Miscellaneous desk
< January 28	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 30 >

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.

January 29[edit]

Rate of fire[edit]

moved [1] to the talk page

What name and number?[edit]

Any idea why it is that some college basketball teams, such as Kansas and Baylor, have adopted jerseys with an overlaying, semi-transparent fabric through which the names and numbers of the players are barely visible? --Halcatalyst (talk) 05:03, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NC State had these on this past weekend as well. It's called fashion. That is, there is no functional or useful reason except that it looks "cool". --Jayron32 14:10, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cop partners[edit]

Does anyone have information as to the general protocol in the United States regarding when police officers have partners and when they don't. As a somewhat thoroughly law abiding citizen of NJ, my most intimate relationship with policemen is that of having seen them on TV and in films, and I was wondering, when do cops have partners and when do they not? Does it relate to them being walking on foot vs. having a police cruiser? Do detectives get partners while regular officers do not? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:26, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that traffic cops don't usually have partners. I imagine anyone going into a more dangerous situation, like going to make an arrest, does. StuRat (talk) 15:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding (sorry no references) is that it varies by police department. On the one hand, putting two officers in a patrol car makes them both safer (and more effective at dealing with situations). On the other hand, putting them in different cars means that more points in the city have a police car and officer nearby. So it's a trade-off. I can remember on various occasions reading that a police department was considering switching from one choice to the other. Duoduoduo (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There might also be situations where there aren't enough cars to go around, so they double up for that reason. StuRat (talk) 04:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In small towns, there is often only one officer on duty at a time. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 09:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

internet service providers default browsers[edit]

please give a link(s) that shows the default browsers for internet providers of the u.s.a.

I'm not sure that "default browsers of internet providers" is actually a meaningful discussion. Particularly now that internet access is virtually ubiquitous, every computer already comes with at least one browser already installed, and ISPs don't seem to make a big deal about installing browsers any longer (the various toolbar tie-ins are frequently multi-browser). I would guess that the majority of ISPs default their technical support illustrations to "how it looks in Internet Explorer", as that's ~~still~~ historically been the leading browser in terms of market share. Many, though, will also provide guidance for Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and maybe others. — Lomn 15:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. There are, however, a few ISP's which have/had their own browsers, such as AOL. StuRat (talk) 16:06, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, from Usage share of web browsers it looks like Chrome has overtaken IE in terms of market share, although it's a complicated thing to measure. --Viennese Waltz 16:18, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. That curve has moved faster than I would have guessed. Anyway, details updated per your comment. — Lomn 22:29, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How things have changed! When I got my first computer, it did not have a browser installed, and the owner of the local ISP came to my house to install one. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 09:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Phah! The youth of today have no idea! I built my own computer from scratch in 1978, wrote the 200 byte "operating system" by hand in hexadecimal and loaded software via paper tape from an ancient teletype at 10 bytes per second (My present computer loads software about a billion times faster). Not only did the Internet not exist but to connect to any other computer you needed a telephone modem...and not one of those fancy schmancy ones you plug into a wall socket...an acoustic coupler where you plugged the telephone handset into these rubber cups with microphone and speaker connected to the computer. SteveBaker (talk) 14:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"And you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you". :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC) [reply]

"Back when I was in school, we had to walk 10 miles to school, uphill ... both ways !". StuRat (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC) [reply]

Comedian Larry Miller, speculating on a lecture to his future kids: "In my day, we didn't have jet-packs; we had to drive to school." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Odd how Opera is #1 browser in Belarus, according to File:Countries by most used web browser.svg. Astronaut (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're not the first one to notice that, apparently [2]. Something to do with the prevalence of highly restrictive download limits in Belarus, apparently. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 18:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

microbiology[edit]

i need the fullform of AST in microbiology and also i need explanation of AST. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.5.107 (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The most likely entry in our disambiguation page AST is to Aspartate transaminase. Is that what you're talking about, and have you read that article? Rojomoke (talk) 22:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

npo's and 1099's[edit]

Do you need to issue a 1099 to NPO's you have made payments to during the tax year? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.251.105.162 (talk) 16:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We cannot give legal advice; consult your tax professional. I can, however, direct you to the IRS page on 1099-Misc, here [3] SemanticMantis (talk) 18:36, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

86.46.194.120[edit]

User talk:86.46.194.120: Revision history

I have never knowingly edited any wiki references or articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.46.194.120 (talk) 17:23, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This just means that someone using that IP address edited an article, wasn't necessarily you. IP addresses are not always owned by people in the same way that phone numbers are - if i disconnect from my internet service provider then reconnect there is a chance i will be allocated a new ip address from their range, so someone tomorrow may be using the ip address that i was using today. It is possible to request a static ip address from your internet service provider, so that it will be constant, but this is often not done by default. In the days of dialup internet ip addresses would often be different everytime someone dialed in. ---- _nonsense ferret 17:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The other solution is just to register a screen name with Wikipedia, in which case no edits should be misattributed to you. StuRat (talk) 23:14, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That Ireland-based IP has only 2 edits: The one above, and one from 3 years ago which drew a mild warning. Very unlikely to be the same guy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]