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I've been working on this for a while now, but the documentation I've been reading is making it more difficult to understand, not easier. I have a table that I made. It has resources and the number of days that the resource has been checked out. A single resource will have multiple entries, one for every time it is checked out. So, resource ID 4 might have eight entries with 2, 4, 22, 5, 2, 9, 44, and 5 days checked out. In reality, most resources have dozens of entries. What I want is the 10th percentile, 50th percentile (median), and 90th percentile of days checked out per resource. I know I want to group by resource_id. I know I want to sort each resource by checkout_days. From there, it gets very complicated very fast with intervals and partitions with nothing defining what an interval or a partition is and what they do. Is there a plain English guide to doing this task? 68.187.174.155 (talk) 10:23, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well you have to count the number of resources, then look up your sorted list for 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9 times the number of entries and pluck off the days total. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:03, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry. I was not clear. I have 2,901,553 resources. Following that method, I would have to do it for resource 1, then resource 2, then resource 3... nearly three millions times. I am looking for a method where I can group by resource ID and get the percentiles for the resource. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 12:10, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please let me know if this does what I need:
select resourceid, percentile_cont(0.1) within group (order by checkoutdays) partition by (resourceid) from tempresourcedays group by resourceid;
I agree that should work and is probably the best bet, but if the OP requires that the value returned needs to exist in the data, they can use PERCENTILE_DISC instead of PERCENTILE_CONT, keeping everything else the same. Matt Deres (talk) 15:16, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a Dell desktop computer running Windows 11 and am trying to use Microsoft Outlook as my email client, as I have been doing for years. Some months ago, Microsoft provided New Outlook, which is a different user interface than Classic Outlook. I am satisfied with Classic Outlook and less satisfied with New Outlook, and so want to continue using Classic Outlook. I am using AOL, which uses Yahoo. I don't want to change email providers because I don't want to change email addresses. Until a few months ago, I was able to ignore New Outlook. Now, when I try to launch Classic Outlook and connect to the AOL (Yahoo) mail server, it tries to start up New Outlook, which in turn says that it needs to sync my mail files to the Microsoft Cloud. I have not been told why it is necessary to migrate my email to the Microsoft Cloud. So I have to ignore the attempt to start Classic Outlook, which attempts to resync or migrate my email, and I launch Classic Outlook again. Can someone explain, first, why is Microsoft being so persistent about trying to use New Outlook and to move my email to the Microsoft Cloud? Can someone explain, second, how do I get it to stop trying to convert my email to New Outlook and Microsoft Cloud?
That might be a good idea, User:Aaron Liu. But since Classic Outlook and New Outlook are, or at least were, different user interfaces to the same program, can I uninstall New Outlook without damaging Classic Outlook? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:32, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Aaron Liu - If I search on Add or Remove Programs, I get Apps > Installed Apps in Windows Settings (which is what I would have expected). I see one entry for Outlook. Does that cover one program with two user interfaces? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
btw the verb is "advise"; "advice" is the noun, which you used correctly after the comma but not before You don't need to switch to Linux to use a different email client without Microsoft nags. though i do use arch btw Aaron Liu (talk) 17:58, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for word's hallucinations. However, I think I meant if you completely wants to get out of corporate propaganda and drama then linux is an option. It may seems unreasonable to move to linux just for an email client that doesn't overhead, but once you stick with it, you will know the complete difference. Sys64 message this user05:19, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like conspiracy theories, but is Microsoft trying to migrate my email to the Microsoft Cloud because they want to analyze it for marketing? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good to see someone growing up on internet. This is not something they will, most of the corporations are doing this ever since they existed. Ever heard of NSA? Sys64 message this user05:20, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Sys64wiki - I am not growing up on the Internet. I was going into middle age when the Internet was developed. I grew up programming computers that occupied whole rooms and less memory than modern smart phones. I know who is at Fort Meade, but I never worked there. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:00, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The halting problem is defined as using a Turing machine, which is a formal abstract model of any computer program, to determine whether another Turing machine will halt, meaning whether a computer program will exit because it has completed its calculations. That is, can a computer program be written that will verify that another computer program will exit, as opposed to going into a loop? The answer is no. Turing showed that the halting problem is an undecidable problem. You can't write a program that will reliably determine whether another program will run to completion or enter a loop. This was one of the first cases of a proof that a problem is undecidable. The proof of undecidability is sort of a self-referential trick, but is logically sound in showing a limitation of logic. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:41, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bit tangential: Ever since I've first learned about this, I've wondered whether what I call the "restricted halting problem" can be solved: Can there exist a program (via a Turing machine) that can determine whether another program (via a Turing machine) will halt unless said program is the exceptional case featured in the proof by contradication? Aaron Liu (talk) 17:52, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You may be interested in Busy beaver, that looks for the longest running machine that stops. Some simple cases can be determined simply. If you had a limit on the size of the program, perhaps the halting problem could be solved in theory (but not in practice). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:59, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. The proof by contradiction symbolically proceeds as follows. It gives an effective method to transform programs into other programs. Input program X, output program F(X). Now assume a program P exists that solves the halting problem: input program Y, output P(Y) = 0 if Y doesn't halt, and P(Y) = 1 if it halts. Still assuming such a P exists, we can run P on the program F(P). By the way F has been constructed, however, we know that F(P) halts if and only if P(F(P)) = 0, which, by the assumption, means that F(P) doesn't halt. This is a contradiction, so we conclude that the assumption was false.
The "exceptional case" you seek to exclude is the program F(P). To construct F(P) we need to have P first. But we have just shown that P is impossible; no such P exists, so the exceptional case does not exist either. ‑‑Lambiam04:23, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At some time, which I think was in the 1990s, someone advertised a BASIC program that was known as the BASIC Infinite Loop Finder (BILF), which would scan BASIC programs and determine whether they had infinite loops. A columnist bought the BILF, and switched the two outputs, just as Turing had described, and fed the revised BILF into the original BILF. He then reported that more than 48 hours later, it was still running. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:20, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In 2008, I was reviewing a set of requirements, and one of them said, essentially, "The program shall not 'freeze' on encountering an error condition." I said that this was an untestable requirement, because it could not be verified by inspection, by demonstration, or by analysis. It was a reasonable criterion, that if the program 'froze' on encountering an error condition, the tester could fail the test. However, it was not a testable requirement and so could not be in a checklist of requirements to check off in acceptance testing. It could not be verified by demonstration, because it was not feasible to subject the program to all possible sets of inputs. It could not be verified by analysis, because that was equivalent to the halting problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:20, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The unsolvability of the halting problem applies to a decision procedure that works on all programs. For any given specific program, it may very well be possible to give a rigorous proof that it cannot get into an infinite loop, so having this as a requirement is about as reasonable as requiring that its output is never blatantly wrong (which is, in general, also undecidable). ‑‑Lambiam06:30, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone any thoughts on genuinely "copyright free" image libraries? Googling used to produce them in the good old days but searching now produces a whole first page of subscription services, which of course is literally the opposite of what I'm looking for.
The Internet Archive is not censored, therefore it is understandable that certain search terms may return content considered inappropriate for various reasons. If I search for "Oswald Nock" (without the quotes), however, I felt fairly sure to remain within the bounds of common decorum. What I actually get listed is:
64 texts, all authored, co-authored or edited by O. S. Nock, which is what I expected
1 item of 'software' unrelated to that author, but containing in its metadata both the words 'oswald' and 'nock'; unexpected but understandable
5 movies of an obviously NSFW nature (and duly flagged as such) whose metadata contain neither 'oswald' nor 'nock'
This outcome is repeatable, and occurs whether or not I am logged in to the archive.
I don't know, but I can confirm it's repeatable. The five films are all French, but AFAICT, there's nothing in the French (or the translation to English) that comes out to Oswald or Nock. I'm flummoxed. As a sidebar, I'll also note that IA's definition of "soft porn" is different than most, so their data labels are open to question. Matt Deres (talk) 20:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, one film opens with a woman sucking a dick. Just... you know, going at it like a trooper. Which is all well and good, but I think most people's definition of soft porn probably wouldn't include that. They then switched to fucking in a slightly more discreet manner, but since the scene failed to include a mid-century railway engineer, I moved on. :-) Matt Deres (talk) 01:55, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, no kink-shaming here. I'm sure that striped hat does it for lots of folks. (Or is that a conductor? I get confused.) --Trovatore (talk) 02:45, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ossie Nock was English; striped hats were not a feature of UK railway culture (and 'conductor' was not a usual term for the train personnel we call 'guards'). Just sayin'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 04:46, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine that Earth has no clouds and has no topographic relief, so all locations see a clear sky at all hours <edit>and all locations at a given latitude experience the same duration of daytime daily</edit>. Would the poles have the largest amount of time in which any part of the Sun is above the horizon? I'm guessing so, since sunset/sunrise is so extremely slow, and we're counting any moment in which any part of the solar disc is above the horizon. But on the other hand, I wonder if the solar pattern related to the analemma has something to do with this, and because it's nowhere near symmetrical north-south, perhaps it's not as simple as I was guessing. Nyttend (talk) 07:40, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's probably not as simple your current understanding. You might look at Equation of time which presents another simpler view of it, and detailed reasons for why it happens. I investigated the topic when I noticed, when commuting at the same time each day, that the earliest sunset does not happen on, or even close to, the shortest day.
It probably doesn't affect the solution to your problem. Although start and end times vary irregularly day lengths vary the way as you assume. For most of the world the total time the sun is in the sky is virtually the same, but at the poles for days if not weeks the sun will orbit around the pole with part of it above the horizon. If this is counted as day then each pole will have days of 24 hour sun for more than half the year. --2A04:4A43:900F:FA65:B09A:7819:80C0:37A6 (talk) 17:45, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On the poles, sunset and sunrise are very slow, but only happen once per year. Still, I think you're right.
