Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 January 13

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January 13

Learning Spanish (or any other language via Wikipedia).

I wish I had learned Spanish when I was young, but sadly, that language was not taught at any of my English (the Country) schools - how surprising!!!! And now retired, I travel regularly to Spain and its islands and try really hard to speak Spanish whilst on holiday. But I fear I am either too old, or not sufficiently exposed to indiginous speakers of the language to sufficiently learn it fluently. But a thought occurs to me - if I click on the Spanish language version of Wikipedia, I can practice reading and researching and translating what I read there - but what a boon it would be to also hear it being spoken by a fluent Spaniard so that I could see and also hear the context of the ever-changing texts. My question? Will Wikipedia ever be able to offer that opportunity? Thanks in anticipation. 92.8.13.92 (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The Spanish Wikipedia already has a few articles available in spoken-word form. See es:Categoría:Wikipedia:Artículos grabados for the current list, and es:Wikiproyecto:Wikipedia grabada for the project behind it. Algebraist 00:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If you use Wikipedia on your computer at home, then you can also access Spanish radio and TV programs [1] [2] online. This site recently recommended at the language desk might also be useful. [3]. Youtube [4]. For speaking practice see if a local university has a "language swap" program. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 04:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If you plan to use the spoken language versions of articles - you need to find the exact version of the text from the day the article was read and recorded as audio. The spoken versions tend to get HORRIBLY out of date with the current article - which would be confusing if you were trying to follow along in the text. SteveBaker (talk) 06:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Why wear Crotchless Panties ?

Why should a girl (woman) wear crotchless panties ? They're really not much use to anyone except for the effect they can have on the male of thr species, which can lead to interesting and satisfying results !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by BigSilverBird (talk • contribs) 03:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

you just answered your own question.

Indeed. Did you expect them to have some other purpose? Dismas|^(talk) 03:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

easy urination, perhaps? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.45.233.23 (talk) 03:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Vagodynamics SteveBaker (talk) 06:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

... which is my new favorite word! Rockpocket 07:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Quick!!! Add it to the Wiki dictionary!!!! (I'm on it!) Vagodynamic Operator873 (talk) 12:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Your definition is incorrect - the word was coined to describe the convenience of shape of an egg for the birds that lay them. It is intended to be analogous to 'aerodynamic' or 'hydrodynamic'. SteveBaker (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

oxford university

i'm currently in high school and i want to go to oxford after i graduate. how much marks should i score to get there? (i'm from india) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.50.132.110 (talk) 04:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

You haven't mentioned what qualifications your high school will give you, but this page lists a number of Indian school qualifications and notes that none is good enough to get you into Oxford. It goes on to say

You might want to consider taking A-Levels or another equivalent, such as the International Baccalaureate (IB). We would be looking for AAA at A-Level, or a level of performance around 38-40, including core points, with 6s or 7s in the higher subjects in the IB. For further information about institutions offering these qualifications in your country, you may wish to contact your local British Council (www.britishcouncil.org) or the International Baccalaureate Organisation (www.ibo.org).

The first year of a Bachelors degree from another university could also be an acceptable alternative.

For more details of Oxford's admissions policies you should probably contact them directly. Algebraist 04:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't overlook the English language requirements. [5]. The required scores in IELTS or TOEFL aren't easy to achieve and require some (or a lot of) preparation. You might want to start there. --76.97.245.5 (talk) 05:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Send package with the wrong postcode?

