Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 February 27

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February 27

Mark Wahlberg

On Mark Wahlbergs page it says that he had a run in with peta for feeding his dogs an all grape diet? What is that? Doubt that is true.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathonteel (talk • contribs)

That was a bit of vandalism, which I've reverted. Ian.thomson (talk) 08:12, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

See: Grape and raisin toxicity in dogs...it's unlikely his dogs would have survived for long if that story were true. SteveBaker (talk) 23:41, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Sihanoukville

What was the official name of the city of Sihanoukville during the following periods: 1) French rule before the Japanese occupation; 2) Japanese Rule; 3) French rule after the Japanese occupation; 4) Khmer Rouge rule? Thanks! --151.41.155.159 (talk) 08:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

According to the French wikipedia article Sihanoukville (which for some reason is not on the interwiki link for Sihanoukville (city)), it was called Kampong Saom until 1958 when King Norodom Sihanouk named it after himself at the request of the legislative council. During their brief period in power, the Khmer Rouge wanted to create a rural utopia and depopulated the major cities, through massacres and forced deportations (see Cambodian genocide). It's not clear that they would have bothered to rename a city that they were bent on wiping off the map. I haven't been able to find anything indicating a formal change of name during that period (1975-1979). --Xuxl (talk) 12:11, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Factual question about Bosnia-Herzegovina

Why the Bosnia-Herzegovina entry in Wikipedia precises that it's a monarchy, although it's a republic? Also, the following statement about B-H being the "last colony" is weird. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kbojanowski (talk • contribs) 15:28, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Which language's Wikipedia are you seeing that in? Because the current version of the English-language article Bosnia and Herzegovina contains neither of those claims. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:53, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Now, I can't find it either, but when you google the keywords, you get this list of entries: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=bosnia+and+herzegovina+colony+monarchy+usurpation+vatican

The second entry is Wikipedia's info. However, when you click on the Wikipedia link, that info is not there anymore. Any explanation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kbojanowski (talk • contribs) 16:06, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

We have no way of knowing about nor do we have any effect on what other websites do. If Google says something that you disagree with, you need to contact Google and ask them. At Wikipedia, no one here can answer for Google. --Jayron32 16:21, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

The first google link is to a site called Wikipedia Rojalista, which is set up to look just like Wikipedia but which is actually a site advocating royal control of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It's not really Wikipedia. Loraof (talk) 16:30, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

The text that Google is reporting was inserted into our article by an IP user earlier today ([1]) and reverted by Kaihsu later. --ColinFine (talk) 18:09, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

What should I do with my files after I'm dead?

I've been thinking about this for several years now. I have over a quarter of a million digital photographs now, and there's plenty more to come. What should I do with them after I'm dead? On the one hand, I'd very much rather enjoy them myself up until my deathbed, and leave an heritage to my siblings' children (I don't have any children of my own). On the other hand, some of the photographs are rather sensitive. Nothing illegal, but for example quite many are BDSM-related, such as from BoundCon. None of my family knows I'm into BDSM and in fact, even my girlfriend doesn't know. It would be rather embarrassing for my siblings' children to learn their uncle was kinky only after he has died.

Has any of this sort of thing happened in the past? How have people sorted it out? JIP | Talk 21:58, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

A famous example is J M W Turner, whose executor, John Ruskin, is reputed to have burned his collection of erotic drawings after his death. (Our article on Ruskin states that this is disputed by "recent scholarship"). Although we can't give legal advice here, this is one of the functions that an executor may be instructed to perform by the testator. Tevildo (talk) 22:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

One possibility would be to sequester the "sensitive" photos into a separate directory tree, and encrypt it. TrueCrypt is a fairly usable platform for this (it's no longer officially supported by the author, but you can still get it). Probably there are other options depending on your OS.