On the equator, the elevation of the Sun varies from -90 to +90 degrees; at the poles it only varies from -23.6 to +23.6 degrees. With a smaller variation in elevation, centred on the horizon, I expect it will spend a larger fraction of the time less than a quarter degree from the horizon, giving more daylight hours. But what the distribution of solar elevations looks like exactly isn't so easy, so no mathematical proof here. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:48, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Earth's orbit is not circular, so the angular speed is not constant and the apparent size of the Sun varies through the year, being the least at aphelion around July 4 (today!) and the largest at perihelion around January 3. Earth's considerable axial tilt is normally not aligned with the plane perpendicular to the ecliptic plane that contains the line Earth – Sun; alignment takes place at the solstices, around June 21 and December 21. This is not in phase with the Earth passing through the major axis of its orbit; it is off by about 13°. These three or four facts conspire to make the problem analytically intractable. A precise answer for how much time of sunshine is received per area for different latitudes requires an elaborate numerical computation (possibly one using an existing computational model). ‑‑Lambiam09:35, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No they don't, because I don't exactly understand them :-\ If I understand them rightly, they provide information for the number of sunlight hours at each latitude on each date, but I'm not sure about that. If I understand them rightly, what I'd like is basically a chart of sums — for each latitude, what is the total above-the-horizon time for the whole year? I don't quite understand why the images show the poles suddenly going from 24-hour daylight to 24-hour night on the same date, since sunset at one pole should happen several days after sunset at the other pole — the date when the first part of the Sun emerges above the horizon at one pole should be close to the date when the first part of the Sun goes below the horizon at the other pole, but there should be days when it's partly above the horizon and partly below the horizon at both poles, right? Nyttend (talk) 21:01, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have an article on ocean color, which cites this introduction to oceanography, which uses a graphic from NOAA, saying "this explains why everything looks blue underwater". This is the graphic from NOAA The effect is green at shallow depth in coastal waters due to chlorophyll in algae. Otherwise, the azure blue agrees with what color of water says about pure water. Our ocean color article observes that a diver using a nearby light for illumination underwater will undo the effect, since the light will travel through less water and will be filtered less. Card Zero (talk)16:04, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The stoplight loosejaw. Inside the gland cells, blue-green light is produced [...] which is then absorbed by a protein that fluoresces in a broad red band [...] it passes through a brown filter, yielding [...] 708 nm (almost infrared). Card Zero (talk)18:45, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any pan-European system of hardiness zones? Some countries, such as Finland, have their own zones, which in Finland are denoted by Roman numerals from I (warmest) to VIII (coldest). But this Finnish system cannot be extended to any place which has warmer winters than the place in Finland with warmest winters. The USDA system is based on degrees Fahrenheit, so the border values between zones are not round, and the freezing point is not a boundary of any zone, when expressed in Celsius. Do countries such as UK, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, China, Japan and Korea have their own systems? --40bus (talk) 06:49, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Within the Netherlands, going from one kilometre inland to a hundred kilometres inland, the coldest night in winter gets about 10°C colder, but that doesn't appear very relevant for what plants grow where. The number of days with afternoon temperature exceeding 10°C appears more relevant, or rainfall, but soil types are most important of all. Of course, we can calculate the number in the American hardiness zone system. Using my own data, collected in the east of the Netherlands (100 km from the sea), the lowest temperature of the year is , so that used to be zone 8, but now it's zone 9. Yes, it increased two standard deviations or one full hardiness zone over the past 30 years; that's climate change. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:43, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have thought of devising my own system, where zones are marked by letters A (warmest) to N (coldest) optionally with number 1 (upper half) and 2 (lower half) and each zone spans 6 °C and each half 3 °C (corresponding to 10 °F and 5 °F increments) and runs from 24 °C to -60 °C. Also, summer temperatures could also be taken account, what USDA zones don't do. --40bus (talk) 14:02, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, the grandfather paradox and the killing of baby Hitler omit the issue of what would happen to the present time and everyone living in it when time traveller goes to the past and alters it. For the sake of argument, dropping the impossibility of time travel, seemingly, one of two options would be true: either the present instantly dissappears with everyone in it, or nothing would happen after any alteration of the past because the present already happened once (and continues to exist after time traveller's mess in the past). ChatGPT admitted it's a shortcoming, but what do other sources say about present time? Brandmeistertalk08:44, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One of the wilder hypotheses around is that changing the past would result in parallel universes, thus allowing both of your "two options" to be true. This kind of wacky theory illustrates what an old math professor of mine once said: "When you start with incorrect assumptions, you're liable to get interesting results." The incorrect assumption here being that backwards time travel is possible. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 10:59, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that there is no one plausibly likely answer is what leads to there being so many Science Fiction stories that entertainingly posit different ones. Some suggest that on returning to their 'home present', the time traveller would find it altered subtly or radically (see for example the story 'A Sound of Thunder' by Ray Bradbury), others that two opposing factions instigate "Time wars" of changes and counter-changes that may envelop increasing swathes of past and future history (or histories) (e.g. Fritz Leiber's novel The Big Time and its sequel stories). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.210.159.137 (talk) 12:32, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand the last comment correctly, another story that matches the "Time wars" scenario is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The whole thing is rather confusing, since functionally you have the "same time" happening at different times (Albus and Scorpius write on the blanket kind-of simultaneously with their parents reading it, despite the reading happening decades later), and when the parents figure out the situation, they quickly jump back to the previous time, hoping they're not too late. (I recently read a book analysing the whole thing as a fantasy-within-the-storyline, i.e. it's all imagined by the characters and not real even within the fictional canon.) Several parts of the story don't make sense, but at the same time the alternatives don't make sense. Nyttend (talk) 21:23, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You may periodically verify that the article on A Hitler still exists. If not, ie A Hitler, you can conclude to live in a parallel universe. If this PA is any better, please post a brief review and how to get there... --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
First make sure, though, that consulting Wikipedia is not a crime, punishable by hanging. Also consider the possibility that the page exists but starts with, "A Hitler may refer to: A ruler of the Hitlerian Empire; ...". ‑‑Lambiam07:51, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhere it is recorded that the weekly rations for marines and male convicts in New Holland was: "7 pounds of bread or in lieu thereof 7 pounds of flour, 7 pounds of beef or in lieu thereof pork, 3 pins of pease, 6 ounces of butter ... ". The only definition of pin as a unit of weight or volume I can find is 0.5 firkins or 4.5 imperial gallons (20 L; 5.4 US gal), but 3 litres of (presumably pease porridge) per day (2 on Sunday) seems rather a lot. Doug butler (talk) 23:47, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Violet Town rail accident involved two trains colliding head-on, and its article notes that their closing speed was later determined to be 172 km/hr. Closing speed redirects to Collision, which says that "closing speed" is "the magnitude of the velocity difference just before impact". Is this correct? (No sources to check, since the whole section is unsourced.) If so, two questions:
If it's a matter of velocity, why is it called "closing speed" rather than "closing velocity"?
If it's a matter of velocity, how should the rail accident article report this? Since the article has already established that it was a head-on collision, it seems a bit redundant to say that their closing speed was 172 km/hr in opposing directions, and I'm not sure how this fact should be written even in an isolated sentence without prior context.
Tangentially related, many of the stupider members of the driving public think things like "it's better to speed up before a head-on because the faster car wins". Abductive (reasoning)20:22, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As Google confirms, the closing speed of two objects colliding head on is the sum of the individual speeds. I don't see how this is equivalent to "the magnitude of the velocity difference just before impact". -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]20:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Velocity is a vector quantity; it has a direction in space. If one object has a velocity an object going equally fast in the opposite direction has a velocity They have the same speed which is the magnitude of the velocity. The magnitude of a vector is not a vector.
The closing speed of two objects colliding because they are going in the same direction but the one behind is faster is the absolute value of the difference in speeds. But, just as in the case of a head-on collision, it is the magnitude of the difference in their velocities. ‑‑Lambiam20:49, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that makes sense. Thank you, Lambiam. Trouble is, in general parlance "velocity" is just a synonym for speed, without regard to direction. People reading our closing speed article who are not scientifically educated to know the special scientific meaning of "velocity" will find it just as confusing as I did. Similarly, in general parlance mass and weight are synonyms, and any text that uses weight in its scientific sense as distinct from mass, without explaining the difference to readers, will confound them. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]21:00, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add to the confusion in Australia, Virgin Australia is currently running an ad campaign telling everyone that Velocity means Fast. Velocity is the name of Virgin's frequent flyer program. HiLo48 (talk) 05:49, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[2][reply]
Actually, joking aside, if there were an English word directly cognate with and translating velox, what would it be? I can't think of many Latin adjectives that end in x in the first place, so it's hard to find a model. English has "prolix", which sort of looks Latin, so maybe it would just be imported straight as "velox"? --Trovatore (talk) 20:38, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In a one-dimensional problem one doesn't really care about the difference between vectors and scalars. Technically, a speed can only be positive, a one-dimensional vector can be positive or negative, for a multiple-dimensional vector positive and negative don't apply. In practice, in the one-dimensional case one uses a scalar that can go negative and the words velocity and speed are used interchangeably. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:54, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Curious, why don't positive and negative apply in a multiple-dimension vector? Is that because in such a situation we always specify the direction where it's going ? Nyttend (talk) 20:55, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They do apply. If vector is equal to its additive inverse equals There is no simple formula for the magnitude of the difference between two vectors in terms of the magnitudes of the components, unless they are aligned. When they are orthogonal, the Pythagorean theorem applies. In the general case, the cosine formula is needed; see Law of cosines § Using vectors. ‑‑Lambiam05:13, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The rail line at Violet Town is straight and flat, at least as far as you can tell when standing at the station or looking at Google Maps, so it's functionally a one-dimension problem. But what if there were a head-on crash on a sharp curve? Would we talk about it being a two-dimension problem? Obviously the impact locations would be different — one corner of the locomotives would take the initial impact, and the other corner would be affected only after some energy had been absorbed — and the trains might be at a greater risk of falling over, even if the collision happened at a slow speed. Instead, I'm curious about the physics themselves, which could apply even if you were rolling two spheres against each other. Nyttend (talk) 21:02, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let us model a loc as a rectangular block with a length of 21 m and a width of 3 m. The front of a loc on the curve makes an angle with an orthogonal cross section of the track in the curve. Assuming a curve radius of 150 m (below which the trains would need to go slow in order not to derail), this angle is very close to 1⁄2 × 21/150 = 0.07 rad. At the moment of collision, the angle between the two loc fronts would be twice that. On a loc width of 3 m, that amounts to a gap of 0.42 m between the corners on the outside of the curve. Not much energy will be absorbed over that small a distance. The trains will derail; the momentum will carry the cars outwards. ‑‑Lambiam04:58, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
150 m is really sharp; I'd only expect that on tramways, mountain railways and yards, and the latter two of those probably narrow gauge. The speed limit would be no more than about 30 km/h. The problem isn't toppling over, but the flanges on the wheels will contact the rail, giving noise, friction, wear and at higher speeds the flange will climb over the rail, leading to derailing. This can be avoided by using wheels, which are conical, with a coarser top angle, but that worsens hunting oscillations. Trams sometimes use independently spinning wheels, but that requires additional tricks to follow the track. For mainline speeds, don't expect curves with a radius less than a kilometre or so. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:56, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By "tramway", do you mean Tramway (industrial) or just normal tram tracks? Here in Melbourne the standard-gauge tram network has some very sharp curves at intersections, with Balaclava Junction being the most prominent — a left turn involves going around the kerb, and a right turn involves crossing just two lanes of traffic — but because they're at intersections with tram stops and traffic lights, trams often have to slow down for reasons unrelated to the rail geometry. Nyttend (talk) 21:21, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of the modern, mostly electric and mostly urban tram systems you find in cities like Melbourne, Amsterdam and Antwerp, but I think it also applies to industrial tramways. There's a reason why both are called tramways: they have a common origin. Historically, the difference between a railway and a tramway is the axle load. Tramways were first; steam locomotives required railways. Later on, steam tram locomotives appeared, but by then steam rail locomotives had become much heavier. By the 1950s, most non-electric and rural tramways had disappeared (some industrial tramways and a few rural passenger lines remained) and the definition of tramway narrowed. As less-urban passenger trams make a comeback now, some people think we need a new word for those.
The tightest curves I can find on the Amsterdam system (standard gauge) are about 19 metre radius. The same for the Antwerp system (metre gauge). The Antwerpers must have an easier time doing so. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:31, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While on the subject, can anyone shed light on this (manually operated) railway point, which appears to have no purpose other than to send the vehicle careering into the bush. Can't remember the location but probably somewhere in mid-New South Wales. The large structure is a wheat silo. Doug butler (talk) 05:34, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the recent Texas flooding and in lots of other floods including maybe the Biblical one, there were many fatalities, but the most common direct causes of death aren't clear. Is it usually literally by drowning, and if yes, could a lot of those have been prevented by something as simple as telling everyone in flood zones to keep a pool noodle nearby? Are they trapped underwater in buildings that get submerged? Or is it stuff like hypothermia where a soaking wet person is stranded someplace exposed, trees and structures fallling on people, or what? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:826E:71C1:3CE6:FA6E (talk) 18:22, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mark Spitz wearing a lifevest would still be battered to death. The 160 missing people still haven't been found; they are probably buried under 6 feet of sediment and 6 feet of water. Abductive (reasoning)20:51, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Floods may have very different characteristics, and there is no uniform answer. The stricken area may not be known as a flood zone. A flash flood can sweep people away together with debris in a crushing maelstrom. Other floods, like after a dike breach, may rise silently at night, surprising people in their sleep, who are then disoriented in the dark. A hurricane may cause a storm surge flooding an area, leaving no space suitable for shelter. Keeping a pool noodle nearby will rarely be a life-saving remedy. ‑‑Lambiam21:52, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have a detailed but annoyingly lacking in numbers article solar irradiance. It says things like the average irradiance averaged over the whole Earth for a whole year is 1361 W/m^2. But I was hoping to know how to find the instantaneous irradiance at a given location and time. For example, in San Francisco at 2:17 PM on July 4 of this year (an arbitrary date I just made up). Is there an alternate place in Wikipedia or elsewhere, where I could find this kind of info? Other than cloud cover and small fluctuations in solar output, is there something nebulous or hard to compute about the quantity? I'm ok with being off by up to a few percent, for solar power calculations. Alternatively, I'd be content to know the total wattage radiated by the Sun, as I can figure out the rest from data that I do know how to find.
