN OPTIMUM CONCENTRATION OF SUCROSE THAT YIELDS THE HIGHEST AMOUNT OF YEAST FERMENTATIO? OR IS MORE SUCROSE MEAN MORE FERMENTATION?

- PLEASE ANSWER !!!!!

For any given quantity of yeast there will be a maximum amount of sugar that it can use before the waste products of this process kill it off. Writing in full caps is also generally consider to impede fermentation. More sugar will mean more fermentation up to a point, when the yeast reaches its capacity to use the sugar, more sugar will not translate into more fermentation. Intrigue 03:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with Intrigue. The use of caps will slow the process, but it seems equally likely that use of caps indicates that the fermentation product is already inhibiting the cerebral capacity of the conductor of the fermentation. I don't think you need to boost the proof any higher. It would probably make you start increasing your font size or something equally embarrassing. alteripse 03:59, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

CAN SOMEONE SMART PLEASE ANSWER MY QUESTION WITH BRAINS INVOLVED?

Intrigue answered the question in his first sentence. --inks 05:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well what are you asking exactly? A ratio of sugar to yeast in beer making? Wine making? Athlete's foot? It will depend on the culture of yeast you are using and what you are trying to achieve. A little more specificity, a few fewer CAPS, and a little less rudeness would help. Intrigue 05:29, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

okay, now i speak verry politely. i was doing a lab to determine what is the optimum sucrose concentration that will yield the highest carbondioxide as a product of yeast fermentation. now, is it true that too much sucrose will cause the amount of carbon dioxide produced to go down? in other words, is there an optimum level of sucrose concentration? thjanx

So you did a lab. What were the results ? Did you find that there was an optimum sucrose concentration that yielded most carbon dioxide ? The answers you have got here say that there are good reasons to *expect* there to be an optimum concentration - but the only way to know for sure is to do the experiment. Gandalf61 11:05, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Not knowing exactly what experiment you are running, I can't say for sure, but, as I said, I would expect that for values sucrose below X (where X is the capacity of the yeast to metabolise), amount of co2 will go up as amount of sucrose goes up, but for values above X, adding more sucrose will not increase co2. I would not expect adding more sucrose to result in a decrease in co2 production however. Hope that helps, Intrigue 16:59, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

English naming conventions for Asian names

It is considered standard English to put given names before surnames in Japanese names, as in Junichiro Koizumi, even though the Japanese themselves put the surname first (Kiozumi Junichiro). The Koreans and Chinese also put surnames first... so why is it not considered standard to use names like Jintao Hu or Jong Il-kim in English? Garrett Albright 08:38, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Things aren't as simple as you claim for Japanese names. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Japan-related articles and the Naming order poll. Gdr 10:19, 2004 Nov 18 (UTC)

The trend is very much towards Asian name order for Japanese too. When I get a business card from someone Japanese, it usually has last name first in all-caps. English-language news media tend to put Japanese names into western order, and put westernised Chinese and Korean names in western order (e.g. Jackie Chan), but usually leave other east Asian names alone. I suspect the length of Japanese last names is a major factor - it makes it easier to think of them as western names.

Also, IIRC, in the days right after WWII, Japanese authorities encourgaged the use of western order as a way of de-emphasising the Asianness of Japan in the eyes of westerners. They don't anymore, but traditions don't die so easily.

Diderot 11:32, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Weird intrusions

Scans with Norton and Spybot S&D show nothing, and yet ZoneAlarm says that "Yahoo! Messenger (Mexican)" is trying to connect to the net. Also, Network Places I have some device called "NevoMedia Server (NOSTROMO)". I'm not on a network. What is this crap? Anyone else come across it? Chameleon 10:41, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comment removed adamsan 13:41, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why did you remove that? Anyway, I installed Ad-Aware and gave it a try. I thought SpyBot S&D would already have cleared the system, but I was surprised to see a couple of things had indeed been missed, and I have now deleted them. However, NevoMedia is still there. "Yahoo! Messenger (Mexican)" might also still be there, but I haven't heard from it. Chameleon 14:33, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh cool. I took it off 'cos I read up on Spybot and bought all its spiel about it being the best adbuster ever! Googling for NevoMedia takes you to the makers' webpage but I haven't yet worked out how it ended up on your computer. adamsan 17:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Those 2 Seas

I decided to re-type my question. How long have the South China Sea been called South China Sea and the same question for East China Sea?

