Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous

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April 28

light pollution

Dear Sir, I read some time ago that there is a city in USA that have, at night, a fantastic view of the sky due to a special public ilumination to avoid "artificial light pollution". Would you know name of it? I am working on a project to build several houses on a large piece of land (1,500,000 square meters) at the mountains close to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, because is very dry and it is 1,200 meters high, the view of the sky at night is beautiful. I would not like to spoil it. I would like to get in touch to get some information about this matter. Thank you, Luiz Lopes

You could read our article on Light pollution, which has a section on reduction of the effects. However, you have to realise that light pollution is caused by a very large number of buildings and light sources (such as those in a large city). "Several houses" over a large area are unlikely to have a light pollution effect on the night sky unless they are densely placed and heavily illuminated. --Canley 02:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Luiz, you may enjoy Stellarium, a free program which shows what the sky looks like at any time and place, without light pollution. Take a look. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 04:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I belive Arizona and New Mexico have laws against light pollution. -- Mwalcoff 22:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Riding ostriches/emus/rheas

Does anyone know of a place in the UK I can go to experience riding an ostrich, emu or rhea (bird), or even get a chance to ride one in a race? --81.77.159.59 00:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I severely doubt that emus, ostriches and rheas would be able to bear the weight of anything more than a small child. --Roisterer 03:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(after edit conflict)You underestimate ostriches. See this picture. it's a moderately common event in southern Africa, though presumably not that good for the birds. Grutness...wha? 03:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could always play the video game Joust, which allows you to ride one. StuRat 03:32, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Search Google images for ostrich riding as evidence that this is not uncommon. Because of the lack of ostriches and laws about animal welfare, I doubt there's anywhere you can actually do this in the UK. But you can rent a costume that makes it look as though you are riding an ostrich, and these are much funnier and safer than the real thing. --Shantavira 08:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear... images of David Brent have been conjured up for many WP editors now, no doubt... Grutness...wha? 10:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

.mov editing program!!!

Does anyone know of any program similar to Windows Movie Maker, is FREE, and has .mov capabilities? The reason is that I wanted to do some editing of some .mov files I took with my digital camera, but Movie Maker cannot work with .movs. gelo 23:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That the filename ends in .mov doesn't mean much. The QuickTime file format is a container format that can contain audio and video tracks in many different codecs. You have to know what kind of data is inside the file if you want to do anything with it. - Keenan Pepper 03:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok... Can you HELP me with that? gelo 03:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being unhelpful, but you'd be better prepared to look for an editor if you knew what video codec your camera uses. Does your camera's manual say? —Keenan Pepper 03:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, check out List of video editing software and Category:Video editing software. —Keenan Pepper 13:42, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I know from the specs which I just found over Ebay for my Kodak V550. Video mode continuous MPEG-4 video with audio capture and playback Video resolution 30 fps @ VGA (640 × 480), 30 fps @ QVGA (320 × 240) Video format QUICKTIME, MPEG-4 gelo 01:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I can't find a program to edit such .mov files, does anyone know of a free program to CONVERT these files to something editable in, say, Movie Maker? gelo 01:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gelo, check out http://www.opensourcewindows.org/. It lists a number of excellent open source programs which can download for free; Media Coder, which is listed there, is an excellent converter program. There's also an open source website linked to there with Mac software. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 04:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know what the purpose/origin of the big poster of some Soviet/GDR-looking military officer right behind the current Checkpoint Charlie replica is? I've always thought it to be a replica of a former propaganda poster, but I've never found any information about it, and the article makes no mention of it. (here's a clear view of the poster) Thanks --Colonel Cow 01:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not a propaganda poster (it'd be a quite odd one if it were - just a guy in uniform?). It's symbolic. The other side has an American soldier on it. --BluePlatypus 07:56, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, thanks --Colonel Cow 19:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Screen Plays / Transcripts for Films

Dear All

I'm doing a research paper on a few films and was wondering where I would be able to find printed versions of various movie transcripts and/or screen plays. The movies I'm particularly interested in are:

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington A Raisin in the Sun Midnight Cowboy Wall Street

Thank you!

http://home.online.no/~bhundlan/scripts/MrSmithGoesToWashington.txt; http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=midnight_cowboy; http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/wall_street.html; http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/r/raisin-in-the-sun-script.html.

Just google it next time, ok? gelo 03:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dating

What you call this dating tht deals with older women dating younger men, while other is older men dating younger women?

We have a whole article on this subject (the things you find while browsing around Wikipedia...): Age disparity in sexual relationships. The section on slang terms should provide some of the answers you seek. — QuantumEleven 07:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ferrero Rocher jingle

Can someone help me out with the following song lyrics:

This song is played on the ferrero rocher ad ( and raffellos chocolates commercial) and has the words, "Bring on the night, bring on the night" (dance song very repetitious) can someone please tell me what the song is please?

Kind Regards,

Ellie.

PS. My e-mail is: <email address removed to avoid spamming> so you can contact me.

According to this it might be an Alan Jackson song... or according to this theres also a song by Sting with the same name... Jayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 10:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pastatutes

I suspect that many girls would be willing to have sex in exchange for money. What would be the best way to go about finding one that is willing & setting up an arragement without offending her or exposing oneself to more than minimal legal risks, if one were wanting to do so? 12.183.203.184 04:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC) Note: This is not a request for prostitution (Who would want to sleep with someone who uses Wikipedia? :) ) 12.183.203.184 04:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Legality of prostitution varies by area. For example, in the United States, the only place where prostitution is legalized (to my knowledge) is in some counties in the state of Nevada. Soliciting prostitution in a place where it is legal would be the minimum amount of risk. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 04:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that many girls would be willing to have sex in exchange for money.
Views of that nature will get you into very hot water in many places, how did you jump to that conclusion? As to 'solving' your problem, go with what Tijuana Brass said, find a local brothel (if necessary in a different state/country, depending on where you live) and purchase their services. — QuantumEleven 07:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just as soon that he or she not pursue an experiental knowledge of the issue, really. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 07:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pastatutes - is that sex workers who do kinky things with linguini? JackofOz 08:38, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tee hee...! I hadn't even noticed that! :) — QuantumEleven 12:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You can usually find them at church, and just feel free to ask - no worries about offending them

So, if I were to go up to a girl and ask "how much do you charge for sex?" that would be legal right? I am not scoliciting prostituion, as I am only asking a hooker how much she charges. I don't think prostitution should be illegal. I can pay Olive Garden $20 for a meal so I dont have to do any hands-on cooking, why can't I pay a girl for the convience of not having to do everything myself?? 199.201.168.100 16:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me spell it out for you as simply and clearly as possible. YOU give her MONEY - SHE gives you SEX - this is called prostitution. Your proposal, in contrast: YOU give her MONEY - SHE gives you SEX. Quite obviously, this is not in any... no, wait! It's still prostituion! D'uh! If it's legal depends on local laws. --Dr. Zarkov 19:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you go up to a girl and ask how much she charges for sex, that's called "soliciting prostitution" in most places, and legally, it's considered the same as actually paying for the transaction. It's also called "extremely stupid", as most girls will respond by slapping you upside the head. I know I would. --Serie 21:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this word is certainly entering my Wiki-wokabulary. --Zeizmic 19:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What if I give her a Wal-Mart gift card instead? 199.201.168.100 20:50, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I can't understand why anyone would ask sex advice on the Wikipedia reference desk, I will answer the question. Prostitutes aren't that hard to find. Often, they can be found advertising in underground or entertainment newspapers like the Washington, D.C. CityPaper under "Sexual Services." In larger cities, arresting prostitutes who advertise in personal ads isn't top priority, what with all the murders and robberies going on. You will need to familiarize yourself with the lingo to avoid surprises, i.e. "full service" means "vaginal intercourse." I would discourage you from trying to find a prostitute, unless exploiting desperate women with drug addictions appeals to you. It's not that hard to find willing women. Lies and flattery have always worked for me!  ;-) Brian G. Crawford 00:13, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oooo! Don't forget the people-trafficking. Woo for supporting slavery and abuse of vulnerable women? Just go to a slutty enough bar and you'll find someone who wants to, for free! (Or the price of a couple of drinks) Skittle 19:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I too am absolutely baffled as to why people writing an encyclopaedia on the Internet would be asking about how to get sex for money. --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:20, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd call Loveline at 1-800-LOVE-191. And, I would love to sleep with a Wikipedian, myself. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 07:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You go, girl...--Captain ginyu 11:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Who would want to sleep with someone who uses Wikipedia?
Uh, technically, you are a Wikipedia user. Sum0 11:44, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Irony humour self-deprecation. Skittle 19:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a Pastatute is a Pastafarian who offers sex for money? Alternatively, this could be Pastafarians' form of flirty fishing. JamesMLane t c 10:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Train derailment

Dear Sir or madam:

Kindly tell me the details regarding the technical reasons for train derailment.. I am doind a project work on train derailment so that it wil be much helpful to me in my project work...

With regards, R S Ranganathan Government college of engineering salem 636011 INDIA

There are several causes. An obstruction on the line is a common one, but sometimes the rails are broken or a joint comes apart. Did you see our article on derailment? --Shantavira 08:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prominent soap opera fans

I'm trying to compile information to be used on Wikipedia in some fashion, whether it be on the soap opera article, or in individual articles. I'm trying to figure out who prominent, usually in American politics or another non-acting profession, confesses to be a fan of soaps. I've done research and I know John Connally, the former Governor of Texas, would not be interrupted for anything short of a catastrophe while Love of Life was on. First Lady Pat Nixon's favorite soap actor was Larry Haines from Search for Tomorrow. Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall would actually recuse himself from hearings just to watch Days of our Lives. I just want to know if there's anyone that you may know of, despite my searchings, that I may have left out. It may borderline on crufty but I am a bit intrigued about it. I know people on this page can be horribly sarcastic so I'm asking this in all seriousness. Thank you for your time! Mike H. That's hot 09:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ISTR Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother was a huge fan of Coronation Street (no pun in the title intended!) as is her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II (who is believed to be a big Doctor Who fan, not that that would count as a soap). Grutness...wha? 10:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's already noted in the article. You wouldn't happen to know anything about American fans of American shows, would you? Mike H. That's hot 01:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Account/Balance sheet

Why in some businesses do they not inlcude personal assets and liabilities on their accounts? is there a reason?--193.63.158.179 13:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can I use some historical Links in my commercial work

Please be more specific. -LambaJan 18:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bladder Infection

How long after getting a bladder infection will the pain persist in my side? It has been 5 days that I have been medication but the pain is still there. My fever is gone though. Should I go back to the doctor? Thanks!

Going to your doctor would be the best thing to do. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rating

Do you know what this site is rated? I couldn't find any rating. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.213.67.178 (talkcontribs) .

Do you mean "rated" as in overall quality or as in appropriateness for children? For the latter, see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored. —Keenan Pepper 13:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean the Alexa Internet web traffic rank, it is 17 [1]. SCHZMO 16:30, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Probally R because wikipedia is not censored. ILovEPlankton 17:22, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If we're using the U.S. film rating system, I'd say it's X, not R. For the fact that graphic depictions of sexual acts are shown as well as cuss words. We also have numerous drug and alcohol references. Dismas|(talk) 01:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Alcohol our permanent accessory, our party-time necessity. Perhaps the personage requesting this information is looking for the rating because they found that stupid function in IE that lets you specify content blocking and all that...whassit called again...eh, anyway. Wikipedia is an information site with lots of dirty words and naughty things that you should be sheltering your children from; if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 07:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crediting images in the article namespace?

Hi there, I deleted someone's name from an article photo, as I understood it was common practice to credit pictures only in the Image description:

Photos should be credited to the photographer who shot them. This is a universal rule. And there are no Wiki rules that suggest the opposite. In the case with the Lipovans, just like with my other photos donated to Wiki, I ask to leave the byline. This is a common rule for any encyclopidia.

Any advice?

Thanks, --Asterion talk to me 17:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't quite understand what your question is, but in general things related to Wikipedia editing should be directed to the Wikipedia:Village pump, not here. --Fastfission 00:16, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What he's taking about is the caption in a picture. Such as
Picture of a big elephant take by CambridgeBayWeather
Picture of a big elephant take by CambridgeBayWeather
. I've seen a few like that and removed them because unless you are a notable photographer with an article then why spam? You might want ot look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing Captions and also Wikipedia:Captions#Tips for describing pictures (which indicate that it might be OK to have the photographers name). I just looked at a paper encyclopidia and it appears that all the photos are credited. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 05:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to install a new processor into a desktop..

Hi there,

I have a reasonable knowlege of computers, yet not to the extent to know how to install a new processor in my desktop computer.

I just wanted to know the steps to installing a new processor [Pentium 4 (3GHZ)] into a Desktop Computer.

I would also like to ask; if in order to carry out installing a new processor whether I would need to save all my important files, as the computer would be wiped, therefore resulting in re-installing my Windows XP, Windows Office and other programs. etc. I also have Wireless internet card in my desktop along with graphics card, would these both need to be re-installed, set-up?

Finally i would just like to thank you for your time, and effort in looking at this question.

Thanks,

Burnham Associates

Whether you need to save your important files should be a non-question. You should be doing backups regularly anyway: I start to worry if I haven't backed up every one of my computers, every day. It might be possible to complete this task without needing to restore anything, if all goes according to plan, but don't take a chance.

Your processor is plugged into a motherboard. While motherboards do take a range of processors, any serious upgrade probably needs you to buy a new motherboard, which would contain a new processor. This would include the BIOS and plug-and-play settings so all of that would need to be done again. You may not be able to reuse all of your memory either: a new motherboard might require a new set of RAM.

A crucial point is space. Not all motherboards are designed to fit the same space. Obviously, one that is too big won't fit in your existing case, but one that is not exactly the same size, but smaller, may be difficult to mount securely (it has to be secure because so many things are connected to it).

