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November 10

Are world records kept for how much younger cosmetic science makes one look?

Currently, I hear of cosmetic science making someone look 25 years younger, but I don't hear of much beyond that. How far can cosmetic science take us, as it is in 2011? (Seems that Joan Rivers does extra well; is she the recordholder?)

Then by the time I'm 65, how far might cosmetic science advance? Even though WP might not be a crystal ball, we already have articles on future nanoscience, so an article related to the future of visually turning back the clock ought to be floating around our wiki somewhere. Thank you, --70.179.178.145 (talk) 09:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting perspective. I work with teenagers. They use (overuse?) cosmetics to make themselves look older. HiLo48 (talk) 09:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

How can you have world records when it's all subjective how much younger you look? Clarityfiend (talk) 11:53, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you "hear" of cosmetic science making someone look 25yrs younger - you hear it because it's marketing hype. Let's see some genuine independent per reviewed scientific research on this before paying heed to any claims (and no, information produced by the Pond's Institute doesn't count). And regardless, as Clarityfiend says, it's subjective; if someone has cosmetic surgery at 45, by the time they're 65 we'd have to (a) make a subjective judgement about 'how old' they actually look, (b) somehow determine how old they would have looked if not for the surgery, then (c) use these two dubious figures to work out how much younger they now look, and (d) then attribute any 'benefits' to the procedure performed, which itself would not be particularly valid. Try getting unbiased results out of that mish-mash. --jjron (talk) 13:59, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

There was a TV show, known as 10 Years Younger (US) and 10 Years Younger (UK), the premise of which was that they polled a bunch of people how "old" the contestant looked before their makeover, and then they polled a bunch more people after their makeover. That would seem to be the closest way we could get to judging this; it's still a subjective opinion, but at least its the opinion of a bunch of people... --Jayron32 16:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The most effective ways to look younger aren't rocket science at all, or even cosmetic science. Get a haircut that enhances your face shape. Get your teeth done. Perhaps a little makeup, enhancing your best features (optional). Clothes that suit you. A good night's sleep. Smile. (Note to self: must remember to get round to these things.) Itsmejudith (talk) 16:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Well let's face it, I'm sure someone 24 years old would appreciate looking 25 years younger... what? --TammyMoet (talk) 18:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

We're working on materials to do that: Metamaterial cloaking. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

land rover discovery 200 tdi fan cowling

hi just a quick one i hope. i need a new fan cowling for my land rover discovery 200tdi 2,dl diesel.:

does the fan cowl for the new 300tdi fit the older 200tdi, as all i can find is the cowling for a 300tdi? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.26.115 (talk) 15:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

There must be a landrover forum on the net somewhere that'd be more likely to provide a quick answer to this. I'm not sure that we excel on spare-part questions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:56, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Type "landrover forum" into Google and you will find a whole page of such listings. Textorus (talk) 17:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Morse code translation

I have a message in morse code that I trying to decode, but it does not have clear spaces between the dots and dashes to show where new characters begin. All online translators I found though require spaces. Is there a program that can determine the text without spaces, or can someone decode for me? The text begins with ..-.-.....---...-..-..--......--..-.-.-.-..-.....-.-..-.-.-.-.--.----.-..-..-..-...-...-.-....--.-..- Thanks!! Reywas92^Talk 21:47, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

• Please give us more information about the source of this "message." Without separation between the letters, there are countless possible decodings. Knowing the language and subject would be useful, as well as knowing if it might include numbers or symbols. Assuming it is International Morse, and that there is no punctuation, for instance the first letter could be e, i, u, or f, depending on how many dots and dashes are included. The last letter could be t, a, u, x, if there is no punctuation. The whole sequence sequence could begin ertheostiti, or it could begin lb2vuephp, or it could begin eeteteeeeettt and so on, since every dot could be an e and every dash could be a t.. If someone skilled in Morse sees a familiar letter sequence, they might be able to puzzle out a sensible reading, but such a sequence of dots and dashes might conceivable have more than one sensible decoding. In ham radio transmission, it is common to run together letters in the sending, without long pauses between letters, so that only context allows decoding into words. More than 4 dots in a row suggests "h" as part, but could also be a string of i and e, perhaps along with an h. On the other hand it could be a number such as 5 with a string of dots. Someone who loves ciphers should be able to puzzle out some words. Look for common short words such as "the," which is -..... , "of", "and" "you", etc. Edison (talk) 01:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The number of possibilities is truly vast. I can count no fewer than 237 words of five letters or longer that would match some part of this sequence. For example, symbols starting at position 78 match the word "infuriate", starting at position 39, the word "crescent", and at position 6, the word "hamster". Do you have any idea what the message is supposed to say? Is it even in English? --Itinerant1 (talk) 04:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I got 328, but that's including capitalized words. Some of the proper names that showed up: Albert, Caesar, Deanna, Fabian, Hattie, Hittite, Kenneth, Parker, Saturn, Semite, Sparta, and Teasdale. My best attempt so far at putting it all together: "In the oil tube I get art. Fifteen tar got Edna infuriated." It's an interesting puzzle but I think more context will be needed. 67.162.90.113 (talk) 06:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Or it might as well be: "... in that tire tube. I'm in tent fifteen. Ten knot rain. Last leak ..." Really hard to make any sense of the message without context, possibilities are numerous. Longest word candidates ("infuriated" - 23 bits, "peckers", "crescent", "flasks" - 19 bits, "spectra" - 18 bits, "dredges", "spectre", "tickers", "arrested" "realign" - 17 bits) fail to connect with any nearby sequences in any meaningful way. Very possible that we're dealing with some kind of radio slang or there are numerals in the sequence. --Itinerant1 (talk) 10:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Did you use some program to find words? In the mode of the Ref Desk being instructive, it would be helpful to "teach'em to fish" rather than "handing them a fish sandwich." It is usually helpful for the questioner to tell us more about the message than "here it is," since a questioner might just put up a random sequence of dots and dashes as a lark. Edison (talk) 15:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I wrote a short program that took a list of English words, encoded each one into morse code, and tried to match it against various positions in the sequence. Then I took the list of hits and tried to fit the words together in Excel. Decoding letter by letter does not work because the number of possibilities explodes exponentially. I'd roughly estimate that the full sequence above can be decoded in about 10¹⁴ possible ways, with 99.99..% of possibilities complete gibberish.--Itinerant1 (talk) 22:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Though I could really go for a fish sandwich right about now. Just sayin'. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's a Python program (to assist a human in guessing each letter in turn, by displaying the options):

imorse = {'a': '.-', 'b': '-...', 'c': '-.-.', 'd': '-..', 'e': '.', 'f': '..-.', 'g': '--.', 'h': '....', 'i': '..', 'j': '.---', 'k': '-.-', 'l': '.-..', 'm': '--', 'n': '-.', 'o': '---', 'p': '.--.', 'q': '--.-', 'r': '.-.', 's': '...', 't': '-', 'u': '..-', 'v': '...-', 'w': '.--', 'x': '-..-','y': '-.--', 'z': '--..', '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--', '4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...', '8': '---..', '9': '----.', '0': '-----', }

source = '..-.-.....---...-..-..--......--..-.-.-.-..-.....-.-..-.-.-.-.--.----.-..-..-..-...-...-.-....--.-..-'

output = ""

while len(source):
	current_chars = ()
	for i in range(1, 6):
		if len(source) < i:
			break
		for c in imorse:
			code = imorse[c]
			if len(code) != i:
				continue
			if code == source[0:len(code)]:
				current_chars = current_chars + (c,)

	print current_chars

	while True:
		choice = raw_input("Character: ")
		choice = choice[0]
		if choice.isalnum() == True:
			break
	output = output + choice
	source = source[len(imorse[choice]):len(source)]
	print output

 Card Zero  (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It's supposed to be a quote by Lucretius, the English translation I assume, printed in code on this mural [1]. I tried looking at parts of it again using decoders but the output was random letters so I must have been doing something wrong. You guys do seem do be very good at finding possible translations from the unspaced version though! I'll ask the librarian if he knows anything else about it and will let you know. Edison, come on! I'm not purposely giving you a lark! Thanks to the rest of you! Reywas92^Talk 19:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to match the sequence against the text of De rerum natura in Latin and in two English translations, but there were no obvious hits. Are you confident in your transcription? Is there more of the sequence? Is it possible that you got it backwards?