I’ve a curve defined as over GF(21888242871839275222246405745257275088696311157297823662689037894645226208583^12,'a')
How to declare a point defined like this : ((0, 0, 16260673061341949275257563295988632869519996389676903622179081103440260644990, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 11559732032986387107991004021392285783925812861821192530917403151452391805634, 0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0, 15530828784031078730107954109694902500959150953518636601196686752670329677317, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 4082367875863433681332203403145435568316851327593401208105741076214120093531, 0, 0))
The same problem arise for any binary curve as they are defined as polynomials. 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 21:34, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ec = EllipticCurve([GF(q)(0),3]); point = ec([x,y,z]), where (x,y,z) are the homogeneous coordinates of the point (elements of GF(q)). Tito Omburo (talk) 22:24, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but what about the case where x, y and y aren’t Integers but polynomials as result of the finite field being a prime power ?
If you're working with the builtin GF(q), then let a=GF(q).gen() and write x,y as polynomials in a. If you want a different GF(q), you can first declare it as F.<a>=GF(q, modulus=[the polynomial defining the field]). Tito Omburo (talk) 11:04, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I’m using the builtin GF(q), but then for example how do I use .gen() to declare a polynomial as . I’m meaning it’s a static value coming from py_ecc, an unrelated library that doesn’t support elliptic curve scalar multiplication. Hence I to input such resulting input value in SageMath in order to multiply it. 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 20:10, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An element of GF(q) is by definition a polynomial in the generator, not a list of integers. You need to know: what is the minimal polynomial of the instance of GF(q) used by the library, and how it codes the coefficients into lists of integers. There isn't a canonical way to do either. Tito Omburo (talk) 20:38, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, more exactly, the exact Sagemath representation would be 0*z12^11 + 0*z12^10 + 16260673061341949275257563295988632869519996389676903622179081103440260644990*z12^9 + 0*z12^8 + 0*z12^7 + 0*z12^6 + 0*z12^5 + 0*z12^4 + 11559732032986387107991004021392285783925812861821192530917403151452391805634*z12^3 + 0*z12^2 + 0*z12 + 0. Or rather that’s how SageMath would printf such variable if requested. My problem is instead of printing, how do I set a variable to a such value ? 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 22:37, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
These are polynomials in the generator. Use z12 = GF(q).gen() to bring the generator into scope. Alternatively, x = GF(q)(x) may also work without needing to do it manually. But again, a warning is that there isn't a guarantee that the library you're using has the same minimal polynomial for GF(q) that sage uses. So if you try this and get something unexpected, like (x,y) is not a point of the elliptic curve, this could be a reason, and you have to use a custom modulus for GF(q). Tito Omburo (talk) 09:44, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but what to do after that ? where I put the value ? Should I convert it to a single Integer ? If yes how ? Please give me the exact code for setting a variable to such finite field element… I don’t care if SageMath modify it as a result. 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 22:13, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, in the following, I have assumed that the point has coordinates
Note that these have terms reversed from those you stated above (which are incorrect, since the value of (X,Y) you offered above never lies on the curve in a degree 12 extension field of GF(p) for p as below). The modulus for the finite field such that these points lie on the curve is . The code is:
Any polynomial in the generator belongs to the underlying finite field. Run the code in Sage (or even colab), and it prints the elements of GF(q), and the point of the elliptic curve. (Incidentaly, ec([XX,YY,1]) includes a check that the point lies on the curve, but it can be verified directly, e.g., assert(YY^2==XX^3+3).) Also, fwiw, what I've been trying to emphasize is indentifting a particular "element of GF(q)" is not particularly meaningful in this context. You need to know the modulus before you can make sense of this question. I have given you the unique modulus such that the point you gave (suitably interpreted) belongs to the curve over a 12th degree extension field of GF(p). Tito Omburo (talk) 23:38, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no "plain GF(p^12)". This refers to a collection of fields that are isomorphic. In sage, try F=GF(p^12). Does this code work? Why not? Tito Omburo (talk) 23:51, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far I understand, this code doesn’t target the right curve : their is homomorphism but not isomorphism : the curve over GF(p^12) contains the suborder resulting from ꜰᴘ² but is different. The purpose of this is to have point compression for the ate pairing (meaning you need to decompress from ꜰᴘ² to ꜰᴘ12)
I wanted to ask how do I map the resulting point over EllipticCurve(GF(p¹²), (0, 3)) in order to perform elliptic curve scalar multiplication, but it seems you still target EllipticCurve([F2(0),F2(3/(9+z2))]) just over a different field. Thus this seems to result in points not belonging to the target curve 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 07:46, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you're saying. The field I use is the same one that they do. The code above checks that the point is on the curve . Tito Omburo (talk) 11:37, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Every finite field has a modulus, or minimal polynomial, over the prime field. There is no such thing as "GF(p^12) without a modulus". The moduli I gave above are in complete agreement with the library code you linked earlier. If someone tells you differently, they are wrong. The second library you linked uses a modulus of the form , I think, based on the paper they link. As I understand it, they construct the field as a quadratic extension of an extension of degree 6 (whose multiplication law is given elsewhere presumably), obtained by adjoining a sixth root of xi. You can do this in sage with: F.<a> = GF(p^6, modulus=x^6-xi); R.<t> = PolynomialRing(F); G.<b> = F.extension(t^2-a); You could also define the field G in one go with G.<b> = GF(p^12, modulus=x^12-xi)
Note that you have to be careful that is not already a square. I think there is some condition like needed for this construction to work properly. A minimal working example is q = 100057; xi = 10; F.<a> = GF(q^6, modulus=x^6-xi); R.<t> = PolynomialRing(F); G.<b> = F.extension(t^2-a); G2.<b> = GF(q^12, modulus=x^12-xi) Tito Omburo (talk) 16:32, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, one reason for preferring iterated Kummer extensions is that the multiplication laws can be coded efficiently. The first library you gave involves a twist, because the simplest extension of degree 12 is not Kummer. (There p-1 is 6 mod 12, and the prime field doesn't contain primitive 12th roots of unity.) The second only applies when the prime p is 1 mod 12, because the prime field must contain primitive 12th roots of unity. Tito Omburo (talk) 20:18, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You did a mistake in the code you prosposed with :
Does it surprise you that a *random point* on an elliptic curve might have a different order than a *specifically prescribed point*? This code is just an illustration of this lift. If you can't make hay of what I've given you, I suggest you explore a different profession. I've given you the answer to your original question (how to encode a specific point on a specific curve over a specific presentation of a field extension of degree 12, but you don't seem to understand the basics. I showed you how to implement the twist, and illustrated with a random point. I showed you how to implement the iterated Kummer extensions of the second library.) Fucking *thank me*, try to understand what I have written, and do not reply again until you do so. For example, did you even fucking try to specify the point that the "specification" gave (which was never part of your original question)? Like I try this:
p = 21888242871839275222246405745257275088696311157297823662689037894645226208583
pt * 21888242871839275222246405745257275088548364400416034343698204186575808495617
and it works just fine. That suggests that you are either trolling, or are just completely out of your depth here. So, grow a brain. We are done. Tito Omburo (talk) 22:38, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As the last side question, I also suppose it would be impossible to map the points to a different Weirestrass curves (I’m meaning not being equal to ) over the same p^12 field even if it would still contains the same order as the curve as a subgroup/suborder ? 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 15:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I may have brainfog (it has been 34℃ here), but I'm looking for the technical term for a box-like shape, i.e. 3D, all sides are rectangles, and all angles between vertices are right. Basically a cube, except that the dimensions may be different in each dimension. Can someone please help and unfog me? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:43, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A trick I often employ (only going from English to German) is to look up the word in Wikipedia, then click on the language you want in the "languages" panel on the lower left. (In German Wikipedia this appears as a "Sprachen" menu on the upper rights, though I imagine some of these things depend on how you've set your preferences.) In this case you could have used Wiktionary as well, since both wikt:Quader and wikt:de:Quader exist and contain an English definition or translation. Anyway, in English you can also use "Rectangular parallelepiped", which redirects on Wikipedia to "Rectangular cuboid". Its a mouthful in English either way. --RDBury (talk) 14:21, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I always thought the answer was rectangular prism. Can anyone show the difference between a rectangular prism and a rectangular cuboid by including a figure that's a rectangular cuboid but not a rectangular prism, as well as the reverse?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:29, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a footnote in our article Rectangular cuboid notes, the term rectangular prism is ambiguous.
Take rectangle ABCD with vertices A = (0,0,0), B = (4,0,0), C = (4,2,0), D = (0,2,0), and rectangle PQRS with vertices P = (1,1,1), Q = (5,1,1), R = (5,3,1), S = (1,3,1). They are the two bases of a prism with the additional edges AP, BQ, CR and DS. Since its bases are rectangles, this is (at least under one definition) a rectangular prism. It is not a rectangular cuboid, but any rectangular cuboid is also a rectangular prism – and under the more general definition even in three different ways, since any pair of opposite faces can serve as the bases. ‑‑Lambiam20:05, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My own two cents: when teaching this, I have always referred to it as a "rectangular solid". Perhaps polytope connoisseurs would fault this, but it seems good enough for freshman calculus. Tito Omburo (talk) 20:01, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Tonight I can see some noctilucent clouds, which are typically 80 km high in the upper atmosphere. From my position, they're low down in the sky, between 2° and 5° above the north-north-east horizon. What's the horizontal distance to them (nearest, and furthest), taking into account the curvature of the Earth? Thanks! - MPF (talk) 00:52, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We'll take kilometres as the unit, using and . The intersection of Earth with the plane formed by the vertical and the line of sight can be approximated by a circle with centre and radius so that the observer is at the origin while the clouds lie on a concentric circle having a radius of The location of the clouds satisfies the equation in which is the horizontal distance and the height above the horizontal. Letting be the angle of the line of sight with the horizontal, and putting the equation for the line of sight is given by Eliminating gives us:
Solving this quadratic equation for gives the positive root
Consider the free (non-commutative) algebra generated by . Define a derivation on on generators by . Obviously there exists a (non-unique) linear operator such that if and only if for some . But is there a canonical choice of ? Does it have something resembling a formula? (For example, we would have whereas .) Tito Omburo (talk) 19:59, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the following thing (or something very much like it) works: for each monomial , define , and extend by linearity. (In particular we get for because it's an empty sum, and we get that L is the identity on monomials whose first factor is u.) The key idea (to my mind) is that although the whole thing is infinite-dimensional, the only relations to worry about take place between monomials with a fixed number of factors and fixed "degree" (total number of derivatives applied). 173.79.19.248 (talk) 21:15, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anyhow to prove that this works, go as follows: let be the space spanned by the monomials of length m having total "degree" . Then by standard combinatorics. The image of my map L when restricted to is at least because there are this many monomials whose first factor is , all of which are fixed by L. Then by rank-nullity it would suffice to show that is a subspace of of dimension , and that the restriction of L to this subset is identically 0. I haven't carefully done this but I don't think it could be too hard. 173.79.19.248 (talk) 02:12, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting number paradox: " for example, the smallest natural number that does not appear in an entry of the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) was originally found to be 11630 on 12 June 2009. The number fitting this definition later became 12407 from November 2009 until at least November 2011, then 13794 as of April 2012, until it appeared in sequence OEIS: A218631 as of 3 November 2012. Since November 2013, that number was 14228, at least until 14 April 2014. In May 2021, the number was 20067." But now 20067 already appears in an entry of (sequence A379570 in the OEIS), so currently what is the smallest number not appearing in an entry of an OEIS sequence? 59.126.168.120 (talk) 18:35, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is hard to tell now. Years ago you could download the database and check it. As far as I know, you can't easily download the database now. I'd like to know if you can download it. Bubba73You talkin' to me?20:15, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ran a quick Python script using OEIS's search API to check whether each successive number appears in an OEIS sequence, it appears the first value to not appear in any OEIS sequence is 20990. GalacticShoe (talk) 20:17, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The next values up to 30000 to not appear in any sequences are 22978, 23543, 24085, 24555, 26301, 27266, 27988, 28330, 28353, 28466, 28869, 28946, 29653, 29962. GalacticShoe (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately my script doesn't download the whole database, it only makes a call to OEIS itself which then provides a short "sample" of the sequences containing said number (each call is capped at 10 sequences at a time so as not to overwhelm the caller, but there is an option to retrieve more sequences.) However, I did find OEIS's "compressed versions" section which contains a couple of files, one of which has all the sequences and their A-numbers, the other of which has all the sequences' names and their A-numbers.