If you aren't daunted, open up your computer, and measure up the motherboard. Examine all of the connections to it, to see what the new board must support. Also, evaluate whether a new computer would be more cost effective. Look into how much of your existing software could be just copied to a new computer (Windows and Office, if bundled with the original computer, cannot). Notinasnaid 19:29, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From my experience, and from most people here, we agree with the above, in that it is rarely worth it to replace the main CPU, unless the machine is less than 2 years old, and you really overbought on the main computer. For example, I have a Shuttle server, where I could slip in a new AMD dual processor chip, but the original processor (still really good) goes in the garbage! (boo hoo) --Zeizmic 23:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I replaced the processor several times and no you should not have to do a full install of windows, etc as you are not wiping your hard drive. There is of course the possiblity that you may have to re-certify windows depending on how much of your computer you change but I have not had that happen with a processor swap. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 05:22, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look out for other bottle necks, It is important to realise that upgrading your processor doesnt neccesarily make your computer faster. For example, poor FSB speed, ram, ram speed, hard disk speed etc. If you are doing it to improve performance, if you have little knowledge of computers, it may be best to start anew. Philc T+C 16:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Carpathian Mountains - Slovakia

Kozie Mountain in the Carpathian Mountain chain was formerly known as Vikartovsky Mountain. This info taken from a minerals website online: http://www.fns.uniba.sk/prifuk/casopisy/geol/1997mon/cwsu2.htm

That's nice. So ... what's your question? JackofOz 23:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Be bold is a motto here meaning that you can update the Kozie article. If you wish, just post your remark on that article's talk page. P.S. I'll see that the article exists! And PPS : it's just listed as Kozie Ridge (to be created) in the Divisions_of_the_Carpathians. --DLL 20:00, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boardom

I'm board. What is something entertaining that I can do at work? 199.201.168.100 18:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can learn to spell 'bored' (and 'boredom') correctly. This isn't really the place for these kind of questions, but go to I-am-bored.com for ideas. Daniel () 18:55, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why not play a "bored game"? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) —Keenan Pepper 22:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I always like to hang out on the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk, answering stupid questions. --ByeByeBaby 23:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You mean, like this one? Cernen Xanthine Katrena 07:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bored Games were a pretty decent NZ band, BTW (oh, and welcome back CXK - long time no see!) Grutness...wha? 08:45, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanksmuch. I'm once again able to contribute my half answers to the reference desk, sooo...yes. Also, if you want to do something that is both entertaining at work, as well as something that won't get you fired, try doing your job? Cernen Xanthine Katrena 00:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am bored all the time. Try writing something good for Uncyclopedia (a joke encyclopedia) or actually the best thing evar, screw around with PowerPoint and see what you can do. Actually, it's really good at animations and I can do better movies in PowerPoint than Flash ;) Flameviper12 14:41, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
BEST THING EVAR! just thought of it. Read BJAODN. 43 oversized pages of nonsense. It will take you, seriously, not even kidding, at least several weeks to read it all given you put at least 2 hours to it every weekday. Flameviper12 14:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Those are some good suggestions. I like the Bad Jokes & Uncylcopedia. Thanks guys! 199.201.168.100 20:37, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Persuasive Paper

I am writing a paper in English. It must be a topic to persuade the audience on, but at the same time it must offer solutions and opposite points of view. I had a couple of ideas. One was the subject of whaling. I have heard about the controversy of commercial whaling in Norway and Japan. They keep killing whales and want to increse the amount for "scientific" research. I think this is an okay topic. Another idea was very broad...the subject of juding people based on their appearance. (Age, Gender, Race, Wealth, Religion, Physical Appearance) I am just not sure what is a good persuasive topic. Any examples?

Well, it's pretty easy to be persuasive on things you and all your audience will agree with (I assume you live in a country where whaling is popularly abhored). Can you offer the opposite points of view? There are opposite points of view on whaling which you can find and present, but is there an opposite point of view for the other one (that is, can you find anyone who says it's a good thing to judge people based on their appearance). Think closely about what you have been asked to do. For instance, would you get more marks if you picked a difficult point of view and argued persuasively (e.g. could you argue persuasively from the point of view of a Norwegian whaler)? At a guess, the teacher is looking for you to be able to present both sides of an argument fairly: this sounds easy, but most people need practice at this, for a subject they care about. Perhaps you could practice by picking a controversial subject on which you have no opinion of your own. Anyway, if you want more tips, you probably need to give more detail on the assignment (the exact phrasing is important). Notinasnaid 20:55, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here and here are some suggestions. -LambaJan 05:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sham 69, The Angelic Upstarts or The Anti-Nowhere League

Which is the best band out of Sham 69, Angelic Upstarts and The Anti-Nowhere League? --84.64.0.71 20:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't the sort of question we can answer here, as we provide facts, not opinions. For the record, I've never heard of any of them.-gadfium 23:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above its a matter of opinion but I'd guess that if you did a poll Sham 69 would come out on top. They certainly had more chart and critical success than the others but in comparison to other punk bands were somewhat second rate as punk was a fading force at this time. -- DPM.

my article sited as "advertisement" and needs cleanup

hi, the article i submitted "Agape World Fellowship" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape_World_Fellowship was sited as an "advertisement" and needs "cleanup" but im new to wikipedia and i couldn't figure out how to "cleanup" my article so it would be accepted. can someone help me to do that? though Agape World Fellowship aka AWF is Christian based it is totally free and we accept anyone for citizenship regardless of their religion. most of the people in AWF also have citizenships in several other 3D VR worlds or universes such as Active Worlds, Active Worlds Europe and others. I saw that Active Worlds and a bunch of other VR sites (who do make u pay to join) are listed on wikipedia so i wrote an article about us here too. can you help please? ~Bob Shoemaker ((e-mail address redacted to prevent spam)) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by EarthTrex (talkcontribs) 01:06, April 29, 2006 (UTC).

For one thing, it is written in the wrong grammatical person. Articles should generally not use words such as "we". For another, emphasizing things like "FREE" and "NO cost" using capital letters is not only bad style, its tone is more appropriate for an advertisement than an encyclopedia article. Those are just some of the issues that popped out to me. —Keenan Pepper 00:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just googled your organization and got 186 hits. That, combined with many Wikipedians' hostility towards religion, especially Christianity, would probably get it deleted. I participate in far too many deletion discussions, so I have a pretty good idea what stays and what goes. Right now, it could possibly be deleted speedily (without discussion, that is) because you don't assert notability. You're not telling us why your organization is notable to those who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in such a group. In my opinion, Wikipedia unfortunately isn't the place to spread your message. Brian G. Crawford 04:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I disagree with you there, Brian: I don't think Wikipedia has a hostile reaction towards Christianity or any religion - the Wikipedia policies apply to everything and everyone. Unfortunately, articles on religious topics tend to be either trying to spread their religion (which is not what Wikipedia is about, I'm sure you'll agree) or very strongly biased and uncompromising, necessitating a difficult cleanup process. By the same token, you could argue that Wikipedia is hostile to pseudoscientific beliefs such as UFOlogy - but it's just a question of holding everyone to the same standard.
I would agree with you that this article is borderline as far as notability goes (Bob: you can read up on our guidelines on Notability Wikipedia:Notability), but may have promise. I am somewhat more skeptical towards it because it was written by the head pastor of the organisation, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and try to clean it up a bit. We'll see what the result is... — QuantumEleven 09:13, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

April 29

laws about salaies in small copanes

is there a set of rules and regulation on how salary pay is done in texas?

Not everyone knows that, in Texas, you have the right to be paid in gallons of good oil. --DLL 19:49, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you also clarify, are you referring to the Texas-based Native American tribe (Kopanes) or have you just mis-spelt "companies"? Grutness...wha? 02:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, What is the difference between the links in blue and the links in red? I attempted to find the answer on my own but failed. Direction to a help page with this information would be great. Thank You --24.20.136.251 00:55, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Red links are don't have articles written for them yet. Blue links go to an article that has been written. For example, Earth is blue while Blunderworth the magnificent is red. Dismas|(talk) 01:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links and URLs. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And just why the heck doesn't Blunderworth the magnificent have an article yet?! Cernen Xanthine Katrena 07:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because they need to be suitly emphazi first. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I want to see an article on pastatutes! --Zeizmic 11:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pastatutes is a corruption of "Pasta Satutes" from 12th century Milan. The statues were formed to help regulate the growing prostitution that was rampant at the time. The city was less concerned with the local prostitutes than the influx of foreign prostitutes. These foreigners were making use of the large pasta production, that was on the upsurge at the time, in their bizzare sex trade. It caused a great scandal and brought down the Milan government in 1345. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:31, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take CambridgeBayWeather for the win, Tom. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 00:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow...Whatever CambridgeBayWeather said makes a lot of sense.. maybe there should be an article for them after all..... ;-D .. Jayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 17:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Positve

Which artists give positive messages to the world?

The artists that do their own homework. Dismas|(talk) 01:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Artists are celebrated for their originality, individualism, and self-effort rather than having to ask other people to do their thinking and research for them and copying. Bwithh 02:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which artists give negative messages ? None. They do their best to give sense to the world through beauty. They sometimes make money. --DLL 19:47, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd disagree that no artists give negative messages. The person who created this poster, for example, made a work giving a negative message, as do many other artists working on propaganda or negative caricatures. Of course its kind of a subjective decision whether a message is negative or not. GeeJo (t)(c)  20:43, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Small Broken Toe Concern

I broke and dislocated my small toe two weeks ago. I went to the emergeny room. A doctor injected local anesthesia in my toe and placed my toe in the right position. My toe was then "buddy-taped" and I was told to go. I later went to my regular family doctor later, but he really didn't tell me anything. Now that it has been two weeks, I'm worried that my small toe is paralyzed. I still have a numbed sensation in my toe and the toe is still a bit swollen. I tried putting ice and something hot on my toe, but I could feel the temperature changes with a slow reaction compared to my other toe. Will I ever be able to move my small toe again? Will I recover my toe's sensation? If so, how approximatley long will it take? And, when should I stop "buddy-taping"? Please post advice, I am really concered about my toe. Thanks. --Proficient 06:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The smart thing to do is togo back to your doctor with your concerns, and state them plainly and see what he tells you, just keep repeating your cocnern, until the point of annoyance, if he doesn't tell you, try a walk-in clinc or such Treleth 06:23, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's only been two weeks, give it time to heal. Broken toes take around six weeks to heal - keep taping it, take some painkillers and be nice to your feet. Natgoo 11:19, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On average, people break their toes 10 times in the course of their life without noticing. It hurts, but unless its one of your big toes, which are the only toes which are essential (for balance), it doesn't really matter. Philc T+C 16:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do I check if a company name is available for registration?

For example purposes, let's say I want to register a company named Henna Inc. Is there a website where I can check if any company named Henna Inc. has already been registered? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well assuming that you wish to register in Singapore I would try reading through the Government's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority Singapore site. If not then try google "company registration name of country". I got some good looking hits using Canada, the US and the UK. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Characteristics of a colt

Our school mascot is a "colt" so I would like to know how to find out the characteristics/qualities of a "colt" to use those ideas in sort of a metaphor type lesson with my students. A colt is a young male horse though I have occasionally heard it used for either sex in America.They are playful and skittish and cute.The adjective "coltish" is sometimes used for young girls,a good example is Audrey Hepburn was often described as "coltish"I think it's to do with elegance and long legs.A colt also represents youth and high spirits also energy and speed,thus is often used for sports teams. hotclaws**==(hotclaws**== 13:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Try Colt or [2]. Daniel () 19:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excorsisms

Hi i was on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Association_of_Exorcists

and i would like to find out how to find an exorsist in philadelphia. how do i do that?

thanks

dave

I think your first step would be to go to your local church and explain to the priest what you want and go from there. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:00, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And when you find someone willing to solve that kind of problem, call PhACT and ask them to send someone along to observe and document the procedure please. alteripse 16:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Mizerak, pool player

What has happened to Steve Mizerak, several-times pool champion? I saw a photo of him on the Web where he was at an awards ceremony. He was in a wheelchair, his face looked distorted, and he appeared to have lost about 200 pounds. He was born in 1944, and so is now age 62, and he was greatly overweight for years. Did he have a stroke or something? How is he doing now? I saw him play straight pool at the world championship in 1972 and his skill was amazing.

Apparently he had a stroke in 2001, see http://poolroom.com/news.asp. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I met up with him at the Roseland Ballroom in 2000? (around then) when they revived the U.S. Open straight pool championship (for one year, grrrr). He looked very sickly, having ballooned up to such a massive weight that he could barely play. Steve utterly dominated straight pool during his heyday (won the U.S. Open from 70-75 (even though many of his later triumphs went unrecorded as the game was becoming 9-ball and there were not many straight pool tournaments for him to show his prowess to a wider audience). I have heard many times that he had the highest per inning average of any straight pool player in history--somewhere between 30 and 35. What a talent. Last I heard, after his stroke he was wheelchair bound, had slurred speech, and had lost control over some of his facial muscles, but his mind was still sharp. That article posted by Rick Block doesn't make his future prospects look promising. --Fuhghettaboutit 18:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jack Russell Terriers

I have just adopted via rescue, a 2 year old female dog. She looks to me to be a Jack Russell Terrier. However, I can't find a definitive source to tell me whether or not their ears should flop over or stand up, or either or. Also, she has not barked since I got her, although she notices everything going on, is alert to people outside the window or entering the next apartment door. Everything I find says that they are noisy, bark loudly, but she hasn't barked once. Could someone let me know about the ears and the non-barking. I can't find anything to answer my questions at the normal sites regarding Jack Russell's.

Thanks, Diane (Melbourne, FL)

The dog won't bark if it has been told not to during two years. Do you think it is possible ? --DLL 19:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would go somewhere like here or here and ask there. They both seem to have contact email. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 19:49, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Did you see our article on Jack Russell Terriers? Their ears usually fold forward, but this varies, as you can see. If she doesn't bark, count yourself very lucky, unless you were looking for a guard dog. Believe me, when you are trying to drive a car, there is nothing worse than an excited Jack Russell yapping in the back seat. --Shantavira 09:10, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Family Guy

Anyone know a release date (or even just a rough estimate) for Family Guy season 5 in the UK?

April, 2010. Just a rough estimate.  -- Run!  12:05, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
File:RefDeskMay2006.GIF


Mexico

Does someone know what is the name of the coldest place on Mexico?

Given that countries own the air space above their territory, I'd say about ten miles above the Pico de Orizaba. GeeJo (t)(c)  20:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to this website, the coldest place in Mexico (assuming you mean on the land) is the peak of the Pico de Orizaba. SCHZMO 20:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

American Telephone Directory Services

I'm doing a scavenger hunt and I need to know what happens when an American phones Directory Services. I'm talking about what the operator says and such. Computerjoe's talk 20:40, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Either a computerized or real voice says "City and listing, please." Brian G. Crawford 21:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When I call 411, I get a recorded voice saying, "<Local phone company name> directory assistance." Then a few notes of music, and "For what city?" You say a city, and then it says, "Thank you. What listing?" (It might first ask whether you want a business or residence.) Then it says, "Thank you. Please wait a moment," and after a couple of rings, a live voice comes on and either gives you the number right away or asks for additional information ("I have a John Smith on Elm Street and one on Third Street. Which would you like?") The operator then says something like, "Thank you, please hold for the number," and the recorded voice comes back on to say something like, "The number you have requested <pause> five-one-nine five-five-five one-seven-seven-six <pause> can be automatically dialed for an additional <pause> thirty <pause> cents by pressing one now."
Until recently, dialing 411 would connect you directly to a human operator, who would say, "Directory assistance. For what city and state?" The "and state" part came in several years back when they hooked all the national directory assistance together. It used to be that 411 was only for local numbers, and if you wanted a number in New York City, you'd have to dial 1-212-555-1212 (unless, of course, you lived in NYC). I remember when I was in Manhattan about nine years ago and tried to get a number in Paterson, N.J., or somewhere by dialing 411. The operator yelled something like, "Whadda you mean? That's a Juhzee numbuh! I don't have Juhzee numbuhs!" -- Mwalcoff 06:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are all of the characters on Will & Grace good or bad?