BTW, the ratio of dots to dashes is consistent with Morse code, but the sequence is too short to make definite conclusions about language. In my two English translations of the book, dots account for 61.6% and 62.1% of symbols. In the Latin text, the share of dots is 59.9%. In the sequence above, the share of dots is 61%.--Itinerant1 (talk) 22:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's an interactive solver that lets you choose from a list of words instead of one letter at a time. (I didn't include digits. Exercise for the reader.)

my $wordlist = '/usr/dict/words';
my $puzzle = '..-.-.....---...-..-..--......--..-.-.-.-..-.....-.-..-.-.-.-.--.----.-..-..-..-...-...-.-....--.-..-';

my %morse = qw/
a .-
b -...
c -.-.
d -..
e .
f ..-.
g --.
h ....
i ..
j .---
k -.-
l .-..
m --
n -.
o ---
p .--.
q --.-
r .-.
s ...
t -
u ..-
v ...-
w .--
x -..-
y -.--
z --..
/;

sub morse
{
  return join '', map { $morse{$_} } split //, $_[0];
}

sub mindex
{
  my @ret=();
  my ($h,$n)=@_;
  my $next=0;
  my $i;
  while(($i=index(substr($h, $next), $n))!=-1) {
    push @ret, $next+$i;
    $next+=$i+1;
  }
  return @ret;
}

my @words=();

open my $words, '<', $wordlist or die "$wordlist: $!\n";
print STDERR "Reading wordlist...";
while(<$words>) {
  chomp;
  my $orig = $_;
  tr/A-Z/a-z/;
  next if /[^ -~]/;
  tr/a-z//cd;
  $_ = morse($_);
  for my $loc (mindex($puzzle, $_)) {
    push @{$words[$loc]||=[]}, [$orig,length($_)];
  }
}
close($words);
print STDERR "done\n";

my $offset = 0;
my @state = ();
my @prev_offsets;

while(1) {
  print "You currently have: @state\n";
  my $leftover = length($puzzle) - $offset;
  print "($leftover symbols remaining)\n";
  my $choices = $words[$offset] || [];
  print " 0. <go back>\n" if @state;
  print " $_. $choices->[$_-1][0]\n" for 1..@$choices;
  print STDERR ">";
  my $reply=<STDIN>;
  defined $reply or last;
  chomp $reply;
  redo if $reply !~ /^\d+$/;
  redo if $reply > @$choices;
  redo if $reply==0 && !@state;
  if($reply==0) {
    pop @state;
    $offset = pop @prev_offsets;
    next;
  }
  my $choice = $choices->[$reply-1];
  push @state, $choice->[0];
  push @prev_offsets, $offset;
  $offset += $choice->[1];
}

67.162.90.113 (talk) 00:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You may try to ask the owner of the Omniglot blog to post this to the blog. He does sometimes post such puzzles of difficult to read writings submitted by third parties, and people visiting the blog can sometimes help. You will find contact information on this page. – b_jonas 19:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

polishing glass headlights

what is the best way to remove pits and scraatches from glass headlight lenses? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.169.161.1 (talk) 21:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

One way is to call up your windscreen repair person and ask them to sort it out. They put some kind of resin with the same refractive index s the glass in the crack. Canada balsam can do the job, but may not be very long lasting in that situation. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

If you just want it to look good for a day (like a wedding, or if you are selling the car and a bit unethical), then some type of clear wax would do the job quickly. StuRat (talk) 18:11, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Bots

Per {{subst:NUMBEROFEDITS}}, 497,362,899 edits have been made to en.wikipedia as I'm writing this. Very approximately, how many of them are by bots? --Theurgist (talk) 23:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

All things considered, there are not very many bots allowed to operate on Wikipedia. You can run a sum over the Wikipedia:List of bots by number of edits (I count approximately 55 million edits by bot). Of course, it is almost impossible to estimate number of edits made by unregistered bots - e.g., those who do not sign in, or who operate illicitly through a human user account; and things are further complicated by tools like WP:TW and WP:AWB which blur the line between human and robot edit. Nimur (talk) 00:20, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

What is a bot, please?~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Froggie34 (talk • contribs) 11:27, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"Bots are automated or semi-automated tools that carry out repetitive and mundane tasks in order to maintain the 3,792,837 articles of the English Wikipedia." That is, they're programmed tools for making repetitive edits to wWikipedia. You can find out more at Wikipedia:Bots. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"Bot" is short for robot, which in this context means a program which automatically makes edits to Wikipedia without human interaction. One such bot is User:Sinebot, which was triggered by your question asking what a bot is because you did not sign your edit (you need four tildes, no just one), so Sinebot signed it for you. To date, sine bot alone has made 1.3 million edits, or about 0.26% of the total edits to Wikipedia. Other bots do things such as analyze new edits and revert what appear to be blatant vandalism, such as page blanking (where all the text is removed from a page). Theurgist's question is relevant because many people will assume that all of Wikipedia's half-billion edits will have been make directly by humans, and would be mislead if a large percentage of these had been made by bots. Nimur showed that only about 11% of all edits have been made by registered bots, which is a significant number, but not an overwhelming one. Also note that the last word in Theurgist's question is a link to Wikipedia:BOT, which could have answered your question. -- ToE 16:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

November 11

Real pics of JFK ?

Are these [2] [3] real ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 01:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The second one looks just like him, and Jacqueline wearing a hat such as she wore on the assassination day. His jacket and ""pocket square" match assassination day, but his tie looks less patterned than the one he wore when he arrived in Dallas, and her jacket and blouse might be different, since photos of Jacqueline that day show dark lapels. One account said that her aides urged her to change out of the clothes with blood and brains on them after the shooting and before the photos of Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President, but she refused and said "Let the pictures show what they did to him:" [4], [5]. The first one looks nothing like him circa 1960-1963, since he actually had slight sideburns, unlike the guy in the photo, and the eyes look nothing like Kennedy's. The mouth is conveniently covered up. Fake/hoax/someone else: [6]. Edison (talk) 05:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

These pictures are the cover art for 11/22/63, by Stephen King. I'm reading it right now, and the picture of the young couple dancing is opposite the newspaper article that covers how happy the public is that **SPOILER** Kennedy didn't die. I don't think it's meant to be JFK and Jackie.Catrionak (talk) 01:39, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

British student having to pay European Open University rates

Hi all. I am currently studying with the Open University and living in Germany. According to the OU's website I must pay the European fee rate because I no longer live in the UK (the same rate any other non-UK student would have to pay from Europe). Somebody said its because the UK government doesn't want to foot the bill for people living in Europe or something like that. The funny thing is the UK government are prepared to foot this bill for anyone living in the UK (whether they are British). On the other hand the German government will help pay for your educational fees through Bafög, which usually applies to all people living within Germany also, however OU students are NOT eligible despite the fact that they fulfil the criteria for this fund (several european court cases are ongoing). So my question is, are there any funds or scolarships or the like which I could apply for? I know I am a pretty unusual case but I don't see why I should be singled out and end up paying more than twice the amount that I usually would if I still lived within the UK. I'd be very grateful for any replies! ;) 91.49.41.175 (talk) 07:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The OU should be able to give you advice. Have you contacted them? --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Presumably the rationale for the higher fees is that you are (assumed to be) not paying UK tax. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

From memory there are exceptions: if you started a course in the UK you can continue to follow overseas you can pay the lower fee

This last point is right. Living in the UK means being there at the time of enrollment. The point is that you'll be able to pay the same UK price if you give the address of some relative. You simply will have to travel back to the UK for examinations and manage to get the material by post. But yes, you can save a lot doing that, specially if you are studying the whole program.

