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April 12

Firefox bookmarks sidebar

After Firefox on my Fedora Linux system updated to Firefox 120.0.1, the "bookmarks sidebar" button suddenly changed to "sidebars". When I click it I get a sidebar with multiple options, such as "history" and "bookmarks". This is otherwise all OK, but it always opens with "history" as the default. How can I make it open with "bookmarks" as the default? JIP | Talk 17:18, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Web Applications

I want to categorize types of Web Applications based upon what framework and architecture might be best suited for making a type of site as effective as possible.

By effective, I mean nondeveloper content creation, SEO, community experience, rapid development, load time, responsiveness, ease of deployment, etc.

So far I have a loose list:

brochure - such as https://valleyendodontic.com/ notice, no sign in… no portal

subscription - medium.com, NetFlix, etc notice “subscribe to read more” prompts or sign up to watch whatever you want

store - chewy.com where you can do almost everything as a guest but can also sign in for user specific resources

community - facebook, etc where experience is distinctly different and more diverse for a member compared to a guest

community generated content - wikipedia, the community is mostly focused on creating content for guest visitors

portal - has user tracking but not much interacting and members are generally siloed to their own data

Anybody got any other suggestions for something I might have missed? Usulix (talk) 23:33, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

This does not appear an easy exercise, both because the diversity is large and because many web apps combine a mix of functionalities. The distinction between web apps and web sites is nebulous. Although in practice there is a correlation, from a logical viewpoint there is in most cases no necessary connection between the functionalities offered and possibly attendant requirements for accessing these, such as having subscribed or registered.

Here are a few types to consider:

• In what category should we place news apps (some of which require paying, others merely registration, while yet others are freely accessible)?
• I also don't know where Q&A sits, categorywise. In some case this is a side function (like Wikipedia's Reference desk), in other cases (Quora, Stack Exchange) it is the core function.
• Then there is groupware, ideally an integrated collection of online tools for managing collaborative projects. They can be designed with "group" as the central concept, where a group (e.g. a corporation) can have many projects, or with "project" as the central concept. In a sense, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc., are instances of the latter; it is not uncommon to speak of Wikipedia as a project. In the Wikimedia examples the generated content is also meant to be consumed by users, but this is not in general the case for online collaborative projects – more often than not they are inaccessible to outsiders.
• What about educationware, apps through which users can follow courses, do exercises, etc.? How does that fit?

I suspect that there are many more types.  --Lambiam 22:34, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

April 16

Spectrum 2

When will be released Adobe Spectrum 2? 93.47.36.196 (talk) 15:22, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@93.47.36.196: I don't know, as Adobe has only announced it in a press release. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

April 17

I want to upload some files to common but first I need to print them out as small images in Word to easily identify them.

As many as I can to a page so that I can identify where I was when I took them - it's an archaeological site where I took many similar photos. I can of course print them out now but one to a page would use my my ink! Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:59, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller So you want to upload files to commons, but you say you need to print them? Why print them? I'm not understanding. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 19:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@TheTechie I want to print several on a page so I can compare with other photos I've found on the web and Commons to see if I have better ones than those and try to identify the archaeological features by comparing mine with images that already identify the features. Doug Weller talk 19:11, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

In Word you simply need to create four separate frames on one page and paste one photo in each. Shantavira|^{feed me} 19:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. That’s something I didn’t know I could do. Very useful. Doug Weller talk 20:26, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

Replacing LVM drives with larger drives on Linux

My question here is rather complicated.

My current computer has three internal SATA drive bays, all of which are filled. Two of them have a 6 TB drive each, running the EXT4 file system and combined with LVM into a single logical 12 TB volume. One of the partitions on the logical drive alone spans 11 TB, i.e. more than one of the physical drives. The remaining drive bay has a 1 TB drive running the NTFS file system with Windows 10 installed, which I rarely if ever use.

I am running out of space on the LVM EXT4 drives in a couple of years. I'd like to replace them with larger ones, but how do I go about this? I'd like a similar set-up as I currently have but with bigger drives, such as two 16 TB drives combined into one 32 TB logical volume. I don't have enough drive bays to connect four physical drives at once, and I think to be able to use a LVM volume at all, I need to have both of the physical drives it consists of connected at the same time. Is it somehow possible to put the old drives into some sort of USB cases and connect them as external drives via my computer's USB ports or something? JIP | Talk 16:23, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I've used SABRENT 2.5" drive enclosures with great success. They are about £10 (or 13.7 USD/11.24 EUR) from Amazon. SABRENT also do multi-disk docking station and 3.5" cases, but obviously that is a little more expensive. I've no connection with either Amazon or SABRENT other than as a satisfied customer. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 18:05, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

What I did both times I upgraded my LVM was remove the drives completely. Put in new drives. Upgrade to the latest version of Redhat, which is what I was using on the server. Connected the old drives using a USB adapter. There are many options. The one I use plugs into the SATA connector on the drive and has both power and USB coming out of it. It is not enclosed. The drive sits on my desk and hums. Once connected, I used pvscan to check the drives to make sure they were OK. They were. My plan was to swap the drives back if not. Then, I used vgs to see the volume ID on the old drives. Then, with lvs, I could see the mounting point for the logical volumne and mount it to a directory on my new drives. I pulled over the files I wanted to keep where I wanted them (and a lot went into a temporary "old junk" directory). When finished, I unmounted and unplugged the old drives and put them in my file cabinet in case I ever need them in the future. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Good Open Source CMS with Open Source Themes/Templates?

I'm still writing HTML and CSS by hand (and by Python script), but a friend is "just trying to build a website", and is shopping around for a content management system. They are aplenty, and most are Open Source. But it seems to be quite hard to find decent free themes and templates - a far as I can tell not because they don't exist, but because the internet is flooded with commercial subscription offers (of various and often dubious quality). Are there some good community sites to find good free stuff? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

You haven't specified for which CMS. I would recommend Wordpress. Free themes can be found over at https://wordpress.org/themes/ Polygnotus (talk) 08:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, the availability of good themes one of the criteria to choosing a CMS. He has settled on Joomla now, and has found out how to hack it himself to some degree. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: You can use Google Trends to get an idea of the relative popularity of Wordpress vs Joomla. Or you can look at something like w3techs. I would not recommend learning or using Joomla in 2024. Note that this contains 12,118 free themes. Polygnotus (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll pass it on! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting detail on the Google Trends page: The vast majority of frequent Joomla queries is German (7 of the top 10, with the others hard to determine). It may be much more popular on this side of the pond.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: Here are the results for Germany. But if you go further back in time you see that around 2011 Wordpress overtook Joomla in Germany. Joomla used to be pretty popular in Germany, 14 years ago. Polygnotus (talk) 15:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

April 21

Photoshop

Hi, what is Photoshop? HovigTheEditor 17:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not only a community Q&A site but also an encyclopedia. See Photoshop and your question will be answered.  --Lambiam 18:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. HovigTheEditor 19:07, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

April 11

Gender benders

Re this comment in an earlier discussion:

...As I understand it, Rishi agreed to ban, for example, mechanical restraints that prevent natural development and cripple young women, and hormone treatments that oppose it. That is because girls of this age are immature and in many cases young women who were crippled in this way later said that their lives had been ruined by what was done to them. So is Stonewall saying that Rishi agreed to the opposite of what he agreed to? 92.10.96.64 (talk) 11:07, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Last night's Evening Standard carried this harrowing report:

The most high-profile case of "detransitioning" is that of Keira Bell, who began taking puberty blockers aged 16 before transitioning to a male. She later decided to reverse treatment, claiming she never should have been given the medication and that the Tavistock clinic should have challenged her more.

I'm no medical expert, so can someone explain what physical (as opposed to intellectual) aspects of adulthood have not been reached by age sixteen? The process begins at age seven. 92.28.114.98 (talk) 10:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

We have an article on Bell v Tavistock. According to this article, the complainant had a double mastectomy at the age of 20, which to me seems a mature age in terms of both physical and mental development, so this would hardly be a relevant case concerning gender-conforming care for children.

An intended effect of the most commonly used puberty blockers is diminished sex-specific physical characteristics, which should no longer be an issue at age sixteen. A potential risk for patients having a change of heart at a later age is compromised fertility; I have not investigated for which age class this may be an issue.  --Lambiam 14:40, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Luminosity of air plasma

Is there some empirical formula or theory that describes the expected (optical) luminosity of a plasma? Say depending on ionization rate and/or ion density. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 13:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Are you asking about the black body radiation, atomic emission (or ionic, as it may be), or the combination of both? --OuroborosCobra (talk) 13:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Both, really - I wonder less about the mechanisms and more about the quantities. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 15:41, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

You can't have the quantities without an understanding of the mechanisms. Our article on black body radiation does a good job explaining the necessary mathematics for that aspect. As for atomic emission, that is far less trivial (to the extent that black body radiation can be considered "trivial" to calculate to a given quantitative accuracy). As for atomic emission, that gets far more difficult. For a hydrogen-like atom, i.e. an atom with only one electron, this isn't terribly difficult to solve using the Schrödinger equation. However, once you start having more than one electron, you now have a many-body problem. We do not have exact solutions to the Schrödinger equation for many-body systems. These require approximation methods, such as the Hartree–Fock method, density functional theory, coupled cluster method, etc. That's not even getting into the issue of things like spin–orbit interaction, or relativistic effects that come into play once you start getting to large numbers of electrons around a single nucleus. If we go to molecules, then we may need to consider other effects and make other approximations, such as the Born–Oppenheimer approximation. So... it kind of matters what you are looking at and what you want out of it. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The degree to which these issues are relevant depend on the composition of the plasma, density, temperature and the degree of ionisation. Even for astrophysical plasmas (that I am somewhat familiar with) the conditions vary quite a bit. As the intro to bremsstrahlung explains, the emission mechanisms can be classified into free-free, free-bound and bound-bound processes. A very hot plasma, such as the intracluster medium in clusters of galaxies, the free-free process of thermal bremsstrahlung dominates: an electron is scattered, i.e. accelerated, in the electric field of an ion and emits radiation. The resulting spectrum is a continuous spectrum, but not a black-body spectrum (electrons and ions are in thermodynamic equilibrium but the radiation is not). In cooler plasmas, free-bound radiation becomes more important; this is emitted when an ion captures an electron (this is called recombination) and again results in a continuous spectrum. The recombined electron often lands in an excited energy level of the resulting atom (or ion) and can then cascade to lower levels or the ground level. This then leads to bound-bound radiation, which happens in distinct emission lines (for example the reddish glow of an HII region around a hot star is from the Hα line of neutral hydrogen, following recombination of a proton (H⁺) with an electron). There are computer programmes that can compute the full spectral energy density for a specified plasma; I could dig out some formulas for the luminosity of a cluster of galaxies but I suspect that is not what you're actually after. --Wrongfilter (talk) 21:59, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@Wrongfilter and OuroborosCobra: I am mostly looking at air plasma and gas-discharge lamp, not astrophysical things. The plasmas I am interested in have a low ionization fraction and low temperature, and I want to know how bright they would be to the naked eye (or not, if the luminosity is way too low) for a given energy input/ionization rate. I guess that recombination radiation is the most important component. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

April 13

Temperature at which dogs stick out tongue

At what air temperature on average dogs start to stick out their tongues and at what they start to keep them inside mouth? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

According to this source, the air temperature surrounding the animal must not rise above 29.5°C (85°F). The same article mentions 31°C (87.8°F) as the skin temperature; at higher ambient temperatures panting becomes the only available means by which the dog can cool itself. Normal human skin temperature is a few degrees higher, so you may still be comfortable while your hot dog is not.  --Lambiam 21:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Long experience tells me it varies a lot by breed and even by individual dogs. I'd be fascinated if anyone has ever worked out an average. HiLo48 (talk) 23:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I would think it would also depend on the dog's activity level, i.e. whether running around or just setting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

For sure. HiLo48 (talk) 01:21, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm, I've seen dogs panting during walkout well below 29.5°C which looks quite high (at around 20°C or so). 212.180.235.46 (talk) 11:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I imagine there are local factors and a lot of diversity. The dog that scammed his way into my house is quite heat intolerant apparently having forgotten his young wild days in a hot eucalyptus forest, whereas the semi-feral street dogs seem unbothered by temperatures like 34C while bathed in IR from concrete etc. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:30, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

April 16

How can some birds have lifelong high core temperatures?

Understandably they need to be hot to fly well but something must be different. Protein differences? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Some possible answers here. Mikenorton (talk) 19:21, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

How do chickens live for 5-10 years with average body temperatures of 105-107? With smaller breeds over 106. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

That article says a lot about how active birds are, but some are not terribly active at all. Eagles glide and soar with seemingly minimal energy input. Unless under threat (which is rare), Australia's large ratites spend the day strolling around or just sitting. Other Australian birds just seem to sit on tree branches all day, only very occasionally making a very short foray for food. HiLo48 (talk) 03:18, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Their defense against pathogens is presumably dependent to some extent on maintaining high core body temperatures, or having very elevated temperatures in bursts like bats. Is a temperature difference of a few Celsius between us and chickens that much of a challenge for biological systems? Many social insects operate at much higher temperatures. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:29, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

It depends on a lot of factors, but probably the biggest one is just whether enzymatic function can happen well enough at those temperatures. Not only is temperature an important factor in any equilibria or reaction rates (see reaction rate, Arrhenius equation, equilibrium constant, Van 't Hoff equation and Van 't Hoff plots, etc.) and are enzymes often quite pH dependent, which itself changes as a result of temperature, but at different temperatures the physical structure of enzymes, i.e. how they are folded and other structural issues, can change. This will denature the enzymes, potentially permanently, and a denatured enzyme either has incredibly reduced function or total even loss of function. That said, there isn't some magic one temperature that is best for all enzymes in nature. Rather, as a result of evolution and natural selection, the enzymes of a particular organism will be at their optimal temperature and pH range (or close enough to it for organism survival) for the given conditions of that organism. If you try to put human lysozyme in a chicken or a cat, it likely will not function. However, chickens and cats have their own versions of lysozyme which do work at their operating temperatures. Put chicken or cat enzymes in us, and they might not thermally denature, but they might not be at an optimal temperature for enzymatic activity (or worse, the direction of the equilibrium could even shift, depending on the thermodynamics involved). The adaptations needed to adjust enzymatic optimal temperature ranges often (but not always) aren't very complicated, to the point that a few degrees Celsius adaptation might only require a single point mutation changing one codon/one amino acid. However, even that can become a problem when you have a lot of enzymes needing to adapt to a very quickly changing temperature condition. Thus the problem with coral bleaching, for example. Not having a lot of temperature regulation and being dependent on external temperature, if a temperature shock happens too rapidly for generational/evolutionary adaptation, you start seeing bleaching and eventually extinction events (we have extensive fossil records of other temperature shocks that wiped out the vast majority of marine corals). --OuroborosCobra (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

An intelligent bird might just as easily ask "How can some mammals have lifelong low core temperatures?"