It seems Europeans have been calling that body of water the "China Sea" since at least the mid 16th century. A 1565 map by Ferando Berteli labels that region "Mare Del La China." (see the map)

According to Dispute over the name of the Sea of Japan, it appears that the neighboring countries call those seas by their location. China calls the "East China Sea" the "East Sea", but Vietnam uses "East Sea" for the "South China Sea", which lies to the east of the country. -Key45 23:05, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Need info on surgery for Peritonitis

I need to know 2 things; 1) What is the surgery to correct/fix Peritonitis in humans called? 2) Is it an emergency surgery, like an appendectomy, or is it one that can be scheduled a week or so in advance?

(The reason I need to know is for a project in school. This information would be most helpful, and I would be very appreciative if I could get this information ASAP, as the project is due Tuesday.)

--Tina

I'd assume it'd have to be emergency surgery - peritonitis develops quickly, and needs to be dealt with quickly, as it's an "emergency" situation rather than a chronic one. "It is frequently life-threatening and acute peritonitis is a medical emergency. Outlook for untreated peritonitis is very poor." says the page on peritonitis, and gives the general term laparotomy for this kind of surgery.

Okay, thank you. Just one more thing- Is a laparotomy considered an "easy" surgery? (If "easy" were to mean not so difficult, or maybe even routine.)

Just from what I'm reading in the article, it looks like there could be a couple of different causes of peritonitis in humans and the laparotomy may just the start of treatment. From my limited understanding the laparotomy is just so the surgeon can get direct access to your abdominal cavity and then diagnose and treat whatever is causing the problem. So the complication rate of the surgery probably depends on what is causing the problem in the first place. --Cvaneg 22:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Coming in late here, but a few notes for Tina. Peritonitis has many causes, and surgery is only appropriate for some of them. So it's not quite correct to say that surgery cures peritonitis: surgery can help diagnose the cause of peritonitis, and correct some of those causes...most notably, appendicitis or a ruptured viscus (a hole in the abdominal gastrointestinal tract). Surgery wouldn't be useful in cases of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (though a paracentesis would) or in cases of peritonitis in a patient undergoing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD), or in tubercular peritonitis. Surgery is usually needed in cases of secondary peritonitis, where organisms from the GI tract enter the peritoneum via a ruptured viscus and cause infection, because surgery can eliminate the source of infection (the leak).

Laparotomy is considered a common surgery, which any general surgeon should be able to perform. So it's "easy" in the sense that it doesn't require a lot of extra specialized training. From the point of view of a patient, it's less well-tolerated than a "laparoscopy", in which all the surgical manipulation is made through a much smaller incision by looking thorugh a laparoscope, a magnifying "telescope" instrument. A laparotomy, on the other hand, involves a longer incision and a longer recovery...it will be several days before bowel function returns and feeding can be safely restarted.

Laparotomies performed to diagnose or treat peritonitis are almost always "emergency" surgery, but that's because of the underlying condition. Laparotomies are also done for less urgent conditions, when they may be scheduled. - Nunh-huh 22:38, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

2004 election candidates

Where can I find a complete list of all candidates for the 2004 US election? For some reason, we don't seem to have one yet. Mark Richards 21:08, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do you mean a list of presidential candidates? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 21:25, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Yes. Mark Richards 21:33, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do you mean serious contenders, anyone who got on the ballot in at least one state, or people who were running campaigns whether they were on the ballot or were running as a write in candidate? --Cvaneg 21:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm looking for a list of all candidates who got on at least one ballot in any state or polled any votes as a write in. Mark Richards 22:17, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mark, was List_of_candidates_in_the_U.S._presidential_election,_2004 insufficient for your purpose? I am sure this doesn't take into account all the write-ins for "Mickey Muose" etc., but it looks fairly comprehensive to me. I can't imagine Wikipedia needing a more complete list than this, at any rate. Jwrosenzweig 22:23, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, that is just the major ones, even if we disregard the write ins, it should be possible to list everyone who got on the ballot. I can't find it on the internet in general either. Any thoughts? Mark Richards 22:30, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My only thought is that this will be ridiculously hard to get. I imagine that an enquiry to each of the 50 Secretaries of State (as well as whatever official governs elections in D.C.) would net you the details (possibly for a fee, or at least a form). Otherwise, though, I don't know where you'd find a list with the necessary level of detail. Jwrosenzweig 22:58, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, slightly less painful than that would be to go to the web sites of various registrar of voters or large national orginizations like the League of Women Voters and look them all up that way (I couldn't find one centralized site where you could look up any ballot). The problem is slightly compounded by the fact that you typically need to give a local address to get the "right" ballot even though you only care about national elections. --Cvaneg 23:02, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm baffled that it is that hard to find out who ran for president! Mark Richards 23:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Having 50 states, each with their own registration procedures, make it hard to get that information. →Raul654 23:39, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