Googling "open university " + bafög produces a lot of hits. It's amazing, but true. I suppose the German government doesn't want to pay to a foreign university. 88.14.195.138 (talk) 15:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The funny thing is the argument used against funding the OU. Although the classify the OU as equal to German universities, they are unhappy about the OU admitting people without formal qualifications. The thing is I moved here 8 years ago...so ironically I actually have the German 'abitur' which would entitle me to study at a German university. Regardless the arguments used against funding people at the OU are absurd and unfair. The EU really needs to take action, but as usual they don't seem to being doing anything at all, despite the many complaints. :( I don't think there is anyway around this. :(91.60.238.133 (talk) 17:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

To the poster who said I only have to be there at the time of enrollment. I don't even have to contact anyone at the start of the enrollment face to face. My gran still lives in the UK and I could have the stuff sent to her as you said. Since there are no actual examinations (only essays handed in via email) that wouldn't be a problem either. However if this were allowed surely everyone would be doing so? I think there must be some restriction on this. I don't want to do anything illegal. :/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.60.238.133 (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Their rules say only that UK residency means being there at the time of enrollment, which you could do if you wanted to play by the rules. You certainly fly back to the UK every now and then. However, not everyone can do this, since not everyone has someone in the UK, and not every coursework is limited to essays. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.39.16.11 (talk) 21:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Would you post a link to that rule, please? It sounds like a very good idea. Even if I fly over and then back a few days later the expenses are lower than paying the EU version of the fees! 91.49.41.78 (talk) 12:12, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's hope nobody from the OU is reading this - loopholes can be easily closed! Alansplodge (talk) 17:22, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Do their rules say UK residency means being there at the time of enrollment or being resident in the UK at the time of enrolment? Note that these could easily mean very different things. Nil Einne (talk) 18:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit: A quick search for 'open university definition of uk residency' found [7] which relates to specific extra funding for students with financial difficulties, which the OP may not care about but importantly it does mention

You must also be a ‘home student’. This is defined as being ‘settled’ in the UK on the first day of your course and ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK for the previous three years preceding that date.

I'm fairly sure the definition of home student here is probably the normal definition when it comes to the OU. If so, the second requirement obviously kills it for the OP but note the specific wording even for the first requirement. I'm resonably sure 'settled' does not just mean 'being there' as 80 suggested. Of course as with others I agree OU should be able to advise you on the specific requirements and should really have been the first port of call if you couldn't find it yourself.

Nil Einne (talk) 19:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be accurate. According to [8] the European Commission have proceedings against the German government since 2009. (As anyone who has paid attention would know, such cases always tend to take a long time, in this specific case perhaps they're even partially waiting to see what happens in the German courts.) Nil Einne (talk) 18:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's really that funny. EU law requires countries treat EU students resident in their country the same as local students/citizens [9]. I'm pretty sure this is the same reason why you have to be resident in the UK to be receive full funding, if the UK government wanted to fund the OU for British students not resident in the UK, they would have to do the same for any EU students not resident in the UK. I don't think all EU governments are always happy about the requirement (I think those with close to fully funded education tend to have the most concern) but they have no choice if they want to be part of the EU unless they can have the treaty changed. Nil Einne (talk) 18:40, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You should not interfere with mother nature

I remember watching a video when there was a lone baby elephant (seemed separated from the herd ) which came across 2 young male lions. There was a fight and this baby elephant stood its ground but in the end got killed. There were people and conservationists around but they didn't interfere with mother nature. There was a man who saved a baby hippo from the raging river. He took care of this hippo but got criticized (and if my memory serves me right, even faced charges) for he interfered with mother nature when he saved the baby hippo. I just finished reading this [10] and my question is “what are the exceptions?”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.148.210 (talk) 09:50, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Basically the exception is that you can do what you want if the animal is cute enough. That's about it.

The article isn't referring to a formal system of rules, but to a more general feeling about what's right and wrong to do (although certain organisations and institutions have formal rules). Many people feel that it's wrong to intervene when one animal is preying on another (since that's all part of the natural order of nature, and predators need to eat), but it's ok to rescue animals from rarer natural disasters such as floods, fires, etc, because they're unusual situations and could cause serious damage to populations. You don't want to interfere with the food chain or ratio of predators to prey, because a population explosion in one species can have devastating ecological effects. Making a very rare exception, like saving these particular elephants, won't have a significant ecological effect in itself, but if people rescued every baby elephant you could end up overrun by millions of elephants. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Conservation of endangered species is one common exception. Of course you could argue that in many cases this is just counteracting the effect of other human "interventions" on the animals or their environment. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I would just point out that interfering in the first situation would probably mean either injuring or killing the two lions, or, at the very best, depriving them of a meal. That's a pretty severe intervention into the food chain and the total balance of animals. (I guess you could also toss a few tasty steaks to them and hope they lose interest in the elephant, but now you're getting into the "feeding animals" area which is also hugely interventionist with regards to their habits.) Interfering in the second instance meant just keeping one less dead hippo out of the river. That isn't without its ecological consequences (carrion feeders, etc.), or its evolutionary consequences (weeding out poor swimming hippos), but it's decidedly less interventionist than the first situation. I don't know where conservationists draw their line, but the two situations have some real differences. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

You might be interested in reading about the people who got upset when a zoo saved a baby polar bear: Knut. --Sean 17:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It's difficult to understand why some Germans wanted to let Knut die. Knut was born in captivity. 88.14.195.138 (talk) 22:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

As an Alaskan I can tell you that this is something that comes up a lot. Our famous Eagle lady had both fans and detractors, as soon as she was dead the practice of feeding eagles was outlawed. Right now we are having yet another debate about what is euphemistically referred to as "aerial predator control" which is actually a state employee flying around in a helicopter shooting wolves with a high-powered rifle. Why? Because there aren't enough moose for all the people who want to eat them. Instead of tightening restrictions on hunting the State Board of Game is in favor of blaming it on wolves despite the fact that every shred of scientific evidence points to humans, and to a lesser extent bears, as the real problem. And you don't even want to know about the byzantine maze of commercial and sport fishing regulations designed to strike a balance between making a living off seafood and not killing every last member of a species in the process. Where I live on Kachemak Bay it used to be possible to catch shrimp from the shore with a bucket trap and a rope. That was waaaay to easy and all the shrimp[ got eaten up and now there aren't any. Meanwhile Don Young was on the news last week ranting about how there are too many sea otters in Southeast Alaska and they are out of control and have to be stopped. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:29, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

There are different ways to look at it:

1) The most extreme groups want the Earth to be as it would if there were no humans. That means that humans shouldn't interfere with nature at all, except to repair damage we have previous caused (like exterminating invasive species we have introduced). For example, I saw a nature show where they were talking about how crocodiles in a particular area regularly kill people, but they made no attempt to kill the crocs. Apparently they consider crocs eating people to be "part of nature" that should be allowed to continue.

2) A more moderate position takes the needs of humans into account, too, and exterminates dangerous animals which live in populated areas. Those animals are allowed to live in remote areas and refuges.

3) Then there are those who want to manage animals purely for human benefit. This group often wins the debate, and thus we radically change the balance of nature, by exterminating most predators and having large herds of domestic animals. Note, however, that even this group has some things in common with environmentalists, since too much environmental damage, like the Dust Bowl, harms them, too.