Yes. Slumgum | yap | stalk | 22:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As with almost all characters on sitcoms, the characters on Will and Grace are supposed to be people the audience (ie Americans) can sympathise with, but with some character flaws to make their lives interesting. In short, they're all good, but imperfect.-gadfium 00:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Breasts

Why are men so attracted to breats? Also, why is it sexual harrassment to touch a women's breats? Why isn't it just like touching her arm? 71.250.48.233 22:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's human nature for people to be attracted to traits in their prospective partner that suggest advantages in parenting. Women look for men who can provide (nowadays it's more likely to be a high earner than a strong hunter) and from a man's POV, breasts are useful in a maternal aspect. The instincts to look for these probably stem from their own childhood. I reckon. -- Slumgum | yap | stalk | 22:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Breasts are simply secondary sexual characteristics. Men are attracted to them because they evolved to be attracted to them, and they evolved to be attracted to them because breasts are a characteristic of adult females. Chl 14:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
it is sexual assault to touch a woman's breasts, not harrassment, assuming the contact wasn't sought. It is based on why people do it, and how they feel when it is done. The rest I couldn't explain perfectly for you, but I assume you were asking out of general curiosity, rather than indignation at society's attitudes. The Mad Echidna 22:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. You can touch your friend's Dagmar bumpers, but if you touch Dagmar's bumpers, you'd probably either be a necropheliac (assuming she's dead), or sexually harassing her. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 00:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Form and format

First off I love this web site and thank you. However, sometimes it can be a nightmare. E.g., "Contact Wikipedia"? Famous last words. Just try it. Do you have clue what a frustrating labyrinth one most go through to find a place to actually "contact" anyone? Do words have meaning? What part of the word 'contact' are we not aligned on? In any event I find two constant problems:

First the site is great because all links are in blue; however when you print the article there is no distinction so you can't tell what is a link and what is not. When I view an article with blue links and want to print it I would expect to get what I see but this is not so for everything appears boldface in print. This makes no sense. Why do you not just have the links in bold type and the rest in regular type? After all if one wants a print out in all regular type (with no distinction for links) you already have a print version that does just that.

Second there is a problem with elementary punctuation here that is so common it is amazing – indeed rather shocking. For instance consider the following: "A story is told that at a large psychology conference, a "lecturer", actually an actor schooled in mellifluous delivery, uttered a "lecture" that was carefully designed nonsense." This quote is (from all places!) an article on stupidity. (See http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~sousa/STUPIDITY.html)

The rule (according to every reputable style manual) is that the comma always goes inside the quote. E.g., "lecturer," not "lecturer",.... Moreover a quote inside a quote should be in semi quotes so it should actually be " ... 'lecturer,' ..." I won't bother going into the remaining problems with that article on stupidity. Suffice it to say it is, itself, syntactical nonsense. And competent writer would ask, "Who wrote this?!" E.g., the sentence should read "A story is told that at a large psychology conference, a "lecturer" (actually an actor schooled in mellifluous delivery) uttered a 'lecture' that was carefully designed nonsense." If one is going to present hearsay ("a story is told") as authority then he should at least rise to the level of a high school freshman. So so much for this author's credibility on the subject of 'stupidity' -- res ipsa loquiter (it speaks for itself.)

Now I do understand that this article is posted as a link provided by the original Wikipedia article and I do not mean to pick on this writer but I find this particular error (misuse of quotation marks) so common at this web site that I am amazed. It only damages credibility of both the writer and the publisher for if one does not know basic rules of punctuation and grammar readers tend to discount their authority as to subject matter. That is, if the syntax can't get past a high school English teacher can we give much credibility to the substance the author presents? The answer is usually "no." This web site is supposed to have "pier review" but what does that mean -- that one dunderhead passes on and approves the work of another dunderhead? Who writes this stuff? Scholars? Students? Mere children tinkering with words? Are the articles credible? Are they authoritative? Can any dunderhead with a 'credential' (so called) publish his or her work here with so little scrutiny? If so how can it be relied on for truth and veracity any more than graffiti on a public wall?

Please don't be offended. I do love this web site. Unfortunately when, on a daily basis, find so much error in simple elementary grammar then that damages your credibility and tells me I must distrust the materials. A research source that can not be trusted is not of much use. Fun perhaps, interesting perhaps, but certainly not worthy of much credibility.

I urge you to show more scrutiny and make editing more easy. At the very least have a high school English teacher edit them.

And now that I have wirtten all this WHERE is the send button?!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.243.176.127 (talkcontribs) .

The Guardian's style manual is clearly disreputable: "Place full points and commas inside the quotes for a complete quoted sentence; otherwise the point comes outside". HenryFlower 23:03, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where the punctuation goes with regard to quotes differs between American and British usage, for local style guidelines please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks. Most of your other questions are answered at Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. You might also find Wikipedia:About useful. Note that all contributors are unpaid volunteers. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:07, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting that "res ipsa loquiter" is apparently not an example of itself (I refer to the fact that its meaning needed to be translated). It's in the same class as "monosyllabic". I wonder if there's a term for this. And we don't have "pier review" here", except for this page. Cheers JackofOz 01:29, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
there is, but sadly I can't recall it. I thought the two terms were autonym and autoantonym, but it seems not. Grutness...wha? 03:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Am I missing something here? That article on stupidity was on another website, not Wikipedia, was it not? Why is Wikipedia to blame for that poor grammar? Besides, Wikipedia is plagued with grammar far worse than what is described. If the most grave mistake you can find it a point placed outside of a quotation mark instead of inside, then I'm truly amazed.  -- Run!  11:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Info on Wikipedia category percentages?

Hi all! I've always wanted to know how very general encyclopedic categories stack up in English Wikipedia, i.e., what percentage of Wikipedia is Geography, what percentage is History, what percentage is Math, etc. (at least like the categories being used for dividing the Reference Desk!), so like any good asker around here, I first started searching for statistics that would refer to this before asking. While I found a lot on overall size growth for the whole Wikipedia, including users, stubs etc., there isn't much on encyclopedic categories. The closest page I could find was this Juggernaut of subcategories (WARNING: 1.1 Mb!!) which is longer than anyone (including me) could care, and basically says nothing about the BROAD CATEGORY RELATIVE SIZES I'm asking about. It's also as confusing as it has been humanly possible to do, so I believe it's as useless for me as it is for anyone else. (And this is the "Concise" version, nevermind the ultra-juggernaut which is the "Complete" version of the list, 18 MB long!!! >.< )

SO, my questions are:

  • Isn't there an elaborate and serious page which can tell me precisely how the english Wikipedia is subdivided into, say, Humanities, Science, Math, etc. and how they compare in size between each other? (things like pie charts would be lovely!)
  • If there isn't, shouldn't there be one?

I believe info like this is important for the Wikipedia project and should be readily accessible, at least if we wanted more people to get the seriousness of this global project, which I consider of great value to humanity (unless the results come out as "54.6% Pokémon pages, 34.2% Star Trek episode info..."; I hope not!!) Sorry about the lenghtiness, and thanks in advance! Kreachure 23:22, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't you know that Wikipedia was created so that poor African kids living in tent villages could learn about toys they could never buy and TV shows they'll never see? Brian G. Crawford 00:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statistics precisely like what you're asking for are very difficult to obtain, because articles can be in many categories and categories do not form a tree (or even a directed acyclic graph). You might be interested in the statistics related to Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles. According to User:Dantheox/Stub percentages more than a third of Wikipedia articles are stubs. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Counts on the population of all the stub categories are kept at WP:WSS/ST - that may give you a rough idea. There are huge numbers of biographies and geographical articles, if that's anything to go by. Grutness...wha? 03:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks everyone, but it still seems to me that there HAS to be info on the amount of articles each category has. I'm no statistician, but as for the problem of articles being in many categories, it shouldn't be that big an obstacle:
  • To get a category's minimum amount of articles, you could count each article only once within that category, even if it's in several subcategories; and if it belongs in other categories, you don't count it at all.
  • And to get the maximum amount of articles of a category, you count the same article as many times as it appears anywhere!
This way you can get a (VERY rough) estimate of a category's number of articles, but it'd be something to start with! And if I just made up this process in the last five minutes, imagine what the real statistics guys could do! (And bots for much more complex things have been created, so the process could be painlessly automatic!) And remember, it's much more logical to count only the "official" articles, so why worry about stubs at all! I'm still insisting this is important information Wikipedia should already know, and I think it'd help tremendously in demonstrating the seriousness the Wikipedia Project has and deserves of everyone. P.S. I'll see how I can talk to the Statistics Awareness guys anyway, but any other opinions or support about this idea are gladly welcome. Kreachure 16:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might also find Special:Mostlinkedcategories useful. Grutness...wha? 04:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

April 30

A list of roughage foods

I have recently suffered two attacks of ischemic colitis, and I've been advised not to eat roughage foods. Unfortunately, I don't know all foods that are considered roughage, and I haven't been able to find this information anywhere on the internet. Can you help me?

Whole grains, vegetables, fruits, foods with lots of insoluble dietary fiber. Brian G. Crawford 01:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Our article on Roughage redirects to Dietary fiber, which has a list of Sources of fibre, which has a sub-list of insoluble fibres including "Whole grain foods", "bran", "nuts and seeds", "vegetables such as green beans, cauliflower, zucchini and celery", and "the skin of some fruits including tomatoes". This website, found while googling for "insoluble fibre", adds "brown rice", "fruits with edible seeds", "lentils", "maize", "oats", "pulses", wholegrain and wholemeal breads and cereals, along with wholemeal pasta. Hope that helps. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 03:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Old people

Why do they drive nothing but Buicks and Oldsmobiles? Are they not aware other brands exist? And why do they drive so slow? A Clown in the Dark 01:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Actually, it's a good thing that older people tend to drive slower– it's just a sensible adjustment to their slowing reaction time. I would be rather more concerned of older drivers not compensating for their aging reflexes.--Pharos 02:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Subjectively speaking, the elderly also tend to favor larger cars as they are often easier to get in and out of, and are typically more comfortable and spacious. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 06:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is it actually true that old people in the US do drive those makes of cars exclusively? I would suspect that a number of old people drive other makes. Are Buicks and Oldsmobiles not higher priced cars? In which case it could be a status symbol in their minds. If you had the choice would you pick a Zastava vehicles or a Ferrari?
No, it's not true that old people drive these makes exclusively. It's a stereotype. However it's probably true that a greater proprition of older people drive those makes than the rest of the population. DJ Clayworth 15:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Re the speed part of the question, one could turn it around and wonder why many younger people drive so fast when they know that inappropriate speed (not necessarily even exceeding the maximum) is a major factor in so many road deaths. (Oh, that's right, I forgot - "it'll never happen to me"). Maximum speeds are just that. Many drivers seem to regard them as minimum speeds. JackofOz 02:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about other young drivers, but I simply drive the speed that feels right for the road. On the open highway between Spokane and Seattle, if the weather's good, that means I'm doing 100+ mph, and a four-hours-by-the-speed-limit drive is reduced to two and a half hours. On the other hand, if traffic's heavy, or the weather's bad, I'll find a semi in the slow lane to follow, because I know he won't be doing anything unexpected, and nobody'll try to merge in front of me. --Serie 22:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When the old people of today were young, most high-status cars were those big American cars. So it might be partly nostalgia.TheSPY 16:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Recommendation for a CMS?

I'm looking for recommendations for web authoring/management software to use for a church website. I'd like to be able to set up the site once, and not have to worry too much about site management after that. Then there'll be a handful or two people who add/modify content, which will be things like articles, announcements, and photos. Down the road, we'd like to be able to have streaming audio/video. This would not be a high-volume site, and cost is a real issue. My preference would be something open source. Any suggestions or recommendations? -Rholton 03:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try a wiki. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 00:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


TSR Forums!

TSR (The Sims Resource) Forums is down! It wont work for me, I was just wondering if anyone else has the same problem? its the first site on google when you type in tsr forums, does anyone know what happened?

They are currently down, however, I don't know the reason (it's probably something trivial like a database rebuild). Wait a few days, and check the main TSR page for any announcements of longer-term problems. — QuantumEleven 08:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Would anyone perhaps know some other good sims 2 forums, because Im a bit stuck lol

who is the chatrman of microsoft

brief information about microsoft software company

Go to the article: Microsoft. Daniel () 08:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chatrman - A person who does too much texting. --Zeizmic 19:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or: Chatrman - A person still learning the fine details of how to suitly emphazi something. СПУТНИКССС Р 22:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought a Chatrman was another name for a pastatute Jayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 15:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shiawassee River - Michigan

Thought I added some content a week or two ago, haven't seen it pop up yet. Can someone check what happened ? It had quite a few references to back everything up.

Well, you did add something, but it was to Wikipedia:Articles for creation, which is a page for anonymous users to submit ideas for articles. That means that in order for the article to be created, someone else has to actually use the information submitted (or find more), and then do the article themselves. However, given the amount of nonsense that goes through there (people asking for articles on their dog, that kind of thing), the process can be quite slow.
Looking over what you've added, that's enough information there to start an article. I nearly did it for you, but I would rather invite you to do the article yourself as someone who will have more expertise. It's easy to do so, and I (along with a number of other editors) would be glad to assist you with any questions you have. All you'll need to do is create an account, which is fast and free, type in "Shiawassee River" to the search box, click on the option to create a new article, and go from there. I'd suggest looking over Wikipedia:Introduction before beginning to get an idea of some writing basics. Good luck, and if you have a question, leave me an article on my talk page or at the Help Desk. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 09:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

bachelors of mass media

i m a student of standard 12th arts in mumbai, india. i wish to pursue a degree of bmm ie bachelors of mass media after 12th. could u plz help me with the subect,the best colleges in mumbai providing this course, courses after graduation in the same field in india or abroad? i want to pursue advertising in my last year of graduation so plz answer my queries accordingly. also i would like to know the importance of this course and the salaries available in both india and abroad?is there an mba related to advertising and mass media? if yes plz send all the possible information about it?

Slow down there, my friend! I can't tell you which is the "best" "Bachelor's of Mass Media" offered in Mumbai, or indeed anywhere in the world. What I can tell you is that the "best" course according to published rankings are not always the best course for you. In my country (Australia), universities have "open days" where you can visit the university, chat to staff and students, see what the facilities are like, and so on. In any case, at university, you are responsible for your own learning, far more than you were at high school. An uncommitted student at the best university in the world will learn far less than a diligent student at a less well-known university. For your salary question, in many countries job search websites also have information about salary ranges for various professions. In general, though, people working in advertising are reasonably well paid throughout the world (in relative terms, probably better paid in India than in other places; you certainly won't be able to afford servants if you worked in Europe; you probably could in India because unskilled labor is so cheap); top creative talent is extremely well-paid but are small in number. Finally, for what it's worth in my view MBAs are best taken by people who already have some work experience. --Robert Merkel 22:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Savage Garden music video I WANT YOU

Hi, Am looking for the name of the red haired women from the I WANT YOU MUSIC VIDEO, any help appreciated. Cheers.

