Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 January 15

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January 15

Supercentenarian issues

Can I remove Tou Tajiri and Asa Sakamoto from the list of living supercentenarians since they were not confirmed alive in 2014 Respect for the Aged Day reports or should I wait longer just in case they do be confirmed alive? Deaths in 2013 (talk) 04:39, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

They're still alive as of January 12 here, in the cited source beside their name. So no. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Or wait. Sakamoto's on the shadier list. Probably a question for that Talk Page. But Tajiri seems fine. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:47, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

PATALIPUTHRA

THE ANCIENT CITY IS NAMED LIKE THIS BECAUSE

PATALI IN TAMIL MEANS WORKING CLASS LIKE PEASANTS/ARTISANS

WE KNOW CHANDRAGUPTA/NANDA OR OTHERS ASSCIATED WITH THIS CITY ARE NOT FROM ROYAL LINEAGES BUT FROM PATALI CLASS.

PUTHRA IS SON — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.3.15.7 (talk) 06:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

WHAT'S YOUR QUESTION? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

See Pataliputra#Etymology. -- ToE 16:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

As with certain other countries, language and politics are intertwined, and often false etymologies are offered either as proof of nationalist ownership or in order to expel foreign influences. I am not sure what exactly is going on here, since puthra is not Tamil in origin, and -pura meaning "settlement, city" (e.g., Singapore) seems a more likely candidate for the name given ToE's reference. But see articles like Pure Tamil, Goropius, Sun Language Theory, Turkish language reform and Out of India theory for the sorts of dynamics that can be at work. μηδείς (talk) 18:33, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking for an online bookmarking service

Some years ago I made use of a wonderful tool called del.icio.us. It was, at the time, an online bookmarking service and was one of the great tools purchased by Yahoo! (when Yahoo still had some direction). Unfortunately Yahoo! decided to drop this service later and sold it to a couple of guys who, I assume, were trying to make a quick buck by turning del.icio.us into something totally different than an online bookmarking service. After a lot of frustration I dropped my delicious bookmarks which I had painstakingly collected. I looked for a replacement service, but gave up when I thought other online bookmarking services would most likely meet with the same fate.

I am still in the same boat today. I would love to have access to an online bookmarking service that allows me access to my bookmarks wherever I happen to be. Is there anything available today that provides that service and has been around long enough to establish survivability?

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 15:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Some browsers provide this service, assuming that you use their browser on all your devices (but it might also be available via a webpage when you're using another browser). Firefox Sync is one such service. See also Comparison of browser synchronizers for a list of other providers. BTW, you might have been better asking this question over at the Computing Reference Desk — LongHairedFop (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@LongHairedFop: It looks like I forgot to mention in my long-winded question above that I am looking for a general online bookmarking solution, not one tied to a particular system. For example if I am at a library using the library's PCs and find a link I would like to bookmark and have access to when I am somewhere else. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:15, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm a fan of Pocket which works for this purpose, assuming you want cross browser and cross app. Failing that as the guy above me mentioned Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox as well as Opera Browser all do this. 81.138.15.171 (talk) 15:38, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, 81.138.15.171. I will check out Pocket's article on Wikipedia. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Pinterest. Great for bookmarking and you can make it a 'secret' board if you don't want to share. Available anywhere you are logged in:

Can we eat deep sea fish?

