Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 September 25

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September 25

Names

Hey, I'm writing a story and I want some special names for my characters, the names I prefer are greek-sounding. My male character's name is Ouranos and my female's Gaïa. I really like those names and would greatly appreciate a list of both male and female names. Thanks --Ninjawolf 01:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Since you've clearly got a motif going, I would start by checking out all the articles relating to Greek mythological figures. :) There's some cool stuff in there. I also like looking through the names of real people, e.g. List of Greeks, List of philosophers, etc. --Masamage ♫ 03:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

See specifically the Titans! —Tamfang 21:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

for a woman, I'm quite fond of Incontinentia Buttox --Dweller 08:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We have Category:Greek surnames, and Category:Greek names, which have some pretty good stuff (although Surnames is a bit sparse). Laïka 12:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Swedish names are pretty great, too. My friend's dad has a coworker named Torfin Borkin. --Masamage ♫ 14:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If I'd had another son I was going to name him "Alexander Isosceles", and we're not even Greek, so I know where you're coming from. --Milkbreath 18:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Cute (mathematically speaking). I've always wondered if anyone's ever been named after that great Greek, Testicles, the "father of anatomy". :) -- JackofOz 22:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Can cute be proven mathematically? :)--JDitto 04:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

JDitto, I think you've been round here long enough by now to know that such questions belong on the Mathematics Ref Desk.  :) -- JackofOz 04:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

HOW many?

how many penises can a man have? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.59.237.41 (talk) 03:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

With science, anything is possible. --Masamage ♫ 03:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe there is a medical condition where the penis is split in two at birth, if that's what you mean. StuRat 03:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You're looking for diphallia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that's it. Somehow that brings to mind the saying: "There's twice as much of me to love". StuRat 05:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Is he a curator or owner of a penis museum? The total could be 245. Edison 05:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Those fellows need to find a nice girl with uterine didelphys. --Sean 17:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We have a contender! --Dweller 08:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean 'how many at once', or just 'how many'? --jjron 09:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Depends how many orifices he has.--Mrs Wibble-Wobble 11:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

LOL Mrs Wibble-Wobble, both at your response and your user name :-) 203.41.139.85 07:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Shipping costs

How much fuel does it take to move a ton of goods a thousand miles over an average route by:

1. Boat
2. Train
3. Truck
4. Airplane

--67.185.172.158 03:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What types of airplane, truck, and boat? What do you need the answers for? If we knew what you needed the answers for we could be more precise. You could move a ton of goods in a pickup truck for instance but the fuel consumption for that would differ from a semi-truck pulling a ton of goods inside a trailer. Both are used for commercial transport but one or the other may not suit your needs. Dismas|^(talk) 04:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget to ask what type of goods are involved. A ton of lead (with a volume of about 0.09 m³) will have different requirements for shipping than a ton of extruded polystyrene billets (about 8 cubic meters). A ton of fresh produce may need to be refrigerated; a ton of sulfuric acid will require special containers and paperwork, and will accrue extra costs. Finally, don't forget to ask if there's a mountain in the way. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

By boat can be the most efficient method - especially if you are near a waterway and the goods are to be delivered downstream (or by sail)! In general, airplanes are least efficient but much depends on delivery locations as many deliveries will have to be multimodal. Only rarely are factories located at airports while trucks more often make direct deliveries or complete aircraft deliveries. Rmhermen 04:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

From the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, average freight revenue per ton-mile in 2001 was:

• Domestic Air; 80.4c
• Truck; 26.6c
• Class I rail; 2.24c
• Barge; 0.72c

Those numbers would be a fair indication of the relative fuel costs, I'd say. FiggyBee 04:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Probably not for the air transport, because that is not taxed, so the fuel cost will be a lot higher. Art least, that lack of tax for airplane kerosene is a serious point of debate in Europe. in the US, the difference will probably not be as great because there are hardly any taxes there (compared to most European countries anyway). Btw, is the question about the financial cost, the energy consumption, the ecological (climate) cost or the volume of fuel used? Keep in mind that different modes of transport use different fuels, so values may not be comparable, depending on what you are asking about. DirkvdM 13:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

U.S. aircraft fuel is taxed (with both federal and state taxes - California has a 8% tax on top of the federal 0.044 dollars per gallon tax) Also in the U.S., we don't call it kerosene which as our article Jet_fuel shows is an incomplete description of the fuel. Rmhermen 13:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

