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December 8

Buildings

I am looking for an interesting old building, from anywhere in the world, any time up to around early 20th century, a building which has been designed to have a decent amount of natural light even in the deepest parts, to have a continual flow of fresh air throughout and to stay at a comfortable temperature all year round, in spite of cold winds, bright sunshine and so on. Such, though, that all of this can be achieved with as little machinary and energy as possible, and with all the required systems being intrinsic to the design of the building. Does anyone here know of anything particularly remarkable like this that they would be willing to share?

148.197.121.205 (talk) 10:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

How about the Casa Milà (1905-1910) in Barcelona? Naturally ventilated through that big central atrium. Blakk and ekka 12:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

There are many buildings in the middles east that provide a comfortable living space whist subjected to extreme changes of ambient temperature. There is seldom found a dark corner either. They incorporate windcatchers and thick stone or adobe walls is a must. However, if you have grown up with air-conditioning, then you might find they don't even-out the extremes nearly as much as you want and gritty dust soon covers everything -unless you have a large harem of domestic staff to constantly clean.--Aspro (talk) 12:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

As with a similar recent question, try Sir John Soane's Museum. In the north "to have a continual flow of fresh air throughout and to stay at a comfortable temperature all year round" are mutually contradictory as the outside air temperature is very often unpleasantly cold. I don't know of any pre-20th. century buildings that were solar heated in northern latitudes, they are a very recent innovation. Living in a crowded urban situation, I wish the top lighting and nine-feet high garden walls would become standard, to obtain privacy and remove eyesores and traffic noise. Old-fashioned shopping arcades may fulfill your criteria: http://www.google.co.uk/images?um=1&hl=en&q=shopping+arcade&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=609 92.29.123.221 (talk) 14:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I've heard that the Pantheon is rather remarkable in that it is well lit by the single oculus in the roof. I don't know about temperature, though. Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 19:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It is refreshingly cool during the summmer, but if the winter is cold it is not the place to get warm in, with that big hole in the roof and no insulation to speak of. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

How about a mediaeval cathedral, such as Durham Cathedral or York Cathedral? Its thermal mass should remove temperature fluctuations, and the large stained-glass windows provide solar gain. The extremely high ceilings make it airy. For greater temperature stability something sunk into the earth to receive both earth-heat and insulation, and with top-lighting like an arcade, may be what you want. Edit: I imagine that the best design for your purposes would be something like the doughnut-cylinder central atrium of Casa Mila, but sunk into the earth and with a glass roof over it. That way you get light into the building and insulation or earth-heat from the surrounding earth. 92.29.113.166 (talk) 00:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

A lot of medieval cathedrals are fairly gloomy inside on all but the brightest summer day. There might be exceptions. Googlemeister (talk) 15:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not think they are dark but its just an impression given by the dark walls and dark furishings compared to the modern white or light ones we are accustomed to. If you replaced the stained glass with clear glass they would be much brighter, as I've seen in one or two old churches that have clear glass. In southern latitudes they may be designed to be gloomy to keep the sun out and keep them cool. 92.15.30.71 (talk) 16:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

19th. century British prisons were designed with the OPs criteria in mind. There are several surviving examples. 92.24.189.207 (talk) 11:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Why did O'Reilly buy out CSK? 67.188.104.24 (talk) 10:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I know it's been bought out, I just want to know WHY...?
Today I heard on "Monster Jam" that the owner and founder
of CSK died, is that why? Or did O'Reilly just want a corporate takeover? Or what?

According to this, O'Reilly bought them in 2008 and CSK's founder died in 2010, so it's not because of that. I'd go with your "O'Reilly just wanted to take them over" theory. Recury (talk) 19:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I have an I6 Auto '89 BMW 525i my gf bought and need help on 2 issues.

1. When we bought it, the brake lights didn't work, then the Seller took it for a day and "Fixed" the problem, but now the brakes lights stay on, what is the problem?67.188.104.24 (talk) 11:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

2. does a car bought by private owner have to have a smog to be put in my name in Alameda County California? not saying to register to drive, just to have in my name? I have the original Pink slip with the signature of the previous owner, but haven't gone to the DMV to put in my name cause I also don't know if it costs anything.

To answer #1, what happened is there is a switch which is attached to the brake pedal that turns the lights on when you push it down. There are two possibilities. The first is that the switch is "sticky" and tends to get jammed in either the "on" or "off" position; when the problem was "fixed", the seller jimmied the switch so it worked for a little while; now it has stuck again only this time it is stuck in the "on" rather than "off" position. The other possibility is that to "fix" the problem, the seller may have just bypassed the broken switch, wireing the brake lights either directly to the battery or wiring them to the taillight switch, so that it doesn't work with the brakes anymore. To answer #2: While it may cost money to get the paperwork in order, it certainly doesn't cost any money to ask the DMV if it costs money. In other words, the best solution is to call the California DMV and ask for clarification. As an aside, a very important lesson to learn from this is that whenever you purchase a car, you should always ask the seller if you may take it to your own mechanic to get it checked out before you buy it. It's not always in the seller's best interest to reveal all of the car's problems or to fix them for you, so a neutral mechanic is the best option. If the mechanic finds anything wrong with the car, or if the seller balks at the idea, just don't buy the car. --Jayron32 15:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

2) You will likely need to pay state sales tax when you transfer the title, which could be quite a bit, typically based on the purchase price or fair market value, whichever is highest. But it may well be illegal to drive it otherwise, and renewing the registration will be impossible, and it might also be difficult to get insurance. I don't know if an emissions (smog) test is required in your location, so I won't comment on that. StuRat (talk) 17:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Too late, my GF just HAD to have the car, this was about a year ago. My phone is dead, can't call out, that is why I asked... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.104.24 (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, the brake light switch is usually an easy fix. If you don't want to do it yourself, a garage will do it for not much money. It shouldn't put you out more than a hundred dollars or so. I had a situation where mine did the exact same thing (the brake lights wouldn't turn off). I mickey-moused the switch until I could get it to the mechanic, and IIRC, the cost of the labor to put the switch in was more expensive than the switch, and the whole job probably didn't cost me more than a c-note. That being said, my car is a Ford, and a Bimmer may be more expensive to fix. But probably not too much more. --Jayron32 21:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

PAYBOX

is paybox real.Please explain to me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.221.209.6 (talk) 14:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It is real. But is it OK? Remember one of the golden anti-scam rules "If it seems too good to be true it probably is!" There many other perfectly good companies to choose from. Having said that there is some comment here [1]. Richard Avery (talk) 14:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's a post from someone with some evidence that it is a scam: [2]. StuRat (talk) 15:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Paypal's Politics

Has anyone got any novel ideas about expressing disapproval about the way Paypal has entered the political scene by blocking payments into Wikileaks(no connection with Wikipedia and associates) Caesar's Daddy (talk) 14:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

In all truth they probably had little choice in the matter; they probably received a polite visit from someone at the FBI who explained that if they continued to serve as a courier for Wikileaks' funding, they'd get their assets frozen under some anti-terrorism law or something like that, or at least be held partially liable for whatever Wikileaks did with the money. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

In this article on the Huffington Post, a PayPal VP indicated that it was indeed because of some sort of indirect pressure from the US State Department. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

:See Operation Payback#Operation Avenge Assange which is expressing disapproval in Denial-of-service attacks. Paypal is ownwed by eBay, and eBay has 15 000 employees who can't all be happy about yet more Criticism of eBay. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You might want to consider however whether such methods may be counter productive in what they make people think of those supporting wikileaks (and perhaps wikileaks itself) even though it's unclear if even a resonable minority of wikileak supporters, support such actions and wikileaks themselves haven't AFAIK encouraged such action. Nil Einne (talk) 16:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In the absence of any good ideas, there is always the option to switch to other providers. List of on-line payment service providers. Are there any missing from this list -does anybody know?--Aspro (talk) 14:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't use, and don't even know, almost none of the alternative providers (excluding Moneybookers). If I want to donate money to something, Paypal, Visa and Mastercard are still the most common choices. Equally they still need to receive the money on the other end. For that, they still need a Visa, Mastercard or at least bank account. Mr.K. (talk) 12:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Piercing guns

People say that they are dangerous, is there any proof that they are, or is it all histeria?--Accdude92 (talk to me!) 16:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this it: piercing gun? Bus stop (talk) 17:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

YesAccdude92 (talk) 17:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. Just wanted to confirm. Bus stop (talk) 17:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

And a little comment on proof versus common sense: In a case like this, where piercing the skin is done with a non-sterile object, we really don't need to wait for a double-blind study to be done with 1100 subjects in order to determine that there's a risk of infection, it's obvious. StuRat (talk) 17:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok that part I understand, but what about the theory that it causes more trauma? Is that proven?Accdude92 (talk) 17:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I've used both,and there seems to be no difference.However,the gun is touted as being easy for anyone to use and the skill of the operator may come into it.Also studs do not allow for easy cleaning the way a sleeper or ring does so infection could be a problem caused by poor aftercare not initial trauma.Hotclaws (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

Prices at competing gas stations

A lot of intersections and highway rest stops have multiple gas stations. How are some stations able to charge 20 to 30 cents more for each gallon of gas than a station 100 to 200 feet away? I realize many people have gas credit cards and there is strong brand loyalty, but are there other factors involved? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 17:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It has never made much sense to me either. One possibility, for which I have absolutely no proof, is that the gasoline distributors may be directly setting the price for an entire region (or the price before local taxes and fees, anyway). If that were the case, the individual station operator may have little or no flexibility to respond to price fluctuations in their immediate surroundings. How likely this is probably varies by station and brand. Some brands actually own many of their filling stations directly, and would be in a position to enforce broad regional pricing policies if they wanted to. Other stations are managed via franchising and would be expected to have more local control. And yet other stations are completely independent operators who don't have a commitment with any specific supplier, and could presumably set any price they wanted. Anyway, I should emphasize that this is merely my speculation. I don't really know why should price discrepancies occur. Dragons flight (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

A major reason is how convenient it is for the driver to get to the gas station. If the driver has a choice between simply taking a right (in the US) into gas station A versus having to make a U-turn onto a narrow street before being able to enter gas station B, then the drivers can be treated by segments: (1) Those who don't look at the competing prices, and will automatically choose gas station A because it's convenient to get to; (2) those who will choose the inconvenience of the U-turn if gas station B is even 1 cent cheaper; (3) those who will only take the U-turn if gas station B is 10 cents cheaper; etc. Why We Buy is a book I recommend that discusses this type of phenomenon. The importance of convenient access is also why there can be a trillion Starbucks stores all within a block of each other. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I live in the UK and get e-mail alerts frpm PetrolPrices to let me know how much each petrol station is charging. 92.30.231.73 (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Not directly related, but one thing that this reminded me of is the economics of gas stations in general. I have heard on several different radio stories and programs that gasoline is essentially a loss leader. The gas station only really makes enough money to stay open and operate by selling you water at $1.79 per 20 ounce bottle. Over the past 50 years or so, the price of gasoline has not kept up with the costs of operating the store; especially because the companies that sell the gasoline to the gas stations take a greater proportion of the sale cost, to the point where the gas station makes essentially nothing on gasoline. It is actually worse in "name brand" stores, where the gas station owner has to pay franchise fees for the right place BP or Exxon on his store sign; especially when the generic "Bob's Gas and Guzzle" down the street gets his gasoline from the same supplier. The gas station often pays the extra fees because the name recognition gets more foot traffic in his store, as do customer loyalty credit cards and stuff like that. More customers means more outrageously priced water (and other products) is sold, and as noted, that's the only way the stores make money. --Jayron32 19:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that gas stations are actually a varied set of businesses. Some use gas as a loss leader to attract customers to their profitable convenience store and sell gas slightly below cost. These prices may be especially low when a competitor is very close by. Others set the price so that they make a small margin on gasoline and hope to make money from their convenience store or their auto repair and maintenance services. Those looking for convenience-store traffic cannot set their price much above those of nearby competitors. A third category of gas stations set gas prices that allow them to make a small profit on each sale of gasoline and/or to actively discourage customers who just want gas. This third category is almost invariably primarily a mechanic (car-repair and -maintenance) shop that also offers gas to customers who are there to spend $400 on a repair and don't care that a fill-up will cost them $40 instead of $35. Another variant is a gas station in an area where affluent people live or work. These gas stations charge higher prices, but they have attendants who pump the gas (so that the driver doesn't have to), and they invariably check the oil, clean the windows, and perhaps check tire pressure. There are people who make enough money that they don't mind paying 30 cents more per gallon to get this kind of service. When you see a big price difference between neighboring gas stations, the one with the higher price has a different business model than the one with the lower price. Marco polo (talk) 20:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course, you'll note that the vast majority of your models aren't based on selling gasoline as the primary commodity. Either they get you to pay the premium on the more expensive gasoline because you're already stuck their patronizing their primary business (and thus gasoline is a suplemental, and not primary, source of revenue) OR they are selling something like "convenience and service", such as the VERY RARE full service station whereby the little carhop comes out and fills your tank, checks the oil, cleans the windshield, etc. In that case, what you are paying for is the service, again it isn't the gasoline, because if all you wanted was gas, you'd save the thirty cents and go down the road. What you never find anymore is a straight gas station, which just sells you gas. That's because its quite impossible to make enough money at it to make it worth it. Edging the price up a few cents per gallon may offset the loss on gasoline, but this small increase in revenue is unlikely to overcome the operating costs of running the business. If you try to build a gasoline-only station anywhere, you have to set the price so high that the competitors that are also selling another service, such as a convenience store, can easily poach enough business to keep you from making any real profit from your station. --Jayron32 20:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that there are many gas stations left in the United States whose main source of revenue is gas sales. The main exception might be the gas stations in rest areas along major long-distance superhighways. These rest areas typically have convenience stores more or less separate from the gas station. The gas station is able to make money on gas because there is no competition close by, so prices are higher than at other gas stations in the region, but drivers will pay those prices rather than exit the superhighway and have to navigate unfamiliar roads. The combination of modest margins on gas sales and high volume would make these businesses viable based on gas sales alone. Marco polo (talk) 21:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, those gas stations are generally run by the Turnpike Authority (or equivalent) themselves. That is, those types of gas stations are built on private toll roads, and are owned by the organization that runs the toll road. That creates a very different set of circumstances. It should also be noted that, in those cases, the convenience store and the restaurant and the garage at the "rest area" are all still owned by the same owner (the Turnpike Authority) so they still aren't being run as a stand-alone gas station. Your point is valid, about them being able to charge higher prices because of the lack of competition, but it isn't true that such ventures are gasoline-only businesses. In fact, in all my driving along the various highways of America, I have only run into a handful of full-service rest areas (gas and/or restaurant) along free highways. There's one on Rte 128 in Massachusetts; but that is managed by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (the people that run the Mass Pike), there's like 3 or 4 on I-95 in Connecticut, but that was once the toll road known as the Connecticut Turnpike, so these are sort of "grandfathered" in. There's 3 or so on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut; these are genuine gas-only ventures which I believe might meet your definition as a gas-only station as part of a rest-area. There's the one on the Hutchinson River Parkway in New York, but that has a convenience store too. That's about it. I think that's because the Interstate Highway Act and related legislation does not allow such "dedicated" commercial rest areas to be built on free interstates. The cases where they exists are on roads that predate the Interstate system, and thus have a sort of "grandfather" status; or the roads aren't interstates at all. --Jayron32 21:47, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen a case where one station charges "20 to 30 cents more for each gallon of gas than a station 100 to 200 feet away", at least not for the same octane and payment type. But, of course, if you're comparing the cash price for 85 octane with the credit card price for 94 octane, that price range would be expected. StuRat (talk) 08:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

