Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 November 19

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November 19

Graduates

How many degree graduates get a job which doesn't require a degree? Are there any statistics on this? 82.40.46.182 (talk) 00:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It might help someone with expertise in this topic if you specified a country you're interested in. --Dweller (talk) 00:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The OP's IP address geolocates to Liverpool in the UK. But I don't know if that helps. There are too many reasons why a graduate may end up in a job that doesn't require a degree. In some cases it's because a degree may help someone do a better job, but isn't compulsory. I had friends at uni studding agricultural science. Their aim was to go back to dad's farm, and run it well. But anyone can be a farmer. Another fellow student majored in Maths and IT, and became a rock star. Another played cricket professionally for a while, then applied his degree to a job ten years later. These are very hard to track statistically. HiLo48 (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The OP might also want to consider the fact that some people work in fields unrelated to their degrees. There are many people who have a degree in some liberal art like dance, graphic arts, or music but they couldn't find a job in those fields and took a job in an office somewhere and now do accounting. Of the four people in my own family with degrees, only one of us is in a field that uses that degree. Dismas|^(talk) 02:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

A point to consider is whether "require" means that a job actually needs someone with that qualification, or merely that the employers specify it as a condition of employment.

When I read for a degree (and dropped out) about 1 in 10 school leavers in the UK went on to university, now it's around 1 in 2. It seem to me unlikely that the actual number of jobs unperformable without a degree has increased to this extent, but specifying a degree as a prerequisite enables employers to cut down the potential number of applicants for a job, making their selection process somewhat easier.

Incidentally, 20-odd years ago I managed to obtain and successfully perform for a time a job (Science & Technology Desk Editor for a prestigious book publisher) which if advertised now would certainly cite a degree as a necessary requirement (which is why, following redundancy, I am no longer employed in that industry, but in an accountancy related function, per Dismas above). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

According to this BBC article, it's 47%. I'll see if I can find a link to the official ONS data. Tevildo (talk) 19:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

There we go. Plenty of bar charts, pie charts, stacked cumulative distributions, etc etc. Tevildo (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Longest time between Murder & Arrest

Today in Australia a man was arrested for the kidnapping, and suspected murder, of a girl over 30 years ago. [1] This caused me to wonder, what is the longest known time between a murder and the arrest of a person eventually convicted of the crime? 220 of ^Borg 06:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I was going to suggest Whitey Bulger but it looks like, if I skimmed the article well enough, he only went 29 years between murder and arrest. (Not that 29 years is a short time but I'm using "only" in comparison to OP's claim of 30 years.) Dismas|^(talk) 07:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know whether you count them, but Nazi perpetrators such as Erich Priebke and Karl Hass weren't convicted until over 50 years after their crime. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing#Later_prosecutions notes that 2 suspects in the 1963 quadruple homicide weren't arrested until 2000. That's 37 years. StuRat (talk) 07:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for answers, so far. @Dismas, I edited 'Whiteys' page when he was caught! @Sluzzelin, yes I thought the Nazis might feature prominently, though I was thinking more of 'individual' murderers, rather than mass genocide. @Stu Rat, that's one that may be near the top.

• One reason for the delay is likely that there was a person convicted on circumstantial evidence, that was later overturned. The person arrested has been suspected for 20 years, so perhaps not such a surprise.

• I imagine that most jurisdictions have no statute of limitations on murder, so the answer could be up to 60 years plus? 220 of ^Borg 09:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Richard Keiper arrested 45 years (44 years 363 days, to be exact) after the murder of Alfred Barnes: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/18/justice/texas-cold-case-arrest/ .

The article Death of Maria Ridulph states It is believed that the case involved the oldest unsolved murder resulting in an arrest in the United States. Killed in 1957, suspect arrested in 2011, 54 years later. Not sure if they got the right person, he suposedly told cellmates about the murder, but the stories didn't match the facts; the last words of his mother on her death bed, reported by his sisters, but there was some kind of family feud.. A witness picking him out of a photo line-up, 55 years after the facts?? Lot of detail here: http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2013/08/us/oldest-cold-case/ Ssscienccce (talk) 12:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

54 years thank you, Ssscienccce. 220 of ^Borg 23:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this would be a good topic for a list article since the media seems to not know either. Perhaps something like List of murder convictions from the longest unsolved murders to account for the conviction part. I found August 21, 1992 47 years passed between when Michael Leslie Hodgson was arrested for the killing of Theresa DeCourcy "is believed to be the longest span in North America between a murder and an arrest." Not sure if he was convicted. -- Jreferee (talk) 14:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