4) Then you have the sentimental groups, which pretty much want to exterminate the ugly animals and protect all the cute ones. I tend to think that groups like PETA fall into this category. StuRat (talk) 18:02, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

PETA falls more into the first category. They may be insane, but they're pretty consistent that way...they even complained when Obama killed a fly. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Twitter

Can I see all the people that mention someone on Twitter, or do only my followers that mention someone show up? Does the person's "wall" of their tweets show other people who mentoin them, or does it only show up on the mentioners "wall" CTJF83 10:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

There's no way to 'automatically' do this, but if you enter the user of interest's full name in the search box including the @ symbol, e.g., @username, then it will load all mentions of that user. Note that this is a best case scenario - for reasons best known to Twitter, if you do this with a very popular name it only seems to return a random selection of the mentions, usually favouring other 'high profile' Twitter users. Refreshing the search can turn up different results. --jjron (talk) 12:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Got it :) That's exactly what I wanted, thank you very much! CTJF83 12:44, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

MBTI test

god day to you all!!

can anyone tell me where i can get an online free MBTI test?? i have searched on Google, and i got a few links, and they all gave me different types!!

can anyone tell me the most authentic link??

thanx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.242.192 (talk) 16:09, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

This is the official Myers-Briggs website. I don't think you can get any more authentic than that! --TammyMoet (talk) 21:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

You can't do the test on that site at all. They direct you to qualified external testers, who charge for their services. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 22:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe that, in itself, tells the OP more than what he needs to know! --TammyMoet (talk) 06:05, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

More, Tammy? If you don't quite know where to go, it's always handy to at least know where not to go. The official site is the authentic horse's mouth if you want information about what MBTI is, its history etc. But the OP wants to do an MBTI test, and a free one to boot. Unless he's a personal friend of an accredited MBTI test administrator, I fear he's going to have to pay if he wants a result he can trust. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:24, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for rendering my implicit sentiment explicit. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

My pleasure, Tammy. It's always good to get these things out into the open, don't you think. The OP did in fact need to be explicitly advised that a free reliable online MBTI test is not a goer, so we've done our job. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:06, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

(MBTI here stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator psychometric questionnaire.) -- ToE 00:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Hero

Removed forum-like post

You people here are smart,I need you tell me what you think of the anime game series similar to Fusion Fall(I made one episode on Youtube with my theraginglions account, 62 views is a sure episode 2) I'm making called Hero(don't steal!Cause I copyrighted it,which cost me 200 bucks!),and here is a short description:

Characters:

Kay Hyken(Main)

Cathra:(second)

Kay's Opening:Born with a scar on his left eye in Japan at 1994 with the ability admit positive and negative energy(people with powers are called Medea humans or Mutants,four kinds:Cosmixs,Blastons,Adaptions,and Ultimeas).Kay lived in Japan up until the age of three,his family moved to Africa due to his dad getting a job there,them a year later they moved to Inland cause his mom found a new job there,at seven Kay's family moved to Mexico until his dad could build a skyscraper,and then they moved to New York City where his parents built their new job.At eight, Kay met Cathra(an African American boy who is months younger than Kay,his left eye was struck by lightning that is how he get his electric powers after getting his parents killed by the NF and getting hit in the head,forgetting everything but his name.Cathra's parents were Cs which are a group of good guys with powers,which makes Cathra a Cs)at a hospital after Kay got hit by a truck in a massive thunder storm,they quickly became friends and are joined by new friends,they fight off any mutant that uses their powers for evil.

I made a game called Kay Hyken Chronicles,made with Blender 3D,I'm selling copies outside my house.I need you to tell me if this would make a good series? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.62.59 (talk) 20:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

For questions like this, about how good a video game sounds, you'd do better to post at a video game fan site. This Ref Desk is for factual questions, not opinions. StuRat (talk) 17:42, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

November 12

Saint Lucie County lines

I am trying to research how the shape of my county got the way it is. I know originally Brevard County was named Saint Lucie County and in 1855 it was renamed Brevard County. During the summer of 1905 St. Lucie County was created from the southern part of Brevard. Subsequently Martin County was created from the southern part of St. Lucie County. What I am trying to find out is who decided the actual configuration of the boundary line between St. Lucie and Martin Counties? Was it done by the state or was it done by the local politicians? My question is how do I research that question? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.93.69.27 (talk) 01:25, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The OP is asking about St Lucie in Florida, US. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 08:25, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The Florida Legislature decides everything related to the creation, abolition, and modification of Florida counties. If you want details, I would go to look up acts of the Florida Legislature in 1925 (when Martin separated from St. Lucie). The act should detail the boundary lines. If there is legislative history, such as transcripts of floor or committee debates, this may also assist. I would find a law library. Neutrality^talk 20:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Question about Japanese celebrities

I noticed in Japan, it seems to be quite common for celebrities to not disclose their year of birth. While it is alright for me and I respect their privacy, I noticed that the practice seems to be particularly common in Japan (at least according to the Japanese Wikipedia). Is the practice of celebrities not disclosing the year of birth really that common in Japan, or is it just the same or lower with the practice's frequency in the rest of the world? (and please do not give examples of Western celebrities whose year of birth is not disclosed) 112.208.114.247 (talk) 09:38, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

There was an entire row about it recently - so-called 'stars' were outspokenly upset about IMDb disclosing their real birthdates. It's been all over the news recently. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there are many American celebrities who would like to withhold their date of birth; however, that would be hard do do considering that things like birth certificates can be public record in the US. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Even on IMDb, which is not considered particularly reliable, they'd be revealing information that's already on the public record, not just made up by a passing editor. I don't understand why the celebs would be making a fuss about it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

This particular case, Doe vs. Amazon, does not purely involve information in the public domain. The complainant alleges Amazon (IMDb's owner) used details from a credit-card transaction she made with them (to buy an IMDb-PRO subscription) for more than billing purposes, but disclosed these (and used them to search public records). She claims that, if she hadn't made the credit card transaction, Amazon wouldn't know her legal name (which differs from her screen name) or her birth date. So she's not alleging they just did a public records search, but that they failed to maintain a firewall between their billing and editorial departments, and so misappropriated private information she supplied in the understanding that she was doing so in confidence. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah well, that's completely different. That was very naughty of them if the claim is true. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

fernuni hagen

What are the fees for non-German students at the FerUniversität Hagen? --Cerlomin (talk) 10:47, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Contact them to ask. Neutrality^talk 23:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

-> Bachelor total, -> Master total. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 09:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Recipe HELP! Do they really mean rind and not zest?

I am making a recipe for rice pudding, but the recipe calls for lemon rind, not lemon zest. The recipe is at http://www.brandnamecooking.com/recipes-dessert/eaglebrandricepudding.html I have never heard of cooking with any citrus' pith, which is bitter and horrible in my experience. Do you think they mean the zest?--108.46.103.88 (talk) 17:35, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they mean rind. Note that you remove it before eating, like a bay leaf. So, the idea is that the lemon oil will come out into the food, but the bitter part stays in the rind. StuRat (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'm going to try it. I'm forced to use this recipe because I have no milk in the house and do have sweetened condensed so I'm testing. I'll report back.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

If anyone cares, it's edible but way, way, way too sweet; you would need to increase the rice by at least a third and it's not nearly as good as a slow milk recipe.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 20:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You might also want to increase the amount of cinnamon. It doesn't list a specific amount in the recipe, and cinnamon is good for you, and cheap if you know where to buy it, but a bit bitter on it's own, so adding it to something overly sweet can be a quick way to "fix" it. Adding more rice, of course, would need to be done at the start, and might also disturb the moisture balance. If I were to make rice pudding, I'd use milk and sour cream, skip the sweetened condensed milk, and use raisins, instead, to sweeten it. I suppose you could also use dried cranberries, in the spirit of the holidays. StuRat (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The word "zest" means "outer peel", not "pith" (and has done since 1674). If the recipe comes out too sweet, try grating the zest. Some people like the combination of sweet and bitter. Dbfirs 08:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

the word voyeurism could not be found in an old dictionary, when was it added to english language?

origin of the word voyeurism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.221.162.8 (talk) 17:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=voyeurism--108.46.103.88 (talk) 17:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

... and the word "voyeur" can be traced back only to 1900, with "voyeurist" appearing in 1955, and "voyeuristic" in 1960. Dbfirs 08:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Many older dictionaries have some common words missing. My English teacher compiled a list of words that we found were missing from our Chambers(?) school dictionary. I remember that "cocktail" was one. Whether this was a simple mistake or a sort of reverse fictitious entry I don't know.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:59, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised that "cocktail" was missing from Chambers because it has been used as an adjective since 1600 and occurs in "Tom Brown's Schooldays" as a noun, and Dickens used it in the modern sense, but I suppose it was comparatively rare until fairly recently. Perhaps Chambers thought that school children didn't need the word? Dbfirs 12:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Blood clot

if blood clott happen inside body which mechanisms occure extrincic orintrincic — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayman elnabarawi (talk • contribs) 18:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should switch to a Linux compatible spell-checker, but that's bye-the -bye. See :Coagulation--Aspro (talk) 20:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Or even "by the bye" AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