If that is not sufficient, there should be a way to download all the entry information programmatically by querying every individual sequence entry, but given the number of network calls it would need, it seems like it would end up taking a rather long time. GalacticShoe (talk) 00:32, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, (sequence A216380 in the OEIS) is (A216363(n) - 1)/118, and A216363 is related to the number 59 instead of 118, so please create an OEIS sequence of (A216363(n) - 1)/59 so that 20990 can appear. 59.126.168.120 (talk) 07:23, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That sequence would be redundant, since the point is that all such numbers are congruent to 1 mod 118 (2 * 59), but you can submit it if you so want. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:46, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Quoting from the article: (This definition of uninteresting is possible only because the OEIS lists only a finite number of terms for each entry.[1] For instance, OEIS: A000027 is the sequence of allnatural numbers, and if continued indefinitely would contain all positive integers. As it is, the sequence is recorded in its entry only as far as 77.)173.79.19.248 (talk) 02:30, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but if I change the definition to “appear in the first 100 terms (ignore the offset) of the sequence, what will be the result? (I know that there are many OEIS sequences such that there are unknown terms in the first 100 terms, such as OEIS: A000679(11) and OEIS: A000105(51) and OEIS: A000022(61) and OEIS: A240234(13) and OEIS: A347773(26), but none of these five can be 20990 or a number < 20990) 59.126.168.120 (talk) 20:04, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop adding your original research to the encyclopedia, and please stop over-emphasizing the OEIS at Interesting number paradox (where it is a minor illustration, not related in any important way to the encyclopedic subject of the article). 173.79.19.248 (talk) 23:28, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to this paper page 248 and unlike it’s title subject, it’s possible to invert a pairing on ʙɴ curves if exponentiation inversion is easy… But what about cases where final exponentiation isn’t needed ? Like ate pairing where both and have the same prime order ?
Simple question : given modulus :
21888242871839275222246405745257275088548364400416034343698204186575808495617^12
How to generate an anomalous curve for this given modulus ? Even a twisted one ? 21:06, 7 July 2025 (UTC) 2A01:E0A:ACF:90B0:0:0:A03F:E788 (talk) 21:06, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can it be appropriate to use ! in an exponent? For example, if you want to write 10362880 with fewer digits, is 109! considered appropriate? All I could find was Exponential factorial; my maths knowledge is limited, but it seems to be unrelated. Nyttend (talk) 07:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A superscript is understood to be grouped as long as it continues in the form of a superscript. ... For example, in x2+3, it is understood that the 2+3 is grouped, and that the exponent is the sum of 2 and 3.
Indeed, (x2)+3 would mean x(2×3), not x(2+3). Since (109)! is meaningless, this rule is not needed for disambiguating 109!. ‑‑Lambiam11:12, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My knowledge is limited enough that I don't understand how your answer is relevant; sorry. Are you saying that it's appropriate, or inappropriate, or ambiguous? Nyttend (talk) 11:40, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. In hindsight, I should have started by saying it is fine before embarking on a complicated explanation of why it is fine. ‑‑Lambiam21:22, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When the latitude exceeds 90° – eps (Earth's axial tilt), sin(eps) / cos(latitude) exceeds 1 so arccos fails. What actually happens then? Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ12:10, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A positive even number can be written as with positive iff has a nontrivial divisor congruent to , and it can be written as with positive iff has a nontrivial divisor congruent to . Since all nontrivial divisors of must be of one of those forms, any positive even can be written as if and only if has a nontrivial divisor, that is, it is composite. This question is pretty much equivalent then to asking if there is some even such that is composite for all . In other words, is a Sierpiński number in any even base? GalacticShoe (talk) 18:41, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Simple question : everything is in the title : Pairings allows transferring the ᴇᴄᴅʟᴘ to finite field ᴅʟᴘ and I want to do the reverse : the aim isn’t to find a secret point but to transfer the finite field ᴅʟᴘ to the ᴇᴄᴅʟᴘ (which sounds easier). If there’s a way to do it, (maybe through weil pairing inversion) how to do it ?
Scholars consider the stories of Abraham to be a 'late literary construction' in writings (the Torah) composed around the time of the Persian restoration following the end of the Judahites' Babylonian captivity in the late 6th century BCE, long post-dating the emergence around the 12th century BCE of the Israelites and Judahites from the Caananite culture which included the Moabites.
Even if the compilers of the Torah had utilised existing Abrahamic folk myths that included the figure of Lot, it seems unlikely that the Moabites, not being Abrahamic, would have shared those particular myths. That said, we have only a limited amount of evidence about specifically Moabite religious beliefs and, as far as I can tell, virtually none at all about their folk myths. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.192.251.148 (talk) 19:31, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Bible doesn't consider Lot a patriarch, at least of Israel, but it says in effect that he was an ancestor of the people of Moab. One conceivable possibility, at least, is mention, even on a potsherd, of Lot in Jordanian archaeological digs, which would be much needed support of the currently widely doubted Old Testament.Rich (talk) 23:42, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely, a Moabite asked about how they saw Lot would have replied with the Moabite-language equivalent of "Lot? Never heard of." Note that the "need" of the "much needed support" strongly represents a particular, non-neutral point of view. There are others who feel that more support is needed for the interpretation of the narratives of the Old Testament as a collection of myths, so as to counter the still widely held mistaken view of these narratives as being historically accurate. ‑‑Lambiam05:44, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Despite the claims of Wikipedia (and Google, which in its AI tosh says there isn't, presumably because it's read Wikipedia), there is an island on Loch Muick in Aberdeenshire. You can see it on Google here. The Scots Magazine for 1 July 1970 also mentions it, as a place where Sandy Campbell, the stalker at Glas-allt-Shiel (variously spelt) in Queen Victoria's time, grew potatoes. I would like to know a) what is the island's name, and b) anything else at all you can tell me about it. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 21:47, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Ordnance Survey name book mentions the island in its entry for Loch Muick: "Towards the west end of [the loch], there is a small island, on which seagulls are always found." There is a picture of it here. No seagulls are in evidence, however. Zacwill (talk) 23:16, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Annoyingly, the Infobox entry of 'Islands 0' is referenced to a respectable source, which however contains only the same (evidently erroneous) entry, so could easily be a typo or blunder. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.192.251.148 (talk) 08:15, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Ordnance Survey show it (but unnamed) on their 1:25,000 map, but not on their 1:50,000 map. A modern photograph is here. My Googling abilities have failed to find anything else. Alansplodge (talk) 17:39, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Ordnance Survey Name Book for Aberdeen county is also a redoubtable source. There is no obligation to incorporate information in Wikipedia from sources, however well-respected, that is evidently incorrect. ‑‑Lambiam12:37, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would someone be able to identify the cluster of three sinuous buildings in the foreground of skyscrapercity.com/attachments/274530710_1006930033566857_6495661088138170893_n-1-jpg.2831865/ please, as searching for it or prithipal pannu didn't yield anything useful?
Hi, I was looking for information about Kyla Stone and James Hunt who are supposed to be writers of dystopian fiction, but I can't find any information on Wikipedia. From Amazon, Kyla Stone is the million-copy USA Today Bestselling Author of 24 novels. Yann (talk) 17:26, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Both names have entries in ISFDB, (which is here), though that of James Hunt is minimal – 1 poem in 1993 – so it's probably not the same person. ISFDB is also a Wiki, so (as you know, Yann, but other readers might not) not a Reliable source for Wikipedia's own purposes.
Stone's only publisher, Paper Moon Press, appears to have published no other Speculative Fiction author from 2017 (and only 5 works by others, back in 1994–5), so probably she is in effect self-published. Such writers are often not written about, or their works reviewed, in Reliable sources, so it's very doubtful she would qualify as Notable, and therefore for a Wikipedia article. It's telling that despite writing SF, she hasn't appeared on the online Science Fiction Encyclopedia (which I occasionally contribute to and consult daily, so know it's generally fairly up to date on authors of any significance).
Speaking generally, generating a million sales in total from more than 2 dozen titles published electronically over 8 years is not particularly spectacular, and it's easy to make a title qualify as a 'best seller' if its genre category is defined restrictively enough. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.210.159.137 (talk) 23:08, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. I didn't intend to create articles, but I was surprised not to find any mention of them. Your analysis explains why. Yann (talk) 16:32, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More English language novels are published in a single year these days, than during the entire Victorian era. Trying to comprehend this landscape is challenging. -- GreenC21:43, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting observation. As a bonus question, are there arms that have an equal degree of 'scutcheonception', but more differing quarters (since the inner inescutcheon is not quartered and the next is 'first and fourth, second and third')? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.210.159.137 (talk) 01:05, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Commons has categories up to 5 inescutcheons. In the 5 inescutcheon category it seems that none of the arms have any nesting (at least, as far as I could tell; at that level of inescutcheoning it's a bit hard for my eyes to parse.) In the 4 inescutcheons category the only arms matching the level of nesting seen with Nassau-Fulda are those corresponding to Philip Mountbatten (1947-1949). These are based on the equally triple-nest-escutcheoned royal arms of Greece (1936-1973), which also happen to be the only other triple-nesting I could find in the 3 inescutcheons category. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:35, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I keep seeing news that the FBI / DoJ have released 11 hours of CCTV depicting Epstein's prison cell. But as far as i can tell none of these news sites tells me where the CCTV have been released
I found a video of most of the CCTV on YouTube. Unfortunately it's useless as it comes with a giant ugly watermark and pointless text commentary edited in
Not sure where to find it but according to the NYT, a reliable secondary source that has reviewed it, the "video appears to be missing a minute just before midnight. The digital clock on the screen jumps from 11:58:58 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Officials did not immediately have an explanation for the apparent gap." -- GreenC22:59, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When the FBI releases a wanted poster and the copyright of the photos belongs to a third party who does not work for the agency are they (FBI) required to get permission form the photographer before they can distribute his photo(s)? I have not been able to find any policy which states they are required to obtain permission from the photographer. But i also find it hard to believe that a photographer can lose the rights to his works just because the FBI wants to distribute them--Trade (talk) 03:42, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The wanted poster released for the 2025 shootings of Minnesota legislators features a photo taken from the official website of the accused. That's just one out of many Trade (talk) 08:07, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright owners do not lose their rights by unauthorized (or, for that matter, properly licensed) republishing. ‑‑Lambiam08:08, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"[w]henever, in the interests of national defense, the President defines certain vital military … installations or equipment as requiring protection …, it shall be unlawful to make any photograph, sketch, picture, drawing, map, or graphical representation of such … installations or equipment without first obtaining permission of the commanding officer … and promptly submitting the product obtained to such commanding officer … for censorship or such other action as he may deem necessary"
Is there a list somewhere that shows which exact locations, structures or buildings that the US President’s Executive Order have designated as a "vital military and naval installation or equipment"? Trade (talk) 23:14, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The text of Executive Order 10104 of February 1, 1950, still in effect, can be found here. If this was the UK, the list of secret installations would itself be a state secret. For the US perhaps not, but the list is fluid; if the Secretary of Defense tomorrow designates Palantir as "restricted", making a photograph as seen here may end you up in Alligator Alcatraz. ‑‑Lambiam06:18, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the UK, how would that work? What if a publicly visible building is on the list? Can you accidentally violate the relevant act because there's no way to know the building is un-photographable? Or, since you have no way of knowing that it's prohibited, would you be able to argue that you lacked the mens rea to break the law? Nyttend (talk) 21:32, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why are the Conservatives in the Loyal Opposition when they have more seats? Is there a coalition or the incumbent party gets the primacy regardless of seats? Matt714931 (talk) 15:59, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is only one government, which is decided by the seats in the House of Commons, especially now that the House of Lords cannot de-jure block legislation from passing. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although the House of Lords is the upper chamber of the Parliament, unlike the U.S. Senate, its members are not elected. The House of Lords is not part of the government and its main responsibility is to review and, if necessary, amend legislation passed by the House of Commons. Stanleykswong (talk) 16:05, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean by "not part of the government". The House of Commons is not part of the government either. The government is a group of people that is selected from the members of both houses, and appointed to ministries and related positions of official authority; chief among these people is the Prime Minister. (See the current Starmer ministry#List of ministers.) The government as a whole is answerable to the Parliament as a whole for the decisions it makes and actions it takes. The House of Commons can express a lack of confidence in the government, which usually results in the cessation of that government and the appointment of a new one. But the Parliament and its constituent houses are not the government. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]22:28, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The British government is made up of the House of Commons. Since the Prime Minister is appointed by the House of Commons, the party (or group of parties) that wins the most seats in a general election forms the government, and its leader becomes the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister then selects the rest of the government, known as ministers, from among the MPs in the House of Commons.