Help! The Wikipedia article ZIP code doesn't mention anything about this, so I hoped I could ask here. I sent a package using the wrong post code, but the address (street number etc) was right. Will the package still be delivered or will it be lost?? To be more specific, I got the first three digits of the ZIP code right, but the two next digits were wrong. I used the extended ZIP + 4 code and the last four extended digits were correct. What happens now? What should I do? 117.0.45.153 (talk) 10:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It will almost definitely get to the correct address. Post companies are extremely experienced in ensuring mis-addressed packages/mail makes it to their intended destination. The issue you describe sounds trivial in comparison to some of the cases they successfully deal with. Infact there was an artist who sent out something like 50 self-addressed envelopes - but each of the items had no clear address - it was either a riddle, or a drawing or an explanation in words etc. I forget the name but they got their mail back. In the uk the Post Office sometimes at christmas disclose a list of the most unusual items addresses they've managed to the correct address. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It will most likely arrive at the correct destination. It will likely take at least an extra day though. Getting the first three numbers of the ZIP code correct will get it into the right general area, probably the correct state. Dismas|^(talk) 10:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

In the not-so-likely event that the full 11-digit zip code is an actual zip code within the 7-digit zone that you misspecified, the package would probably go to the local carrier station for that 7-digit area. At that point, sorters at the station or the carrier him/herself would almost certainly recognize that the street address and town name are wrong for that zip code. Assuming that you got the town name and street address right, it should be an easy matter to send it to the correct carrier station. That could add a couple of extra days to your delivery time. In the more likely event that the 11-digit zip code that you specified does not exist, the sorting machinery near your package's starting point would probably spit it out for manual sorting, at which point someone would recognize that the street and/or town do not match the 7-digit zip code. At that point, it depends on how conscientious and/or busy the sorter is. In the best case, they immediately look up the correct zip code, correct the address, and send it on its way, perhaps without adding any delay to the delivery time. Marco polo (talk) 14:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for replying. Marco polo, I don't really understand the 11-digit zip code thing. (?) I used an extended ZIP + 4 code so there were only nine digits in total. Also, how do I find out if the 9-digit code I wrote down exists or not? Is there a website to look that up. Thanks so much in advance! 117.0.45.153 (talk) 15:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This should help you out. Tomdobb (talk) 15:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The post office is pretty good at getting the mail through even with an incomplete address. On old work colleague once told me a (possibly apocryphal) story about a letter from Africa which arrived with the address "ARIJABA ENGLAND". It had been sent (correctly) to Harwich Harbour. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 15:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I tried that website but it doesn't let me search for places with the full 9-digit code, only 5. Anyway when I entered the (incorrect) 5-digit code an actual city appeared. So does that mean the package will come to that wrong destination and after the postman realizes that the four extended digits don't match they will hopefully try to resend it to the correct place? And I just found out this one on yahoo answer http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080506103409AAF1obM Is that true that some postman will just rip open the package to find the sender's address? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.0.45.153 (talk) 15:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If you have the complete address you can look that up and it will show you the correct 9 digit ZIP for that address. Pure speculation here, but a piece of postage with an incorrect ZIP would probably be sent to that ZIP and then when the postal service realized it was not correct it would be hand sorted and sent to the proper location. I'd be very surprised if your package didn't get to its destination, but I would assume it will take a few more days. It's also possible that whatever ZIP you used is served by the same main post office as the ZIP you should have used, this would still result in some delay, but I imagine it would be a bit quicker. Tomdobb (talk) 15:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Games (magazine) used to run an envelope of the month in which strangely addressed (or non-addressed mail) was featured. This newspaper article features a UK artist that sent oddly addressed mail which mainly got through. This is supposed to be a package that an ebay seller sent. They, supposedly, didn't have the correct fonts on their computer and just typed in what they saw and it got through. This and this are not really badly addressed mail but are interesting anyway. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It was not an "ebay seller", it was a Frenchman who sent his Russian female penpal a Harry Potter book in French. At least such is the "canonical" version of the legend. Also, I don't think it's that big of a stretch to assume this is real and they indeed got it through because people in non-Latin-1 countries are familiar with garbled fonts. 92.224.245.66 (talk) 11:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, eBay doesn't officially operate in Russia, AFAIK.92.224.245.66 (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

• Back when they were based in New York, Games magazine once ran an item where they said that their local post office had learned a simple rule for dealing with bizarrely addressed mail: "Don't bother trying to figure it out, just send it to Games." --Anonymous, 04:37 UTC, January 14, 2009.

