Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 March 5

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 5

I come from X and want to know what Y is

Someone wrote a blog post "I come from Java and want to know what monads are in Haskell"[1] (about a computer topic, details don't matter) and I'm pretty sure the title is a reference to some well known phrase or movie quote or something. Not having luck with web search. Any memories? Thanks. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 05:11, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

The rosettacode.org website is very similar. The difference is you start with a solution to a problem, such as the ABC block problem. Then, you look at the solution in a bunch of different languages. It isn't a code translator because each example takes advantage of the code being used. For example, a solution using array iteration in Java could be translated directly to Matlab. The solution would work. But, a proper solution in Matlab would use vector operations instead of iterating. So, you don't want to show the improper solution based on Java. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

No no it wasn't a programming question. The question is who else said "I come from [somewhere] and I want [something]". I.e. it's about the origin of the quote, that the Java-to-Haskell article title riffed on. Thanks anyway though. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 20:42, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

There's "I'm from Missouri. Show me."--Wehwalt (talk) 21:05, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

So, of all the possible examples, you choose the names of two programming languages and a term that is rarely used for anything except a "single unit value" in programming? 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:07, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe better to ask on Entertainment? —Tamfang (talk) 09:23, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

<wp:guessdesk>one of the meanings of "to come from" is 3. "to derive one's opinion or argument from; to take as a conceptual starting point." So it could be just ordinary usage and not a snowclone. Or maybe it's 1. "to have as one's birthplace or nationality" (and the implied metaphor programming language=country - which is doubly apropos, given that "Java" is also an island in Indonesia.) 78.50.125.245 (talk) 09:57, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

funny thing, but a search for java ecosystem(another such metaphor - an ecosystem being apparently the totality of tools, services, online communities etc associated with a programming language) finds mostly programming sites 78.50.125.245 (talk) 10:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I tried Googling "I come from * and want". One result. Exact same result I get for "I come from * and I want", which shouldn't be technically possible (coming from an English background). InedibleHulk (talk) 11:54, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Poland and the Holocaust

According to a recent amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance Polish law, it is now a crime to "ascribe Nazi crimes to the Polish Nation or to the Polish State". There is much controversy over it, as pointed in the article. Just a few hours after the law came into force, the Argentine newspaper Página 12 was sued by a Polish campaign group, because it used the term "Polish death camp" (well, the Spanish term for that) in an article of December 2017. See here for details.

Without going into the actual law or the controversy about it, there are a pair of things I did not understand. First, even if Página 12 was at fault, how can an Argentine newspaper be sued under a Polish law? Shouldn't it be subject just to the Argentine law, and the Polish law be in force just in Poland? And second, Página 12 wrote that article in December, before the amendment. Shouldn't this law apply for texts written after it came into force? Can a law be retroactive? Cambalachero (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

1) Ministry of Justice: "Art. 55b. Irrespective of the law applicable at the place of commission of the prohibited act, this Act shall be applicable to a Polish citizen as well as a foreigner in the event of commission of the offences set out in art. 55 and art. 55a." 2)"Retroactive application of law is prohibited by the Article 3 of the Polish civil code". If the newspaper article was made accessible after the law came in to effect one could possibly argue that this itself violates the law, but that is just my speculation. --GeCaHu (talk) 19:01, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

"Shouldn't this law apply for texts written after it came into force? Can a law be retroactive?"

Is this some attempt at humour or have you not encountered laws with retroactive effects in your personal life? We have a detailed article on ex post facto law: "An ex post facto law (corrupted from Latin: ex postfacto, lit. 'out of the aftermath') is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed. Conversely, a form of ex post facto law commonly called an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts. A pardon has a similar effect, in a specific case instead of a class of cases. Other legal changes may alleviate possible punishments (for example by replacing the death sentence with lifelong imprisonment) retroactively. Such legal changes are also known by the Latin term in mitius." Dimadick (talk) 19:10, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