The House of Commons is not only where the government is formed, but also where laws are made, the government's actions are scrutinized and important issues are debated. Stanleykswong (talk) 07:18, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As kindly as I can put it, you're being an ultracrepidarian. If you were to check the link I provided above, you would see that the present Starmer government, like all previous governments, contains some ministers who are members of the House of Lords, as well as some ministers who are members of the House of Commons. The PM is not "appointed by" the House of Commons, but by the monarch. Laws are made in the Parliament, which consists of two houses, the Commons and the Lords. Every bill must go through both Houses, although the ability of the House of Lords to reject bills has been somewhat curtailed. The government's actions are scrutinized in both Houses, and important issues are debated in both Houses. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]20:20, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Probably the same place as any other year, at census.gov. If you want to know the 2025 estimate, then it's on that page, just need to scroll a little bit. --Golbez (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By whom and from when?Likely 1890 original by J.S. Conant
According to Commons, File:Lewis Hayden Portrait.png is from The Liberator (newspaper), but looking at the sourcelink [4] ("Here viewers may see pictures which are relevant to the life of Willliam Lloyd Garrison"), that is a misunderstanding by the uploader. Fwiw, an artist signature is visible on the source website version of the pic.
Lovely! Some more data:[5] Engraving of abolitionist Lewis Hayden (c.1811-1889) included in the article "Anti-Slavery Boston" in New England Magazine, December 1890. Creator: J. S. Conant & Co., Engravers Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:24, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe it's just that. This appears to be a cropped version of a work owned by the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts; see the full version with credit here. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 08:20, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting! But looking at that picture, I still wonder if that might be the work of a modern (like 21st century) artist working from the 1890 picture. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:27, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It feels very 1890 (or earlier) to me. Making an engraving from a painting (or in this case something in chalks) was usual, all of Doré's engravings were made that way for example. [Actually I'm thinking now this is a lithograph, there aren't many white strokes and another J.E. Baker lithograph portrait is similar. And he always does lithographs.] Card Zero (talk)10:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
J.S. Conant must reasonably been working from something else, per discussion so far likely the "Baker." My initial guess was that the "Baker" was much younger. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:06, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In many episodes of Call the Midwife women coming in to the maternity clinic are asked for their co-op card before they are seen by the staff. Is this a Cooperative Society membership card as we would know it today, and if so, what's the connection to medical services? Or is it an old name for an NHS card? Rojomoke (talk) 10:35, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was a card that recorded details of the pregnancy,[9] Nowadays it's done with the Red Book.[10] Australia use a Yellow Card that is still sometimes called a Co-Op card.[11]Nanonic (talk) 11:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all" is a comment oft attributed (with slight variations) to Arthur Balfour. I have been unable to find a definite source for Balfour ever using it. Can anyone here help? I have seen it attributed to Anson, Lady Clodagh (1931). "XIII". Book Discreet Memoirs. London: G. Bateman Blackshaw. p. 139., but on looking it up I find that that work gives the remark to General Brocklehurst (Colonel of the Blues, and "the most delightful man in the world") as something one should say to oneself "when one got upset or in a fuss about anything". Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 21:16, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since Lady Clodagh knew General Brocklehurst personally and reports this sentence not as a quotable maxim or witticism (unlike "Brock"'s definition of bore) but as part of his (tongue-in-cheek) theory of what to do when one got upset – a context in which it makes a good deal more sense than as a stand-alone adage – it seems far more plausible that this memoir is the source than anything said or written by Balfour. The earliest ascription to Balfour that I found is from 1982.[12] ‑‑Lambiam22:28, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a few questions about Māori toponymy in New Zealand. In particular about these places: Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau, Christchurch / Ōtautahi, Hamilton / Kirikiriroa, Napier / Ahuriri, New Plymouth / Ngāmotu, Wellington / Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Westport / Kawatiri.
1) Was there already a Maori village with a Maori name that was later colonized and given a new English name?
2) Was the city / town created by Europeans and was later given a Maori name? In this case when did the usage of the Maori name start to be officially used? Was it already in oral / traditional usage for the city / town or for the general area? thank you! 79.42.126.115 (talk) 08:57, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This might be somewhat prejudiced speculation, but the whole idea of a named town area sounds more colonial than Maori to me. What do the Maori names mean? I guess that some of them might be calques from or phonetic approximations of the English names. Other might be based on some famous natural feature, such as a river, I guess. Natural features and bigger tribes might have names, supposedly. I'm not sure on whether the pre-colonial Maori population would be primarily nomadic or resident, although apparently, there was a widespread tradition of building fortified settlements on impregnable hills. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:51, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This article goes into many of the questions you asked for the specific case of Ōtautahi / Christchurch: [14]. There were several Māori settlements and place names within what became Christchurch, but Christchurch was not founded by taking over those existing settlements. There can be some disagreement over which (if any) of the existing place names should be used for the modern city. —Amble (talk) 14:56, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those characters are obsolete and not in use in modern Chinese. They don't mean anything cohesive. If anything, I think whoever typed that is testing support for Unicode.
In detail:
𠀀 is a variant of the character 一 (meaning "one")
𠮷 is an old form of the word 吉 ("lucky") and is commonly used in Japanese surnames
The others you included, like 𠂇, 𡈼, and 𡃁 are obscure and won't really be seen in daily use. Most of them haven't seen daily use for centuries.
This must be the same random foreign gibberish troll again that we had here a few years ago, just like with the "Chinese" thread above. Let's just roll them back when they post again. Fut.Perf.☼09:31, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like random-hacking-at-a-keyboard type gibberish to me, given the numerous near-identical repetitions of letter sequences. Fut.Perf.☼10:30, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In Finnish, a night between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is called jouluyö, literally "Christmas night". Is that term also used in English to describe the same thing?
In Finnish, 23 December is called jouluaatonaatto, literally "Christmas Eve's Eve". But does English refer to that day any other than "23 December" or "December 23"?
In Finnish, a night between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is called uudenvuodenyö, literally "New Year's night" and the whole period around New Year is called vuodenvaihde, literally "year's change"? Vuodenvaihde is commonly used in expressions like vuodenvaihde 2024-2025, meaning a period covering last days of 2024 and first days of 2025. Also a change from one month to next is named in type [first month (without -kuu)]-[second month], like kesä-heinäkuun vaihde, meaning last days of June and first days of July. Does English know any such expressions?
In Finnish, a night that is about to come a few hours' time is referred to as keskiviikkoyö, literally "Wednesday night"? But why English usually refers that as "Tuesday night", despite that most of it falls during Wednesday instead? The current time of the day when I am writing that in Finnish timezone can be referred to as "tiistai-ilta". Does English say "Tuesday evening" for that time (about 22:50)?
In Finnish, the transitions from one season to next are referred to as compounds consisting the names of the first and second season. These are kevättalvi, kevätkesä, syyskesä and syystalvi. Does English have similar words? At least Swedish has some similar ones.
1. In British English, the 00:00–23:59 period before Christmas Day is called Christmas Eve; the night period until midnight is called Christmas Eve Night if a distinction is required.
2. In British English, no (other than "the day before Christmas Eve").
3. In British English, "New Year's Eve" is the 00:00–23:59 period before New Year's Day. The whole period around New Year is called "New Year". Scottish English may have other special names which a Scottish user might tell us about. There are no specific names for the change from one month to the next.
4. Because it does. Your assertion that most of the night falls within the following day is not necessarily true. "Tuesday evening" in British English refers to the time period after Tuesday afternoon, and becomes "Tuesday night" in the dark period up to midnight.
I'm glad we're specifying British English, because terms vary across the anglosphere. When I was getting to know my Sri Lankan-born partner, I was befuddled by his references to "31st night". That's their way of referring to New Year's Eve. He still says that, even though he's now spent almost 65% of his life as an Australian resident and citizen. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]20:43, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do English speakers ever refer to period around 23:00 as "evening"? In Finnish, it is called myöhäisilta, iltayö or alkuyö. Does English ever say "late evening"? --40bus (talk) 20:58, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I can come up with sentences where you might refer to 2300 as "evening" that don't sound too weird. "Well, my friends, the evening is coming to a close. Thank you all for coming and we hope to see you again." But it's not exactly usual. I don't see anything wrong with "late evening". --Trovatore (talk) 21:39, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The (American) Old Farmer's Almanac refers to the hours preceding midnight as "late evening", and the aftermidnight part of the night as "predawn". 73.48.233.128 (talk) 01:31, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On question 4, this might be controversial, but for me, if I've been up all day Tuesday, it doesn't become Wednesday just because the clock clicks 12 (or 0). I know it's "technically" Wednesday, but in my thinking it stays Tuesday until I get up for good the next morning. This is a recurring source of confusion between me and my wife, who will refer to things we did "yesterday" that I'm still thinking of as "today". But I'm getting used to it and can figure out what she means. --Trovatore (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me that it works just fine if you allow non-unique names for times, which of course you should. I could say it's 26 o'clock Tuesday night, and if you insist on calling that "morning" even though it's dark, you can say it's 2 o'clock Wednesday morning, and there's really no conflict, just two different names for the same instant. This could become important in the (very) distant future, if first, we get rid of the idiotic idea of leap seconds, which of course we should, and if they keep the same time system tens of millennia from now, which I see no reason why they ought to. Then you might have the sun setting at, I don't know, 0600 or something, and of course you'll want to keep the same day number for as long as you're awake, so no problem, just say you're going to bed at 34 o'clock and Bob's your uncle. --Trovatore (talk) 05:28, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently Japanese anime fans regularly watch their nighttime shows to 26.00 and 27.00 or so, and the official programmings have followed suit. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:04, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a simpler way to do so: just continue shifting to more easterly timezones. For 7 months per year, a number that has been increasing, I'm now in a timezone 1:34 ahead of mean solar time. Some people want summer time the whole year, then we can make a new summer time 2:34 ahead of solar time. In the west of China, official time is already 3:04 ahead of mean solar time (although for slightly different reasons). This has already caused the date change to shift away from the time when most people are asleep. The only thing you need are lawmakers who try to make people get up earlier than their natural rhythm; lawmakers who like to get up earlier than non-lawmakers. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:58, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that's "simpler". Frankly I'd prefer to do away with time zones and have a single time coordinate for the whole planet, so people stop attaching so much significance to particular nominal times, and just adjust their schedules to the Sun in the way that best suits them. Call it "free market time". --Trovatore (talk) 17:39, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
2. This might be partly due to the Nordic Countries having their main celebration on the 24th and Anglosaxon countries having it on the 25th, I guess. (Although the double eves aren't commonly encountered outside Finland.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:28, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1. In my variant of American English, the period from sundown 24 December to sunrise 25 December is Christmas Eve. The daylight period of 24 December is just 24 December. Although I know a song about that period that calls it "the day before the night before Christmas".
2. 23 December is just 23 December. Or 2 days before Christmas.
3. New Year's Eve is sundown 31 December to sunrise 1 January. New Year's Day is the daylight portion of 1 January.
4. The night belongs to the day upon which the sun set. Today is currently Wednesday. When the sun goes down this evening, it will be Wednesday night. Strictly speaking, after midnight it will be Thursday morning.
