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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 October 8

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October 8

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HOW DOES ONE THANK WIKIPEDIA ?

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REALLY, HOW DOES ONE THANK WIKIPEDIA FOR A JOB WELL DONE ? Did'nt mean to SHOUT at you all. 65.163.112.225 08:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OOPS! Did'nt see where I placed this ! @#$%! 65.163.112.225 08:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Easy. Send me a large amount of money. Send me an email and I'll send you my bank account number.  :) JackofOz 08:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have you taken care of the modalities? —Tamfang 17:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Contribute to articles! After all, we're here to build an encyclopedia... and you'd be very welcome (you'll find it easier to get involved if you register for an account - they're free of charge and it only takes a few moments) --Dweller 09:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously - send money (perhaps you could sell your caps-lock key on eBay) to the Wikimedia foundation. The foundation pays for the computers and bandwidth to run Wikipedia and as a charity, they always need money! Just click on the "Donate to Wikipedia" link on the menu on the left side of every page. You could also buy a [www.cafepress.com/wikipedia CafePress Wikipedia T-shirt/Mug/Mousepad/ToteBag/Hat] - 20% of the sale price goes to the Wikimedia foundation. Wearing your wikishirt with pride will also help to get more attention for the project. (When I wear mine, I get a LOT of people ask me about it - which starts many interesting conversations!)
Contributing your knowledge and expertise is definitely another way to help though...do both!
SteveBaker 14:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
1) send a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation; 2) contribute something to Wikipedia that would not likely be done without you -- either because few people do it, or because the interest/ perceived-peer-recognition/ novelty/ self-fulfillment/ or whatever-else-motivates-people payoffs are too low to prevent a high participant turnover rate. dr.ef.tymac 15:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank us by helping us. Some folks, especially young folks, cannot send money and may not feel competent to add factual information. If you are in this category, you can still help. Please see Wikipedia:Community Portal for some ideas. Please especially consider the following:
  • check for and correct spelling and grammar.
  • look for and simplify over-elaborate language
  • wikify articles that need it
  • flag articles that whose lead paragraphs are insuffiently clear: add a complaint to the article's talk page.
  • add {{fact}} tags where you see an unsupported assertion (but only if you really think the assertion may be questionable.)
  • look for {{fact}} tags where you think the assertion is true. find supporting references on the internet and add them.
Thanks. -Arch dude 00:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Take photographs for articles that don't have them.
  • Draw diagrams for articles that would be clearer if they had them.
  • Read an article aloud into a voice recorder on your PC and add an audio version of the article.
Lots of things! SteveBaker 18:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should the Queen die...

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Should Queen Elizabeth II die, will the coins of the Commonwealth countries, more specifically Canada, immediately be change so the back of the coins no longer feature the Queen's portrait, but instead King Charles? Acceptable 00:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New issues would have the new King's portrait, but coins of the old Queen would continue in circulation. Until decimalization in Britain, one could see coins with a variety of monarchs on them. DuncanHill 01:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the Queen's portrait is on the front (obverse) not the back (reverse) of coins. See Obverse and reverse. DuncanHill 01:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obverse may mean "front", but it is more sensible to think of the obverse as the back when it's the same on all denominations of coin. It doesn't help people to tell them apart, and the other side does. --Anonymous, 05:38 UTC, October 8, 2007.
That's why we call the two sides of coins "Heads" and "Tails" - it's much easier! "Head" is the side with the head on it. SteveBaker 14:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In relation to whether it happens "immediately", it would occur as soon as practicable, which would vary from country to country. The King would need to approve the design (or designs, if different countries adopt different designs), and that process could take some considerable time. -- JackofOz 01:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, you could see coins with a variety of monarchs on them well after decimalisation - until the reduction in size of the ten pence in 1992 led to the final withdrawal of the (equivalent value) two shilling and florin coins. Warofdreams talk 02:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are quite right about shillings and florins though they would only have had George VI and Elizabeth II, as previous silver coinage had been demonetized (I think in 1947) - and of course the sixpence (=2½ new pence) was legal tender until 1981, and very occasionally turned up in change. DuncanHill 10:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sixpences were kept for longer than other pre-decimal coins because the London underground had an enormous investment in machines that accepted them. They actually stockpiled several million pounds worth of sixpences in order to give them out in change LONG after most banks stopped handing them out. SteveBaker 14:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the UK's silver and half-silver coins were never demonetized. It was simply a case of what English speakers call Gresham's Law at work - viz., "Bad money drives out good". Xn4 11:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fascinating, I didn't know that! DuncanHill 11:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Were the 5p and 10p changed (putting the shilling and florin out of circulation) at the same time? I seem to remember that one happened before my visit to England in 1989, and the second before my visit in 1991. Damn shame, as the old designs were a lot more interesting; though of course they did weigh down one's pocket exceedingly. —Tamfang 17:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, the 5p was shrunk first, followed by the 10p a couple of years later. -- Arwel (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, it's thought very unlikely that he'll be "King Charles". Smart money is on George VII. FiggyBee 02:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On what grounds? —Tamfang 17:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did read myself a while back that Charles intended to choose George as his regnal name. I suppose he wasn't a fan of the previous two monarchs of that name. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 22:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not the exact article I was thinking of, but this extract from an article in The Australian confirms that he's at the very least seriously considered it. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 22:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If he does stick with Charles, I sincerely hope he's "Charles III", and not "Charles's III" (see headline). -- JackofOz 05:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As to "immediately", the answer is that Canadian practice has been to change the portrait when the date on the coins changes. All 1952 coins show King George VI, who died in February 1952; all 1953 coins show Queen Elizabeth II.

