Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 August 20

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August 20

Who dropped Little Boy?

The articles on Enola Gay and Bockscar list the flight crew, and it says who 'directed' the release, but it doesn't say who physically pushed the button/pulled the lever/whatever. Can someone find out? ZS 03:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

According to the New York Times, it was Thomas Ferebee, the bombardier, "who dropped the atomic bomb". He activated an "automatic system", then pushed a lever just to make sure. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I heard somewhere that the first comment written after the drop (in the log) was "Dear lord, what have we done?" Is this true, and if so, who wrote it? Library Seraph (talk) 13:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's strictly true. Co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis wrote in his log, as part of an entry, "My God, what have we done?" (see this sample photo from a store selling reproductions). However, I can't verify that this is "the" log of the aircraft (it may well be a personal log, given the way Lewis signs himself as "Former aircraft commander"). Additionally, it's page 8 of the log, and makes little mention of the effects of the bomb itself -- I would expect that mission documentation would have occurred before this philosophizing of this page. — Lomn 13:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

For Nagasaki, it was Kermit Beahan. "The target was there, pretty as a picture. I made the run, let the bomb go. That was my greatest thrill." Most of those involved with the missions did not feel regret, for fairly obvious reasons. (It wasn't like their jobs before that were to drop daisies on the Japanese.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Technically speaking, it would have been the Norden bombsight that dropped the bomb. The bombardier sets the aiming point and the release parameters, but for the final 30 seconds or so of the bombing run, the airplane is on fully automatic control: the bombsight is both flying the airplane and deciding when to release the bomb. --Carnildo (talk) 21:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Though most people would not assign agency to bombsight, but rather to the person who triggered the bombsight in that instance. "Technically" we usually give agency to the human involved (hence when someone shoots someone else, we don't say, "technically, the gun killed them," because we don't give guns agency to themselves). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"Atomic bombs don't kill people, Norden bombsights do." This reminds me of a funny bit on Upright Citizens Brigade where they removed the sin from the bombing by doing everything through a sheet with a hole in it, á la the alleged Hasidic sexual convention. Truman signed the order through a sheet, the bomber pressed the button through a sheet, etc. :) --Sean 15:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

That quote, true or not, is in line with a larger social idea in the US that developing and dropping the bombs was a tortured decision full of self-recrimination and doubt, all the way up to Truman. Absurd million-plus estimates of the casualties expected in invading Japan are the best known artifice of this idea. Contemporary accounts of these activities, however, are almost all closer in sentiment to Mr. Beahan's quote above than to Mr. Lewis'. --Sean 14:56, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Revisionists tend to forget that we were faced with conducting a D-Day style invasion of Japan, with thousands and thousands of American casualties. The Bomb ended the war immediately. Militarily speaking, it was a no-brainer. To have had it and not used it would have been militarily irresponsible. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The reality is that we were facing thousand and thousands; revisionists say 1 million. I agree that it was a no brainer, which is why it was not debated at all. What I was commenting on was this false national memory that it was a difficult decision with immoral nuclear horror on the one hand and millions of dead Americans on the other, when the reality was that there was barely any "decision" to speak of: a no brainer. --Sean 04:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. In fact, I don't think many Americans worried about the Bomb at all, until the Soviet Union got it and the chance it could be used on us started to change the public attitude toward the Bomb. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:20, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not like the Japanese didn't have the chance to avoid it. The Japanese ambassador to the US was shown a nuke going off...they had time to surrender - they were fully aware of what the US had become capable of doing - yet they chose not acknowledge the fact. What I do think was somewhat reprehensible was dropping the second bomb. The US did not give the Japanese time to respond to the first one - three days under the chaos of war and the slow communications channels was clearly insufficient. It's pretty clear that the idea was that they wanted to test both the implosion and the "gun" type bomb under live conditions - and that's just not right. SteveBaker (talk) 03:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