20 cent difference between nearby stations can occur when it is difficult to get to one of the stations and easy to get to the other. There is a gas station situation near one of my relatives where to get to it you need to cross 3 lanes of traffic, to get to the left turn lane, and then turn across 3 lanes of traffic without a light. They are usually priced 20c lower for the same fuel ocatane as the station across the street since the interstate exit strongly favors the other station. Googlemeister (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

These two gas stations differ by about 20¢ per gallon at all three octane levels, with the Arco to the south being cheaper. It's quite difficult to get to the Arco if you're going west on Marin (zoom out to get a better idea of why). -- BenRG (talk) 23:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

At the intersection of Ten Mile Road and Orchard Lake Road in the suburbs of Detroit, the Shell station on the east side of Orchard Lake would routinely have gas prices thirty cents or more above those of the no-name brand on the west side of the road. I never did figure out how either of them was staying in business: the no-name station had to be losing money on every gallon of gas sold (the price of a gallon of crude oil plus the gas tax was less than the price they were selling gas at), while the Shell station could not possibly be getting enough business to cover fixed costs. --Carnildo (talk) 02:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

In a related anecdote, the BP station near where I work routinely charges $0.10 more than the no-name competitor across the street. But during the gulf disaster they charged about $0.15 LESS than the place across the street. So I guess brand recognition (good and bad) must be a big part of it. APL (talk) 21:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The Holiday

I have had my heart broken today, it is almost christmas, I am off work from 22/12 to 04/01, I have a budget of £700 including flight and accomodation, where can I go I need to get the hell out of the UK. Any sugestions please help me, I was utterly alone last christmas even though I made plans with people, they stood me up, and I cant handle that situation again, not emotionally especially now that she has left me in pieces, I dont want to see any English people. I looked at couchsurfing but how safe is that really? and anyway I dont think I will be fun to have around for christmas as I am not a happy person right now. The cheapest flight I could find was to Oslo, but even the cheapest hostel is still very expensive, for me. Any ideas people I am begging here! I need help with this, before I am alone in my room for a 3rd christmas running. I cant handle that. Please. ~manly 28yo cries like a little girl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.145 (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

If you don't care where you stay, I've had very good experiences with Hotwire finding deeply discounted rooms at the last minute (booking less than less than 24 before check-in). I don't know if it would work well during the holiday period though. One of my friends also had a good experience couchsurfing, but I don't know how consistently one can expect good results with that. Many travel sites will advertise various "deals". Looking through them might give you ideas of where you can fly cheaply. You didn't say where you are starting from in the UK, which probably affects how easily you can get a cheap flight. You might also consider train travel, as that could be cheaper than flying for some routes. I've even heard of people using overnight trains as a substitute for hotels, but you need to plan that carefully in order to make it work well. Dragons flight (talk) 21:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Turn up at the SAS desk at Heathrow and say: I haven't much money but can you fly me some where nice please? When they ask And who might you be ? Just answer: Julian Assange You are guaranteed to get a free flight--Aspro (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Really helpful....thanks.

Du är välkommen. Ha en trevlig flygning --Aspro (talk) 21:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, "du är välkommen" is horribly literal translation of the idiom "you're welcome". I think "varsågod" is what you meant to say... Gabbe (talk) 07:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

"Ha en trevlig flygning" is quite awkward as well. "Trevlig resa" would be more apt. --Soman (talk) 22:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh I'm feel disappointed. My linguistic mentor (who is a Swedish chef) positivity waxed lyrically on my min flyt i det svenska språket.--Aspro (talk) 22:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You can get from Watford to Cardiff for £70 return on the train. There are English people in Cardiff, it's true, but there are also Welsh people. Marnanel (talk) 21:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It can't cost that much to get to Normandy from England can it? I mean I have heard of people who swam there. Googlemeister (talk) 21:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It's 110 miles; quite a paddle! Alansplodge (talk) 16:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Those who swim from England to France don't usually go to Normandy, but to the Pas de Calais. If the OP wants France on a budget, all the cheap Eurostar deals are probably gone, but you can go on a ferry and then get a train. Where to, though, that will be nice in this weather? Paris, but wrap up very warm. Lille is easy to get to and has its charms. One or more of Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp? Itsmejudith (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Much cheaper option: volunteer over Christmas. Charities are always short of people to run Christmas events on the big days; you'd have an iron-clad alibi (who can really criticise you?); you'd get to be around people who speak English, but know absolutely nothing about you and your life except that you're a decent enough person to be there; you'd probably meet a few interesting 'characters' who can be spun into man-of-the-world stories in later conversation; you'd get to feel Christmassy, without the social stress; you'd still have your nestegg to spend on an interesting experience when you feel less crap. Don't waste this trip when you feel so bad: do something to force yourself out of your own thoughts and preoccupations. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 23:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand the impulse. When I was in my 20s I often found travel therapeutic. The key is to really embrace the travel, to experience the place you are visiting, and to banish from your mind whatever it is that was troubling you. Unfortunately, though, £700 isn't a lot for a 2-week trip. If you minimize your travel cost, you will end up in a neighboring country where the weather is just as dreary as in England this time of year and where everyone around you will be celebrating Christmas, or Noël, or Kertsmis, or whatever. On such a tight budget, this won't be easy, but my advice would be to leave Christendom altogether and go to a country where they don't do Christmas. The cheapest such destination seems to be Istanbul. Per Opodo, you can fly there from London for £335 return. This is almost half your budget, but it rescues you from Christmas. In order to have money for food, you are going to have to stay in a dorm. Wikitravel has some options. You are not going to have a lot of money left for drinking and merriment, but maybe it would be better for you to bring a few books to read, a thick notebook to write in a journal, and to spend your days wandering around one of Europe's most ancient and fascinating cities. Marco polo (talk) 01:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I just found out that winter weather in Istanbul is not very different from in England. However, it is quite a bit further south, so it will be brighter, a bit less chilly, and less gloomy. But it tends to be cool and rainy, with an occasional light snow. Per the BBC, in a 2-week period at this time of year, you are likely to have about 9 rainy days. Sunlight (i.e. blue sky) averages 3 hours a day. By contrast in London, you would have 7 rainy days but only 1 hour per day of sunlight on average. I still think it would be a good getaway. Marco polo (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Seven hundred pounds are a lot of money. Book in advance with an airline like Wizzair. For my part, I think Poland would be very welcoming - Christmas time is quite unique here, and I guarantee that if you book a hostel room in a city like Kraków or Wrocław for this period you're bound to run into some other vagabonds who wanted to get away from things. And trust me, you'll definitely enjoy it. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 08:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Kraków and Wrocław are wonderful places. When I visited them several years ago, I found people there very friendly. This would not be a bad choice if you don't mind a different type of Christmas and possibly some quite cold and wintry weather. Marco polo (talk) 15:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrap-up well! Today's daytime max is -4C. Alansplodge (talk) 16:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If you really want to escape from the UK and Christmas, try flying to an Arab country. There are cheap flights from the UK to Málaga, Spain. From Málaga you can take a ship to Melilla in the African continent. The whole trip should cost you not more than £200 return. The remaining £500 should be enough to spend some amenable days in Morocco. Trustinchaos (talk) 16:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought you could get holidays in Spain dirt cheap at this time of year? Should be warmer and sunnier, at least on the soujtern coast, and lots of British pensioners to chat to. Does not Ryanair do flights to places for £5 any more? I bet £700 is enough for a last-minute all-in package holiday somewhere warmer. Maybe there's someting on lastminute dot com or your high Street travel agents. 92.15.30.71 (talk) 17:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you include all the taxes in the Ryanair price, the ticket costs more than these £5. Trustinchaos (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help people, I have found a ticket to Oslo for under £200, so I am going to shave off my long hair, shave off my beard, buy a really good suit, and a diamond ring and I am going to ask her to marry me, if she says no I will buy the ticket to Oslo and never come back. Wish me luck, I am pretty sure she is going to say no. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.145 (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I had assumed you were a woman. 92.24.190.135 (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If you change religions spending Christmas alone won't be so much of a big deal. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As an ex-christian atheist (and noting that atheism isn't a religion - so this isn't an exact matching anecdote) I'll politely disagree that changing religion can significantly reduce the impact of one's society's most popular holidays. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Try http://flightchecker.moneysavingexpert.com and the link to Cheap Flightbroker on that page for bargains. 92.28.245.105 (talk) 17:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

omline job

What are some of the genuine online jobs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.221.209.6 (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Depending on how you count job, there is Amazon Mechanical Turk. If you really bust your ass, you might make enough money at that to live on. There are also teachers who teach online courses, and many officeplaces allow telecommuting, whereby you work from a home office, and your primary means of communication with coworkers and clients is online. --Jayron32 21:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Regulation of Irish charities?

In the UK the Charities Commission regulates charities, and requires regular public reports which are publicly available. Is there an equivalent place where I can get information about charities registered in the ROI? I am looking for financial filings that I cannot find on the charities own website. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 21:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks from this that Ireland is only just getting its act together and setting up a Charities Regulatory Authority. See also this which suggests that they started the work os establishing the Authority in February 2009. (They may not have got very far). At the foot of the first linked page is an address for what enquiries can be made about charities, but it does not cover your need; the Charities Section, Office of the Revenue Commissioners will tell you if an organisation is or is not a charity for tax relief purposes. And that's your lot. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That's what I feared, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 21:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

How to prevent porridge from exploding in a microwave?

When preparing sachets of porridge, with skimmed milk, in a microwave oven, I am experiencing a problem. Sometimes, it explodes all over the microwave.

I've tried putting a plate over the bowl, but it just blows the plate off. I've stirred in half-way through.

For info, it's the brand "Oats so simple".

Suggestions please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.157.204 (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ask at the horse's mouth manufacturer:Oatso Simple. Email them:quaker.consumer@quaker.co.uk--Aspro (talk) 22:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Try splitting the cooking time in three, so you stir at ⅓ and ⅔ of the way through. FWIW, making porridge in a saucepan doesn't take significantly longer than using the microwave. DuncanHill (talk) 22:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Apart from using a saucepan (my usual solution, and as easy and quick as the microwave: quicker if you include the 'cleaning the microwave' time), you could try something like Ready Brek where you can just heat up the milk, then add it to the finely-ground oats. Just as tasty. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 22:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Great suggestions, thanks, will try those.