The previous transition is more interesting. In 1936, George V died in January and was succeeded by Edward VIII, who abdicated in December and was succeeded by George VI. All coins dated 1936 show George V; 1937 ones show George VI; and Edward VIII never made it onto the coinage. But it takes time to prepare dies, and if production of coins had been shut down from January 1937 until the George VI dies were ready, a coin shortage would have developed. Therefore the mint continued to produce "1936" coins well into 1937, but marked them with a dot under the date. (Apparently they made the dots too small and they wore off with time; in some denominations "1936-dot" coins are now very rare collectors' items. When the same trick was necessary again because of a change in King George VI's title, they used a maple leaf, so there are "1947-maple-leaf" coins that show him as still being emperor of India, produced in 1948 when he wasn't. Presumably the maple leaf would be used again if this device was deemed necessary in the future.)

See Coins of the Canadian dollar.

--Anonymous, 05:38 UTC, October 8, 2007. (copyedited later)

That information was interesting, about King Edward VIII. a.z. 06:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Even more interesting is that fact that Edward VIII coins were minted in the UK but not in Canada. -- JackofOz 08:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some Edward VIII coins dated 1936, without a portrait, went into circulation in British West Africa and British East Africa. Xn4 11:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Zippo Lighters

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I own a zippo lighter, and for some reason i constantly have problems lighting it. Wthe flint is fine, and the whick is fine, and i refuel it constasntly.


Any advice?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.251.196.3 (talk) 04:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I took the liberty of removing your e-mail address to prevent spambots from finding it. If you can't find the answer you're looking for in the FAQs section of Zippo's website, then you could check this forum, where someone asked a very similar question. One of those suggestions may work for you. 152.16.59.190 06:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


If it is a real Zippo, I believe that Zippo garentee it so, send it back to them and they will repair it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.144.161.223 (talk) 11:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

most articles per population...

