Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 October 13

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October 13

mentally retarded

do retards know that they are retarded, or do they need for someone to remind them????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.157.23.219 (talk) 02:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I would imagine that those who aren't all that slow would know, or at least they'd realize from time to time when things went wrong. I remember being three, and if a retarded person had a mental age of three, he would think he was OK and that older people were mostly just mean and stupid, I guess. --Milkbreath 02:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It is not only likely that they have been told, but their own limitations (and abilities) are coded into everything they do during the day. Whether they know it by name, by clinical definition (which most people don't know anyway), or just through experience, I am sure they are aware of some of the more salient aspects of it. --24.147.86.187 12:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe our articles on introspection and self-reference may be relevant. Gandalf61 14:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely they know, since they get feedback all the time from everyone they interact with. Believe me, you never cease to be aware of being retarded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.100.153 (talk) 22:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I recommend you read the novella Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Mentally impaired people are very much aware they are "special" and are often very highly motivated to better themselves mentally. Rhinoracer 11:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I second that ... Flowers for Algernon ... a great book! (Joseph A. Spadaro 03:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC))

George Bush's daughters

Is it true that George W Bush has another daughter but he disowned her because she was gay? --124.254.77.148 04:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

You may be confusing George with his Vice-President Dick Cheney, one of whose daughters is a lesbian. Afaik, he hasn't disowned her. -- JackofOz 05:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

He hasn't disowned her. Mary Cheney is the daughter you're thinking of. • Lawrence Cohen 06:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The Bush twins are more known for their "underage" drinking exploits than for any controversial sexuality. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 17:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Twisting one's head

Please note I do not intend to try this. In movies and videogames, assassins are commonly depicted hanging from the ceiling and suddenly leaping down to snap or twist a victim's head in attempt to kill them. In real life, would this actually kill the victim? If so, how much of an angle of rotation would be needed for it to be fatal? Thanks. Acceptable 15:35, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia cannot give professional advice relating to infiltration and murder by would-be secret agents. That said, yes, this would easily incapacitate and almost certainly kill the victim. Our article on cervical vertebrae note that injuries quickly cause widespread paralysis, including that of the diaphragm, which leads to suffocation. As for how far -- a quarter turn beyond how far you can pivot your neck, give or take. The amount of force probably matters, too (that is, a quick snap is more likely effective than a slow twist). — Lomn 16:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I figured that there must be a name for this move. I doubt it's used often in real life, but it's a staple of movies, tv and and games. The best I could come up with was this page (google cahce), which calls it a 'head wrench'. This CIA essay (may be fake, but it's on a lot of sites) says that bare hands assassinations are exceptionally difficult and even Judo experts (judo assassins? I knew the CIA was up to weird stuff) would reach for a nearby crowbar if possible. risk 01:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It's unlikely to be fake if it was posted by the National Security Archive. They are a very reliable and well-known private archive at GWU who excel at using FOIA requests to get documents that the government doesn't want people to see. They have been around a long time and are a mainstream group, not a fringe organization. If they say they got it by FOIAing the CIA, it's unlikely they are lying. Just FYI. --24.147.86.187 02:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I would imagine that using "judo experts" is evidence of fakedness. Althoguh judo does involve strangles and locks, being a sporting martial art, rather than a defensive martial art, it doesn't involve any instructions on breaks and snaps.Steewi 02:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are categorizations for these kinds of maneuvers. This forum post cites part of the US army training manual (I especially suggest the 'Belgian takedown'). The 'head wrench' isn't included, but they do show a neck-breaking technique where the victim's head is yanked backward with a knee to the back, using a helmet for purchase. They call this family of techniques sentry removal. This] is a pdf of the full manual. I'm developing a rather macabre fascination for the subject now. I just have to share this paragraph:

7-4. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Killing a sentry is completely different than killing an enemy soldier while engaged in a firefight. It is a cold and calculated attack on a specific target. After observing a sentry for hours, watching him eat or look at his wife's photo, an attachment is made between the stalker and the sentry. Nonetheless, the stalker must accomplish his task efficiently and brutally. At such close quarters, the soldier literally feels the sentry fight for his life. The sights, sounds, and smells of this act are imprinted in the soldier's mind; it is an intensely personal experience. A soldier who has removed a sentry should be observed for signs

of unusual behavior for four to seven days after the act.