In other words, we don't understand the terms in your question. But you might want to read the article on embolism.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Embolism doesn't have to happen by way of a blood clot (though that is a major mechanism). The OP should read the articles on thrombosis and Virchow's triad. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 11:53, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the OP means mechanism - extrinsic or intrinsic - to stop a blood clot. Extrinsic mechanism are things like warfarin, which are meant to prevent blood clots. I don't know if there are intrinsic bodily mechanism against blood clots. 88.8.67.30 (talk) 16:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia storage

When an edit is made to a Wikipedia page, is the difference alone recorded in the databanks, or is a complete copy of the entire article recorded with every change, whether it's an extensive re-write or just adding in a single space? Because I was thinking how this could make a tremendous difference in the overall volume of data needed to be stored. Just curious -- thanks. Vranak (talk) 23:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

A difference (strictly a backwards delta rather than a forwards one). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

A follow-up question: does anyone know offhand roughly what portion of Wikipedia, by storage space, is made up of text, and what portion is other media (photos, video, charts etc). Thanks. Vranak (talk) 16:00, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Database download. Rmhermen (talk) 19:07, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

@Finlay: Really? I thought every edit to a page caused the page to be recorded over again. See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 January 21#Size of Wikipedia. --Theurgist (talk) 04:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's really a question to direct towards MediaWiki, because that's the underlying software. I ran my own version for a while. It stores the basic text in an SQL database, but I'm not sure exactly how it goes about reconstructing the page, if it does that each time on the fly or if it stores the current version in wiki text and renders it each time, and does more complex lookups for diffs. As a practical matter, a huge proportion of Wikipedia's traffic is handled by its Squid servers which cache the full html of a rendered page, since it tends to be a small number of pages make up most views. Shadowjams (talk) 05:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It's complex. When an edit is made, the full page is recorded, but it's then compressed in a way that gives much of the effect of only storing the difference. --Carnildo (talk) 02:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

November 13

Weird snippet of text on some licenses

When I was looking for some source code, I read the license from Oracle for Java applications, and there was this weird part of the license. It read:

"You acknowledge that this software is not designed, licensed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility."

What is this supposed to mean? Is it a joke? Why is it even there?

Longbyte1 (talk) 14:41, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be quite common. I assume it means they won't be held liable in the event of a meltdown because of one little bug in their code.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:31, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

(EC with below) Personally I susect one of their lawyers was concerned if someone did use it in a nuclear facility, the producers of the source code could be considered to have violated some arms control or export control or similar legislation in the US (or perhaps some other country). Similar to the way a lot of software says you can't use it in North Korea, Cuba and other 'evil' countries. Nil Einne (talk) 18:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Did a few searches but can't find any real useful comments. Some suggest it is a sort of indemnity/disclaimer but I don't see any real evidence other then assumptions. I doubt we'll ever know, the people who added it are probably long gone. A few people have commented on the specificity which I also note, I've read disclaimers before disavowing their use in a variety of mission critical systems like life-support systems, weapon control systems, aircraft navigation etc but Java doesn't have such limitations, only apparently on nuclear facilities. Evidentally MS still considers Java unsuitable for such purposes [11] [12]. Someone suggested (in the second ref) in 1996 Sun's Java did say you can't use it in such mission critical apps not just nuclear facilities. Perhaps over time people began to use Java in life support systems etc and they convinced Sun to remove the limitation? :-P Nil Einne (talk) 18:42, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah looking more I can confirm Sun did impose a wider restriction in the past. [13] seems to confirm that the MS restriction (including direct life-support systems and weapon systems) originated from Sun. I'm not sure when but by this 1.1 release they changed the restriction to only aircraft stuff and nuclear stuff [14]. Sometime between JDK 1.2 [15] (also see [16]) and 1.3 [17] they decided to only disallow the nuclear related stuff and don't seem to have changed since then. As stated earlier, perhaps they had people wanting to use Java in the earlier restricted activities. So if you do want to use Java in your nuclear facility you could try asking of they can remove it or licence it specifically for you without the restriction. Alternatively their lawyers may have decided there was no real legal risk to them even if people did use Java in weapon systems or direct life-support systems (whether because of a law change or re-evaluation of the legal risk) but there still was for the aircraft stuff and perhaps still is some perceived risk for the nuclear stuff. Nil Einne (talk) 21:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, looks like they've already changed the nuclear facilities bit (probably Oracle re-evaluated all licences). If you compare the Binary Code Licence for J2SE 6 [18]/[19] and current/7 [20] you can see they've gone back to a broader disclaimer against any 'inherently dangerous application' and makes it clear if you do use it in such a case, your on your own. Also looking more carefully even the J2SE 6 licence doesn't forbid the usage in nuclear facilities, ditto for 5 (1.5) [21] and 4 (1.4) [22]. Note that as per the earlier ref and [23], the 1.3 and earlier licences did effectively forbid usage in nuclear facilities since it said it wasn't licenced for such purposes. So it changed sometime between 1.3 and 1.4. Some of the code still forbids you from using it in nuclear facilities (says it's not licenced for such purposes) [24] [25] but I think that's just that no one updated it. Nil Einne (talk) 22:28, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Licenses often have odd clauses like this in them. MS Office used to have some clause against using it to make nuclear weapons or something like that, as well.

These clauses aren't jokes, that's for sure. Whether they are added by lawyers to prevent against possible indemnity, or part of export control regulations, or part of some other form of gov't regulations, I don't know. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I have a theory that a lot of the seemingly unnecessary stuff we see on the Internet is there because lazy web designers just copy code from other web designers, without thinking or even reading it sometimes. It's one of the reasons why, when we're filling in an online form, the field "Title" (whether one is a Mr, Mrs, Sir, Dr, etc) is compulsory far too much of the time, when there is no logical reason for that to be the case. Wouldn't be surprised if that's what's happening here. Maybe it was a joke originally, and the code just got copied hundreds of times. HiLo48 (talk) 19:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I really doubt it is or ever was a joke. These licenses are considered (by the companies, anyway) as legally binding. There's boilerplate, to be sure, but none of it is just in there on a lark. Their legal departments are not paid the big bucks to joke around. They might look silly to you or me but they're in there for some reason that their lawyers find compelling. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:22, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's another amusing one. Among your prohibited activities with regards to iTunes, "You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons."[26] Somebody ought to tell the guy on the right here that he'd better not be using an iPod... --Mr.98 (talk) 17:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

"The break of the leg" in garment measurement

In tailoring or garment measurement, what part of the body is "the break of the leg"? (For clarity, it would be helpful if the answer is phrased in human-anatomical terms.) Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.10.12 (talk) 16:42, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

From the diagram on this page, it looks as though "break of the leg" refers to the dividing line between the torso and the legs (where a fold appears when one sits down, for instance). Deor (talk) 16:54, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I've seen that picture, and a few web pages that contain the phrase. One web page says it's the crotch; another web page says it's the hip/leg joint. I don't know if, or which, one of them is the correct answer. That's why I asked the question and asked for an answer in anatomical terms. It seems that you're interpreting it as the hip/leg joint. --173.49.10.12 (talk) 17:14, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

When talking about gentlemen's dress trousers, the "break" is the point at which the vertical fall of the cloth "breaks" and turns sharply outward due to the curvature of the top of the foot. The break is thus a few inches above the trouser leg cuff; there is no overt tailoring evident there (there's no seam or permanent crease) but the break is engineered to fall where desired by a good tailor, who understands the geometry of wearer, the characteristics of the cloth, and the desired effect. Depending on the fashion, the break can be deep or shallow, abrupt or gentle. Some fabrics, particularly stiffer or thicker fabrics like denim, may not break at all, or may do so in a rather haphazard manner. Some of the possible types of break are discussed here. I think tailors use the term "break" more generally as well, meaning any crease that forms in this way (due the the articulation of the wearer rather than the seaming of the garment) but it most commonly refers specifically to the one above the trouser cuff. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sump pump installation cost?