If anyone has any other solutions, I will check back. Thanks again, 94.192.157.204 (talk) 22:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Last thing at night, put pot of rolled oats at back of hearth and bank up ciders and ash around it. Come the morning you will have lovely smooth oat porridge. This will work with very cheap plain rolled oats, which haven't been pre-steamed by Mr Quaker and re-sold with a hefty mark up. Season with salt. Also, don't and never, use a saucepan. If you must, use a bain-marie. Oh. I'm feeling hungry again. Bon Appétit!--Aspro (talk) 22:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

All oats you buy have been pre-steamed - its practically impossible to buy them uncooked. I've tried. 92.29.113.166 (talk) 23:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You're not trying hard enough.Feeding Oats. Also, if you add a little linseed oil before putting your head in the nosebag, you will get a lovely shiny coat.--Aspro (talk) 23:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Its illegal to sell for human consumption and unhealthy to eat animal feed. 92.29.113.166 (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree about using a saucepan - in fact I'm sure you'd get a better result buying a large bag of oats rather than a sachet - but otherwise you could try muesli. Avoid muesli that contains sugar or whey, its sickly. 92.29.113.166 (talk) 23:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Muesli! What was it, that Harry Lime said in the Third Man? You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock and Muesli!--Aspro (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Harry Lime was a drug dealer - I recall he dealt in fake drugs that killed people - and he was a fictional character. So what does he know? I don't remember Orson Welles saying the "and muesli" bit either - I think you've made that up. 92.29.113.166 (talk) 23:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh! Maybe that last bit that ended up on the cutting room floor ;-)--Aspro (talk) 01:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair comments, gratefully received. However; Anything a bit more scientific, or related to the specifics, Sorry if the q. was unclear; Given only a Popty ping, and wishing to cook cheapo lazy packet shite - any ideas on reducing the cleaning bills? Thanks in antic... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.157.204 (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Microwave on full power until the porridge is near boiling - for my bowl and my microwave that takes about 2 minutes - then microwave on minimum power until ready to eat - about 3 more minutes to get it just the way I like it. I add butter and maple syrup before eating. Oat-so-simple isn't bad but I prefer porridge oats and even the luxury brands will give you a lot more porridge for about the same money. filceolaire (talk) 01:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

thanks!

I thought Ready Brek only required pouring boiling water on it? Then you could have instand soup and instant noodles for lunch. Or hopefully not. 92.15.30.71 (talk) 16:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Only if, like the True Scotsman, you like your porridge made with water rather than milk. Ready Brek, in its basic, original form, is just very finely milled oats. You could make it up with boiling water, hot milk, hot cream, hot yoghurt, hot chocolate, hot coconut milk, hot apple juice, almost any hot liquid with enough water in. I think it's nice made with hot milk heated in a mug in the microwave, with a spoonful of honey stirred through, but you could be more Scottish :) 86.161.208.185 (talk) 21:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Kick Wrestling

I know there is a martial known as Kick-Boxing, but is there also something called Kick-Wrestling, i just want to know because the other day a friend of mine who is asian and a kung fu practitioner and i were sparring a little he punched my leg and said that i had a hard as steel legs and almost broke his wrist and the other i was also sparring with my mexican friend who used to be a security guard and knew wrestling or lucha libre and i defeated him. so i want to know is there something known as kick-wrestling or something similar. you know something that uses my legs to wrestle someone else.thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.79.129.82 (talk) 23:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

There are lots of systems of martial arts, literally hundreds of them. Kickboxing is actually a bunch of different martial arts, from Japanese kickboxing to Muay Thai, a martial art from Thailand. There are probably some martial arts which involve some combination of wrestling and kicking. Indeed, Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial art developed in the 1960s combines elements of wrestling with punching and kicking; it has been called by some to be the ancestor of modern MMA. I am not aware of any specific martial art commonly known as "Kick-wrestling" directly, but there may be some. The article List of martial arts is a fairly comprehensive list of worldwide martial arts. You may find what you are looking for there. --Jayron32 02:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In grossly general terms, martial arts can be split into two groups: those that involve grappling (wrestling and submissions) and those that involve striking (punching and kicking). Once you combine elements of those two, you're essentially talking about a "mixed" martial art, almost by definition. Matt Deres (talk) 14:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

December 9

Trust Fund

I have recently become an uncle, and as we're approaching Christmas I've decided £50 seems a reasonable figure to give to my niece. I'm a first year university student, so I'm quite poor, but it's not every day that I have to spend the money so I think the figure is one I'll most likely stick with. I realise that a child of a few months won't even understand the concept of money, and I don't trust my nieces parents with any money, so I thought of putting the money into some sort of trust fund which matures when the child is of a mature age, 24. I'm wondering what is typical in the UK for such a thing. I have no intention of ever informing my siblings of this, and I shan't ever have children. This is my current plan: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trust_Fund.jpg. Is it approximately a typical arrangement for people in the UK or any other similar developed country? Many thanks, Skippy (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you're low on income, and want/need advice on anything like this, my first two ports of call would be my bank and the Citizens' Advice Bureau in my area. They will offer the best free advice you can get, and will help guide you towards paid-for advice if appropriate. I hear trust funds under UK law can get nightmarishly complicated, so I wouldn't trust any more specific advice someone like me could give! 212.183.140.103 (talk) 01:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To answer for the rest of the developed country, Canada has one that's acutally intended for exactly that, at least for helping them pay for schooling. See RESP. Aaronite (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In the United States, you could set up a Uniform Transfers to Minors Act account. The money would be hers, but under the control of you or another responsible adult, until she reaches the age of majority in the state in which the account was established. I don't know if the UK has anything like this. John M Baker (talk) 06:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The British Government is phasing out its contributions to Child Trust Funds (and they could be claimed by the child at 18, not at 24), but these accounts are still offered by various investment companies. There is some advice here Dbfirs 11:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Bear in mind that if you something along the lines you suggest and don't tell your siblings, you need to pay attention to the possibility you may get run over by a bus. Not only is this inconvenient and have potential impact on your looks and career prospects, it may mean that you pop your clogs, leaving no-one who knows about the dormant account and how to access it. --Dweller (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You could also contact some building societies and banks to ask them whether they have any savings accounts that could provide what you are looking for. Perhaps an joint account in your name and your niece's, where both signatures are required for withdrawal. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

For a "poor student" who is likely to incur large debts over the coming years of university education, £50 seems remarkably generous for a child of just a few months, especially when placed in an obscure "trust fund" that only you have access to (until the child is 18). Why not get a teddy bear instead - something she can appreciate now - and save the trust fund idea for a time when you can afford it? Astronaut (talk) 11:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Teddy bears don't accrue interest over time. --Quartermaster (talk) 12:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I need advice: How can I get a drifter from Topeka, KS to Enid, OK?

I picked him up while he hitchhiked and dropped him off in Topeka. It was an hours-long drive, so we got to know each other real well. We also became Facebook friends. (He gets on at public libraries.) In fact, we've been messaging each other on there. I can't help him because I'm in a town over 50 miles away, and need to turn in all my assignments for the end of the semester.

The problem is: There are no truck stops within Topeka city limits. The nearest one is at a service area on an island between the Interstate lanes, so he can't hike there as it's against the law to be a pedestrian on the Interstate.

He needs to find a way to Enid, OK, and he doesn't have enough money for a Greyhound Bus ticket from there. The weather's cold this time of year, and it would be one heck of a long hike.

I'm running out of answers; do you have any suggestions that I don't know of? His library closes 9 PM Central, so I'll need to provide him a solution very soon. Please provide ideas as soon as you can. Thanks. --129.130.101.34 (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Western Union him the $20-or-so for a Greyhound ticket? Buy the Greyhound ticket online? Haus^Talk 01:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The closest Greyhound station to Enid is El Reno, OK and from Topeka tomorrow, it's $64.24 web-only fare. There needs to be another suitable option. He did tell me that he got some free clothes from a Salvation Army or other clothes charity, so he won't freeze whenever he has to hike out in the cold. Still though, if anyone has suggestions on where he can go within Topeka city limits, that can be a suitable, low-cost (or free) starting point to his destination, please post it. --129.130.99.167 (talk) 01:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

When I was in my 20s, I hitchhiked, sometimes long distances, in winter. It's not really so bad if you dress for it. In fact, bad weather makes drivers take pity. The truth is, even though it's illegal, I often hitchhiked on interstates. The worst that ever happened was a state cop pulled over and told me to get off the road. However, I usually got picked up before a cop drove by. The key is to have a sign so that drivers know you really want to go somewhere and you aren't out for trouble. It also helps to look like a wholesome college student, so your friend might want to tame any aggressive hair or wardrobe. My recommendation would be a double-sided sign: On one side, write the word "OKLAHOMA" in huge letters. I always used large pieces of corrugated cardboard taken from the sides of boxes. On the other side: ENID. The reason is that people in Kansas can't be expected to know where Enid is. Now the very quickest place to get a ride is 1) on the shoulder of the interstate, and 2) along a straight stretch of the road where drivers can see you from a distance and have plenty of room to stop behind you without negotiating a curve. You want to choose a spot near where a major feeder road enters the interstate so that if a state cop tells you to get off the highway you are near the next-best place to get a ride: 1) On a major road leading onto an interstate as near to the onramp as you can get while standing in a spot where drivers have plenty of time to inspect you, and 2) in a place where drivers have plenty of room to pull over safely to pick you up. Looking at a map of Topeka, the best place to enter the highway to travel south would be the onramp leading from SW Topeka Blvd around the 3900 block onto I-470 (leading to I-335). This onramp is long, straight, and busy enough that your friend could stand there without having to enter the illegal part of the interstate. Thing is, he will probably get someone who is going no further than Emporia or Wichita. If your friend is committed to staying off the interstate, then he has to refuse rides to destinations other than large towns because he is going to have to rely on busy onramps, which exist only in cities and bigger towns. In this case, I would hold out for a ride to at least Wichita. You or your friend should study a map and/or Google satellite view to figure out the best places to stand in Wichita to continue further south. Maybe there is a truckstop there, though most truckers will not accept hitchhikers for insurance liability reasons. From Wichita, try for someone who is going at least as far south as Perry, OK, so that your friend can get out of the car at the exit for US-412, where it should be easy to hitch the short remaining distance to Enid. A few other tips: if a driver seems under the influence of drugs or alcohol, politely decline the ride. If a driver starts making unwelcome sexual comments, explain that you are sorry if you gave the wrong impression but you are not looking for that, and ask him (or her) to let you out of the car immediately. Let me add the disclaimer that your friend uses these tips at his own risk, and that neither I nor Wikipedia advocate any illegal behavior. Marco polo (talk) 02:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at Wichita, and because of its size and its grid pattern, there is no single obvious entry point into the highway system for Oklahoma-bound traffic. However, as good a place as any would be Exit 50 off of I-35. The place to stand would be on E. Kellogg Ave. just before the onramp onto I-35. The advantage of this place is that there are lots of inexpensive motels around where long-distance drivers are likely to spend the night before resuming their journey. The best time to wait for a ride at that location would be at 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. There is a hospital about 2 miles (40 minutes walk) west of this point on Kellogg Ave. where your friend could spend the night in a waiting room to stay warm if necessary. Marco polo (talk) 02:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I give you a barnstar even if I'm not the OP? (Not sure of the etiquette.) That's some answer. Rimush (talk) 22:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

SURVEY JOB

I am in ghana , what genuine online survey job can i get

Short answer, there are no genuine online survey jobs, in Ghana or elsewhere. Beach drifter (talk) 12:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Agent Orange

[07:25] <RG> Hi, I need info and documentation to show what chemicals were used on Treasure Island, san francisco california from 1950's to the 1970's. Thanks

---

[07:25] <RG> my email is <email removed> [07:26] <RG> No, I need this to prove my illnesses incurred back then.... [07:27] <RG> I was there in 1968 and was exposed to them ( agent orange specifically, I am now type i diabetic and have been since I was 35.I need to get proof of exposure..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.129.5.52 (talk) 13:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article Agent Orange, it was used in the United States in some limited applications until 1978. It does not give any details as to exactly where and when it was used, so I have no idea if it was used on Treasure Island at any time. You would need to contact the relevent agency in California. This may also be the sort of issue where a lawyer would be useful. --Jayron32 13:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You should file a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Navy requesting the information about the presence of Agent Orange on the island for the time period in question. It's the best means of getting an authoritative response. This page explains how to make a request to the Navy. They are required by law to respond. This kind of thing is not uncommon for them to process. Filling out a FOIA does not require any specific legal knowledge, but this page from GWU is very helpful. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

SHOPPING

I am in ghana , how can i shop online —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.221.209.6 (talk) 15:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

First, you will need a credit card, usually a MasterCard or VISA card. Then you would need to find a retailer that delivers to Ghana. I'm not sure if there is a directory. You may have to try retailers by trial and error. According to this chart, Amazon will ship to Ghana, so once you have the credit card, you are ready to go. Marco polo (talk) 16:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

JOB

Is there any genuine online research company that i can get a job to do —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.221.209.6 (talk) 15:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If there are online research companies, they will want to see evidence of your online research skills before giving you a job. If you have online research skills, you should use them to find such a company. Marco polo (talk) 16:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Try the leading international market research companies. Send them a CV. It will help if you have a degree in a social science subject like psychology, sociology or economics. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Akron Ohio and rubberized asphalt streets

Your article on Akron Ohio was very good but I believe one point was missed. The Akron area or Barberton specifically had the first rubberized asphalt street in the world and it was installed in about 1939. I was from that area and drove on it. Your current info shows rubberized asphalt as first happening in the 60's in Phoenix, Az which I believe is incorrect. Could you check in to this please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.158.212 (talk) 17:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I have found this quote on page two. Natural rubber was used in bitumen (asphalt) as early as the 1840s [1].technology transfer program s e p t ember 2009, vol . 1, no. 2 & Rubber roads in London. Looks like this idea has been bouncing around for quite a while, before then.--Aspro (talk) 17:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Easternmost country in Europe?

