Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 February 2

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February 2

Carbon tax that rises with quantity

Has any country considered a GHG emission-control scheme whereby the government would offer to sell an unlimited number of transferable carbon credits, but where the price of each new credit would increase with the number of credits already issued in the past N months? NeonMerlin 03:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be hard to administer. The first company to come along could buy an enormous pile of credits at ridiculously low prices and sell them off at a profit to whoever wasn't first in line. SteveBaker (talk) 15:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the benefit. What they need to do is sell only as many credits as the climate can cope with (possibly starting with a few extra so companies can improve gradually) and let market forces determine the price. --Tango (talk) 18:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I could see this being useful to help maximize the revenue that the program generates (the percentage that goes to the capital G). But as long as the price of the last credit sold was less than the market price of credits generally (which would probably be the case during times of increasing carbon output), the scheme wouldn't influence abatement any differently than making an unlimited quantity available at an arbitrary (but adjustable) price . NByz (talk) 22:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

R&J act and scene

What act and scene do Juliet and and Fr. Laurence devise their plan of faking the former's death? CL — 03:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Act 4 Scene 1 Phil_burnstein (talk) 08:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

queen elizabeth 1 progress through england.

did elizabeth ever visit th city of york, also was her authoritiy acknowledged in the north of england, seeing as the nobles remained catholicMcgonegall (talk) 11:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

According to Queen Elizabeth by John Ernest Neale (mistitled in Google Books: [1]) - written in 1934 - she didn't ever visit York as queen, never travelling further north than Stafford. She planned to meet Mary Queen of Scots in York in 1562 and again intended to travel there in 1575, but never made it. Warofdreams talk 16:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Her authority was challenged there - see Rising of the North. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Snow

Is it safe to eat snow? I'm kinda hungry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.171.39 (talk) 11:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Please don't post stupid questions. You know full well what snow is made of and you know that it eating it isn't a particularly successful way of preventing hunger. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not that stupid a question. As long as the snow is clean, it can be used as an ingredient in custom-made dishes. It won't physically fill you up, but it can fill a psychological gap. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 12:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

See yellow snow. Lanfear's Bane | t 12:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a stupid question. There are multiple sites that mention the fact that snowflakes form on condensation nuclei, which is a fancy way to say whatever contaminants are floating in the air. (The second link has a fun experiment to see how clean your snow really is.) There is also the possibility of hypothermia from consumption of snow in survival situations. Consuming snow in reasonable quantities is unlikely to cause any harm, but I wouldn't recommend an exclusive diet. – 74  13:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

If you are "in a survival situation," melting snow in your mouth to drink is not a good idea. It uses more body heat than it is valuable for. Mac Davis (talk) 17:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

If it's your only source of water and you have no other way to heat it, you have little choice. --Tango (talk) 18:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

You could leave it well alone, which I think is the advice issued by Bear Grylls from his 5 star suite in a nearby hotel. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 18:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Avoid the yellow snow —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juliankaufman (talk • contribs) 18:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

You can eat snow, but be careful where you get it. Don't take any from near a road or where shoveling has occurred, as it's likely to be contaminated with road/sidewalk dirt and salt. Also avoid snow that's fallen off the roof. Don't eat snow in areas with air pollution problems. I'd also avoid the snow on the top, unless freshly fallen. Break the surface and take some snow from underneath. Make sure it looks clean. There's always the chance it contains something dangerous, despite these precautions, but this is very unlikely in "virgin snow". As for snow cooling you down, it has very little thermal capacity, so a mouthful of snow won't cool you down all that much. Of course, you'd need to eat a lot of snow to provide the normal daily requirement for water, but you can consume much less and still prevent death from dehydration. StuRat (talk) 18:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The thermal "cost" of eating ice includes the latent heat of fusion (i.e. the energy required to melt the ice) in addition to the thermal capacity. From the article, it takes 4x the energy to melt ice compared to raising the temperature of water 20 °C. By extension, eating ice has 3x the thermal "cost" of drinking ice water. – 74  21:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I made it into work through the snow,walked all the way for two hours as there were no buses or trains running,got into work to be told that operations had been suspended for the day,and everybody sent home.No phone call to tell me not to come in,and I will not be paid for the day.What a worthless country this is,and where does the Great start in Britain?That should be removed,and yes I will also be removing myself from this country as soon as I can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.86.15.15 (talk) 15:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That truly sucks, but I'd blame the employer more than the nation. The only thing I'd blame the nation for is not having a law which requires employers to pay employees who show up expecting to work. As long as you stay there, be sure to phone up before coming in, if there's any question of work being cancelled. StuRat (talk) 23:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

As a possible answer to the original question - Snow, the unlikeliest superfood from the Daily Telegraph. Nanonic (talk) 10:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Ads if the Super Bowl had gone into overtime?

I found myself thinking about this before the end of the Super Bowl last night. Suppose it had gone into overtime, and not just for a bit - suppose they play a whole overtime period and then some of another.

I imagine it's relatively easy when you have a regular game - there are hardly ever ties or games that go well into even the first overtime. And, even with an overtime Super Bowl, they could just run the postgame ads if the overtime is only 3-4 minutes, say.