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Which country has the most articles per population here on Wikipedia? 83.108.220.136 05:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a bit hard to quantify what constitutes a particular country "having" a particular article. Can you clarify the question? If countries that no longer exist count, then I'd say they win by dint of having an infinite article-to-population ratio (>1 articles, 0 population). If you meant which language Wikipedia has the most articles per native speakers, I'll let you do the mathematics. FiggyBee 05:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To do the maths, one also needs to know the number of native speakers per language, info that that link does not provide. But this one does: List of languages by number of native speakers. So now we can do the maths. I suppose it's a matter of comparing the top of the first list to the bottom of the second list. Here's a list of nominees, starting with the least spoken languages, in terms of people per article (which gives whole numbers, which is easier to read) (figures are rounded):
And the winners are (top 10):
Note that the big languages don't do well at all. Especially English is rather a disappointment because there are bound to be relatively many more non-native-speaking contributors. And conversely, especially Dutch speakers will often put more time into the English than the Dutch Wikipedia, like I do, so that may keep the Dutch Wikipedia out of the top three, although Icelandic will be very hard to beat. Of course there could also be some tiny regional language that happens to have a fervent following and can thus easily get to the top of the list. I rather expected Frisian to be higher on the list. I didn't count constructed languages like Esperanto and Volapük (the latter of which, surprisingly, has more articles - I had never heard of it).
Of course, the number of articles is just a vague indicator. A specific Wikipedia could have loads of stubs, and I suppose that that will be more the case for the smaller languages. Alas the list does not give the size in bytes of the Wikipedias (just text, not images), which would be a better indicator (depending on what you're interested in, of course). DirkvdM 09:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a shame that the question excludes Latin (pace all those who think it's spoken in Latin America - is that a Jade Goody?) Are there any reliable stats on how many Latin "speakers" (!) there are in the world today? --Dweller 09:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*cough* I actually hid a link to that article behind "the mathematics". :) FiggyBee 09:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
<confused> I don't see any reference to Latin in that article? --Dweller 10:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that was meant in reply to DirkvdM ("one also needs to know the number of native speakers per language, info that that link does not provide. But this one does: List of languages by number of native speakers."). FiggyBee 14:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the small languages will beat Icelandic. For example, Scottish Gaelic has 4,500 articles and only 60,000 native speakers - equalling 7.5 speakers per article. Warofdreams talk 10:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*cough* *cough* Forgive me, FiggyBee, as a contributor to Vicipaedia I can't help wondering whether Latin would have been the winner if it hadn't been <<hidden behind the mathematics>>? It isn't excluded by the question, as the Vatican City (with an official population in 2000 of 783) has Latin as its official language. Xn4 11:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some virus going around? DirkvdM 18:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But far more people speak/read/write Latin than the population of Vatical City, so that would be a pretty misleading statistic, especially since the likelihood of those Wikipedia editors actually being residents of Vatican City is pretty low. More likely they are people who took Latin in school. --24.147.86.187 13:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The premise FiggyBee went with for all countries has similar flaws. There are plenty of people in every country who edit other language Wikipedias. It's a flawed premise, obviously. --Dweller 13:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The same goes for English, like I said. Probably about half the contributors to the English Wikipedia are not native speakers. DirkvdM 18:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't help wondering why, if we're discussing articles per (head of) population, all of the calculations are population to article? --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, 'articles per person' would be better English. Xn4 11:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why would that be better English? There's nothing wrong with the grammar, is there? And anyway, it's really mathematics. We just have to make do with whatever bloody natural language we happen to be speaking. DirkvdM 18:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's a shame we don't still have the Klingon wikipedia (now it's at klingon.wikia.com - since there are most definitely zero native speakers and there were quite a few articles, we could have enjoyed watching DirkvdM trying to divide by zero! Arguably, the Esperanto Wiki also has an infinite article-to-native-speaker ratio. :-( SteveBaker 14:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
∞. DirkvdM 18:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Volapük wikipedia still exists (Vo:Main Page however. Although I see someone has delisted them from wikipedialang (which I'm opposed to but can't be bothered debating) Nil Einne 13:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, 'capita per article' gives whole numbers, which are easier to read. It's the same thing, basically. You guys should really read what I write so we don't have to cover the same ground again. :) DirkvdM 18:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia already has a similar list at List of Wikipedias by speakers per article. Thylacoleo 01:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First reaction: Bloody hell, half an hour of my life (if not more) wasted. Second reaction: Ah, see, I'm not nuts, they used people per article as well. :) Third reaction: I missed quite a few. I knew that would be the case, but I didn't think there would be that many in the 10,000 - 100,000 articles bracket.Fourth reaction: Those 30 Volapük speakers are pretty productive, aren't they? Apart from the Ido speakers the only ones with more articles than people. 40.000 per person even!? Nearly all stubs, though ('random article' appears to be 'Pad fädik' in Volapük - first time I found a use for that, btw). Swedish has mostly stubs too, Norwegian and Finnish do a little better. Dutch slightly better still. I haven't checked any more, except English and it surprises me that that doesn't do so much 'better'. On average, the articles are about twice the size of Dutch articles. It would have to be three times the size to compensate for the difference, so the Dutch Wikipedia editors are still more prolific that the English Wikipedia editors. But like I said, especially Dutch native speakers will be quite active at other language Wikipedias (especially the English one), so I think I can conclude that, excluding really minor languages, native Dutch speakers are the most prolific Wikipedians.
Fifth reaction: pride? Nah, that wouldn't be very Dutch. :) DirkvdM 06:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Most Volapük articles are bot created I believe. There are a whole load of city etc articles. There has been some controversy over whether they should be listed in wikipedialang. Although they meet the number of articles criteria many people feel they shouldn't be listed given the minimal content in their articles. Others like me while agreeing with the premise disagree with delisting them because it sets a nasty precedent as there is no real way to objective determine quality and although there is currently a resonably large gap between the slightly okay wikipedias and the bot created wikipedias, this isn't guaranteed. Also measures such as depth don't really determine quality so using them seems a bad idea for a number of reasons. You might want to check out Template:Wikipedialang talk and the main page talk page archives for some discussion Nil Einne 13:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course many English speakers are unable to by circumstance to contribute much or at all to the English wikipedia. And it's obviously not surprising that most languages primarily used in developing countries score very badly whereas the languages that do well are used predominantly in developed countries. English being an international language used in both scores somewhat in between. The fact that most people are more likely to contribute to it then other languages they speak obviously helps to rectify this but not sufficiently (although personally I believe the 600 million estimate used for English is a bit low anyway) Nil Einne 14:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the list of countries where English is an official language India is the biggest of course, and it makes sense to not include that here, because for (by far) most Indians it isn't their native tongue. The US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand together house some 420 million. Actually, I used the rather low estimate of 310 million. The score should really be 420 million / 2 million = 210. Of course, a lot of USians don't consider English to be their fist language. But a lot of Frisians and Limburgians (and what have you) don't consider Dutch to be their first language, and that 20 million probably includes them. Then again, Netherlands + Flanders = 22 million. Hmmm... DirkvdM 19:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Part of this must be that for the very obscure languages, all of the speakers will be able to speak at least one other language. That makes it easy for them to translate articles from other Wikipedia languages. Sadly, there are an awful lot of English speakers who speak nothing else fluently enough to translate it. Also, with 2 million English language articles, finding an article in another language that's not already covered by an English article is tough. So the other languages benefit from an easy source of articles that is largely denied to English Wikipedia. SteveBaker 05:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Which, by the way, I have my doubts about. I'd prefer if all Wikipedias would develop completely independently, so each gives a different angle, coming from a different cultural background and (maybe even more importantly) from the sources in those languages. Then, when all are fullgrown (if there is such a thing), all those different angles could be combined into one well-balanced encyclopedia (in, say, Esperanto, for easy translation) that could then be translated back into all those languages. However, I must admit that I also sometimes do the lazy thing for English articles on Dutch subjects by translating the Dutch article. Mea culpa. DirkvdM 17:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Car junkyards (or lack thereof)