What is the easternmost country situated completely in Europe? It's definitely not Russia or Turkey, because part of those countries are situated in Asia. Is it maybe Georgia? JIP | Talk 19:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

According to our map in the Europe article, it would appear to be Ukraine. Georgia appears to be Eurasian. Aaronite (talk) 20:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It sort of depends on how you define the border between Europe and Asia; its not always so clear. Some sources include Georgia as fully part of one or the other, and others consider it, like Russia and Turkey, to be split between them. The Ukraine is probably the best unambiguous answer. --Jayron32 20:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As Borders of the continents#Europe and Asia notes, the definition of the boundary is a bit fuzzy. Depending on the definition, Transcontinental country#Asia and Europe lists Georgia as being transcontinental, and so off your list. But just as with physical boundaries being fuzzy, so are definitions - is Réunion part of France (in the terms of your question) and if so does that make France the easternmost, or does it disqualify France altogether? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No, my question's criteria only cover the mainland of countries, not islands. So therefore France is included as European even if Réunion is outside Europe. The mention of Georgia being partly in Asia raises an interesting question - I've actually been in Georgia, in Tbilisi to be exact, about two decades ago. It is the easternmost place I have ever been to. Does this mean I've actually been to Asia, or is Tbilisi still in Europe? JIP | Talk 20:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the Meso-Caucasus definition in Finlay McWalter's first link, Tbilisi can be seen as a transcontinental city. Finlay McWalter's second link doesn't mention Tbilisi, but the two mkhares surrounding it are classified as Asian in that article. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I see that Wikipedia has categorized it as Category:Capitals in Asia. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It is the easternmost place I have ever been to. - it really depends on where you're measuring from. Everywhere is east of somewhere else (not to mention north, south and west of somewhere else. Hmm, reminds me of a song.) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Everywhere? Where is the North Pole east of? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 01:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Correction. Two places on earth can't be described as being "north, south, and west" of somewhere else (nor east). --Jayron32 22:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I recall a newspaper story claiming that Perry (I think it was) might not have made it to the North Pole at all, but might have passed some sixty miles west of it. The writer appeared to be serious. --Trovatore (talk) 23:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You're thinking of Robert Peary, and his achievement (or at least navigation) does indeed appear to be in some doubt. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. But the doubt about whether he got there wasn't my point. There is no "west" of the North Pole. --Trovatore (talk) 01:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Polar pedants! :) Technically, everywhere is south of the North Pole, but that doesn't mean that you're going to end up in the same place no matter how you orient your travel from the pole. Not at all. Unless your destination happens to be the South Pole. So, there are many different types of "southerly" from the North Pole, and just as many types of "northerly" from the South Pole. Some of these are more "westerly" than "easterly", and vice-versa. I know you know what I'm talking about. Don't try to deny it.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:26, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No, really, none are more westerly than easterly. Some of them go to the so-called Western Hemisphere, but the Western Hemisphere is just as much east of the Eastern Hemisphere as it is west of it. --Trovatore (talk) 02:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, with the quibble I suppose that the Atlantic is narrower than the Pacific, so if you use Western Hemisphere as a synonym for New World (which in fact I do; it strikes me as a little bizarre to make the cut through some silly town where there happened to be a telescope) then I guess it is a little more natural to think of it as west of the Eastern Hemisphere (Old World). But that doesn't apply from the pole. --Trovatore (talk) 02:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

A "silly town"? Not so - a very historically significant district of London, birthplace of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I among others. The decision on the Greenwich meridian was taken at an international conference in 1884 in Washington D.C., organised at the behest of President Chester A. Arthur. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

My rhetorical flourish was not meant as any genuine lack of respect for the good people of Greenwich. But their meridian does not in any natural way divide up "hemispheres" (unlike the North and South hemispheres, which are quite natural). Therefore I follow the common practice of dividing the Eastern and Western Hemispheres by the great oceans, even though this does not result in a division into exactly half and leaves certain islands ambiguous. --Trovatore (talk) 19:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

That nicely dovetails into my original point. A person from Ireland who'd only ever gone as far afield as Cardiff in Wales, would not deny they'd been that far east (or south-east in this case) merely because Cardiff is technically still in the Western Hemisphere as Ireland is. No, their natural benchmark is Ireland, not Greenwich, and any place less westerly than Ireland counts as being to their east. So, as long as JIP's benchmark is no more than 180 degrees west of Tbilisi, it would count as the most easterly place he's ever been to. JIP is in Finland, so he could travel right across Russia and get to the western coast of Alaska before reaching his easternmost possible point. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, move an inch away from the pole and then see how things turn out. From a purist's standpoint it may as well be the Arctic Circle. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:12, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If you move an inch away from the pole, then head continuously westward, you'll get back to where you started from after having walked about six inches. You certainly can't get sixty miles to the west of where you are. --Trovatore (talk) 03:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Now you're trying to use facts to win your argument. That's terribly unfair, and unbecoming of the true spirit of Christmas, a time for giving, a time for forgiveness, a time for love. (Pardon me, I'm just going outside to throw up and may be some time ... I know, wrong pole, but what the hell, it works.) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 04:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually I suppose I have to take some of that back. I guess it's reasonable to interpret "sixty miles west" of a point as meaning you follow a geodesic that starts out heading due west, and go for sixty miles. You could indeed do that an inch from the pole. But depending on which point on that one-inch circle you started from, you could wind up anywhere on (roughly) the 89th parallel.

Of course that's assuming some idealized Earth, say a perfect sphere or perfect oblate spheroid or something like that. In reality the problem is not really well-specified to that level of accuracy. I'm not sure the North Pole is even well-defined within an inch. --Trovatore (talk) 09:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

And to further complicate things, the north pole has a floating polar icecap on it that is continuously moving around, so even if you just sit still on the ice, you will gradually move off from the north pole. Googlemeister (talk) 14:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Due to polar motion, the pole (defined as the intersection of surface with spin-axis) is only "stably" located to within a few meters, or as an "average" of its variable location. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

December 10

Why can't women serve in direct combat roles in the US Military?

Women are barred from serving in direct combat roles in the US military; why? Has there been significant discriminatory suits been filed against this practice? How can the government discriminate in this respect?

Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 00:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Because the U.S. is a complex, pluralist society and some of its institutions are slow to adopt various progressive reforms. A second reason is that old people tend to be in charge, and old people tend to have a stronger belief in old ideas than young people. I would be shocked if, in 50 years, this restriction was still in place. It just takes time for the stodgy conservative people in charge to die off, and when the next generation who was raised with a different worldview takes over, it will change. --Jayron32 00:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Widely discussed in lots of places. You should have no problem getting a handle on the issues by simply doing a google search for DOD policy on women in combat. The first hit, Where we stand on women in combat, appears to give a fairly current overview from the point of view of those who want women to be able to more formally engage in combat operations (because the truth is, women in the US military are already on the front lines). How can the government discriminate? The US military is given much more leeway in self-governance than other branches of the government. Occasionally, the Commander in Chief and the legislature do step in to direct changes in policy, such as when African-Americans were integrated into the armed forces, and the current push to allow gay soldiers to openly serve (See Don't ask, don't tell). I'm pretty sure lots of lawsuits have been filed, but am almost as sure that they didn't go very far. Sort of related, see Rostker v. Goldberg which dealt with why only men could be drafted. --Quartermaster (talk) 00:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

A woman I know who served in the U.S. Navy (mustered out at E-6 a year or two ago) shot several Tomahawk missles at a perceived enemy. Sounds like combat to me. PhGustaf (talk) 00:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The OPs point however is that this is one of the last bastions of sanctioned, gender-based discrimination. There still remains some roles in the U.S. military that women may not fill solely because of the lack of a penis and a Y-chromosome. That they can fill some combat-level roles is irrelevent to the question. Until they are allowed to fill every role (or indeed, since this is the military, are ordered to fill every role) then the OPs question remains valid. --Jayron32 01:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a law/legal expert, but why don't lawsuits go very far in this case? Surely if the municipal police force prevented women from becoming police officers, their policy would be shot down by suits pretty easily right? Does the military's self-governance mean they can ignore these laws? Acceptable (talk) 04:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much, yes. They aren't subject to state or local laws, in this respect, and federal employment laws have explicit exclusions for the military (and farm workers, and those who work for Congress, etc.). StuRat (talk) 05:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Women in the military has several relevant points. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 06:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If "combat" requires carrying a 100 pound load on the back, or requires extreme upper body strength for climbing over something, then the average woman will be markedly inferior to the average man, and might endanger the success of the operation, or the lives of their teammates. That said, there are bell-shaped distributions such that many women exceed the physical strength of many men, and it makes more sense to select by physical capability rather than by gender if your goal is high physical capability. Many US female soldiers have been grievously wounded in the present occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, since there is no "front" and any place may suddenly become a combat zone. Any ride down any road may suddenly be assaulted by machine-gun fire, RPGs and IEDs. Being in theater is effectively being in combat. Edison (talk) 06:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The position of the British Army is in this[3] document.

Quote: "Because women are generally working at a higher percentage of their maximal effort to achieve the same levels of performance as men, they are at increased risk of over-use injury, and this finding was confirmed by morbidity data from the Army’s Training Agency and from the Field Army. Smaller size and lower bone density also predispose to a higher incidence of stress fractures. However, men and women of equal fitness have an equal incidence of injuries.

"A review of female recruits entering the Army in 1999 showed that if current selection standards were applied retrospectively, only 0.1% of those applying would have reached the standard for entry to the Infantry or Royal Armoured Corps. Of trained female soldiers, 1% would reach the standards." Alansplodge (talk) 16:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The practical answer is that US courts have usually shown great deference to military policy. There are notable exceptions, of course. --Sean 17:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It's rather bizarre to contemplate women suing the government on the grounds that they lack an equal opportunity to get killed or maimed in the line of duty. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's rather bizarre that some 50000 years after fully developed speech we still use sticks and stones (and higher-tech equivalents) to communicate our desires and displeasures. I'd say human society has the mental age of an18 months old toddler. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:43, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Why do you find that surprising? All animals (more or less) communicate their desires and displeasure through physical confrontation. Why do you think humans would be any different? We just have tools that do a lot more damage than antlers or claws. Buddy431 (talk) 04:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's see... I think it was Mark Twain who said, "Man is an ignoramus." With a little more humor, Will Cuppy made this comment in his essay on Charlemagne: "The Dark Ages were called The Dark Ages because people then were not very bright. They've been getting brighter and brighter ever since, until they're like they are now." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:48, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Unidentified Armored Car

• Vehicle: Image
• Event: Japanese_embassy_hostage_crisis

--Arima (talk) 05:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

My guess is a type of Casspir (see here, for example). But I'm the opposite of an expert in this field. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:55, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Casspir it is. Here[4] is one of 20 Casspir PNP 0002 Armoured personnel carriers operated by the Policia Nacional Del Peru. Alansplodge (talk) 16:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Mysterious huge markings on ground in China

What is the purpose of these markings on slide 11 here http://www.pcworld.com/article/170870/strangest_sights_in_google_earth_part_ii.html or directly here http://zapp3.staticworld.net/news/graphics/200808-militarymysteries2-cropped_slide.jpg ? Thanks 92.15.0.115 (talk) 14:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, nobody knows, but I will guess that this could be a "test image" to test the resolution of images from high-altitude surveillance aircraft or satellites. Marco polo (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It really looks like the Chinese military just has too much time on its hands, see this too. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 16:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

That second one looks like some sort of blasting test experiment facility. Set off a bomb in the middle of the circle, look what it does to the objects. Seems like a perfectly good thing for the military to be testing. I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. military had a similar facility. --Jayron32 19:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

One US military facility for such testing is called China Lake. Googlemeister (talk) 20:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it is an explosives facility — has too many things too close together. But it might be some kind of radar or EMP simulator facility. Notice also the apparently quite high tower just to the south of it. Hmm. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Over-thje-horizon radars tend to look like that. 92.15.28.181 (talk) 14:13, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Wouldnt a series of stripes or even just a pair of dots be enough to test the resolution? 92.24.190.135 (talk) 22:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

ah, well, the Chinese assumedly know about the presence and capabilities of satellites. it's entirely possible that these things represent a form of counter-intelligence - toss a few odd looking objects around the countryside, see which attract attention and which don't, figure out where surveillance has blind spots. --Ludwigs2 23:12, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Are we sure hey are real - the image on googlemaps and terraserver are different and look like they could be some sort of artifact from the digital processing. In the google maps image the white marks appear to be underneath some of the physical features. MilborneOne (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