You might be better off asking this one on a Savage Garden fan forum. If you do a Google search for "Savage Garden fan forum" a number of useful sites turn up. --Robert Merkel 22:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Counting visitors

  • Does anyone have any ideas about how we can identfy how many visitors a certain page has received? I can't really think of a better way to determine how effective my off-site promotion schemes are unless I can ascertain how many people are actually popping in for a look!
Hope you're all well, wherever you are in the world today!

D2 09:57, April 30, 2006 (UTC)

Any good web host (but not necessarily a free host) will offer statistics, which is some information that should include a count of visitors. (The nature of the web is that the counts are rather approximate.) Otherwise, some people use hit counters, though these look very amateurish. Notinasnaid 15:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Google Analytics is great- you even get a map of where your visitors are from. HenryFlower 15:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was really after some cunning way of ascertaining how many 'views' a Wiki page has received. Are there any incredibly cunning ways of doing this?

D2 17:16, April 30, 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Computerjoe's talk 19:31, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you Joe - simple and to the point.

D2 21:27, April 30, 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Technical FAQ#Can I add a page hit counter to a Wikipedia page?. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks Rick!

D2 09:22, May 1, 2006 (UTC)

Mulholland drive

Hello! This is a question regarding the Mulholland drive(film). In the film, there is a singing audition, and two songs are played: one is something like 16 reasons why i love you, and it is played by a female vocal and a choire, and the second song is played by a female vocal only(in the film she is named Camilla Rhodes), but i haven't caught any of the text, and the song rythm is much like that of the first, but a bit faster. If someone knows how are those songs called and do they exist outside of the film, i would like you to write it because i like those songs very much.--Captain ginyu 12:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've Told Every Little Star by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern? (On the IMDb most films have soundtrack pages that are useful in cases like this.) David Sneek 16:03, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, you've helped me a lot.--Captain ginyu 21:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I in trouble?

I think I posted copyrighted content in an article without realizing. I am a new user, and am unfamiliar with copyright laws. Now the article that I edited is on the possible copyright violations page. I did not realize what I was doing was possibly illegal. I am really worried. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Morganismysheltie (talkcontribs) 16:20, April 30, 2006 (UTC).

Don't worry about it (too much)! Looking at your edit history, I'm afraid I can't find the article you're referring to - did you write it under a different username? In any case, there is no lasting harm done - best if you delete (or, better, rewrite :)) the bits of the article which violate copyright, and maybe leave a message on the article's talk page saying you rewrote / deleted the copyrighted material in question. Voilà - all sorted. On Wikipedia, we assume good faith, and in your case, if it was unintentional, all you need to do is remedy the error (as described above) and all will be cherry. If you've got any questions or are unsure about something, feel free to leave a message on my talk page, and I'll do my best to help you out. — QuantumEleven 16:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's good to see someone caring so much about these things. Daniel () 17:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

time zones

hi, can you please tell me the time difference between Yoshkar-ola, Russia and Adelaide, Australia (South Australi). this would be very much appreciated, thank you.

See Time in Russia, Time in Australia and List of time zones. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the time difference is 5.5 hours, since Yoshkar-Ola is on Moscow Summer Time (UTC +4) and Adelaide is on Australian Central Standard Time (UTC +9.5). SCHZMO 19:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of a Subdivision in Montgomery, Alabama

I noticed that of the (17) Neighborhoods listed for Montgomery, Alabama, only the history of two (2)-- (Woodmere Evirons & Cloverdale)) of them were given. As a relatively new comer to the City of Montgomery, and, a resident in one the remaining (15) fifteen neighborhoods, it would be most appreciated if you could provide a brief history of my neighborhood so that I could become better informed.

My question is: Would it be possible to have the history of

                Brighton Estates listed as well?


Thank you, -- " " " "

Sure. You can create it yourself or list it at Wikipedia:Articles for creation if you want registered users to help you create the page. SCHZMO 22:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

College inrollment in Austin, Texas

How many college students inroll in Austin's colleges each year?

Enroll as freshman or are enrolled in college? Undergraduates or graduates students also? Our Austin article list four colleges there, although only two have mentions of their students populations. Over 10,000 new freshman each year though. Rmhermen 17:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The saddest part is that many college-level students actually would inroll is a kollage all acros amirika ... I think at least three of the four horsemen are saddled up and ready to go at this point BigFatDave 12:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

9/11

Is their any connections between the date of the 9/11 attacks, and that the US emergency number is 911? Philc T+C 17:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not. Maybe one of the terrorists got a laugh in his/her twisted mind out of it. But it's unlikely. Daniel () 17:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely...the terrorists tried to give it some symbolic meaning. As in 911 calls usually mean someone's in danger or terror, as was the case in 9/11. Flameviper12 14:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But in the east most of us write the date as dd/mm/yyyy...so the date would have been 11/9 for the terrorists ...so, i guess its just a coincidence..... Jayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 15:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, in the US it is convention to use mm/dd/yyyy, as far as i am aware, hence it is reffered to as 9/11 and not 11/9, if the terrorists did try to give it some meaning, I doubt wether the cared if the rest of the world got it. Philc T+C 19:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
...in the east most of us... not in the US. However, I believe the hijackers were living in the US. However however, I believe the attacks were organised by someone living in 'the east'. Skittle 20:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By in the east do you mean in the east of the US? Philc T+C 20:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think he means in the eastern world (such as the Middle East). --Maelwys 21:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth we use the 'east' dating system here in the UK. -- DPM
Yeh I'm in the UK, english born n bred. But although they were from the middle east, the hijackers attended several months flight training in the US didnt they? also, just for the sake of it dd/mm/yyyy, makes sense, i fail to see the lgic in mm/dd/yyyy, it seems so silly. theres no logical order in it. Philc T+C 17:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dams and silt

Do dams create more silt in the rivers? Does this have a negative effect by polluting water or making it murky?

Large dams hold back the natural silt in rivers. They actually make the river clearer downstream. But all that silt in the headpond causes problems for the dam. Some dams actually have silt discharges at the bottom of the dam, but then the river has to cope with a big slug of silt. --Zeizmic 19:16, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my day, we filled in our geography problem sheets without any use of computers or internet thingys at all... Bwithh 19:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dams only work because the engineers did their own homework. Imagine, if Wikipedia were available when the built the hoover dam, what would happen if someone asked, "Hey, how do I build the Hoover Dam" at the reference desk! For SHAME. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 00:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear, was I a pastatute for answering that? Perhaps, they aren't diligent enough to look back. --Zeizmic 01:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Herm, what's a pastatute? Bwithh 01:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Someone you have to pay to suitly emphazi! As to the original question, I was reading an artiicle today which has some bearing on the question: see [3]. Grutness...wha? 06:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#Pastatutes and Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#Blue vs. Red Links. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It also crops up in Google a couple of hundred times. JackofOz 02:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I asked the question not for homework or buissness...but because i am curious.

Indian Rice Pudding

I absolutely love the rice pudding at Indian buffets. Its thin, creamy and oh so lovely. Does anyone have a good recipe? Is there a way to make it healthier ( without cream ).

Google it. Daniel () 19:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The rice pudding's name is Kheer. It is based on milk, not cream, but does contain a bunch of sugar. I suppose you could use low-fat milk and artificial sweetner. There's a recipe for it at WikiCookbooks: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Kheer

- :Bwithh 19:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Text Size

How do I make the text size of the text in Wikipedia bigger or smaller? (I have Internet Explorer and Windows XP, I that helps) --Porsche997SBS 20:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Open up Internet Explorer, go into View, text size, and pick whichever size is comfortable for you. Alternatively, hold down the Control key and roll your scroll wheel forward. GeeJo (t)(c) • 21:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you ment when editing so after the edit conflict:
Thanks a lot!--Porsche997SBS 01:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could use <<font size=large></font> or <small></small> type tags. Also take a look through Wikipedia:How to edit a page and the others. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could also edit your monobook.css to increase the font sizes of various classes. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 06:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple Image Copyright violations on Hwang Woo-Suk article

Bwithh 21:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would try either Wikipedia:Copyrights or the talk page for the article. This is a much more general page. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Already tried the article talk page. It's been something like 2 weeks or more and no replies. I'll see if there's a copyright problem discussion page. Bwithh 21:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is and I've found them helpful. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May 1

Today's Buffalo-Philly game

What did Mike Grier do to deserve third-star status in today's NHL playoff game between the Sabres and Flyers? --138.88.121.77 00:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

embedded videos

what is the wikipedia policy towards embedding video files into articles pages?

Questions about Wikipedia policy should be asked Wikipedia:Help desk, not the reference desk. Thank you. --Robert Merkel 05:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would definetly not recommend videos in artices.. maybe a sub-page containing the video is a better option... and BTW Visakhapatnam has a video thing Coming Up on it for a long time now... Anyone know about it?? Jayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 15:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of name Chaligoj

Does anybody know how the surname Chaligoj came about? I have looked through every page of Google hits and found no clues as to its ethnic origin. I found no records for Chaligojs immigrating to the United States. In the 1920 census the name was confined to Missouri.

Its a complete mystery. My recommendation: cold call every Chaligoj you can find in the phonebook (how many can there be) and ask them. If this is too weird for you, pay a little kid to do it and pretend his/her name is Chaligoj and its for his/her homework. If you are actually a little kid anyway, get a grown-up to supervise your cold calling (that means to phone up someone you don't know and start chatting with them) Bwithh 16:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Er, does WP:BEANS apply to the reference desk? :-) Sandstein 19:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Herm, okay, how about if you're a kid, you really better go get mum or dad to supervise you before you make the calls, or else Bwithh 22:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sports journalist Mr. Goutam Bhattacharyya

I want to know the detail of a sports editor Mr. Goutam Bhattacharyya of Ananda Bazar Patrika of Kolkata , India.Specially information including his birth day, career etc.Please help me out.

Did you mean Gautam Bhattacharyya? Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 09:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Florida Musicians

Do you know any Spanish musicians from Florida

Do you mean a person of Spanish nationality, Hispanic ethnicity, a Hispanophone, someone who sings exclusively in Spanish, or some combination of the factors? GeeJo (t)(c) • 18:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

Where do you put information citing a source?

And what if your source is the book that you are talking about, and your own personal experience with it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlbertSM (talkcontribs)

Please see WP:CITE on how to cite sources, but you shouldn't "cite", or in other ways refer to, your own personal experience. On Wikipedia, all sources must be verifiable and reliable (see WP:RS). Sandstein 19:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

animal ethics

hi, firstly, i know this is a bit disgusiting so i apologise but me and my housemates have been thinking -whats the justification for criminalisng beastiality? i mean,obviously the animal can't consent but then again, cows don't consent to being made into burgers or being pumped full of steroids but thats perfectly ok. is it just becuase it scores pretty highly on the yuck-factor and, if yes, what kind of a justification is that?

In my opinion, the killing of animals IS sickening. But yey again, without the killing of animals we would not have protein which is healthy. Even though we are against animal killing it provides protein. General Eisenhower 21:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is a justification. General Eisenhower 21:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Baked beans. HenryFlower 21:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can kill an animal relatively painlessly and without needless suffering. Many sexual acts with animals, on the other hand, can cause pain and suffering to the animal that's completely avoidable by not abusing it. It's considered animal cruelty, as well as a moral crime. Night Gyr 21:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But bestiality is (in many places) illegal even if you're a gentle, considerate lover. Looking at the Zoophilia article, it seems remarkably short on mainstream moral judgments (it only seems to cover Old Testament-style condemnations and fringe supporters). I suspect that's because there is no coherent mainstream moral position- just "it's icky". HenryFlower 21:52, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe I'm responding to this, but I do have some thoughts. 1) Traditionally, most people expect others to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. Finding out that some guy likes to screw shetland ponies makes you wonder if he's crazy (because most men would rather have sex with a woman) or if he's so undesirable he has to screw the pony. 2) Animals are used for food and labor. Maybe the taboo "don't shit where you eat" applies. Most people don't want human bodily fluids, especially those from "down there," in their food, and lots of us look at certain kinds of animals as food. You'd wonder about a guy who masturbates on a piece of pizza instead of eating it, wouldn't you? 3) Some people may erroneously think that a human can impregnate an animal and vice versa. 4) Crazy behavior disturbs people. It strikes a lot of people as completely insane to want to have sex with an animal. Brian G. Crawford 01:28, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poop

What does it taste like? 72.145.188.234 21:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC) (Sorry if I posted this twice, but it doesn't show up on my computer.)[reply]

We can not tell you what it tastes like because none of us Wikipedians have tasted it. But you can try the links at this disambig page "Poop." General Eisenhower 21:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a fairly bold claim. Wikipedia has a wide-ranging coverage of sexual fetishism, so our editors probably cover a wide range of sexual backgrounds. However, I wouldn't like to speculate on which particular editors know what faeces tastes like. --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Though come to think of it, if you ask a vandal, many of them will tell you that recent changes patrollers and administrators ingest faeces on a regular basis. Often they feel this is so significant that they must insert this information into random articles, and update the relevant userpages when the coprophiliac vandal-fighters in question have inexplicably neglected to mention their taste for the brown stuff themselves. If you can catch one of them, they might be able to point you in the right direction. --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Having observed my niece and nephew grow up I'd venture to guess a large percentage of people have tasted poop. Toddlers try to taste everything they can get their hands on, and poop is certainly easily accessible to them... Weregerbil 23:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The human sense of taste is mostly smell. I.e. when you think you are tasting something you are really mostly smelling it. So poo (as most things) probably mostly tastes the way it smells! Weregerbil 21:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, kinda like durian? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 23:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do your own homework :) 199.201.168.100 20:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

my cat's poop tastes like cat food

...thank you Ralph. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 02:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nashville, TN Public Safety Communications

I was wondering what The Nashville Police and fire departments use for communication? I went to Nashville 5 years ago and brought a handheld scanner and heard communications on the regular frequencies. However, I just got back from Nashville and i entered the frequencies i listend to last time and i heard nothing at all. I even tried 800 megahertz Trunking frequencies and heard nothing.

song Wayward wind

Was this the song wayward wind ever used in a movie

Computer Problem

Hello, I am trying to get files off of my hard drive and put them on another computer (I got a new pc) But it tells me that access is denied. How do I fix this problem. Thanks!! --Zach 22:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you give us a little bit more information? How are you transferring the files? By cable or by CD? Is the old or new computer which is telling you access is denied? I would do this by connecting the two PCs with an Ethernet crossover cable and turn on "Sharing" on the old PC. --Canley 03:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you are using Windows are you logged in with administrator rights on both computers? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 04:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did some searching and found the site: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic8914.html which helped me with my problem. Some clarification: the hard drive was in my new pc. I needed to change the security in safe mode. Thanks for all your help!! I really appriciate it. 69.168.172.11 20:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

what is the copyright of Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is used for research, and is copyrighted under Jimbo Wales (I think). If you wish to cite an article from Wikipedia, go to a page and click "Cite this Article". The Ronin 23:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is copyrighted under the GFDL, see Wikipedia:Copyrights. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Will you review my article "Oglebay Park/Temp"?

