Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 November 12

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November 12

Saint Lucie County lines

I am trying to research how the shape of my county got the way it is. I know originally Brevard County was named Saint Lucie County and in 1855 it was renamed Brevard County. During the summer of 1905 St. Lucie County was created from the southern part of Brevard. Subsequently Martin County was created from the southern part of St. Lucie County. What I am trying to find out is who decided the actual configuration of the boundary line between St. Lucie and Martin Counties? Was it done by the state or was it done by the local politicians? My question is how do I research that question? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.93.69.27 (talk) 01:25, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The OP is asking about St Lucie in Florida, US. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 08:25, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The Florida Legislature decides everything related to the creation, abolition, and modification of Florida counties. If you want details, I would go to look up acts of the Florida Legislature in 1925 (when Martin separated from St. Lucie). The act should detail the boundary lines. If there is legislative history, such as transcripts of floor or committee debates, this may also assist. I would find a law library. Neutrality^talk 20:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Question about Japanese celebrities

I noticed in Japan, it seems to be quite common for celebrities to not disclose their year of birth. While it is alright for me and I respect their privacy, I noticed that the practice seems to be particularly common in Japan (at least according to the Japanese Wikipedia). Is the practice of celebrities not disclosing the year of birth really that common in Japan, or is it just the same or lower with the practice's frequency in the rest of the world? (and please do not give examples of Western celebrities whose year of birth is not disclosed) 112.208.114.247 (talk) 09:38, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

There was an entire row about it recently - so-called 'stars' were outspokenly upset about IMDb disclosing their real birthdates. It's been all over the news recently. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there are many American celebrities who would like to withhold their date of birth; however, that would be hard do do considering that things like birth certificates can be public record in the US. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Even on IMDb, which is not considered particularly reliable, they'd be revealing information that's already on the public record, not just made up by a passing editor. I don't understand why the celebs would be making a fuss about it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

This particular case, Doe vs. Amazon, does not purely involve information in the public domain. The complainant alleges Amazon (IMDb's owner) used details from a credit-card transaction she made with them (to buy an IMDb-PRO subscription) for more than billing purposes, but disclosed these (and used them to search public records). She claims that, if she hadn't made the credit card transaction, Amazon wouldn't know her legal name (which differs from her screen name) or her birth date. So she's not alleging they just did a public records search, but that they failed to maintain a firewall between their billing and editorial departments, and so misappropriated private information she supplied in the understanding that she was doing so in confidence. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah well, that's completely different. That was very naughty of them if the claim is true. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

fernuni hagen

What are the fees for non-German students at the FerUniversität Hagen? --Cerlomin (talk) 10:47, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Contact them to ask. Neutrality^talk 23:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

-> Bachelor total, -> Master total. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 09:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Recipe HELP! Do they really mean rind and not zest?

I am making a recipe for rice pudding, but the recipe calls for lemon rind, not lemon zest. The recipe is at http://www.brandnamecooking.com/recipes-dessert/eaglebrandricepudding.html I have never heard of cooking with any citrus' pith, which is bitter and horrible in my experience. Do you think they mean the zest?--108.46.103.88 (talk) 17:35, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they mean rind. Note that you remove it before eating, like a bay leaf. So, the idea is that the lemon oil will come out into the food, but the bitter part stays in the rind. StuRat (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'm going to try it. I'm forced to use this recipe because I have no milk in the house and do have sweetened condensed so I'm testing. I'll report back.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

If anyone cares, it's edible but way, way, way too sweet; you would need to increase the rice by at least a third and it's not nearly as good as a slow milk recipe.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 20:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You might also want to increase the amount of cinnamon. It doesn't list a specific amount in the recipe, and cinnamon is good for you, and cheap if you know where to buy it, but a bit bitter on it's own, so adding it to something overly sweet can be a quick way to "fix" it. Adding more rice, of course, would need to be done at the start, and might also disturb the moisture balance. If I were to make rice pudding, I'd use milk and sour cream, skip the sweetened condensed milk, and use raisins, instead, to sweeten it. I suppose you could also use dried cranberries, in the spirit of the holidays. StuRat (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The word "zest" means "outer peel", not "pith" (and has done since 1674). If the recipe comes out too sweet, try grating the zest. Some people like the combination of sweet and bitter. Dbfirs 08:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

the word voyeurism could not be found in an old dictionary, when was it added to english language?

origin of the word voyeurism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.221.162.8 (talk) 17:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=voyeurism--108.46.103.88 (talk) 17:55, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

... and the word "voyeur" can be traced back only to 1900, with "voyeurist" appearing in 1955, and "voyeuristic" in 1960. Dbfirs 08:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Many older dictionaries have some common words missing. My English teacher compiled a list of words that we found were missing from our Chambers(?) school dictionary. I remember that "cocktail" was one. Whether this was a simple mistake or a sort of reverse fictitious entry I don't know.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:59, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised that "cocktail" was missing from Chambers because it has been used as an adjective since 1600 and occurs in "Tom Brown's Schooldays" as a noun, and Dickens used it in the modern sense, but I suppose it was comparatively rare until fairly recently. Perhaps Chambers thought that school children didn't need the word? Dbfirs 12:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Blood clot

if blood clott happen inside body which mechanisms occure extrincic orintrincic — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayman elnabarawi (talk • contribs) 18:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should switch to a Linux compatible spell-checker, but that's bye-the -bye. See :Coagulation--Aspro (talk) 20:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Or even "by the bye" AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

In other words, we don't understand the terms in your question. But you might want to read the article on embolism.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Embolism doesn't have to happen by way of a blood clot (though that is a major mechanism). The OP should read the articles on thrombosis and Virchow's triad. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 11:53, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the OP means mechanism - extrinsic or intrinsic - to stop a blood clot. Extrinsic mechanism are things like warfarin, which are meant to prevent blood clots. I don't know if there are intrinsic bodily mechanism against blood clots. 88.8.67.30 (talk) 16:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia storage

When an edit is made to a Wikipedia page, is the difference alone recorded in the databanks, or is a complete copy of the entire article recorded with every change, whether it's an extensive re-write or just adding in a single space? Because I was thinking how this could make a tremendous difference in the overall volume of data needed to be stored. Just curious -- thanks. Vranak (talk) 23:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

A difference (strictly a backwards delta rather than a forwards one). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

A follow-up question: does anyone know offhand roughly what portion of Wikipedia, by storage space, is made up of text, and what portion is other media (photos, video, charts etc). Thanks. Vranak (talk) 16:00, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Database download. Rmhermen (talk) 19:07, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

@Finlay: Really? I thought every edit to a page caused the page to be recorded over again. See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 January 21#Size of Wikipedia. --Theurgist (talk) 04:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's really a question to direct towards MediaWiki, because that's the underlying software. I ran my own version for a while. It stores the basic text in an SQL database, but I'm not sure exactly how it goes about reconstructing the page, if it does that each time on the fly or if it stores the current version in wiki text and renders it each time, and does more complex lookups for diffs. As a practical matter, a huge proportion of Wikipedia's traffic is handled by its Squid servers which cache the full html of a rendered page, since it tends to be a small number of pages make up most views. Shadowjams (talk) 05:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It's complex. When an edit is made, the full page is recorded, but it's then compressed in a way that gives much of the effect of only storing the difference. --Carnildo (talk) 02:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)