Resolved

How much should I expect to spend to install a sump pump in the basement of a 1913 house with a semi-finished floor in a fairly dry midwestern US locale? In particular, is it safe or reasonable to hire someone with experience digging fenceposts to dig the sump hole? How deep a sump hole is reasonable for less than 1 cm of water discovered over about 2 square meters after the first snowfall?

The basement is impervious to ordinary rain, we think, but there's no evidence of that after the first water was discovered. How do I figure out how the rain drains to storm sewers and clear that path if it needs to be? Do I need the municipality's help looking at the storm sewer path? How much should I expect to pay for that? 208.54.38.207 (talk) 18:35, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

More info is needed here. What type of flooring is under the water ? A post-hole digger would only know how to dig through dirt. If this happens infrequently enough, you might want to just mop it up, then use some bleach, to kill any mold. A sump pump probably only needs to be a few inches deep if you will manually turn the pump on and off. You may need more room if you want to use a float to turn it on. Do you have a sewer drain in the basement ? If so, just put the discharge tube there. If that drain is clogged, you need a plumber to unclog it. StuRat (talk) 18:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The wet area currently has plastic and linoleum over dirt. I plan to use a post hole digger to make it look professional as we are prepping the house for inspection, appraisal, and eventual sale. I think I should isolate the water inflow path, but I have a pretty good idea of that. If I use the same path to run a discharge hose to the storm sewer, I wonder if that will make the problem worse. I suppose I should do some more web searches and look at the home improvement and corresponding reference sections in the local public library for hints. I'm also pretty sure I should figure out the municipal official responsible for storm sewer drains and give them a call or a visit with pictures and diagrams. They might have a map of the block. 208.54.38.207 (talk) 18:59, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Now that we addressed the "workaround", we should discuss the source of the problem. I see two problems:

1) Water is entering the basement. You may need to seal leaks in the walls and/or floor. This would mean removing the paneling, etc., first, to find the leak.

2) Water doesn't drain out of the basement. The spot where it accumulates must be lower than the drain or have a blockage between it and the drain. This needs to be fixed.

I'd expect to spend thousands of dollars to fix these two issues. Or, just continue to mop up as a workaround, pouring bleach in the area to kill any mold (leave the area after, to avoid the fumes). StuRat (talk) 18:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, good advice; thank you, but it might be as easy as clearing the accumulated dead vegitation and dirt from a nearby basement window hole (pit?) just outside the sill. The basement walls are unfinished with the foundation's concrete exposed, but there is no water damage visible, just slight discoloration under the window. That could be painted, but I'd rather use a sealant first. I will follow up after the above if I am still at a loss, but further advice from others is also most welcome. 208.54.38.207 (talk) 18:59, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Call in your local plumber to check the drain system (some even use video cameras nowdays). If you don't have drains or they have irreversibly failed, you can spend thousands to have new drains installed from the inside (or even more thousands having new drains installed from the outside) I had my basement floor cut up along the walls and new drains laid inside instead of excavating around the walls from the outside as my neighbor did. Adding a sump pump requires somewhere for the water to go to when it is pumped as well as a system to pull the water away from the foundation before it gets into the basement. You can run a hose out your basement window but your neighbors (and the code enforcement people) might not appreciate it. Besides mold, poor water handling can damage the basement walls and floors leading to larger problems. Rmhermen (talk) 19:00, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The local utilities will come and flag the locations of your underground systems if you warn them you are going to dig. Rmhermen (talk) 19:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Very good, yes; I'll ask a couple or three local plumbers for a quick appraisal and work quote after I have more information on storm drain locations. Thank you. 208.54.38.207 (talk) 19:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, water may be pooling around the house before it drains into the basement. When it rains, check to see if all the water is draining off the roof properly and being carried away from the house. Where does it currently go ? If you are planning on selling the house, then you probably either want to "do it right" or not at all. The "not at all" option would be to just mop it up and not let them know there's a problem (yes, that's a bit unethical). A sump pump would only give away that there's a problem, without actually fixing it.

BTW, why do you need to know where the sewers run ? Are you planning on adding a new drain ? If so, tapping into the sewer is a major operation which will likely require contractors and permits. If not, then you only need to know where the current drains are, not where the sewers run. If it's a fairly dry location, as you say, then a dry well might be a better and cheaper way to dispose of excess water, outside the house, when it rains or the snow melts. StuRat (talk) 19:13, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe this problem is fully isolated and will take $1 and 25 minutes to fix. The suspect basement window well became full and clogged with debris because its cover became detached and askew. All other window wells are still completely clear and still drain properly into the storm sewers, away from the foundation and sills. Based on the low level of leaf decomposition I am certain this problem arose within the past year. Pics on request. 208.54.38.207 (talk) 19:51, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

OK then, just fix the window, mop up and use bleach to kill any mold. No sump pump is required as this problem isn't likely to recur. StuRat (talk) 19:54, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Exiting the euro

Simon Wolfson has offered a substantial prize for anyone who can figure out a clean, efficient way for a country to drop the euro in case they need/want to. What's the big deal about finding a method for this?

"This prize aims to ensure that high quality economic thought is given to how the euro might be restructured into more stable currencies."

If the Euro is able to be exchanged for dollars, shekels or pounds, why is it any different to exchange it for an as of yet unestablished unit currency? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

It's a question of how the members of the Eurozone could leave the Euro as their official currency, minimising any negative impacts on markets, economies, and practicalities. There has been extensive debate about how easily Greece, as probably the most likely example, could both physically and theoretically leave the single European currency. For example, there aren't physically any drachmas (or another Greek currency) to swap for. Also, theoretically, money would flood out of Greece because of a likely devaluation, and the ease of the Euro to move around European markets – it takes no time at all, if you are Greek, to move your money to Germany (this was the point, after all!). I name but a couple of things. Ultimately, there will be many more, some of which have been mentioned in previous RD threads. In any case, the prize is for avoiding the pitfalls of leaving what some consider to be a "doomed" currency. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:22, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Think about what will happen if, say, Greece exits the Euro. The Greek people have Euro banknotes in their houses. They have savings accounts in Euros. They've negotiated their wages in Euros. They have contracts denoted in Euros. They have debts to banks and other people denoted in Euros. What happens to all those accounts? Which ones switch over to the New Drachma? If a Greek citizen has a bank account in a French bank, will it be in Euros or Drachmas? What if it's the Athens branch of the bank? What if it's a German company with a contract to a French one to deliver supplies within Crete? - Even after you've determined all that, you're left with the question: given that Greece is effectively bankrupt, who actually wants New Drachmas anyway? (See this NPR/Planet Money story [27]) As soon a people get word that their accounts will be forcibly switched over to the New Drachma, they'll be transferring as many Euros as they can to German banks to avoid the conversion. People will horde Euro banknotes. Days after the change over there will be massive inflation as you will need to offer many more New Drachmas for their "equivalent" in Euros, as there's no reason anyone would want New Drachmas. - On the other hand, given the current economic climate, having Germany leave the Eurozone would be no problem. I'd wager that the German people would be queuing up around the corner to convert their Euro banknotes into New Marks. The trick in that case would be to keep people from converting Euros to New Marks. The problem is that the healthy economies aren't the ones who would be looking to leave the Euro. It's the failing ones like Greece. -- 71.35.99.151 (talk) 23:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

It will be a Gresham's law experiment of the worst kind. The fact that, in a modern economy, with electronic banking and all that entails, the government has no way to enforce the introduction of a less-stable currency for a more stable one. It can work in the reverse direction (see Plano Real for how Brazil dumped its crappy, worthless currency for a better one) but even that has mixed results and is quite complex and messy to pull off. Trying to replace a good currency with a worthless one is all but impossible. --Jayron32 02:55, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

