Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 January 10

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

January 10

Are PMC operators more "skilled"?

Are Private military contractors, on average, more skilled than the average soldier? Specifically, are Blackwater combat operatives more skilled in combat than the average U.S. soldier? How do they compare to U.S. Special Force personnels? Acceptable (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that the only realistic way to answer such a thing beyond anecdotes is to really determine what we mean by "skilled" in this context and how we might measure it. (Ability to hit a target from X yards? Or something more epidemiological, like deaths per capita in wartime? Or are they even comparable along these lines, given that PMCs and soldiers are probably not in exactly the same situations?) I am sure if you asked on a more military-oriented forum you'd get a lot of interesting anecdotal information (10 bucks says that each group thinks it is more qualified than the other), but I'm not sure how one would go along delineating out what the crucial questions about "skills" would be in this context. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I would say probably based primarily on the fact most private military contractors/merceneries don't train there own people from scratch (rather pick up people who have already had a fair amount of training) therefore they will have few fewer people who are still just learning the ropes. Also the higher wages and the fact that they are probably not short of applicants means they are able to cherry pick the best. Of course just because you are more skilled doesn't mean you do the job better Nil Einne (talk) 12:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Special Forces doctor income

How much does a phycisian in the US Army Special Forces make per year?--DocDeel516 ^discuss 01:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It depends upon his rank and years of service in the Military. See U.S. uniformed services pay grades for more info. Assuming active duty, and a rank of say Captain (a reasonable rank for a physician in the Army medical corps) and say, 5 years of active service, we get an O3 pay grade with 5 years of service to earn $4523.70 per month base salary. There may be other bonuses or supplimental pay, such as combat pay for serving in a forward combat area, or Foreign Language Proficiency Pay or other bonuses paid for having special skills or for serving in areas of high need. You may also want to see such articles as United States Military Pay. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Plus the ability to have all your student loans deferred and possibly worked off. 198.70.210.143 (talk) 09:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Strange landmark in Baghdad

What is this, found in central Baghdad? Nadando (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Handy tip: In Google maps - click on the "More..." button - then click "Wikipedia" and you'll see icons for every place that Wikipedia has an article! In this case, it's clear that this is the "Green zone". Click on 'Photos...' and you'll see photos stored on various sites on the web. From that, I found that the circular structure is "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers" - there is a photo here: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3621197 SteveBaker (talk) 04:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a very interesting tip, Steve. Thanks. ៛ Bielle (talk) 04:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Google and Wikipedia are a match made in heaven! It's amazing what intelligent and creative indexing can do for you. It's also amazing how few places in the world are devoid of little Wikipedia icons. We have articles EVERYWHERE! It's amazing what you can find out about your neigbourhood this way. SteveBaker (talk) 05:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

"Proper" Use of a Douvet

A friend has just built a beautiful, nrew home. While visiting the first day moving in, it was menthat day, too. Gordyboy45 (talk) 06:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a question?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:30, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, judging by the title of the thread, the OP may be interested in our article aboutBlankets or perhaps on Comforters. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 11:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Does he mean duvet? I thought how to use that was fairly self-explanatory. Possibly he means bidet - a lot more confusing for all concerned. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

lhe

i beared the title in abbreviation LHE and brought to an end it's own kind..What the hell is this riddle talking about..Apparently Wikipedia has only an islamic airport as a match when i search LHE...Kindly assist... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.206.37.174 (talk) 07:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

From the word "riddle" above, I presume this is one. Have you quoted the entire riddle exactly as presented, with correct spelling and punctation - Sometimes subtleties can make a big difference. Is the quote "i beared the title in abbreviation LHE and brought to an end it's own kind" it? That sentence is bad English grammar, so so please give a context for the quote - eg is it source by a native English speaker or is it badly translated from another language? -- SGBailey (talk) 10:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

While waiting for clarification, here's wild guess #1: Francis II, the Last Holy Emperor. Or Xian, the Last Han Emperor. Or perhaps Faustin I, the Last Haitian Emperor (though I admit, "last" wasn't part of any of these titles :) ---Sluzzelin talk 16:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Lord High Executioner? brought to an end many of his kind - human beings.86.4.182.202 (talk) 18:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

CSAT or customer satisfaction survey

i am in a dilemma to increase the level of customer satisfaction survey which our customers fill in a form which is auto mailed after every intaraction with a customer service agent.the level of satisfaction is dipping day by day,after every possible effort as well to increase it. and is in the lowest low right now. can anyone help me to help elevate the level? anyone?

