Miscellaneous desk
< December 24	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 26 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 25[edit]

indians born in the US[edit]

can anyone tell me where i can get a list of famous indians who were born in the US? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.50.128.178 (talk) 07:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See List of Indian Americans

Please search before asking next time. Rachmaninov Khan (talk) 09:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might make clear whether you mean Americans whose families came from India (as I think you do), or Native Americans, who often refer to themselves as Indians. --- OtherDave (talk) 15:05, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Random letters[edit]

I randomly typed letters into the google search box (they turned out to be skdjfkds) and it came up with search results[1] instead of the expected reject notice. Do these letters actually mean something? Julia Rossi (talk) 10:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at result ~3, it apears to be a sort of lore ipsum. Or 1000 monkeys at 1000 typewriters? BrainyBabe (talk) 11:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

and what are the chances? One monkey on a keyboard, hehe. Julia Rossi (talk) 11:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is ye olde magick word (orally transmitted from the Dreamtime to the tribal elders) which is known to turn unsuspecting humans into supersonic wombats. Due to the ensuing atmospheric friction, of course, the wombats turn into magnificent balls of celestial fire.

I dimly remember reading about a case where three wise men from the Orient mistook the illuminating critter for a comet and - oh well, I seem to have forgotten the rest. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:32, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the location of those letters on the keyboard, it's probably not as random as you think. Those are closely-clustered letters around the areas your hands traditionally rest on a keyboard, and probably more likely than most to be randomly mashed when typing 'random letters'. There are a lot of people typing gibberish on the internet. ~ mazca ^t|c 13:30, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, these "asdfjkl;" combinations are not random. If you google a more systematic "random" combination of the keys on which your fingers rest, you get even more hits: 115,000 for asdfjkl (left to right), 13,200 for alskdjf (alternating hands, inward bound). Even when including your pinkies and expanding these patterns to eight letters (and using the German keyboard layout, because it has an "ö" instead of a semicolon, which I don't know how to google), you still get 7,250 hits for asdfjklö and 279 for aösldkfj.

I used to occasionally play trivia quizzes online (in an IRC format not connected to WP), and one of the participants always let off her steam when someone else got the answer first by typing something like "asjdfksl" or "jsdkfjsffjl" or even "jasdlfkjalskdjaslkdfja;lskjalsj;dfalsd;flaljskdlkjf" (these are my random attempts), it came to be one of her pet-signatures, and we even greeted her with "asjdfkj!" when she entered the quiz room.

It would be interesting to see a statistical evaluation of a "type some random letters as fast as you can" test, but I found nothing. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:25, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, well I still found nothing worth linking here, but I did learn that the "asdfjkl;" keys lie on the home row and are called home keys, and that asdf is "often used as a metasyntactic variable". ---Sluzzelin talk 14:54, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are well over a billion web sites and over 30 billion individual web pages on the Internet - and Google also indexes things like usenet postings, forum systems, wiki's and such - so the total is likely to be quite a bit higher than that. Even for a short, completely random sequence, the odds are pretty good of finding it somewhere. As others have said - the less random your sequence, the higher the odds of it happening to be out there...and something you just type quickly and without special thought is MUCH more likely than a truly random sequence. So I don't think you should read anything special into that. SteveBaker (talk) 15:06, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all for your interesting answers and helpful efforts. I was completely focused on the google revelation and only after your replies did I see skdjfkds doesn't involve any other row, just alternating hands, making the chances close to core. : ) Julia Rossi (talk) 03:24, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See infinite monkey theorem for more info. I'm sure that's somehow related... flaming lawye r^c 16:31, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Toilet seat[edit]

Why is it that women complain about men not putting down the toilet seat? Is it that it is just good manners to put it down yourself so that the next person doesn't have to, is it because the woman might not look before sitting down, or is it something else that I am missing? Thanks Crack in the road (talk) 15:17, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not surprisingly, there is some information under toilet seat including a link to an economic efficiency study.

(In my world you don't need to put down the seat, because it's already down. You shouldn't be using a private toilet from the standing position. If you believe you're a straight-shooter, I recommend considering how the height of drop influences the ballistics of a splash and you can try the standing position while wearing shorts and registering wether your bare legs feel anything prickly during the process. Now think about the floor and walls ...) ---Sluzzelin talk 15:43, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have never really understood the complaint. The idea seems to be that it's somehow wrong for someone to have to put the toilet seat down, but a non-issue that someone else has to lift it up. And in any case, to hear people tell it, it's as if this was a Herculean effort that takes a great toll on the poor individual forced to change the position of the toilet seat. (I did check out the the article, and the idea that having the seat down somehow makes the bathroom more aesthetically pleasing, for example, strikes me as pretty ludicrous. Hygienic reasons also strike me as irrelevant -- I mean, if people were constantly getting sick because of this, that would be different, but I don't believe this to be the case, at all. You should be cleaning the toilet and the area around it on a regular basis anyway. I mean, if you miss, you clean up after yourself, right? And if you don't, you're a dick, but that's got nothing to do with the position of the toilet seat.)