Everything is relative, and birds have been around something like 160 million years longer than H. sapiens, so their 'normality' is more established than ours. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Their biochemical and enzymatic activity is optimized enough to that temperature for function. Same as any other living thing. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 17:26, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

April 17

pouch delivery

Hi. The medical field has been using Modified-release dosage tablets/pills/capsules for decades.

Today, I heard about Nicotine pouch on the news. I have never came across this delivery method before, so it got me curious. Nicotine pouch slowly release Nicotine over time, in an analogous way as modified-release dosage tablets/pills/capsules slowly release medication over time.

1. Are there any medication that is delivered via the pouch method?

2. There are Nicotine pouch, Nicotine patch, Nicotine gum, and Nicotine Lozenges[1] that is kept in the mouth but must not be swallowed. There are probably many other nicotine delivery methods that I am not aware of. Are there any Modified-release dosage nicotine tablets/pills/capsules that you swallow?

3. To the best of my knowledge, it seems like almost every nicotine delivery method that goes in the mouth is kept in the mouth, and must not be swallowed. Is there a reason for this?

OptoFidelty (talk) 05:28, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

• It seems that nicotine causes nausea and vomiting when it hits the stomach. Also, the stomach acids destroy it, according to Quora. This article says that a time release pill for treating ulcerative colitis with nicotine gets a lot of nicotine where it's needed in the colon, but not so much in the bloodstream. The nicotine in the pouches and other delivery methods needs to travel across the mucous membranes, skin, or lungs to get people feeling good. Abductive (reasoning) 10:37, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! OptoFidelty (talk) 18:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Some medications (and foods) besides nicotine are being packaged in edible film pouches or capsules. [2] It's been studied for new methods of drug delivery [3] but I haven't personally seen anything other than self-medications taken with these kinds of pouches. Reconrabbit 01:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

Xia's five-body configuration

One of my favorite webcomics, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, once made a joke about Xia's five-body configuration (comic here). I went looking for what it was talking about and found our article on the Painlevé conjecture, to which I added a redirect-with-possibilities. As an aside, the article could use some TLC; the most glaring problem is that it introduces variables without saying what they represent.

Anyway I was trying to figure out where this infinite energy was supposed to be coming from. My best guess so far is that the five bodies are idealized as point masses, which means that the gravitational energy released as you let two of them approach one another grows without bound. This of course would make them black holes in our actual universe, so that energy wouldn't be available, but in the universe of the comic, I guess this wouldn't be a problem (I've never thought very deeply about what happens to general relativity as c approaches ∞, so I'm not sure about that). But in any case there's no new energy appearing that wasn't there before, so the comic's claim that "the universe collapses" seems wrong.

No, really, I actually do have a sense of humor. I just want to know if I've understood this correctly. Does anyone have a different understanding? --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

O/T That article rather overeggs the pudding. The various proofs are for the 2d case ie planar. Perhaps it is obvious that if it works in 2d it'll work in 3d. Greglocock (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not too sure what it means to "overegg the pudding" but I was not interpreting the configuration as planar; if that's correct then I've misunderstood the drawing. Can you point me to why you say that? --Trovatore (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

It means exaggerating the utility of . The repeated use of the word planar is what I was getting at.Greglocock (talk) 05:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The last section of the AMS article by Saari and Xia has this: "While we now know that noncollision singularities exist, several mysteries remain. Any partial listing has to include whether n = 5 is the cut-off for this surprising behavior, or whether the four-body problem can propel particles to infinity in a finite time. Can, for instance, Anosov’s suggestion be carried out? Are there planar examples with small n values?" This implies IMO that Xia's construction is non-planar. I think the sketch of the construction also implies this: the orbits of the pair of point masses m₁ and m₂ are said to be parallel to the x-y plane and highly elliptical, while m₃ moves along the z-axis. The orbits of the pair m₄ and m₅ are also orthogonal to the z-axis, with their major axes shown at an angle to those of m₁ and m₂ in the accompanying figure.  --Lambiam 12:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Energy borrowed from the potential energy shed by point masses approaching each other closely but not, in the finite time, "arbitrarily closely", can only be finite. To reach infinity their distance has to become less than any positive number, which means it is zero. Doesn't that qualify as a collision? What is worse, in Jinxin Xue's 4-body solution all four bodies are said to escape to infinity in a finite time. Do they scoot off in four different directions?  --Lambiam 13:18, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I believe the idea is this: as you approach the time of the singularity, the separation between some pairs of masses approaches zero, but the positions of those masses diverge to infinity. If you consider a collision to be when two masses have identical, finite coordinates, then that never happens in this scenario. --Amble (talk) 22:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

April 23

Fulgurite: vandalism or proper fixings?

While adding a brief historical context section to that lemma I noticed some former changes of another IP which I doubt to be correct. Please could somebody countercheck, since I have no access to the referenced Elsevier source documents from which the data has been obviously originally taken. Here the difflinks in question:

• Special:Diff/1218613828 Section or not a section?
• Special:Diff/1218613911 Greater or less than 100.000 Volts? Grounding or grounding substrate?
• Special:Diff/1218614055 Second half of a sentence was removed. Does that make sense?
• Special:Diff/1218614423 Negative or positive? Discharge or charge?
• Special:Diff/1218614559 100 million volts or only 100 volts?

I would tend to revert these unverified changes, they look illogicaly to me, but wanted to ask here first.

Many thanks! --92.117.130.94 (talk) 05:06, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

P.S.: Maybe there is a need to improve my wording or grammar in the historical section I have added, since I'm not an English language native speaker, sorry if I've used unusual or strange wording. --92.117.130.94 (talk) 05:12, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing. I've reverted these edits because they look like vandalism to me. HansVonStuttgart (talk) 08:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

April 13

How to calculate a line integral by computer?

Hi!

There is a line integral ∫_L yds, where L is y²=2x and from (1/2, -1) to (2, 2). My answer is (5√5−2√2)/3, but L is a quadratic curve (instead of a line) and the answer seems odd, therefore I am not sure my calculation is correct or not.

How can I calculate a line integral result by computer (by Wolfram Alpha, python etc.)? James King 2009 (talk) 11:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Swapping $x$ and $y$, this is the arc length of the segment of the parabola given by the equation $y={\frac {1}{2}}x^{2}$ from $x=-1$ to $x=2$. It can be turned into an ordinary integral of the form

$L=\int _{a}^{b}{\sqrt {1+\left({\frac {dy}{dx}}\right)^{2}}}dx.$

In view of the square root in this formula, the appearance in the result should not be odd, but I find a different result, involving not only square roots but also logarithms (or arcsines). Obviously, the length of the arc should exceed that of the straight line segment connecting the end points, which is ${\tfrac {3}{2}}{\sqrt {5}}>3.35,$ but your result evaluates numerically to less than $2.79.$ To check your result: its numerical value should be close to $4.10568.$ --Lambiam 14:19, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The question calls for the integral of yds, so the first moment wrt the x-axis, not arc length. So basically you're integrating $\int y{\sqrt {1+y^{2}}}dy$. --RDBury (talk) 15:37, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

PS. if you just want a ballpark estimate to check your result, break the curve up and approximate by line segments. In this case the section from y=-1 to y=1 cancels itself out, so you really just have to do the segment from (1/2, 1) to (2, 2). If you replace the curve with a line segment, its center of mass is the midpoint, so (5/4, 3/2). The length is √13/2, so the moment is (3/2)(√13/2) ≈ 2.7. That's off from the original result by about .1 so I'd count it as verified. --RDBury (talk) 15:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Symbolic integration by Maxima confirms it as well.  --Lambiam 20:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually I should try that out, so thanks. There are limits to what you can do with pencil & paper (and maybe a calculator). I've found you can do wonders with an off-the-shelf spreadsheet program, and if you already know how to use one that would work as well. As with many things, the trade-off is the time it takes to learn how to use the tool in question. You can write a Python program when the task is too complex for a spreadsheet, but if you don't know Python already that's a lot of effort for solving one problem. The OP mentioned Wolfram Alpha as well, and I assume that would tell you the answer too if you know the right input string. I use Alpha occasionally, but mostly for things where the right command is obvious, "solve x^3-x-1=0" for example. --RDBury (talk) 02:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

For this specific integral it isn't too hard to do the integration purely mentally by change of variables $({\sqrt {1{+}y^{2}}}\leftrightarrow u,$ so $d(1{+}y^{2})=d(u^{2})$ and thus $y\,dy=u\,du).$  --Lambiam 10:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

April 15

Does anyone use the word "cathetus" anymore?

I'm trying to read this article translated from a 1934 article in Swedish by B. Berggren. The word "catheter" is mentioned several times, and I gather it should be "cathetus" meaning a leg, or side other than the hypotenuse in a right triangle. I don't think I've heard of a cathetus before, nor a catheter with reference to a triangle. Is this term still used by anyone now? --RDBury (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

It makes it into wiktionary: cathetus, but there are no quotations. This says it's fairly rare, but some prefer it over the term "leg". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I've mostly heard and used "side", but that's wrong if you think about it; triangles have three sides. I didn't think to look at NGram Viewer before, but I did just now and it seems that "cathetus" had about a 10 year window of popularity between the mid-1920's and mid-1930's, but still only about 3% as common as "hypotenuse". Perhaps it's more common in Swedish. --RDBury (talk) 06:44, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The Swedish Wikipedia uses it in its article on the Pythagorean theorem. It did not help the translator that in Swedish the form kateter is both the word for "catheter" and the plural of katet, which means "cathetus".  --Lambiam 06:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

1,000 random editors

There's a room with 1,000 people, each with a computer. Their task is to access Wikipedia, and click Random article, editing whatever they see needs fixing each time, before repeating the same process endlessly. They're well paid. They do this for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, until they either quit out of sheer boredom, kill themselves, or ascend to some higher plane of consciousness.

What are the chances that 2 or more of the people could be editing the same article simultaneously, causing an edit conflict when the second or later ones press Publish? And how long might it take for the first such conflict to occur? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

This is essentially the same as the birthday problem for a set of $n=1000$ randomly chosen people on a planet in which a year takes $d$ days, where $d$ is equal to the number of Wikipedia articles (currently 6,816,743). Assuming all are in the same time zone, working 9 to 5, the probability that any article is being edited simultaneously by multiple persons, using the square approximation, equals approximately

${\frac {n^{2}}{2d}}\approx {\frac {10^{6}}{2\times 6.813{\times }10^{6}}}\approx 0.073\,.$

A slightly better approximation is given by the formula

$1-\exp \left({\frac {n^{2}}{2d}}\right)\approx 0.071\,.$

How long it will take for a conflict to arise (assuming that all simultaneous edits are conflictual) depends on how long editors stay within the same article, which may be characterized by individual-dependent probability distributions and hard to impossible to tackle analytically. If they are synchronized, each editing one article per time slot in equal time slots, the expected number of time slots until conflict is approximately

${\frac {1}{0.071}}\approx 14.1\,.$

 --Lambiam 03:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. The first answer is about what I expected. But the time till the first conflict is rather counter-intuitive. If the time slots were 5 minutes, that means a conflict would occur after only a bit over an hour. I don't question your maths, but that is amazingly short for such a huge database. Thanks again.

But then, I guess the number of editors does make a rather significant difference (* cough), since the number of possible conflicts with 1,000 editors in each time slot is half factorial 999, a number with c. 2,565 digits, and about 10²⁴⁸⁵ times the number of atoms in the universe. Compared to this, a mere 6-odd million articles is infinitesimally small, so having to wait an hour for a conflict does seems a bit tardy, on reflection. If it were only 4 editors, there are only 6 possible conflicts and the expected time would increase massively, to about 500 days. Very nice. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:56, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, at first glance it is counterintuitive, which is why the problem in its birthday suit setting is also known as the "birthday paradox".  --Lambiam 05:41, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

April 18

How do I calculate the daily interest rate, when given the effective annual interest rate?

Interest compounds daily. The effective annual interest rate is 5.15%. Is there some formula to calculate what is the actual daily interest rate? Using a lot of trial and error on spreadsheets, I estimated that the daily interest rate is 5.02235% (or so). But, that was through a lot of trial and error … and it only comes “close to” an estimate of the actual daily interest rate. Is there some mathematical formula that will give me the exact figure? Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 02:04, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, when I estimated the daily interest rate, I came up with 5.02235% (divided by 365) = 0.01375986301370%. Thanks. 32.209.69.24 (talk) 02:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

If I'm interpreting this correctly, then if you are given the annual interest rate $A$, then you want a daily interest rate $D$ such that $(1+{\frac {D}{365}})^{365t}=(1+A)^{t}$, where $t$ is the number of years. Since both sides are exponentials and the only way they can always match is for the bases to match, we can just remove the $t$ to get $(1+{\frac {D}{365}})^{365}=1+A$. Taking the root on each side, you get $1+{\frac {D}{365}}={\sqrt[{365}]{1+A}}$. Rearranging yields $D=365({\sqrt[{365}]{1+A}}-1)$. For your value of $A=0.0515$, this yields $D=0.05022117$, which is close to but slightly off from your value. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much ... for such a quick reply and for such a detailed explanation. Much appreciated. A follow-up question, if I may. That final formula that you cite contains a "root index" of 365. Is there a comparable formula that can be entered into an Excel spreadsheet? (I have no idea of how to -- or even if -- one can express a root index of 365 in Excel.) Thanks! 32.209.69.24 (talk) 02:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Some preliminary searching indicates that you can just do "value^(1/365)", so for example "365*((1+A)^(1/365)-1)" GalacticShoe (talk) 02:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a million! Very much appreciated! 32.209.69.24 (talk) 05:21, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Why is it quintillion...

