Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 October 26

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October 26

Towns called Verdi

Hello! I found some sources about the origin of the name of the town of Verdi, Nevada and added the information in the article but with my poor english I don't find anything about Verdi, California and Verdi, Minnesota :( Were these towns (and other maybe) also named after Giuseppe Verdi? Could someone give some sources about the history of these names? For the moment we have only a modest assumption without source in Verdi, Minnesota:

"According to several [???] sources, the town was named for the Italian musical composer Joseph [;)] Verdi"

--Mandariine (talk) 09:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

The California town was named after Guiseppe Verdi, according to the local history society. 174.88.9.74 (talk) 15:41, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you but this is the site of the history society of Verdi, Nevada :( I search a source for Verdi, California and Verdi, Minnesota ;) --Mandariine (talk) 16:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh! I just saw the change of Ellin Beltz :) Would it be a single city straddling two states? --Mandariine (talk) 16:49, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

As this is his bicentenary year, I should advise that his first name is neither Guiseppe nor Joseph, but Giuseppe. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 16:50, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

As two hundred years ago the departement of Taro was french Joe Greens was really registred as Joseph ;) but Guiseppe is pleasant too! Maybe in dialect ;) Thank you all for your researchs and your answers --Mandariine (talk) 18:00, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Victor Borge used to refer to the composer of Aida as "Joe Green", claiming that Giuseppe Verdi was just "his stage name". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:42, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

My favourite is Bedřich Smetana, otherwise known as 'Frederick Sour Cream'. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:23, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

That always did seem funny. Is it indeed the same word, or just a homonym? Of course there are plenty of people with the name Maslo as well. μηδείς (talk) 00:50, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Not being a czechophone, I cannot say. See also Griboyedov = "mushroom eater". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

You think that's funny, guess what conclusion the Russians came to about the Samoyed people (Самоед) based on the presumed (but false) etymology of their name. μηδείς (talk) 01:20, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

"Mushroom eater"? This would be a great name for un oboist :D See the book by Laila Storch: "How Do You Expect to Play the Oboe If You Can't Peel a Mushroom?" :) --Mandariine (talk) 05:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

There's an Australian billionaire named Harry Triguboff. His name means "three lips". Three lips? How grotesque. That's almost as montypythonesque as the Man with Three Buttocks. I reckon he could peel mushrooms with one pair of lips while eating them through the other pair. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

oh yes! a chance for an oboist to become a billionaire: having four lips (the other two for blowing in the reed... incidentally) --Mandariine (talk) 07:17, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Guiseppe

Not only Victor Borge calls Guiseppe "Joe Green" but the NASA for the Mercury crater : "Meet Joe Green". :) --Mandariine (talk) 16:14, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Or Mean Joe Greene! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 05:04, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Guiseppe? Do ya wanna settle this outside?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:00, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Oups! No no it was just to see! I saw! I pass! But I was wondering which explain the frequency of this error (justifying all these redirect pages) in English like in French (but not in Italian)? --Mandariine (talk) 19:57, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the reason is that Anglophones (perhaps also Francophones?) don't really grok the function of the i in Giuseppe. In Italian, the i is not sounded as a vowel at all; it simply makes the G "soft" instead of "hard" (in IPA, /dʒ/ rather than /g/). That Anglophones don't get this is sufficiently demonstrated by the way they pronounce Giovanni as four syallables (gee-oh-VAH-nee) instead of the correct three.

Now, that really doesn't excuse Guiseppe, which makes no particular sense, but if the correct spelling doesn't make sense to you either, then maybe it's more understandable. --Trovatore (talk) 18:19, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I suppose if juice makes sense to an anglophone, Guiseppe would too. But I'm with you all the way about Gee-oh-VAH-nee. I sometimes literally screech at my favourite radio announcer whenever he introduces a work by "Gee-oh-VAH-nee Gabrieli" or whomever. Funny that nobody seems to say "Gee-oo-SEPP-ee", but the more correct "Ju-SEPP-ee". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:51, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The question of the name of towns being resolved I did a bit of provocation by reopening the debate with the question of the error made by the Verdi History Society

The purpose of this discussion is not to judge or to excuse (or not), we are all fallible, but to try to understand the reasons for a fact observed (the inversion giuseppe/guiseppe in English as in French: you can also read the discussion on wikipedia in french)

Our two languages possess ​in fact the letter "J" that the Italian language ignores requiring him to produce the sound /dz/ using both the two letters "G" and "I" as well explained by Trovatore

But this is not sufficient to explain this inversion that seems to occur (in English) only in written as mentioned by JackofOz

I still apologize for my bad english --Mandariine (talk) 21:05, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Tit for Tat (Does the US spy on Americans in Israel?)

May one reasonable conclude that the USA does not run HUMINT operations with US citizen agents or assets operating extra-legally w/i the borders of Israel without the permission of the GOI? Evidence: the GOI would be sorely tempted to "capture" the agents or assets in order to trade them for various incarcerated Israeli assets/agents(?) housed in the USA federal prison system. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.240.77.215 (talk) 11:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

No, the CIA operates from the United States embassy in Israel.
Sleigh (talk) 11:50, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

But do the gentleman and women of the agency have sufficient tradecraft to operate outside the embassy (which technically is American soil) within the state of Israel. without risking at least a diplomatic incident? Respectfully, this seems unlikely unless, of course, I simply have no idea what I'm writing about. Cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.240.77.215 (talk) 11:59, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be asking questions that even those with some lower levels of security clearance would not be aware of the answers. Is it possible? Is the CIA or other US teams capable? Yes and yes. To find a reliable source for this will be next to impossible and I can't recall any news item mentioning any of your conditions ever being reported, that of course doesn't mean that it never happens. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 12:08, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I suppose everything you've written is true. And can we agree that espionage between nation-states occurs within a political context. Disregarding "rogue" operations, would it be unwise to guestimate that the political masters of the US HUMINT agencies have put the GOI as out of bounds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.240.77.215 (talk) 12:45, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