Does it need improvement? What would you rate it on a scale of 1-10? Feel free to edit the page or add information that I may have missed. Thanks, Morganismysheltie

I haven't really looked at the Oglebay Park/Temp but I did review the Oglebay Park. I saw that only part of the page wa a copyright violation so I reverted it as per Wikipedia:Copyrights#If you find a copyright infringement. You can now merge your temp in with the original article. Let me know on my talk page when you're finished with the temp page and I'll delete it for you. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 04:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

article refrence

how do i put up a bibliografy of one of wikipedis's articles that i used in my school papper?

There is a link at the very top of this page that takes you to Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia.--Andrew c 00:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May 2

Spear

How would I make a spear that looks sort of real that I could hit people with without hurting them. I was thinking I could start with a broomstick.--154.20.89.16 01:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You should not hit people with spears, whether fake or not, and whether you hurt them or not. In general, they do not like it, and might call the police, or your parents. If you want to play with friends who agree to play with you, you might use styrofoam tubes. Make sure you do not aim for the eyes, as they are very easily hurt, or wear safety goggles. Sandstein 04:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And broomsticks hurt a lot more than you think..escpecially if you hit the wrong areas .. Jayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 11:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A broomstick is a bad choice for basing a sparring weapon on: it doesn't have much give to it, so even with padding, it can cause serious injuries if you swing it hard enough. I'd recommend starting with a flexible material, or a material that breaks easily. If you're interested in safety, you'll have to give up on the idea of making it look like a spear: there's no way to get enough padding on the pointy end without making it look like a boxing glove on a stick. --Serie 20:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
May I suggest a cardboard tube, like the kind that come inside wrapping paper? User:Zoe|(talk) 01:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many "pacifist warfare" type groups use swords, not spears, and make them from old newspapers, rolled up into a tube and taped to hold them firm. They specifically use only the "cutting" action of the sword and avoid "stabbing", as that can still cause injuries. Which would rather rule out most forms of spear... Grutness...wha? 01:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crime,Detection, and Technology

Science and technology has helped detectives investigate and discover the person which a particular crime was committed by.But could it also be possible that criminals could be using science and technology to stop policemen,detectives, and the courts,etc from discovering, or make it more difficult or unlikely for them to discover, that a particular crime(s) was committed by them?

Please remember to sign all of your posts on talk pages. Typing four tildes after your comment ( ~~~~ ) will insert a signature showing your username and a date/time stamp, which is very helpful.
Yes, this is certainly possible. Many investigative techniques in forensics can in theory be counteracted by an intelligent perpetrator by taking appropriate precautions, e.g. by wearing gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints. In general practice, however, most criminals are not distinguished by a particularly high level of scientific education (or indeed intelligence), though, and therefore get caught and sent to jail. See forensics for more information. Sandstein 04:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the things in technology that (if it existed) could make it more difficult for criminals to get caught would be the cloaking device.

Then all you need to do is scan for tachyon emissions! ;-) — QuantumEleven 13:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If one were intelligent enough to outsmart the forensics agents, one would not be stupid emough to commit crime.

Friendly Official Wagers

I have a few questions about an article I want to write (and couldn't find anywhere). Most importantly, what to call it.

In North America, during the hockey (NHL), football (NFL/CFL) and baseball (MLB) playoffs, it's common for the mayors of teams that are playing each other to make a friendly wager. They tend to be either for prestige or for food; an example of the former is during the current NHL playoffs, Calgary and Anaheim are playing. The mayors of these two cities have a bet where the mayor of the losing city will hoist the flag of the winning city above their city hall, while wearing the jersey of the winning club and a hat symbolizing the winning city (a Cowboy hat for Calgary, and Mickey Mouse ears for Anaheim). An example of the food wager was the 2001 NFC Championship game between the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings, when Senator Clinton bet New York cheesecake and maple syrup against Senator Mark Dayton's Minnesota wild rice and cheese. The bets are most commonly made by mayors and governors, and, even though many would technically be illegal gambling, are considered good fun, good PR and good sportsmanship.

My questions are:

  • What would you call this? Political sports wagers? (And do we already have an article; I couldn't find one.)
  • Does this happen for other sports in North America? I could easily google results for hockey, baseball and football, but not for basketball, soccer or lacrosse.
  • Does this happen in other parts of the world? I would think that football rivalries in England are far too strong to permit this sort of thing, for instance, but I could be wrong.
  • Does this commonly happen for minor league sports, or is it a professional sports thing only? While some political figures tend to make more wagers than others, (Gov. Pataki of New York seems to make a lot; Gov. Owens of Colorado "doesn’t enter into bets with other Governors very often", it's pretty common for the major leagues I've identified. Does the same thing happen, say, in double-A baseball, or the East Coast Hockey League? What about college sports?
  • Does anybody know of the history of these bets, where they came from, or any particularly notable bets? (I seem to recall one proposed bet that was refused, because the mayor (?) of one city stated that there was nothing worth betting for in the other city.)

Any help, or even just a suggestion on a name would be greatly appreciated! I've already found a bunch of "typical" bets, and we don't need a full list of all such wagers, just a sampling, plus any particularly notable ones. Thanks! --ByeByeBaby 05:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No help from me, but that's nice material for a new article : try it! Just be bold (and remember we need citation here). Thank you! --DLL 20:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Movie Maker

This error appears when I try to import a video into the collection: "The file C:\ ... .avi cannot be imported because the codec required to play the file is not installed on your computer. If you have already tried to download and install the codec, close and restart Windows Movie Maker, and then try to import the file again."

Why is this happening?

Well, let me state what I do know. The .avi video is a conversion from a .mov video. I converted from .mov to .avi using MediaEncoder.

Then I tried importing the .avi file to Movie Maker and that is the error that comes up.

gelo 05:41, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that the codec for the AVI file is incorrect, or not recognised by Windows Movie Maker. You could try the free program GSpot to work out which codec the AVI file uses, and then google for that codec and download it. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 06:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Ed Sullivan Show

I have found one reference to a cartoon name onthe show " Jonny" did this little man appear on a TV screen and look like an outline of a man that talked and moved/rolled about? if so what did he do what was is purpose on the show Ed Sullivan had such a nak!

Is this the Jonny that was the ventriloquist's dummy for Señor Wences? It was basically Wences's hand with makeup on it for eyes and lips, with a dummy's body hanging below it. Here's an image of the two of them -- http://www.nnmagic.com/posters_magiccontemporary/images/wences_johnny.jpg User:Zoe|(talk) 01:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sea and salt

which sea is in our world with higher content of salt?

The article on sea water should help. (And no, it is not the Dead Sea, which despite its name is a lake.) (I'm assuming you mean highest concentration, not highest total tonnage of salt.) Weregerbil 10:56, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, Dead Sea might also be the answer you are looking for, depending on why you are asking. If this is homework or you are playing Trivial Pursuit, Dead Sea might be what your teacher / the answer card is expecting. Weregerbil 11:01, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it's homework, writing "The Red Sea is the most saline sea in the world. The Dead Sea is more saline than the Red Sea, but is actually a lake, not a sea" will either get you extra marks or a detention for insolence. --Sam Blanning(talk) 16:36, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any reason why a lake can't also be a sea? Our sea article seems quite certain that the Dead Sea is a sea. HenryFlower 18:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did any Australian cinemas refuse to screen Brokeback Mountain?

I'm currently doing a university assignment that involves writing up a piece about "the refusal of some Australian cinemas to screen the movie Brokeback Mountain", but so far I can find no evidence that any cinemas in Australia actually made that decision (American cinemas, yes, but not Australian ones). And I'm terrible at Googling.

Can anyone provide links or urls relating to any Australian cinemas not screening the film?

It isn't necessarily going to be public. I don't know how the Australian cinema system works, but wouldn't it be more a question of "the cinema manager decided not to book..." and as such, impossible to distinguish a commercial from a moral decision, unless the cinema manager decided to make a public stand too. Notinasnaid 12:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point, but unfortunately I have to cite my sources. I suppose it could just leave a bunch of references at the bottom. In fact, that should probably do. Thanks.

While we're on the subject, though... exactly WHY were so many "family" and Christian groups offended by the film?

Because the film portrayed a homosexual relationship, and according to a literal reading of the Bible, homosexuality is condemned as a sin. Conservative Christians were unhappy about sinful behaviour being shown in a film, where it might influence their children. Read all about it at religion and homosexuality, and, more generally, homosexuality. (That was my best shot at a neutral answer). — QuantumEleven 13:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've got it down to about 400 hits on Google. But ask yourself this: what made you believe in the first place that there were some cinemas in this category? Was it a reliable source? If so, cite it. If not, suspect it. http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22brokeback+mountain%22+homosexuality+site%3Aau+ Notinasnaid 13:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It specifically said so in my assignment question, so it's a little difficult for me to get around. Thanks for your help.
You could start by reading our article on Brokeback Mountain, but the basic reason was that it featured homosexual men in love with each other (and having sex, but I think that was a side issue, quite frankly). According to many Christian denominations, homosexuality is a sin (see Christian views of homosexuality). Furthermore, exposure to depictions, particularly positive depictions, of homosexuality will turn people gay. For one variation on this theme, see this article, complete with Bible citations.
I heard nothing in the Australian media about cinemas refusing to show Brokeback Mountain. The closest I could find was the following article on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website [5] that cites some Australian religious groups wanting it banned from the cinema. A further search of the ABC site reveals nothing, and the ABC would be just about the one media outlet in Australia I would trust to cover an issue like this. --Roisterer 13:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As to Australian film bans, it was certainly shown in cinemas around Australia, and didn't fall foul of the government classification/censorship scheme. As to private cinema owners not screening the film for moral reasons, I checked Factiva, which has archives of all the major Australian newspapers. I didn't find any reports of Australian cinemas refusing to show the film; it was actually very popular here, and there weren't initially enough prints of the film to meet demand. To give some idea of country Australia's reaction to the film, this article from the local paper where I grew up indicates that while the local lads may have been a bit hesitant to go, there wasn't any protests (though the local God-botherers probably weren't terribly impressed with it). --Robert Merkel 13:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The towns which intended to "ban" Brokeback Mountain in Australia were Townsville and Rockhampton in North Queensland. You should be able to find plenty of references by Google searching for "brokeback mountain townsville rockhampton". --Canley 14:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Divorse

My son is going thru a divorse and was left with all the bills. His house pmt. and credit card bills are more than what he makes he can never pay them off paying $5 and $10 dollars a month on each one.She wants him to sell the house and give her half the equity he has been paying the house pmt.and wants to keep the house the divorse is finial in June of this year.If the house does not sell and he keeps making the pmts. after the divorse(what happens)or what can he do? Thanks, a concern mother, Love you show and here you every day......

Dear concerned mother, this is the Wikipedia, a volunteer-run web encyclopedia. We are not affiliated with any radio or television show.
While we have some very general information on divorce, we don't and can't provide legal advice specific to his situation or jurisdiction, which is what your son sounds like he needs. I assume that you're an American; maybe some American readers can suggest how best to obtain that advice cheaply. On a personal note, I hope that your son resolves his difficult situation. --Robert Merkel 13:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
sounds like he's living beyond his means ... either trim lifestyle or increase income.

BigFatDave 12:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation: Dominic O'Brien

How the f*** do you pronounce Dominic O'Brien in Shakespeare's language?

If you mean William Shakespeare, I'm pretty sure his "language" was English. So I imagine it would be pronounced the same way you would f***ing pronounce it. --Canley 14:19, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good one! 1 buck for discovering that Shakespeare's language was English. Now, I'll be more explicit for morons like you to understand my question. English is not my first language, and since your language is has the most absurd spelling in the world there's no way to know how a word is pronounced just by seeing it written. Now, how do you English speakers (or at least, those people who try to speak English as their native language) pronounce that person's name?
Calm down...! Being rude won't get your question answered, remember that we're volunteers who dedicate our free time to helping you out, so please be polite. And using gratuitous swear words won't win you any friends either.
I'll nevertheless try to answer your question. I'm afraid I'm not very good with IPA, so please bear with me. "Dominic" is pronounced Doh-mee-nik, with stress on the first syllable. For "O'Brien", the "O'" part is pronounced halfway between an "a" and an "o" sound (a bit like the o in "not"). There is a very short pause between the O and the B to indicate the apostrophe. As for "Brien", it's pronounced "Bry-en", with stress on the first syllable. Hope this helps. — QuantumEleven 17:16, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much fella. User:Canley's comment wasn't very polite and/or productive either.
Anyway, I've found this: [[6]]; I hope this can help somebody :).
Brien is pronounced differnetly to Brian, it is pronounced Bree - en (the ee is like the ee in cheese, the last e is like the e hen) Philc T+C 17:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would pronounce it Dom-in-ic, not Do-min-ic and with a different vowel for the o sounds than the one mentioned in the first answer. Is that a British English pronounciation? Rmhermen 17:36, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the IPA for how I pronounce it (I live in the States). [ˈdɑ.mə.nɪk ˌoʊˈbɹaɪ.n̩]--Andrew c 21:34, 2 May 2006 (UTC)PS. All that said, if the name is Irish or Scottish (most likely), a native speaker would not use the Alveolar approximant /ɹ/ but a flap instead /ɾ/. The vowel sounds would be slightly different as well. International Phonetic Alphabet for English explains some of the differences in the vowel sounds for a couple English dialects.--Andrew c 21:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies, question asker, I did not mean to offend... merely entering into the spirit in which the question was asked (with swearing and no context). How was I to know English was not your first language? And why didn't you just ask how to pronounce "Dominic O'Brien", why the Shakespeare reference? Anyway, I'm glad you found out what you were after. --Canley 09:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, mr.Canley for, by wanting to be slightly humourous, making it rather incomprehensible.

Car maintenence - Am I being ripped off?

Hey folks. I wonder if someone who knows their stuff about cars could advise me here.. I own a Volkswagen Polo which has recently gone in for its MOT (test). I have been advised by the garage that it needs to have the power steering hoses replaced (apparently they're leaking) and two sets of wheel bearings replaced. I have been quoted £530 (approx US $964) to have this done.

Now, I don't really know the first thing about cars, but as best as I can figure out from google, the power steering hoses should be about £25 each at the most, and the wheel bearings about £10. That's a total of £70 in parts, plus £45 for the MOT itself leaves £420 for labour.