"The Japanese ambassador to the US was shown a nuke going off...they had time to surrender". Cite? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.57.126.233 (talk) 03:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Even after the two bombs were dropped, there were efforts inside Japan to stop the Emperor from surrendering. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Was it, or was it not, a consideration at the time that the alternative of invasion and protracted fighting would probably cost many more Japanese lives than would be lost to the bomb(s)? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 06:22, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I've not read any contemporaneous accounts from a senior official making such an argument; I think that idea clearly falls under "nuclear horror rationalization", along with the wildly inflated US casualty numbers. Whenever you read such claims they start with the facile reasoning "there were X Japanese on Guadalcanal, 90% of whom refused to surrender, killing Y Americans; therefore invading the home islands (population 10000X) will kill 10000X Japanese and 10000Y Americans". Of course, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kokura were excluded from carpet bombing specifically to keep them in good shape to get nuked, so they were going to have massive casualties either way, and the invasion would of course kill quite a few Japanese on top of that, so the claim of "more" may be true, while the claim of many millions more is very dubious (to non-historian me). --Sean 12:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

There was some urgency. --Sean 12:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The Japanese ambassador to the United States left Washington upon the U.S. declaration of war on Monday, December 8, 1941, as the embassy staff furiously burned papers. If such a demonstration had been made to the Japanese, I'm not sure how it was (or would have been) made. The important question is whether Unconditional Surrender (including the presumed abdication or deposition of the Emperor, and even his possible exposure to war-crimes charges) was a demand that prevented an earlier Japanese capitulation. A parallel question is whether demanding anything less would have been acceptable to the fighting forces and the allies. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The closest thing I know of to Steve's claim is the Sagane Letter (redlink, WTF?), a note -- included in a post-bomb instrument package dropped on Hiroshima -- from Luis Alvarez to a prominent Japanese physicist imploring him to inform the Japanese command that nuclear bombs were no joke. --Sean 12:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed I'm pretty sure this is something that those who disagree with the US decision usually mention. That the US could have (but didn't) conducted a demonstration for the Japanese as a warning to what would happen to them if they didn't surrender. Those who support the decision argue this wouldn't have worked or was too risky for a variety of reasons. (Then there are those who argue that the bombs were intended as a demonstration to the Soviets.) That obviously isn't a discussion for here although I hope everyone accepts there's no way we will ever know for sure what would have happened if things had been different we can just make educated guesses. Nil Einne (talk) 02:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It happens fairly often that there's no best choice, but just a least bad choice. The bombs on Japan were least bad choices, but they did shut the war off. And they were scary enough that nobody has ever used them again. PhGustaf (talk) 05:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Bubble tea

Where can I get bubble tea in India? In particular Calcutta or Ludhiana. K thx. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 11:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Guys you don't understand. I really need to have bubble tea. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 16:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Speaking personally, I don't know the answer. I'm guessing that everyone else hasn't answered because they don't either. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

A recipe. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Our Bubble tea article gives several alternate names. Perhaps you can google for these names in your locations? Maybe use Kolkata instead of Calcutta.)-Arch dude (talk) 21:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Google --Kolkata bubble tea-- yields this page, which lists "P.SHARMA, Wholesale Suppliers of Bubble Tea, Chai Tea, Essiac Contact Address: Nayabasty Jalpaiguri West Bengal." perhaps you can contact them? -Arch dude (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You might also try searching for Chinese restaurants in your city. Look under "our brands" at the "Haka" brand on this website. It sounds like the sort of place that might serve bubble tea. There is an outlet in Kolkata. You can always give it a try. Even if they don't have it, you can express your need for it, and maybe they will add it to their menu. I have a hunch that it would sell in India. Marco polo (talk) 01:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks guys all of you for trying to help. Actually I have a friend who has lived in singapore for some years and he tells me the bubble tea is amazing so I want to try it. I'm actually in a place called Jamshedpur near Calcutta. Sorry for bugging you :P ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 10:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Legal peer-to-peer site??