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In the US they have car junkyards, but I can't remember having seen one here in the Netherlands. Nor anywhere else, for that matter, and I've traveled around a bit. One would expect to find these along railroad tracks (where other junkyards are often found), and I travel a lot by train. Where are those car junkyards? Or alternatively, where do the dead cars go? Are they buried so they can go to heaven? :) Or are the cars dismantled and melted down straight away or something? DirkvdM 06:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen car junkyards in various nations. Just look where land is cheap.
From Japan, ailing cars go to Russia, and I believe (without bothering to look it up) that elderly, high-polluting buses, with the wrong left-right alignment (as Japan drives on the left) are sent to Vietnam and such countries, and are touted by the Japanese government as "overseas development aid". I guess that a lot of cars and buses go from rich countries to poor ones. -- Hoary 09:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So if there are no junk yards in the Netherlands, do you buy all your car parts new? Dismas|(talk) 09:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are hundreds in the UK. Most towns of more than about ten or fifteen thousand people are likely to have at least one, but we call them scrapyards. There are also a few long-established ones in the countryside, but planning controls (what some countries call 'zoning') generally stop new ones from starting outside 'employment areas' for light industry. On your "where do the dead cars go?", I've heard that a lot of dead British cars go to China. Xn4 10:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some Japanese cars also end up in NZ and Australia Nil Einne 13:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plenty in France, too.90.14.18.179 13:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)petitmichel[reply]

In the Netherlands, they seem to be called autosloperijen or autodemontagebedrijven. In Rotterdam, for example, there are a couple of clusters of them on the northern edge of the city. One such cluster is in Hoofdweg, Nikkelstraat, and Chroomstraat in the 3067 postal code. Another smaller cluster is in Gilze-Rijenstraat and Volkelstraat in the 3045 postal code. Marco polo 13:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst scrapheaps/junkyards are an eyesore - they do perform a valuable function in recycling. Perfectly good parts still exist in wrecked or worn-out cars. It's ridiculous to buy (for example) a new starter motor when you can get a virtually new one from a year old car that got smashed in an accident. For some parts like gearboxes - you can save a small fortune by checking out some junkyards before considering a new transmission. The trick is to call them "Automotive recycling specialists" - then it seems so much nicer! SteveBaker 14:02, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dismas gave me a thought. I don't own a car, but afaik hardly anyone repairs their car themselves. They take it to the garage, and maybe they've got their own network or indeed they only use new parts, which may be cheaper in the end. Hobbyists don't count the hours they spend on something, but professionals have to. So either they put a lot of effort into it or they have to make the customer wait for days until the part arrives. So maybe only 'hobbyists' would be interested in old parts. And there's a whole lot more of those in the US. Dutch cars aren't 'pimped' or something. That's something that struck me in the US - no-one leaves a car the way they buy it, like the Dutch do. They always alter something about it. Are US junkyards maybe used mostly for that purpose? DirkvdM 18:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They can be used as a source for cheap aftermarket parts, but if I wanted to "pimp my ride," I'd use new parts, not something I got in a junkyard. It's more like if you lose a hubcap on your Honda Civic and don't want to pay the dealer $80 for a new one. -- Mwalcoff 22:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, if you were going to "pimp your ride" you'd be getting the latest and greatest. Everything would be new. However, for the people in the off-roading world, many of our parts come from junkyards. Want to replace the rear axle on your Jeep? Go to a junkyard and find an older Ford Explorer to take the 8.8 out of the rear end. The 8.8 is better than the Jeep's stock Dana 35 plus it has disc brakes as opposed to the drum brakes of a Wrangler. Need a new transfer case or transmission for said Jeep, go to the junkyard and pull one from some street-queen Jeep that never left the pavement and was owned by someone who just bought it so that they'd have a convertible that looked "cute". In short, hobbyists love junkyards. Dismas|(talk) 03:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right, for pimping it doesn't sound likely. Off-roading more so, and that is not done much in the Netherlands, I believe (too many roads :) ). But for example the car that I bought in the US had the rear axel replaced for a heavier one and the transmission changed from manual to automatic. For that, one could just as well use used parts. And that sort of thing is next to never done in the Netherlands (a nephew did something like that to his car (lowering the suspension - a serious problem at speed bumps) and pretty much the whole family laughed at it - I should note that he worked at a garage). Still, another good explanation seems to me to be that garage holders have a network of selling each other parts on demand. each would then have to have only a small supply, taken from the old cars he takes in. In that case, no central collection point is needed. And this makes more sense in a country where people don't work on cars themselves, but leave it to garage holders. Don't know if that's how it actually works, but it makes sense. DirkvdM 07:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Scrap yards definitely exist in NZ. Although at least with the ones near me, often the cars are not intact (e.g. the front is seperated from the back). They are definitely used as a source for parts, indeed they often advertised that way. People do definitely repair and/or modify their cars by themselves here. Given our small size and also as we get a lot of Japanese (and occasionally other countries like Singapore) second hand import, genuine parts can sometimes be hard to find, or may need to be imported and would be expensive in any case. Indeed even if people are taking the car to a garage/mechanic, they may source the part themselves. Also, the scrap yard itself may sell the parts to garages etc. This (rather outdated admitedly) link may be helpful [1] Nil Einne 13:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Functionality of wedge in NASCAR in detail