So the question is, does that sound like a rip-off? How much work is involved in replacing two power steering hoses, and two sets of wheel bearings? Surely it can't take 10 hours to do that - and even 10 hours would be £42 ($76) per hour, which is pretty steep

Any input welcome, thanks! --Noodhoog 14:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

£42 per hour steep? A recent survey found the lowest rate at a franchised dealer was £49, ranging up to £140. Replacing a £4 light bulb can cost £66. http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,1711811,00.html, but notice that it uses a cheap journalistic trick of comparing what some people are paid (doctors) versus what the hourly rate to the customer for other people (mechanics). Notinasnaid 14:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blimey.. well, I guess the good news is I'm not really getting any more gouged than anyone else. Bad news is I went into the wrong career. Oh well. Thanks for the info! --Noodhoog 16:37, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The hourly rate doesn't just cover the mechanic's salary. It also covers rent on the building, wear and tear on the tools, taxes, utility bills, and even paying the janitor. --Serie 21:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I tried to look into this, I found many newspapers repeating the same nonsense: "garage mechanics earn more than GPs (doctors)". Is it really so hard to see why this is nonsense? I'm curious now, maybe the journalists are writing in good faith. Notinasnaid 08:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Supplement: according to [7] (PDF), a career projection for experienced mechanic/garage manager is £24051 earnings per year. That translates to £11-12 per hour, though Google searches show others struggling to be paid minimum wage. Notinasnaid

Changes needed in article on Jainism (Years of the Brahma

Hiya,

I was reading your article on Jainism, it ststed that we are now in the 5th downward cyle, however, in some of your other articles and in the book The Holy Science By It is clearly stated and proven that we are now in an upward/positive cycle, hence the discovery of electricity and various forms of technology. I just felt that others reading the article might find this misleading. I visit your site daily. Thank you for expanding my mind.

  • To comment on a specific article, please use that articles talk page, by clicking on the "Discussion" link at the top of the appropriate article. So to discuss the Jainism article, you should post on Talk:Jainism. --Maelwys 15:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

autographed baseball

how much is a joe dimaggio autographed baseball worth?

It looks to be anywhere from $400 - $800 but you will need something like a Certificate of Authenticity to prove that it's not a forgery. I would suspect that without one you would get much less. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Umpire state building

Could any one please tell me what's the building thats next(close) to the umpire state building, which is very famous and has been featured in many movies and video songs.

There are lots of buildings close to the Umpire State Building, but I suspect you mean the Chrysler Building. See the pictures at those two articles. --Shantavira 17:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What, those lousy umps have got a building? --Zeizmic 22:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, they have a state. Their state has a building. kmccoy (talk) 03:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thanks a lot Shantavira, you are right and it is the chrysler building.

Citations

Hello...i am writing a paper on Colombia. I have vistied http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/economy_of_colombia. My question is that i need to cite this for the paper in MLA format and i am having difficulties doing so. How do I find all the information about the online article that i need for the work cited list?

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, or, for a citation for the article in question, open it, and click on "Cite this article" in the left-hand toolbox (about halfway down). — QuantumEleven 17:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note, however, that Wikipedia is an extremely unimpressive reference. You would do much better to base your paper on dead tree sources. HenryFlower 18:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So print Wikipedia out, and cite it..... --Noodhoog 19:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, don't. HenryFlower 20:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It'd probably be more reputable to cite the CIA world factbook, which most of our "economy of..." articles are taken from, directly. Night Gyr 00:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Champions of Norrath: Return to Arms Game Help

I need help finding out where the 11 bloodstones are located and how to get the sword in the stone. I am not sure if there is a bloodstone in each planar level. I have also found a key from the bonus level, 'Torment's Furnace', which I do not know what it unlocks.

Any help would be appreciated.

Gamefaqs has a couple of faqs/walkthroughs for this game here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/game/920597.html --Noodhoog 18:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, but unfortunately, I am unable to go to that site. As well as other like it, so I asked for help here. Most of those sites are blocked by my school's computers. Could you please post the information I need here?

I probably shouldn't be helping you bypass filtering, but you could try this... assuming your school doesn't block Google (and surely it doesn't!) you can use google's translate feature as a proxy by 'translating' from english to english (thus leaving the page unmodified). Simply put http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en%7Cen&u= in front of the URL you want to access. so, to access the site listed above, it would be http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en%7Cen&u=www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/game/920597.html --Noodhoog 19:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, it seems that doing that is blocked as well. Thanks for the help, though. Can you go to the site and find what I need and post it here? That way I do not have to do any proxy avoidance.

Sorry, no can do. The material on gamefaqs is under copyright, so I can't post them here wholesale, and they're far too big for me to go digging through for specific information. I can only suggest you either try and access them from a non-restricted connection, or get a friend to email it to you. --Noodhoog 20:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thank you for your help.

Apostle Pauls churches

I am looking for a complete list of churches Paul started

Paul of Tarsus#Founding of churches could help. -- Shadikka talkcontrib 2 May 2006, 17:41 (UTC) 17:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Best Spy Movies

What is considered the best three spy movies ever made? (No James Bond, Please) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stockard (talkcontribs) .

Do you have a question about Wikipedia, please? Notinasnaid 18:17, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't bite the newcomers; this is a place where you can ask questions about anything. Stockard, you may want to look at Spy film to give yourself a few ideas. SCHZMO 19:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're quite right, and I apologise. I mixed up my pages. But is there something about "Wikipedia is not the place for polls" (or is the questioner looking for an objective answer - and what if the objective answer did include James Bond movies? Notinasnaid 08:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, this is not "a place where you can ask questions about anything", questions "about Wikipedia" belong on the help desk. David Sneek 20:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, anyway... My top three spy movies ever made are: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (with Richard Burton), the BBC miniseries of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (with Alec Guinness), and, err, I don't know. My tastes should be pretty clear from those selections. I thought Spy Game was okay but it was not as clever as would normally justify that much dialogue (unlike the LeCarré works, which are always worth it). --Fastfission 20:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I always thought that The Sandbaggers was better than any movie. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You just did. :--) JackofOz 14:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Shockingly, that most encyclopedic of all Wikipedia articles, Films that have been considered the greatest ever, doesn't have a spy genre subsection (the nearest fit, "horror/thriller" is entirely about horror films at the moment). --Bth 11:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

questions as to why there is a mistake in the defination of"canada's name"

Dear sir/ madam I was reading your site and came across a very upsetting mistake, In reading about Canada, under the defination of Canada's name it says

Canada's name Main article: Canada's name The name Canada is believed to come from the Huron-Iroquois word kanata, which means "Not as good as the USA" In 1535, locals used the word to tell Jacques Cartier the way to Stadacona, site of present-day Quebec City. Cartier used Canada to refer not only to Stadacona, but also to the entire area subject to Donnacona, Chief at Stadacona; by 1547, maps began referring to this and the surrounding area as Canada.

Kanata does not mean NOT AS GOOD AS THE USA!!!! please contact me Thank you Patty Ann

<email address removed to avoid spamming>

Some vandal changed it to say that. It's now back to normal, and was already when you posted. --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:15, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Converting video files

Is there a way to convert .vcr (ATI File Player) files to .mpg (MPEG-1) files? My video editing software won't recognise .vcr files, despite the fact that my ATI TV card records in .vcr format and this software came with my ATI card...</rant> Thanks, Hermione1980 18:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try MediaCoder. Converts just about everything. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 08:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please get a section here for legal questions on the reference desk? Also, my employeer (their HR department) sent out an email saying they would give a finders fee of $2,500 to anyone who finds a quality & process engineer who meets a list of qualifications. I found one though my alma mater's career center. He contacted my company & he was hired. This has been 5 months ago and my company has still not paid me (I keep asking but they keep giving me the run around), they finally said the guy was a recent graduate, and therefore he doesn't qualify, even though there was no mention of that in the email they sent. My question is, are they legally obligated to pay (I believe they are since this is a unilateral contract)?, how can I get them to pay? & if I contact a laywer & have him send a letter, can they fire me out of retaliation? If they can, would they? //Lord Westfall199.201.168.100 20:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Wikipedia is really the best place to go for legal questions, and I think establishing a "legal section" would potentially imply that it was (for the same reason, I wouldn't want to establish a "medical section", either -- both of these are pretty contentious areas where giving advice can have major consequences, unlike, say, literature). As to your specific question, I have no idea at all -- it sounds to me like you might want to contact a lawyer. --Fastfission 20:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A disclaimer should take care of that. XM Satellite Radio 21:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In some places it may be illegal to offer legal advice if you aren't a lawyer. Or so I've heard. So long as this is a talking shop, I don't think anyone can complain. Anyway, the original questions are pretty detailed, and only a lawyer can answer them. For some reason, lawyers giving their time free in Wikipedia are pretty thin on the ground. In addition, laws vary between countries and between US states, so it wouldn't be possible for any lawyer to give an accurate answer without that info... Notinasnaid 21:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia isn't the best place for legal questions so I think we should avoid a legal reference desk. On the issue of your $2,500 finders fee, or the absence of it, I'd suggest you raise the matter with your union, if you don't have one you'll probably have to contact a lawyer. I don't know your jurisdiction or laws but I'd expect that if they sacked you just because you threatened them with a lawyer that'd be unfair dismissal & you'd have a clear case against them. AllanHainey 07:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FCC

Why does the FCC cut songs down from their original length to 3 and a half minutes long? I m doing a school report on this.

Why does the FCC edit songs from their original length to 3 and a half minutes long?

The FCC does not do that. Broadcasters like Clear Channel & CBS radio may do that to make programing easier. Why don't you help yourself to a shiny new XM Satellite Radio to avoid this problem? XM 20:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh so reference desk answers now come with product placement? =P —Keenan Pepper 22:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They certainly do. It... um... adds life to them. Grutness...wha? 02:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube Videos

Is there any way to save videos from YouTube.com to your computer? If so, how? Thanks in advance!

I think the only thing you can do with them is embed them into a web page. SCHZMO 21:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a program called grab-it you may want to search for. Lord Westfall 22:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

http://keepvid.com/ can be used for youtube and many other sites. Save the files with a .flv extension. You'll also need to install a FLV player to run them. Tintin (talk) 01:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can I save them as mpegs?

military records

Must I answer questions on employment applications that ask for MOS Rating, Discharge Status, Discharge Type, commondations/medals, reentry code, etc.?

if you are asking if you are legally required to answer I refer you to the top of the page "If requesting medical, dental, or legal advice, please consider asking a doctor, dentist, or lawyer instead." Jon513 21:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wilfredo Gomez

HI IM NOT SURE IF IM ASKING THE CORRECT PERSON BUT I FOUND THESE ARTICLES ON YOUR WEB PAGE OF WILFREDO GOMEZ (THE BOXER)I KNOW THIS WILL SOUND WEIRED BUT I WAS ONCE TOLD THAT HE MIGHT HAVE MET MY MOM ANA NIEVES ALONG TIME AGO ALSO FROM PUERTORICAN DECEND AND THAT HE MIGHT BE MY FATHER.......IS THERE ANYWAY TO GET THIS MESSAGE TO HIM AND THAT BY CHANCE THIS IS TRUE??? IV BEEN LOOKING FOR MY BIOLOGICAL FATHER FOR YEARS ....AND I HAVE ACLOSE RESEMBELENCE TO HIM —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.181.53.10 (talkcontribs) .

Please do not write in all capital letters. It gives the impression of shouting. Thank you. SCHZMO 23:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to his article he is now in Panama. Finding his address would be a challenge, but if there is any book by him or about him, try writing to the publisher. Be aware that many people make paternity claims against celebrities, so you could have an big struggle. Good luck though. Notinasnaid 08:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May 3

american consuls

who was the american consul in malaya in 1948 during the malayan emergency?

According to this paper (pdf), William M. Blue was the American consul in 1948. It seems from this that Richard Armstrong Poole replaced him in 1949. --Cam 04:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What does Newport stand for as in the cigarette brand?

I was just wondering if anyone knew this answer..

Newport, Rhode Island was a major yachting center, so I imagine the people who thought of the brand were trying to associate it with breeziness, coolness and expensiveness. But then again, there's a Newport, North Carolina, so it may have just been named for the local tobacco growing location, like Winston and Salem cigarettes were named for Winston-Salem, North Carolina. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Artist

Who is the richest artist in the world?

Britain's richest painter Andrew Vicari.--Andrew c 02:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
2006 Sunday Times Rich List values Vicari's fortune at 92 million British pounds or 166 million US dollars. Thomas Kinkade may be the most commercially successful artist in the US, reportedly earning 53 million US dollars from his artistic work in the period 1997 to May 2005. However he has also been under investigation and litigation for business fraud [8]. Bwithh 03:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Though by "artist", are we only talking about artist artists? what about musical artists? Bwithh 03:15, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geez, now we're going to get the 10,000 'richest' questions again from this guy. Where's a pastatute when you need one? --Zeizmic 02:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has "pastatute" become the latest Ref Desk in-joke...? ;) — QuantumEleven 13:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently. I wonder what happens when you suitly emphazi a pastatute. JackofOz 14:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I pretty sure a while ago the question was who the richest rapper was, and the answer given was Steve Jobs. So if rapping is an art, Jobs wins. Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/April 2006 http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/mirrors.html. Jon513 20:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Ballmer, not Steve Jobs. Wrong asshole running a tech company. Night Gyr 02:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Integrated Wikipedia Internet Browser

This is a suggestion not a question,cant seem to find a better location for it. I push the limits of my knowledge when researching on the internet. I want to find out alot about an advanced subject of anything and read the information. If I dont understand something,which might be 2 principles per sentence at times, I alt+tab over to wikipedia. If we had an integrated browser function which could simply popup and give basic definition and with double click go straight to the extended version. This would greatly help out those of us always pushing the limits of our mind in search of huge gaps in humanity. Im sure once you realize what I am saying you will see the magnitude and time saving ability. More time equals more knowledge. With the huge amount of coverage at wikipedia this could revolutionalize the way people browse. LarryJC

For the effort that you have put into this, you could have read the beginning preamble. There, you would have found all the nice places to put this suggestion (not here!). If I remember, this has been proposed many times. --Zeizmic 02:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you're running Windows, Mac or Linux, you may be interested in using the Firefox browser, which has a Wikipedia search bar plug-in. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 08:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And, in Firefox, not only do you have the Wikipedia search bar plugin, but if you type "wp Topic" into the address bar, it automatically brings up the Wikipedia article on Topic. I use it constantly - CTRL+T for a new tab, a quick type, and I have the Wikipedia article on a topic I came across and wanted to know more about. (I'm sure there is a technical term for this in Firefox, and a list of other abbreviations you can use like this, but it temporarily escapes me.) — QuantumEleven 13:27, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP <topic> is indeed a godsend, I couldn't live without it these days. You can also set up your own ones too - I've added a DS <name> into my firefox for looking up artists on discogs.com. There's a description of how to do custom keyword searches here: http://barragerblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/create-custom-searches-in-firefox.html

Is Jimbo Wales gay?

Is he? --UgghayoX

Have you tried reading Jimmy Wales? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See also Friends of gays should not be allowed to edit articles. Notinasnaid 08:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
More importantly, is Willy on Wheels really a sockpuppet of Jimmy Wales, as you have claimed? If so, please suitly emphazi. --Philosophus T 08:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exterminate! Exterminate!Keenan Pepper 12:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you ask him at Talk:Jimbo Wales? Even if he rejects your proposition, I'm sure he'll pretend he's flattered. Brian G. Crawford 16:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the article says he has a wife and a daughter. – b_jonas 21:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page Layout

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that these Reference pages appear from bottom to top?I mean,the newest questions are right at the bottom,whilst the oldest are up at the top.Shouldn't this be the other way round? It gets very tiring having to scroll all the way down to look at the answers for our questions.