I'd say the whole thing has a lot more to do with psychology -- the need to establish control over your environment, things like that -- than anything else. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To bring a (possibly biased) woman's perspective to the issue: Women need the seat down 100% of the time. Men, as far as I know, need it up when urinating and down when defecating. Therefore, it spends more time down than up and that's what its default position should be. That, and most women tend to be more squeamish about touching bacteria-riddled objects with their hands than most men, and would prefer not to be the ones moving it back to what should be its default position anyway. (Of course, this "logic" ignores the fact that things like telephones and doorknobs are likely to be just as germy as toilet seats... On that note, please bear in mind that not all of the above is necessarily my personal opinion, just some general observations.) Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 00:27, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't 'toilets are bacteria-riddled' a myth? AFAIK, toilet seats are actually quite clean. The door knob has far more bacteria than the toilet seat. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if it's up or down; I wouldn't touch it either way. SN0WKITT3N 00:49, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But you DO touch it! With your A*** (unless you are percher)--GreenSpigot (talk) 02:32, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One possible explanation might be that in my experience women are generally more houseproud than men and a lowered toilet seat could look neater when your mother comes to visit :-) However, when I find the seat down I have no problem raising the seat, so why can't women simply lower the seat without making such an issue about it? Astronaut (talk) 01:19, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My solution would be (in a house with 1 woman, 1 man): If you are a man, leave it down. If you are a woman, leave it up. ie leave it as you would expect to find it if you were the other person. --GreenSpigot (talk) 02:30, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very tactful. Maybe it's because Emperors kept their toilet seat down. =P Julia Rossi (talk) 03:27, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I may have an unusual perspective on this. I am male, and do pee standing up. However, I leave the seat down (but not the cover, obviously). Why do I do this ? Two reasons. First, a seat occasionally falls down mid-whiz, with very messy results. Second, I have back problems, so prefer to avoid any unnecessary bending. I try to avoid peeing on the seat, but, if I do, I clean it up after. Before you complain about this spreading germs, note that urine, unlike feces, tends to be quite antiseptic. StuRat (talk) 04:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With respect StuRat I think you might mean sterile not antiseptic ;-) Richard Avery (talk) 14:30, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did mean antiseptic, as the acidity of urine can kill bacteria. However, I should have said "quite sterile and slightly antiseptic". StuRat (talk) 15:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard that some people have been injured by accidentally sitting on a toilet with the seat up when it's dark or they're in a rush to use it or something. --124.254.77.148 (talk) 06:34, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Back to basics: if a toilet has a lid, it should be lowered. That of necessity involves lowering the seat too. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:48, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never understood this, either. I'm a man—a he-man, if I do say so myself—and I put the lid back down when I'm done. I've had a running disagreement with my to all appearances equally testicular brother-in-law about this. He seems to take any female interference with the male toilet ritual as a challenge to his postion within society. Me, I think the toilet is a machine, and a real man leaves a machine in good order, be it a Camaro or a commode. I've had a lot of plumbing experience, having installed, repaired, and unstopped many, many toilets, so maybe that's the difference. You put the lid down. It keeps the dog out. If something goes flying in the bathroom, it can't fall in there. You don't have to look at any skid marks or rings. You can sit on it or put your foot on it. The top is often decorative and should be displayed to maintain the integrity of the decor (No, no, no—he-man, remember?). You put the lid down. Just one thing, ladies—no slip covers, please; I have trouble aiming while holding the seat up with my knee. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:14, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I put the lid down ever since reading in the Straight Dope that flushing creates an aerosol. —Tamfang (talk) 23:06, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But without the seat up, you'd have to remember to leave water out for the dog, and he'll soak the whole floor with it. I even had a cat who could drink from the toilet, quite impressive. StuRat (talk) 17:45, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also the dreaded Toilet-related injury: a small boy could be traumatized by an ill balanced lid, or one with a padded cover, which falls at an inopportune moment. Edison (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"The toilet: friend or foe?" lmfao!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 22:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From ABC News:

Fact or Myth? You can get infections or illnesses from sitting directly on a public toilet seat.

Answer: Myth

"Just sort of sitting on the seat and having that contact with the skin on your butt isn't going to be a way of transmitting an infection," said Elizabeth Scott, co-director and founder of the Simmons Center for Hygiene and Health in Home and Community Settings at Simmons College in Boston.

