Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 January 26

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January 26

Nations with free tuition?

Hello, what nations let students study in their colleges for no tuition charge? What are the caveats and other "T&C's" that any student may need to know about entering there? Thanks. --70.179.161.230 (talk) 03:43, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

"B&Q's" ? In any case, you're likely to either need to be a citizen of that nation or pledge some number of years of work in that nation, in order for them to pick up the bill. StuRat (talk) 04:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Terms and conditions. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

If you're a citizen or permanent resident of Brunei, education is free up to and including college.[1][2] Other examples, including those for which foreigners qualify, are listed in Free education. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:14, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

There are virtially no tuition fees for public higher education in Borwat - only for a few classes to cover materiels. It is however expensive to live in Norway, and you need to secure a permit to stay in Norway while studying. WegianWarrior (talk) 10:07, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

That high cost-of-living is how you pay for your "free" college education. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:01, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

True, and it suits the wast majority of Norwegians just fine. Still, there is virtually no tuition fees for public schools, neither for locals nor foreigners. WegianWarrior (talk) 16:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

That's the perpetual dillema about "free" schools - whether it's right and fare to charge everyone something to cover those school's costs, or if it's only fair to charge the ones who use them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, that depends on whether the entire populace benefits from the overall level of education of the populace. That is, if providing free education to everyone allows everyone else to live better because of lower crime rates, higher rates of employment, more entrepreneurship, higher overall civic participation, e.t.c., e.t.c. --Jayron32 18:12, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

As I said, it suits the wast majority of Norwegians just fine - and as a side effect means that foreigners don't have to pay tuition fees for attending Norwegian public schools, just a semester fee (which basically covers the cost of taking the exams). WegianWarrior (talk) 19:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

There is, of course, the slight problem for foreigners that in most courses, lectures are given in Norwegian, so you need to understand the language. There is also the embarrassment that Norway is unable to educate a sufficient number of professionals in some vital fields, medicine in particular, therefore ending up with exporting Norwegian students to Denmark, Poland, various other European countries, Australia, ..., and brain-draining other countries of their elite students. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

In several countries governments partially subsidise the cost of higher education, and provide students with interest-free loans to cover the remaining tution fees, meaning that they don't have any up-front costs and don't have to re-pay the loan until they find a job after graduting. Australia's Higher Education Contributions Scheme (HECS) pioneereed this system and is generally (but not universally) considered to be successful (see Tertiary education fees in Australia). Nick-D (talk) 05:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Cheapest colleges for a Kansas resident

Hello, what colleges charge the cheapest tuition and other ancillary fees for anyone who resides in the State of Kansas? Would the admission rates there be at least 50%? How is the cost of rent in the areas surrounding such colleges? Moreover, would you say that they'd be worth going to? Thanks. --70.179.161.230 (talk) 03:43, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, a state college will likely be cheaper than a private university, and a junior college/community college is likely cheaper yet. Some people will go to a community college for 2 years and then transfer to a 4 year university, to save money. As far as return on investment, yes, most college degree programs easily pay for themselves over time. It does depend a lot on the field of study, however. For example, becoming a pharmacist can be far more lucrative than a social worker. Also, if you borrow money to pay for it, then the interest has to be figured in. StuRat (talk) 04:22, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Your IP geolocates to a college town in Kansas, so perhaps you could ask people what they pay for rent around town. Shadowjams (talk) 05:26, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

If you have enough Native American ancestry, Haskell Indian Nations University charges no tuition. Other than that your cheapest in state are most likely to be your smaller state run schools, such as Fort Hays State University or Emporia State University. Whether or not they would be worth going to depends on your major; I would have a much cheaper schooling had I stayed in Kansas, but since I'm majoring in meteorology the University of Oklahoma was a much more logical choice. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 05:31, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

You can't study meteorology in the state famous for tornadoes ? StuRat (talk) 06:06, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I could at the University of Kansas, but their meteorology program is terrible compared to OU's. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 06:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Everyone's meteorology programs is bad compared to OU's. KU's is decent. Wrad (talk) 07:05, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Touché. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 07:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Legitimate or scam?

I received an email notifying me that I may be eligible for something under some class action lawsuit against Facebook, Angel Fraley v. Facebook, Inc. It points me to a website www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com. Is this legitimate or some kind of scam? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 05:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

It might be OK. That's looks like the same link in the article Fraley_v._Facebook,_Inc. You can read some of the reference material the article links to. RudolfRed (talk) 05:40, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

The "something" seems to be money, judging from the Settlements section of the article. "Facebook agreed to a deal which: ..... Allows affected users to file a claim that may result in an award of $10", so chances are you were featured in a sponsored story that was shown to someone and are now being offered a degree of compensation 163.189.217.40 (talk) 23:49, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

forgot to sign in... HandsomeNick (TALK) (EDITS) 23:52, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Could some tell what the following Italian Surnames mean: Collura D'alfonso Deniro Milano Pacino Ciccone?