In Europe fuel taxes are normally considerably higher - in the Netherlands fuel costs about three or four times what it costs in the US, so tax will be in the hundreds of percents, but not for airplane fuel. So it matters much which country the OP lives in. Note that the reason for this is that airports are international terrain or something - I'm talking about international flights. In the smaller European countries, internal flights are not very common. DirkvdM 17:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Also trains and barges can carry a lot more freight than trucks and planes, so on a per ton basis truck drivers and airplane pilots are a lot more expensive. Dave6 ^talk 20:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• If the train is electrified (as many freight lines are, especially in Europe), then you don't necessarily need any "fuel" at all -- the electricity could come from a non-fuel source such as hydropower. --M@rēino 18:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Print a calendar

Anyone know a site where I can upload my own pics and print out calendar pages (for free)? --124.254.77.148 05:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ - number of neat little tools here including a calendar. Lanfear's Bane 08:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's that hard to find free calendar making software that uses your own pics, but are you actually wanting to get them printed for free as well? --jjron 09:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Was the "States List Puzzle" ever solved?

I was just reading a Straight Dope thread about the States List Puzzle. Out of curiosity, did anyone ever figure out the solution? Or was it generally assumed to be a big ruse? Zagalejo^^^ 06:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Ruse or not, if it has been solved it has never been posted as such anywhere online. (Wikipedia used to have an article States List Puzzle which stated pretty much that, but it got deleted by some admin). --24.147.86.187 14:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Umm. . .if it got deleted why is it still there? --S.dedalus 05:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It got undeleted yesterday. FiggyBee 05:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

what are the differences...

between the basic infantryman MOS and rifleman MOS in the United States Marine Corps? --MKnight9989 13:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We have an article for MOS 0311, for riflemen, but nothing for MOS 0300 basic infantryman. Googleing MOS 0300 gives you some sites which might help. Meanwhile List of United States Marine Corps MOS could do with wikilinks for any MOSs for which we have articles, if anyone is feeling sufficiently obsessive. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We only have three - MOS 0311 (Rifleman), MOS 0331 (Machine Gunner), and MOS 0369 (Infantry Unit Leader). Now there's a fun Wikiproject. Neil ム 15:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

86'd

We all know what the term "getting 86'd" means. We have an "86" board at work for menu items which are currently out of stock but does anyone know the actual significance of the number 86 in these terms? We can't figure out why it is 86 and not another number. Help!!! Please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.53.61 (talk) 14:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what "getting 86'd" means. DuncanHill 14:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

See 86 (number), third section. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, 86 (number) seems to answer both questions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I've always been (a,be)-mused by the rebus-like product name: RU-486. --Sean 17:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Electricity waste

How much electricity is wasted in a year on average in the UK? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mheaver (talk • contribs) 15:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide some more detail on this question? Some figures might be possible if you can supply some who, why, what or where details. Lanfear's Bane 15:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

here's a start (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39268538,00.htm) this is a guesstimate for PCs, there will be literally hundreds of other guesstimates for different products/different processes. I know stand by mode for electrical equipment is fast becoming a disliked feature and there has been talk of banning it from new appliances. Light bulbs are often held out as a culprit of 'wasted' energy. It depends on defining waste...The electricity itself isn't wasted - it does power something - but the use of the electricity could be removed and thus it is 'waste' as it is unnecessary use. I am led to understand that power-stations lose waste and that also storing electricity on a national scale isn't feasible so i guess any over-production would be considered waste too. ny156uk 17:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Also look at Control of the National Grid (UK)...Actually quite interesting read. Never knew things were so ridiculously complex (though it does figure that powering a whole nation would be!). ny156uk 17:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

(link fixed! Neil ム 08:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC))

It's really hard to say what is waste and what isn't. Suppose you leave a light burning outside your front door all night to discourage burglars - is that 'waste' or not? If your computer takes 10 minutes to boot up after you power it down - so you leave it turned on for 30 minutes to grab lunch - is that waste? What about the electricity used to run the factory that makes herbal weight reduction tablets (which for sake of argument, we'll say are quite utterly useless)? One person's waste is another person's justifiable cost. I don't think you can measure this in any meaningful way. SteveBaker 18:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