Mad Magazine would occasionally show off envelopes that were addressed with only a picture of Alfred E. Neuman. But, I have always wondered how many envelopes addressed like that didn't make it through. APL (talk) 17:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Oops. When I referred to 7 digits, I meant 5. When I referred to 11 digits, I meant 9. Brain malfunction. Marco polo (talk) 18:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

From personal experience, if you get the street address, town, and state right, but the zip code wrong, the mail will still get to the right place. First the USPS will send the mail to the post office for that zip code. When the mail gets sorted by delivery route, someone will notice things are wrong and re-address the mail for the correct post office. It takes about twice as long as if you'd gotten the zip code right the first time, and somewhat longer than if you'd left off the zip code. --Carnildo (talk) 00:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I used to live in a place called Vivian St in the state of Victoria and my great aunt sent a package to me and accidentally wrote Victoria St on it instead and it still reached my house. --124.254.77.148 (talk) 07:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

On another hand, I once got mail intended for someone with the same first initial, same first syllable of surname (Sherlin vs Sherwood), same number on a parallel street two blocks away. —Tamfang (talk) 22:37, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Card Castles

how do you make a card castle out of ordinary playing cards, on a smooth surface. i read about them in Harry Potter series when Ronald Weasley tries to make them with "Exploding Snap"; and when puts the last card, the whole thing blows up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.103.64.181 (talk) 14:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

This isn't really an answer, but you might want to look at House of cards and go from there. You're definitely on your own on the exploding part, though. --LarryMac | Talk 14:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

There is enough friction with the edge of a vertical (or near vertical) card to support the small amount of sideways forces due to the air currents in the room. This is the basis for building a house of cards. In practice, however, it takes a great deal of skill and dexterity. StuRat (talk) 14:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The way I build a card house is by leaning two cards together with the cards vertical. An upside down V. Then lean two horizontal cards upright, one on each side of the vertical pair. Finally balance a card across each of the projecting ends of the horizontal cards. Then you have a platform at each end, on which you can continue to build - until the whole lot comes crashing down.86.194.123.247 (talk) 15:28, 13 January 2009 (UTC)DT

It's pretty easy to build one layer on a reasonably high-friction surface with the approach described - but when you try to build the next layer up, the friction of the card edge on the shiney surface of the card beneath isn't really enough. I believe that a well-used deck that's been shuffled a lot and generally had that shiney surface scratched up - makes for higher friction and therefore better card-house building. SteveBaker (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

You might try getting un-laminated cards as well. They're harder to shuffle, but I'll bet they'd stack better. APL (talk) 17:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Card castles were my idea of fun since I was barely tall enough to sit a table. I agree with SteveBaker (whose knowledge in all areas of science and life astounds me always) that used cards will make better building material. The rougher the better, just remember that they're not broken in half. And send us a photo of your castle! --Ouro (blah blah) 17:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

...and you can photoshop out the duct-tape required to make it actually stand up! :-) SteveBaker (talk) 15:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

10 Powerful Armies

What are the top 10 powerful armies in the world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bazbaz123 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no definitive answer to which is the most powerful as each battle/war will require different equipment/training/skills. Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_equipment_by_country) might be a useful place to look though, purely because of the wide range of data to look through. Any list you can find would be pretty much speculation - though you could define it in terms of sheer-volume of soldiers but as yet i've not tracked that article down (I suspect it exists in wikipedia somewhere). ny156uk (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

List of countries by size of armed forces seems to be the best list for this purpose. Sorting by raw size-of-army doesn't seem to be a brilliant measure as far as I can see (by that measure Morocco would beat the United Kingdom, and North Korea could take on most of Europe combined) but sorting that table by defense budget seems to me to be a fairly good vague estimate, although China probably belongs at #2. How you define "power" is very open to dispute - really you're looking for a combination of a large standing army, a high technology level, and a large defense budget. ~ mazca ^t|c 18:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

