Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 February 23

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February 23

How to display your status on your talk page.

Okay, so, I was looking at recent changes on Wikipedia and I saw this guy who had this status thing that showed his status. Like offline, online, active. I thought it was pretty cool so I checked the source to see if I could do it myself. But the problem is, the source was so complex that i didn't know what was what! Can you please link me to a page that can explain how to do this? Or even better, can you do it for me? Faboof (talk) 01:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

If you look at this edit you will see a template that you can add to your talk page then you will have to manually edit it yourself to show your status. This is probably not the only one of these out there so other editors may be able to direct you to different templates. MarnetteD|Talk 05:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

That one uses the template {{status}}. There are also {{statustop}}, {{UserStatus}}, and {{StatusTemplate}}. The template pages contain documentation on how these are used. By clicking on "What links here" when visiting these template pages, you can find user pages that use them and see how they look there.  --Lambiam 09:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Turn right to increase flow

Screws, nuts and valves are all turned right to tighten/close/decrease flow, but a potentiometer light switch is rotated left to turn off the light. How come? 93.142.87.124 (talk) 05:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Are you talking about devices like the volume control on a radio? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:35, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

For convenience, let us only consider screws in an upright position (head on top). Consider a screw having a standard right-handed screw thread, held in a matching hole. Turning it right will cause the bottom tip to move downward. This mechanical downward motion has been used both to control the flow of liquids and gases, and to close electrical circuits. In the former case, the descending screw impedes and finally blocks the flow. But in old-fashioned mechanical switches that use screws for connecting or disconnecting the conducting path in an electrical circuit, the screw tip is one contact point that makes contact with the other contact point by descending and touching it, so clockwise turning now closes the circuit and thus opens the flow of electricity. This 19th-century historical situation has carried over into a convention still maintained today, also when no actual screw threads are involved: turning right constricts the flow for liquids and gases, but increases the flow for electrical and electronic stuff. On my stove top I have both gas burners and an electric plate. To turn these on, I have to turn the knobs (which look identical) in opposite directions!  --Lambiam 09:36, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] I suggest (without recourse to references) that the first is because humans are predominently right-handed and hence can usually exert more manual force (such as that needed to tighten, etc., something) with a right or "clockwise" twist (whereas loosening, etc. something is typically less critical or usual), and the second is because the cultures that pioneered electrical equipment generally read from left to right and use clocks that run clockwise(!), so rotatory controls and indicator dials that cause or show an increase in the value of something are more intuitive when arranged to do so clockwise (or deosil, as I prefer). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.162.227 (talk) 09:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

As a child, I was bemused by the fact that my parents talked about putting the brake on in the car, when they were stopping: this was backward to me, as "turning something on" meant starting it. I think this is a similar case: there are only two ways it can go, and different areas of engineering have chosen their ways - and their metaphors - without consulting each other. Consider also that a phone keypad and a computer keypad are still opposite ways up. --ColinFine (talk) 11:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

As to "on", this just means that as a child you didn't think of the brake itself as being something that would be "started" (i.e. put into operation).

As to numeric keypads, computer keypads copied adding-machine keypads, where the lower digits (which are more frequently used) are at the bottom where they are more easily reached. Phone keypads, on the other hand, were introduced in the US where letters were still (and indeed are still) associated with each digit, and having the alphabet out of sequence would've looked weird. (And besides, how many people used adding machines anyway? Obviously not enough to consider.) --69.159.8.46 (talk) 06:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

What's your source for the claim that the lower digits are used more often? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

It would depend on how many digits are being used, but see Benford's_law#Generalization_to_digits_beyond_the_first. Given the breakdown there, the "lower numbers are used more frequently" thing is technically true, but not really signficiant if you're handling large numbers. For day-to-day accounts, though, it may be enough to be useful. Matt Deres (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• Valves used to turn in either direction. During the construction of the Severn Tunnel (poor article, sorry), a long underwater railway tunnel, in 1879 the workings flooded. This was a major flood - held up construction for years. Part of the recovery from this was to go down underwater, close a door to the worst part of the flooded shafts and also close a large valve there. It was such a difficult piece of diving in awful conditions (by Diver Lambert, the most celebrated diver of the day) that it led to the first use of a (hoseless) rebreather set, rather than the standard diving dress of the time. Finally Lambert managed to turn the valve. The water was still flooding in, and it was a major effort (A new diverter drainage tunnel dug beneath, and a new pumping engine house on the surface) to get it under control. After which they found that the valve went the other way. Lambert had opened it, not closed it. So after that, valve direction became standardised.