True, there is a lot that is subject to opinion, but there's also a lot that isn't. I've been in office buildings that just left the lights on all night, with nobody there. It wasn't for security, they just didn't care about waste. Raising the cost of electricity is probably the best way to get such companies to behave reasonably. Then, either their owners will be concerned about the effect this waste has on profits or, if not, the company will eventually go out of business and be replaced by a more efficient one. StuRat 02:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Raising the price will not suffice for those who aren't aware what an electric appliance consumes. Such as me (most of the time) and most other people. Where I work, people boil water in a, ehm, water boiler which is always filled up completely and then reheated every time someone wants to make coffee. The main reason for this is that the water boils very fast, so people think it doesn't consume too much power. I'm in the process of pointing out to everyone that at the bottom (nicely hidden) it says that the bloody thing consumes 2200 Watts. 2200 WATTS!! Excessively powerful machines are a main reason for overconsumption. The worst example of which, of course, are cars. In the Netherlands (a very flat country) most cars could easily pull a heavy trailer up a Swiss Alp. Just in case someday they may find themselves in that situation? If you want to know about power waste, start looking at cars (most of which don't run on electricity yet, though). But concerning the water boiler - even when I tell people this, they barely react. The problem is that this doesn't mean anything to most people. The main problem is that you don't have to pull out your wallet every time you consume electricity. Ah, the good old days when you had to put a coin in the thingy in the hallway to make the electricity work (at least in post-war UK, I believe). DirkvdM 17:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Explain by analogy. 2200 Watts doesn't mean much - but explaining that this is equivelent to turning on a bank of 55 forty Watt lightbulbs or around 250 compact flourescent lightbulbs might. In a small office environment, it could easily double the electricity consumption of the building for as long as it's turned on. Heating water in a microwave oven is better - and I bet it's just as fast. SteveBaker 02:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

While microwaving the water may well be more energy efficient (from my calculations and experiments, 92% of the energy goes into heating the water as opposed to 85% using a kettle (water boiler)), you are never going to convince people to microwave a cup of water rather than using the kettle. This is because: my microwave takes more than 3 times as long to microwave 350 ml to boiling point as my kettle does to boil 500 ml (its minimum amount); the kettle heats to a rolling boil, then switches off, while the microwave requires supervision; with a microwave, there's always the risk of that exploding-water-in-your-face-thing, which isn't very likely, but is at the back of many people's minds. Plus, it is inconvenient to try to get a teabag into a cup of boiling water, and the water has cooled a little by the time you have. For a really nice cup of tea, you have to pour boiling water straight onto the leaves. So, what can you do? By my calculations and experiments, it takes 220 kJ to boil the minimum amount in my kettle (500ml), and 143 kJ to boil 350 ml in my microwave. So, I'm wasting 77 kJ every time I make a cup of tea, although with the benefits listed above. This is 77 kWs or 0.021 kWh, so not a lot in the great scheme of things. However, if people are filling the kettle to make a single cup of tea, they could be boiling 2L for the sake of 350 ml, thus wasting closer to 737 kJ (0.205 kWh), which is more significant. If you want to save energy, you are more likely to make headway if you point out the energy saved by only boiling the minimum amount needed, and by making a drink for someone else at the same time. If you put 2 cups-worth of water in the kettle to make two cups of tea, you wouldn't be boiling any water you didn't need, making each cup more energy efficient. Skittle 12:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but why don't they know which things waste power ? Because there isn't much incentive to find out. Yes, they could save a few dollars a month, but that hardly seems worth the trouble. If they could save (or lose) hundreds of dollars each month, then it would be worth the effort to figure out how to save energy. StuRat 17:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well the article I linked to notes that in the Uk we lose up to around 8% of our electricity just transporting it from North (where most power stations are located) to South. If we could reduce that in any meaningful way that would have a huge impact at the source. The problem with raising the price of electricity/power through taxation is that it could have many negative impacts (a 10% increase in electricity costs to a low-power business like an office block would be much smaller than a 10% increase in electricity costs for a power-intensive business - or for those on low pay compared to those on high). Improve the efficiency of new models coming out, promote the reduction of waste and even contemplate slapping a purchase-tax on things that are less-energy efficient than they could (realistically) be. That's how i'd see improvements in waste being reduced. Cars are becoming more efficient, and whilst you might not use the car to move X everyday that doesn't mean that the extra power/ability is necessarily waste just because Mpg is lower than could be achieved on a smaller/lower power car (if this were justification one could say that larger-tvs are wasters of energy since smaller tvs do the same job, or that faster more energy intensive computers are because they do the same job as a slower/lower power one etc. etc. ad infinitum) ny156uk 23:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

And many of those things are true. Most computers are never used at anything like full capacity. You can do email, surf the web, fill out forms and edit documents just as well on a 300MHz PC as on a 3GHz machine. A 300MHz PC can be run on a tiny fraction of the power of a full-up machine. It's not necessarily true of TV's though - large flat panel TV's that use LCD panels are probably quite a bit cheaper to run than old fashioned small screen cathode-ray-tube TV's.