There is also List of countries by military expenditures. There isn't any one metric that can tell you "powerful"—but there are ways you can sift out who spends more money on it, who is larger, who has more up to date equipment, etc. The rankings are not consistent. USA and China always come out near the top, but other than that, the metrics give somewhat varied rankings. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If you mean which military would defeat which other military in an actual no holds barred fight, you can read list of states with nuclear weapons. --Sean 20:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that when you pair nuclear against nuclear then the number of arms doesn't mean much, once they are sufficiently survivable. US v. France ends with both losing pretty heavily. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd also point out that in a war, it would matter who you're fighting. Many countries rely on arms from the others, so if these were cut they'd be vulnerable. Israel may be one of the top per (wo)man in the army, but without US arms sales, they'd be nothing. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that a military needs to be able to get to the fight, e.g. utilize military power projection to carry out expeditionary warfare. Without it, even a powerful military will be limited to fighting its land neighbors, e.g. China has only recently developed the air and amphibious lift to credibly threaten an invasion of Taiwan, despite having threatened to do so for decades. This is way harder to rank, but the US is so far out in front that NATO allies are normally reliant on US logistics to get into the field and often require communications assistance to talk to their own commands. - BanyanTree 11:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Boat identification

ID me!

What kind of boat is this in this photo? I couldn't figure it out from Template:Sailing vessels and rigs. I thought I would be able to recognize the name, but I guess not, and I didn't feel like looking every single page in Category:Ship types. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 17:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It's an airboat. Marco polo (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! howcheng {chat} 18:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

For future reference the "File links" on the image page/file may be helpful. hydnjo talk 03:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I added it to airboat after receiving the answer here. Thanks, though. howcheng {chat} 19:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

the significance of 176

the significance of 176 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.83.83 (talk) 22:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Does the article "176 (number)" help? APL (talk) 22:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you give us some context? How is it significant in reference to what? Livewireo (talk) 22:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

176 is a happy number! SteveBaker (talk) 23:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

And don't forget that 176 was the yer of Amerian Indendence :) Grutness...wha? 00:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Er, 1776? Angus Lepper^{(T, C)} 00:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

That was the year of American Independence, an entirely different (and better-typed) event. Algebraist 00:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm. I did wonder if it was a joke, but figured I'd query. I guess I don't spend enough time here. Angus Lepper^{(T, C)} 01:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

You should rectify that instantly. Anyone who doesn't devote every possible waking moment to WP is clearly not committed to the project, and is at risk of being cast into the outer darkness and having their entrails ripped from their body by chimpanzees and made into soup for deranged restaurant critics ... or something vaguely like that. You don't want that to happen to you, do you, Angus? No, I thought not. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 03:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Everyone has to die sometime, you may as well go in as interesting a way as possible... --Tango (talk) 16:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Reserving oceanic territories

President Bush just reserved large amounts of ocean territory as off limits. How can he do this when the areas of ocean which are reserved are not American waters? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.131.138 (talk) 23:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, this should be preserved and not reserved. As to the legalities, there may exist some international body, similar to the IWC. The US (as in the case of the IWC) may "convince" other member states to protect those maritime areas. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:58, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Who says they're not American waters? The Marianas Islands are part of the U.S. (Marianas Trench Marine National Monument), as are the islands and reef of Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument and the islands of Rose Atoll Marine National Monument. (Even George Bush can't be wrong all the time.) Clarityfiend (talk) 00:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"Even George Bush can't be wrong all the time." SteveBaker (talk) 16:03, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

"The "citation needed" link was placed there because a Wikipedia editor feels that the preceding statement is likely to be challenged." Phil_burnstein (talk) 13:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

You missed the best bit of "citation needed": "exercise extra caution when using the flagged information." SteveBaker (talk) 15:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course Bush can't be wrong all the time, that's what he has Cheney for. StuRat (talk) 19:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Relevant international bodies are the International Seabed Authority and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)