Hasanclk

There's not going to be a great deal of difference from going to the bottom of the page and working up as opposed to going to the top of the page and working down. I'd suggest using the Find feature of your browser to hasten the search. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 08:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Try pressing the "end" key rather than scrolling. This will take you straight to the most recent questions. --Shantavira 08:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(In Windows, Ctrl+End) Notinasnaid 08:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah,the thing is,I'm using a dial-up connection and it takes mE more than 2-3 mins to load the whole-page.But that's just my own problem.Aaanyway.... The thing is,doesn't it make sense that the newest questions are at the top,oldest at the bottom?

The Wikipedia convention is to write from top to bottom, so later replies and topics are always lower - it makes sense on talk pages. The Ref Desk is a special case, but I see no need to change the convention just for one set of pages. Repeated use of the PageDown key should solve all your problems... :) — QuantumEleven 13:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the questioner. Setting aside practical considerations, newest first just seems more logical to me. As on the history pages of articles. Jameswilson 00:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is an ethernal debate &#x2013 not for WP:RD but many other places on the web too. I prefer that the newest things be at the bottom, but many other people prefer the reverse. I think either is acceptable as long as the direction is clear. – b_jonas 21:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indian Test Cricket

I have some questions regarding the Indian Test Cricket Team & Cricketers: 1.Who was the first Captain of the Indian Test Cricket Team? Please give full name. 2.In Test Cricket which Indian holds the record of bowling 21 successive maiden overs against England and in which year? Also mention the date and the venue of the match? Please give full name. Thank Yuo in Advance. --Siddhant 08:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

species

what is most intelegence,revolution and unknown behaviour in same species in the world.

Cactus. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 11:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's neat, especially because it's a family, not a species. I would have said H. sapiens... —Keenan Pepper 12:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How did either of you know what the question was? What do "revolution" and "unknown behaviour" refer to? JackofOz 14:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'll go for it. The most intelligent species is the mouse, the most revolutionary is the whirligig beetle, and the most unknown is the yeti. But if you want all three qualities in one species, I guess it would have to be H. sapiens. --Shantavira 16:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All of you are wrong!!! Its a pastatute...;-DJayant,17 Years, Indiacontribs 16:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My bad. The cactus. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 08:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Icons in Internet Explorer Favourites Menu

Whenever I add a new website to my Favourites menu, it is represented by the website's logo or some kind of symbol: for example, Wikipedia is a large W while Something Awful is that website's trademark a grenade. After a few weeks of adding them, however, they disappear and are replaced with a standard IE logo. This is a pity because if all my Favourites had logos next to them it would be easier to find something in a hurry.

Can anyone tell me why this happens, and suggest a way to both maintain the current symbols there and retrieve the old ones?

It happens because Internet Explorer caches favicons (I can't believe we have an article on this!) along with regular web content, and after a certain period, this web content (in your internet cache) becomes replaced with newer material, and the icons get overwritten. You can get around this (I do it all the time when forced to use IE - I like my favicons :)), but it takes a bit of work. Note that Firefox doesn't have this problem (and is a vastly superior browser)... but your question wasn't about Firefox.
What you need to do is open your internet cache folder (find out where it is in IE through Tools -> Internet Options -> Temporary Internet Files -> Settings). It's a big folder, so it may take a second to open. Sort the files by name and view the files by "details" to make the next step easier. Look through the folder for files called "favicon.ico" - they are the favicons of various bookmarks. Note that Windows' rendering of .ICO files is occasinally bugged, so although you'll see miniature versions of the icons next to the filename, they are not always the icons in the file in question! You need to find the favicon of the bookmark you're interested in - the best way of doing this is to look at the internet address from which a given favicon file came from - if you're viewing files by "details", it should be one of the visible columns. If the favicon you're looking for isn't there, you need to go to the website in question and recreate the bookmark, so as to re-download the favicon file from the website.
Once you've found the favicon file, copy it to a different location (a subfolder of My Documents, or something) and rename it to something sensible (like the name of the website it's associated with, such as wikipedia.ico or somethingawful.ico). Then open IE, right-click on the bookmark you want to assign the icon to, and select "Properties". Click on "Change Icon", and select the favicon file you just saved before. Voilà! Your icons will now no longer disappear.
Hope that was easy to follow - if something isn't clear, ask again! Cheers, — QuantumEleven 13:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terrible spyware problem

I have a problem with some pop-ups that are regularly appearing on my computer, spyware ads that ironically offer spyware software. The web adresses shown involve names like "amaena" and "oinadserve".

I've done a full system scan with both AdAware and Spybot, the two most reputed spyware vendors. Neither picked it up. Help?

When I think I might have an infestation, I (1) disconnect from the internet immediately (2) back up anything changed since last night's back up (3) wipe the hard drive completely (4) reinstall Windows (5) reinstall other apps (6) restore personal files but no applications. It's important not to just do a system restore, because that would put back any infection, unless you can be absolutely sure you have a clean backup. Notinasnaid 12:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that's a bit extreme. Sensible as a last resort, but I think there are some more avenues that could be explored first. Specifically, making sure the detection databases are bang up to date and running the anti-malware apps again in safe mode. (BTW, Spybot is currently experiencing checksum problems with some archives; changing the download mirror works but you may have to try a few before you find one that's working for you.) If your spyware's particularly deeply ingrained being in safe mode should hopefully stop it ever getting started and thus doing whatever it's doing to hide itself from them. Of course, if you've had the bad luck to become infested with some brand new bit of malware, and you don't want to reinstall, you'll have to wait for the software to catch up. Spybot have a page for reporting new threats, but for pity's sakes please please make sure it really is new before submitting it. --Bth 12:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't seem extreme to me. Given the high failure rate of the so called clean-up tools, and given that I don't know what cracked the security and how many parts it has (I could remove the adware and be left with the spyware), I don't see any reasonable alternative. Besides, reinstalling your machine is good practice for when something breaks. In the end you could have spent longer fussing with tools that might not have done the job. If you aren't able to reinstall, now, today, what would you have done if the hard drive failed? Notinasnaid 12:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed several malware-infested computers for the more clueless among my family and friends and have never had to resort to a reinstall -- and I haven't experienced the "high failure rate" you speak of either. I have had to muck about manually in the registry on occasion, but I'd rather that than all the tedious waiting around swapping CDs involved in a reinstall. (I don't really understand your last point -- obviously you'd have to reinstall after a hard drive failure, and backing up is of course a Good Thing, but that's orthogonal to dealing with malware. Choosing not to do something doesn't mean I'm not able to do it.)
The real problem of course is Windows's lack of robustness, which is ultimately the result of various commercial decisions by Microsoft. And of course prevention is better than cure -- installing a decent firewall (and not then blowing holes in it with file-sharing apps) is vital. --Bth 12:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You cpuld try Webroot's Spy Sweeper;it's great as well.Also,Spyware Doctor and Spyware eBlaster are worthy mentions.All are available from www.download.com If it still doesn't work,you will have to wash your system and re-install your OS to get rid of the bugs.

I have to go with ol' grouchy Noti here. These things now embed with rootkits, and some instructions for removal involve extensive editing in the registry. If any XP and IE users start getting sick of doing reinstalls, there is plenty of advice available. --Zeizmic 12:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Couple of comments. Turn off system restore and then remove the spyware/adware, then reboot. If the sypware was in long enough then it will have also been in the system restore. This also applies to virus removal. The best thing is prevention. Running a firewall and Spybot and Adaware will use up resources but it's better than being infected. Also the addition of a router with firewall capabilities will pretty much stop anything. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Make sure the anti-spyware software is up-to-date then disconnect from the internet and run it. Perhaps being connected to the internet gives the spyware access to reinstall itself after being removed. - 131.211.210.12 10:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to check out the forums at spywareinfo, where there are many experienced folks who seem to thrive on assisting in removal of these types of infections. You will most certainly be asked to download and run Hijack This and then post the log, so you might want to do that first. --LarryMac 12:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Selleck

Did Tom Selleck ever perm his hair, or is it natural?

About the Gravitation

What is gravitational field show that work done in gravitational field is independent of its path?

Plz tell me answer Thankyou

This sounds like a homework question, so you may find the answers, in a way that makes sense to you, in your text book. Otherwise try looking at gravitational field. You could have found this much quicker by typing 'gravitiational field' in the search box at the top left of the page. I would imagine your textbook gives you a much better idea of what you need to answer this question. 57.66.51.165 15:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might possibly find conservative force relevant, too. --Bth 16:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign-currency accounts in US banks

Does anyone know if there are any US banks that offer cash accounts (checking, savings, or anything reasonably similar) denominated in foreign currency? I'm particularly interested in Canadian dollars, but would also be interested in Euros. --Trovatore 18:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah Canadian dollars! The US dollar is going down! You'll never find a US bank that knows what a Canadian dollar is. Just try to exchange one there! I know the trouble I've had throughout the years, going south.--Zeizmic 20:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Check out this bank. A google search for "currency investing" or something like that should give you some other places to look. kmccoy (talk) 02:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of Canadian banks will set you up an account in US dollars, and many will do Euros too (and $CDN of course). You should be able to use Canadian ATM cards in US banks too. Maybe you should move all your banking north of the border. DJ Clayworth 17:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Information on the stree Dye Row in Anderson south carolina

I grew up in anderson on Dye Row. I would like to find out the history of Dye Row in anderson, s.c.

Favorite Team

Just curious (a poll), what is your favorite NCAA Division 1 team?--65.205.179.130 19:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go Bulls! Mike H. That's hot 23:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but the Ref Desk aint really the place for polls.... now I'll just sit here quietly and say nothingQuantumEleven 07:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

nonborn king

In the Julian May book Nonborn King there is a tune that is embedde in the new grand combat trophy by Firvulag atisans. Tony Wayland laughs and quotes the words "Weia! Waga! Woge du Welle,walle zurWeige, Wagala weia..."

What or is this is tune or song from? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.88.34.137 (talkcontribs) .

The song is from the opera Das Rheingold; the words are nonsense. See this page. SCHZMO 21:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Confused about Talkerbot Reference on Johnny Hardwick History

In looking at the history for the Johnny Hardwick article, I see a revision that appears to be large amounts of text replaced with blank space. However, looking at the actual historical pages, I don't see that at all. There also appears to be a reference of talkerbot sending a note to me (Victor Engel), but I can't find any such note.

The only edit I made to this article was to add a picture. If someone can figure out what is going on and explain it to me, I would very much appreciate that. I have a feeling like I'm just missing something about the way wikipedia works.

Finally, does the talkerbot reference I cited indicate a bug in the software? If so, should it be reported?

an anonymous user vandalized the page (by blanking it). The bot reverted the article to the last version. It says who edited that article last so you know what it reverted to. Sometimes a vandal vandalizes several times and it is necessary to revert back several edits, so it is a good idea to say who it is reverting to. Jon513 22:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite. The anon duplicated the article several times here and Tawkerbot reverted it to Victor's edit and left the message at User talk:204.171.48.4. The bot is not actually saying you were the vandal it just says that it reverted to your version. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By the way the bot does make errors. I reverted here followed by an anon vandalising here. Tawkerbot reverts here but look at the edit summary and look at the line |name=. Then I revert back to the correct version here but of course Tawkerbot leaves me a warning message at User talk:CambridgeBayWeather/Archive06#Exposed at long last. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expiration Date on Canned Drinks

Hi, a coworker of mine was leaving the company at the same time as me, while cleaning his desk, he gave me a coke he found. (Note that we've only been working for four months, for an internship-ish program) He said it's probably been sitting there for a while, but if I was feeling "adventurous", I could have it and drink it. I haven't yet since I haven't been able to locate the expiration date. It's a "Classic Coca-Cola". The top just says "Recyclable" two times on the left and right edge. Under the "lift" thing, there's W 11-3 B. (Maybe it means expiration on 2011 March?) Under the can, there's some random DE19056ND (maybe not a 6) 0104 1. I really don't know what it's talking about, and I can't seem to find anything meaningful along the side of the can? Where is the expiration date? How long do canned drinks usually last? Do you think it's safe for me to drink this?

You can try asking coca cola. If you do tell us the answer back here, we're curious. Jon513 23:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I lived in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories for 20 years. All our food, except for frozen and fresh food, came into town once a year by ship (around September) due to the high cost of flying stuff in. The food would have a one to two month period before it was past its best by date. So for about 10 months you were eating expired food. Of course when errors were made and too much of something was ordered then you could be eating it longer. The two worst ones were the mayonnaise and condensed milk. They got 3 years supply of mayo and it was still good even at the end. The condendsed milk was a bit worse as they got 6 years supply at once. After the 3rd or 4th year it was clumped up. However, we just put it in a blender and it was still edible. This is not to say that you should drink the coke. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I probably would have drunk it, but if you're worried, just throw it out. Brian G. Crawford 23:50, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expired soda often picks up an off-flavor but expired diet soda should really be avoided as many use aspartame which breaks down. Rmhermen 23:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Breaks down into what, and is it toxic, or simply bad-tasting? The article aspartame seems to be focused on the fact that aspartame doesn't cause brain cancer. --Serie 00:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if it's toxic, but it loses all of it's sweetening ability, leaving a really nasty-tasting beverage. Seriously nasty. I find most aspartame-containing beverages are good for at least six months after purchase. --ByeByeBaby 01:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that in warm conditions aspartame in fizzy drinks breaks down into formaldehyde - though whether that's true or not, I couldn't say --Noodhoog 15:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Aspartame is a methyl ester, and can undergo ester hydrolysis to produce methanol, which is indeed oxidized to formaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver. The hydrolysis reaction speeds up if the solution is either too acidic or too basic. (The actual reactions in acidic and basic conditions differ somewhat, but the end result is the same.) Also, neither the methanol nor the dipeptide which is the other product of the hydrolysis are likely to taste very sweet. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really know, but I think the expiration date isn't on the bottle (or wouldn't be relevant if it would be) because such a drink lasts very long time if it's in the fridge, so if it can go wrong at all, it depends on how much it has been out of the fridge. Anyway, I think Coca-Cola is mostly made of water, sugar, carbon dioxide, and caffeine, so I don't think it could go wrong at all. – b_jonas 21:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cereal Prices

I have this school project where I have to design a cereal box from a certain time period. I've done everything but the one thing I cannot find is the price. The cereal is from the late 1700's to the early 1800's. Can you help me find the price cereal would be from that time period?

Thanks in advance!