But, when the ads cost $3 million, even that might be hard, and what would they do if it went the full overtime or even into a second, like one USFL playoff game?

Do they have a clause in their contract saying, "If there is overtime, we will run your ad again and you will be charged another $3 million?" That might be fine for Budweiser, and I wouldn't midn seeing their ads again, but might be a disaster for pedigree.com, as much as I loved that ad! I don't think they'd have an extra $3 million. Or, does someone just get free advertising? Or, perhaps at a reduced rate?Somebody or his brother (talk) 18:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Pedigree is a rather large company. I don't think they'd have a problem paying another $3 million. I'm not saying of course they have to pay it without an agreement, I doubt they do. Clearly if you agree to pay something, you'd only do it if you can afford it. In any case, it's doubtful IMHO that anyone would be stupid enough to agree to pay $3 million for an ad, if they were really so poor they couldn't scrouge another $3 million if they needed it. Actually I'd go further and say it's doubtful they'd do it unless they can easily afford to pay another $3 million if they felt it worth it. Nil Einne (talk) 18:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that they often sell more ad space than they end up using, for just such a purpose. With live sports (and other life broadcasts) there is no guarantee that the timing will work out perfectly, and this is well known and planned for ahead of time. My bet is that whomever got shown twice had long already authorized such a possibility. --140.247.240.200 (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Neat, thanks. Yeah, I guess there are quite a few live events where they wouldn't know an exact amount.Somebody or his brother (talk) 21:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I read somewhere that networks will sometimes air ads for free if they wind up having unexpected commercial time due to overtime. They could run public service announcements, but that would be an embarrassing admission that they couldn't or didn't sell the ad time. Note that there are few commercial interruptions in overtime, as the chief goal for the networks in case of overtime is to get the game over as soon as possible so they can get to the next program. That's one reason the NFL's controversial overtime rules remain in effect -- they get the game over with quickly. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how things work in the US particularly for the Superbowl, but could they run a few more ads for their own programs then they would have otherwise? People are less likely to notice. Unless they don't run any ads for their own programs in the first place. In NZ, ads are usually sold with audience guarantees from what I've heard [2]. This doesn't really address what happens during overtime, but I'm guessing either they're sold with condition the company only pays most of the money if they're run or they're sold and if they're not run during overtime they're instead run at other times (and probably more often.) Of course rugby is thankfully not like American football and for important live games in NZ the only ads you usually get are before, during half time and after anyway even with free to air TV. The same for all live coverage on pay TV although free to air coverage (particularly delayed) is often different. Ads run during a live game could easily miss key moments since most stopages are brief. Nil Einne (talk) 10:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Nil Einne, most sports in North America won't restart the game until the ads are finished. It's TV that pays the bills for sports so the game is adjusted to compensate for the ads. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 13:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Treadmill targets

My girlfriend and I are about to join a gym to get fit. She is doing it to maintain a low weight but I am doing it to get in shape to start playing (football) soccer again - it's been 7 years since I was last fit enough to play. The season starts in August and I want to be in top shape by then. Although it's only amateur league I want a high level of fitness. Does anyone have any advice as to a regime or know of good online resources or books that could help us in our differing aspirations towards fitness? I have searched and found nothing.

Information that may help: My height - 5'11 My weight - 65kg Her height - 169cm Her weight - 61kg Her target weight - 59-60kg

Sorry for the imperial/metric mixture but it's all we have.

Thanks 90.207.10.161 (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how equipped your gym is, but anything that increases your lung capacity and heart's endurance will help; not sure of settings, etc.

While I'm no expert, I do know that a lot of drills are geared toward the sport in question. For instance, one drill I'm aware of for basketball is that instead of just shooting free throws, players will run up and down the court once and then shoot. So, perhaps you can create a drill of your own where you run a certain distance and then kick a ball; outside of the gym, of course.Somebody or his brother (talk) 21:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're looking to run, runners world has many articles and training plans for various distance races and so on. You might also want to look into things like CrossFit or boot camp. If you're looking for general fitness, I think it's hard to go wrong with swimming. I think the biggest problem most people face is staying motivated, if you can find things you and your girlfriend can do together (such as bike riding, swimming, lifting weights or whatever) and then make each other go I think it's considerably easier. Joining groups that do exercise together, like running groups, spin classes etc, also seem good from a motivation standpoint. TastyCakes (talk) 21:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice guys it was a great help. I was thinking we should start tomorrow with the Cooper's test to assess our fitness level and burn as much sugar as possible and then go for the weights to burn the remaining sugar and start burning the fat that we have built up over the years. What do you think? 90.207.10.161 (talk) 23:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Your gym may well have trainers that can get you started. You probably only need one session with a personal trainer to establish a training routine, so it shouldn't be too expensive. --Tango (talk) 00:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good to me 90.207. I used to do it the other way around because I didn't like lifting weights when I was all sweaty. I think the key is to find a routine that you're comfortable with so that you'll stick to it (or have enough change in it that you don't get bored and quit). It is best if you enjoy it, or at least get satisfaction out of it, because you're going to have to do it regularly for quite a while to see a significant effect. TastyCakes (talk) 00:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)