Increasing the price of energy through taxation doesn't have to be so bad - the government gets more income - and as a result can reduce taxes on everything else. The net cost to the economy can be zero. You simply want to focus people's minds on saving energy in order to cut their outlay rather than taxing them on (say) income tax. SteveBaker 02:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe the price rise would be a whole lot more than 10% to have a sufficiently strong effect, because what is most needed is that people are aware of how much power something consumes. Price mechanisms (the whole free market thing) only work in as far as people buy rationally, but as long as they don't know and frankly don't care, there will be little basis for rational behaviour. About this hitting lower incomes harder, we could change the price with consumption, a variation on rationing - after all, we're dealing with a scarcity. These things make people think about their energy consumption and that is a basic requirement here. Slapping a purchase tax on high-consumption goods is a good idea, in line with what I said above, and that is indeed done with some of the bigger electrical appliances in the Netherlands (or a subsidy for lower-consumption goods or both, something like that). And there is talk about doing something similar with cars. Nijmegen has already started charging extra for parking a SUV. DirkvdM 06:34, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixing the "people not knowing" thing is something government could easily tackle - requring companies to put labels on products is what they do best! So a little 2"x2" swing-tag next to the mains plug or on-off switch that gave the wattage - perhaps colour coded (eg blue= 40w or less, green=200w or less....red=2000w or more) - backed with a TV ad campaign showing how much you can save by buying blue-tag appliances.

I agree that a 10% energy tax wouldn't cut it - it needs something on the scale of gasoline taxes in the UK to make a dent (something close to 100% I believe). The tax has to happen suddenly - so it makes a MASSIVE impact on people. You can't gradually ramp it up 1% at a time because people won't notice it. The tax doesn't have to impact poor people - the government would get a HUGE income from this tax - they can (indeed, must) spend it in ways that will redress the balance...things like a negative income tax rate for the poorest people and reduced income tax for everyone else - including big businesses and increasing grant money to local government. The net economic effect on the day the tax kicks in should be close to zero. The idea isn't to take more money from people - the idea is to make them more able to justify energy-saving behaviors when to do so will inconvenience them or cost them money - handing them money in the form of reduced income taxes will help them to do that.

A one-time tax on electrical appliances is dangerous. Firstly, it doesn't encourage people with horribly wasteful equipment to upgrade to more efficient equipment - and actually it makes it LESS likely people will switch out an inefficient appliance for a better one because the better one now has a tax on it. Secondly, it's not just the initial cost of the appliance. Making a 100w lightbulb cost more than a 7w CFL is useful - but getting people to turn off their lights when they don't need them is also important - taxing the bulb isn't going to do that - taxing the electricity is. Here in the USA, major appliances have pretty decent labelling that shows you how efficient this unit is compared to others like it - and indicating how much it will typically cost to run the thing over the course of a year. I found this to be rather BAD news. I'd look at an energy efficient refrigerator - costing (say) $100 more than the regular one - and I'd be able to see from the label that it's only going to save me $20 per year in electricity. So I'd figure that it's going to take 5 years to pay for itself - and that buying the cheaper, inefficient model and investing that $100 would be a smarter deal!

SteveBaker 14:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of this turning into a thread...A sudden increase in tax on a product would be disasterous, marginally less so if good forewarning was given. You would need to allow people to prepare for the move towards higher tax. Tax on fuel in the UK has steadily driven upwards over a sustained period of years. This had the effect of giving people incentives to move away from the less efficient towards the more efficient. I agre (in principle) that energy waste taxes would need to financially 'impact' on people, but it is about striking the balance. We need to incentivise the people to change, not force them to. Individuals do not like to be forced to do things, but if you frame it cleverly you can often give them the impression that they are choosing themselves to change. Suddenly doubling the price doesn't promote change, it demands it. Much better to move it up 5/10% a year over a sustained period. This way there is a slope allowing people to A) move towards efficiency in a realistic timescale and B) See that the government is interested in changing the culture of electricity/power usage and is not just 'taxing the public' in the aid of the current cause. Anyhoo kinda off topic from the original question - but that's ok. ny156uk 16:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that any tax aimed at conserving energy should be implemented slowly. In the US, for example, I would support increasing gasoline taxes by $0.01 per week, for 10 years, until they reach $5.20. This would ensure that new car purchases would all be fuel-efficient vehicles, but would not cause people to go out and scrap their current cars and buy new ones (which would be very bad for the environment). StuRat 18:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

There are two goals here.