...and not pentillion? Someone who's wrong on the internet (talk) 05:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

All those number names are based on Latin (in this case quinque) rather than Greek (πέντε). --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Then why is it pentagon and not quintagon? Someone who's wrong on the internet (talk) 09:07, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Because -gon is Greek (γωνία = angle, from γόνυ = knee), hence the prefix is Greek, too. Some terms are Greek, others are Latin, mixtures are to be avoided. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:21, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

German makes a bit more sense when it comes polygons, Dreieck=Triangle, Viereck=Quadrilateral, Fünfeck=Pentagon, ... . Literally (the number in German)+"Eck" = corner or angle. I imagine other languages not so heavily influenced by Latin and Greek are similar, none of this "If it's Tuesday we must be using Greek roots." The word for "polygon" is "Polygon" in German, breaking the pattern, though "Vieleck"="many"+"angle" is used as well. As for the numbers, people still don't seem to agree on what these names even mean (see Long and short scales). When in doubt, use 10¹⁸. --RDBury (talk) 14:21, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

My favourite shape is the octangular quadragon. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

Imagine one tinder gender has a max 100 right swipes per day and the other have X max right swipes per day. Would it be possible to find the value of X needed to make them have equal amount of matches with just that information?

Imagine one tinder gender has a max 100 right swipes per day and the other have X max right swipes per day. Would it be possible to find the value of X that would be needed to make sure they have equal amount of matches per day at average with just that information I am presenting here or you would need internal data to solve this mathematical problem?

75% of tinder is male, 25% is female.

Woman swipe right 7% of time while man swipe 40%

Woman match with 33% of man they swiped right while men match with 2.5% of person they swiped right.

Woman vote at 200 profiles per day while man do with 137. 179.134.97.227 (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with tinder, but it seems that the question is about a selection process for strictly binary and straight users, in which each of the two genders is only presented candidates of the other gender. Each candidate presented is a match for female users with probability 0.07 × 0.33 = 0.0231 and for male users with probability 0.40 × 0.025 = 0.0100 .

Then the expected number of matches for a female user when presented 200 candidates equals 200 × 0.0231 = 4.62, while that for a male user when presented 137 candidates equals 137 × 0.0100 = 1.37 .

So far so good, but where does the maximum of 100 come in if a woman can do 200 swipes per day?

Given match rates p_f and p_m for the two genders, the expected numbers of matches for users of these genders equal n_f × p_f and n_m × p_m, in which n_f and n_m stand for the numbers of candidates presented to the respectively gendered users. To make these expected numbers equal requires achieving a ratio between these numbers of candidates such that

n_f : n_m = p_m : p_f.

For the data supplied, this means,

n_f : n_m = 0.0100 : 0.0231 = 100 : 231 .

So if female users are presented 100 candidates, male users need to get presented 231 candidates to achieve the same number of matches, to wit:

100 × 0.0231 = 231 × 0.0100 = 2.31 .

 --Lambiam 20:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

At tinder, people are presented with a "random" (not exactly), person, they can swipe left (not like) or swipe right (like), if male A like female B and female B like male A they match and can start to talk. The 200 swipes means at average, the woman rates at this an day (like OR dislike) 200 people. Max amount of right swipes would be the amount of likes they would be able to give before not being able to give likes for that day. Woman receive way more matches than man at this apps for various reasons, the question here is if that information presented at the question, would be possible to find what would need to be the limit at the amount of likes a man can do (assuming woman can do 100 per day) to make sure the amount of matches is the same per day at average.179.134.97.227 (talk) 21:09, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

A question about your terminology. If male A likes female B and female B likes male A, which of the two "receives" the match? It seems to me that if every match is between two users of different genders, then each gender will always have the same number of matches as the other gender. A difference, if any, can only be in who initiated the process that led to the match being established.  --Lambiam 21:18, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"If male A likes female B and female B likes male A, which of the two "receives" the match? It seems to me that if every match is between two users of different genders, then each gender will always have the same number of matches as the other gender."

Man A and female B receive the match. A gender can have different numbers of matches at average, one example, if man 1 likes woman 1 and 2, man 2 likes woman 1 and 2, man 3 likes no one and woman 1 likes man 1 and woman 2 likes man 1. Thats man 1 having 2 matches and other man having no matches, thats 0.66 matches at male side and 1 match at average at the woman side.179.134.97.227 (talk) 21:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Let M stand for the number of matches under some procedure. In your example M = 2, since we have the two matches man 1 ⇆ woman 1 and man 1 ⇆ woman 2. Let, furthermore, u_f and u_m denote the number of female and male users. In the example, u_f = 2 and u_m = 3. Then the average number of matches for the two genders are M⁄u_f and M⁄u_m. In the example, we get 2⁄2 and 2⁄3. One way to get the two averages equal is to make sure that M = 0, for example by not allowing any right swaps at all. The only other way does not involve the process for indicating preferences: make sure that u_f = u_m.  --Lambiam 18:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

April 22

How are arbitrary hemispheres defined on theWGS84 ellipsoid?

With spheres there's only 1 right answer, there's also formulas that can be used to find points 0.5π radians from another point, is there a formula for the line with half the ellipsoid surface area on each side? Is there a formula for the line where an infinitely far Star of Bethlehem and an anti-Star of Bethlehem at the other end of the ellipsoid normal line would have equal zenith distances ignoring refraction and geoids? Are these lines the same? How far apart can they be? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Unless an ellipsoid is a sphere (which the WGS 84 reference ellipsoid is not), no portion of it is a mathematical hemisphere. Any plane through its centre divides it though into two equal (congruent) parts. Usually the plane will be a meridional or the equatorial plane. In more general geodetic systems the equator and meridians, although not ellipses, also lie in a plane and can be used for a fairly fair cutting into two parts, which however will normally not be congruent. Calling the two parts "hemispheres", although not correct in a strictly mathematical sense, is nevertheless conventional.  --Lambiam 19:11, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes but that's the easy way out, hemispheres centered on the equator or pole are exactly zero percent of all possible centers. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Is division by any plane through the centre not general enough?

The sight lines to a point on the celestial sphere and to its celestial opposite are parallel. So are the directions to the respective zeniths from a given place on the ellipsoid and its antipodal place. Therefore the angular distances are the same.  --Lambiam 11:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know how to do the center plane. Either finding points of surface tangency from the point of surface perpendicularity or the point of surface perpendicularity from 2 surface points on the plane. There seems to be a u and a v involved I keep seeing u and v but don't know what that is, or if that's needed when the plane is not arbitrary but has 1 of 3 defining points fixed to the ellipsoid center. I stupidly dropped out before learning u, v and pseudo-delta swirl. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

If they are boldfaced u and v, these variables probably stand for some 3D-vector (x, y, z).  --Lambiam 16:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I must admit to being intrigued by the idea that the Star of Bethlehem might have been arranged by angels using WGS 84! However as far as I can see there's just ocean at the antipodal point for the birth of Damien Thorn. Pehaps we're safe for a while yet ;) NadVolum (talk) 19:42, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The normal on the ellipsoidal through Bethlehem won't go through the center of the Earth and so won't go though the antipodal point. NadVolum (talk) 20:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter though cause the idealized celestial sphere/astronomical coordinate system is infinitely far, the lines to the star from anywhere on Earth would be parallel. It would matter for the "ranking all points by distance and picking the nearer half" way as an extremely flattened ellipse could have the (geographic, not geocentric) latitude minus 90 be only a few miles away (plus 90 in the southern hemisphere) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

April 23

Fibonacci numbers and pineapples

The article on Fibonacci numbers mentions the pineapple, but I am unable to discover when, in the literature, this was first discussed. Later in the aforementioned article it states, "In 1830, K. F. Schimper and A. Braun discovered that the parastichies (spiral phyllotaxis) of plants were frequently expressed as fractions involving Fibonacci numbers." Given that the discussion of pineapples was extremely popular at this time in the early 19th century, one would expect it to be found within that time frame. However, I cannot find anything until the mid to late 20th century, possibly starting with Onderdonk 1970. Does anyone know when Fibonacci numbers were first discussed in reference to the pineapple, and if it was before the 20th century? As it stands, 1830 would fit absolutely perfectly into the pineapple timeline I'm working on, but I can find no supporting evidence for this idea. Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Pineapples are mentioned as an example in a long list of diverse plant species. In other words there's nothing specifically notable about pineapples in relation to Fibonacci numbers. Further on the article also mentions daises and the image shows a chamomile. I think the reason pineapples are mentioned is because someone was able to find a citation for them, and perhaps also because many people can find them in their local supermarket. I remember counting rows on a teasel flower head and coming up with Fibonacci related numbers, but I doubt it's mentioned a lot in the literature. It seems to be a general property of Phyllotaxis, or the way plants grow, though there are exceptions, and the "Repeating spiral" section of that article mentions more about Fibonacci numbers. The article mentions Kepler having pointed out the presence of Fibonacci numbers in nature; that was 400 years ago. I don't know if Kepler ever saw a pineapple though. --RDBury (talk) 02:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I’m aware of that. What’s notable in this context is that pineapples were introduced to Europe and it led to a great deal of interest. I’m tying to trace the discussion of pineapples throughout each discipline as it arose within a specific 150 year time frame of interest before cultivation and mechanization led to wider availability of the fruit. One of the reasons so many different disciplines discussed pineapples is because they were considered new, difficult to impossible to grow in cold climates, and didn’t have a previous known history in Europe, giving rise to people in different fields using them as examples in their domain-specific literature. It would be kind of like talking about the Internet in your field of expertise in the 1990s. It was somewhat new and different for the general public and people were trying to apply it to their knowledge base. For example, both Leibniz and Locke wrote about pineapples in the context of philosophy because it was considered unique in taste and unobtainable to the common person due to cost, so it represented an idealized version of an idea that they could use in their work and would attract attention. My post on this topic pertains to pineapple within this timeframe, of which the year 1830 fits. It was at the time, coincidentally, that discussion about Fibonacci numbers and plants arose. My question is whether pineapples were discussed in this context at this time and used as an example, not whether it is of any importance to the math itself. Viriditas (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The botanists credited with the discovery were Karl Friedrich Schimper and Alexander Braun. Schimper appears to have been the first (in 1830) to describe an observed phyllotactic pattern in term of the Fibonacci sequence (to wit, for the rotational angle between leaves in a stem) and his friend Braun described the next year a Fibonacci pattern in pine cones. I found no evidence these gentlemen or any other 19th-century scientists ever studied the patterns of pineapples. As reported here, the number of spiral rows of fruitlets in pineapples was studied "as early as 1933" by Linford, however, without referencing the Fibonacci sequence.  --Lambiam 16:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you know where I can read their original work? I assume it is in German somewhere? It turns out that the history of the word "pineapple" has a lot of of confusion. "Pineapple" once referred to pine cones in English, while other languages used variations on "ananas" for pineapple, such as German. Viriditas (talk) 20:36, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam: I just found something interesting. This is unlikely to be true, but there is an implausible chance that Schimper & Braun were mistranslated: "Two names will exist side by side, and only after a time will one gain the upper hand of the other. Thus when the pineapple was introduced into England, it brought with it the name of 'ananas,' erroneously 'anana,' under which last form it is celebrated by Thomson in his Seasons. This name has been nearly or quite superseded by 'pineapple,' manifestly suggested by the likeness of the new fruit to the cone of the pine. It is not a very happy formation; for it is not likeness, but identity, which 'pineapple' suggests, and it gives some excuse to an error, which up to a very late day ran through all German-English and French-English dictionaries; I know not whether even now it has even disappeared. In all of these 'pineapple' is rendered though it signified not the anana, but this cone of the pine; and not very long ago, the Journal des Débats made some uncomplimentary observations on the voracity of the English, who could wind up a Lord Mayor's banquet with fir-cones for dessert." (On the Study of Words, Richard Chenevix Trench, 1893, p. 254.) Viriditas (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Schimper 1830 and Braun 1831 are independently written articles. I have not looked at Schimper's article, but as described he only discusses the placement of leaves. Braun being an accomplished botanist, he would not have used the term Tannenzapfen (pine cone) as an ambiguous name for the fruit of Ananas comosus, and his article furthermore identifies specific species or at least genera of conifers (Weisstanne = Abies alba; Lerchen = Larix; Rothtanne = Picea abies) whose cones he studied.  --Lambiam 05:42, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

References

April 11

French cartoon with redactions in English

• 
  1842 French version
• 
  1877 English version

I began an entry for the French parody Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux (1842) with caricatures by J. J. Grandville and read one commentary about the scene with ants which represents the British Empire. There are pictures of a box with "Opium" written and a sack with "I.I.G." - these two are blacked out in the English edition. "Opium" is obvious but what is "I.I.G."? Shyamal (talk) 06:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC) PS: Maybe "I.I.G." is just for "J.J.Grandville" as it also occurs here? Shyamal (talk) 07:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The article on Grandville mentions that he also used "J. I. I. Grandville" corresponding precisely to his actual initials; given the variations listed, I think personally that it wouldn't be surprising if indeed I. I. G. is just another way of expressing his signature. GalacticShoe (talk) 07:28, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The signature (bottom right in both versions) has only two initials, which may be read as 'I's or 'J's, but presumably are intended to be read as 'I I Grandville' (rather than 'J I...'). -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Would 'PORRET' (bottom left) be the engraver? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Henri-Désiré Porret.  --Lambiam 02:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

The illustration is already legibly signed "J. J. Grandville", like the others in the book. I cannot readily think of a reason why Grandville would have chosen, if the letters represents his initials, to add an additional conspicuous "$\mathbb {I{\cdot }I{\cdot }G{\cdot }}$" to specifically this one. It seems, on the face of it, more likely to me that it signifies the content (impounded contraband?) of the thus-labeled sack, just like "$\mathbb {OPIUM}$" on the box.  --Lambiam 15:24, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Au contraire; it appears to be a habit of Grandville to include his name or initials as part of the illustration.