Are strange deep sea fish such as the Humpback anglerfish or the Gulper eel edible for humans? Have these fish ever been eaten or fished for? --Verningitay (talk) 18:47, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, at least many of them would be edible. Humans can eat most fishes, so I wouldn't expect there to be any big nutritional difference between a deep sea eel and a shallow-living relative. But we tend to not eat them or fish for them, for a few reasons 1) the population density of deep sea communities tends to be very low. Compared to shallower relatives, these species grow very slowly, and live a long time. Fishing for them would be very expensive, and it would not return much food. There would also be the issue of environmental damage, e.g. deep coral reefs can take thousands of years to form, and they can be destroyed by one dredging. For additional info see deep sea, fisheries management, and population dynamics of fisheries these last two links don't specifically say that deep sea fishing is economically and environmentally nonviable, but that falls out of the analysis if you parameterize the models to include the high cost to get there and the low fecundity of deep sea species, which leads to a very low maximum sustainable yield. One thing that people are interested in harvesting from the deep sea is rare earth minerals and other exotic metals in polymetallic nodules, see deep sea mining, and the website of Nautilus Minerals [1], who explicitly "cares" [2] about marine biology, and even sponsors deep sea research that you (sometimes) can watch on live stream! [3]. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:37, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused by your mentions of deep sea coral reefs and dredging. Do you mean the use of dragnets to catch deep sea fish ? StuRat (talk) 19:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@StuRat: Yes, I meant something that would scrape the bottom, though I admit I get easily confused by the terminology for different modern commercial fishing methods. I had to guess, because to my knowledge nobody actually dishes the deep sea for commercial purposes. And when scientists first started sampling the deep (before Submersible#ROVs were available) they used deep drag nets. A related anecdote: I used to work with a deep sea biology research lab. They reported that they did occasionally eat extra crabs sampled from the deep (not sure which spp.), and that they were delicious and similar tasting to shallow crabs. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• The question is vague in part since it doesn't differentiate between fish that don't frequent the surface, fish that live beneath the penetration of sunlight, and fish that live on the sea floor. See Bathyal zone, Pelagic zone, and Benthic zone. There's nothing inherent to any fish of the deeper sea that necessarily makes them probematic, but each species would have to be judged on its own for toxicity or other issues. Fish that live on the bottom will be white fish, fish that are pelagic will be oily fish. μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, some species found deep go up and down with various cycles, but the example species are deep-exclusive. The main point is that there isn't some huge cache of fish waiting to be exploited down there, and the deep-only species have very low densities that would preclude commercial fishing. Some species such as the Bathymodiolus mussels can be locally dense, but that is a special circumstance of creatures packed tightly around the "oases" of hydrothermal vents, surrounded by vast stretches of empty (of macrofauna at least) abyssal plain. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

We can do a lot of things. Should we? Seems so. Personally, I'll stick to the magical pork/ham/bacon chimera and the occasional beef beast. If only eating the few Earthlings you can catch is good for Carnivora, it's good for us. Humans tend to conveniently overlook their laziness when playing the "But animals do it!" card. Can you eat a deep sea fish, without cheating? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:22, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

In the 1970s, where the former European route E5 begins and where it ends?

I saw a road map of Turkey for 1974, and it states that "the European route E5 in Turkey began at the Bulgaria-Turkey border and ends in Hatay Province. And before the Bulgaria-Turkey border, where the former European route E5 began?

European route E05 runs from Greenock (in Scotland) to Algeciras (in Spain), and doesn't go anywhere near Turkey; the International E-road network was only formally adopted in Europe from 15 November 1975. Your map is almost certainly inaccurate. European route E80 goes through Turkey - might that be the road in question? Tevildo (talk) 20:48, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I've done some scanning of Turkey in Google Maps, and I can't find a single route number that connects Bulgaria to Hatay, either in the Turkish D.XXX road system or the European EXXX road system. E80 enters Turkey at the Bulgarian border, but heads west towards Iran, not south towards Syria. European route E90 comes close to (but does not enter) Hatay Province, but enters Turkey from Greece, and not Bulgaria. --Jayron32 01:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

It was called E5 in the 1970s. It encompassed today's E 52 – 55 – 651 – 57 – 59 – 70 – 75 and/or 80 (according to German WP's article on Gastarbeiterroute — Gastarbeiter = "guest worker", see article). ---Sluzzelin talk 02:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

A tiny but well-referenced micro-stub now started by some guy who is bluffs his way around in German recognizing cognates and guesses lotsa stuff from context. Sorely needs attention by people who can actually speak German.--Shirt58 (talk) 09:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Norman Fruman's area of expertise

In 1957, on the TV show "The $64,000 question," an American named Norman Fruman was a contestant. What was Fruman's area of expertise on the show?2001:558:600A:24:7C79:2942:6187:8553 (talk) 21:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure about his expertise on the show, but at the time, he was writing comic-book adventure stories and science fiction. In later life he went on to become a literary scholar, attracting some attention for his suggestions that Samuel Taylor Coleridge plagiarised other works. [4][5] AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:58, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

This 1957 newspaper article says that he was participating in the "general knowledge" category. Deor (talk) 23:22, 16 January 2015 (UTC)