1. To get people to buy fuel efficient cars (without scrapping the ones they have now), you just pass a law to make it illegal to sell cars that do less than X mpg - and steadily increase X over time. In theory, the US government already does that with the CAFE law. The trouble is that (a) it only requires the AVERAGE consumption to meet the law and (b) A 'truck' weighing over 8,500 lbs is exempt from the law (meaning all of the big gas guzzlers) - oh and (c) the MPG number is not pushed up according to the needs of the community - it's negotiated with the car companies.

1. To get people to use their cars less. Providing better public transport is very tough because people LIKE cars and they don't like waiting at rainy bus stops. The problem is always "the last mile" - how do you get people from office to train station and train station to front door. But this is just as important as improving MPG numbers - so we have to encourage people (even the ones with fuel efficient cars) to actually go one step further and leave the thing in the garage more. For that, we need gasoline prices to go up - and to ban cars from city centers (which forces you to take public transport for the last mile anyway - so trains become more useful) - and to do all sorts of other unpopular things.

Other than for political reasons, there is no need to do this gradually "so people can prepare for it". If we arrange that for the vast majority of people, the extra $100 they'll be spending on gasoline each month is balanced by a $100 income tax reduction - then on the day the tax kicks in, nobody is significantly worse off. No need for them to 'prepare' - it's simply that instead of giving the money to the tax man directly - you do it via the filling station - nobody wins (much), nobody loses (much). Then, people will look at the $6 per gallon fuel prices and realise that they can do better by using less gas. Some people will go out and buy new cars in order to make that happen - but their old cars will get sold to people with even older cars - and so on down the chain until the really nasty old 'clunkers' drop off the bottom of the chain and onto the scrapheap. Those are the problem cars. Even a big SUV isn't so terrible when it's brand new and actually getting the 26mpg it claims. The problem is when it's old, hasn't been serviced for three years and has 150,000 miles on the clock - because then it's getting more like 15mpg. It's not that society replaced a 26mpg car with a 40mpg car - overall, we replaced a 15mpg car with a 40mpg car. As more people cut back on consumption, the gasoline tax has to increase to keep the government books balanced - but you need to do that anyway to keep people looking for savings - and to make them feel good about the savings they already made. SteveBaker 00:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Doing unpopular things is what this needs - and government doesn't like doing unpopular things because it gets you kicked out of office and replaced by more popular people who don't mind killing the planet. SteveBaker 00:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. In a 100% rational world a $100 extra cost of fuel to $100 reduction in taxes would result in a loss of 0...This is working on the assumption that you can match up millions of people's fuel consumption to reduced tax...If I earn 15k and drive 25,000 miles a year no amount of reduction in my already modest tax-bill would make up for the increased cost. Government can do unpopular things, what it cannot do is things that will be reject outright unanimously. Vehicle wise we have to be realistic about this. Cars are perhaps not the best focus of our attention - since movement of goods/people is more important than virtually anthing in the economy. Perhaps, instead, we should focus on the areas we can make the most impact at the least cost (financial and otherwise). Pricing people off the road doesn't solve the problem, because people will allow car-ownership to take up a vastly higher proportion of their income than much else (a car gives people freedom far beyond any other product they can buy). The pressing issue of climate-change will bring about a lot of difficult debates in the future and certainly fuel-efficiency is one of the areas we can make an impact, but I don't believe that rapid tax increases/mpg requirements for new vehicles are plausible solutions...Now long, manageable increases coupled with vehicle-class based mpg purchase-tax/road-tax pricing - that's workable solutions to me. ny156uk 20:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerning public transport, I've been thinking about that a lot over the last decade and I've come to the conclusion it can't be the solution. You've either got that 'last mile' and switching between lines or it gets too expensive for everyday use. Like with a taxi. Well-organised taxi-sharing could be a good compromise - if this would be used extensively then there would be enough taxis to get one arrive at your front door (or wherever) within a minute. But you would still miss the privacy and have to make detours to pick up and drop off people.