Well, the BLS's Inflation calculator just goes back to 1913. A nickel in 1913 is equivalent to a dollar today, but nickels didn't exist in 1800. Also, neither did cereal or standardized packaging--both came about during the 19th century, but since your teacher is obviously just doing this for fun you can probably get away with "five cents." Night Gyr 00:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This site lists a pound of corn meal or rice at US 5 cents in the 1840s so that would probably be a good number.[9] Rmhermen 00:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May 4

Airplane Emergencies

If an airplane blows a tire, or has a hydraulic problem shortly after liftoff, why can't they just fly to thier destination instead of wasting fuel and landing at the same airport?

In short, Murphy's Law. a blown tire or a hydraulics malfunction may only be a symptom of a much greater problem, and so it is advantageous to have a landing area close at hand.
If you're talking about malfunctioning hydraulics, keep in mind that without hydraulics you cannot control the plane at all (all the control surfaces are moved through hydraulics) - so I'd imagine you'd be relieved to get on the ground as soon as possible! As an example of what happens when the whole system fails, see United Airlines Flight 232 - and the fact there were any survivors at all is only because the pilot was insanely skilled. A similar case, but with a much worse outcome, was Japan Airlines Flight 123. — QuantumEleven 07:39, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Basically yes but some other things may factor into it. The laws governing aviation in the country that the aircraft is flying in. The severity of the problem combined with the distance to the next airport, as decided by the pilot at the time, which may be questioned afterwards. And the type of airport that the aircraft has left as opposed to the destination airport. In the example above an aircraft leaving somewhere like Kugaaruk Airport is more likely to come and see me at Cambridge Bay Airport because we have better emergency services. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you are landing with a blown tyre then you will want a long runway and all the emergency equipment ready. Now if your destination airport is as well equipped as the one you just left it may be tempting to go on, but suppose you have another problem en route, such as an engine failure, that may force you to put down at the nearest airport which may be less well equipped. So better to go straight back to where you came from. Plus do you really want your passengers to spend eight hours of a flight wondering whether they are going to die at the end of it? Having said all that planes will sometimes go to a nearby airport rather then the one they left if it is better equipped. DJ Clayworth 17:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

looks like fun

wtf are these, and where can i buy a pair? they were recently featured in a commercial for a product i dont recall.

I was wondering how the song being played is called. It's cool.

? on internet hits

is there a way to see how many hits an article i am writing is getting?

No, I'm afraid not. It's very hard to implement because of how the Wikipedia servers are arranged, plus, as I'm sure you have no doubt noticed, the servers are overloaded as it is... — QuantumEleven 07:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

square feet to ton

how many square feet to a ton. for instance i have 475 square feet of ground that i want covered with ground cover [pebble rock],at 30 dollars a ton,how many tons do i need?

It depends how deep you want the pebbles, and what the average size of a pebble in the mix is. Also, the type of rock is probably important.  -- Run!  07:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

about 1 inch deep the average size is about 1/4 inch diameter

The type of rock is indeed important -- the answer will depend on the density of the rock. The volume you're looking at (475 square feet by 1 inch high) is just under 1.5 cubic yards. The mass you need is this figure, times whatever the density is. This site gives densities for various rock types that suggest 2 tons / cubic yard isn't a bad guess for the sort of rock you might be using, so I'd say 3 tons as a first approximation.
However, the density will differ depending on how closely packed you have your ground cover -- the density of rock in general will be higher than the density of small bits of rock with air gaps. Assuming spherical pebbles, there's a factor of , roughly 75%, so it'd be 2.25 tons.
Because of the various uncertainties involved, you might be best off determining the answer experimentally -- just mark out a square foot and cover it, then weigh the rocks used and multiply by 475. --Bth 11:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you aren't familiar with this kind of work, you might like to check http://www.pavingexpert.com/gravel01.htm. This suggests that under your gravel you need a 3-4 inch sub base. Just dropping an inch of gravel should be fine for a reduced weed bed, but not for a path beyond the lightest use. Notinasnaid 17:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Woman to climb Mt. Everest twice?

Does anyone know which woman has climed the Mount Everest twice?

Please mention the source of your answer and if it is an article in Wikipedia, please also mention the section of the article.

Thank You in Advance.

--Siddhant 07:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I want answers with perfect proof please. --Siddhant 07:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, in that case, I did what you could have done - used a google search. That turned out to be somewhat inconclusive, with several conflicting claims:

  • Santosh Yadav is the only woman to have climbed Everest twice (source [10])
  • Cathy O'Dowd is the only woman to have climbed Everest twice by different routes. (source [11])
  • Ellen Miller has also climbed Everest by two different routes (source [12])
  • Lhakpa Sherpa is the only woman to have climbed Everest three times (source [13])

I suspect that Yadav was the first but not the only woman to have completed this feat, and that therefore at least four women have completed the double ascent. Grutness...wha? 08:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Due to the lack of oxygen, you speak less on top of the Everest. Someone wants to take a tour with his wife ? --DLL 21:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oldest airline. Still in business.

I want to know, which is the oldest airline in the world still in business?

Plese mention your source of answer.

--Siddhant 08:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There may be older ones, but Lufthansa is the first one that comes to my mind - founded in 1926, still operating today -- Ferkelparade π 08:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
KLM, founded 1919, considers itself to be the "world's oldest airline". Another candiate may be Avianca, also founded 1919. — QuantumEleven 08:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know this was asked before. There has to be a better way to search through the archives. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recently learned that Google's "site:" parameter is much more powerful than they generally make out -- you can specify arbitrary amounts of precision in the URL to search under. Using "site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive" for "oldest airline" shows that this came up on Miscellaneous on February 24 and you did indeed answer then. --Bth 09:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! We officially give you the 'Hint of the Month' award. You are now allowed to make up a new word for our inside jokes. --Zeizmic 11:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bth, my browser has problems opening the archive. I performs an illegal operation. (Microsoft knows why). Can you copy that specific archive here or copy it to my talk page.

And I don't understand what Zeizmic means.

--Siddhant 13:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zeismic Bth said that the same (or a very similar question) had been asked on the Miscellaneous Reference Desk (the one we're on right now) on February 24th, and he provided a link to the archive page with the relevant question (and answers) on it. If your browser can't open that page there is something strange going on - try closing and re-opening it. If that doesn't work, restart your computer. If it still doesn't work, download Firefox.
As for Zeismic, don't worry about it - some of us volunteers on the Reference Desk have inside jokes... need to keep ourselves entertained between questions somehow... ;) — QuantumEleven
At the top of this page, there is a link to Ref desk archives. The last answer, in the link that you can't read, says : ":This article says that KLM may not be the oldest and this "might" be the first airline to offer the first fare paying flights. CambridgeBayWeather ". --DLL 21:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article Page Visits. How to find out

i was just looking at one of the articles that i created today and was wondering if theres anypart of the toolbar or anywhere else i can go and check to go see and find out how many people especially unique visits there have been to any giver article, perhaps the article on iraq or gay marriage are very popular and chinese are is not, i was just wondering, any ideas? Qrc2006 11:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This has been asked several times in the last couple of days and unfortunatly the answer is no. You could google the article and see how near the top it is, which would give you an indication how it compares with other web pages with similar info. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 11:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone tell me the name of this song?

Here [14]. Thanks

I noted down some of the lyrics (which weren't that easy to make out) and Googled them. It's called 'Real World' by Matchbox 20. --Richardrj 14:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I tried to do what you did but English is not my first language and the lyrics that were probably more unique to the song were ununderstandable for me.

format of telephone area codes in the UK

Why do UK telephone area codes have an initial '0', while North American codes don't? What's the purpose of that leading zero? I looked here [15] but it didn't help. Thanks. --Richardrj 13:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine in older times it signalled to the exchange that the call should be routed as a Trunk call (i.e. to another telephone exchange) rather than routed locally within the same exchange. It does have the same significance now, although I guess digital exchanges would cope better with more complex routing tables which did not follow the 0=trunk protocol. THe more interesting question, then is why US codes don't. --Tagishsimon (talk)
I don't think thats right as a few years ago at least some area codes didn't have the initial 0 but it was added to them all, I think along with another number in some areas. Also I think, but am not sure, that before calls were routed electronically the U.K. telephone exchanges (& routing area codes) were completely different from those used today. AllanHainey 14:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give any examples of area codes that until recently had no initial 0? In my mind, they have all done for many years. --Richardrj 14:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The 0 serves a specific purpose: it allows you to dial local numbers without the exchange. For instance, suppose your number was 01234 56789. In the UK you could dial 01234 56789, or if you were already in the 01234 area, you would just dial 56789. So, why the "0" in the area code (STD code as it is called)? The reason is simple: local numbers could start with any digit between 2 and 9. Suppose there were an STD code of 5678 (no zero). If you dialed 56789, the exchange at this point doesn't know whether you are dialing the local 56789, or the STD code 5678, and starting a number with 9. It's confused. Hence, the 0 allows the exchange to make an immediate decision about whether the number is local or remote.
In fact, the US system is pretty much the same except that this initial code is rarely written down, and it is usually 1. Local numbers in the US never start with a 1. So if you dial 234 5678, the exchange knows that this is local. If you dial 1 234 5678, the exchange knows this is a distance call, to exchange 234, and a local number that starts 5678. The reason the 1 can be left off in written numbers with such impunity is that US numbers are a standard number of digits, while UK numbers are variable length.
STD, by the way, stands for "subscriber trunk dialling", i.e. the ability of the caller to directly dial a number in a different exchange. It replaced an older system where the local operator could do this, but the customer couldn't, and that in turn replaced the system where each local operator had to call other operators to get the call put through - sometimes a long chain. In the days before STD, numbers were commonly written out as something like "Whitehall 1212". This is what you would have to ask the operator for. Notinasnaid 16:40, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Allan, they had the 0; it was the 1 that got added to lots of places a while back - eg STD code 0225 became 01225. Jameswilson 22:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where is my millions

Along time ago in the 17th century, in my family (mothers side) there were two brothers of which the names are unknown but their sirname was something like: Sevil, Savil, Seville etc(people couldnt't realy spell then (i cant know)). They wern't the aristocracy, but quite rich compared to the average of the day. According to "legend" one day one of them ran away with all the money and valuble "stuff" and started a new life and a very profitable buissness, leaving the other with only the house and other non valuble "stuff". My mother red in one of those country life magazines about an Alethea Saville. This is the exact same name as my mother, the first name is obviously a coincidence (spelling???) but the surname maby not. She has a massive country estate with one of those £million houses, hundreds of acres of land and an army of butlers. Can you find out about these brothers and if the "naughty" one is the ancestor of Alethea Saville (the rich one). Thank you.


(I put this in 'Miscellaneous' part but there might of been a 'History' part which i missed. Sorry if i did)

                                               --William dady 16:22, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Althea Saville, daughter of the 8th Earl of Mexborough who descends from a Alethia Mellingson (died 1759) and Charles Saville. See this genealogy site This site has more on the family and estate. Rmhermen 17:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Passports

Hi, i have just today recieved a brand new (UK) passport. as well as all the ever more complex anti-fraud stuff (like never ending bird hollograms!) there's a chip on the back page. i'm assuming in a post 9/11 world most countries issue passports with chips in them but what sort of information do they store? when i next go through an immigration desk, will they scan the chip to get access to that information and, if they've done that, what advantage does it have in checking who i am that an ordinary photo doesnt have? in short then, why? thanks andrew...

See biometric passport. It's basically security theatre, in my opinion. --Robert Merkel 01:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Myself

Hello, I have two "things" that I could have some help with, the first one: Whenever I play football and I kick the ball to hard, I seem to pull one of my quadriceps. Is this just because I have not streached out properly or is it because I am kicking the ball wrongly?

the second: whenever I talk to someone or in front of a group of people, my face goes all red! Is this because I have no self confidence or I am embarraced? Is there anyway I could prevent this?

Thanks a lot daniel 18:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the first I would seek medical advice from a doctor. At the very least you should speak with your coach. For the second, this is a common problem when you are younger and for some people they never grow out of it. One thing I did was to join an organization that involved public speaking. Now I have no problem with getting up in front of the public and making speeches. Just practice talking with people. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Remember to stretch before practice/games/etc, it keeps you from pulling muscles. Also, a psychologist or a psychiatrist could help with confidence issues.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 20:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Happenings of the late 1700s to early 1800s

So aorry for double posting! I just forgot to put a title on hte previous one, making it hard to read or see. It's me from the cereal project again. I have to include a timeline on the cereal box of important happenings in the world during the time period. Do you know of any important happenings from the late 1700's to the early 1800s? Sorry again for double posting!

Thanks so much again!

Try 1700s and 1800s CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 20:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The 1700s and 1800s articles deal with the decades, not the centuries. The 18th century and 19th century articles might be more helpful. --Cadaeib (talk) 22:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • David Hackett Fischer has written a book on price revolutions called The Great Wave or something. Maybe you should look to see how much grain cost back then.

As for crazy stuff in those years, American and French Revolutions? Napoleonic wars?

Bobhouses

where did the name "bobhouse" come from?

titles

why are titles of a book important? full answer using (identity and labels)

Because we wouldn't know what we were reading otherwise. Do your own homework. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paper Dust

Are there any health issues that may come up from inhaling paper dust? If so what are the symptoms?

From a search: "Cellulose and paper dust is classified as nuisance dusts because they do not pose any significant health hazards." I suppose if you got a snootful, you wouldn't want to light a match.. --Zeizmic 23:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

May 5

Gas mileage

Lets assume that the speed is constant. In which situation would i use more gas?

Going:

67 miles in 1hr 23mins

Or

80 miles in 1hr 18mins

For most engines, the one with the lower speed would be more efficient. Rmhermen 00:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How can the speed be CONSTANT while you travel further (80 miles) in less time?

Air resistance in CARS.
Aero Drag:

Fd = Rho * Cd * A * V^2

For .26 drag coefficient Fd = .002558 * .26 * 21.9 * 30^2 = 13.1 lbs.
For .20 drag coefficient Fd = .002558 * .20 * 21.9 * 30^2 = 10.1 lbs.

Rho = constant to adjust for normal air pressure, convert from Metric 
to American, and to account for the ½ normally present in the 
formula Fd = ½ * Rho * Cd * A * V^2
Cd = coefficient drag
A = vehicle frontal area in square feet
V = velocity in mph
Fd = aerodynamic drag force in lbs.

Pants.

Would it be legal to, say, wander around St. Paul, Minnesota without my pants? Or dress, or skirt, or shorts, or kilt? Just shirt and underwear? And maybe trenchcoat? 172.147.55.9 02:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't know why it would be illegal if your genitals were covered. It would be like walking around with a swimsuit on. Dismas|(talk) 04:03, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the relevant statute. Sounds like it could at worse be a misdemeanor, if they decide it is "indecent" despite not showing genitals directly. In some states getting convicted for indecent exposure can get you "sex offender" status, though I don't know about Minnesota. In any case it probably isn't worth it. --Fastfission 04:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What if I wore a trenchcoat over the shirt and undies? ±172.147.55.9 04:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC)![reply]
Won't matter as long as you keep that trenchcoat closed, you flasher, you. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 05:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aussies

Do you pronounce 'Z' as zee ? Tintin (talk) 05:27, 5 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]