I know p2p file sharing's illegal, but I just came across this site called www.bakabt.com which has got really stringent rules about which files to upload and which not to. They have a specific list that tell you that the some anime, which are owned by different companies, cannot be uploaded to their site. No one is allowed to violate this Do Not Upload list, and they also have really strict rules about keeping a good share ratio. They'll start giving you warnings and eventually block you if they find you download too much and upload too less. They also take donations. My question is:

1. Is their site legal?
   
2. If it isn't, why will anyone want to donate money to a site that's not legal?
   

Thanks in advance! 117.194.230.47 (talk) 12:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You are asking for legal advice, which we don't provide. However, as a general comment: peer-to-peer file sharing's not illegal. That's just a description of a (completely legal) method of sharing files. What determines the legality of sharing files with that method depends on what those files contain. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) In the first place, the legality of torrent sites is a matter of great dispute. It's what the recent Pirate Bay trail turned on. Torrent sites are always at pains to point out that they don't host any media files themselves. All they host is the torrent files that tell the torrent client where to go to find the media files. Arguably, therefore, a torrent site is no different from Google, since all they are doing is telling you where to go to get stuff, they don't have the stuff themselves. There are similar sites to what you mention for music and TV. One music site (Dimeadozen) only has commercially unreleased live recordings. Another site offers British TV shows, but excludes any that are available on DVD. Is such material in violation of copyright? IANAL, but I would say probably not – and even if it is, you still have to decide whether the torrent site itself is hosting the material, or facilitating its distribution, or whatever. At the end of the day the question "is a torrent site legal" can only be answered on a case-by-case basis by the courts. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"Is such material in violation of copyright?" Yes, unquestionably. Even if the trackers sometimes get off on a legal technicality, the people who transfer the files are guilty of copyright violation unless they fall under a specific exemption in the laws of the country where they live, which usually they don't. Somehow people have gotten the idea that it makes a difference whether the material is commercially available, or even just commercially available in the country where you live, but there's never been any such stipulation in copyright law anywhere in the world. -- BenRG (talk) 18:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(ecx2) Peer-to-Peer file sharing isn't illegal, it's the use of it. If I use a p2p network to download a file from you that is either freely available or which you own the copyright to and are willing to give me a copy, that is perfectly legal and everything is okay. Companies sometimes do this as a way to give out documents to all employees, and I believe World of Warcraft has even put some patches up on torrents. If you use a p2p site/etc. for illegal purposes, then it is. I took a look around that site, and they didn't seem to tout very clearly that everything is freely and legally available, so I'd be wary. Their blacklist doesn't seem long or complete enough for me. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 13:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Check out their disclaimer: Disclaimer: None of the files shown here are actually hosted on this server. The links are provided solely by this site's users. The administrator of this site (BakaBT) cannot be held responsible for what its users post, or any other actions of its users. You may not use this site to distribute or download any material when you do not have the legal rights to do so. It is your own responsibility to adhere to these terms. You should probably tread lightly. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 13:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

That is a standard disclaimer which I have seen on any number of torrent sites. To tread lightly is certainly good advice, but all that disclaimer is doing is presenting the same argument I presented above about whether or not the torrent site can actually be held responsible for the distribution of the material. That is a question of law, not one of fact. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, although my reasoning in mentioning it is that, were everything completely freely available and reproducible through effective use of their blacklist, their disclaimer might be more akin to our own. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 13:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

There's no way BakaBT's disclaimer or rules have any influence on its legality. The only thing they might accomplish by forbidding certain material is discouraging the most litigious companies from actually enforcing their copyright claim. Copyright infringement is grounds for a lawsuit, but it's not usually a criminal offense (the kind of thing the police come after you for). If the copyright holder doesn't enforce the copyright then it might as well not exist. If they ban material owned by the companies that tend to litigate then they might get away with it for longer, but it doesn't have any effect on the legality. -- BenRG (talk) 18:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to be pedantic, the question about whether p2p is itself illegal (separate from the specifics of its content) is legally complicated. There have been some cases in the US which have ruled that if the technology serves primarily to aid in copyright infringement, then the technology itself can be considered illegal, even if there are non-infringing uses (esp. if non-infringing uses clearly make up the minority of how people use the technology). See, e.g. MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

To answer part 2) of your question : If the site provides a way to trade files that are otherwise completely unavailable, it makes sense that some people might find it a very valuable resource. (Perhaps it provides fan-subs of the japanese version of Animes, that are either unavailable in USA or available only in a badly mangled form.) In such a case it's not hard to imagine wanting to kick in a few bucks for a service that is, to you, valuable.