• Initials IIG on the back of a chair
• Initials scrawled within the picture, though not on any object
• Surname written on the face of the clock

Perhaps he had a fear of the his signature being trimmed from the edge of reproductions of the drawing, or even omitted by the engraver? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 15:53, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Wow, thanks @Verbarson:, that settles it! Shyamal (talk) 10:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

This standard signature off to the side below shows that he did indeed on occasion use I. I. Grandville, so IIG is well within the scope of possible initials he may have used. GalacticShoe (talk) 19:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Similarly, in the illustration on the right, IIG is the listed signature on the bottom. I think this should confirm that the "IIG" shown in the original picture is indeed a signature. GalacticShoe (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I concede.  --Lambiam 15:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Similarly Michael Whelan's paintings often incorporate his monogram (a character in blackletter style that is ambiguous between 'm' and 'w') as a belt buckle or the like. Perhaps both do it because a marginal signature is likely to be cropped out. —Tamfang (talk) 19:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Terence Cuneo's paintings often include a trademark mouse. MinorProphet (talk) 02:50, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Judaism question.

1. 1 way for a person to lose their Jewishness is to convert to Christianity. My question is, are there any other ways a person can lose their Jewishness? Such as being an outstanding criminal. What if someone was not Jewish, but married into a Jewish family, and later divorced, do they lose their Jewishness? What about someone who married into a Jewish family, then deliberately eat pork, do they lose their Jewishness? I wonder if there are any famous cases where Jewish leaders voted on someone's Jewishness (perhaps maybe hundreds of years ago) and probably wouldn't be common today.

2. I guess I asked this question last time but don't recall getting an answer but if anyone knew who pushed for the idea that if a Jew converts to Christianity, they are no longer a Jew, or even when? This kind of movement could have happened by the 300s or 400s? Thanks. 170.76.231.162 (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2024 (UTC).

First, if you have not already done so, please read our article: Who is a Jew?. It may address some of your questions. The short explanation is that there isn't one simple answer to who is and is not a Jew. This is because "Jew" is both a religious designation and an ethno/cultural designation. And there is a lot of debate among Jews as to who is and is not considered "Jewish". Blueboar (talk) 18:12, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Meh, that doesn't answer my question. My question is on exiting Judaism. From people that are already-established Jews. What you might be talking about are cases where Reform Jews consider someone a Jew but Orthodox Jews don't, but my question is still on exiting 1's status as a Jew. 170.76.231.166 (talk) 18:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC).

There's an old story about a non-practicing Jew walking with a hunchbacked individual. The first one says, "Did you know I used to be Jewish?" The second one says, "Did you know I used to be hunchbacked?" <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 18:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Do read these anecdotes [4]. It took a few seconds for what happened in Charlie Taylor's answer (no. 5) to sink in. 2A00:23C4:79CD:B301:195B:FE87:8B0:5CE2 (talk) 08:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

But could they share the Smoky Bacon flavour (but guaranteed Vegan) crisps? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:03, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Your first assumption is already wrong. See Jews for Jesus, or the many second- or third generation Christians of jewish descent killed by the Nazis. As written by Blueboar, Jewishness is not just a religion. There are plenty of famous Jewish atheists, from Isaac Asimov to Marvin Minsky and Leon Trotsky. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 02:44, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

"Messianic Jews" are viewed by many religious Jews as nasty Christian prosyletizers who maintain a deceptive pretense of being Jews in order to undermine the religion of actual real Jews. There was a big stink connected to Yahoo in its early days (when it was mainly a web directory), when it briefly insisted on classifying Messianic Jews under Judaism, while a united front of just about every significant Jewish group insisted that not be done. Such people would view lapsed or non-practicing ethnic Jews such as Asimov quite differently from proclaimed Messianic Jews. AnonMoos (talk) 21:05, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Of course. These are two different examples for people who are still considered Jewish, but don't follow Rabbinic Judaism as a religion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:23, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Messianic Jews are NOT considered Jews by the great majority of Jews who take their religion seriously, as I explained above. AnonMoos (talk) 20:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, let's see if we can't agree. Messianic Judaism is, despite its name, a Christian sect (at least that's a near-consensus opinion). And yes, many adherents of that sect are not Jews. But the foundation was created by converted Jews, and many members are indeed converted Jews, despite the conversion. Their status as Jews or non-Jews does not hinge on them being adherents to Judaism or Evangelical Christianity, because it is (also) an ethnic category. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Jews who take their religion seriously are often willing to accept the ethnic Jewish status of non-practising or lapsed or even atheist Jews UNLESS THEY ADOPT A NON-JEWISH RELIGION, which is the much the same thing as renouncing any presumption to Jewish ethnic identity in their eyes. It may seem odd that many religious Jews would find it easier to accept a Jewish atheist than a Jewish Christian, but that's in fact the case. Ask Tevye about the marriages of his second and third daughters (in the 1971 movie)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

170.76.231.162, the above respondents make good points, but assuming you are asking about Judaism just as a religion, in the eyes of traditional Judaism, nothing makes a person "lose their Jewishness" as you put it, so your first assumption about converting to Christianity is incorrect. A Jew who murders someone while munching on a pork sausage with cheese on Yom Kippur is still a Jew, albeit an appalling one. Apostasy from Judaism is something that has happened countless times through the millennia - Judaism is a very old religion, with some pretty good source material - it was an old story before Christianity even began, see for example Ahab, who was a pretty loathsome character, even if you don't care about [any] religion, and probably lived in the 9th century BCE (see Kurkh Monoliths). But he was still a Jew. --Dweller (talk) Old fashioned is the new thing! 12:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Source here: Haderech, Pesach inspired 5784 (2024):

[page 9] "It is noteworthy that even among those who are distant from religious observance, almost everyone participates in religious services on these two nights. Throughout the western world and LARSY TRA [capitals are my transcription of Hebrew letters], the polls reflect this reality. This trend is not one limited [page 10] to our generation, it was true in the past also. Historically, those who were forcibly baptised in Spain and acted like Christians joined their Jewish brethren on these two nights."

The writer says "On RDS [seder] night, we eat and drink; on RVPIK MVY (day of atonement) we fast." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23A8:4C31:5901:CE8:D91C:B1AF:F3C7 (talk) 16:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

April 12

Cyberbully case

I remember reading about a case about cyberbullying on Wikipedia, but now, I forgot the perpetrator's name. It was a very famous case in UK. What's his name? He's a computer scientist living in UK. He has harassed many women online. It took law enforcement many years to catch him. He was sentenced to around 20-30 years. Thanks! 2600:6C44:117F:95BE:5D61:6880:607E:9862 (talk) 11:34, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Matthew Hardy (stalker). 2A00:23D0:482:5E01:C5A6:5743:7A53:A342 (talk) 12:43, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

On appeal, Hardy (unemployed, AFAICT not a computer scientist) got only eight years in the slammer. Another famous (and sad) case is that of Amanda Todd. The perpetrator was sentenced in Canada to 13 years in prison, to be sat out in the Netherlands. In what is somehow not a famous case, a longer sentence (17 years) was dealt to cyberbullying TikToker Lorenzo Arana from Island Park, New York.^[5]  --Lambiam 15:02, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Lambiam Matthew Hardy (stalker) is probably not the person I'm looking for. I remember distinctively he is a computer scientist and very intelligent. 2600:6C44:117F:95BE:9488:F560:901D:9673 (talk) 09:52, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

For clarity are specifically referring a case prosecuted in the UK? If so I think your memory could be faulty. AFAIK, 20-30 years is an extremely long prison sentence for someone in the UK. I have doubts it would be handed out to someone for cyberbullying unless perhaps it involved a lot of underage victims and perhaps blackmailing them akin to the Amanda Todd case or there was some other extreme aggravating factor allowing it to be prosecuted as more than simply bullying. I'd note that the Matthew Hardy case, was said to be the longest sentence for cyberstalking handed out in the UK. While that might be cyberstalking not cyberbullying, if anything that would seem to involve a longer sentence [6] [7] [8] Nil Einne (talk) 04:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Royal baccarat scandal

I’m confused by this article. It says gambling on Baccarat was illegal at the time of the scandal, but the participants in the all-important game seem to have been playing for money. Yet the scandal was about cheating rather than breaking the law. So were they breaking the law or not, and if not, how were they not breaking it? Dronebogus (talk) 13:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

In response to someone raising the precedent that baccarat was illegal, the Home Secretary (Henry Matthews) pointed out to the House of Commons on 26 February 1891 that the case in Jenks v. Turpin "was played in a house kept for playing at that game, and that was rendered illegal by statute. The case is familiar to the Law Officers". The jurist Sir James Stephen in an article in the July issue of The Nineteenth Century seemed to think the game was legal as it was played in private and not in a house kept for the purpose. —Simon Harley (Talk). 15:02, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

That’s helpful. I think the article needs to clear that up, especially since it seems to imply that playing for money is itself the illegal thing. Dronebogus (talk) 11:56, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

April 13

Pius XII and Mussolini

[...]il più grande uomo da me conosciuto e senz'altro fra i più profondamente buoni: al riguardo ho troppe prove per dimostrarlo.

[...] the greatest man I have known and certainly among the most profoundly good: in this regard I have too much evidence to prove it.

It would have been said by Pius XII about Mussolini in 1952 but I had found no reliable sources, only veterans' and propaganda websites. Today, however, I found it in a book by Arrigo Petacco (more a journalist than a true historian in fact), L'uomo della Provvidenza, Mondadori, 2004, page 9. This is a secondary source because the primary source is not cited. There is a scant bibliography at the end of the book.-- Carnby (talk) 06:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a question? Clearly that source cannot be trusted. Thousands of quotes are attributed to famous people with no citations, and I definitely would not trust them. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:41, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I would ask whether a more reliable source about this quote exists or it should be considered definitely spurious.-- Carnby (talk) 08:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Here are two possible explanations for the apparent lack of reliable sources for this alleged statement.

1. Pacelli did not say this, or, if he did, it was not recorded in a traceable form.
2. There is a ginormous conspiracy, probably directed by the Vatican, to keep the information hidden from the faithful by making accessible sources disappear.

Take your pick. Occam's razor may apply. Apart from that, it might be somewhat believable if Pacelli had said something like this in 1932, when Mussolini had reconciled with Pius XI, but in 1952, praising the leader of a government that had already proved itself manifestly antisemitic when Pacelli ascended to the papacy? Also consider that Mussolini was an avowed atheist, known for his caustic attacks of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular – temporarily suspended in the early 1930s but then resumed.  --Lambiam 13:36, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

April 15

Which economic event do the recent tech layoffs fall under?

As you're probably aware, there have been many layoffs in the tech industry in the past year. It's my understanding this is the result of excessive hiring during the pandemic. However, there seems to be little commentary about this on Wikipedia. I did find some articles related to recent economic events, but they don't seem to be directly related to the layoffs:

• Great Resignation is about people quitting voluntarily
• 2023–2024 video game industry layoffs is specific to video game companies. Someone on the talk page suggested expanding the article to cover tech layoffs in general, but discussion seems to have stopped
• COVID-19 recession seems to be about a past recession that ended in late 2022
• Financial market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic only covers up to August 2020
• 2021–2023 inflation surge, 2022 stock market decline and 2023 United States banking crisis don't seem to talk much about unemployment

Are these layoffs part of any of the above events? Or are they not considered notable enough for there to be an article about them? Ixfd64 (talk) 22:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Strictly, Wikipedia doesn't do 'commentary', or draw its own conclusions, but only summarises what has already been published in Reliable sources.

If there are several independent pieces in recognised news publications, economic journals and the like specifically discussing these tech layoffs, a Wikipedia article about them could be created using those sources. It is the existence of substantial source material that makes something 'notable' in the Wikipedia sense. As a long-term editor, you likely know all this already.

Of course, a volunteer editor would have to actually do the work of finding these sources and drafting the article. Any takers? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I obviously meant sourced commentary. At least it's a term we often use in FfD discussions on whether a non-free image may be used as fair use. Ixfd64 (talk) 04:59, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

What layoffs? That's my attempt at a humorous way of suggesting that if you can find a reliable source describing at least a fair chunk of those layoffs, it could guide us in and how to describe them here on Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 23:50, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

TechCrunch has a comprehensive list of them. Are they considered notable enough? Ixfd64 (talk) 05:02, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The other day I saw a YouTube video that related these layoffs to the productivity-enhancing use of LLMs. There may be reliable sources making the same connection.  --Lambiam 04:42, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Also look into whether tech companies lay-off employees because they want to increase the amount of employees that know artificial intelligence. 66.99.15.162 (talk) 19:37, 22 April 2024 (UTC).

April 16

What is the average increase in grocery prices, cost of living, etc. in Ontario, Canada from April 2022 to today?

