Miscellaneous desk
< February 21	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 23 >

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.

February 22[edit]

Images on Facebook[edit]

Are images that people upload to Facebook in the public domain or does the creator of the image still have copyright to stop you from copying and distributing said image? Mo ainm~Talk 00:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See here under 2.Sharing Your Content and Information. He iro 01:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is a bit of legal speak, not sure I understand it, the image I am talking about is of a friend of mine who is involved in politics it was uploaded and tagged with my friends name so I am able to view it even though I am not a friend of the up-loader. Does his tagging make it publicly available thus negating the copyright notice he wrote in the comment below the image? Mo ainm~Talk 01:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the owner of the image still retains copyright -- posting the image on Facebook doesn't change that. Facebook's terms of service also gives Facebook certain rights over the use of the image, but it isn't in the public domain. Katherine (talk) 01:24, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) For copyright purposes, the FB policy says, essentially: 1. Users still own their photos; 2. By uploading a photo, though, you give FB permission to show it to other people according to your privacy settings, until you delete it. The fact that you can view it does not mean it is released in the public domain in any way. It is no different than making any image (say, a painting, or an advertisement, or a movie) "public" — making something publicly visible has zero effect on its copyright status. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies. Mo ainm~Talk 01:34, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

US Soldiers Issued New Ceramics Plates after being shot?[edit]

If I understand correctly, the ceramic plates in the US Interceptor body armor (or any ceramic plates in body armor, for that matter) are designed to fragment upon being struck by a bullet to dissipate the energy. Since a cracked plate will provide reduced subsequent ballistic protection against subsequent bullets, will soldiers be issued new plates upon returning to base? If so, will they have to pay for the new plates?

A separate question: if a soldier destroys or loses their firearm, will they have to pay for a replacement?

Thanks, Acceptable (talk) 04:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think they would have to gget new plates. No they would not have to pay for their equipment, it is provided for them.Sumsum2010·T·C·Review me! 04:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Soldier shot in Iraq billed for missing military gear--Aspro (talk) 09:24, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This vet's commander and supply sergeant dropped the ball. His equipment should have been written off as a combat loss. Any time there is a loss of equipment there is an investigation. If the soldier is determined to be negligent, then there is a statement of charges.[1] -— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the SAPI and E-SAPI plates you're talking about can be repaired in some circumstances and the plates returned to the army for reuse.[2]. Our article Small Arms Protective Insert suggests that the SAPI plates cost $300 each and the E-SAPI plates double that, so billing soldiers for them if they were damaged by impact could be an expensive and unpopular business. Ka renjc 12:39, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the German military, you are supposed to fill in a form for missing material, and to indicate if you are "willing to pay" for the loss or not. Presumably, if you indicate "not willing to pay", you need to give a good reason (being shot whole carrying it would be acceptable). Plenty of jokes are going around about Starfighter pilots ticking the wrong box after the inevitable crash and being presented with huge bills. For material that is not of particular military significance (boots, pants, sleeping bags...), "willing to pay" will just result in a bill, and no inquiry, so it's a standard way of acquiring surplus material if you like e.g. combat boots. Somewhat shadier, typically the items returned after the end of service are much more used than one would expect for material reissued only a short while ago, while "lost" material that miraculously has been found again always seems to be brand-new. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've already heard that this is a common practice (losing an item, to buy it) in the German army. I wonder why don't they let soldiers buy it directly to avoid the bureaucratic process. Quest09 (talk) 18:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Soldiers below the rank of General are not expected to fight using privately owned weapons. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:04, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neither are soldiers above the rank of General. And Patton only held the rank of General for three weeks before Germany surrendered. Googlemeister (talk) 16:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you read mine and Schulz's answer above, you'll see that nobody is talking about soldiers carrying own weapons. It was about German soldiers pretending to have lost something to keep it (and paying for that). Quest09 (talk) 18:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does internet makes us smarter?[edit]