A better idea would be to quickly develop driverless car techniques like automated highway system and autonomous cruise control system. Of which VaMP is an extreme example. But the basic idea is to have cars drive bumper-to-bumper. That itself would already reduce fuel consumption by about 40%. But because it uses roads more efficiently, it will also largely solve the traffic congestion problem, which is another major cause of fuel waste. And it is something that people will be more than willing to cooperate with. This is relatively simple to do on highways, where the congestion problem is often biggest. It would take some more time to make it safe to use in built-up areas, but once that works too, we've got the best of both worlds. Also, cars driving in blocks will make it easier to implement phased traffic lights. A promising initiative is the DARPA Grand Challenge, which was won by my favourite, Stanley, in 2005. The next challenge will be to have the car drive though an urban environment. This will be held on 3 November 2007, so in about a month. I hope coverage on tv will be as good as last time (one of the most exciting races I have ever seen).

Of course, also using more fuel-efficient cars would reduce emissions even more. But public transport is not the answer. Getting people to use that will take more effort than developing the technologies I mentioned. DirkvdM 08:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - it's certainly a problem. Packing cars closer together and automatically driving them will cut accidents and reduce congestion - but I'm skeptical about actual fuel savings - and the technology is a LONG way from being ready. There are also legal liability problems with car trains and auto-drive cars that are going to make them tough to deploy. It think we're just going to have to keep on beating on fuel efficiency for cars. There is no good reason why every car shouldn't do 40mpg today. With a few years of intense research effort, I have no doubt that 60 to 80mpg can be done. Switching over to plant-based ethanol is a really nice medium-term solution - it's CO2 neutral and with a little research can be produced pretty much anywhere plants will grow. Long term is hydrogen - which you can make using electricity - which you can get from nuclear/fusion/wave/wind/hydro/solar/biomass/geothermal...whatever. SteveBaker 02:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I've read that 40% savings figure somewhere and it sounds quite plausible. Ever ridden a bike in the slipstream of a car? It makes a huge difference. You actually even get 'sucked in' a bit, it seems. Move back a few metres and the effect is gone. Cars on a busy highway usually leave about 10 m space between them, so they each get the full 'blast' of the wind (or how should I say that?).

And as for safety, that distance is about the most dangerous one one can have. Best is some 20 metres or more (or thereabouts - it also depends on the speed and road conditions). Move closer and when the car in front of you suddenly brakes, the chance increases that you will hit the brakes too late and hit it. Move closer still and you'll hit it harder. Up to a point. If you're bumper to bumper, you'll hit the car before it has started to decelerate much, so you won't hit it very hard. So that is actually the second best distance. Somewhere between 0 (or 1) and 20 metes lies the most dangerous distance and I once heard that that is a very popular distance on busy highways. Of course, until you start braking, the car in front will have to brake for two cars, making the distance covered until it stops longer, which means a danger for whatever it is hitting the breaks for greater. But on a highway, accidents are usually not the result of something else on the road. There are just cars. So if they all 'play at this game', there should not be a problem. The cars form little 'trains', resulting in more space, so the 'trains' can keep a sufficiently safe distance between them. When they can't anymore, the two trains unite into one train.

This is the simplest form - no added technology. Of course, one could let the cars speak to each other, so that when one car hits the breaks, all cars will do so and they all come a standstill at the same time. Well, of course not as perfect as that, because different cars will react differently and synchronising them perfectly won't be easy. But even without this added, it will be safer than the distances cars keep now on busy roads. So it should only be allowed on busy roads, where the effect on safety and energy savings will be greatest. One could also limit it to the left lane (or right lane in Britain), so people whom this makes nervous will not have to participate. People do this a lot already, and if no-one gets nervous and everyone wants to participate then people will be quite able to do this safely. It's the agitation (such as over bumper to bumper driving) and different driving styles that cause a lot of accidents. In this system, people are forced (voluntarily) to drive at a constant speed. And I suspect that therein lies another energy saver. More constant driving will improve safety and efficiency.

So even if there is any added technology, the car doesn't need to take over completely, just a little bit, and that is very easy to do. But it can be simpler still. Just let the cars lock in physically, possibly with something like what real trains use. That should be easy to develop, although it would be more expensive to implement. Several hundred euro per car at least, but the fuel savings will pay that back very quickly.