I left Toronto in April 2022 to go to university in China, but I miss my home city, and I want to return, but I'm not sure how much more expensive living has become, and I want to get a more WP:NPOV view on the topic and don't want to read one-sided, biased rants on Reddit about Loblaws and Galen Weston. Could someone please cite WP:RS statistics of how much grocery prices, cost of living, etc. have increased since I left? I hope my home country is still the way I remember it and hasn't gotten downhill too much since I left. I want to have something to make me look forward to returning. Félix An (talk) 08:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Statistics Canada publishes this sort of information on its Consumer price index portal. I think the reports are mainly annual but you can look at the tables or multiply 2 years. I think Consumer Price Index, monthly, not seasonally adjusted (Table: 18-10-0004-01) has the data you want but it's being updated today. The one year change in Ontario was 2.4% in February. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

and 5.1% in Feb 2023 for a two year total of 7.6%. The StatCan website will also surely have indices of wage growth so you can see how wages have risen by comparison. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Average weekly earnings seem to have increased by 6.7% over the two-year period Jan 2022-Jan 2024 (Feb 2024 figures are not available). Of course, how closely these averages reflect what you'd experience depends what sector you work in and what you spend you money on. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:58, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

April 17

Au Bon Pain lawsuit

Was Au Bon Pain ever actually involved in a lawsuit for an impractically large sum of money, or was that just a story conjured, distorted or exaggerated by unreliable sources to grab people's attention? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

A simple websearch on "Au Bon Pain lawsuit" gives a plethora of hits, many from reliable sources, including Time magazine, here. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 16:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The lawsuit was actually filed, in the form of a handwritten complaint by a pauper plaintiff without a lawyer. The court dismissed the case on its own motion as lacking any arguable basis in law or in fact. Purisma v. New York City Transit Authority, No. 14-cv-2755 (S.D.N.Y. June 9, 2014). John M Baker (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

April 18

About factional fighting within the party

Are there any cases in history where faction A of a political party has deliberately nominated someone from faction B to stand in an election that it expects to lose, in order to damage the reputation of faction B? What are some of the cases where this strategy succeeded or failed? PCpasd (talk) 02:10, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Hard to answer. In most countries (but, not Japan), factions are called something else — interest groups, caucuses, etc — so identifying when it is an actual faction (no clear definition covers more than one country), or just a bunch of spoilsports isn’t easy.DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 05:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Not exactly your scenario, but in the internal elections for leadership of the Conservative Party (UK), the election process could be triggered by a candidate who had no chance of winning, known as a "stalking horse", so that the actual challenger could enter the process without seeming to be disloyal (the election procedure has since changed to prevent this tactic). See Leadership elections: Conservative Party (p. 30). Alansplodge (talk) 10:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Or taking a broader interpretation of your question, the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum was intended to silence anti-EU sentiment within the Consrvative Party. Prime Minister David Cameron fully expected that the proposal to leave the EU would be easily defeated, but it wasn't and he resigned. Alansplodge (talk) 10:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

April 19

FRF and USD exchange rate, 1922

According to Michelin Guide:

Michelin decided to charge a price for the guide, which was about 750 francs or US$2.15 in 1922.

(The source is dead, and the archive page didn't work for some reason.) What was the exchange rate during this period? I highly doubt the almost-350-per-$1 rate claimed here, since the highest denomination of current French postage stamps was 2F — that's ½¢ US if the exchange rate is right, which would make the lower denominations of stamps (all the way down to 1c) utterly impractical. Would it perhaps be 7,50F = $2.15, or about 3,50F = $1? Nyttend (talk) 04:53, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The Federal Reserve Bulletin from 1914 to the modern day can be found online at FRASER, and may be of interest (pun only semi-intended.) Here's the section for the 1920s. While all the economic jargon escapes me, I imagine there might be something related to exchange rates with the franc in there. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Of especial relevance methinks, there are sections on foreign exchange rates in each of the 1922 bulletins I've looked through. The December 1922 bulletin in particular has a graph indicating that the exchange rate with the franc hovered between 30-50% of par, which is listed above as 19.3. I am unsure as to what units these are. If it's F/$, then at 30-50% that's between 5-10 F/$, which is off from 3.5. If the units are $/F then that's between 0.1-0.2 F/$ which still is off from any number resembling 3.5. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:34, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

From our article French franc: "After two centuries of inflation, it was redenominated in 1960, with each new franc (NF) being worth 100 old francs." So a 2 NF postage stamp would have been a 200 F stamp before redenomination. The article has a graph of the value of the old French franc in 2007 Euros for the period from 1907 to 1960, equating the value of the 1922 franc with 1 euro. Charging the equivalent of 750 euro for the guide would have been excessive also in 1922. A chart here equates one franc in 1922 with 8 to 9 US dollar cents, which makes US$2.15 in 1922 more like 25 francs.  --Lambiam 06:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Here we have a reliable contemporary source giving the price as 7 francs.  --Lambiam 09:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Bookmark this website which gives you everything [9]. 2A02:C7B:100:AA00:D9ED:5C02:4C7B:F3D7 (talk) 10:55, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I just checked the Federal Reserve Bulletin for January 1922. On page 114 the "Par of exchange" is given as "19.30" (confirming Lambiam) and the "Average for December" is 7.8416. On the next page is the graph Lambiam describes, which shows that in December the French franc traded at 40% of par. 2A02:C7B:100:AA00:D9ED:5C02:4C7B:F3D7 (talk) 11:12, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The French Franc lost nearly 35% of its value against the US dollar during 1922 (from highest monthly average rate to lowest), from 10.8 per US$1 in April to 14.6 in November. That should be reason enough to adjust a dollar price. <https://canvasresources-prod.le.unimelb.edu.au/projects/CURRENCY_CALC/>DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

"The Paris disaster"

It is mentioned in a poem of the same name by Annie Curwen, published in 1899 (on wikisource, on s:Page:Poems_Curwen.djvu/133 and s:Page:Poems_Curwen.djvu/134).

I have no idea what it is, and was not able to make it correspond to anything.

If it helps, the "Ushant" in the poem is a reference to the SS Drummond Castle and its sinking off that island (also a poem about that in the same collection, s:Page:Poems_Curwen.djvu/63 and s:Page:Poems_Curwen.djvu/64)

Could someone find what it is? — Alien333 (talk) 17:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"fiery cross" and "blackened ashes" suggest a fire. I've found Bazar_de_la_Charité#Fire_of_1897 with 126 dead. Not sure whether we can prove that this is the one that the poem is about. --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems the most likely candidate - it was widely reported in the Anglophone press as "The Paris Disaster" - see this Australian example, but I found the same usage in newspapers from New York, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Wales. I couldn't find any other event remotely comparable in that timeframe. Alansplodge (talk) 21:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The Bazar de la Charité fire was the first thing that popped in my mind as well when I read the question. It was a huge story at the time, not just because of the number of dead, but also because the majority were well-to-do society ladies. Xuxl (talk) 13:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, appears to be solved. Thanks to everyone! — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 12:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

April 21

Early human migration

a simple reference for human migration 180.150.255.58 (talk) 14:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

You could start with Early human migrations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

There is also simple:Early human migrations.  --Lambiam 18:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Whatsit

Somewhat common in the 13th century, Christian churches had an attached bin for human bones of village ancestors. I think it was called "char-something". Anybody know what it is (not an ossuary)? -- 136.54.106.120 (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Charnel house --Viennese Waltz 19:10, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

That's it -- thanks! --136.54.106.120 (talk) 19:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

April 23

Saint George's body rediscovered!

The following passage comes from Robert Graves' Lars Porsena, or the Future of Swearing and Improper Language (1927) pp. 6–7:

It has been stated with detail and persistence that in the late summer of 1918 an Australian mounted unit sensationally rediscovered the actual bones of St George – not George of Cappadocia but the other one who slew the Dragon: they were brought to light by the explosion of a shell in the vault of a ruined church. The officer in command sent a cable to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster inviting them to house the holy relics. After some delay, the Dean and Chapter formally regretted the serious over-crowding of their columns; for, of course, though they could not very well mention it, St George was a bloody German. So the saint was lost again by the disgusted Australians, this time beyond rescue. Or so one version of the story has it. The other version, more attractive if less authenticated, suggests that the Dean relented later and permitted the relics to be smuggled into the Abbey under the thin disguise of The Unknown Warrior, thereby avoiding offence to anti-Popish feeling.

Can anyone find any evidence that this bizarre story really was going the rounds in 1918, a symptom perhaps of war hysteria like the Angels of Mons, or did Graves make the whole thing up? He had a very lively sense of humour in his earlier days, as the whole of Lars Porsena shows. Also, why was St George a bloody German? --Antiquary (talk) 10:09, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The version Graves tells in Occupation Writer has the grave being discovered in Palestine, and the reason for his non-translation being that it would require ceremonies too Popish for the century, and tacit admission of the dragon myth. He doesn't mention the Unknown Warrior. See here. DuncanHill (talk) 10:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if you're aware, but Australians have long a reputation for, um, making up stories; pulling your leg; telling porkies. I suspect those bloody Australians were just telling a Furphy. HiLo48 (talk) 11:06, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe that. They were probably often wrongly understood by unattentive listeners, who would have been the ones writing down the anecdote. --Askedonty (talk) 11:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think I've found it, Palestine Exploration Quarterly October 1917, 'Notes and News', page 150 has the following:

The Daily Telegraph of the 23rd August contained a lengthy description by Mr. W. T. Massey of the discovery by the British forces of a richly-paved Christian church. The discovery was made by the Australians at Shellal, between Beersheba and Khan Yunus, and therefore on the main road from Jerusalem to Egypt. The keenest interest was aroused among the men themselves, and the utmost care was taken to safeguard it. The work was done under the direction of the Rev. W. Maitland Woods, senior chaplain (Church of England) of the Anzac and Mounted Division, and the party were often subject to the unwelcome attentions of the enemy's guns and suspicious aeroplanes. A fragmentary inscription relates that "this temple with spacious--(? foundations) was built by our most holy--(? bishop) and most pious George--in the year 622 according to--(? the era of) Gaza." Under the inscription were found the bones of the saint; his identity is uncertain, and the original suggestion that the founder was St. George himself does not bear investigation. The whole mosaic consisted of some 8,000 pieces of mosaic, of which not one stone was lost; and one of the features of Mr. Massey's account is the description of the careful and ingenious methods by which, in the midst of all the military preparations, this piece of archaeological labour was effectively completed. Some further account of the discovery may be anticipated later. It may be added that a letter in the following issue of The Daily Telegraph recalled the fact that George is among the commonest and most beloved of names in Eastern Christendom, thus adding to the other objections against the identity of the buried saint; but "when our troops have advanced another forty miles northwards towards Lydda they may come, perhaps, within the very patrimony of the soldier patron of England and of many other countries."

Which I rather think would be the genesis of Graves's yarn. DuncanHill (talk) 11:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

And more info here, here, and here. Search for Shellal + St George, or Shellal Mosaic and you'll find lots more. DuncanHill (talk) 11:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that has to be it, you've solved a mystery I've vaguely wondered about for decades. It's a shame that the body turns out not to have been St George's, but hardly unexpected. I'm still wondering what Graves' German reference means though. --Antiquary (talk) 12:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

George is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, popular amongst German RCs, and is sometimes claimed as Germany's patron saint. There's a gert statue of him in Berlin. DuncanHill (talk) 12:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

And Robert von Ranke Graves would have known that. Thanks, and happy St George's Day! --Antiquary (talk) 12:40, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

It might have been more interesting if they had found the bones of the dragon alongside. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

What evidence can establish that a find is of the remains of the one and only true George of Lydda? Some dragon bones buried alongside the holy man?  --Lambiam 13:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

April 24

Ottoman Armenian flag

The article on Ottoman flags shows distinct civil ensigns for Latins, Jews, Muslims and Greeks (with black, yellow, green and blue stripes, respectively) used through the 18th century; is there any record of one for Armenians or other Oriental Orthodox? 71.126.57.87 (talk) 05:32, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Not on the Flag of Armenia article. If there was no significant Armenian nautical commerce, then the Ottomans would not have perceived a need for such a flag. AnonMoos (talk) 09:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Note that all our coverage of these flags is entirely unsourced at the moment (on the image files themselves as well as on all the pages where they are used), so we can't really safely assume there even was such a thing as these ensigns in the first place. A pointer can be found on the fotw.info website to some 19th-century flag compendium listing some of them (though not the Jewish one), and I've seen a few contemporary 18th-century illustrations that seem to confirm the use of the Greek (red-and-blue) one at least. No information on how far back the existence of these flags can be traced - the claim that they are valid for the entire time of the Ottoman Empire since 1452 seems quite dubious. I haven't seen anything about other Ottoman nationalities such as the Armenians either. Fut.Perf. su 10:19, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Some info on these two FOTW pages (which don't 100% agree with each other): Greece under the Ottomans, Ottoman empire... -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

If Tesla shareholders re-approve Elon Musk's compensation package will he pay the original California taxes or now the 0% Texas tax?

Title Tikaboo (talk) 14:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

We din’t offer legal opinions. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

What makes you think he'll pay any taxes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Info on statistical research papers / essays about blocking of Wikipedia users?

Looking for information on statistical research papers / essays about blocking of Wikipedia users in general, category wise and in polarized / contentious topic areas.

Just contemplating to include such information, while mentoring, to convince users to encourage them in learning constructive editing practices and deter them from attraction of destructive editing practices. Bookku (talk) 15:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

You could look through the archives of the Wikipedia Signpost's "Recent Research" summaries. There doesn't seem to be an overall listing of all "Recent Research" articles, that I can find... AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

COMPETES Act and negative news about China

A questions to everybody who is educated about the American law:
Is there any fact which preclude that a bill like the COMPETES Act allowed the gouverment to spend 500 million dollars on media. Would it be allowed by the US constitution that the gouverment spends money on media which makes the a certain news?
I think, maybe it would be unconstitutional or something.
I just look for information how debunk the claim and starts to ask myself. 2A02:8071:60A0:92E0:410D:99D9:F99:A812 (talk) 21:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There's very little about it on Wikipedia (and of course it has nothing to do with China), but during much of the 19th century, U.S. administrations subsidized newspapers they favored (i.e. with a congenial political tendency in their coverage) by awarding them government printing contracts. At various times Francis Preston Blair and John Weiss Forney ran newspapers with lucrative federal printing contracts. AnonMoos (talk) 01:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The United States directly operates a news network from the federal budget, the Voice of America. —Amble (talk) 04:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

From that article: "As of 2022, VOA had a weekly worldwide audience of approximately 326 million (up from 237 million in 2016) and employed 961 staff with an annual budget of $267.5 million", so that accounts for about half the $500m on its own.