That square image in that PCWorld link has a number of interesting shapes surrounding it. [5] APL (talk) 04:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

But notice how they all disappear at different zoom levels. APL (talk) 04:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The pattern linked to immediately above is a different pattern from the one linked to by the OP. For me that second pattern does not dissapear when you soom in. It looks grubby, as if it is old paint that has started to wash away from the tops of the terrain. If it is real, it must have been a very difficult feat to paint straight lines on a very uneven surface. Do these patterns actually exist on the ground? 92.15.28.181 (talk) 14:13, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Let's use Occam's razor and consider the simpler possibilities first. Pressume for the moment that it is military in nature. Q: What does a well trained military force need? A: A training ground for war games. Q: What does the image show? A: Lots of caterpillar tracks and shell holes. Q: How are they going to practice the taking of and securing of territory. A: Have a grid pattern laid out to represent a city. Q: How do they do that. A: Use bulldozers. Q: Is there any evidence to suggest that? A: Yes. The strait avenues are streaked as if the have been scraped and there are dark shadow lines on some of the edges which may indicate heaped lines of rubble. Q: Is there any other things to suggest that bulldozers have been used? Yes. This image; which shows what appears to be a line of bulldozers still hard at work.[6]. The other adjacent 'airfield' type pattern also looks pot-marked with bomb craters. --Aspro (talk) 15:31, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

What you have linked to appears to be just an airfield. The military training grounds in Europe have no big white lines. The original pattern linked to above might be just a translucent artifact, perhaps just an end of roll marker. The pattern looks familar to me - perhaps it is a means of encoding information into an image. 92.15.28.181 (talk) 16:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

There is too much detail missing for it to be a real 'airfield'. It is clearly not something translucent. Ground details such as craters tracks and material swept across it by water drainage courses preclude it from being that. Also, if real 'airfields' why have cratering on one of them (other than to mislead aerial reconnaissance) ? It even has a clear target X visual bombing mark [7] Therefore, the lines are certainly topological ground features. Europe has a vastly different terrain so the absence there would be expected. What about the US though? Is this a transparency as well? [8]--Aspro (talk) 17:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The airstrip marking could be a bombing practice range, if it is not smooth enough to be an emergency runway. 92.15.28.181 (talk) 19:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting.--Aspro (talk) 19:41, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That's odd, the link I posted was just the link from slide 11 of the article the question-asker posted, but it clearly shows a different (but similar image). I wonder if it's changed since the article was made?

Also, when I said it disappeared at different zoom levels, I meant that it disappears when you zoom out. Which it does. APL (talk) 21:22, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Are these two images in the same place? 92.29.117.8 (talk) 11:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it is a representation of the streets in a city, to be used for bombing practice. Although it seems likely that the white lines are a lot thicker than real streets would be. 92.29.117.8 (talk) 11:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

SAP course

Hi! Can somebody help me more about SAP, I m completely novice. I m craving 2 pursue it in coming years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KENNY THAPA (talk • contribs) 16:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you expand more on what you mean, are you refering to Special Assistance Plan Mo ainm~Talk 16:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I suppose he means SAP ERP, a clumsy and overpriced Enterprise resource planning tool. Quest09 (talk) 16:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Maurice - the Film.

Maybe I should have asked this question on the Humanities desk - but here goes. I just watched this movie with Hugh Grant and others playing the parts of young undergraduates at Oxford University in England during the British Edwardian era. I thought the film and story somewhat typical of the portrayed upper class of the time and period and that it was well acted and produced. What puzzles me about this kind of film is how young men (the actors), clearly in their sexual prime, can kiss, cuddle, be affectionate to each other, even get into bed with each other, simulate gay sex, and not become aroused, even if they are not actually gay or curious. By the way, I couldn't care less either way - it's their business, not mine. The biographies of the principals suggest that they are mostly happily married with kids, so how do they control their natural urges doing those erotic scenes? Or do they genuinely not have any natural urges towards other men and can act those scenes totally devoid of any arousal? And I suppose the same goes for women/women scenarios too? 92.7.216.6 (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Different social and cultural situations have their own "normal". John Cleese tells stories of his life at similar boys schools, and it is the sort of stuff that may seem odd outside of the context of the school. What you perceive as "gay" isn't necessarily so. Consider the common Arabic attitude towards holding hands. Men frequently hold hands when walking together in Arabic culture, a public display viewed in some western cultures like the U.S. as unambiguously gay. See this excellent article at the New York Times. I wouldn't say that, for example, Saudi Arabia has a more lenient stance towards homosexuality than the U.S. does!!! You can't take things like this out of one culture, and attempt to apply the standards of another against them. --Jayron32 20:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The OP isn't saying anything about the historical acts, he's specifically asking about the actors. And the answer there is: maybe they were turned on, maybe they weren't. Actors and actresses frequently stress how completely un-erotic a filmed sex scene usually is - at least half a dozen people standing around watching you, makeup people touching you, stopping, starting, re-starting, trying different actions and nuances, it goes on and on. After coyly allowing your hand to drift across someone lower abdomen thirty times in a row, I'm sure getting turned on is probably the last worry you've got - more like boredom! Matt Deres (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I doubt we'd find any citation that tells us that Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves either did get "aroused", or that they didn't. How would this be measured anyway, apart from having obvious erections? If they're happily married and/or as heterosexual as one can be, then how likely is it that being with another man in this context is going to produce the reactions you speak of? If a gay male actor were in a straight-sex scene (with a woman), he probably wouldn't get aroused either, but he'd just do whatever the script and director asked for. Having sex with dozens of people around you filming it must be a daunting prospect even for porn actors, which is why the porn studios have ticklers - people who use feathers etc to stimulate the actors' genitals to erection just before the director says "action". When it's not even a porn film, but an art film, there's much less likelihood that the guys are going to be rampantly erect, especially if they're not even gay to begin with. Bottom line is that a straight actor is not going to risk his reputation by being seen to have erections in the company of other men. The workers on the set might be sworn to silence, but WikiLeaks has ears and eyes everywhere. My 2c. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If you google "actors aroused sex scene" you find plenty of discussion on this topic, and varying opinions. Gay or straight, it probably depends on the actor and the situation. I found some quotes that suggested certain actors do get aroused at times; on the other hand, Joseph Fiennes is asked the question in this interview, and says "Quite the opposite, in fact. I would love to show my prowess and say 'absolutely' but, with 20 hairy-arsed sparks standing around, I never do. And take after take kills any desire." If he's a straight man failing to be aroused during a sex scene with a female actress, I doubt he'd find a male colleague any more stimulating (and as Jack says, he's got more incentive to ensure it doesn't happen). Karenjc 20:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

China rules

Does the United Nations represent the end of WWII and was formed by China? Why was the "treaty" singed in San Francisco? If the "treaty was signed in the United States why would China have right to name any connection to this country? Why would a treaty include two totally different subjects as War memorial and Performing Arts Center?

china wall china wall china wall —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.119.60.105 (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The United Nations Charter was signed in the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center because that's where its terms had just been agreed, at the 2-month United Nations Conference on International Organization attended by representatives of the 50 founding nations. History of the United Nations and China and the United Nations discuss how and why the UN came into being, and the history of China's role within it. Karenjc 22:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if you are talking about the UN Charter or the Treaty of San Francisco - both signed at the same facility (which included a lounge for WWI veterans). China was not present the WWII-ending Treaty of San Francisco signing (in 1951) but was for the UN Charter (in 1945). Rmhermen (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The question makes no sense, it makes obvious erronous assumptions and proceeds to completely unrelated issues about local US sites, then finish of with a rant. I call troll. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a troll. Or just someone yet to become well informed. I have one question. What "treaty"? HiLo48 (talk) 22:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It makes perfect sense if the OP is a non-native speaker of English. That a single structure is called "The San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center" can be confusing, he seems to be thinking that there are two seperate buildings, and was confused why a treaty would be said to be signed in two different buildings. There were also two agreements, both signed there, BOTH involving many of the same people, and BOTH related to the end of WWII, but they were actually seperate events, seperated by several years. It could be easy to confuse the two. I'm not sure what the china wall thing means. But it seems perfectly reasonable to AGF on this one. --Jayron32 22:40, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll agree with the possibility of confusion. I'm heading in that direction myself! HiLo48 (talk) 22:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

One other comment, the "China" which was an original member of the UN was Nationalist China, now confined/exiled to Taiwan. Communist China replaced them in the UN in 1971. StuRat (talk) 05:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That view seems obvious from the words of the Charter but is not the view shared by mainstream or orthodox international legal scholars.

That view is that the state of China has changed its government from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China under the "succession of states" theory. Therefore, the reference to "the Republic of China" in the UN's constitutional documents is to be read as if "China" has changed its name from one to the other, just as if a person named in a contract had changed his name. Under this theory, the succession occurred de facto around 1949-1951 while it was recognised by the international community progressively from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Of course that view is contested in various ways - the Taiwanese government says that the succession was never complete and as such the Republic of China still represents the state of China and has not been succeeded. The Taiwanese opposition says that there was no succession, there was a splitting of the sovereignty of China into two parts, both of which are new sovereign states. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This is somewhat complicated by the (very political) One-China policy. I'd appreciate the so-called "mainstream...scholars" you cite if they showed some sign of not towing the Beijing Party Line when it comes to the history of China. The one-China policy merely represents the ability of Mainland China to control international law regarding this issue sheerly by the size of its population and economy. There have been effectively 2 Chinas since the 1950s, most non-governmental concerns deal with Taiwan as sovereign state in its own right, or maintain some sort of legal fiction to be able to do so in a de facto way, while still publicly professing the one-China policy. However, no government who actually wants to deal with Beijing would ever recognize Taiwan as an independent state because Mainland China would essentially blackball it. So we all pretend like Taiwan is part of China, and go through great lengths to maintain the illusion, all the while Taiwan behaves essentially like a sovereign state of its own right. --Jayron32 14:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That's not quite complete Jayron. The Taiwanese government also "pretend[s] like Taiwan is part of China." Remember that all governments who still recognise the Republic of China recognises it as the government of China.

My view is that it is simplistic to label the "one China" theory as pure legal fiction at this point in time. The two governments were rival governments in a civil war up until at least the 1970s. Perhaps they are trending towards being two functional governments of two separate states, but at the moment this is by no means clear - yet. Perhaps the first view that there is one state with two rival governments and the second view that, in practice if not in law, there are two states with two governments, are both partially valid at the moment. Perhaps the second view is becoming more validly true now. Certainly, the longer that the two sides are at peace as they are now, the more likely that the status quo will morph into a permanent separation. But who knows, perhaps there will be a democratic revolution in China and things will change very quickly - just as the reunification of Germany happened quickly once the impetus was there, and we can probably all envisage a fairly quick reunification of South and North Korea once someone knocks off the Kims. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Except that everyone recognized the two Germanies and the two Koreas as clearly distinct and independent states. No one pretended, for example, that Kim Jong Il represents South Korea as well as North. The point is that we pretend that Beijing exerts anything that resembls sovereign control over Taiwan, or conversly that Taipei exerts anything that resembels sovereign control over mainland China. But it is a pretense. Taiwan exerts all of the parts of the definition of a Sovereign state, it has a defined territory, and a working and stable government which has the capacity to enter into relations with other states. That other states choose, for one reason or another, to pretend this isn't the case is part of the problem. Yes, I agree that we cannot predict the future, but you seem to speak out of both sides of your mouth when you claim that the one-China policy has any basis in reality, and then compare the Chinese situation to the German one or the Korean one. --Jayron32 17:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Also perhaps worth noting the reason that Taiwan for so long asserted sovereignty over the mainland: The PRC has always threatened to attack if Taiwan were to declare independence. If Taiwan is not willing to renounce its claim to be a legitimate government, and also declines to declare independence, then logically it's hard to escape the claim that they're sovereign over all of China. I believe they have by now found subtleties equal to the task, though I don't know just what those would be, and that they no longer claim the entire Middle Kingdom. --Trovatore (talk) 05:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any cite for the claim the reason the ROC has always asserted sovereignty over the mainland was because of fear of a PRC attack? Note that I'm not asking for refs of what the PRC may have done, simply for refs suggesting the main (your statement sugests only but I'll allow main) reason the ROC didn't declare independence as a sovereign Taiwanese state say when they moved to Taiwan and the 50s particularly but perhaps the 60s and early 70s too, is because they were afraid of how the PRC would respond. My impression, IMHO semi-supported One-China policy and Taiwan independence is that the Kuomintang government had some genuine (some may say or pigheaded) belief that they would one day retake what was theirs and during those times at least and didn't really want to be simply an independent Taiwan. So fear of PRC invasion wasn't necessarily the primary reason they didn't declare independence as a sovereign state of Taiwan. (Note I don't ask this to be difficult but for a reason, I think it's far from clear what the world and in particular that area would be like if they had pushed for independence as a sovereign state early on, and as may be obvious by my comments I believe they may have had a chance if they had pushed for it earlier (they may also have been destroyed but as I've said I'm not convinced nor have I seen any sources suggesting that was the primary thing stopping them). Nil Einne (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly possible that in earlier times the KMT genuinely hoped to retake the entire mainland. Nevertheless it's worth noting that there was a significant obstacle in the way of formally renouncing the claim even if they had wanted to. --Trovatore (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I find it interesting that many in the West (and I will, for the moment, assume that you, Trovatore, is from "the West" -apologies if I'm wrong) tend to somehow assume that independence has overwhelming or even majority support in Taiwan. The assumption seems to be that the only thing stopping Taiwan from declaring independence (and renouncing the mainland) is pressure from the mainland. If anyone points out that there are other forces at play here - pressure from the US, a significant proportion of the population supporting eventual reunification, or the vast majority of the population supporting the status quo - all of this tends to get dismissed as just more evidence of pressure from the mainland.