And while I'm at it:

He focuses his attention on the sentry's head since that is where the sentry generates all of his movement and attention. However, it is important not to stare at the enemy because he may sense the stalker's presence through a sixth sense.

Getting back to the question, I think it's a highly ineffective and unreliable technique, even if it is possible. I also think you'd need to provide some sort of counterforce to prevent the shoulders and upper body from twisting along with the motion. Since you're using both hands on the head, that's problematic. risk 02:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the body has its own inertia, and it's a lot heavier. —Tamfang 16:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

That's true, but it's not rigid either. The shoulders can twist along quite easily, while the feet stay in place. Maybe a more upward angle would stop this. I'm trying to figure out how the rest of the body will react, but it's tricky without actually being able to twist your head that far. risk 23:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, there are more effective ways to kill someone silently. A sharp stab with a knife through the lower back and into the kidneys, for example, will kill someone extremely quickly and not make a peep. --24.147.86.187 02:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

its basically the same thing as hanging a person. when you hang them, there neck is broken, they don't die instantly, unless your head falls off. the person just stops breathing and suffocates. its a really horrible death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.210.23.83 (talk) 04:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I always get the willies when I see someone try to cure another's stiff neck with a sharp twist. Surely that's dangerous? —Tamfang 16:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I doubt you can actually break someone's neck accidentally that way, but I wouldn't let an unexperienced person do it to me. Chiropractors study for years to get that sort of thing right. I think you can do a lot of damage if you don't know what you're doing.risk 23:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

smart work & hard work

what is the differece between smart work & hard word? or both are related to each other? or both are the two wheels of the same cycle? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.212.154.205 (talk) 17:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

With all respect "smart work" sounds like bullshit-speak for not actually doing any work and getting paid for it..

More likely it's (smart work) supposed to mean working efficiently

You will already know what 'hard work' is.83.100.254.51 17:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

also 'smart work' can be a compliment for a job well done.83.100.254.51 17:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example. Say you need to move a pig from one pen to another. You could lift the pig up and carry it over, which would be hard work, or you could get a carrot and lure the pig into it's new pen, which would be smart work. They are not really different concepts, I would think of them more as two phrases that are used together to show that there are different ways to attack a problem, and that it usually pays to think about a problem before jumping right in with 'brute force'. So I'd "smart work and hard work" is a single concept referring to situations like this where there are solutions to a problem. I'm afraid I don't understand the phrase 'two wheels of the same cycle'. risk 18:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The phrase 'two wheels of the same cycle' means a bicycle of course! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.61.118 (talk) 23:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a phrase that goes "Work smarter, not harder". This is often meant as "Find a way to do the job that is more efficient and results in less physical labor". Dismas|^(talk) 18:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Damn dismas you nicked the phrase I was just about to throw in! And now this note is pretty pointless... ny156uk 18:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is a saying or formula that goes something like "You can work smart or you can work hard." The implication is that if you apply your intelligence to a task you will find an easier way to do it. A point of grammar: "Smart" is an adverb here, even though the American Heritage Dictionary, for example, doesn't show it as one. We can't use "smartly" even if we want to because that already means something else and would therefore make for a fatally ambiguous aphorism, and it would ruin the symmetry with "hard". --Milkbreath 18:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's another example. The teacher, leaving the class for a few minutes, told all the students to add up all the numbers from 1 to 100. Well, most did it the hard way, but one student realized that by grouping the 1 with the 100 (=101), the 2 with the 99 (=101), all the way to the 50 with the 51 (=101), he was really just being asked to add 101 fifty times. So he just multiplied 101*50 and was done quite fast. He worked smarter, not harder, than other students, and ended up finished first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.100.153 (talk) 22:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

To whom it may concern, that student was Gauss. (The Gauss article makes no mention of it, but doesn't seem to be apocryphal [1] [2]). risk 23:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Another version of the Gauss story is told by Eric Temple Bell (reproduced in the 1956 anthology The World of Mathematics, edited by James R. Newman). Note that essentially the same trick, adjusted appropriately for an odd or even number of terms, works for summing any arithmetic series (for example, 400+422+444+466+488+510+532+554+576+598 = 998x5 = 4,990). Bell gives the teacher's name as Büttner and, rather than naming the specific series 1+2+3+...+100, he simply says the problem was of this type and big enough to keep the rest of the class busy for an hour. And that "to the end of his days Gauss loved to tell how the one number he had written was the correct answer and how all the others were wrong. ... Gauss had not been shown the trick for doing such problems rapidly. It is very ordinary once it is known, but for a boy of ten to find it instantaneously by himself is not so ordinary."