Of course, we have no way of knowing how much is spent by the CIA and other 'black operations' for similar purposes, but it won't be negligible.

The fact that these expenditures are known or reasonably presumed suggests (though does not prove) that there can't be a Constitutional reason preventing them, or someone would have called "foul" before now. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 188.220.144.58 (talk) 04:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

April 25

Outfit associated with voters of British parties

Hello,

what kind of outfit is typical with voters of specific British poltical parties respectively?

Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 05:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Derby hats and canes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:39, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I mean the general unconspicuous outfit. Sarcelles (talk) 07:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

There isn't really one, unless you want to get into correlated stereotypes (someone dressed for a shooting party is more likely to vote tory; someone in their nurse's/train driver's uniform is less likely to), or a suit with a tie in the party colour, which politicians will often wear. We don't go in for MUKGA caps. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:23, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

April 11

Turkish m-doublets

Is there a general name for the process of creating words like "çocuk mocuk", "para mara", "kitap mitap", "adam madam", "eski meski", etc. in Turkish? (more details here, it's word + m- + [remove first consonant] + word) Does it exist in other languages? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

See Shm-reduplication and Echo word. --147.142.246.75 (talk) 08:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Or maybe Reduplication#Turkish. Alansplodge (talk) 09:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 10:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Also found in informal Modern Greek, e.g. ταψιά μαψιά (tapsiá mapsiá) "oven pans and such". As in Turkish, this echo reduplication can also be used with verbs: γκρίνιαζες μίνιαζες (gríniazes míniazes) "you whined and such". It seems likely that the feature, also using the ⟨m-⟩ substitution, was borrowed from Turkish.  --Lambiam 15:27, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know that Greek used ταψί (Turkish tepsi). Is this echo replication structure also used in other Turkic languages? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 18:49, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Azerbaijani does, for example "böcək möcək".  --Lambiam 01:26, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Just heard DJ MJ [diːdʒeɪ miːdʒeɪ] so it can really be used with any word... a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 08:53, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess it would be spelled "meejay" or similar in English, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it can be used with any word mord :) not already starting with ⟨m-⟩ (so you cannot use this with "muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine"). For example, one can also use "hayır mayır" and "yok mok" when reporting implicit denials.  --Lambiam 14:09, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

What about words already starting with m-? I can initially imagine a "triduplicated" form like "m- mem-", although such forms might not be used in practice. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

The feature is simply not available. Using "lacivert" for the colour (navy) blue, you can say "lacivert macivert". But when using the less specific colour name "mavi" for blue and you want to say "blue or such", you have to say something like "mavi falan filan". Or you can say "mavimtrak", using a suffix "-mtrak" meaning as much as "-ish".  --Lambiam 14:53, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there any difference between "mavimtırak" and "mavimsi" btw? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware they are interchangeable, and both are fairly common. I'm not a native speaker, though.  --Lambiam 21:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

April 13

if this will fix your problem

Recently I wrote the sentence:

A: I'm not sure if this will fix your problem or not, but it's worth a try.

But then I read it over again and it seemed "off" to me, so I changed it to:

B: I'm not sure whether this will fix your problem or not, but it's worth a try.

Is sentence A grammatically correct? Is sentence B grammatically correct? Is one preferred over the other or are they both acceptable? OptoFidelty (talk) 17:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

A is descriptively correct, in that "if" is commonly used in this case even though the textbooks say to use "whether". B is correct, both descriptively and prescriptively.

Be like me and use B, and you'll have that inner glow that religion is powerless to bestow. (Apologies to Miss C. F. Forbes (1817-1911)) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:52, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks like "if" is winning out over "whether".^[10] Even more common is to omit the conjunction ("I'm not sure this will fix your problem or not, but it's worth a try.").^[11] The part "or not" is IMO redundant; whether to use this (or not) seems a matter of taste, but I get more GBS hits for just "not sure this will help but" than for "not sure this will help or not, but".  --Lambiam 21:41, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting that you use "whether" in a very similar construction: whether to use this (or not) seems a matter of taste. You certainly cannot use "if" there. Nor could you use it in a variation of option B: Whether this will fix your problem or not, I'm not sure. The "if" is only available in the original word sequence, as per option A. "Whether" is like the universal donor; "if" would kill certain transfusees, as it were. Why risk it? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:02, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

It is also a matter of one's taste whether one prefers an inner or an outer glow – or perhaps no glow at all, but merely an inward tranquillity which linguistic prescription is powerless to disturb.  --Lambiam 10:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

April 16

Can I use a pronoun before introducing its antecedent?

Can I use a pronoun in a sentence before I introduce its antecedent? For example, is something like “Because of her attitude, many people dislike the club president” permitted? If so, what are the restrictions on this usage? Primal Groudon (talk) 02:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Examples are legion throughout the literature, and your example is fine.

The trick is not to fall into the trap of stranding the connected parts. If your example had been: "Because of her prejudice, Mary dislikes the club president", it might at first glance seem to be saying that Mary is the one with the prejudice, but you may have meant the club president (assuming she was female). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. This is called cataphora, while the more common backreferencing is anaphora. --Theurgist (talk) 02:49, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Notice that in most examples, the pronoun is in a subordinate clause preceding the main clause of the sentence. AnonMoos (talk) 15:09, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

It could be in the main clause, though. "Her height contributed to Alta's success at basketball." (But not "Her height led Victoria to select Alta", which is ambiguous.) --142.112.220.50 (talk) 22:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

True, but it's kind of a variation on a theme -- the pronoun "her" is embedded inside the subject of the main clause, but is not itself the subject of the main clause. AnonMoos (talk) 20:31, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The main clause of an English declarative sentence usually starts after with the subject, so if there is no clause preceding the main clause there is hardly a spot a cataphoric pronoun referring to its subject could occupy. But an adverbial (not itself being a clause) can precede the subject of a main clause: "At the time of his death, O'Connor had just started research on a new topic." A question allows an inversion, also creating room for a cataphora referring to the subject: "How much of his effort had Jonathan invested in making this promise come true?"  --Lambiam 19:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The responses above are good, but note that the terminology varies. "Cataphor(a)" can indeed be contrasted with "anaphor(a)", but some linguists define the latter more broadly, to encompass what above is called "cataphor(a)". And an "adverbial" is also called an "adjunct". 118.18.141.213 (talk) 07:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Not all adverbials are adjuncts, and next to adverbial adjuncts there are also noun adjuncts.  --Lambiam 13:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

April 19

"Sitzfleisch" (German)

Aspiring pilots train their seat flesh (sit-flesh, or sit-meat) as a 6th or 7th sense for the flight attitude of their aircraft in the (real) flight simulator (on three pairs of hydraulic stilts). (I had the flight simulator to maintain and debug.) What do American or English pilots call this sensory organ? --Virtualiter (talk) 13:41, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Organ? It's an ability. As a capacity to endure long periods of sitting, Wiktionary claims it's become an English loanword. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:31, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I know the ability to sit for long periods of time from Leo.org. I mean the 6th sense.

Is that sense in actual usage? It's not mentioned at German Wiktionary. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

In (German) flight simulators for instrumental flight. Elsewhere this usually means Popo. --Virtualiter (talk) 14:54, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Not a matter of endurance, but one can fly by the seat of one's pants. DuncanHill (talk) 14:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The idiom is already heading in the right direction (flying with your butt). But do pilots actually say that? German interpreters don't know this meaning at all:https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idForum=2&idThread=838577&lp=ende&lang=de (Following your intuition and hoping that something will come out of it. But targeted training is different.) --Virtualiter (talk) 16:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

When flying or driving, the moment-by-moment variable forces (both lateral and horizontal) seemingly sensed by the posterior give useful feedback. There may also (my speculation) be an element of psychologically induced proprioceptive sensation, since particularly risky vehicle movements (such as nearly skidding in a car) induce an enhanced feeling in that area (see also "half-crown tanner", a piece of British slang I cannot for the moment find any formal reference for).

@151.227: Sixpence is "a tanner" and two shillings and sixpence is "half a crown". In what circumstances did you encounter the phrase "half-crown tanner"? 2A02:C7B:100:AA00:D9ED:5C02:4C7B:F3D7 (talk) 10:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

www.trucknetuk.com/t/foden-park-brake/107528#:~:text=tanner and www.dartsnutz.net/forum/thread-36170-post-580324.html#:~:text=tanner suggest the phrase "half-crown tanner" is used to signify an alarming experience. Bazza 7 (talk) 12:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Presumably because a half-crown tanner is five times the worth of an ordinary tanner, and thereby really off the charts.  --Lambiam 18:45, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

It is actually a description of the supposed variation in the diameter of one's anus in frightening moments, as the half-crown was the largest-diameter coin in common circulation and the 'tanner' (sixpenny piece) the smallest. I should strictly have written it as "half-crown–tanner".

As for the 'circumstance[s] of [my] encountering the phrase', it has been a lifelong part of my ideolect, being in widespread use both in The East End of London whence my family hails, and in the British Army within which I grew up as an 'Army brat'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 16:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I seem to recall that a current Formula One driver recently(?) said words to the effect that the posterior is one of the most important sensory organs when racing. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 17:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

If we need a term for this fundamental ability to sense attitude, I propose posterioception.  --Lambiam 09:35, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

A Google search didn't find much, bur in the comments section of this article, a contributor uses the term "butt sensors" (presumably American, but the use of "butt" over "bum" is gaining ground in Britain too). Alansplodge (talk) 12:04, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Is this the right place to ask for IPA transcriptions?

Hello, is this the right place to ask for IPA transcriptions? I have two doubts. Stephen was reported to have a minority pronunciation [ˈstɛfən] (Philippines?) but there were no sources and so I deleted it. Karkade Arabic pronunciation (كركديه) is [karkaˈdiːh], right?-- Carnby (talk) 18:55, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Some questions about Japanese

1: Are there some morae or syllables that occur either primarily or only in kango? (Gairaigo is ignored for the sake of this question.)

2: For kanji that are phono-semantic compounds, is the idea that two characters with the same phonetic component would have the same or similar pronunciation only applicable to the Chinese-derived on'yomi, or is it also applicable to the native reading as well?

3: Did Old Japanese have long vowels or were they a later development? If the latter, is it known which specific developments resulted in their emergence? Primal Groudon (talk) 22:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

2. Since kanji were borrowed from Chinese hanzi, native correspondences seem unlikely on any level higher than pure chance. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Primal_Groudon -- For an interesting discussion of the Japanese writing system which won't necessarily answer your specific questions, but is very illuminating as to the details of the ways that Chinese characters are used in it, see chapter 9 of "Writing Systems" by Geoffrey Sampson. -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

According to the WP article, Old Japanese did not have long vowels. The following should be double checked as it's about a topic I haven't looked at for a very long time, but if it can be useful to you here it is: Long vowels in Modern Japanese appear mostly in onyomi. The northern Chinese language, Mandarin Chinese, at the time of the earliest borrowings at least, still had syllables ending in -p, -t, -k. When borrowed into Japanese those ending in -t and -k became disyllables ending in -tsu and -ku (sometimes -chi and -ki), for example "koku" the onyomi of the kanji that means "country" 国 (the kunyomi is "kuni"). But those ending in -p became words ending in long vowels (not words ending in -hu or -hi for some reason, which I do not remember, even though dissyllables ending in -hu or -hi do exist in Japanese). Chinese syllables ending in -ng also produced long vowels in Japanese ("mei" or "myou" from 明 "ming"). However not all long vowels in Japanese are in onyomi. For example long a "aa" cannot be produced this way and I don't think it ever occurs in onyomi. You'll have to look for another development. Maybe a consonant falling off between two syllables. Also there's long o and long e in kunyomi (mostly long o). Sometimes the spelling is different. Long o in onyomi is always written "ou" whereas in kunyomi it may be written "oo", e.g. 遠に hiragana とおい "tooi" "be far away". Note also there's "ou" that is not the long vowel o but simply o + u, e.g. 思う "omou" "think", but then the "u" is written separately as hiragana, it is native, and is never part of the reading of a kanji. I've ignored modern borrowings where long vowels can also occur as in コーヒー "koohii" from English "coffee", etc. In katakana long vowels are not written by adding a kana to the short vowel but with a dash. I do hope this proves useful but like I said double check everything. 178.51.93.5 (talk) 13:39, 20 April 2024 (UTC) PS: Article On'yomi or Kun'yomi claim all onyomi are monosyllabic. Not true (as I show above): "koku" and hundreds of others!

Apparently Old Japanese is hypothetized to have had three more basic vowels than Modern Japanese, so I guess it might have been more like Korean in that aspect. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:26, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually it's complicated. The analysis of the manyogana used in the verse parts of the Kojiki (the prose is in Chinese) shows 88 distinct syllables (89 in Miyake 2003). But only three or four columns of the syllabary (k-, g-, m-, and in Miyake 2003 p-, but not b-) have all 8 variants. How those 88 or 89 distinct syllables map to distinct vowels is not at all clear. There are several systems and as you can see some add 1 vowel, some 2 vowels and some 3 vowels to the 5 vowels of modern Japanese, and some add no vowel at all and work with the 5 vowels of modern Japanese. Incidentally I have no special knowledge in this matter, I'm simply quoting from the article. One thing I don't understand is how the various variants of the syllabary are correlated: on what basis Bi1 goes with Pi1 and Bi2 with Pi2 and not Bi1 with Pi2 and Bi2 with Pi1. The article doesn't explain but I'm sure there is an explanation. Maybe the Chinese vowels (this is not modern Chinese) or the tones? However the article also quotes Miyake 2003 on the danger of circularity because the values of the vowels in ancient Chinese are themselves in part based on Japanese (and other) data. So it's more complicated than saying that Old Japanese had 8 vowels. It'd be more accurate to say that Old Japanese is a headache. 178.51.93.5 (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

Emblazoned for emblazed: how common is that?