There would be nothing stopping Greece, Italy or any other country adopting another currency rather than reverting to its old one. I could see Greece maybe having the drachma as its official currency, but having US dollars as the de facto currency of commerce and trade. This is what happens in other countries after all. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but do you pay civil servants in dollars as well? If so, how do you get enough dollars? Do you ask the people to pay their taxes in dollars? --Lgriot (talk) 12:27, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure, there would be a lot of problems in Greece about going off the Euro. But there are a lot of problems in Greece caused by staying on the Euro. It makes the Eurozone states much less than sovereign countries, more like US states. And ruled by an unelected, undemocratic (and delusional) ECB, rather than an at least formally representative Congress. Many economists predicted that the Euro was unworkable when it was instituted - Wynne Godley, Charles Goodhart, many others. Their predictions proved entirely accurate. Probably the most important reason Greece is failing is because it is on the Euro, which prevents the government from spending to fully employ its resources & people. The Eurocrats - madmen or worse - demand expansionary fiscal austerity. Problem: never happened in the history of humanity. Demand for new drachmas would be driven, as demand for all money is, by payments to the state, in particular taxes, so they will not be worthless. Argentina is a recent example of a somewhat similar situation, with a basically successful default & unpegging from another currency. Germany leaving the Euro would be far better for everyone though. The German abandonment of their mark was again something shoved down their throat by nescient Eurocrats and would probably not have passed a referendum. A weakening Euro & a strengthening new Mark would benefit everyone.John Z (talk) 12:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The ECB is not an analogue to Congress. The European Parliament is the analogue to Congress. The ECB is the analogue to the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve is not an elected institution in America anymore than the ECB is in Europe. No comment on the veracity of your criticisms of the Eurozone, but if you are going to make criticisms, you could at least base them on something resembling a fact... --Jayron32 13:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

John Z is also wrong about the Eurcrats forcing Germany to leave the Mark. Germans were mostly the more enthusiastic about the European integration, and a new currency was part of the deal. 88.8.67.30 (talk) 14:50, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, the German elites were enthusiastic about adopting the euro, but opinion polls in Germany at the time showed public opinion against it. So, it wasn't the Eurocrats in Brussels who forced Germany to leave the mark, it was the Bonzen in Bonn. (I can't think of a good English translation for that German derogatory slang word for government officials.) Marco polo (talk) 16:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Bonzen in Bonn? Are you sure they were not already in Berlin? 88.8.67.30 (talk) 16:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the German decision to join the euro was taken in the mid-1990s. The move to Berlin did not happen until 1999. Marco polo (talk) 16:35, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The formal analogue of the ECB is the Fed. But in terms of actual, exercised power, it is more like Congress, which created & ultimately controls the Fed. The ECB is the ultimate source of "ready money" Euros, just as Congressionally authorized spending is the ultimate source of dollars. The ECB in effect rules the Eurozone, in conjunction with local "technocrats" that cycle between European, state & financial bureaucracies. Should this be surprising in a week that saw the replacement of two elected leaders by "technocrats"?John Z (talk) 23:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Responding to the original question, the "big deal" is that one or more countries may in fact have to exit the euro. Exiting the euro would be very complex and expensive, so finding a way to do it that minimizes the expense and economic damage would be very valuable. Actually, there is a fairly clear way for an individual country to exit the euro. The country wanting to exit needs to declare a bank holiday (all banks closed), accounts and debts need to be converted at a set rate to a new currency, euro notes would need to be stamped to indicate that they are no longer euros while a new currency is printed, probably banks would need to be nationalized because their external debts would render them insolvent, and the country would need to repudiate its external debt or force investors to accept a restructuring (partial default) of that debt allowing the country to service the debt. The country would need to impose capital controls sharply limiting the exchange of its currency for foreign currencies. (Residents, for example, would not be able to convert Greek drachmai to euros or would be limited to a purchase of, say, €800 in a given year.) All taxes would be payable in the new currency, and use of foreign currencies for domestic transactions would be outlawed. At the same time, the country would need to raise revenues and/or cut expenditures to the point where it had a budget surplus before debt service so that it is no longer reliant on external credit. An optional step would be to impose a tax on the sale of foreign currencies to purchase the new currency by residents and/or citizens of the country. (So that Greeks who had moved their euro assets to Germany before the bank holiday, for example, would be forced to share the cost of the devaluation when repatriating their funds.) What I have just described is the easy and obvious part. The hard part is limiting the harm to other euro-zone countries caused by the exit of any of its members through debt repudiation, asset deflation, and the risk of contagion. That risk could spike borrowing costs for shakier members of the euro zone if investors fear that they will face defaults if other members are forced to exit, perhaps precisely because their borrowing costs have risen to unsustainable levels. I suspect that the prize is meant for someone who can figure out a way for one country to exit with minimal harm to other euro zone members. Marco polo (talk) 16:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, except for "At the same time, the country would need to raise revenues and/or cut expenditures to the point where it had a budget surplus before debt service so that it is no longer reliant on external credit." The reason for taxation, for Greece improving its tax system is to give value to the drachmas that the Greek government would be printing. No reason to have, or real likelihood of, a budget surplus, which would be the effect of an overeffective taxation program, and which would not free Greece from reliance on external credit. Defaulting on unpayable Euro debts & changing to the drachma would have already cut off external credit in the short term. The real problem is that Greece would have to export enough to pay for necessary imports. Preventing a Greek default from spreading to other countries is the responsibility of the ECB & the Eurocrats. Greece on the Euro, together with the ECB policies making things worse, granting loans only if suicidal austerity programs are undertaken which make these loans less payable, is causing these problems too - like the recent 50% haircut on banks holding Greek debt. The minimal harm to other Euromembers aim could be achieved by the ECB buying some bad debts, by keeping German & French banks afloat, not forcing them to take haircuts, which can just spread the contagion.John Z (talk) 00:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

November 14

Sharing bar soap; hygenic?

Is sharing bar soap, like in a public bathroom, hygienic? Does the bacteria from the previous user's hands get stuck on the soap and transferred to your own hands when you use it? Acceptable (talk) 20:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Our article on Soap suggests that the primary purpose of soap is to remove oils and grease from the skin. Some soaps contain metal particles that when rubbed against bacteria destroy the surface and, as a result, kills them. I would conclude that some bacteria does remain attached to the soap and that the metal particles do not successfully kill all the bacteria (and therefore would not recommend sharing a public bar of soap). TheGrimme (talk) 21:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

To follow on the question...is it more hygienic to not use soap? I would (possibly incorrectly) assume that it's better to use used-soap than no soap at all? ny156uk (talk) 22:01, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec) It's pretty much unheard of (at least in the UK) to find actual bars of soap in public facilities these days, possibly because of hygiene concerns, and also for practical reasons - what happens if the soap gets lost, falls on the floor, etc? It's soap dispensers everywhere. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you would find bar soap in public restrooms in the US, either, except maybe in vey old ma-and-pa kinds of establishments. I do think it would depend on the type of soap. I would trust an anti-bacterial soap more than other kinds, given the alcohol content which is supposed to kill the critters off. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Antibacterial soap doesn't contain alcohol. Instead, it contains some nasty chlorinated compound, typically Triclosan in liquid soaps, and Trichlocarban in bar soaps. Buddy431 (talk) 02:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

An article about the medical practices in the Us and Russia, several years ago, mentioned the likelihood of disease transmission by soap bars. Visiting US doctors were horrified to see the Russian doctors using a common bar of soap by a sink to wash their hands in the operating rooms, and a common towel to dry them. Not the article I read, but similar. Semmelweis, in the mid 18th century, wanted doctors to rinse hands in bleach solution, likely more effective than washing with soap. Edison (talk) 02:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Bleach on the hands is rather nasty, and would destroy the skin in short order, leading to infections which could then be spread to others. StuRat (talk) 04:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I expect the recommendation was to dilute the bleach to an acceptable level, but I agree that bleach is not kind to either bacteria or skin cells. Dbfirs 08:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Old competitor to Waldenbooks