A nice fictional example of "work smarter, not harder" appears in the movie of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (possibly also in the original book, but I haven't read it). Dr. Watson has taken Sherlock Holmes to consult Sigmund Freud and a criminal case arises. At one point a past patient of Freud's, a prostitute named Lola, is kidnapped. Holmes and Watson go to the scene of the kidnapping, where they realize that Lola was carrying a bouquet of lilies and has dropped them one by one. "Ingenious creature", says Holmes, "she's left us a trail", and off they go. It turns out that the kidnappers, not having a place ready to hold a captive, have gone to a brothel and arranged to have her kept there. When Holmes and Watson arrive, they find Freud waiting for them. He explains simply: "Where else to hide a demi-mondaine but in a bevy of demi-mondaines?" And Watson says in some embarrassment, "We followed a trail of lilies."

--Anon, 05:05 UTC, October 14, 2007.

I'm just gonna say that I read the article-this is NOT Sir Arthur Conan Doyle work-this is just someone using the famous Sherlock Holmes to get trumped by Freud. --Jeevies 04:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure. To be specific, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was written by Nicholas Meyer. --Anon, 22:20 UTC, October 19.

Death of Diana

Were any of the accidents that had previously occurred in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel investigated to determine if they could have served as a model for murder? Clem 20:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

"Los Angeles, California"

Why do people live in the city of Los Angeles where is the most best and 1st place winner to be affected by earthquakes?--Writer Cartoonist 22:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Entertainment? Clem 23:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer that question, but I know that the Japanese have trouble understanding why the Dutch are comfortable living below sea-level, whereas the Dutch have the same difficulty understanding the Japanese' constant Tsunami threat. I guess a lot of places have this 'sword of Damocles' quality to them. It's never as bad as it sounds, and when you do get struck by real disaster, you won't exactly have the means to move to another town afterwards, so the population is maintained. I guess the real answer to your question lies in the people that move to Los Angeles, rather than just staying there. The UCLA students, the people that get job offers. My guess would be that they think, if there are that many people living there, the earthquake threat can't be so bad. If you got the perfect job offer in LA, would you let it stop you?risk 23:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a big city with a lot going on in it. And the weather is warm and dry year-round. Earthquakes happen sporatically at most and have relatively low levels of death associated with them in any case, as far as risks go. Compared to the North East U.S.A., which is snowed under and has tons of half-melted ice on the roads and sidewalks for about half of the year, it's not a bad trade-off. Truly nasty earthquakes don't happen there all that often.

As someone who lived for many years in another earthquake-prone zone (S.F.), it is my observation that people are collectively quite willing to ignore and downplay the earthquake threat on a day-to-day basis. There is probably a psychological reason for this — it is not a threat they can change, it is not caused by any given human, and it affects everyone equally, so it becomes an "acceptable" risk.

In any case, earthquakes kill far fewer people in L.A. than the freeways there do (in 1994, the Northridge earthquake killed 72 people; in the same year some 420 or so people died in car accidents; in 1995, nobody died from earthquakes, probably the same number of people died from car accidents)— you might as well ask why people would live there because of the driving, as that's a bigger threat to their individual health than earthquakes. Or why anyone lives in a hurricane zone, or a tornado zone, or a place often targeted by terrorists, or any of the other "big threats" that one has, and whether those "big threats" are really kill that many people per year in comparison to the "small threats" like driving, cigarettes, mis-prescribed medications, bad dieting, etc. --24.147.86.187 02:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

What are the chances of getting killed by an earthquake when you live in LA? I don't have the total death toll over, say, the last century, but divide that by the total amount of people who have lived there in that timeframe and you'll probably end up with a pretty low figure. Much lower than the 0.5% chance of getting killed in traffic (no, really, it's that bad!). Still people drive cars, so the real reason is that people won't accept a risk until they're actually faced with it. And how often are there serious earhtquakes in LA? Also, people often assume that bad things only happen to other people. Or take global warming. The vast majority of scientists say that we're headed for a global catastrophy and still voters hardly use that as a basis for what party they vote for. People will believe what they want to believe. DirkvdM 18:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Since no major party (so far as I know) has made global warming a campaign issue, and anyway party discipline barely exists here, letting that determine one's vote would be a bit daft. Of course it's daft in the first place to entrust decisions in a wide variety of fields to the same people, so perhaps this observation is irrelevant. —Tamfang 16:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