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For building up the NASCAR section in de.wp, we created a list describing the most common terms and techniques in NASCAR, but now I got a bit confused how the wedge works in detail since the information that can be found on nascar.com is some kind of fuzzy and every other page describes it in some other way, even increasing confusion. Since on en.wp are presumably a lot of more experts in NASCAR, I try to get an answer here. :)

I know wedge describes the crossweight distribution of the car's weight in terms of how much weight is on the right front and left rear wheel. So when I increase the wedge, more weight is transferred to the mentioned wheels and the car is loosing up, because the right rear wheel gets less pressure because of less weight and therefor less grip, right? But now the thing I get confused of: I can make a change to the wedge by changing pressure on the spring on either side. When I put the ratchet in on the right and I want to add a turn of wedge (increasing weight on right front and left rear), do I put pressure on the spring or release pressure? As far as I know, I would release pressure so the car gets down there and the height on the left rear increases in relation to the right rear. And because it gets relatively higher on left rear, it has more weight to carry. To get the same effect when changing on the left side, I have to do it vice versa. Is this correct? --STBR – !? 09:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really an expert on this, but this part of an article seems to explain it pretty well:
"If the driver says that the car is loose in the gas exiting the corner, we’ll put the wedge wrench in a jack bolt in the left-rear window. When you screw down on that left-rear spring, it puts pressure on it and tightens up the car in the gas. If the car is too tight, we go to the right side of the car with the wedge wrench and make the adjustment there. The wedge adjustment changes the load that the springs carry," said McGee.
So when they put a round of wedge in (in the back), it puts more pressure on that spring. That makes sense, since if the car is loose, you want more pressure on the back tires so they grip better. They don't go into what effect ride height has on it, but I don't think that is as important as how the weight is distributed between the four tires. Recury 19:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know that article - and it's one of them confusing me, because in this video NASCAR says when they want to tighten up the car, they take wedge out meaning the car gets more weight at the front left and right rear. According to the article, they put pressure on the left rear spring. Remembering my knowledge in physics, the car should raise a little bit in that corner in relation to the right rear. Because of that it should get more weight on the diagonal right front - left rear, and that is as the video says adding wedge and loosing up the car - the complete opposite. Because of that I ask here what to do with the right rear spring when adding wedge: Do I put pressure on it or do I release it? --STBR – !? 20:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wish that I could help you, but I can't. I never understood where to put in a round of wedge when I helped on a street stock stockcar at the local track either. I was a pit crew member on the last place car. I have a book on how to make a stockcar handle. It talks about cross weight, weight percentages on each tire, etc., but there is no mention about wedge. This discussion should be happening at WikiProject NASCAR. Maybe User:Barno knows. He has a background with racetracks in the New England area of the U.S. Royalbroil 18:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the project page is also for technical questions about NASCAR, then I'll move the question over there. For me it looked as if it's only for meta stuff. --STBR – !? 21:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

motorway measurements

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Where can I find size specifications and averages for UK motorways (i.e. width of lanes, overall width, distance between lights, height of bridges and all these other things)? Keria 15:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From pictures the lanes look like they are about 11 feet/3.6 meters wide. Keria 17:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tough question. After a bit of googling, I found lots of stuff about Mancunian Way - there's lots of measurements, but not really the ones you are after, but this agrees with 11 feet. The google cache of a Highways Agency page mentions that 3.65m lanes are standard in the UK, but says that 3.5m is common in other countries and has been trialled in the UK with no loss of safety. For the height of bridges, this Mercedes-Benz page says that the standard height is 5m. Bistromathic 21:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