People surfing the internet would be watching TV in the past. And the internet is more interactive, more literate and more surprising than TV. 212.169.191.106 (talk) 13:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some devil's advocate questions to sharpen your approach: Why do you assume that television is the null case? How would your analysis change if you assumed that reading books was the null case? Or if doing their actual job (rather than playing Flash games at work) was the null case? Or going to movies, or spending time out with friends, or...? Additional caveat: many studies have shown that most people on the internet just seek out opinions that match their own. Does interactivity necessarily mean exposure to a broader range of ideas? --Mr.98 (talk) 14:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of debate: APA Monitor on Psychology[3] which says the internet improves children's literacy and self-directed learning, IEEE Spectrum[4] which judges "Negative (cognitive) impacts seem to be outweighing the positive", WSJ[5], or Google your question for loads more hits. The thesis that Everything Bad Is Good for You is also somewhat related. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clay Shirky, who wrote the book Cognitive Surplus about this, appears to agree with you. Jørgen (talk) 18:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it too meta to suggest that people who think the internet makes them smarter do not seek out opinions that would imply otherwise? ;-) --Mr.98 (talk) 02:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A few quick other thoughts. I think there is little doubt that using the internet makes us different, just as using print (as opposed to memorization) made us different, or using cheaply printed books (as opposed to hand-written tomes) made us different, or using radio and television (rather than newspapers) made us different. The question is whether different translates to smarter or better. A lot of people have argued "yes, it does," while a lot of others have argued, "no, there are downsides." Personally I tend to take a somewhat balanced view, because I am nothing if not irritatingly balanced. There are probably some realms in which the internet has made us "smarter" (fact-checking, for example), and there are probably some realms in which the internet has made us "less smart" (exposing ourselves to contrary opinions, for example) than our way of life before it. No way of life in my mind gets "most exalted status": they all have their upsides and their downsides, however much we might individually find various ones more inspiring or nostalgic. I think we are definitely losing something as we transition into this wholly internet saturated age (I lament the fracturing of journalistic expertise, for example, and the fact that many students I see cannot seem to exist without a gadget nearby), but we are also gaining many things. I am not sure whether one can produce a calculus as of yet which says that the gains have been better than the losses or vice versa — things haven't played out fully yet. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"fracturing journalistic expertise" seems like an understatement. The press is probably more up-to-date, but also more shallow than in the past. You might get the news as they happen, but I doubt that good newspapers of the past would have so much typos as internet newspapers of today. In their quest for being fast, they certainly sacrificed quality. Quest09 (talk) 15:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What bothers me more than the news cycle/typo question is what it means to be a journalist these days. I do believe in expertise -- that people who have dedicated their lives to a given task are often better at it than amateurs, Wikipedia be damned — and fear that replacing the press with nothing but fly-by-night bloggers and citizen twitterers (to take an extremely dystopic possibility) will actually have adverse effects on democracy itself. I don't blame the internet for all of this, mind you; TV news started this awful trend quite awhile back, and has arguably done some very awful things to our ability to self-govern. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See "Is Google Making Us Stupid?: What the Internet is doing to our brains"

and Is Google Making Us Stupid? - The Atlantic (July/August 2008).

—Wavelength (talk) 15:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if anyone has examined the effects of surfing the internet and watching TV at the same time yet. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It means I need a bib!--TammyMoet (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

People surfing the internet would in the past have divided their time between study, work and leisure such as watching TV. Internet use blurs these divisions and has created dependency in the form of heightened expectations that on-line services be available 24/7 quickly and ideally wireless. "Smartness" is culturally defined. By old cultural standards a person who never reads a paper book cannot be smart. The modern cyber citizen has a skill set that didn't exist 30 years ago but when judged by popular culture, school tests and marketing rhetoric, literacy is at an all-time low. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what Wikipedia has given us, according to XKCD. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Animal husbandry article[edit]

Why is the English Wikipedia's article on animal husbandry so short compared to that of other languages? --Belchman (talk) 16:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: because nobody has yet written a more extensive version. Looie496 (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The thing to do, then, is find the longest one, right click and go down to 'translate with bing', and you can read it all. then, you can come back here and use your newfound knowledge to improve our version. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 17:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe your browser has a "translate with bing" option on the context menu, but mine doesn't. Marnanel (talk) 21:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps 148 is a clever sales agent for a certain software company, trying to improve market share for its second rate search engine. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you are paranoid. 92.15.2.21 (talk) 00:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC) [reply]

It was a joke. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reminded at this point of Tom Lehrer's friend "Hen3ry", who pursued a variety of occupations, one of which was animal husbandry, "until they caught him at it one day." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

the internet[edit]

So, where does one go to get one of these blogs, and how much does it cost? I have little experience with the internet, and this isn't something I have come across by myself yet.

148.197.121.205 (talk) 17:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One place you can go (I use it) is Google's Blogger at www.blogger.com . Google has gobbled up blogger for some time, so if you have Google account (e.g., gmail) you're in. Otherwise, registration and use is free. The interface is all web based so a non-technical person can create a blog, post items to it, and edit merrily. You just have to get people to go there (that's the hard part). --Quartermaster (talk) 17:41, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, you can sign up for a free blog at WordPress.com, which (not surprisingly) uses the WordPress blogging system. They offer a ten-step walkthrough to explain the basics of blogging.

I have much more experience with WordPress than I do with Blogger, but it's safe to say you can have a good blogging experience with either. --- OtherDave (talk) 18:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't suppose there's such a thing as LiveBlog or BingBlog, just to continue a pattern building up on my computer? 148.197.121.205 (talk) 21:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was; but Microsoft is shutting down Windows Live Spaces. --LarryMac | Talk 21:45, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes (see previous thread) now I'm convinced 148 is a sales agent for a certain software company advertising its wares...--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You think Microsoft hired someone to advertise a service they're already in the process of shutting down and people can no longer sign up for? I frequently mention Google and occasionally Bing, sad to say neither of them have ever paid me. Nil Einne (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can use Windows Live Writer with a variety of other blogging services, although most of them have perfectly good interfaces of their own. the wub "?!" 12:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Multiply,you can link other blogs,FB,Twiiter etc to it and save time.Hotclaws (talk) 23:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

free on board[edit]

Can you tell me what the phrase FOB Price: US $0.1-10 / Piece means please? Does it mean that I would have to pay ,e.g., 10c per piece ordered? regards Paul Bristol89.241.209.195 (talk) 17:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Check out FOB (shipping) and see if that helps. (No guarantee or warranty implied.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The short answer is that an FOB price does not include the freight cost of shipping from source to destination (e.g., from Chittagong to Atlanta, via Singapore and Los Angeles), or insurance on the transportation. If it did, the price would be quoted as CIF $0.1-10 / piece. DOR (HK) (talk) 10:19, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]