In Finnish, yö belongs to the day when sun rises. It is about to be perjantaiyö ("Friday night") here now. And "kello kaksi perjantaiyöllä" is at 2:00 on Friday. --40bus (talk) 20:59, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
in the u.s. i hear 'christmas eve day' for the daylight hours of dec 24, the opposite of british usage
if you say '2 am wednesday night', it's clear that's the same as '2 am thursday morning'.
off-topic, but in tanzania clocks are turned so that 6 is at the top, because 12 is dawn and dusk and 6 is noon and midnight. — kwami (talk) 21:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
one of those is for tourists, two are colonial, one was put up by coca cola and one by panasonic. domestic modern clocks put up for public use, such as at bus stations, are usually the other way around. — kwami (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
yes, that's it. that one is for teaching time to children. but you'll see that same orientation e.g. at the taxi/bus station outside the main post office in Dar. — kwami (talk) 19:51, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kwamikagami could you go a little deeper into the statement that "12 is dawn and dusk and 6 is noon and midnight"? Our time in Tanzania article says that the country observes UTC+3, which seems about right for 39 degrees East, the longitude given in the infobox for Tanzania. So I don't really understand why the Sun would rise or set at 12. --Trovatore (talk) 21:05, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
each day begins at dawn, so 1 hr after sunrise is 1 o'clock, midday is 6 o'clock, etc. the 'swahili clock' that Alansplodge found shows how it works. when you switch between swahili and english, you also adjust the time by 6 hours. — kwami (talk) 22:07, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, interesting, so it goes with the language? And our time in Tanzania article is talking about time specifically when speaking English, or at least not speaking Swahili? That must make code-switching complicated. --Trovatore (talk) 22:16, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
you quickly get used to it. saa moja is '7 o'clock'; you just don't translate the individual words.
the time zone's the same, so i don't know that it matters for that article, though it might at least be mentioned.
the swahili-style clocks i've seen are in places like bus stations where you'd expect people to be swahiliphone. banks and govt offices have english-style clocks. — kwami (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In this paragraph, we can read "[...] in the proposed taxon Selabacteria, in allusion to their phototrophic abilities (selas = light)". I can't figure out in what language "selas" could mean "(sun)light" (the source text is not easily accessible). May somebody know?
Which term is more appropriate for the article on indigenous peoples of United States, Native American or American Indian? Would the term “indigenous” be more appropriate? 76.81.87.234 (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
'Native American' is a rather patronizing exonym. all Indians i know call themselves 'Indians'; 'American' is added for disambiguation. similarly, all Eskimos i know call themselves 'Eskimos' even when they're Inuit; this includes college professors. 'Inuit' is more a Canadian thing, as unlike in the u.s. all Canadian Eskimos are Inuit.
given our history, i personally don't think that white people should be telling Indians what to call themselves, although I'm so habituated to 'Native American' that it's hard to switch back. — kwami (talk) 02:25, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i tend to use 'hindian', though that has regional implications in india that make it inappropriate for the whole country. — kwami (talk) 03:55, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the States, if it's not clear from context, I think you might say something like "Indians, you know, from India". What American Indians specifically say I couldn't say. Where I live (historical Ohlone people land) there are a lot more persons whose ancestors came from India than there are Ohlones, so if you say Indian in a modern-day context you probably mean South Asian, whereas if you use it in a historical context you probably mean Native American. I'm not sure I ever noticed that exact discrepancy before. (Complication: there are a lot of persons of Mexican descent, and a lot of them have Aztec or Nahuatl blood, but it's unusual to think of them as Native American.) --Trovatore (talk) 05:15, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
in Mexico, you're only indígeno if you speak the language or otherwise identify as such. native americans who have given up their language for Spanish are considered mestizo -- though there are also a lot of mixtecs and other indígenos in the u.s., or at least will be until ICE rounds them all up. — kwami (talk) 05:42, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ User:Kwamikagami: We live in a crazy world where we're constantly being told that a word or expression that was in wide use yesterday is suddenly outrageous, offensive and unacceptable today. For example, the people we call "African Americans" today underwent a series of name changes (including at least two "n" words) before the current formulation took hold. Sensitive and respectful people try to keep up with these kinds of bewildering developments. So when we're told that "Eskimo" is inappropriate, and we should call these people "Inuit" because that's what they call themselves, we comply. When we're told that the people native to the North American continent are not "Indians", "Red Indians" or "American Indians", but Native Americans, we comply. When we're told that the people native to Australia are not blacks, blackfellas, or even necessarily aborigines (because some are unrelated Torres Strait Islanders), but indigenous Australians, we comply. Now you're telling us we're being patronising. From whom should we be taking our marching orders when it comes to cultural sensitivity? -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]22:49, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i said the word - or at least its history - was patronizing, not that that people who use it are. it's similar to 'san' for 'bushman' -- this wasn't a case of the people themselves deciding what they want to be called, but of outsiders deciding what's best for them.
i remember a white southern u.s. woman who told a black man who'd done something nice for her that it was 'very white' of him. he got offended, and she was confused, because she'd never associated the word 'white' in that phrase with race, and had no idea that it was racist. the phrase was racist, but i have no reason to think that she was. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- In Joel Rosenberg's 1983 fantasy novel The Sleeping Dragon there is a major town called Lundeyll.
- In the 1980s/1990s Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks there's a city called Royal Lendle.
- In the recent video game Elden Ring, the royal capital is called Leyndell.
Does this vague sound have some sort of etymological grounding which has led three separate writers to name fantasy cities after it, or is this just an odd coincidence? Dr-ziego (talk) 08:13, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Lundeyll reminds me of Lunedale, the valley of the County Durham River Lune, and Lunesdale, the upper part of the valley of the Lancashire/Cumbria Lune. But then I'm from that part of the world and Joel Rosenberg wasn't. --Antiquary (talk) 11:47, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That sentence was added to Wikipedia, On 23 November 2005, in this version, and it's still there!
I suspect, that it's not English, and that the user who added it to Wikipedia meant: "there are D dimensions attributed to the thermodynamic space", or "the thermodynamic space has D dimensions", but since I'm not expert in Thermodynamics I don't want to change the syntax of a sentence in thermodynamics, before I receive a second opinion. 147.235.209.20 (talk) 09:17, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In ordinary speech we say that spacehas three dimensions, while a topologist would say that the dimension of space is three (so in maths speak, space has one dimension, which is three). So there is something funny about how the term dimension is used.
Further on in the article Thermodynamic potential the text has, "In all, if the thermodynamic space is D dimensions, then there will be D equations for each potential, resulting in a total of D 2D equations of state because 2D thermodynamic potentials exist." This was added in 2023 by another user. It is badder English than the other sentence.
In both cases, I feel it is an issue that the term thermodynamic space is not defined or explained, and neither is the term species. (The singular specie is also used, which I think is an incorrect back-formation.) In our article Thermodynamic activity the term links to Chemical species, and Component (thermodynamics) uses the full term chemical species. It seems to me – but I'm not sure – that D is the number of species – whatever that means – so that the use of the term thermodynamic space can be eliminated.
Speaking as a former science textbook editor, I don't see any problem with the sentence, which in full is
"If there are D dimensions to the thermodynamic space, then there are 2D unique thermodynamic potentials."
The term 'dimension' can refer not only to spacial dimensions (a recent narrowing of the word's application), but to any measurable property of something: my height is one of my dimensions, but so is my fat content, for example.
"Thermodynamic space" is the concept under discussion at this point, meaning everything to do with the possible thermodynamic properties of something. The actual number of its different thermodynamic-relevant properties, or 'dimensions', one could consider are (so far in the argument) uncounted, and the passage is proposing that if we consider D of them (which may not be all those possible) then there are 2D of a certain sort of relationship between those. In the context of defining D dimensions, saying there are D dimensions to the space is correct (if a little old-fashioned) English: adding a verb such as attributed would introduce an implication of intentionality that may not be appropriate.
The grammar here used may reflect the ultimately underlying sources of the concepts, given that thermodynamics had become highly developed by the 19th century.
I might also observe that formal English would hold "badder English" to be grammatically incorrect; "worse English" is the more usually acceptable form. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 04:34, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Las night I saw two American TV shows where speakers pronounced peanut as if the second vowel sound, the u, didn't exist. Here in Australia we say two distinct syllables, pea and nut, so the second syllable rhymes with cut. The American version seems to be pea-nt, as if the u doesn't exist. Is this universal in the US, and how did it come about? Does it apply to peanut butter? Does it apply to the comic strip Peanuts? HiLo48 (talk) 03:51, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
American English speaker here, I pronounce the u (although the degree to which the actual vowel sound matches that of cut may vary), and everyone I know does the same. Just out of curiosity do you have any clips demonstrating the aforementioned missing vowel? I'm curious if it's just a byproduct of the vowel being clipped while speaking quickly. GalacticShoe (talk) 04:02, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, this doesn't ring a bell, and my mom was from the South, where you might expect this sort of thing. Could be a New England thing maybe? Not sure why but it just strikes me that way. The GA pronunciation is /ˈpiː.nʌt/. --Trovatore (talk) 04:05, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
HiLo48, I suspect that people on these shows were trying to parody an ignorant, "hillbilly" accent for humorous effect. Based on 73 years of experience, I feel confident in saying saying that over 99.9% of Americans pronounce peanut just like you do. Cullen328 (talk) 04:33, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea, but to this maths (not math) teacher, pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. I DID ask is this universal in the US? HiLo48 (talk) 06:23, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How do you pronounce peanut? Do you say /ˈpi.nɐt/, /ˈpi.nʌt/, /ˈpiː.nɐt/ or /ˈpiː.nʌt/, or still something else? ‑‑Lambiam08:56, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't do those phonetic things, but as I wrote at the beginning "Here in Australia we say two distinct syllables, pea and nut, so the second syllable rhymes with cut." HiLo48 (talk) 10:07, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a question more suited for the teahouse! As you may know, that depends on how many reliable sources cover the game significantly. I couldn't find any. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:52, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a book about the game creation, but yea - besides that it's kinda hard to find maybe? And yup, I will ask at teahouse :)
Our article doesn't say, but given the timing my suspicion is that there was already a plan to use JEJ to narrate The Raven early the next season: Sideshow Bob's first speaking episode aired April 29, 1990 and the first Treehouse of Horror episode aired just six months later (Oct 30, 1990). Matt Deres (talk) 23:22, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Assume no plans for the voice actors for "Treehouse of Horror" had been made yet, and Jones had been available. Is there a specific reason to believe he would have been on the producers' shortlist for voicing Sideshow Bob? They may have felt that Grammer's voice better fit the character. As our article Sideshow Bob states, "Sideshow Bob shares some personality traits of Grammer character Frasier Crane". Also, Jones may simply not have been available due to other commitments, or not have been in for a long-term commitment. (Note that the section Treehouse of Horror (The Simpsons episode) § Production states, "Unable to work with the rest of the cast, Jones recorded his lines at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles".) ‑‑Lambiam06:38, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Providing the reason for asking about James Earl Jones: In the commentary for Krusty Gets Busted on DVD, the director, Brad Bird, stated that the script (written by Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky) called for James Earl Jones to voice Sideshow Bob. But, the producers opted for Kelsey Grammer. You can find claims that Grammer's overly theatrical voice is an attempt to parody Jones, but Grammer has stated that he was mimicing theater director Ellis Rabb.
Answering why the producers selcted Grammer over Jones: Producer Sam Simon also worked on Cheers. He knew Grammer. For the role of Sideshow Bob, he specifically wanted the character to sing. A Cole Porter song "Every Time We Say Goodbye" was selected. Jones is not known for singing. Sam Simon knew that Grammer could sing the song. Having a previous connection to the actor, he was able to approach him and offer the role. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 11:48, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am looking for a particular episode of Vera (TV series). In this episode, Vera is depicted running after a plane, in which a rich male suspect leaves the country in the company of his little son. The face of the son (only a small boy) is seen in the window of the plane (it may have been a private jet), when they leave. This episode made an impression on me - I think it was one of few episodes of Vera when the suspect managed to eskape. Does anyone know wich episode this was? Thanks! Aciram (talk) 21:24, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The premise of the show was that real children (~11-13 years of age) went to historical sites and were "sent back in time". They had to find the answers to some clues and return to the entrance otherwise they would be "trapped in the past forever". I think there was a red double decker bus that delivered them to the site and the bus conductor was the show's host. Can anyone remember the name of the TV programme? Red Fiona (talk) 23:17, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just learned about “culinary mysteries”, cozy mysteries where the protagonist is a cook and recipes are interspersed throughout the text. Has anyone encountered culinary romances, culinary sci-fi, culinary technothrillers, etc.? How weird can we get with this concept? Please note that I’m not just looking for genre fiction with a focus on food but novels that include actual cookable recipes. Thanks, Prezbo (talk) 15:04, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This immediately makes me thing of the "Hannah Swensen Mysteries" by Joanne Fluke. I haven't read them, really. But, I know that the hook is that the main character makes cookies and includes recipes for cookies that the reader can make. I'm sure there are many similar. Our catalog suggests "Goldy Bear Culinary Mysteries" and "Tea Shop Mysteries." 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Bruno, Chief of Police Series is a police procedural/ mystery series that has a strong food focus. Bruno is a small town police chief in the countryside of Southern France. Interspersed among the crime scenes and investigation are gorgeous culinary episodes describing local French cuisine being prepared and enjoyed.OnBeyondZebrax • TALK19:44, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The first five spy novels by Len Deighton (and arguably two later novels) feature an anonymous first-person protagonist, named 'Harry Palmer' in subsequent films, who is a culinary enthusiast and describes himself making several recipes. (Deighton himself published five cookery books, and in the films the close-ups of meals being prepared feature Deighton's hands rather than that of the actor Michael Caine who plays Palmer.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} Special:Contributions/94.5.172.125c94.5.172.125 (talk) 07:53, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bernard Cornwell co-wrote a cookbook/short story collection titled Uhtred's Feast: Inside the World of the Last Kingdom with recipes for things his character Uhtred could have eaten (in between raiding, pillaging and avenging). Clarityfiend (talk) 00:30, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, exactly the kind of thing I was looking for…historical fiction seems like another genre that would be well suited for this. Prezbo (talk) 02:43, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have just checked the new video of Feuerschwanz with Doro Pesch, Valhalla. The lyrics are in English, but at one point they sing "Verloren, vergessen, Verleugnet und bestraft, Verraten, verlassen, versklavt - VALHALLA!". Which language is that, and what do they say? Cambalachero (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is German, meaning, "Lost, forgotten, disowned and punished, betrayed, abandoned, enslaved – VALHALLA!". In standard German orthography, using sentence case, the initial letters of the participles verleugnet and verraten are not capitalized, but perhaps these are starts of a new line. ‑‑Lambiam21:15, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But that would have lost the line-end rhyme of bestraft with versklavt.