47 years! Thanks Jreferee. Do you have a source you can link to for that 47 year murder? Note also that we do have a List of unsolved deaths. - 220 of ^Borg 23:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Information on the Theresa DeCourcy killing can be found in the archives of the Sault Star (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario). Although authorities received a confession from Hodgson 47 years later, it was ruled inadmissible so he was not actually convicted. The only items that can be found on the site (without going to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) is this one and this one, which recount the case with reference to other stories. Also, the alleged killer was "Leslie Hodgson." "Michael Leslie Hodgson" appears to be another resident of the region with legal entanglements. The original story from 1945 can be found online in this Ottawa newspaper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.174.182.87 (talk) 17:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Earlier this year, a man was convicted of murder 33 years later. It was always known that he'd committed the murder, but the case required his then-wife to give evidence against him, and that required a law change.[2]-gadfium 20:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

33 years, Thank you Gadfium. 220 of ^Borg 23:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Nazi war criminals would be another place to look. μηδείς (talk) 22:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • The OP already said they weren't interested in them. Dismas|^(talk) 22:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • OP here. Yes, WWII Nazis were mentioned above. Actually, I'm pretty sure they committed murders before the war even began. Ernst Rohm comes to mind. One point here is that they could be in their late 80s or early 90s. Though they may be arrested, a conviction would seem unlikely at that age, no matter how well deserved. And after such a span of time, witnesses would seem to be few and memory less reliable. 220 of ^Borg 23:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

National September 11 Memorial - Is there an emergency exit?

National September 11 Memorial - Any possibility to survive a fall?

Just a hypothetical question: Lets say a child falls in one of the memorial's pools. Is there any emergency exit? Are the pools deep enough to survive a fall? And if so - how to escape from the pool? For me it looks like there is even no hanger or something one could hold to not falling even deeper into the hole in the middle of the pool. And by the way: Does anyone know how it looks there in the hole? Is there a possibility to hang on something? Or is it just a large soil pipe? --Zulu55en (talk) 09:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This page says that the pools are 30 feet deep. It also has a photo looking down into one of the holes. It looks like there's a solid bottom down there, although the photo was taken during construction so maybe it doesn't look the same now. --Viennese Waltz 10:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

No. It says that the waterfalls (around the sides of the pool) drop 30 feet.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Same thing. I'm talking about the pool, not the hole in the middle of it. --Viennese Waltz 10:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I think Shantavira's point is probably that the source doesn't say that there is 30 feet of water in the pool which seemed to be implied by your 30 feet deep comment. Definitely it was how I read it before these replies, and don't think anyone is talking about the hole. As I understand the source, the top of the water level in the pool is (roughly) 30 feet below the top of the pool where the waterfalls start. The depth of water in the pool remains unknown but it was from what an tell, one of the OPs questions.

Although I wonder if the source is actually mistaken and it's 30 feet from the top of the pool (where the water fall starts) to the real bottom, with the drop of the water something in between; from the pictures we can guess at the upper end. Note that if this is what you meant by '30 feet deep', it's still not what the source actually says, regardless of whether it's right. I saw another source which did suggest 30 feet from top to bottom. If this is the case, if we could find the real drop of the water, we could work out the depth of the water in the pools. (Conversely if 30 feet is the real drop of the water, we need to find out how high the pool is from top where the water starts to the real bottom.)

Nil Einne (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Judging by the picture of the empty pool here and assuming that's a man of average height standing there, I'd say the depth is at least 5 feet... Ssscienccce (talk) 12:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I found Memorial Manager Fired For Raising Concerns About Safety but his concerns didn't seem to extend to people falling in, except that there might be toxic algae in there. Alansplodge (talk) 14:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Generic drug pricing

I regularly buy some tablets over the counter at my local pharmacy (to treat the symptoms of a cronic complaint). Over the past couple of years the price of the same bottle has varied between about £3.25 and about £6.50. It hasn't just crept up in price - sometimes the price is low, sometimes it is high. When I asked the pharmacist about the wildly changing price - the latest change being well over 50% dearer than the last time - he said that's the trouble with generics, their prices can vary by a lot. Is there any truth in this and if so, why would the price vary so much? Astronaut (talk) 19:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is entirely typical. You don't know whether it's being made in Scotland, the Czech Republic or New Jersey. The price of drugs like these is largely shipping and shelving mark up. I complained to my pharmacist he only carried small boxes of benadryl at 25c/pill. That was usually $60/mo. He looked in the stock and offered me 1000 pills, loose in a two-liter bottle at $16.00. I would keep them in the fridge and they lasted me close to a year, and he probably still made %100 on each bottle. μηδείς (talk) 22:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

As far as why the price would vary so much, this is a feature of a free market, where there are a small number of competitors. For example, if a new competitor enters the field and offers a lower priced version, this may start a price war. If a competitor drops out, on the other hand, then the price may go up. Shortages also drive prices up, while a glut will drive them down. When the med was still under patent, only one company could sell it, and could set the price at "whatever the market will bear". StuRat (talk) 10:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)