When a globe valve (the usual sort in domestic plumbing) is made with a right-handed thread and then turned in the conventional direction, this gives the expected operation. But gate valves used to go the opposite way (now changed). Andy Dingley (talk) 13:51, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the replies. Interesting, I never thought of powering on as "closing" the circuit, tho that seems obvious now, or found it meaningful that gas stoves turn on by turning the opposite way from electric ones (even tho I've turned that knob the wrong way more than once heh). 93.136.117.148 (talk) 23:33, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

By the way, I'd like to point out that it's not true that "valves are all turned right to tighten/close/decrease flow". When a single sink has separate taps for hot and cold water, sometimes they are made to operate in opposite ways, so that the two hands are used symmetrically. I think this is especially likely to be done when the taps have single-lever handles. I'll also mention that the stove/range in my house is electric (it's a GE model about 20 years old) and the rotary controls for the stovetop elements are turned right to decrease power (or to go directly from "off" to "max", since they turn in a complete circle). The oven-temperature control goes the other way, though. My point is that these things are not as universal as some people think. --69.159.8.46 (talk) 03:35, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

world war ii aviation; colin heaton

I don't want to attach any urgency to this query, but I am 76, and, I guess am one of the few actual contributors to Wikipedia, according to a note from one of your staffers recently.

I've collected books since I was 12 (primarily signed world war ii aviation, american, german, and British). I got them off the 25-cent tables at bookstores (often in fine condition), then found the pilots hometown, and, presumed he returned there after the war, then went to the public library, where, in those days they had listed phone books from every area code in the usa (ie., the 213 area was an inch thick in 1957. And got addresses and sent penny postcards to the pilots, asking if they'd sign my book -- and btw, I was a newspaper boy and did they know how to contact their wingmen or others they flew with in the war? The results were amazing.

My dad was my hero and was chief final inspector in the fighter division over all three shifts. Which meant he stamped off every P-51 that was ever made from first to last.

All that being said, I can NOT find any biographical Information on Colin Heaton, who was apparently held in VERY high regard by European Theater pilots. They threw a big birthday party for him somewhere on the continent or in England and all the attendees signed a copy of Townsend's book "Fly for your Life."

Many of the signatures I am familiar with. Others I am not, but hopefully will be able to match the signatories as I was discriminate even at my young age and only had pilots sign the book if they flew with the author or on the mission, ie., one entitled "Mission Into Darkness" had the pilots flying well beyond their fuel limit. They took off from a dark carrier deck and returned in the dark, landing with no deck lights. I tracked down four of the men who survived the mission. They were on fumes, but none went into the sea. Afterward no fuel touched a dipstick into the wing tanks. Pretty good for a kid, huh?

I grew up to be an L.A. Times reporter, the peak of my career, and was there 10 years, but would not back off on a story about the revered institution, YMCA, was being threatened with its charitable tax deduction status in federal court at that time in Washington, D.C., and had the national president admitting it, malfeasance of funds, along with much more, including the fact that they were diverting earmarked money from their "Kids to Camp fund" in 1980 to stay afloat financially (not their mission statement). Revealing that would likely have meant the end of the YMCA. I wouldn't back away from the truth and basically forced them to fire me in order to get benefits that are given to those fired without cause.

Anyway, I've gotten way off the track, when all I really want to know is, who the heck is Colin Heaton and why did pilots from all countries hold him in such high esteem?

thanks for anything you might know, ```````jeffrey hansen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:8D40:A120:99A4:6818:2D95:E3D6 (talk) 21:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Not certain, but it sounds like it could be this Colin D. Heaton. -- See also. —2606:A000:1126:28D:781F:79E3:E0E2:3A5F (talk) 08:34, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Seems unlikely, "Former soldier and Marine scout-sniper" (your second link), and anyone holding a command position in the Second World War is likely to be a centenarian by now.

By the way, there are about 5,000 English Wikipedia editors who make more than 100 edits per month - see Wikipedia:Wikipedians. Alansplodge (talk) 11:06, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• "Mission into Darkness" is probably VB-2 at the Battle of the Philippine Sea by Foster Looney[1]
• Fly for Your Life is by Larry Forrester, not one of Townsend's

Not sure who exactly we are looking for, an RAF officer? fiveby (talk) 13:03, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The author 2606: mentions was a friend of Johannes Steinhoff, and there was an 80th birthday celebration[2] in 1993 which Heaton probably attended along with many of Steinhoff's "old Luftwaffe comrades". Confused as to what book everyone was signing. fiveby (talk) 16:42, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Presumably this book a biography of RAF Battle of Britain ace Robert Stanford Tuck.

If it IS Colin D. Heaton the author, he has written a lot of military history books. Alansplodge (talk) 18:03, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if the number of military historians asking for signatures outnumbered the pilots at the party? All wild speculation tho until the OP clarifies. fiveby (talk) 18:33, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't get why it seems unlikely. It seems actually pretty likely to me that this is the chap the OP is looking for. He can be contacted by e-mail at cdheatonii(at)aol.com.  --Lambiam 20:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Mea culpa. I had the impression that the OP thought he was a wartime pilot or commander, but a re-read shows this is not the case. Alansplodge (talk) 20:59, 24 February 2020 (UTC)