Also, 'damnation' is a Christian concept, whereas the characters in the song are clearly Asatruans, whose theology does not contain such a concept (see Valhalla).
But since Feuerschwanz are a comedy band, and not (as far as I know) actual practitioners of Heathenry, perhaps this is overthink. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 00:49, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's from the first season of Arcane. The character is named Silco. I don't recall where that scene came from specifically, but the series is very melodramatic and shouts of broken trust and betrayal are in pretty well every episode. Matt Deres (talk) 14:02, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the Joanie Bartels article could do with some TLC (by someone with more expertise than me). It's woefully undersourced, with only 2 citations, one to a dead link (the other is to Allmusic.com, which is rated 'generally reliable' on Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 05:37, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The movie established the tradition of audiences attending a feature from its opening, instead of arriving whenever they wanted, which had been the norm. (Chris Middendorp, "Chillingly perfect, Psycho changed everything", The Age, 8 May 2010, Insight, p. 6)
Was this actually so?
Our article says:
It was the first film sold in the US on the basis that no one would be admitted to the theater after the film had started. Hitchcock's "no late admission" policy for the film was unusual for the time. ... Hitchcock believed people who entered the theater late and thus never saw the appearance of star actress Janet Leigh would feel cheated. At first theater owners opposed the idea, thinking they would lose business. However, after the first day, the owners enjoyed long lines of people waiting to see the film.
This says to me that if people turned up at any random point after the movie had started (btw, it's far from unknown even now), until Psycho they would always be allowed in. But as far as that being "the norm", I somehow don't think so. I think there's a difference between theaters allowing people in whenever they turn up, and people not caring whether they see the movie from the beginning or not, which is the implication in the original quote. To me, that would be like starting to read a book at Chapter 7, read all the way to the end, and then go back and read Chapters 1 to 6. Nobody would ever do that. OK, sometimes people are delayed and get to the movies later than they had planned, but that would hardly be the preferred way of doing things. Would it?
Speaking purely from experience, both personal (I'm old) and from reading: yes it was quite normal for people to enter a movie theatre at a random time rather than the advertised start of a movie.
Back in the day, movie theatres ran continuous repeating cycles of feature films and shorter "B-Movies" often interspersed with newsreels, short documentaries, and advertisements. One would start watching whenever one arrived and leave when one chose depending on personal schedule and intentions (which might actually be to smooch with your sweetie in the dark for as long as possible).
A cliché was that when you noticed the point in the cycle where you had started, you might say "This is where we came in" and leave. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 04:04, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This still happened sometimes when I was a kid (I was born in 1959), and I think it was much more common earlier. It’s the origin of “this is where we came in,” originally meant literally: The speaker is saying, to one or more companions, that they have now reached the point in the movie where they came in, and there is no need to re-watch the remainder of the movie. See, for example, the discussion here, including the comments. I do not think Psycho actually had any significant effect on practices having changed since then. John M Baker (talk) 04:06, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi everyone, while the malls in United States are struggling, retail stores in airports are very successful. Since I visited the retail stores in airport and they look clean and innovative to me for sure. Why is this a case? 216.9.110.11 (talk) 23:40, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
People who are in airports are, on average, wealthier than average (since poor people can't afford to fly).
Retail stores in airports generally sell costlier than average, even 'luxury' items (not everyday groceries and household supplies), charge higher than average prices (personal observations), and/or are able to sell items 'duty free', meaning they make higher profits.
Because they make higher profits, they can afford to spend more in good shop design and on keeping their stores clean. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.210.159.137 (talk) 00:47, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Airport shops have thousands of potential customers funneled past their front doors daily without any effort of their own. It's a retailer's delight. HiLo48 (talk) 01:08, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even better: many of those potential customers are forced to wait for several hours near the shop's front door for their flight. They might visit the shop out of boredom. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:01, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Haven't seen that yet (must keep an eye out), but naturally they do sell specifically travel oriented products such as travel pillows, pills/potions to reduce vomiting, entertainment packs for kids, etc. HiLo48 (talk) 01:33, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on what I see out there, parachuting out of an airliner is not a good idea. Also, let's not forget they probably won't fit in the overhead compartment and would have to be stored in the hold. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:21, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are some air crashes on record where parachutes and a good jump door (which most airliners don't have) could have saved lives: United 232, JAL 123, El Al 1862 (granted, that was a freighter, but this could have happened to a passenger jet too); cases where hydraulics failure or wing damage allowed to plane to continue flying reasonably well, but made it incapable of landing. Only in the first of those cases, the pilot was fully aware of the extend of the damage. Such accidents are very rare. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:33, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A tribal library is a public library maintained and operated by a tribe. It will, relatively, hold more material that relates to this tribe than can be expected in a general public library. For more, see What Is a Tribal Library?. The map on that page does not work – it is a static screenshot – but an interactive map hosted on openstreetmap is found here. For a few randomly selected specific tribes:
Hello,
When I searched Wikipedia for "Vine Deloria, Jr.," your article stated that he graduated from Kent School in Kent, CT. But when I clicked on that link and read about Kent School, I notice it does not mention him as a distinguished alumnus. Just wondered, why is that?
BirdGirl1 (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The actual crossbar is the upper round horizontal beam. The lower, square-section beam is part of a rectangular frame that during play lies on the ground to hold the bottom of the net in place. This frame hinges up by 90 degrees to rest against the back of the posts when not in use, simply to keep it out of the way. The 'groove' or channel in the grass, which accommodates the frame when it is horizontal, is probably cut by a groundskeeper with a spade or similar implement if the pitch is 'natural', or possibly built in to the pitch when it is laid if it is artificial turf, although this would require that it be filled in when other sports are played on the pitch. 90.210.159.137 (talk) 21:18, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How unusual is the relationship between rowing and occupational homogamy? Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but I don't recall hearing about other soccer, basketball, baseball, football, hockey, golf, skiing, or any other sport in this regard. I'm reading about rowers, and many of them seem to have married other rowers. Is this normal or unusual when compared to other sports and rates of occupational homogamy? Viriditas (talk) 23:59, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In Australia, the UK and, I suspect, many other countries, being a rower is a sign you went to one of the "right schools". Perhaps what you are seeing with rowers is that they marry people from their social class. HiLo48 (talk) 06:49, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It may be that until very recently (certainly in Association Football and Rugby Union), the women's game had a much lower status than the men's game, so male players might be unlikely to meet their female couterparts very often? Alansplodge (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it me, or is our article Homogamy more air than substance? "There are three criteria with which people evaluate potential mates". Only three? What about compatibility of value systems? Would a dedicated fighter for social justice not consider that an otherwise eligible and attractive mate is a hardcore white nationalist? Then these "criteria" suddenly become "categories", which apparently "can heavily shape themselves around the secondary traits of ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic status." What does that mean? Categories that shape themselves? And heavily? Have they been working out in the gym?
As to the question, there is also the issue that (at least in societies in which arranged marriage, child marriage etc. is not the norm) a person usually has to meet another person before there is a chance that mating between the two will take place. There is a simple reason why there are more couples that are both professional musicians than you'd expect if mates were assigned by lottery. Such couples are simply more likely to have met in the first place. Longshoremen rarely meet professional musicians. Once you take this into account, I bet that most notable cases of occupational homogamy are not significant. ‑‑Lambiam07:27, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest that sports where men and women typically compete and/or train alongside each other are likely to lead to heterosexual occupational homogamy. Rowing isn't a mixed sport, but regattas typically include men's and women's races, and they all train in the same facilities. Tennis, skating, cycling and swimming would all be similar.
Playing in a big single-sex team sport like football (of whatever sort) won't put you in as much contact with players of the opposite sex.
Also, if you play a relatively obscure sport, finding a potential partner who plays the same sport is a more significant attraction factor. Chuntuk (talk) 11:12, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your penultimate paragraph; it is now common in the UK for professional clubs in major sports such as Association Football, Rugby Union and Cricket to maintain both men's and women's first teams (as well as others for younger players) whose members will likely have regular contact in both training and more social settings. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 07:32, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Today I had a entire paragraph of information deleted in the history section of the United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps so I reverted it, yesterday I filed a request to prevent this from happening, it was denied but it went something like this (not 1:1) "Given the organization's focus on minors, it's plausible that children or inexperienced users are unintentionally adding personal, non-neutral, or unverifiable content. To preserve the article's encyclopedic tone and prevent further disruption, I am requesting semi-protection to limit editing from unregistered users." And just today this happened, so should I make a new request as this is currently being under assessment for B class and promotional text could threaten the article I believe this edit was by a person from the official organization further making me believe it could threaten its credibility I'm asking others so I don't get blocked by making the report. Tokeamour (talk) 23:19, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Not all flakes are dandruff. For example, some can merely be product buildup on the scalp skin. This could result from the common practice of applying conditioner to scalp skin without washing. This would dry upon the scalp skin and flake off, appearing like dandruff and even causing itchiness, but have no health effects whatsoever."
I don't understand what this means in article can someone help me understand what it's saying?
Dandruff is a (usually very minor) health condition where dry skin flakes off the scalp. It's generally considered unattractive.
The hair care article says that if you put conditioner on your hair/scalp and don't rinse/wash it off thoroughly, it dries out into whitish crud. That's called "product buildup", and it also happens with other products like gels, mousses, and hair sprays if you don't clean your hair regularly and thoroughly. I guess under certain conditions, buildup can flake off -- giving the appearance of dandruff without being dandruff.
The article seems a little alarmist about conditioner to me. I can personally attest that leave-in conditioner does not cause this problem so long as you rinse it out in your next shower. Co-washing (using conditioner instead of shampoo to clean hair, rinsing thoroughly) can also be helpful for people with dry hair and does not cause buildup. Though washing with shampoo at least once every couple weeks helps is still important in that scenario.
I'll note that that entirely article is very poorly referenced, and the section we're discussing has no citations at all. I would suggest reading it with some skepticism. -- Avocado (talk) 12:35, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If conditioner is applied but not properly rinsed off, the wet film that is left will (under normal conditions) definitely dry up. It becomes a dry brittle film. If the hair is then rubbed, this film will start to flake. This is not an alarm call but simply an observation. The moral is that such flakes are not necessarily dandruff. Someone shedding flakes from their scalp should also consider conditioner buildup as a possible diagnosis. ‑‑Lambiam14:53, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fwiw, as someone who uses regular-old conditioner as leave-in conditioner but rinses it out and co-washes daily, I've never had a problem with it flaking. The quote from the article seems to suggest you should never use leave-in conditioner or you'll inevitably look like you have dandruff, which is just plain incorrect.