This is pretty much like public transport - the cars form trains with private compartments. But those compartments can split off and go their own way whenever they want to, like ordinary cars. That's what I meant with 'best of both worlds'. Much of the safety and energy savings of a train plus the freedom of a private car. This should be very easy to 'sell' to voters, especially when it's just an option for left lane drivers. So what's stopping us? Let's start a political party. :) DirkvdM 07:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Technologically, you're quite right - but what happens if someone negligantly fails to maintain his car - so it has defective sensors or a broken antenna on the inter-car radio or something? There is an accident as a result and 20 more cars suffer the same fate. The front car was essentially "in control" of all of the others. If the lead car is being driven by a computer - that's one complicated situation - if it's being controlled (in any way whatever) by the lead driver...then that one person becomes responsible for the lives of everyone else. There are a lot of drivers out there who I wouldn't trust my life to - think "Drunk 18 year old crashes 100 car 'train' - news at 10." !! Legally, morally, societally and from an insurance point of view...it's a minefield. The thing has to be 100% automated or it won't work - and the ownership and maintenance of the automation can't be left up to the individual or people won't trust it. SteveBaker 16:52, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Read back what you wrote and think of the present situation - just about everything you said already applies to cars right now. No wonder it's the major case of deaths under 40 (in the West at least). We already accept a high death toll on the roads. But you're right, if something new causes deaths that may lead to a public outrage (then again, in the seventies when the death toll was about three or four times as high as it is now, there was no such outrage either). But note that my proposal in its simplest form requires no technology that could fail. Bumper-to-bumper driving is already done quite often now, except that it's done in an irritating fashion. If it is done with the consent of all participants (just in the left lane), people will (at least in the beginning!) be extra 'on their guard'. And if it helps reduce traffic jams, which is something everyone wants real bad, then people might be quite willing to accept an accident. If on top of that, the average death toll will go down, as I assume it will, then people will be easily won over. Especially if an 'extra bonus' is that they use much less fuel and thus save money (and the planet - as if they really care (sorry about the realism)).

I don't see a moral problem here. The insurance thing might indeed be a problem, not sure, but is the present situation any different? When you hit the road you already take a risk putting your life in the hands of other people. legally, there probably won't be a problem. It's just a matter of not enforcing a traffic rule (no bumper-to-bumper driving) on left lanes on certain highways. This could easily be done as an experiment on one road. If people are sufficiently prepared for it there will probably be enough people willing to participate and try to make the best of it. So the death toll is likely to go down there and as a result people will be eager to participate elsewhere.

Btw, the trains will probably not be 100 cars long - at least not in the beginning. Cars will take up about half the space they do now on a busy road (at least one car will fit between two cars at a distance of 10 m). People will look at which car is closest - the one in front or the one behind them, and move towards that. When 10 car clusters are formed, the distance between the will be the space they took up before (10 x (10 + 5) = 150 m) minus the space they take up now (10 x (1 + 5) = 60 m), so that's 150 - 60 = 90 m. At that distance, two trains are not likely to join, so trains will not become much longer than 10 cars. DirkvdM 18:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Ice and water density

If ice is less dense than water how come most of an iceberg is underwater —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mheaver (talk • contribs) 15:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If you have a look at the iceberg article you can find the answer to this in the second paragraph. Lanfear's Bane 15:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

If it was more dense than water it would be entirely underwater..in fact, it would be sitting on the bottom of the ocean. SteveBaker 18:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This is true for lots of things, not just icebergs. If a human is less dense than water how come most of the human is underwater? Please see Displacement (fluid) and buoyancy. -Arch dude 00:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The reason is that ice is just a little bit less dense than water (somewhere around 10%). So only that amount sticks above water. If ice was much less dense than water, like air is, then it would be almost entirely above the water, as air is. StuRat 02:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the reason for that is that ice is a solid. A fluid (or a gas, for that matter) with the density of ice would spread out to form a layer on top of the water. But an iceberg is a lump, so it can't do that and partly sticks down in the water. DirkvdM 17:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a factor, too, but so is the density. If ice had the density of air, it would float up and out of the water entirely. StuRat 17:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Technically true, but open to misinterpretation. A solid body with the exact same density as air will be neutrally buoyant with respect to air, and will neither fall nor rise when it's surrounded by air. It doesn't need to be sitting on or in the surface of the water—it will float just fine in the air itself. Indeed, you can look at the atmosphere itself as 'floating' on the surface of the water, the much-less-dense fluid on top of the much-more-dense one. By Archimedes' principle, any solid body placed on the water will sink until it displaces a mass of water equal to the body's own mass. (This doesn't take into account the usually-negligible buoyancy due to the air dispalced by the body.)