Could some tell what the following Italian Surnames mean: Collura D'alfonso Deniro Milano Pacino Ciccone? Venustar84 (talk) 07:30, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

D' or De means "of", and IIRC, generally means "son of", so "D'alfonso" would mean approximately "Son of Alfonso" and "Deniro" would mean "Son of Niro". Milano is a city in Italy (known in English as Milan) and the name originates from the old Roman name Mediolanum which means "in the middle of the plain". Pacino may perhaps be related to "Peace", as the "Pac" construction is common in Romance languages for peace (c.f. Pacific Ocean). The others I'm not so sure on. I did find http://www.meaning-of-names.com/ which has a searchable database. I've not used it, but it may be able to help with the others. Wikipedia also has an article titled Italian name which may have some guidance for you, for example "one" means "big", so "Ciccone" may mean something like "Big Cicco" or something like that, while "ino" means "little", so "Pacino" may mean "Little peace", but that's just me speculating. --Jayron32 07:43, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

D' is an elision of, and de is an alternative form of, the preposition di, which means "of". I think it's more likely to mean "noble in charge of such-and-such place" (like German von) than it is to mean "son of". (Da, on the other hand, just means "from"; Leonardo da Vinci would have derived from Vinci, but not from its rulers.) --Trovatore (talk) 20:49, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Italian name seems to disagree with you on the d' or de usage. It points to the "son of" usage as common enough to bear special attention. --Jayron32 00:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

bonfire commemoratives

I was wondering if any bookstore on the Texas A&M University campus sells items commemorating the Aggie Bonfire. If yes, how can I obtain one?142.255.103.121 (talk) 07:50, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Surely the people at Texas A&M would be immensely more suited to answer this question than random strangers on the internet. According to their website, the general phone number for the book store is 409/740-4488. Individual members of the bookstore have their contact information here (not sure if that link will work; just select "bookstore" from the last menu here and press "run query". Java must be enabled). If you've already been to the website and had no luck, it's because it's set up very badly; you have to pick your way to the Galveston campus website before the search functions etc. work properly. Matt Deres (talk) 14:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Historical prices of iron compared to other goods

This is a somewhat difficult question to ask. I asked it on the science desk and they sent me here. I do *not* want to know about market prices of the last ten years (that's what google shows me). I do *not* want to know a fictional price in nowadays US$ (nor yen, ruble, euros ...). I just would like to know how much iron someone would have had to produce to buy some goods of that time, a loaf of bread, some beer or wine, a pair of shoes, a cow, a chicken, a sheep or whatever the like is recorded.

And I am thinking of medieval, roman and pre-roman times, starting from the invention of iron making.

The reason I came upon that question sit that I searched wikipedia on how iron was made in preindustrial times. It must have been very labor intensive, and all of the people in the process must have been able to make a living from the yield.

I hope the question is not too confusing. 95.112.202.200 (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that you are talking about a barter situation... and barter is based on very local conditions. Say you wanted to trade iron for wine. In one location iron might be scarce and wine plentiful, and in that location a little bit of iron would trade for a lot of wine. In another location iron might be plentiful and wine scarce, in that location a lot of iron would be needed to trade for a very little bit of wine. Blueboar (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

The cost of transport figures in prominently here. Only recently have transportation costs come down to the point where something can be shipped around the world with only a modest increase in price. StuRat (talk) 19:26, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

In ancient times, the cost of carting goods long distances over land was quite expensive, but shipping goods by boat from one location on a seacoast or navigable river to another such place was often very economically feasible. Already before Alexander the Great, the Greeks were exporting wine and olive oil to various areas (including the Black Sea costs) in return for grain, and in Roman times, the increased population of the city of Rome was dependent on grain shipments from the province of "Africa" (i.e. northern Tunisia and northeastern Algeria), later augmented by shipments from Egypt. AnonMoos (talk) 00:58, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

(outdent) On the science desk I was told to look here, because of the historians (who are not scientists and therefore not found on the science desk ... ouch, don't hit me too hard). So I will do for some min/max values. And for the abundance or scarcity of some goods locally, there would be other goods as well, so from a list of 5 or ten commodity goods we could guess which ones where especially cheap or expensive locally by comparing with the prices of others. 95.112.202.200 (talk) 19:53, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

How would you like us to answer this? I don't mean to be flippant - I mean, what would constitute a good answer to your question? Would you like a historical source - something like a Roman writing "I just went down to the iron dealers and swapped him two sheep for a pound of iron" - or an answer based on the labour required to produce certain items - such as 1 man-day for a terracotta vase, 2 man-days for an iron hammer, therefore 2 vases = 1 hammer? Or more of a WAG based on current values and a bit of historical mumbo-jumbo thrown in? If it's the latter, you might want to take a look at this. Yes, I know, it's for the game Minecraft, but it's a reasonable stab at relative worth of different things. If you need a more scientific answer, knowing the time period and location you're looking at (e.g. Iron Age Southern Britain) would help us narrow our search. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:46, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, it would be perfect if someone would have a list of links to places that tell me something like this (fictional, just as an example)