CNN's Laura Coates says: "A man has emblazoned himself in front of the courthouse". Strictly speaking she should have said "emblazed". How common has that switch become? Is there a name for the process where longer forms (sometimes even incorrect ones) replace shorter ones (for example "notice" for "note", etc.)? 178.51.93.5 (talk) 11:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

It's a malapropism, "emblazoned" refers to the heraldic blazon, not a blaze of fire. A quick Google search failed to find any similar misuse of the word, although the CNN quote has been widely reported. Alansplodge (talk) 11:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I was not asking for the meanings. I knew them: "Strictly speaking she should have said emblazed". My question was about how widespread it had become. Sometimes malapropisms become widespread, through false etymologies, or sometimes (perhaps) the pedantic attraction of longer forms. Incidentally, I wonder if it can nevertheless happen in the other direction: do people really use "emblaze" to mean "emblazoned" (as Wiktionary claims)? 178.51.93.5 (talk) 12:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Do people really use "emblaze" at all? I've never encountered it before. Traditionally one immolates oneself, in an act of self-immolation. DuncanHill (talk) 15:05, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I have ever (in over 60 years of literacy) previously encountered "emblazed", though it has a very brief entry in my 1,690-page Collins dictionary. Emblazoned for me only takes the heraldic meaning (usually "to describe [a coat of] arms in heraldic terminology"), as it's a subject I've long been interested in. It can be used poetically: there is a Thomas Hardy poem 'The Self-Unseeing' that includes the line "Blessings emblazoned that day" – I remember arguing with an English teacher over whether Hardy had used it appropriately; I thought not.

I think anyone familiar enough with heraldry to be mentioning the action at all would know that it's "emblazon", not "emblaze". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 20:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

ASP wrote: "A quick Google search failed to find any similar misuse of the word". That was clearly a response to your question about how widespread it had become. Apparently not widespread at all.  --Lambiam 21:01, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

April 22

Greek letters and origin

Are there any Greek letters or letter combinations that are more prevalent in some of these types of words than in others?

1: Native words.

2: Older loans, which refers to loans borrowed into Greek back when each letter and diphthong still had its Ancient Greek pronunciation.

3: Newer loans, which refers to loans borrowed into Greek after each letter and letter combination had already shifted to its modern Greek pronunciation. Primal Groudon (talk) 13:18, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally, letters and letter combinations like ⟨ω, η, υ, ει, οι, αι, αυ, ευ, γγ⟩ are indicators for a native word, because the sounds they represent have more 'straightforward' spellings, which loanwords generally use. To an extent the same goes for ⟨δ, θ, γ, ψ⟩, as their sounds are rare in the vocabulary that Greek borrows. On the other hand, ⟨τζ⟩ and, especially if initial, ⟨μπ, ντ, γκ⟩, are indicators for a loanword. --Theurgist (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

English ⟨ee⟩ tends to be transcribed in proper nouns as ⟨η⟩, though (for example Ληντς for Leeds and Στηλ for Steele), but neither this nor other conventions are set rules. And occasionally, for unclear reasons, the conventional Greek transcription of a name does not suggest its original pronunciation.  --Lambiam 16:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The Greek Wikipedia's article about the city is at Λιντς, while bearers of the surname are given as both Στιλ and Στηλ, the latter article also citing Στιλ as an alternative. I did not say those are absolute rules; variations exist especially for languages such as English and French which themselves spell those sounds variously, and less for others. --Theurgist (talk) 18:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

By “the sounds they represent” and “their sounds”, do you mean their current or original/ancient sounds? Primal Groudon (talk) 17:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Current. --Theurgist (talk) 18:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this corresponds to your 1: or 2:, but some combinations are thought to be characteristic of the Pre-Greek substrate. I have previously read somewhere that this includes the 'νθ' ['nth'] combination found in place names of pre-Greek origin such as 'Κορινθος' ['Corinth']. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 15:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The onsets κτ-, χτ-, πτ-, φτ-, χθ- and φθ- signal that a modern Greek word is inherited from Ancient Greek.  --Lambiam 13:38, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

New Deal protest sign

hello, on this sign, why is a word ("government") written that way? (reverse N/Cyrillic И (?)) ? Thank you everyone in advance Aecho6Ee (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Substituting in a few similar looking Cyrillic characters is sometimes used in graphic design to give a Russian flavour; e.g. the cover of "Superman: Red Son", about an alternate comic book world where baby Superman lands in the USSR and is raised by Russian peasants. Perhaps in the context of not accepting "government relief", the suggestion is that government relief is a Russian or (in 1940) Communist concept.

Or it's a typo. 91.194.221.225 (talk) 14:43, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Not in a literal sense, since the sign is evidently hand-written. Semi-literacy is possible, but unlikely since the short statement contains 4 correctly-written 'Ns' preceding the one in question. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 15:43, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

They missed the obvious chance, though, to write GOVEЯИMEИT. Mistakenly copying the letter in a mirrored form seems more likely.  --Lambiam 15:51, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

For the low-point of pseudo-Cyrillic, see the name of the Paul McCartney album CHOBA B CCCP as released in the U.S. and U.K., where they fake-Cyrillic'ed an actual Cyrillic phrase! AnonMoos (talk) 17:14, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the letters are stenciled: if you look closely, you'll see that the "S"s of THIS and IS are completely identical, including slight serifs that would be quite unlikely in freehand lettering. It's therefore possible that the stencil for the second N in GOVERNMENT got turned around by accident and by the time the sign-painter noticed, it was too late and/or the sign-painter didn't care enough to fix it. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Good solution! --142.112.220.50 (talk) 02:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

April 24

O dialeto fluminense

O dialeto fluminense - please see pt:Dialeto fluminense and en Fluminense dialect and https://web.archive.org/web/20071030034105/http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/cvc/hlp/geografia/som90.html

Hello all, I would appreciate your assistance with this.

Also: what the actual firetruck is going on with this "cancel / Add topic" firetruckery nonsense when I simply want to ask a WP:RD/L question? (Self-answer, I guess: take it up somewhere else.)

Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Each question is a new topic, by the terminology of this page. Hence, to start a question you click on 'Add topic' (at the top of the page), and while typing it in, you may change your mind and 'Cancel' (and we will see nothing) or go ahead and 'Add topic', whereupon we will see it. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

April 11

Music Career Aspirations

Dear all, I am, as many know, very keen on making a lot of money with a musical career. I’m mainly interested in the production and engineering sides of the industry, but I’m also open to doing a bit of songwriting for people. I am mostly interested in writing jingles for commercials and radio, and also writing songs for children’s entertainment businesses. And so, I am wondering how to get people to listen to my ideas and employ my services? I reckon I could make some extra money doing this on top of whatever career I end up having. So, how do I get started with this kind of thing? I know about creating demos and portfolios, but how can that happen if I haven’t written music for anyone yet? Where does my first commission come from? I hope you can demystify this matter for me, I will appreciate that. Thank you in advance. Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The items in your portfolio need not have been commissioned or sold. They should demonstrate your musical ability, not your commercial success. If you can think of a prospective client, create some songs or jingles that you think might appeal to them, make a demo tape and send it off. Success not guaranteed, and certainly not now, after the release of Udio.  --Lambiam 15:45, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I’m not sure where to find potential clients. Pablothepenguin (talk) 18:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Have you, are you, or do you plan to study music within a formal body such as the Royal College of Music? (Instanced merely because two days ago I attended a concert by someone currently studying for a Masters degree there.) Any music school should be able to offer its students some advice on such matters. Equally, many professional musicians in the UK join the Musicians Union, which should be able to provide advice and also facilitate contacts with other professional musicians. Trying to enter a highly professional commercial industry without any formal qualifications or affiliations is not generally very easy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 16:07, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Merry Christmas From Bobby Vee

Hi do you have more soures from Draft:Merry Christmas From Bobby Vee? Samchristie05 (talk) 22:27, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Unhelpful comments hidden. This is literally the best place for people to ask for help with finding sources. It was built for precisely this purpose. Matt Deres (talk) 22:51, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Are you asking if the few regular respondants on this Reference desk already have such sources? The answer to that is almost certainly "No". Are you asking us to go and look for them? Since you have an ongoing interest in the subject matter, you are almost certainly better able to do so than any of us. Anything we turn up from scratch is very likely to be something you have already found. Please understand that there is no formal structure or organisation within the all-volunteer editors of Wikipedia dedicated to carrying out a Drafter's research for them: the onus is on you, as the Draft's creator, to do it. It's possible that some individual will be motivated to do so, but the chances are small. So far, according to the last reviewer's response, you have found sources corroborating various facts about the subject of your draft, but none or too few substantial sources (as opposed to passing mentions, or chart and list entries) that show the subject, a particular album, qualifies for its own standalone article – what we call Notability (which roughly means "has already been written about quite a lot"). It may be that no-one has ever published (in Wikipedia:Reliable sources) such substantial material about the album, in which case, whatever its intrinsic merits, it cannot qualify for its own article: that's how Wikipedia rolls. But maybe they have and you just haven't found it yet, or maybe something will be published next week. Good luck! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.145.123 (talk) 15:58, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

April 14

Maria Coman's setting of I Corinthians XIII, 1-8 (and is this the desk for music?)

Is this the appropriate desk? I could find no instruction anywhere as to where questions about music need to go. So I picked this one more or less randomly. Please let me know if I must transfer this question to some other desk for better access to people interested in and knowledgeable about music. So here's my question:

There's a Romanian singer, Maria Coman, who's (quite successfully) released a musical setting of (a Romanian translation of) I Corinthians XIII, 1-8 that she calls "Imnul iubirii" ("Love's Hymn" in Romanian) It's everywhere. But what I can find absolutely nowhere is the source of the music. Is it a traditional setting? Was it composed by someone other than her? By her? On physical media I think there'd be a requirement to indicate the source of the music, but who remembers what those are nowadays. Can anyone here do better in this dematerialized world and find out that information? 178.51.93.5 (talk) 03:27, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

You're in the right place. The subtitle for this Entertainment section on the Main Reference desk page reads "Sports, popular culture, movies, music, video games, and TV shows". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

My hunch is that it's a traditional chant of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and a couple of comments on utubular videos seem to at least assume that, if not confirming it to the required standard of verifiability for our purposes. If it were indeed a traditional chant, that would explain why its composer does not appear anywhere and why nobody seems to be asking about the composer. But again, that's not satisfactory. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:54, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I've just realized there's a version that's one year earlier and with the same melody that was released by Arhidiacon Vlad Roșu. He calls it "Imnul dragostei" which means the same but uses another Romanian word for "love". It is the word "dragoste" that is used in the text sung by both Maria Coman and Vlad Roșu. For some reason she chose to change to the word "iubire" but for the title only. The question stays the same but change Maria Coman's setting to Archdeacon Vlad Roșu's setting. But it makes your hunch more likely because if the archdeacon had composed the melody it would be very strange that he wouldn't be credited by Maria Coman. If it is a traditional chant, I'd still have some questions: Which one? Is it a chant with the same words or was it Vlad Roșu's idea to use 1 Corinthians 13, 1-8? Leaving aside the melody, has 1 Corinthians 13, 1-8 been traditionally sung in the Romanian Orthodox Church? A final note; Maria Coman's version has about eight times more as many views even though it was released a year later. 178.51.93.5 (talk) 08:53, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

April 16

Negro leagues

I am aware that (non-black) hispanics and even white players were in the negro leagues. I read something about the racism that even white players faced, in SOME games (not all of course, since black teammates came to their defense), racism. Does anyone have the sources of racism that they experienced from fan abuse during games and even their black teammates defending them to the fans?

Also the backlash that the robinson received by the negro leagues staff/players, etc? Baseball color line doesnt answer this.

Thanks, 37.252.95.10 (talk) 02:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Can you name anyone playing in the Negro Leagues who was white or non-black hispanic? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:25, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

There were a handful of white players signed in the dying days of the Negro Leagues in the 1950s, by which time all the better African-American players had moved to the minor leagues. Xuxl (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, yes, such as Lou Chirban and Lou Clarizio. Some info in this article:[12] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

April 17

a question to some people

hey guys - does anyone remember the videos called strawberry shortcake sets the school on fire and charlie brown gets a gold card? they've become lost media and i'm trying to hunt them down at this point 2A02:8084:EA4:2B80:3C9F:A882:2CE4:B4F1 (talk) 21:31, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm coming up empty. If they were posted to YouTube, they may have gotten taken down due to complaints from the rights holders. Do you recall where you saw them? Matt Deres (talk) 22:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Try asking the Lost Media Wiki. They might have some knowledge about it. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 14:40, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm going where no lost media enthusiast has gone before only joking! A YouTuber named "Andrew the irishman" uploaded charlie brown gets a gold card but it was deleted so i'm going to look for those videos. Wish me luck!