Really it's the same urge that makes people donate to web comics, or to blogs that they read often. I've noticed that some people are extremely rule-oriented and recoil at the idea of doing something illegal. Don't assume that everyone is like that. Many people either A) Have no problem violating copyright at all. or B) Have no problem violating copyright if they can't get what they want legitimately. APL (talk) 13:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

*sigh* Look, file sharing is not illegal. Copyright infringement is, which is an entirely different but related idea. There are gads of legal file sharing sites. Technically, this very site is, as we are all sharing HTML, image, video, and audio files. As for torrent sites, there is http://www.legaltorrents.com/. NASA's Visible Earth project runs its own torrent tracker, Revision3 has its own torrent tracker, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation runs its own torrent tracker. http://openbittorrent.com/, and any public tracker[1][2][3] allows you the equal opportunity to upload a .torrent file regardless of "legality" or "illegality." Mac Davis (talk) 17:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes - I strongly agree. Peer-to-peer networking is a valuable technique - and bit-torrent is a valuable tool to take advantage of that. It's used for all sorts of legitimate purposes - and if the stigma put about by the unknowing idiots were not there, I'm sure we'd see much greater application of it. Any protocol can be used to violate copyright - morse code, semaphore flags, carrier pidgeons...ftp, http, floppy disks, thumb drives...you name it. It makes no sense to try to ban a perfectly useful, legal, practical system. On the other hand, violating people's copyrights is evil too - that's what started all of this nonsense in the first place. If people had stuck to giving their friends the odd mix-tape and fairly non-harmful things like that - we'd be in a MUCH better place. All of the DRM grief we get - the difficulty of moving data between media - none of that would have come about. Now that the copyright system has been so abused, we're in the crazy reverse situation where even legal uses of media has become virtually impossible unless you want to play into the hands of evil big businesses. SteveBaker (talk) 03:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't think BitTorrent is going to be outlawed. But as far as I can tell it's only used for two purposes: to bypass copyright law and to avoid having to pay for file hosting. A network of dedicated geolocated servers is better for the downloaders, and I think it's also cheaper in absolute terms than BitTorrent. I'd rather pay the upstream half of the transport costs by making a micropayment than by seeding to 100%; there are hidden costs in the latter that probably exceed what the micropayment would need to be. -- BenRG (talk) 13:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

base ball hit

Is there a specific reason why aluminum bats are permitted in college baseball but not in professional? Is it a safety issue or are they trying to limit the number of huge hits? Googlemeister (talk) 18:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I've heard major league announcers discuss it as a safety issue, because the ball comes off an aluminum bat a lot faster than off a wooden bat, and the owners fear for their pitchers. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It would also shatter all the hitting records; maybe fans want to see someone hitting 200 home runs a year, but I don't think players and managers really want that. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is a long discussion, especially of the distance issue: [4] 75.41.110.200 (talk) 21:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought that alumin[i]um bats had been outlawed in most North American pre-collegiate play (high school, Little League, etc.), precisely because of the safety issue. But I could be mistaken. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Controlling the offense is one major reason why the professional rules require that a bat be made of a single wooden stick. No laminated bats, no hidden champers filled with cork, no metal rods inserted, that kind of thing. Metal bats would created a number of nightmare scenarios - the worst case being the risk of on-field fatalities. Maybe you saw the video of an MLB pitcher taking a shot off his head last week. If that were off a metal bat as they stand now, he'd be dead. The reason metal bats were adopted was for cost-savings, nothing more. And there may come a time when MLB decides to do so, but they would have to "deaden" the bat and there would have to be constant scrutiny to be sure no one had "livened" the bat. Either that, or the pitcher would have to have a helmet on and/or a screen to hide behind. Ugh. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You could always deaden the ball, instead. Less subject to cheating, especially since it would be in the pitcher's own interest to make sure he was throwing a standard ball. --Trovatore (talk) 23:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Either way, it would make for a fundamental change in the game that the lords of baseball are probably not interested in. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Baseball is heavily rooted in tradition and statistics, moreso than other sports. Any minor change that interferes with comparing modern stats to stats in days gone by is met with strong resistance. Switching to aluminum bats would be a major overhaul. The hardcore fans would be furious. APL (talk) 12:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Deadening the ball would mess with its bounce. APL (talk) 12:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