In the year 2542 BC in the Sumerian city of uruk a pound of iron was exchanged against 5 coins of <currency of uruk>, a chicken costs 3 <uruk coins>, a cow 42 ... or something like that. 95.112.202.200 (talk) 21:14, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Or to put the question in a more general way, what is known at all about prices of goods in ancient times? (I'm pretty sure I couldn't buy a horse shoe for the income of a days labor as a field worker in, say 100 AD.) 95.112.202.200 (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

By the way, iron nails were a de facto form of currency in certain times and places in the early North American colonies, partly because they were in limited supply compared to other building materials (brief mention at Commodity money). In contrast, when I wanted just two or three nails for a project about five years ago, the guy at the hardware store pretty much told me just to take them... AnonMoos (talk) 01:19, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• I am fairly certain Will Durant gave relative prices for various items in his books Caesar and Christ and The Age of Faith. Unfortunately I have those works in storage. Whether he priced iron items is another question. This is nowhere near my area of expertise, but there have to be plenty of social histories that cover this. μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I've found a neat comparative table in a French scientific article about iron production in the Middle Ages (page 316). It compares mediaeval prices with those in later times. The first colmun is the period, the second is the location ("Angleterre" mean England, "RFA" means West Germany), the third is the retail price of a quintal (100 kg) of iron in local currency of the time, the fourth indicates how many hectoliters (hundreds of liters) of wheat you could buy for a quintal of iron, and the fifth is the equivalent of the same amount of iron in weekly wages of a construction worker. — Kpalion^(talk) 02:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I think Kpalion should be applauded for finally making some progress on this very tricky question. --Lgriot (talk) 09:15, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Typical starting out of convicts arriving in Australia

When convicts just arrived off the boat, was there a standard way they were able to find immediate food and shelter and quickly find regular occupation? I mean, was there any sort of organizational structure supporting the integration of new arrivals, or was it for the most part "every man for himself, go fend for yourself and find yourself all needed to survive."? 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:22, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

You may find the Wikipedia articles titled History of Australia, First Fleet and Convicts in Australia to be a way to start your research into this topic. --Jayron32 22:39, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Convicts took handouts from the Government stores. Convicts were unable to fend for themselves as they didn't have the knowledge of foreign plants and animals and most would have died if they tried. However, your question implies what happened to new arrivals after the First Fleet. Male convicts were assigned to private farms owned by freemen or ex-convicts with a ticket of leave assigned unimproved land. The convict worked the farm in return for food (slave labour). Female convicts were assigned as Government servants to do housework on privately owned farms in return for food (slave labour).
Sleigh (talk) 03:07, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

That would be penal servitude, not slavery. Rmhermen (talk) 03:09, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

As opposed to penile servitude. --Jayron32 00:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You'd want a substantive source regarding the nature of forced labour in early Australia. Connell and Irving's Class Structure in Australian History should be useful there. As would Grace Karsken's work on Australia. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

History Question: what are some famous before 17th century Lesbian couples listed in history? Also have any lesbian couple remains ever been found?

History Question: what are some famous before 17th century Lesbian couples listed in history? Also have any lesbian couple remains ever been found? I know there was a male couple found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weerdinge_Men What about female couples? Venustar84 (talk) 22:29, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

You may find the Wikipedia article History of homosexuality an interesting start for your research. --Jayron32 22:37, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Venustar84 -- the parameters you've chosen (lesbian, before 1600, and "famous") would seem to make it very difficult to find examples. In a number of historical societies, the social customs would make it fairly easy for women to conduct a clandestine lesbian relations under the guise of female friendship (see Romantic friendship) -- in many contexts, women sharing a bed was a common ordinary occurrence which would not have created suspicions, etc. etc. However, such couples would seek to avoid becoming "famous", which would be likely to cause them trouble (the Ladies of Llangollen did gain fame, but they were after 1600). AnonMoos (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, there's always this painting, but no one really knows what it means. It's rather titillating ahem but as noted my AnonMoos, only when viewed under the lens of modernity. Modern definitions of sexuality don't translate well to premodern societies. Historically, the position of "favourite" in the royal household sometimes had "homosexual" connotations, but again, only when viewed through the modern lens. --Jayron32 00:51, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

We may as well get the link to Sappho out of the way, though vanishingly little is actually known about the real woman. I don't often laugh at encyclopedia articles, but the caption for this painting, "Depiction of Sappho in foreground with female associate", may win some kind of award for least descriptive caption of any picture ever. Anywhere. Matt Deres (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

There isn't anything in the Weerdinge Men article to suggest that this was a homosexual couple. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:36, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Corbreuse census around 1944

Does anyone have access to a census of this small town in France. I am interested in the year 1944, but, as that was still during WWII, there is unlikely to be one for exactly that year. One before or after would be useful. Thanks Bielle (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbreuse -- The French Wikipedia article on Corbreuse lists its population in 1946. Hope this helps. Do you want to know the total population of this city around 1944 or to search the census for specific names? Futurist110 (talk) 23:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)