"I think that one's associated with the fact that we all find public toilets very disgusting," she said, adding that you were more likely to get sick from touching the toilet seat or the flush handle with your hand.

Dr. J. Owen Hendley, professor of pediatric infectious disease at the University of Virginia Children's Hospital, said that this myth has been a persistent one.

Of getting an infection, he said, "I guess you could, but I've never known of a documented case where that actually happened."

But that has not stopped the myth. Hendley noted that the concern might have originated with a fear that syphilis could spread through toilet seats. He said that that fear is likely behind the design of many public toilet seats in which the seat itself is open in the front, preventing contact between the person and the seat in that area.

But the knowledge that sitting directly on the seat doesn't spread the germs doesn't seem likely to make it more appealing.

[2] 216.239.234.196 (talk) 15:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hosting an Annual Party[edit]

Hi, can anyone help me with few tips , as i have been chosen randomly to host as an announcer, for the annual official party to be held shortly this month ,it is mailly for rewarding the employees for the year. i am nervous and do not want to let go it as well as i have never done this before, can anyone help me ovwercome this nervousness and suggest few tips,your answers will be treasured. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 16:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Write out what you intend to say (almost word-for-word) and then
recite your remarks in front of a friend or a family member several times and then
when it's showtime, pretend that you're in "practice" mode and then,
break a leg! hydnjo talk 16:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you are also going to be handing out the awards make sure that you have a list of who gets one and if there are physical awards that they are correctly labled. If you make an error just laugh it off and carry on. These are your co-workers and are probably going to be supportive and aren't going to heckle you. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 12:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Practice recording yourself, at least audio or video if possible. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:49, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Be sure you have a good start and a good finish. Write out, practice, perfect and learn the first 100 words, or so. The same with the conclusion. You are inexperienced so NO jokes. learn the beginning and end by heart. Break the middle down into sections. Understand what needs to be said in each. Put beginning, sections and end on separate post cards. Punch cards in top left hand corner and string them together (in case you fumble). If you have a practiced start you will get away smoothly, and clear most of your nerves. The end is important because you have the safety of knowing you can cut to a solid end from anywhere in your presentation. You won't just fade away. Nerves are normal. be grateful for them - they pump up your performance. Good luck.90.0.7.27 (talk) 15:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC)DT[reply]

Also, if you feel the need to expend some energy once up there, wiggling your toes a little always helped me, though your mileage may vary on that.Somebody or his brother (talk) 20:49, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lucid Dreams[edit]

I've been talking with my friends on the internets (well, not friends as such, more acquaintances) about lucid dreams. Many of us have extreme desires for a certain celebrity and it was suggested by someone about three weeks ago that we try lucid dreaming for this. I've looked at a few online guides, done the reality check and dream recall stuff but I still haven't had one. I know lucid dreaming isn't something you can do overnight, but what advice is there for this? Any good links or books to read? SN0WKITT3N 22:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh crap I just realized what an awful unintentional pun there is in that :/ SN0WKITT3N 23:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Overnight~~ Pun, what pun? hydnjo talk 00:05, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know this is 'original research', but the best results I've had with encouraging lucid dreams, have been when I've had LOTS of time on my hands and have slept in day after day. Knowing that I don't have to get out of bed for anything drags out my sleep pattern and results in me being asleep through a morning that I would normally be awake during. This in turn seems to mean that my mind is active in a different way whilst I sleep. Add to this some unusual dietry intake (such as more cheese or alcohol than you're used to) and perhaps a different environment (such as a hotel room or a friends spare room) and you should up your chances considerably. This current seasonal break could be the perfect opportunity. Although I'm not sure how you would go about incorporating your 'certain celebrity'. Try influincing your dreams by spending plenty of time reading about him/her, watching them on video, etc. before you go to sleep. This often affects my dreams. Good luck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.111.67.44 (talk) 22:40, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The process of dreaming seems designed to eliminate all traces. This has survival value in the process of evolution, so if caveman Og dreams that caveman Gog tried to kill him, he does not get into a fight as soon as he wakes up, thinking the attack was real. You may be having vivid, realistic dreams for 5 hours out of an 8 hour sleep period, but remember nothing. Dreams seem evanescent, like unrehearsed nonsense syllables seen briefly once, or unattended conversations overheard, and they go away in seconds unless somehow noted. So if I am awakened by an alarm clock at random times of the night, I might be more aware of dreams I had, than if I slept uninterrupted for 8 hours. This is just an observation and not a suggestion. Edison (talk) 02:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]