There's a minor caveat to Dirk's point about liquids on water. What he says is absolutely true to a reasonable first approximation. If you take a cup of water, and pour a goodly amount of vegetable on top, you'll see that the oil forms a uniform layer on top of the water, exactly as described. On the other hand, if you instead add only a drop or two of oil to the cup, the oil's own surface tension will tend to hold the drop to a finite size. In that case, the oil drop will settle such that a certain amount of it does sit up above the water's surface, just as Archimedes' principle demands. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

And it will press down the water a bit, compared to the oil-free water surrounding the oily spot, so it will also be (ever so) slightly submerged. Point taken. DirkvdM 06:38, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

San Francisco Bay area

I am curious to know the perimeter of San Francisco area Bay. I would be grateful if somebody answer this question.

Andres del Rio Madrid Spain

(ae-mail removed)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.24.47.162 (talk) 15:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Our San Francisco Bay Area article may be helpful, but basically, the Bay Area is all of the counties that touch the bay.

Atlant 15:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

By perimeter, I think he means the distance of the bay's coastline, rather than the counties around the bay. Neil ム 16:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This question is fraught with difficulties. Apart from the basic problem that lengths of coastlines are not well-defined, there is also (according to San Francisco Bay) no general agreement on which areas actually constitute the bay. As a result, you should expect any figures you find to differ by large margins. Algebraist 17:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

How can i find my article or did it get deleted?

I asked for information on rebus puzzles to find out where I can see more of them and what thier most comonly known as (I used an example of a picture with "dog" and an underscore seperating it from "flying" with flying being below "dog" and the underscore meaning "flying under dog"). now i cant find my artical so that i can read if thier we're any more responces.

how can i find my artical or did it get deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.140.46.245 (talk) 16:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The contents of the reference desks get archived regularly; your question is here. If you click on the "Archives" link at the top of the page (right side, under Topics) there should be instructions on how to format a search string to help you find things in the Archives. --LarryMac | Talk 16:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

US Zipcode enclaves?

Are there any US Zipcodes which are entirely enclosed by a single zip code? Or are all US zipcodes defined as simple polygons? Donald Hosek 18:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Our article on zip codes notes: "Despite the geographic derivation of most ZIP codes, the codes themselves do not represent geographic regions; they generally correspond to address groups or delivery routes. Consequently, ZIP Code "areas" can overlap, be subsets of each other, or be artificial constructs with no geographic area. Similarly, in areas without regular postal routes (rural route areas) or no mail delivery (undeveloped areas), ZIP Codes are not assigned or are based on sparse delivery routes, and hence the boundary between ZIP code areas is undefined." It also mentions schools, government buildings and businesses which have there own zip codes. Rmhermen 19:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

An interesting place to explore zip code layout is at: [1]. Since, as Rmhermen mentioned, the codes don't describe geographic areas, you'll just see a dot as you zoom in. jeffjon 20:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This may not be the type of information that you're looking for but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. There are people who have two zip codes. Take me for example. The town that I live in has a post office and we have our own zip code. However, the town post office does not employ any mail carriers. So the only people that get mail through our zip code are those who have a post office box in the post office. All other residents of my town get their mail through the surrounding towns. So, while I live in one town, my mail is addressed to another town with a seperate zip code and their mail carrier comes outside of that zip code to deliver my mail to me. While everyone has a physical address and a mailing address, mine have the same house number and street but seperate towns and zip codes. Dismas|^(talk) 05:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not relevant to the question because I'm not in the USA, but your experience is spookily close to my own, Dismas. I live in a place that is too small to have its own post office, the nearest one being in a town 12 minutes drive away (A) - it too doesn't employ its own mail carriers, but I could choose to have a private box there if I wanted. The post office that actually services me (in a manner of speaking) and delivers my mail is in a different town 20 minutes drive away (B). So my postcode (that's Oz-speak for zip code) is the same as town B's but different from that of the closer town A, and if I have to collect any mail that's too big to fit in my letter box, I've got to go to town B. Such is rural life. -- JackofOz 04:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

To answer the original question, yes, there are US zip codes that are entirely surrounded by another zip code. The most common case is the one described by Dismas, in which a given zip code applies only to a single building, typically a post office with boxes, surrounded by a delivery district with a separate zip code. However, there are other buildings that may have their own zip codes. For example, the headquarters of Citibank, in New York City, has its own zip code: 10043. However, there are also delivery areas of more than one building with one zip code completely surrounded by delivery areas with another zip code. For example, Burnham, PA (17009) is completely surrounded by Lewistown (17044). Marco polo 20:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Until this last response, I didn't understand the question fully. And yes, there are many examples of this. The World Trade Center used to have a single zip code of its own. Dismas|^(talk) 17:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed once that the White House had its own zipcode, the Capitol two and The Pentagon four – whups, now six. —Tamfang 04:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)