So you think that going through this site http://www.congress.org/congressorg/e4/clist/pres/?state=CA state by state would get a complete list, or just the ones that got significant votes? Mark Richards 23:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That list is incomplete. Look at Minnesota. Our own list has Harens from the Christian Freedom Party, but he is not listed at the site you provided. --Cvaneg 23:50, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oops. Actually, looking at it again. I don't even think that the page you referenced is showing anything other than overall national results. As a California resident, I can assure you that Bush did not win in this state. --Cvaneg 23:51, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Aargh. What would be a better way to find out who ran? Thank you! Mark Richards 23:53, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Politics1.com seems to have a more complete list, but I can't vouch for its accuracy. - Key45 00:23, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's a bit more like it, but I still can't find what I'm after, which is information about the guy who was standing for something about vikings - anyone recall that? Mark Richards 00:28, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Googlin' for "Presidential candidate viking" turns up Clay O. Hill of Florida, who filed with the FEC as the "Populist Democratic Viking" candidate for President in 2000. Nothing from him this year, though...

Project Vote Smart lists all the candidates with links to more info, you could go through their links one by one. Good luck. - Key45 00:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah - that's it! Thank you! Mark Richards 01:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How depressing. I found the information I was looking for, only to discover that someone is trying to delete it. I would like to ask anyone who cares to vote to keep this Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Clay Oliver Hill. At least one person wanted the information here. Mark Richards 01:37, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I created Full list of candidates in the U.S. presidential election, 2004, based on the information I found in researching this. Mark Richards 14:36, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Estrogen and the male body.

1. Can estrogen pills be bought over the counter, or is a perscription needed?
2. What are the effects of estrogen on the male body?
3. Is it possible to overdose on estrogen pills?

Thank you. 67.168.34.86 00:00, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hm. If you just wanted Estrogen pills, I assume the Estrogen-only birth control pill would suit? Whether or not a prescription is required would depend on your country of residence. There is some research around (that is quite hotly debated) that suggests that estrogens or molecules that mimic it can cause a reduction in sperm counts in men. There are no doubt other effects, such as development of breast tissue etc. that I can't think of at the moment. As for overdosing on estrogen.....do you mean can you kill yourself with it, or can you cause permanent damage? The NIH don't seem to think you can do either :) link--inks 04:16, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

1. Since estrogen isn't a controlled substance, there are a variety of ways it might be obtained. In the United States, one would need a prescription. Phytoestrogens are, however, sold over the counter; these are very weak, but they are enough to control symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes. Two examples of these are Remifemin and Estroven.
2. In males, estrogen produces many of the effects that girls going through puberty experience. It can also lead to sterility and everything associated with that, including decreased libido. Because it causes atrophy, it is one of the most important treatments for cancers of the reproductive system, such as prostate cancer.
3. It is extremely unlikely that one could overdose on estrogen. However, long-term hormonal therapy is associated with greatly increased risks of depression, embolism, deep-vein thrombosis, liver failure, breast cancer, and aneurysm.

If you need more detail, you are welcome to email me. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 04:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(side note: I can't believe we don't have an article for a major brand like Remifemin. And there really ought to be some kind of article at phytoestrogen.)

Surprisingly enough, Eequor has provided accurate information. Here is some additional info (but read it fast before she banishes it):

1. Pubertal and post-pubertal males make their own estrogen. Levels are higher than prepubertal girls.'
2. Andrology 101: The reason estrogen shrinks male testes and lowers sperm counts and testosterone levels is because estrogen is detected by the hypothalamus and pituitary, which are sensitive to sex steroid levels and react by reducing gonadotropin (especially LH) production. LH stimulates testosterone production by the Leydig cells (indirectly supporting spermatogenesis).
3. Estrogen doesn't have nearly as much effect on libido in either sex as testosterone.
4. In the US, it takes a prescription to obtain estrogen strong enough to detect an effect on a person within weeks.
5. There are no immediate overdose risks (even when a child eats a whole month of contraceptive pills), because that much estrogen usually causes vomiting. Like most hormones, high doses cause little detectable immediate risk, but if taken long-term can do all kinds of things.
6. Whatever your fantasies are, they are likely based on misunderstanding of hormone effects and the real effects are likely to be quite different. Remember the wise old saying, "he who treats himself has a fool for an endocrinologist." alteripse 13:08, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Videos downloaded on Kazaa to DVD

I was wondering if anyone knew how to burn videos downloaded on Kazaa to DVD, or what program I should use, ect... I want to burn this awesome Neil Young concert recording...