• Welcome to the modern world of the Internet. Laws are largely written (even new laws, even today) for the world that existed before electronics and before the Internet, and laws like this run smack up into them. It used to be that publishing was a singular act with a distinct time and place. The printed word was an object that had a time when it was created. In the modern Internet world, publishing is a continuous act, which exists in every space on earth at all times from the moment it was created in perpetuity. As soon as someone in Poland accesses the article from the Argentine newspaper, it is being published in Poland at that moment and violating Polish law. The Argentine newspaper would have to prevent its servers from sending a copy of that article to clients in Poland; which is certainly technically possible, in order to be incompliance, else it is publishing an illegal text in Poland. At least, that's how I read the situation. You can see parallels of this sort in the Right to be forgotten laws in the European Union, which compel the entire world to prevent information from being published within its jurisdiction. If the EU can prevent some bit of information, written outside of Europe, from being accessed in Europe, Poland can do the same. --Jayron32 20:55, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

It's worth remembering that while the internet has complicated things a great deal, problems could exist before the internet. Consider libels laws for example. The Berezovsky v Michaels case for example didn't just deal with internet publication, but also circulation of the physical magazine in England & Wales. This appears to have been considered in Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick but no copies were actually circulated there however it suggests it could have been an issue. The English case is controversial because at the time, as I understand it neither plantiff had England & Wales as their primary place of residence and a lot of their business interests were likewise not there and the content also related to stuff outside England & Wales. But in the Australian case, the plantiff did AFAIK primarily live in Australia, and a lot of the businesses were there, and the conduct alleged also AFAIK was primarily in Australia. None of this seems likely to apply to the Argentinian newspaper, but it does emphasise the point that just because the content was physically published somewhere else, doesn't mean it didn't make it to the country where it's seen as a problem. You may then get into issues like whether you ascribe responsibility to the publisher. While I'm not aware of any specific examples, similar issues could arise with temporal issues as well. If a law changes so something you've physically published is now illegal, perhaps you won't have problems due to the publication. But if you continue to sell the publication, you may find that this could be a problem. I don't think any of this really arises much in the Argentinian case, but the point is that while the internet may have greatly complicated things, it doesn't mean these issues couldn't arise outside the internet. Nil Einne (talk) 06:02, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

"Is this some attempt at humour" - why would you assume its an attempt at humour? As the article you linked states, retrospective laws are either prohibited or severely discouraged in many countries. Including Poland. Iapetus (talk) 09:55, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Its a highly political dispute about Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II#Poland and it was highly political infused by recent similar established law by Poland's neighbor country Ukraine where alike collaboration with the Nazis happened (see Ukrainian collaborationism with the Axis powers for detail), including the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, that alike forbids to claim any guild or blame of historic ukrainian people like the "national hero" Stepan Bandera or parties or the nation itself. So its more a classic Tit for tat or political conflict between neighbor countries really and given its very, very serious (or in conflict furious) national sensitivity everyone is well advised not to comment or judge otherwise or face the fury of the new national law. Silently shaking ones head is still allowed i guess. --Kharon (talk) 14:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I have an inquiry about the news in Indonesia

With the recent news about gay rights in Indonesia becoming difficult with the law lately, how are transgendered people still able to change gender? Because in wikiedpia's article LGBT rights in Indonesia says people can change gender with judicial approval. But has this changed since the news is happening? Should wikipedia update that section? 184.71.183.70 (talk) 22:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

It's worth noting that a lot of countries view the distinction between trans rights and gay rights differently to the west. Iran is notorious as one of the worst jurisdictions for gay people in the world, and it still regularly punishes homosexuality with torture or execution... yet transsexuality in Iran is legal and the country carries out more gender confirmation surgery than anywhere in the world except Thailand (many are gay men coerced into transitioning by the government). Anyway, I can't find any evidence for a change in the law on trans rights in Indonesia (although note that Indonesia has both a civil law derived from Dutch law, and sharia law in many regions. As our article LGBT rights in Indonesia notes, at least one Islamic law council in Indonesia has forbidden change of gender, even though the civil law provides for it) Smurrayinchester 09:06, 6 March 2018 (UTC)