eclipse

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Why eclipses are somtimes partial and sometimes total? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pjcnic (talk • contribs) 15:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The absolute shadow (the umbra) that the moon casts on the Earth is quite small; you're more likely to be on a part of the planet's surface that is only in the path of the partial shadow (the penumbra) or, even more likely, entirely outside of the path of the shadow. Our solar eclipse article may help you further but here's a link to the Exploratorium that shows the Path of Totality for one recent eclipse [2] and here's more explanation [3].
Atlant 15:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Think first of a solar eclipse (when the moon is between earth and sun): Make a fist (that's the moon) - hold it 6" over your desk (that's the earth) - notice how some parts of the shadow around the edge are fuzzy (that's the 'penumbra') and some are solidly shadowed (that's the 'umbra'). If you were a teeny tiny person standing inside that shadow, then within the umbra, the fist/moon would be completely blocking out the sun - so no sunlight falls there and you are completely in shadow. If you are in the fuzzy 'penumbra' region then you can see some of the sun's disk - but not all of it because the moon is in the way - this is a 'partial' eclipse of the sun - because only part of the sun is covered. As the moon moves around the earth, and the earth spins, that shadow moves over the surface of the earth - so some people happen to be inside the umbra for a while - whilst others only get caught by the penumbra - and yet others see no eclipse at all. Because the shadow of the moon on the earth is fairly small - and the coincidence of earth/moon/sun happening to line up, total solar eclipses are quite rare - and the odds of you seeing one in your lifetime are not very large. Partial eclipses are just as rare - but your chances of seeing one when it happens is greater because the penumbra is larger than the umbra.
Secondly, we have the other type of eclipse - a lunar eclipse (when the earth is between sun and moon): Now, we are looking at the shadow cast by the earth onto the moon. In this case, we talk about a total eclipse as being when the moon is completely swallowed inside the earth's shadow (inside the umbra of the earths shadow in fact) - and a partial eclipse is if only part of the moon is covered by the shadow (either umbra or penumbra). Because the earth is much bigger than the moon, lunar eclipses are fairly common - and they are much more often total eclipses than solar eclipses are.
SteveBaker 16:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's a somewhat amazing coincidence that the apparent angular sizes of the Sun and the Moon from Earth are so close that their ranges overlap: that is, the about 11% variation in the Moon's distance from Earth is actually enough to sometimes make the Moon appear smaller and sometimes larger than the Sun. In fact, I believe Earth is the only place in the solar system where both total and annular eclipses by the same body can be seen. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's certainly an amazing coincidence - and under those circumstances, one tries to look for a cause (maybe something to do with the anthropic principle) that might make it non-coincidental - but in this case, there doesn't seem to be a cause. It's also interesting to note that the distance from the earth to the moon is increasing - so that millions of years ago, there would have been no annular eclipses at all - and at some time in the future, there will be no total eclipses anymore. So it's not just a coincidence that we live on a planetary system with this property - it's also a coincidence that we happen to live in an era when it's happening. SteveBaker 14:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Music Program

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I remember seeing a while ago a program that could compose music digitally - that is, it had a library of different instruments playing each note, and an editing system that allowed you to compose sheet music for it to render into a sound file. Any idea where I could find something like that? Black Carrot 15:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You mean something like a music sequencer? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Or you might be thinking of MIDI, which allows you to play something on one instrument (usually a keyboard) and then play is back with any sound that the machine (or your computer) has available. Note that that does not compose music. That has been done, though, and I've heard such a machine-composition once. Pretty boring, if it weren't a little weird. DirkvdM 07:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Scorewriters like Finale notepad (and the non-free versions of Finale) and Sibelius can work like word-processors, but for music. They often also have the capability to play back the music on your choice of synthesised instruments, and some can be plugged into a keyboard to allow you to play the music and see it written for you. Skittle 13:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Salt water gargle