I think this is slightly patronising because it assumes that both the mainland and Taiwan are one dimensional. Remember that Taiwan's safety is backed up by the overwhelmingly most powerful military force in the world (and that's the United States, not China), and supplemented by pledges from a string of fairly powerful American allies such as Australia. For all the hype about China's rise, its leaders are by and large realists, and it is unlikely that China would risk war with the United States.

But this aside, I am genuinely perplexed as to why the "real" picture (of vast majority support for status quo and only fringe support for either independence or reunification) gets distorted into a picture of overwhelming majority for independence which is somehow repressed by a combination of PRC military threats and a home government that gets inexplicably re-elected on pro-China policies. I remember a whole string of reports, rangin from a low quality report written by someone who took a trip sponsored by the Taiwanese government, no less, in the Sydney Morning Herald, to a seemingly insightful analysis published in the New York Times - all calling the recent municipal elections overwhelmingly for the pro-independence parties - in glaring contrast to the predictions in Chinese-language media both in Taiwan and outside. The actual result, of course, was was another pan-Blue victory (or a draw at most).

Is it that the pro-indepdence camp has better propaganda machines? Do pro-independence Taiwanese tend to leave for overseas more, and thus have a disproportionate influence outside of Taiwan? Or is it a case of Western eyes seeing what they want to see? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite willing to believe that the majority of Taiwanese want the status quo, under the current circumstances. But the current circumstances include the threat by the PRC to attack, if independence were declared. Is there really any credible measurement of how they would feel if that menace were removed?

As for the support by the US, remember that the US deliberately pursues a policy of strategic ambiguity, for the obvious reason that if China doesn't want war with the US, neither does the US want war with China, nor even for China to get upset enough to start imposing economic repercussions. If Taiwan were to declare independence and the mainland made good on its threat, when push came to shove, what would the US really do? I honestly don't know, and it's hard for me to see how the Taiwanese voter can know either.

I don't think I'm being patronizing; I think I'm giving credit to the Taiwanese when I say that I think that, while they're happy enough with the status quo of independence-without-the-word, they don't really prefer having to tiptoe around these magical shibboleths. Admittedly I have no direct evidence for this; I just think it's human nature to get irritated with that sort of nonsense. --Trovatore (talk) 10:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

December 11

Please help me book a flight to Seoul? _{Takeoff date: 12-22-2012}

Whereas I already know how to book a ticket in general, the problem is, I can't seem to book one for December 22, 2012. December 2012 is when I plan to graduate college and have my first ever overseas Christmas (since 1989) with my family in Korea.

I know that generally, flights booked quite far in advance have a lower rate. (Exceptions I know of are last-minute efforts to fill all seats on a flight in order for the airline to maximize profits, but I wouldn't like to count on that.) However, since it appears difficult to book one for December 2012, would you kindly lend me some assistance? Thanks. --129.130.99.85 (talk) 00:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any airlines that books flights that far out in advance. While it is generally true that booking early gets you lower rates, airlines do not book an infinite time in advance. The best you can usually get is 6-12 months in advance. --Jayron32 00:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

If you invest the money into something until 2012, you'll be better off than if you were allowed to book the flight now. Also consider that the airline company could go bankrupt in the meantime, you could not graduate, Korea could be at war... I know, these are very scary scenarios, but it's realistic to consider all these risk in such an early booking.Quest09 (talk) 01:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that the day after the world is supposed to end? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

2012 phenomenon: It looks like 21 Dec is the date being batted around, so you might want to wait on the airline ticket until you're confident you'll be around to use it. Buddy431 (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Although that being the case, more likely by the time you realise you won't it may not matter since you won't care about the money you spent. Nil Einne (talk) 21:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Although it is cheaper to book flights early, the trend doesn't continue indefinitely. As I understand it, it levels off at about 2-3 months out (depending on airline, time of year, etc.) That is, a trip booked 6 months in advance is usually no cheaper than one booked 4 months in advance. Even if you *could* book a flight 2 years in advance, it would likely be no cheaper than one booked 3 months in advance. - Your best bet is to set up a price alert/price monitor for your desired route at flight booking website. This way you can get a sense of what the standard price for the flight is, and what's a good deal. Then, starting around July 2012, you can start monitoring flight bookings, and when a deal for that flight comes through (which might not be until October or November 2012), you can book it then. -- 174.31.218.235 (talk) 19:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't airlines generally have a 18-month limit on booking flights? --Soman (talk) 20:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It is unlikely that an airline will have fixed its timetables (more than) two years in advance; it's quite likely not possible to book a flight for December 2012 because the airlines themselves won't be certain of when they're going to be flying. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

In my experience, booking more than about 6 months ahead for a regular flight is typically not done, and probably for the reasons you state. Even scheduled flights have been known to have their times subjected to change. The best bet is to call the airlines and find out their particular policy, and see if a trend emerges. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

tech news

can anyone give me a good site for catching up on the latest technology news, and which also has the option to register so that i can get the news in my inbox instead of going to the site everytime? i googled a little and all the sites i found don't have that register option. so... please help me. i would appreciate it a lot. thanx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.232.40 (talk) 08:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

If you don't just want to use a standard an RSS] Feed, then this site (http://www.feedmyinbox.com/) lets you setup the feed to go to you as email. If it's tech products you want then I find that feed://www.engadget.com/rss.xml is a good site for news. ny156uk (talk) 10:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I regularly check slashdot.org. A good balance of all tech tastes and between seriousness and comedy. schyler (talk) 14:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

What can the recent railgun test destroy?

Recently, the US military test fired a railgun that launches a projectile at Mach 7 with a muzzle energy of 33 Megajoules. Could someone provide me with an estimate of the destructive power of this projectile? For example, could it destroy a tank? Sink a ship? Knock down a building?

Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 21:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Our Railgun article cites this ref about the Dec. 10 test. The system is being designed to damage-or-destroy a modern warship. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

33 MegaJoules is equivalent to about 7.5kg of TNT. Granted the damage profile for an impact event would not be identical to a simple explosion, it is a reasonable approximation that something you could destroy with 5-10kg of TNT could be destroyed by a hit from this kinetic energy impactor (assuming that you are close enough to not lose a lot of your energy from air friction before the projectile arrives). It looks to be about 3x as powerful as an RPG-7 warhead, so it would have a shot at disabling or destroying a tank. Googlemeister (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

How to ask for help

I'm not asking for medical advice from Wikipedia, I just need advice on how to seek medical advice from a professional. My balls hurt but I'm embarrassed to get it checked out. I'm 18 and live with my parents, and the nearest doctors in miles away so they would have to drive me there, no bus or trains here only a community hopper into town. What to I tell my parents? I've never talked to them about sexual stuff before. And how to I talk to the doctor? Do I just say "my balls hurt" wouldn't they find that odd? 90.210.203.252 (talk) 21:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Can't think of a solution to the "getting there" problem right now, but please don't worry about what to say to the doctor. They really have heard it all before. And the more straightforward you are, the better. "My balls hurt" would be great. Simple and clear. HiLo48 (talk) 22:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Good parents will always jump to help an offspring who has a medical condition, no matter how intimate it is. Unless the family is used to vulgar terms like "balls", I recommend keeping it medical-sounding, i.e. "testicles" or even start with "groin". And if they recoil in horror, you might need to find new parents. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

If you're in the UK (as your IP suggests) and registered with a GP, you just phone up the surgery/health centre/whatever and say "I'd like an appointment to see Dr ____", and you don't need to say why. They'll probably ask if it's an emergency and offer an appointment. Most will also see you this way, even if you aren't registered with them. Mornings, especially Monday mornings, are a good time to phone to make an appointment :) Alternatively, you can show up at your nearest A&E department, and be ready to wait: I've been lucky before, but I've known people wait for hours! No need to talk about sexual stuff to your parents: just say you have a pain in an embarrasing place and you need to see a doctor. The doctor won't care how you bring it up, and probably sees this sort of thing every day: be direct! 86.161.208.185 (talk) 00:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

See http://www.askdoctorforfree.com/ask.php. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This is just my personal opinion, but I think if you REALLY don't want your parent to know "your balls hurt" just tell them you have stomach pain and want a ride/drop off to the doctor. Don't worry about the being odd talking about sexual stuff to your doctor since they probably seen and heard them all. You can be discreet booking the appointment (follow 86's advise) but when you are alone with your doctor just be direct ("your balls hurt" is fine) and answer any follow up questions truthfully and candidly. Your secret is safe - Physician–patient privilege and all that. Royor (talk) 08:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It could be something as simple as your underpants being too tight. 92.30.235.250 (talk) 11:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It could, but it could also be something serious, which is why the OP shouldn't let embarrassment get in the way of getting treatment. Making up some other medical condition to tell your parents is one way around it, although they are likely to ask what the doctor said and you may struggle to be convincing at that point. You could just tell your parents that you want to see a doctor and don't want to tell them why - some parents will respect their children's privacy, some will try to find out what is wrong so they can help. I don't know what kind of parents you have. Is there anything else near the doctors that you could tell your parents you wanted to go to in order to get a lift? --Tango (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You are 18. Why do you need to tell your parents anything about why you need a lift into town? Failing that, get a friend to give you a lift (I assume you have some friends who have access to a car); again you don't have to explain why you need a lift. Astronaut (talk) 19:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

One easy place to start might be NHS Direct. If you phone 0845 46 47 you can explain stuff to a nurse and they can give you some suggestions. Marnanel (talk) 22:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

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

Someone has posted or edited a bunch of garbage on this page about Bucharest - Started by Brontosauruses... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vewcaere (talk • contribs) 21:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

You could ask for page protection, but because there has only been ONE vandalistic edit in the last week, it would likely be declined. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Whoever it was, it got reverted from the article by User:Finlay McWalter about two hours later. I have warned them about doing that sort of thing. You could do both those things, too, Vewcaere, if you want to, when you see something like that. Thanks for mentioning it here, though. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

December 12

English accents

Why are English accents only cool for like a few minutes and then they get a little annoying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.176.141.172 (talk) 04:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The English don't have accents (at least, they don't around here. Northerners talk a bit funny). Foreigners have accents... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Everyone has an accent, just like everyone speaks a dialect. --Trovatore (talk) 04:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably we all tend to find the accents of others fascinating at first, then slightly annoying. It applies to English people hearing American accents, and to accents from other regions of our own respective countries. It's probably just a natural reflex prejudice against people who speak differently, but it is usually easy to overcome, and we normally come to accept the "foreign" accent as part of the variety of life. Dbfirs 08:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Familiarity breeds contempt. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 10:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What IS really annoying is the way that Hollywood - and especially the Disney empire - connects an English accent with villainy. Take the Lion King as an example. All the nice lions have American accents except the wicked uncle who is apparently English. Most Disney features are the same. Makes no sense and is a teeny bit offensive. Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Only upper-class English accents, I think. I don't offhand recall, for example, any use of a Cockney accent in that way. It's probably more a bit of cheap populism than an anti-Brit thing per se. --Trovatore (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a quite interesting essay on that point here. Apparently one of the reasons is that an English accent is seen as "sophisticated", so that's all right then. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Terry Thomas was the original villain to my mind. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

He was only a villain in American films IIRC. Alansplodge (talk) 13:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In fairness, Zazu in the Lion King also had an English accent. He was a little prissy, sure, but not a villain. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Does remind me of an amusing Christmas when we watched two animated 'Christian' films, one from the UK and one from the US. In the US film, most characters had American accents, and the 'baddies' had RP British accents. In the UK one, most characters had UK accents, and the devil had a General American accent! 86.161.208.185 (talk) 15:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The unspoken subtext of these things is that the character with the different accent is not "one of us", but must have come from somewhere else to have such an accent. It's xenophobia writ large. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You've got to be taught To hate and fear, You've got to be taught From year to year, It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught! 92.30.235.250 (talk) 11:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a beautiful song. Unfortunately it's probably not true. --Trovatore (talk) 21:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

THAT is offensive.Artjo (talk) 12:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it? Kittybrewster ☎ 12:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was rather good. Where does it come from? Alansplodge (talk) 13:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Brilliant. Another quote for my user page. I'd never realised that South Pacific was a communist plot... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably for the same reason that US teenager lingo is like you know awesome for like a few minutes and then it's like a downer, like. Take the trouble to learn more than the one language TV feeds you and your tolerance for other accents may improve. You may even consider whether your accent is like so cool. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's an incredibly inaccurate rendition of any way that any teenager has ever talked. Do you ever have any knowledge whatsoever of dialects that you make fun of, or do you just make it all up in your head? You've done this before, and it was old the first time. --Trovatore (talk) 21:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Like I really feel that was so quiche. Bus stop (talk) 21:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This is Charlotte Green sounding like an American. Bus stop (talk) 21:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It is? Are you sure you linked to the right clip? Corvus cornix_talk 22:38, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think that Cuddlyable was spot on about teenage lingo. Maybe not every teenager talks that way, but a whole lot of them do. I work with such a person. With her, when it's not "like", it's "I'm like" or "s/he's like". I once counted 15 "likes" in one sentence. I also once asked her if she was aware of just how extremely over-often she uses the word "like" in every sentence she ever utters, and how repeatedly she tells everyone what she's like - but she had no idea what I was talking about. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

None of them would use the final "like". That was purely gratuitous and offensive. Without that it was perhaps barely plausible.