Andrew the irishman uploaded the video but then it was deleted and now I'm going to look for those videos.

i have fake lost media like the Welsh Thomas and friends (GoToons dub) episodes on my files and I'm going to upload them somewhere

if no ones going to look for those videos I give up someone just upload them and upload them somewhere i cant be bothered anymore theres these

https://filmot.com/sidebyside/1beEQDMnzVw/auto.en/auto.en/English+%28auto-generated%29/English+%28auto-generated%29/Charlie+Brown+gets+a+gold+card+and+gets+ungrounded

https://quiteaplaylist.com/search?url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1beEQDMnzVw

https://www.dideo.tv/v/yt/1beEQDMnzVw/charlie-brown-gets-a-gold-card-and-gets

also theres GoToons welsh dubs of the following shows i have to make pages about Thomas Bob the Builder Noddy Roary the Racing Car Fifi and the Flower Tots and last but certainly least Jack and friends from 2016. Somebody Give me a break

oh and i forgot those

https://goanimate-extended.fandom.com/wiki/Charlie_Brown_gets_a_gold_card_and_gets_ungrounded

https://goanimate-extended.fandom.com/wiki/Strawberry_Shortcake_sets_the_school_on_fire

i saw the 2 videos around 2016-2022 (2019 for strawberry shortcake sets the school on fire) but i can't find any of them now even the wayback machine didnt archive them 2A02:8084:EA4:2B80:6961:A248:89BD:3C83 (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

i might ask wikipedia i cant create a account on lost media wiki 2A02:8084:EA4:2B80:6961:A248:89BD:3C83 (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

April 24

Star Wars arms buildup

As of around 25 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), the Galactic Republic's Judicial Forces (it didn't have an actual Navy at the time) had a very small and poorly armed fleet and had to get assistance from private corporations even to deal with nuisance enemies like space pirates. But at the time of the Battle of Yavin, the Imperial Navy apparently had around 25,000 Star Destroyers. Those are huge ships with huge crews. Does the Star Wars literature record how that buildup took place? To what extent was Kuat Drive Yards (the shipbuilder) under Imperial control? It apparently predated the Empire and the predecessor Republic by many millenia. I'm not all that familiar with the Star Wars universe but have been reading some fiction set in it, and this question came up. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6CE6 (talk) 16:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The Star Destroyers were probably built by the Empire over a 19-year period by the great shipyards of Badcon Tinuity and Plotre Quirements. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.15} 188.220.144.58 (talk) 04:34, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

How many planets are there in the Galactic Republic? What's their population? I mean, astronomically speaking, a galaxy could very well have a population of 10²⁰, in which case I wouldn't be impressed by any galactic fleet of fewer than 10¹⁰ star destroyers. And they would be built by a billion different shipyards and all be slightly different due to ambiguities in the specs.

In other words: they just pulled some number out of their hat and hoped the viewers/readers wouldn't pay too much attention. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:48, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

April 25

Songs With Swung Beats

I'm trying to make a playlist of songs which are NOT in the jazz or swing genres, but which DO have a swung beat. My criteria are:

• Massive hits (or TV/film themes) everyone will have heard of preferred to obscure tracks.
• Nothing from before about 1960.
• Nothing in the jazz or swing genres.
• Very obviously swung beats, closer to a pure shuffle, and consistent through the song, are preferred to anything more complex. (An example of this is that I rejected The Lion Sleeps Tonight because it seems to me the rhythm varies between verse and chorus.)
• Where an artist has embraced swing as a genre (Rod Stewart or Robbie Williams for example) their other works are still good for my list.
• Within those criteria, the more eclectic the list the better.
• I appreciate there are squillions of potential answers. But I only need 30 or so.

So, does anyone have any suggestions for a list that begins:

• The Beatles - Revolution
• The Beatles - With a Little Help from My Friends
• Madonna - Cherish
• Queen - Killer Queen
• Murray Gold's version of the Theme from Doctor Who?

AndyJones (talk) 12:40, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

April 15

Britannica

Does the Encyclopaedia Britannica use metric or imperial units first in its articles? As it prefers British spelling over American, does it also use metric units first in things that are measured in metric in the United Kingdom (such as temperatures)? --40bus (talk) 17:26, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@40bus: It seems to be a mix [13] has 4,700 km (2,900 miles) but [14] has 52 °F (11 °C), with 42 °F (5.5 °C) and about 23 inches (585 mm) RudolfRed (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Note that metrication has only been partially adopted in the UK. See Metrication in the United Kingdom. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:37, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

April 16

What happened to the guy at the beginning of this video?

[15]

Also, is the location really in Tennessee, and if so, where specifically? 142.117.133.114 (talk) 09:38, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Here he was mud diving in the Netherlands and here in the UK. And here in New Zealand. Sadly, after he disappeared while mud diving in Tennessee, he was never heard of again. This should be a sobering lesson for all of us.  --Lambiam 19:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

“lakipadada” or “lakipadaja”

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Early Indonesians, particularly the Bugi people and Makassar people from Sulawesi, created navigational charts known as “lakipadada” or “lakipadaja”. These charts were made using various materials, including shells, wood, and bamboo, and they depicted ocean currents, wind patterns, and celestial navigation points. The intricate designs and detailed knowledge encoded in these charts facilitated navigation across the vast Indonesian archipelago. Do we have anything about these charts? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 15:42, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

NCEI

Does the NCEI have any data in metric units? It seems that non-US climate data is reported in Fahrenheit. But the same data is also in KNMI Climate Explorer, and there in metric units. So, is there any data in metric units there? --40bus (talk) 16:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

If necessary, it is trivial to convert a data column from one unit to another. Because temperatures are often rounded to the nearest integer, being in Fahrenheit provides a little more precision than Celcius. But, that is not an argument to always use Fahrenheight. I am simply pointing out that being in Fahrenheight does not mean it is unusable data. As an example, you can use =(F1-32)/1.8 in Excel to get the value in F1 as Celcius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.136.148.8 (talk) 18:25, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Almost all non-US climate data is recorded by the respective nations it belongs to in Celsius. If an American agency is reporting that data in Fahrenheit, that agency must be doing a conversion itself. As the person who wrote the program to convert Australia's climate data to Celsius back in the 1970s, I find that rather amusing. HiLo48 (talk) 00:19, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

April 18

GA electoral College, 2016 election

Hi. In 2016, the 16 Republican Electors, from the electoral College of Georgia, all voted for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. But how did the vote consist? How did the voters fill out their ballots? Thank you very much. 2.39.110.85 (talk) 12:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The vote totals for each state can be seen at 2016 United States presidential election#Results by state. Side note: there is no "electoral College of Georgia". The electoral college is the collection of all electors from all the states (and DC). --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:04, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The ballot might say "Donald J. Trump (President) and Michael Pence (Vice President)", but you are really voting for a "slate of electors pledged to vote for a specific presidential and vice presidential candidate". See United States presidential election#The popular vote on Election Day. 2600:1702:2670:B530:45F1:4B99:55AD:C545 (talk) 12:47, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

April 19

Smoking on an airplane in the 1960s

Do we have to stop smoking during take-off₤ and landing? -- Toytoy (talk) 01:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes.

You have a time machine? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, myself (I was there at the time). DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 19:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Smoking is not allowed during take-off or landing or when the illuminated signs read "No Smoking", nor at any time in the toilets. Ash trays are provided in the arms of the chairs. On leaving the aircraft, do NOT smoke until you are inside the terminal building.

SAFETY ON BOARD - early 1960s passenger safety instructions, AustAir Jet Services. Alansplodge (talk) 10:33, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

There was reasoning behind it. The materials used in planes and airports were flammable. It was a lot of wood and glue. Even if it didn't catch fire, they didn't want little burn holes in everything. Smaller planes are affected more by turbulence. So, having smokers dropping cigarrets during takeoff and landing was an issue. Further, having them toss their cigarette on the floor and stamp it out, burning the carpet in the airport, was a problem. One solution is an ashtray. If we assume most smokers are willing to use an ashtray instead of just tossing the butt on the floor, the burns will be reduced. Because there is no way to truly stop smokers from smoking on flights, ashtrays are still required on many flights. Some people ask why we have them if you aren't allowed to smoke. They are there because some people are not capable of survining a flight without smoking and need the ashtray to avoid burning things by doing something stupid like dropping a lit butt in the trash full of paper towels and tissues. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 12:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Have you been on a flight in the last couple of years on which smoking, while not allowed, was condoned? You can get arrested for that and be put on a no-fly list.^[16] There are ashtrays on the lavatory doors, but not elsewhere.  --Lambiam 13:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't afford to fly around, but my brother works with international doctor programs and does experience smoking on flights. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 14:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I suppose that if somebody DOES illegally light-up, there needs to be a place where it can be safely extinguished. Alansplodge (talk) 11:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That's why there are ashtrays on the lavatory doors.  --Lambiam 18:33, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

And airliners may sometimes be sold or leased out or chartered to organisations which will permit smoking? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 19:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if that were the case. The no-smoking rules are set by a country's ministry's of transportation (or equivalent agency) and apply to all aircraft operating on its territory, privately-chartered ones included. Xuxl (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

But, Xuxl, unless all such national ministries worldwide enforced non-smoking when an aircraft's cabin was last fitted out, there would have remained the possibility of it being (e.g.) chartered to operate in a territory where smoking was permitted, in which case one would have wanted the ashtrays to be available. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 151.227.134.31 (talk) 15:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Try to find a territory where smoking on an airplane is allowed. ICAO bans smoking on all flights between member countries indirectly, by treating smoking as an act against the safety of the aircraft, which is already banned. The same resolution (from 1993) that put forward this interpretation urges all member countries to ban smoking on domestic flights as well. See here for a summary. Xuxl (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

Random booming sound outside?

So yesterday, I heard this booming noise that kinda sounded like a firework after it exploded. It was 10:30 PM, clear skies, just another regular day. After I heard the noise, I went to Google and searched "what's that booming noise I heard outside" and pulled up a video saying it was because of snow pushing against the road. I was like, "Bro, what? We don't have snow where I'm from." (which is California.) Have any of you experienced the same thing? Thanks, TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 14:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Kyiv? ——Serial Number 54129 14:42, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Nope, I'm from California. Also, we don't have any bombs (as far as I know). TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 14:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Dang it. I think I misinterpreted your response. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 14:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I've heard that sort of thing in the Northeast US. Don't know what it was. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:11, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Sonic boom? DuncanHill (talk) 15:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Older Wikipedia editors finally going out more...? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Sonic boom sounds likely. I was woken up by a loud bang in the middle of the night a few years ago, it turned out to be two RAF fighter jets that had been scrambled to investigate an unresponsive airliner (nowhere near a military airbase). Alansplodge (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

It could be an earthquake that was too small to feel. Presumably there is a web site where you could check for that. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 19:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Where I was yesterday here in south-eastern Australian there were a lot of booms, but we knew they were from bird-scaring "cannons" (usually propane based) to keep birds away from grape and other fruit crops. But I suspect it's not the season for ripe fruit in your area. Maybe something similar though. HiLo48 (talk) 23:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

If it sounded like a firework what makes you think it wasn't just a firework? And why do you think a worldwide web search engine would know what's happening at that instant at some unspecified location? Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:06, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, for one, I didn't see any bright lights in the sky. Also, it's not Fourth of July. I used Google because... well, it was the only idea I had xd TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 19:07, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Many things can boom and be audible from quite far away. Hail cannons (no reason to believe that they work, but enough farmers believe it anyway), boulders tumbling down a mountain, mining, demolition work (not that likely at 22:30, but they may have waited for good weather), criminals blowing up each other's property (or, accidentally, innocent people's property), fireworks (illegally set off) to celebrate a victory of one's favourite sports team, accidental gas explosions, labs making ecstasy or crystal meth blowing up, military exercises ... Endless possibilities. Maybe you can look around to see any damage in your area, check the local news or poll the local gossip. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:23, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

A transformer explosion is quite loud and not uncommon. See [17] for some information. —Amble (talk) 04:09, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

April 23

Are these actual gold bars or what?

The Toronto Pearson International Airport heist of 2023 has been in the news again recently because a number of people have been arrested for the crime. A large part of what was stolen consisted of bars of gold, which have not been recovered (police believe the gold was melted down so it could not be traced). Since it would be impossible to photograph the actual gold that was stolen, news reports have often illustrated the theft with other bars of gold—for example, these photos: [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

My question is about this photo [23] which I saw used in that way. It caught my eye because I've never seen a depiction of bars of gold shaped like that: for one thing, they would not stack together well. The color also looks a bit odd, but as the other photos show, that could be a matter of lighting. What the shape of those objects does remind me of is cases for eyeglasses. Is it possible that they are actually gold-colored cases of plastic or something, intended to hold small bars of gold? Or are there actual gold bars that shape, or what? Just curious. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 16:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The article gold bar discusses minted bars (which are very finely made, by cutting and pressing a flat gold sheet) and cast bars, which is what you get when you pour metal into a mold - and are thus rather irregular. The bars in your photo look, broadly, like the latter. Gold is sold (at retail) in some pretty small sizes, such as 1 or 5 gm, so that might very well be what that photo shows. Gold bars for sale (legitimately) will almost always be stamped with the originating mint's name, the mass and purity, and often a serial number - those in that last photo don't. So it's certainly not impossible that the photo (which is surely either a file photo or a stock photo) is of actual small-mass cast gold ingots. But (as with all stock photos) it's certainly possible that it's just any old thing shown as an illustration. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 20:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Good point about the absence of stamped text. It occurred to me to see where the earliest instance tineye.com could find of that same image was: it turned out to be yahoo.com, and using the Wayback Machine to read it, I found that it was a Bloomberg news item from 2022. And it showed the image without a caption, so I'm still none the wiser as to what it actually shows. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 07:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

April 24

NorCal or SoCal?

Question: Are any of these cities NorCal or SoCal?

• San Jose
• Morgan Hill
• Aptos
• Redwood City
• Crescent City
• Watsonville

Follow-up question: Where/what divides California into two? TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 04:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

See SoCal and NorCal. 41.23.55.195 (talk) 06:27, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Few people seem to be able to agree on where the dividing line between Northern and Southern California lies, or if it exists at all.

From Does this curious spot mark the dividing line between Northern and Southern California? Alansplodge (talk) 11:04, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

What about East California? DuncanHill (talk) 18:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The coastal elites have a one-dimensional view of California, in the sense that they really only consider moving along one axis, which is called North/South but is really more Northwest/Southeast. That said, there is indeed an Eastern California, and it's lovely, particularly along Highway 395. --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

As a direct response, I would consider all of those cities to be NorCal, with the possible exception of Watsonville, which is arguably Central Coast. --Trovatore (talk) 20:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)