Please clarify: (a) Are you trying to get more people to fill in your survey. (b) Are you trying to alter the survey questions so that it looks as though customers are more satisfied with yor site or (c) Are you trying to improve your site so that more customers are satisfied with it? -- SGBailey (talk) 10:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The third one Mr Bailey, i am trying to improve the delivery of the agents and in turn recive surveys for satisfied customers.thanks.

Then the problem is not (just) with the survey. Improve service and the survey results should improve. BUT be sure that your survey questions are relevant and non-ambiguous. Myself I prefer a six point scale, i.e. no centre point for wavering. Respondents have to choose some degree of positive or some degree of negative. And 6 points are enough for most people to understand. Good luck.86.202.29.182 (talk) 16:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)petitmichel

I may be reading things into your statement, but you say after every interaction with a customer service agent.the level of satisfaction is dipping day by day Sounds as though your survey is "adding insult to injury" for your customers. First they have to spend (waste?) time dealing with your agent and then you ask them to give you even more time to tell you how they liked it (= why they hated wasting time) and unless your auto e-mail has a very good filter they may even get several of those requests in a row. Particularly if a complaint they have requires several interactions. Although the responses you are getting are more of the "now they've done it" type, carefully go through them and see if you can figure out what in particular they are complaining about. If you have regular customers, single out a couple and either contact them directly with an offer to cater to their specific need(s), or re-route their next call to a "senior representative" (separate agents, low call load) and try to have them figure out how to serve that specific customer better. Find out if your agents are tending to your customers' needs or whether they are a) too slow b) not knowledgeable enough c) overloaded d) sound robotic/ scripted e) disinterested f) given insufficient guidance and/or backing by superiors. (Easiest way is to have some friends or relatives pose as customers and get the "low down" from them.) Sit down with one agent a day and ask them about their experiences, how they think they could serve their customers better and what they learned/felt about a particular customer or recurring problems. Since they are the ones that get dinged in your reports they should know a lot more about what's awry than we possibly could. Give your customers an incentive to write positive reviews and make that as easy as you can. Survey sites tend to try and get as much data as possible. Since you are sending out these surveys you should already have all the basic data on that customer. Offer s.th. that they are likely to want _{(e.g. X% off your next order, 1 item free on your next/last order, "gold customer status")} (OR: for "flaming" I don't mind registering, logging in and filling in forms, for a positive review I'd usually pass if it's too much hassle.) Next show visitors that you actually read those surveys and are acting on them. E.g: In December 54% of our customers were unhappy with long "Call on hold" loops. We have reacted to your wishes and are pleased to introduce 10 new agents (names and pictures below.) If a customer then gets to talk to an agent they know from the site they are a lot more likely to stay calm and friendly. Good luck. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 18:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Standard operating procedure SOP

How do we create a standard operating procedure diagram for the department i work in. i have all the information though but lacking in the knowhow to arrange them into little boxes with various shapes like rectangle,square,round and so on. are there any tools which makes it easier to do so.?Seekhle (talk) 12:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you're looking to make a flowchart. The article mentions a few pieces of software that are helpful in making flowcharts. If I'm not mistaken, even Microsoft Word and similar programs (Open Office?) can be used to make flowcharts, but are not optimized for that task. If you're looking for non-software tools, there are clear plastic templates for use with paper and pencil. –RHolton≡– 13:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The object of a standard operating procedure is to document how a task or process is done. This may include NOT using flowchart symbols, or "little boxes with shapes," if the people who will follow the SOP can't deal with them easily. Don't let the format get in the way of the process you're trying to guide. Engineers and programmers love flowcharts; not so most of the people who work on, say, a pharmaceutical packaging line. --- OtherDave (talk) 05:26, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Authorship of Paul's letters

Please advise if you have any material on the authorship of Paul's letters in the Bible. Thank you. D. L. Thomas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.177.50.223 (talk) 12:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but our article on Saint Paul may help – along with the Authorship of the Pauline epistles article. Cycle~ (talk) 12:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Need help finding a game

It's an educational game, where the basic premise is that you're born as a child in a country chosen at random, and you basically live the life of this child. Features include things like coming down with diseases (especially prevalent if you're born in an especially deprived part of the world, of course), finding suitable employment after you've been educated etc. etc. It feels like a game that the WHO or just the UN in general would put out and is fairly recent, say 2005 2006-ish, so any help in identifying it would be very helpful. 202.156.14.82 (talk) 18:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't find exactly what you describe, but this site has a lot of games of that sort. --Milkbreath (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Those are certainly the sort of games I'm looking for, but not the particular one I have in mind.202.156.14.82 (talk) 18:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Is this it? --Milkbreath (talk) 21:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes :D Thank you. 202.156.14.82 (talk) 03:27, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Ontario Drivers Licence