If you keep adding more and let it build up over several days without washing, I could imagine it getting cruddy and flakey, tho. And I agree that what's being said in the article is that it's a possible cause for what looks like dandruff and should be considered as an explanation if you have that particular hair care habit. How true that is is TBD, especially as it's uncited. -- Avocado (talk) 16:54, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your entry for United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, shows four dissenting justices, Clifford, David, Bradley, and Hunt. The Westlaw report and a private publisher's report show only Clifford dissenting. What is your source for the other three dissenters?
Judge Jon Newman Jononewman (talk) 16:53, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find any evidence for concurrence to this "dissent" in either in the Westlaw case report or through Westlaw's AI (I don't know how accurate that system is for such things, though.) One would think there would be some evidence somewhere for such a concurrence in such a case. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇22:49, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was not a comment. I asked a question about Wikipedia's entry for the Supreme Court case of "United States v. Cruikshank." Your entry lists four Justices who dissented. I would liketo know your sources for their names.
The respondents on the reference desk are also curious about the sources of the editor who added this and has thus far not responded to being prompted. The most likely explanation seems to be some confusion with another, less famous case before the early Waite Court. ‑‑Lambiam05:24, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
looking for 5000–6000 Kelvin shop (grow) lights, I'm based in US, must be 3 foot long and chainable. Lumens should be around 2k–3k. Any help? Therapyisgood (talk) 10:27, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The baseball player was reportedly born in Chicago, making it more suspicious. Our article on the journalist states, "Clancy joined CNN in 1981 as a national correspondent after an extensive career in local radio and television in Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California." The earliest item under the heading Experience on his LinkedIn page is:
"News Director, Anchor / KCFR Public Broadcasting Univ. of Denver / 1970 - 1971 ... Lots of people go to University for a degree. I got a career. It was thanks to the news department at KCFR. I went in (hair over my shoulders) and suggested I would be a great spinner of rock tunes. They told me the list to become DJ was so long I would never get to the job before graduation. BUT, if I took a job in the news department, I could be pushed up the list. It was all a TRICK! I never got out of the News Department! ;-) 50 years and counting!"
This LinkedIn page also has, under the heading Education, "University of Denver / 1967 – 1971". It is also not impossible but quite implausible an 11-year-old Chicagoan would go to study at the University of Denver, and even quiter implausible for news articles on the person to collectively fail to mention he graduated at the age of 15. The journalist was likely born in 1948 or 1949, in or near Denver, Colorado. ‑‑Lambiam03:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Retrosheet confirms the ballplayer date and city.[19] That info has been in the article from the very first entry, in March 2005. The journalist info was added by a user named Barreto a couple of years ago.[20] He edits only sporadically, but it might be worthwhile to contact him and see where he got the info. My AGF hunch is that he copied it from the ballplayer page, somehow thinking they're the same guy. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 04:20, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd wager that WP contains more than a handful of similar cases of (well-meaning) addition of one person's details into the article on a different person with the same name. There must be a quicker way of detecting such things than manually checking all potential cases. I wonder how many potential cases we have; probably thousands. We have well over 300 articles on John Smith, for starters. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]21:29, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why did the Ancient Greeks devalue the visual arts as mere craft and lift up the performative arts? Didn't this prevent technology from advancing and hold them back developmentally? Viriditas (talk) 00:35, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This question cannot be translated to Greek. While English has two words art and craft, Greek has just one word, τέχνη (tekhnē). We are not allowed to speculate, but I cannot help notice that in present-day society film actors and stage musicians tend to have a more extensive fan base than painters and sculptors. ‑‑Lambiam04:05, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My question was brought on by my recent observation that there is no muse for painting. How I went through life never noticing this is a different question. Viriditas (talk) 04:30, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone call them the "performative arts"? The term I'm used to is "performing arts". I usually hear "performative" used as a negative value judgment, implying insincerity. --Trovatore (talk) 05:10, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're referring to a more recent, pejorative usage. That's something that was invented post-9/11, likely around the time of the Tea Party. The usage I am employing is far, far older. Viriditas (talk) 10:06, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure that is really accurate as the two terms are used in entirely different ways. Google Books shows the term is used presently in an academic and historical context while performing arts is used in a current events, entertainment context. Viriditas (talk) 21:53, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If adjusting the scale by one factor more the curve becomes really interesting after that. What's happening with it spiking itself like hell during the nineties? The rehearsal of a huge global cross-millenia celebration.? --Askedonty (talk) 22:30, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Corporate funding for the performing arts was huge in the 1990s. It was the first time I recall seeing major branding and marketing with corporate names attached. That became the norm in the 2000s. The funding in the 1990s in the US came about because the Republicans under Reagan cut NEA funding more than 10%. They opposed what they saw as criticism of religion, capitalism, and any kind of art that advocated for regular people, women's rights, worker's rights, etc. Viriditas (talk) 23:38, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we may wonder up to what point politics distinguishes itself from the performative. At any rate there's more and more technicity associated with stage performance ( mostly lights, laser play, so on.. ) and designers although so much praised as they might be will most of them satisfy themselves to be considered on the rigid side imo. --Askedonty (talk) 00:18, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I am looking for an E-Mail address of the Bank of America, either for customer service in general, or for IRA distributions specifically. Alternatively, a contact page might be helpful, where one can write a note to them. The only possibly working e-mail address I have found is "customerservice (at) emcom.bankofamerica.com", but this seems to be a fake.
Phone calls are not an option, due to hearing problems and endless waiting loops.
Presumably, you've looked at their contact page. Those will be the only ways of contacting them. If they don't provide an email address on their website, it's because they don't want people emailing them. --Viennese Waltz12:28, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Log in to Online Banking and select the Contact us link in the Help & Support menu, then choose the topic you would like to discuss. The best ways to contact us will be displayed depending on the topic chosen.
If email agents are available for the topic you selected, you’ll see Email us as the last contact option listed on the page. Within 2-4 business days after sending us a message, you’ll receive an alert to inform you that our response is available in your Online Banking Message Center.
Since email is not available for most topics, we suggest that you contact us by phone, by making an appointment, by visiting us at a financial center or by reaching out on out on our Facebook page (select the Get Help link) or on Twitter @BofA_Help. You can also write to us at:
Bank of America / PO Box 25118 / Tampa, FL 33622-5118
Is there a reason on why the rest of the USA, feel less foreign and different, with an exception of Hawaii, Navajo Nation, Texas, and New Orleans, compared to overseas and international world in terms of culture? Why does USA only primarily speak English, despite being the most ethnically diverse countries in the whole world? Why do not a lot of people speak different languages in United States? Was this continent very diverse before European colonization? 76.81.87.234 (talk) 20:39, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Distribution of indigenous language families in Northern America
The section Indigenous languages of the Americas § Northern America states that there are approximately 296 spoken (or formerly spoken) indigenous languages north of Mexico, 269 of which are grouped into at least 29 families. These are languages that predate European contact and mostly continue to be spoken, although some have gone extinct and many are threatened, due to the small numbers of surviving speakers. The map on the right gives a visual impression of the distribution of these language families. For more, see also our article Classification of the Indigenous languages of the Americas. Note also Hawaii, where the Hawaiian language is an official language.
The colonies that became the United States were populated by a melting pot of settlers for whom English, if not their first language, became the dominant contact language, and in most cases after a few generations the primary language. But in some communities other European languages the settlers brought with them remained spoken for centuries, some to this day. See, for example, Pennsylvania Dutch, Texan Silesian and Louisiana French. Several creole languages resulting from slavery remain spoken in the US; see e.g. Gullah language and Louisiana Creole.
Many other languages are spoken in the US today, most notably Spanish. They mostly have no official status, but in fact, until Executive Order 14224 was issued a few months ago, English had no official status in the US at the federal level and in 32 of the 50 states.[21] ‑‑Lambiam03:02, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The dominance of English is probably in part related to the fact that the 13 colonies that first declared independence had been possessions of the British Empire. Some of them, especially in the South, had been settled mostly or primarily by the English. Others had been settled by other European powers and acquired by the English many decades prior to their independence (such as New York and some of the surrounding mid-Atlantic areas in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, originally settled by the Dutch).
After independence, there was more immigration from other European countries, as Lambian describes. And some territories were acquired that had been occupied by other European colonial powers -- such as Texas and Florida from the Spanish and Louisiana from the French. (Also Alaska from the Russians, but it had never been particularly densely settled.) Due to immigration, there have always been enclaves of different languages and cultures in the US, especially in major cities -- there are Chinatowns in several major cities; New York has Little Italy, and once had a significant subculture of Jewish immigrants who spoke Yiddish among themselves.
But most immigrants have found it useful to assimmilate in order to succeed socially and economically. Even in regions where there's a significant subpopulation that's bilingual or for whom another language is their first language, most children of immigrants in the US learn English as they grow up. The public school system and its default use of English has contributed to that.
As you can see from that map, there was a rich diversity of thriving native cultures before the colonial powers arrived. And in pretty much all the places that Europeans settled, they suppressed the native cultures. The Spanish tried to convert the indigenous peoples to their religion and dominate culturally. In many cases, the native populations were either eradicated or uprooted and exiled to other parts of the continent (see also the Trail of Tears).
Beyond the East Coast, settlement by non-indigenous groups expanded extremely rapidly, while indigenous people were isolated in Indian reservations -- many far from their original home territories -- from which they couldn't exert much influence on the dominant culture. The vacated land, rather than being settled at different times and then evolving separately for hundreds of years, was largely settled within a period of 50-100 years by a relatively homogenous culture of Europeans departing from the East Coast. Before they had time to diverge significantly, the homogenizing influences of radio and Television became widespread. -- Avocado (talk) 15:28, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Quartz and metal vibrations occulting the reminiscence of all ancestral inspirational sources before they might have become assertive again. Railroad tracks crushing the ground at a much faster pace than manors when erected in the Old World. --Askedonty (talk) 12:44, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Why does USA only primarily speak English, despite being the most ethnically diverse countries in the whole world?" Paradoxically, that may be one of the reasons for the primacy of English. No other language community has been large enough and organized enough to establish a contained population that could exist more or less separate from the surrounding anglophone majority. All such communities have to maintain English in order to interact with the city, state, and federal infrastructures. And also to interact with other linguistic subpopulations that are foreign to them as well. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:41, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hawaii doesn't feel "foreign". The rate of bilingual speakers in Hawaii is only slightly higher than the mainland US, so I don't know what you mean by that idea. Viriditas (talk) 23:24, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[WAG alert] The Native Americans (or Indians or whatever they want to be called, per another RD discussion still in progress) were generally easier to push around/displace/suppress/kill than Europeans, Asians and even Africans (who had empires and suchlike), due to being fewer in number, broken up in often mutually hostile tribes/confederations and being more susceptible to nasty European diseases. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:23, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is something I've been thinking about for a long time but I've never been able to put into words until today. To summarize: I was standing in line at the grocery store checkout line when an elderly lady and her family walked up and asked the cashier how to find the bathroom in the shopping complex. The cashier responded in an overly long and complex way, perhaps using 30 or more words. The lady, who wasn't familiar with the area, looked at her as if she didn't understand what she was just told. I interjected at that moment, and broke down the directions for her in less than ten words. She smiled, thanked me, and left. This experience evoked an idea that I've been going back and forth on for a while. What can we tell from the way someone gives wayfinding directions? Is there a behavioral profile that can be constructed? Does the way someone give directions give us a deeper insight into how their brain works and the way they see the world, political or otherwise? I suspect that this is an old idea and others have looked into it, so if you have some sources to point me to that would be great. Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are two types of people: those who give directions as they understand them, and those who make the imaginative effort to see the world from the listener's point of view, and give directions based on that world view. The same applies to many areas of UI design, including computer user interfaces, manual writing, signage, and teaching. The effort to become the second type of person is, alas, not always considered worthwhile by the first type of person.
The cashier was doing her job, and at the same time thinking of completely unrelated things, when she suddenly got an unexpected question, a question nobody had asked her recently, maybe even never before. Maybe she uses a WC for personnel, so she doesn't need the public loo the lady asked for. In any case, the cashier didn't have the answer ready in her mind. She had to build the answer first. So she began improvising her answer before figuring out the best way to tell and that led to a needlessly complex answer. After the 20 seconds or so she needed for that answer, you had a much better set of directions ready, which you gave. If the cashier had simply remained silent for 20 seconds, she could have given an equally good answer, but alas, we're expected to answer promptly.
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