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Why does gargling salt water help soothe the pain of a sore throat? -- noosphere 16:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is addressed in the article Gargling. --LarryMac | Talk 19:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it may; I gargle salt water and it helps though that may be phycological. The salt can kill bacteria which reduces the sore throat--Phoenix 15 19:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's more to do with the cooling action of the liquid. In my experience it makes no difference if you gargle with plain water or a saline solution. The article on gargling has some suspect science included in the text. There is a need to verify some of the claims made. The idea that an unspecified concentration of saline can remove liquid from the swollen tissues is frankly bad science. There is no evidence in my experience that a saline solution kills bacteria. Human blood is largely a saline solution and it gets infected. Richard Avery 19:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's the cooling action of the liquid, because I just gargled with warm salt water and it helped my sore throat. So it must be something else. Plus, I hear warm tea with honey and lemon is also supposed to soothe sore throats, and that doesn't make the throat cooler either. -- noosphere 23:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Drinking hot water with honey works for me all the time. bibliomaniac15 23:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
hot water with honey and lemon and rum and a Beecham's Powder :) DuncanHill 23:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Warm Ribena with honey and lemon and glycerin :D As for 'cooling action', I find drinking cold fluids makes my throat hurt more, and certainly aggravates any cough. Skittle 13:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've read that honey contains some antibiotic properties. Acceptable 00:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the answers I got when I asked this same question last December. Dismas|(talk) 00:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I accept that the idea of cooling is faulty. But I would interested in any objective studies that have been carried out on the effectivenes of say, honey and rum, against plain water or milk. Rethinking the problem leads me to beleive that there may be some lubrication process going on here. sore throats are usually more painful when you swallow and this could be caused by the inflamed and sensitive membrane(s) rubbing against another part of the throat. Gargling applies a lubricant to the parts that are irritated and decreases the friction between the sides of the throat - just a suggestion. Richard Avery 07:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A sore throat is not necessarily dry. If the soreness stems from a viral or bacterial infection (and not from thirst) then there should already be plenty of "lubrication" from the natural saliva in the mouth even before the gargle. Plus, I think gargling with salt water is much more effective than gargling with plain, unsalted water. But, like you, I'd be interested in seeing some good peer-reviewed studies on the matter. -- noosphere 18:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Genome

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With the human genome being mapped out years ago, do they know which part of the strands make up the code for which part? For example do they know which part on strand x is for or to make the cells that makes up a person's heart or their hair or eyes and eye color. or is this still a mystery and if so when they use gene therapy to treat certain ailments how do they know which gene will make up insulin for example? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.120.230.80 (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They know what bits of dna do what; see Gene and Introduction to genetics--Phoenix 15 19:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But, do they know or have identified some genes and what those genes do if they have practiced gene therapy or is that incorrect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.120.230.80 (talk) 22:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 
A role for RPE65 in the visual cycle. By supplementing his faulty RPE65 gene with functional copies, doctors hope to treat a man's degenerating eyesight with gene therapy.
We are getting towards understanding our genome, one gene at a time. We do know of a few genes that effect hair and eye colour (MC1R and tyrosinase, for example), though there are certainly more genes out there that have an effect that we don't understand yet. Genes work in complex gene networks, and fully understanding how every gene works and the full range of their influence is the real challenge in genetics. Mapping the genes was a huge undertaking, but it tells us precious little about their function. As such, having a genome sequenced is only the first step in understanding it, to do that we have to study its function. There have been gene therapy trials for some genes with known function. For example, British scientists used gene therapy to treat a gentleman with Leber's congenital amaurosis, which is caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene (see image, right). Its not yet clear how successful the therapy was.
Your question is rather timely, actually, as today the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Sir Martin Evans, Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies "for their discoveries for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells." The Nobel Committee awarded this prize because their discoveries allowed us to "knock out" genes in mice (and other model organisms) and knock others in in their place. Gene knockouts and knock-ins are among the most important tools we have towards understanding how complex genes work. The BBC reported today that "around half" off the genes from mice have been knocked out, with the other half "predicted to follow soon." [4] In humans, we can't knock genes out (yet), but we can study people with genetic diseases, some of which are similar to natural gene "knockouts." So, I think it is fair to say that there are few if any genes about which we know everything there is to know, but we do have some idea about some functions of some genes. As Mareino says, though, the genes themselves are just as small piece of the jigsaw. To really understand how genes work we need to understand how their regulatory elements control their expression, and then there is all the other non-coding DNA: we really don't have much of a clue what the function of that is. There is still much work to be done. Rockpocket 22:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it (this is actually more of a question than an answer), genes are codes for enzymes and those enzymes have some effect somewhere in the body. I assume that once you know the genes, you instantly know what enzyme they will make. It's a different matter to know what effect those enzymes have. Or when and how the production is activated. Or whether a certain gene is ever used at all. I believe the vast majority are considered to be obsolete - they're never used afawk. Also, it's not just that one enzyme does one thing - it's usually a complex interaction, probably with a lot of feedback as well. Let me restate that I barely know what I'm talking about. :) I'm basically asking if I got this right. DirkvdM 07:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The classical view of a gene is that it codes for a protein. This protein could be an enzyme and catalyse a chemical reaction. It could also be a non-catalytic protein - it might bind other proteins, provide structural support, fluoresce, etc, etc, etc. Knowing the DNA sequence of a gene will generally tell you the amino acid sequence of the protein - but the amino acid sequence does not really tell you much useful information. Alternative splicing can mess this up a bit - where parts of a protein are derived from separate regions of DNA and stuck together in unusual orders.
The junk DNA label is falling out of favour. When the genome sequences were done, people saw that there were not as many protein-coding (classical) genes as they had expected. We weren't all that better than a worm. Our genome is quite a bit bigger, though. So, a lot of our genome doesn't code for protein. What is now beginning to be realised is that this other DNA is anything but junk - most of it is transcribed (copied from DNA to RNA), and it seems likely that these non-protein-coding RNAs have very important functions in regulating gene expression.
But wait there's more! This regulation adds a whole new dimension (or 2, or 3) to the whole system. Genes can be regulated to produce different proteins from the same gene. They can be regulated temporally in terms of development, circadian rhythms, other triggers. They can be regulated spatially (eg in some organs, in some cells in some organs). They can also be regulated spatially within a cell by compartmentalising (compartments in a cell include: nucleus, mitochondria, ER, cytoplasm).
The feedback between all this stuff going on is mind-boggling. I'm sure that we really don't have a clue. There are many examples of X regulates Y by turning it off, for example. But, in reality it is much more subtle than this, IMHO.
So, in conclusion! Gene's don't make up body parts. Every gene is in every cell in your body. The communication between and within cells tells that cell which proteins to make and this makes that cell what it is (eg. a cardiomyocyte for a heart). Some genes do say "blue eyes" (just an example, I don't know if such a gene exists), but most are simply involved in normal cellular processes. Alright, I'll stop rambling. I think I may have missed the point of the question, but I had fun. Ask me for clarification if you want. Aaadddaaammm 07:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Eye color#Determination of eye color describes the multiple genes involved. Rmhermen 17:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to ask, in finding certain genes is one way to do comparisons, like compare if someone had green eyes look on genome for areas that are the same for those with the same eye color but would be different in someone who had blue or brown. A better example would probably be someone with a certain disease like Huntington's if they compared the genomes of all those who had it compared to those who don't and see the difference in those who don't but the similarities to those who do?