In what month and year in ontario canada did the temporary drivers licence change from being 120 day temporary licence to a 365 day temp licence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.198.139.38 (talk) 22:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be April 1, 1994, according to the MTO. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

No, that page is talking about the graduated license system. I remember way before that when I was learning to drive, renewing my learner's permit and being surprised that it was now good for a year instead of a small number of months, so this is the transition the original poster is asking about. But I don't remember exactly when it happened... my best guess is late 1971 or early 1972. This is the sort of thing that it would be hard to find online -- I'd expect it would be best to ask the Ministry of Transport or whatever it's called this year. --Anonymous, 00:07 UTC, January 12, 2009.

Where do people usually lose things

Hi, I lost my note book recently and I have run out of places to look for it, my question is where are the common places people tend to forget to search? -- Concerned —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.32.241.162 (talk) 23:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I have observed thousands of instances where someone lost something and searched until they found it. From this wealth of observation, I can advise you where they always find it: In the last place they look! So just look there first, and you might save considerable time. From my experience: things which might wind up kicked under the bed are probably under the bed. Things lost on the couch may be between the cushions. One report said that misplaced TV remote controls were often found in the refrigerator (going to get a snack during the commercial, eh?). By the principle of substitution,one sometimes leaves the thing one was carring at the place where he picked up the next thing carried. Then there is always "Where was the last place you positively had it?" The place people often forget to search is the most logical place to have placed the thing. Edison (talk) 03:09, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

"The last place you look?" You are not Edison, you are Winnie-the-Pooh, and I claim my five pounds. --Anonymous, 07:21 UTC, January 11, 2009.

In my experience, we are often 'blind' to the places where the searched for thing might lurk - and we tend to look in the same places over and over. What I do, if a brief search of the 'obvious places' doesn't work is to become crazily meticulous. I go to each room in turn and imagine a flat surface, parallel to one of the walls slowly 'scanning' the room from one side to the other. Every place where the surface touches, I look - no matter whether it's inside something under it, over it - no matter that I KNOW the object can't be there. It doesn't matter how unlikely the place is, I search it. I imagine the surface moves by about the size of the object I'm searching for every time I'm done searching the things it's touching right now. Do this for every single room - the garage, my car, the garden and (if necessary) the trash can and the attic. If the object is still there, I *WILL* find it...but it's slow and painstaking and I usually find a lot more things that I'd lost a while back along the way! But as a matter of last resort - it works. SteveBaker (talk) 05:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Steve alludes to my usual technique on these occasions: give up and wait until I'm searching for the next thing I've misplaced and can't find. --Anon, 07:22 UTC, January 11, 2009.

For a lot of the things I lose, I don't even want them back, I just wanna know where the fuck they went. (paraphrasing George Carlin) Matt Deres (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of a friend's .sig: I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later. —Tamfang (talk) 19:11, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Or you can keep buying replacements for the lost items (and keep losing them). Eventually there are so many of them lying around that you're losing them and finding them (without trying) at about the same frequency. In scientific terms, you have reached a dynamic equilibrium. (I know of a true story in which this actually happened. The items in question were stored-value subway tickets.) --173.49.14.181 (talk) 03:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

You only need to buy one replacement, then when you go to put it away, you will discover the old one there, at least if you're anything like me. StuRat (talk) 07:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

There is the related trick of deliberately losing a like thing and having someone observe where it hides. Edison (talk) 04:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I've tried that with scissors - I can never find a pair in our house - so I took to repeatedly buying large numbers of the darned things on the grounds that sooner or later, wherever they were hiding would get full and the horror would end. Sadly, about 100 pairs of scissors later, I've deduced that somewhere, the 'scissor monster' is lurking - it's lustful hunger for the hinged and pointy, as yet unsated. SteveBaker (talk) 06:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I was the same with fingernail clippers. When I moved I found a dozen of them under sofas and such places. StuRat (talk) 12:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Books tend to end up on book shelves, even if you were not the person who put it there. Is there anyone else in your household who might have moved it? DOR (HK) (talk) 02:10, 14 January 2009 (UTC)