"I got the conch," said Piggy indignantly. "You let me speak!"

This example was not quite as bad as the previous one to which I alluded, but even two cases of this constitute a pattern of unacceptable behavior by Cuddlyable. I think he should apologize. --Trovatore (talk) 22:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, come on, Trovatore, that's a bit of an over-reaction, don't you think. A little exaggeration helps make a point, and that's all that was. It was neither "incredibly inaccurate" nor "offensive". Conflating what Cuddlyable wrote in this thread with what he wrote in some unnamed earlier thread has all the hallmarks of marshalling evidence to use against Cuddlyable - and if that doesn't constitute a personal attack, I don't know what would. Personal attacks are outlawed around here; slight exaggerations aren't. Perspective, please.-- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Before this totally devolves into Lord of the Flies, can I point out that the OP was blocked for disruptive editing, and it may make sense to consider the question trolling? Cheers. Haus^Talk 22:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

deals.com

Who owns Deals.com and where are they located? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.133.111.150 (talk) 16:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

From their About us page, which contains all the terms and conditions fine print, they note

These Terms will be governed by the laws of the state of Texas, U.S.A., without regard to its conflicts of law provisions. You and Deals.com agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within Travis Country, Texas.

I suspect, therefore, that they are located somewhere within Travis County, Texas (near Austin). Their whois info is concealed behind a registry service, so I can't get an address from there. It looks like they're deliberately avoiding revealing any physical address information. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Deals.com LLC, Suite 700, 515 S. Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78704. You just have to look hard enough. Marnanel (talk) 21:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

FAA website

why does FAA Flight Delay Information show Minneapolis in green (normal traffic/conditions) even when the airport was closed and now even as their are multiple hour delays? I have a reference question (talk) 18:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That appears to be the current status. The airport just seems to be dealing with the snow better than the Metrodome. ;) If you click on the (still green) button next to "MSP" on that map, you get a pop-up which includes "Delays by Destination" which is currently showing 2 to 6 hour delays depending on destination. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Fix TV

My TV is making a loud, uneven whirring noise when I turn it on. It is slightly reminiscent of a tornado siren, very low. At random intervals it will make a higher such noise. When it makes the higher noise the screen flickers in different colors. Sometimes this is so bad that it doesn't work at all, the screen just stays dark. When it does work there is a quieter, steady noise that nonetheless was not there when I bought the TV. I have a Toshiba-52HM95-02. What might the problem be, and how can I fix it?　Ｔｈａｎｋｓ．　24.92.70.160 (talk) 18:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless you are a qualified TV repair technician, don't try. You risk damage to yourself, and to the TV. Note that some types of television can retain a dangerous static charge even after being disconnected for some time. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The Toshiba 52HM95 is a 52 in. HDTV DLP TV. It has had an exceptional number of complaints[9] [10] about breakdowns and costly repairs. Here is the owner's manual. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a normal problem with the color wheel on what sounds like pretty much a disposable TV. StuRat (talk) 08:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Street names in Germany

When I last was in Munich in summer 2008, I found it interesting how many of the streets were either named after actual people or first names of people. It was a bit difficult to come across a street named after an inanimate thing. Is this common in Germany, or in central Europe in general? JIP | Talk 20:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes or yes. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:38, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It is much less common in the UK of course, but an area of Liverpool (UK) is called "The Holy Land" because the streets are named after biblical characters. Dbfirs 21:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I grew up near the Poets Estate (Hitchin), which also qualifies. Marnanel (talk) 22:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Of the places in Europe i've been i've noticed it as popular in France and Spain, don't recall it being that popular in Italy, and whilst there are some here in the Uk it's certainly less common than the places i've mentioned. ny156uk (talk) 23:03, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's that uncommon in the UK for streets to be named after people: it's just not always obvious it's the case. My street (in Cambridge) is named after an architect; others nearby are named after poets, or various local worthies of the past. What is notable in some parts of Europe is they way streets are much more obviously named after people. Here we might have a Churchill Street, but the French would have (say) Rue du Générale de Gaulle (both genuine examples according to Google Maps). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Or indeed royalty: I used to live on Elizabeth Way. Something that always amused me about the map of Cambridge is that it contains a Victoria Road, a Victoria Street, and a Victoria Avenue, all reasonably close together and none connecting.(Map.) How Americans who say things like "Meet me on Victoria" manage in Cambridge, I don't know. Marnanel (talk) 14:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Melbourne takes a different approach - four of its main longitudinal streets in the city centre are famously named, in order, King Street, William Street, Queen Street, Elizabeth Street - apparently and together named for William III and Elizabeth I respectively.

Most of the other streets in the city centre are also named after people - see Hoddle Grid for details. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Since we're on the topic, and it's a good story: In 1674, one of the several people named George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham gave a plot of land in the City of Westminster to the local authority for building dwelling houses. The land came with the condition that all the streets had to bear his name. Therefore, the following streets were built: Villiers Street, George Court, Duke Street, Buckingham Street, and (I swear) Of Alley. Of Alley has since been renamed "York Place", but the sign still says "formerly Of Alley".[11] Marnanel (talk) 15:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Too much data!

I've been "advised" by my spouse that some kind of eReader is expected for Christmas :-). Since there's less than two weeks left until then, and I probably have to allow for shipping, I suppose I'd better get hopping.

I've read our article on Comparison of e-book readers, which provides a great deal of information -- most of which is useless to me, as I can't grok what's important and what's not. (I think, for example, that being able to read 12 different formats is not going to be a primary decision point.)

So, I ask for technical assistance. How important, or not, are some of the following:

1. eInk vs. backlighting. People seem to love one and hate the other, without a middle ground. What are the "real" tradeoffs here?
2. WiFi vs. 3G vs <other>. I presume that with nothing, you cable your reader to your computer and load it that way; with WiFi, you still have to be within reach of a network to load new content; and with 3G you're using somebody's cellular network, which sounds potentially expensive. Right?
3. OS: Does this really have any bearing on anything?
4. Touchscreen: OK, I get that you have to have some way to turn the pages. With a touchscreen, you have to tap or swipe the screen; is that inconvenient because it takes a second hand? Without one, can you still turn pages with the same hand that's holding the reader?
5. Anything else I should be considering?

Thanks. I know that this kind of question deviates from Reference Desk guidelines, but I sure could use your advice anyway! DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In my mind the big huge deal is eink verses a conventional screen. All those other concerns are secondary. Personally, I love the eInk because it looks so much like paper that the first time I saw one I thought it was a fake stick-on screen. (Until I hit the "next page" button and my mind was blown.) Since I look at computer screens all day, I'm much happier to spend my reading time looking at something that looks like paper.

But ... many people don't care that it looks like paper. Many people would rather have color, fast refresh times, animations, back-lighting, all the amenities afforded by modern conventional computer screens. (Big deal : Reading in bed? eInk will require a book light.)

APL (talk) 22:29, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

But to address you other points, 3g verse wifi isn't a huge deal. It's mostly just how you buy books and periodicals. Both the Amazon Kindle and (I think) the Nook offer this service for free, so you do not pay for the connectivity. (However, general purpose web-browsing is severely limited.) If you don't get the 3G you can only get books when you're within range of free wifi. To me, this isn't a big deal either way. (and you can always buy books by tethering with a computer.) I suppose if you do a lot of traveling (within the USA) and you intend to read newspapers and magazines on the device, I guess 3G would be a big deal. If you're going to use it mostly at home, or mostly for books then I, personally, wouldn't worry about it.

I'm not sure I've used an ereader that used a touch screen for page-turning. Kindle and Nook both have buttons along the edges for page-turning. (My biggest complaint with my 1st generation Kindle is that I sometimes hit the button by accident.)

Operating system doesn't really matter. ... unless you wife isn't looking for eInk, in which case you might consider getting her an iPad if that's in your price range. (There is book-reader software for iPad that makes it compatible with Kindle and the rest.) APL (talk) 22:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(EC) While not such a big deal, eInk is likely to have a battery life advantage if you're just turning page occasionally like when reading a book. I've seen an eInk reader but never used one but I believe 1-2 weeks isn't uncommon even for resonable usage. Of course you do need external lighting of some sort. There is a lot of hype about the Pixel Qi screens which are supposed to be able to do both in a fashion [12] but I've never seen one personally and I don't believe they're available in commercial products yet only as DIY screens. I suggest you look at an e-ink reader in particular if you've never seen one I presume shops in the US? must have them on display since I've seen them in NZ and I'm pretty sure you can also see them in Malaysia Nil Einne (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

e-Ink will give you more battery life, a more "paper"-like view of the page, and for many people tends to be more comfortable with reading for longer stretches (for me the primary advantage is that you don't have the extra weight of the LCD assembly... I can read comfortably on both). I do find that if you get an LCD eBook reader, you will want an IPS display (usually this is advertised) or something similarly high quality. As far as formats go, you will want to keep in mind the following: the kindle can only get books from Amazon's store (yes you can sideload, but I've found it to be more difficult than other eBook readers). The nook can get books from Barnes & Noble's store as well as almost every other store that sells eBooks (PDF or ePub with no DRM or Adobe Digital Editions DRM which has become somewhat of a standard among eBook stores). The Sony eBook readers can get books from all but the Kindle store and Nook store. Almost all eBook readers except the kindle can also check out books from your local library using their overdrive catalog (assuming your library has this set up, it's free to use!). As far as buttons versus touchscreen... well located buttons on the side are great on e-ink displays while swiping is great on LCD displays. It really has more to do with the responsiveness of the screen than the actual method of page turning. If you want the best choice of sources to get your books from, you will want to avoid the kindle. The best hardware (for the best price) I've come across, however, is the kindle. If you can get a chance, try out the various readers at the stores to find what you think is best. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

December 13

My School has been deleted so many times, we are very frustrated

Long question about requesting an article for a school, click to see:

I realize that Wikipedia has no editorial board and no one really in charge of things. However, that really makes it difficult to challenge a decision by volunteer editors when they have decided that an entity is unworthy of an article. (I feel that the volunteers are probably trying really hard to be fair. However, once a school or entity gets a rejection from Wikipedia, it seems like that rejection is like a criminal record. That is, a new proposed article under that title will be checked against the Wikipedia data base, and the new article and new person then carry the whole baggage of whatever was said or done previously.) Even though I have never contacted Wikipedia before, I have no doubt if I just gave you the name of my school, I would immediately be classified as less than an honorable person because evidently others before me ran afoul of Wikipedia volunteers. The Board of the College is composed of leading surgeons and business men and women, and yet, despite all of that, every time, a short article is proposed, Wikipedia editors schedule it for immediate deletion. Several celebrities have accepted honorary doctorates (chairs) from the College, but, again, that is not evidence that satisfies Wikipedia editors. I can't speak to whomever started our school down the path of anathema. There could have been students who in the past wrote inaccurate articles, I just don't know. Wikipedia has sent our College requests for contributions, I know that, and, yet, volunteer editors have over and over again denied even the shortest mention of our school on Wikipedia. There is even a negative mention by Wikipedia editors on searches for our school. The person who tried to get in touch with Wikipedia was called a "pusher." So, now we have a reference on Google from Wikipedia that points to the person as a "pusher" for the school, but the school itself is denied mention on Wikipedia. A really bizarre situation. In other words, the worst possible judgments have been foisted upon our school, it's 5,000 students and its 250 faculty, and when anyone contacts anyone at Wikipedia about the College, no one is in charge, except that particular no one who is not in charge deletes the article quickly. So no one being in charge sure FEELS like someone is in fact very much able to make quick and final decisions. It's probably just the Wikipedia data base that's in charge. I don't even dare mention the school's name for fear a Wikipedia volunteer editor will form a quick judgment again, and simply out of hand saying something like, "Oh it's THEM again. Jeff is just another pusher." Wikipedia has listed so many schools with so much less in the way of Board recognition, students, awards, etc. And, yet, always it's the same. Our school and its students are considered nonpersons or worse, just flat out fibbers. Is there any way for a person to overcome this kind of article bias. It just seems so hopeless. I would need to work with an editor personally, which I am happy to do. But just to leave a comment and beg just seems like a waste, and just so wrong. I am working part time at a retail store and so will give you that e-mail address. Again, I don't want to just leave the name of my college. If I can at least have a conversation with a Wikipedia volunteer editor, perhaps I can provide the information needed to get an article on Wikipedia. After all, the goal of Wikipedia is to be accurate and complete, and, as it stands, we have a lot of people studying really hard and earning degrees, all of which activity not recognized by Wikipedia volunteer editors. Our student council originally even started to take up a collection when Wikipedia first asked for donations, but when the editors summarily denied the College mention on Wikipedia that drive was canceled. What I need is an EDITORIAL CHAMPION. Someone who will give me a new and clean sheet of paper and delete all of the older stuff that seems to be the first place people at Wikipedia go when the College is mentioned. As it is though, no matter what is offered, Wikipedia has found a way to discount it. We have such an environmental sustainability degree program, both bachelors and masters degrees, and are doing so much good for the planet. It would seem that any Green minded person serving as a volunteer at Wikipedia would be thrilled to give us a helping hand, so that the College can spread its message further. For example, China, one of the world's biggest polluters has several students studying for Environmental degrees at the College. It's this new generation of people who are going to make the difference in China. Wikipedia could do a small part in announcing that there are indeed colleges who take environmental sustainability issues very seriously. I am not talking about Global Warming. I am talking about the fact that 51 cities in China have air so bad that folks need to stay indoors or that both major water ways, the Yangtzhe and the Yellow rivers are polluted to such an extent that water from them is undrinkable. I would love to find a Wikipedia editor who would be willing to work with me to compose a short article. I mean, I will do the work, but I just can't write an article and then have a faceless volunteer go no further than doing a Wiki data base search and then denying me. That would just ruin my day. I am working part time at a retail store during the Christmas season, so I am going to give you that e-mail address in the hope and prayer that some kind soul at Wikipedia (in the spirit of the season) will take the time to work with me to get this error corrected for the sake of both Wikipedia and my College. Sincerely, Jeff —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.135.42 (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC) Email removed, responses will be to this or another indicated page. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

What is the name of the school, and I (and others) will be happy to look into it. It sounds like there's some controversy, otherwise you can request new article creation at WP:Request. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

In the list of contributions for this IP there's an actual deleted revision of a post apparently asking about this topic. There could be legitimate reasons for that (say, a severe BLP violation) but it doesn't look very transparent. Let's at least find out what's going on. --Trovatore (talk) 00:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that too. Curious. But since our friend here didn't even tell us the name of the school I don't know how we'd figure anything out. We can only hope he comes back here to participate in this conversation. APL (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Google is our friend. There's a previous plea on the help desk here : [13]. The School in question is Linda Christas College. APL (talk) 00:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is the original AfD : Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Linda_christas, and here is another a few months later Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Linda_Christas_International_School, there are a number of speedy deletes in between and since. APL (talk) 01:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, those are some nasty examples of sockpuppetry both on and off Wikipedia. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

First : What sort of school are we talking about here? WP:SCL seems to imply that a degree-awarding tertiary school is very easy to establish notability for.

Second : There's no elitist cabal controlling WP. There really isn't. Sign up for an account, wait the number of days until the system auto-confirms you (Five days?), and start a new article. At that point you're just as much an "Editor" as the rest of us. Really. Your article must immediately establish notability, by including referenced descriptions of how the school impacts its community, referenced descriptions of research done there, referenced descriptions of notable people who have attended or taught there, or referenced descriptions of anything else news-worthy that has ever happened there. For real colleges and universities this shouldn't be hard. For sleazy diploma mills this would be harder but still not impossible. I want to stress that the article has to mention these things the moment you put it up. You cannot put up a "placeholder" page and hope that it will stick around. It might, but it probably won't.

Wikipedia is not a phone-book, if an article doesn't have useful information, and a description of why a thing is notable, the article will be deleted. Seriously, that's the one criteria. If the Barak Obama article just said "Mr Obama is a a very nice gentleman." the article would be deleted for not being notable enough.

Best of luck.

APL (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason that the article was deleted is that the "school" appears to be a scam -- see this account. If we could find properly sourced independent information about it, it might actually be good to have an article, as a way of informing people. The deleted article was pure spam, though. Looie496 (talk) 01:37, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

To our Friend Jeff : Remember that Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. If there was an article about your school, you would not be able to control what it says. The article you post would only be a 'first draft'. If your school is a well known scam, you could expect the article to say so, in no uncertain terms, about 24 hours after the article went up. If not sooner.

With that in mind, consider why you so badly want an article on Wikipedia. APL (talk) 01:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You might also want to look at our page WP:Your first article, which gives a lot of good advice about how to get an article started, including that you "consider creating the article first in your user space," for example at: User:65.78.135.42/My College though you should probably get your own user account. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 02:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any policy that says that IP users cannot maintain or use userspace sandboxes. However, they technically cannot create them, as page creation is limited to registerred accounts. See WP:WHY for more details. --Jayron32 02:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The accreditation organization listed on the school's website (the International Association of Schools and Colleges) seems to keep a very low profile: [14]. There are about a half-dozen Google hits, most of which are on the school's web site; none appear on any other educational institution's site, nor does the organization appear to have a web presence. It might be helpful if you could provide some links to independent information about the IASC. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Cold War overflights

During the Cold War, the US performed aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet Union using "overflights" with aircraft (e.g. the U-2). Did the Soviet Union ever perform the reverse, that is, use aircraft to fly over United States airspace for the purpose of reconnaissance? -- 174.24.216.113 (talk) 03:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The article Surveillance aircraft indicates that the Tupolev Tu-95 may have been used for this purpose. It should be noted that during the cold war, the USSR was much shorter on resources than the US military so it seems likely that there were some areas where the USA clearly had the advantage; this may have been one of them. The advent of space travel (which the USSR beat the USA in most early developments except walking on the moon) and of ICBMs pretty much made spy planes obsolete. I am pretty sure that given there more limited resources, the USSR put more effort into these technologies than into aircraft in general. --Jayron32 04:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. Aircraft like the Tu-95 were more likely used for radio/radar surveys from international airspace, as they would have been easy targets if detected. Bear in mind too that the US had bases right up to the Soviet/Warsaw Pact Border, whereas the USSR had none that close. The era of U-2 type reconnaissance was quite short-lived in any case, with the advent of spy satellites. The Soviets probably had less need for spy planes anyway, as the location of US strategic targets could be found by less covert means. There is a little historical info in the Treaty on Open Skies article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) One presumes they must have, but I've never actually heard of it before. Apparently, they built the Myasishchev M-55 "similar in both its mission and design" to the U-2 – but only used it to chase US balloons! They may also have used satellites. It's a very interesting question, I'm surprised there's not more on it. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 04:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The Soviets experimented with a manned spy satellite, but unmanned spy satellites soon made that approach obsolete. StuRat (talk) 08:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Andy alluded to one of the big things: the US could launch and land planes in Pakistan, Turkey, Germany, Norway, etc. (and Japan, for spying in the Far East). If we look at the 1960 U-2 incident, the plane took off from Pakistan, and was supposed to land in Norway, letting it fly over all sorts of good stuff in the Soviet Heartland. The Russians maybe could have based a plane out of Cuba, but they wouldn't be able to see all the really juicy missile silos in South Dakota, and such. What seems incredible to me is that the U2 is still being used, despite satellite capabilities, and even outlasting its supposed successor, the SR-71. Buddy431 (talk) 04:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The USSR lacked the ability to project air power over the United States until very late in the Cold War (e.g. the 1980s), by which point satellite technology had become the more dominant way of technically snooping. The US's forward bases in Europe and Asia gave it a tremendous advantage in this respect over the USSR. This is also incidentally why the USSR was so keen on developing ICBMs and cruise missiles very early on — to extend the reach of their nuclear deterrent, which otherwise was very dodgy when it came to actual use against the USA. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Meta-question (about Russian Wikipedia Ref desk)

How could this question be linked to or asked at the Russian Wikipedia Reference Desk? Do they even have a Reference Desk there? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 04:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Da. See [15]. It doesn't seem to be divided into broad subjects the way ours is. All the other language versions of the Ref Desk are shown at Wikipedia:Reference desk. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:15, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Спасибо, Jack. I knew there must be a list like that somewhere, but couldn't find it. I wonder if they know anything more about this over there...? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Tire in engine compartment of a Corvair

This image is being used in our Chevrolet Corvair article

Question about the pic to the right: was it really normal to keep the spare tire of a Corvair in the engine compartment? I would have thought that the temperatures therein would be a problem in placing a rubber tire next to an engine; why not place it in the front storage space (i know, the Corvair was a rear-engine car, so the storage area was under the hood)? I am aware that older cars had larger engine compartments; I had a friend who has a 1950's era Ford F-100 which includes a complete toolkit inside of the engine compartment for servicing the vehicle; said compartment is so large that someone could almost fit inside of it with the engine while fixing it. However, I would think that storing a tire in the compartment would be contraindicated? Any carnuts out there care to elaborate? --Jayron32 06:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

My 1990 Subaru Leone Wagon had the spare tyre in the engine compartment. Never had a problem with it. HiLo48 (talk) 06:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No idea what effects, if any, it has on the tire but I've seen it before. And not just once. Can't recall where though... Dismas|^(talk) 07:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

So the question is, is this spare tire in the right place? It seriously doesn't look like it is secured in any way, nor does it looks like the space it is in was designed to hold it. It looks like someone just wedged it in there. --Jayron32 07:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The bracket in my aforementioned Subaru was a quite small, screw-in device and held the tire through its centre hole. It would have been out of sight in that pic. HiLo48 (talk) 07:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

From our article on the Chevrolet Corvair: "To increase luggage capacity in the front the spare tire was relocated to the engine compartment in cars not ordered with All Weather air conditioning..." Dismas|^(talk) 07:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

D'oh. Never mind. I suppose I could have actually read the article I cited. Carry on. --Jayron32 07:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If you don't mind a little salt in your wound... :-) A Google search for "spare tire engine" brings up our spare tire article first. In that is the line "Some vehicles stored the spare tire in the engine bay, such as the Renault 14 and older Subaru vehicles, such as the Subaru Leone." Dismas|^(talk) 07:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Ugly Russian aircraft

The Cold War fly-over question made me think about this. Especially when I saw pics of the Tupolev Tu-95. I've always thought that Russian aircraft were rather ugly. As if they'd been put together by a committee of blind people. Other examples include:

• The Ilyushin Il-76 which looks like a cat who is about to vomit (back raised, head held low)
• The Antonov An-22 which looks as though it has rolls of fat that are bursting from its seams
• The Ilyushin Il-102 which reminds me of a flying short bus

Has anyone else a bit more notable than the average John Doe (i.e. me) ever commented on this? Dismas|^(talk) 16:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The Russians do seem to have a 1950s idea of style, as seen in the paint jobs. Perhaps the Russians still design things on drawing boards, and the West uses computer-aided design, and this shows. 92.28.245.105 (talk) 17:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

In all fairness, planes are built more to fly good then to look good (Of course the Russian ones don't always fly well). Googlemeister (talk) 17:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I personally find the Tupolev Tu-95 to be beautiful. As far as not flying well: the Tu-95 is expected to see service to about 2040; it is the fastest propeller driven plane in history; its maximum unrefueled range of 9,400 miles (15,000 km) is second to none (that's more than 1/3 the circumference of the globe on one tank of gas). And that 1950's style? Well, the TU-95 was built in the 1950's, so you got that. In the 1980's we'd see these Russian "Bears" cruising all over the Pacific Ocean. --Quartermaster (talk) 17:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The key here is what Googlemeister said. I don't think aesthetics plays much of a part in aircraft design. Besides the Soviets made some really cool looking planes in their day.

• The MiG-25 has a sort of brutal angular beauty.
• The Su-27 is as intense and purposeful looking as you are going to get.
• The Su-34 perhaps a bit ugly, but it is definitely unique looking.
• The Su-47 not Soviet, but in my mind just about the coolest looking airplane.

I did read a book by humorist Bruce McCall that talked about a Soviet transport plane with a massively drooping nose. The story was that during the design process the plans were crinkled and since the punishment for damaging state property was death, no one wanted to point it out, so it went into production. --Leivick (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

White Christmas

When was the last time New York City had a White Christmas67.86.181.138 (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

part for a heater

im trying to find information on a blower motor b19 that comes in a heater made by martin industries ihave a model v6970 heater and my blower went i need a model b19 can u help me please —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.66.124.126 (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the company went bust.[16]--Aspro (talk) 18:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I found a forum post that says Martin was bought out by [Monessen Hearth Systems], so your best bet would be to try to contact them. Looie496 (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)