I presume that you don't just want to burn the file to a dvd, but want to make a disc playable on all DVD players? I also presume that you have a DVD burner. If this is the case then you need DVD mastering software. What OS are you using? The Recycling Troll 03:01, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Windows XP, have a burner... I'm thinking of downloading a trial of Ulead DVD Movie Factory

Sounds like that would do, there might be some open source or free software to do this though, I don't know. The Recycling Troll 03:24, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Be aware that you are possibly committing an act of piracy... Garrett Albright 03:46, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's a Canadian IP address so there should be no problems as long as the DVD is for personal use. - SimonP 05:44, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Try this Mark Richards 17:48, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

KaZaA is going downhill. You may want to defect to eMule. Chameleon 21:04, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What is a sweet spot and where is it?

I was buffled by the scene in the movie Pitch Black, where Riddick tries to scare Fry by telling something strange about his experience in a slam. Here is a quote from the script (the actual dialog in the movie is a bit different, part of it was reused in The Chronicles of Riddick)

FRY

Tell me about the sounds. You told them you heard something right before....

(no response)

If you don't talk to me, Johns'll take another crack at it -- at your skull.

RIDDICK

'Mean the whispers?

FRY

What whispers?

RIDDICK

The ones tellin' me to go for the sweet spot -- just to the left of the spine, fourth lumbar down. The abdominal aorta. What a gusher. Had a cup on his belt, so I used it to catch a little run-off. Metallic taste to it, human blood. Coppery. But if you cut it with peppermint schnapps, that goes away. Course, that's more for winter. Summertime, I take mine straight.

Fry stares. Riddick gets a black satisfaction from his role as Boogeyman: If fear is the only kind of respect he can get, Riddick is going to grab some with both hands.

I don't understand what the "sweet spot" is in the context of a human being. Urbandictionary (not the most reputable source) says it's "The patch of skin between the asshole and the balls", but it doesn't correspond to the description and the movie scene (there is a scar on the back). It also doesn't look like that would be a particularly attractive place to drink blood from (if that's what Riddick did).

Any help would be appreciated. Paranoid 13:11, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Help? What kind of help? The name of a good tennis pro? This is fantasy anatomy. Everyone knows the sweet spot is the part of the tennis racket you try to hit the ball with. This seems to suggest that a stab several inches through the skin would result in produse bleeding from the abdominal aorta, which it would. The scar seems to suggest the person recovered from it, which he probably wouldn't. Although it's a little hard to take seriously anyone who thinks a vampire movie is a good place to learn anything factual about anything. Note to questioner: if you are not a trained professional, do not try this at home. Note to Eequor: if you censor this, you assume responsibility if this poor deluded fool hurts someone. alteripse 13:25, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In general terms the sweet spot is a place on anything that, when hit, has some desirable effect, for example: There's a sweet spot on the hood of my car - if you hit it, the hood opens. In this context, I think that Riddick is just fucking with Fry, suggesting that there is some 'sweet spot' on his body that R would love to drain of blood. There is nothing in human anatomy to suggest any truth to this. Trollminator 13:28, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What is it with Eequor and censorship? I've never seen her censor anything ... Gelu Ignisque

• Northrop Frye?

Photon holes

Is the paper at [2] supported by current knowledge of physics? What might the consequences be if this theory was accepted? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 18:29, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

black caps on green? doesn't that scream crank? while there is a lot of standard physics in it, the "two kinds of photons" is totally alien to traditional quantum electrodynamics (from a photon's pov, there is no time). not that I read the whole thing, though ;) dab 20:00, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The author does, at least, seem to have spent a good deal of time on this; it's well-written and cross-referenced to even more garish colors. It would be very worrying if it was obviously wrong.

While a photon may not experience time itself, isn't our experience of a photon's position in time the main concern? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 22:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just in case this wacky idea catches on, I hereby coin the name skoton for these quanta of darkness. --Heron 12:27, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

*lol* :D dab 14:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)