It's good to have some mechanism for your heirs to be able to recover your passwords for most things; this is a complex problem on its own, and maybe someone else can give good pointers for it. But obviously, the key for that volume, you would just leave out. --Trovatore (talk) 23:12, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Recovery in the Lifestyle is a fellowship of BDSM lifestyle people who are in recovery. It's inadvisable to rely on cloud storage providers to safeguard the privacy of your digital photographs. Boxcryptor is a virtual hard disk that encrypts files on the fly using 256-bit AES encryption, however file names remain readable in the free version. AllBestFaith (talk) 23:13, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the advice to encrypt the sensitive stuff. Also, for the non-sensitive images, you might want to make copies and send them to your heirs before your death. StuRat (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

You can do things after you're dead? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:25, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

That's actually quite common above the Arctic Circle. μηδείς (talk) 21:12, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Or in Denver. --Trovatore (talk) 21:35, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Musicians always seem to be releasing new versions of songs after they've died. StuRat (talk) 03:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Music note: a composer becomes a decomposer. 84.214.211.124 (talk) 14:47, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

• I have advised my sister (whom I expect to predecease) to go through my effects so as to avoid any embarrassment to my parents (fuzzy handcuffs) if they are still living. The obvious solution for porn is to put it in cardboard boxes or computer files marked "porn". Of course there's also Google, which suggests what to do with your porn before you die. μηδείς (talk) 21:12, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Simple solution: Just tell them of your “kinky” sexual preferences. If they can´t accept you as you are this is just bad luck. Kids should learn and appreciate the vast spectrum of human minds. Parents know anyway.

I refuse to assume that Helsinki (or New Jersey) is the capital of Puritan clones where one - and only one - sexual behaviour has to fit all. Encrypting a part of your personality seems like a good fist step to the loony bin. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I think you need to decide what you want to happen with the pictures first and then work out how to achieve that. We can help you with the practical aspect of how to achieve what you want, but we're not terribly well placed to tell you what you should do. Matt Deres (talk) 02:25, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. We can't help you decide what you want to do with them - that would be a request for an opinion...which we try not to give here. When you know what you want to do, the solution may come down to a mix of legal and technological means. Since we're also not allowed to give legal advice, we're not going to do that either. But we almost certainly can help with the tech stuff. We can track down policies about subscriber death in places like Google, Instagram, FaceBook and WikiCommons (although depositing a half million BDSM pictures in Commons would cause a bit of a stir and would not likely pass unnoticed!) - and we can discuss ways to lock things with passwords and encryption and perhaps clever ways to hide the key so it's discovered at a time and place of your choosing, and by persons who you'd want to find them.

Personally, I'd start out by buying a domain name and web hosting, and paying for the service up-front for enough years to take you well pass your likely last day on earth. Then you can upload your photo library and lock it away with software means that could easily limit password access and set time limits. It would also be easy enough to incorporate a "dead man's switch" which would lock out all access until (say) a year after you last log in to the site. It could even automatically email passwords and other stuff to your descendants on a day of your choosing some time after the dead-mans'-switch is tripped by your failure to log in periodically. Doing it like this would ensure that you had full control over the handling of things. Pre-paying for your own site would allow you to circumvent the various means of password recovery open to your descendents that might be provided by FaceBook or whatever. Writing your own rules gives you full control. SteveBaker (talk) 16:12, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Encrypting part of my hard drive and keeping part of it public sounds like a good idea. The whole point of it is that I myself would enjoy all of my pictures to the rest of my life, and for my progeny (actually, my siblings' progeny) to enjoy the non-sensitive parts (by far the majority) ever after. But I thought that the mere presence of encrypted content that they're never going to access might cause the embarrassment.

But then, all this is weighing two things between each other: altruism and personal pleasure. First of all, I wish pleasure to myself. But after I'm gone, I also wish my progeny (see above) will benefit of my work. I won't be along to know, but somehow I wish the future generations will remember me. All this will take decades. It's only less than decade than my grandparents died, both of my parents will be along for a decade or two, and with any luck, I will be along for even longer. JIP | Talk 20:41, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

TrueCrypt has a way of putting a second level of encryption inside an encrypted volume, in such a way that you can't even tell it's there unless you have the second key. So one possibility is, you could go ahead and encrypt everything (not a bad idea on its own — do you really want strangers looking through everything in your home folder, if you lose your laptop in an airport?) and then use the second key for the sensitive photos. You make sure your heirs and assigns get the first key.

I have never tried this and I don't know how much of a pain it is in practice. --Trovatore (talk) 20:45, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

"TrueCrypt has a way of putting a second level of encryption inside an encrypted volume"

TrueCrypt calls it a "hidden volume" - see TrueCrypt#Plausible deniability, and the TrueCrypt documentation, for details. 165.225.98.66 (talk) 06:49, 3 March 2016 (UTC)