I am trying to find the name of a company that used to compete with Waldenbooks in the 80s and 90s that I used to shop at. It was not Borders. Waldenbooks may or may not have bought them out before Borders in turn bought Waldenbooks. I have searched the web and not been successful. I want to say the store name had initials in it like J.C. Penney does, but I may be wrong on that. RainbowOfLight ^Talk 23:55, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Was it Books-A-Million? Their stores are sized and layed out much like Waldenbooks. If not, then maybe it was B. Dalton; which was of the same type of store, and has the "Initial + last name" thing like JC Penney. If not either of those, perhaps Category:Bookstores of the United States has some more leads. --Jayron32 23:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's got to be B. Dalton, which had the same format as Waldenbooks and was acquired by Barnes & Noble. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

As noted in B. Dalton, the store began in the 1960s as a subsidiary of the Dayton's department stores based in Minneapolis. In the 1980s it was sold to Barnes & Noble, which slowly phased out the B. Dalton stores over time, closing the last remaining stores a couple of years ago. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:57, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

No initials, but the OP might also be thinking of a place like Brentano's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! It was indeed B. Dalton that I was thinking of! RainbowOfLight ^Talk 07:23, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

November 15

US state secession

If it's apparently so difficult for Greece (or another country) to exit the eurozone, would such a complication of matters exist similarly for a US state that would entertain secession from the US? Presumably, an independent state would desire a non-US based currency. And moreover, in a non-hypothetical point of order, when Sudan split and other countries form/restructure, why isn't this cause for similar upheaval? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:23, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Because Sudan was already in a state of upheaval. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Going from the Sudanese pound to the South Sudanese pound is not nearly as much of a drop as would be going from the euro to a new drachma. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Greece leaving the Eurozone represents a single act: Changing of the Euro as a currency for a new currency. Greece still maintains much of its own sovereignty; it still has a military, a working government bureaucracy, a social welfare system, ambassadors, etc. etc. If say, Missouri, decides to withdraw from the U.S., it has to come up with ALL of that stuff on its own, in addition to the currency issue. Take the Greece situation and multiply it by, oh, a billion to arrive at the practical difficulties faces with a U.S. state formally seceding. With a case like South Sudan; you've basically got a region and a people which were marginalized by their former national government (which, on the balance, was on the "margins" anyways). With South Sudan, the people there were already in the basement; they didn't have far "down" to fall by declaring their independence; and given the way that the people there were treated, there is a good arguement that there was a huge upside to independence. The same could not be said for Greece or for a U.S. state, who have a LOT farther to fall if they undertook the same movement. --Jayron32 01:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Missouri seceding would be all that difficult:

1) They could probably just go right on using the US dollar. Other nations do, even if they have their own "official" currency.

2) US states have their own working government bureaucracy and social welfare systems, they just get a part of the funding from the Feds. They could just increase their tax rate to cover paying it all on their own.

3) I don't see why it would need a military. Who is going to attack a nation wholly inside the US ?

4) They might want ambassadors, but wouldn't really need them right away.

5) The bigger issues, I'd think, would be how to divide the current US national debt and what becomes of military equipment in the state (especially nuclear weapons). StuRat (talk) 04:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

U.S. States can't succeed because it's blatantly unconstitutional (Missouri kinda dabbled in that once before and it didn't turn out so well), and there was a war to prove it. The "secession" from various organizations depends entirely on the covenants that bind them in the first place, or to put it more bluntly, raw power. Britain was quite adamant that the U.S. didn't have the right to sovereignty but yet another war decided that one too. If you want a legal explanation look at the governing convention that creates the organization. If you want a realistic answer, look at power. Shadowjams (talk) 05:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

And if you want clarity, don't write "succeed" where you mean "secede". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:39, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

They already have their own army and an air force: Missouri National Guard. As well a a nuke site near Kansas City (Whiteman Air Force Base). 75.41.110.200 (talk) 14:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Not only does the U.S. constitution forbid secession, there is also no way a U.S. state could end up in a predicament similar to that of Greece that would lead to an interest in secession. The crucial differences between euro-zone members and U.S. states are the following: 1) There is some legal precedent for bankruptcy of a U.S. state. Arkansas defaulted on its debt in 1933. The federal government covered its budget for the next couple of years until the state regained fiscal stability. No exit from the dollar or the union was required. 2) This was so because hardly anyone in the United States questions the right of any state to federal support in an emergency. There is a shared national identity and a belief in mutual aid among states, unlike among the nations of Europe. On the other hand, there is also virtually no difference among states in retirement ages, eligibility for benefits, and so on, all of which are meager by European standards. Thus, there is not much room for resentments like those of the Germans over the ability of Greeks to retire at an earlier age. By contrast, for example, Americans really have no right to retire, though some manage to make arrangements for retirement. 3) No exit from the dollar would be required or desired because the openness and integration of the US labor market relieves the pressure for devaluation that exists in southern Europe. If a state's wages are uncompetitive, businesses will relocate to other states, as they can in the EU. However, the big difference is that workers can also relocate to where businesses are hiring or opportunities for self-employment exist. While this is theoretically true within the EU, cultural and linguistic barriers impede the migration of labor, unlike in the US. 4) For all of these reasons, a state in financial trouble would have no interest in secession. Likewise, there would probably be overwhelming support from residents other states for keeping the insolvent state in the union, both for sentimental patriotic reasons and (among the elites) as a result of a hardheaded calculation that the exit of a state from the integrated market of the United States and the likely resulting devaluation of assets in that state would cost more than supporting the state while it undertook fiscal reforms. Marco polo (talk) 16:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Alan Passaro

"In 1985, Passaro was found dead floating in the Anderson Reservoir with $10,000 in his pocket. Foul play was initially suspected but was never confirmed."

There is no way in hell that statement is true. Meredith Hunter's mother managed to get $10,000 out of the Rolling Stones. Her name is Altha May ANDERSON. Obviously if the statement is true then Passaro was murdered by someone who could afford to spend $10,000 on an ironic murder.

Can someone either:
a) Find a RELIABLE source for the statement, or.
b) Remove the statement.--EchetusXe 00:29, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I found this Houston Chronicle article verifying the Anderson Reservoir location, but the only sources I could find for the money were mirrors of Wikipedia, forum posts obviously sourcing from Wikipedia, and one dodgy amateur website. It sounds like someone's idea of a "wouldn't it have been cool if". 131.111.255.9 (talk) 01:37, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

That entry was posted 2 1/2 years ago,[28] by an IP and without anything resembling a citation. If there's a citation for the murder, it could be used as a citation, and the stuff about the money could be zapped. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:52, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting stuff, I guess it was just a coincidence and the $10,000 in his pocket (must have had pretty big pockets) was baloney. Thanks!--EchetusXe 10:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Go Train schedule

Is there schedule of the GO train like Toronto-Barrie, Toronto-Niagara Falls, Toronto-Windsor etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.33.140 (talk) 04:34, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Does this page help you any? Dismas|^(talk) 04:39, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

You can't get to Windsor on a GO Train, you'd have to take VIA. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:32, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

READ!

Is it a good idea to make your own series? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.62.59 (talk) 15:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC) ~Tailsman67~

How could you possibly expect an answer to such a vague question? Sergecross73 msg me 15:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

....perhaps with an equally vague answer? But you must admit, the OP was bold in asking it. --Ouro (blah blah) 15:18, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Still need an answer.~Tailsman67~

No. Staecker (talk) 15:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

NO!?~Tailsman67~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.62.59 (talk) 15:53, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I say yes. If it gets your creative juices flowing, or if it gives you something to do when you're bored, then do it. Just have a realistic mindset about where it's going to go (probably nowhere, in terms of being picked up or published) before you set off. --McDoobAU93 16:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

What sort of series? TV series? Anime? Graphic novel? Series of books? Video game series? World Series? Series of resistors? Ceres goddess of harvests? --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it's a good idea to read the guidelines at the top of the page regarding posting a question, and to read any warnings one might have received on one's talk page about potential blocks. But those are opinions and we don't do those here. --LarryMac | Talk 16:18, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks McDoob I already have a plan and a name.@ Colap:TV series, Anime, Graphic novel(if possible), Series of books(Manga), Video game series,and World Series.~Tailsman67~