This is a place for intelligent guesses usually linked to reliable sources, your question is a good one but the whole point of this field is that they never get caught. As for putting GOI "out of bounds" (I am guessing GOI is short for government of Israel), speaking hypothetically and from what little information has come to light on operations such as these, it isn't unusual for our ally this decade to become a competitor the next, an enemy the third and then a close ally the fourth so the short answer is it has and can change as far as "out of bounds". HUMINT is also known to have swept up intel that it did not go out and seek not to mention double agents, government fronts etc. Again tho one has the luxury to guestimate anything one wishes with respect to your specific question since those who know don't speak and those who speak don't know as the intel folk like to say. One of the rare glimpses that is in the public realm of Israel and the US was the USS Liberty incident, but that was more signals intelligcence if even that and gets into a whole other world of conspiracy theories etc. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 13:02, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• The premise is way off the mark. If Israel started taking prisoners in order to swap them, it would put them on a basis of hostility with the US, which is the last thing they want, since they are critically dependent on massive US support. There is always some tension between the two countries because their interests are not identical, but Israel's survival depends on the good will of the US and it would be crazy for them to deliberately jeopardize that for the sake of getting a few prisoners back. Looie496 (talk) 16:07, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Information regarding legality of file use and file format propriety

Hello Wikipedians. I know of Wikipedia's legal disclaimer and am intimately acquainted with the general discouragement of ref desk legal opinions. Therefore I am looking for your help to find information about a very specific question I had:

If a file wiith content which is someone's intellectual property can be run on two programs (eg. two different games), but is intended for only one, what is the legality of restricting or banning its use in the second? An example is the MP3 format - you can open such a file in any myriad of media players, and no artist can tell you to use only one type of player. Must the creator of the intellectual property also have proprietary rights to the file format in order to limit what programs the file can be opened with? Are there any precedents to this question being discussed legally, or perhaps already a firm convention on it? If the latter, are some file formats therefore explicitly 'open' and others closed? The question arises because in Bohemia Interactive's games Arma 2 and Arma 3, porting third-party content from A2 to A3 is often as easy as moving the content into a directory, with no manipulation of the content itself. My knee-jerk reaction is to disbelieve that there exists any precedent for limiting what applications can open content.

If you can point me to an authority on the question I believe I should be outrageously content. Thank you in advance for any help. 83.108.140.45 (talk) 14:19, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I can't point you to an authority, but I can give my non-authoritative opinion. Generally speaking in order to use something proprietary you need to accept a license agreement, which is legally binding once you have accepted it. There are rules about what can go in a license agreement, but they're pretty liberal. The question is whether there is any prohibition on a license agreement containing the type of restriction you're talking about. I doubt it, but I don't know for sure. Looie496 (talk) 16:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't claim to understand the law (honestly, I think it's just whoever has the most money wins) but in theory there's something about allowing reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability (see "post facto interoperability" section in that). The enforceability of shrink-wrap agreements is dubious - if they really were enforceable, wouldn't every piece of potentially unwanted program virus installer somebody gets tricked by CNet into installing by accident come with legal fine print that you agree to pay them $1 billion, transfer copyright to all your files, promise not to eat meat on Friday, etc.? Wnt (talk) 17:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not a lawyer either, but I have done a lot of software development including writing code to interact with other people's file formats. My understanding is that, in general, the owner of a file format can choose not to publish info about it, but it can't prevent others from writing programs or designing hardware to interact with (read from or write to) that format. Some exceptions: 1) if part of the format technique id patented, the patent can be enforced. For a while you needed a license to write code to access the GIF format, because its compression technique was patented. (the result was the creation of the newer PNG format that significantly cut GIF's market share. The patent has now expired anyway.) 2) if the file format uses encryption or similar techniques to restrict access to copyrighted content, bypassing those "technical measures" may be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) in the US. Any of this may be different in other countries than the US, and may not have key details correct. If in doubt, consult a lawyer knowledgeable in this quite specialized field. DES ^(talk) 22:42, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to take this too OT, but I think we should recognise that while shrink wrap agreements are questionable, there's also a potential difference between the enforcability of terms that require you to do something (e.g. pay money, give up your copyright), and those which simply limit what you can do with the content. In other words, the fact that no court is going to require me to pay $1 million dollars just because it was hidden somewhere in the EULA that I had to, doesn't really tell us much about whether or not a court is going to say I can't use the content I obtained from the software in some manner that violates the licence agreement for the software.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Brighton Rock

In Graham Greene's Brighton Rock there is a curious reference to "a well-known popular author displayed his plump too famous face in the window". I suspect (though I have no evidence) this might be a little dig by Greene at some contemporary of his. Who could it be? There is nothing about it on Google, btw. --Viennese Waltz 16:16, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Evelyn Waugh comes immediately to mind, but he and Greene were great friends, and Waugh wasn't particularly associated with Brighton. Let's hope someone can come up with a better answer. Tevildo (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

According to The Life of Graham Greene: 1904-1939 (page 440), it was a reference to J. B. Priestley, who Greene had earlier made fun of in Stamboul Train. Abecedare (talk) 18:00, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Great stuff, thanks. --Viennese Waltz 18:02, 26 October 2013 (UTC)