Yes. Historically, that was how we would identify genes, or loci, that caused disease or resulted in a certain characteristic. In mice we would do something called recombination or linkage mapping. Essentially, we would focus on a characteristic that were were interested in, say for example melanism. We would then get a mouse that was melanic (black) and then mate it with a mouse from different strain that was yellow in colour. Of the offspring, a certain number of mice would be melanic. These mice must have the gene that caused melanism, however they would also have 50% of the genes from the yellow strain. We would then take one of these mice and mate it with another mouse from the same yellow strain. Again, a certain number of offspring would be melanic. Again, we would know that these mice had the melanic gene yet now 75% of their genes would be from the yellow strain, meaning the melanic gene must be among the 25% that come from the black strain. This process (called back-crossing) would be repeated more times, each time the number of genes from the black strain would get less and less, allowing us to narrow down where the melanic gene is. Eventually we would be able to say, for example, the gene resides on a small region on chromosome 8. With the advent of molecular biology tools, we were then able to do something called chromosome walking that enabled us to identify the exact gene in that region. Once we had the sequence of the gene in the black strain, we would compare it to the equivalent gene in the yellow strain and, if we were correct, we would see a polymorphism that explained the difference in coat colour.
In humans, we obviously can't breed people together simple for the sake of identifying genes. However, we can do a similar type of analysis if we get a large enough popular size. Essentially what we do is compare the genes of people who have a disease with their siblings (who share many of the same genes) but to do have the disease. If we look at enough people, we begin to see genetic similarities. This is not particularly difficult for simple, monogenic (single gene) disorders or characteristics. But as we have already established, many diseases are polygenic (are a result of many genes interacting). Finding genes for complex disorders such as psychiatric illness or heart disease gets very difficult using this method, as instead of looking for a binary characteristic (disease or no disease; black or yellow coats) you are looking for what we call a quantitative trait locus (QTL). Mapping QTLs require a fair bit of statistical knowhow and, speaking from personal experience, can be hellish. Rockpocket 18:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

movies

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Was Jester Hairston work in "Lilies of the field"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.40.140.38 (talk) 20:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to Jester Hairston, he wrote and sang the song Amen in that film. Algebraist 23:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jewellery

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I would like to know the correct name for a person who re-strings beads - I think it may be French and begin with a 'P'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.84.141 (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We don't seem to have anything at Category:Beadwork, and Google doesn't seem to help. Perhaps you would have more luck asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. Rockpocket 06:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies that you have not received a substantive response sooner. The French word for both "bead" and "pearl" is perle. A derivative of this term referring to an occupation is perlier (feminine form: perlière). Ordinarily this word would be taken to mean someone engaged in the pearling industry (equivalent to English "pearler"), but the entry for this word in the online Trésor states "personne qui vit du commerce ou du travail des perles, de la fabrication d'objets ornés de perles" (translated: "a person who makes a living in trade or work with perles, in the making of objects decorated with perles"), which seems to allow the interpretation of beadwork as well (the English for which is "beader"). Note that the word perlier does not appear in the OED, so presumably it cannot be considered the "correct" word for the job in English. Thylacoleo 01:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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