And I say again, the reason the colleges went with metal bats had to do with saving money on equipment. Considering the money MLB rakes in, for them to argue that they need to save on cost of wooden bats would be kind of hard to get away with. Never mind the tradition of players looking for exceptional-quality wood for their bats, and the beautiful sound of bat-meeting-ball, and such stuff as that. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Legend of invention of chess

I've read somewhere in my childhood that there is a legend that the inventor of chess, when asked what he wanted as a reward, answered that he wanted so much rice that the first chess square would contain one grain, the second two grains, the third four grains, and so on, each square containing double as much as the previous. The king agreed, thinking he could get away with a few kilograms of rice at the most. It turned out that the total amount was $2^{64}-1$ grains, which weigh about 360 billion tonnes. Now I have two questions:

• How widespread is this legend? Does Wikipedia have an article about it?
• How long would it actually take the world's rice production to produce such a staggering amount of rice? JIP | Talk 19:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Wheat and chessboard problem. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

And Rice#World_production_and_trade claims that world production was 600 million tonnes in 2004. At that rate, it would take 600 years to produce 360 billion tonnes (assuming long scale billions). Note also that International wheat production statistics lists 2007 wheat production at also around 600 million metric tonnes. -- 128.104.112.102 (talk) 19:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I was, reluctantly but for the sake of the ever-increasing adoption of the short scale to placate Americans, using the short scale, even though the long scale is used in every language other than English, including my native Finnish. So that would mean the time to produce so much rice would be 0.6 years, or just a bit under seven and a half months. Thanks! JIP | Talk 20:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

No, the comment about long scales threw me off. If the annual production is 600 million tonnes, then 600 million multiplied by 600 is 360 thousand million, which is precisely 360 short scale billion. So it would indeed take 600 years for the entire world to produce so much rice. Damn, I hate the entire concept of the short scale. JIP | Talk 20:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

That's why I'm trying to teach myself to use the "Giga" prefix instead of 'billion' or 'thousand million'. A gigatonne is unambiguous. SteveBaker (talk) 23:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Gigatonne may be unambiguous, but a gigabyte of data still means the wrong thing to 90% of the population. --Sean 15:06, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean that it means the wrong thing to 10% of the population! I have eight friends who will agree with me! APL (talk) 16:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Strictly, gigabyte and gigibyte are both unambiguous - however, hard drive manufacturers have sewn such error and confusion that the distinction is more or less gone. However, the error there hovers around a couple of percent...nothing like the sale of the factor of ONE THOUSAND error you can make if you guess the wrong billion! SteveBaker (talk) 03:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

To make it worse, when I did my calculation I did use short scale (billion = thousand million), but accidentally mixed up which one was named short and which was named long (*sigh*). -- 128.104.112.102 (talk) 15:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually that isn't correct. The short scale is used in Malay and according to Long and short scales a few other languages (or country specific versions of a language). Some languages don't use either of course... Nil Einne (talk) 22:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Another link Ambalappuzha Sri Krishna Temple. I've come across a couple of versions of this, probably in maths textbooks as a way of demonstrating exponential growth - it would be neat if the legend was invented for this purpose, though I've no way of proving that of course Declan Clam (talk) 11:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The version I've heard was simply the king rewarding a peasant for some good deed, who then asked for 1 grain the first day of the month, 2 the second day, then 4, then 8 and so on. Even at 30 or 31 instead of 64, that's a lot of grain. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)