That bit was not about people in general, not about the US specifically. In the Netherlands, there is only one party that occasionally brings up the issue, GroenLinks, and they only get a few percent of the votes, not quite enough to cause much change. DirkvdM 18:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Concerning the risk of living in the Netherlands, about half of it is above sea level. And if a dyke breaks, only one relatively small section will inundate - there's not just one dyke around the country, it's a whole network, so the next dyke will hold back the water, and at least there will be plenty of warning. And the dykes have been built to withstand anything except the sort of combination of effects that only occurs once every 10.000 to 100.000 years (depending on the location) - it's a way safer system than in New Orleans, for example. And even if a dyke breaks and you live in the inundated area, you still have a good chance of surviving - it's not quite as sudden as an earthquake. Take the North Sea flood of 1953, which was a really big one, killed 1,835 people - that's less than one thousandth of the Dutch population. And 30,000 were evacuated. So only about 8% of those at risk were killed. And after that the Delta Works were built (apparently one of the seven wonders of the modern world). So we're pretty safe here. :) A better question might be why people would want to live in, say, Israel. For most Israelis living there was a choice, unlike, I presume, most LAians, who were born there. DirkvdM 18:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI, the term for a citizen of Los Angeles is Angeleno. --Trovatore 23:27, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha! In California we joke that "everyone" is from somewhere else. —Tamfang 16:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

There's a heck of a lot more choice involved in living in LA than in Israel. More than two-thirds of Israelis were born in the country, and most Israeli families are from places like Yemen or Ukraine, where they wouldn't exactly feel comfortable going back. On the other hand, fewer than half of the people in LA County were born in California -- most are either from another country or elsewhere in the US. It's very common for Americans to move around the country. An LA resident who doesn't like earthquakes can move to Florida just as easily as the millions of New Yorkers and Ohioans who move there because they don't like cold weather.

What I don't get are people who live in places like the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which seem to be wrecked by a hurricane every few years. But I'm sure they would have a hard time understanding why I live in a place where, for a couple of months, you put cans of soda in the fridge to keep them warm. -- Mwalcoff 02:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

list of earthquake deaths in the United States —Tamfang 16:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's even less than I thought. In the past century (which only just excludes the big one in San Francisco), it's only about 600. And in LA only 9?? DirkvdM 18:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Houses in the US tend to be built of wood (unlike the rest of the world, which tends to use brick, stone, or mud brick). And wood-framed houses (unlike brick, stone, or mud brick) are quite earthquake-resistant. --Carnildo 20:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Northridge (60 dead in 1994), San Fernando (65 dead in 1971), Long Beach (115 dead in 1933) are all in Los Angeles County. —Tamfang 22:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually Northridge is part of the city of Los Angeles. I found this out sometime in the 1990s when there was a movement for the San Fernando Valley to secede from LA -- my reaction was "the Valley's part of LA?". (I was living in LA at the time, and the Valley always seemed like something separate.)

However I don't know whether your "60 dead" figure is all in Los Angeles -- some of them might have been, say, in West Hollywood or Beverly Hills, which are not part of LA. --Trovatore 23:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Funny, the same area is known both as Northridge and the Valley? And why isn't it then designated "Northridge, Los Angeles" or just taken together with Los Angeles if even people from the US are confused by this? Still, shame on me for not knowing this, because a niece of mine lives there, near van Nuys Airport. Nice and cheap because it's also nice and hot. :) But as I understand it, hot by LA standards is not nice by anyone's standards (except possibly mine - I've got the tropics in my blood). DirkvdM 18:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The Most Serene Republic of Los Angeles has an imperial history. In the early 20th century, it used its stranglehold on water to induce many communities to allow themselves to be annexed. But many of them never really assimilated, and every now and then a revolt in the hinterlands has to be put down. --Trovatore 18:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing weird about a ridge within a valley, is there? (Though I lived in Northridge for a year without ever knowing where the "ridge" is.) One could say "Northridge, Los Angeles" but rarely does; possibly because the Valley's post offices were established before it was annexed to the city. (Others include Van Nuys, Reseda, Tarzana, Canoga Park, Woodland Hills, North Hollywood, Granada Hills, Chatsworth, Sun Valley, Sherman Oaks, Encino.) —Tamfang 21:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)