Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 November 7

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November 7

What were the basic personality types listed by Charles Fourier?

What were the basic personality types listed by Charles Fourier? I read that in designing his utopian communes, Fourier listed several types necessary on each phalanx/ What were they? --Gary123 (talk) 06:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a go, since no one else has, but I'm afraid this is only a partial attempt. At the bottom of our Charles Fourier article, are a bunch of links to his writing and writings about him online. For example, these ones are in English: [1], [2], [3]. He seemed to love classifications and categorizations, and had several systems - one categorized people by what they desire (usefulness, beauty, justice, truth and the divine), one categorized people into four groups (friendship, love, family and ambition) according to what their predominant emotions are, one predicted the progress of civilization over thousands of years in parallel to what he saw as the intellectual progress of invididuals over one lifespan, from interest in fantasy to interest in intellectuality to interest in passion and perfection, to decay. I'm afraid I couldn't unpack anything particularly Utopia-related but maybe since you know what you are looking for you'll be able to pick it out from this stuff? The google books link is the overview. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 15:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Business law: What does (KG) mean in bankruptcy filings?

What does the abbreviation "KG" mean in filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court? It seems to show up a lot where a company declares bankruptcy along with its subsidiaries. They each get assigned a case number, but the case is usually jointly administered and when referred to in aggregate, is usually something like "123456 (KG)". I've been looking through different resources, but can only guess at what the KG means. Googling for {kg bankruptcy "case no"} shows plenty of examples.[4] Squidfryerchef (talk) 06:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It stands for "Kevin Gross".

At least, I think so. Here's how I worked it out.

First, I noticed that when I did the Google search you suggested, most of the cases were from the US Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware. That could be because a lot of companies in the US incorporate in Delaware, but it could be because this abbreviation means something specific to that court. So I went to that court's web site (deb.uscourts.gov) to see if I could find an explanation of it.

When I didn't find one, I decided to look at some other case numbers to see if (KG) was one of a series of these codes. I downloaded about 90 cases from the Opinions section of the web site and programmatically picked out the case numbers. About 50 had one of those tags, but there were seven different tags -- (BLS), (CSS), (JKF), (KG), (KJC), (MFW), and (PJW) -- occurring on anywhere from 1 to 16 of the cases I'd looked at. The fact that some of the tags had two letters and others had three suggested that they were people's initials.

I then googled for all of the above tags together on the deb.uscourts.gov site, hoping to find a table of the names. There wasn't one, but I did get a few hits, presumably opinions that cited a number of other cases by number. I looked at the first hit to see what the name of the judge on that case was -- and it was "THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER S. SONTCHI".

So that was (CSS) explained, and by googling on "the honorable" at that site, I was easily able to find several other names matching the tags: Judith K. Fitzgerald, Kevin J. Carey, Mary F. Walrath, Peter J. Walsh -- and Kevin Gross.

Howzat?

--Anonymous, 10:15 UTC, November 7, 2009.

More info on KG here [5]. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. The case I was originally studying was presided over by that judge. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Billionaire lifestyle

Hello, can you give me a list/names of billionaires/multimillionaires who live lavish jet-setting free-spending lifestyle like Mikhail Prokhorov of Russia or Vijay Mallya of India? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aold1000 (talk • contribs) 09:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Richard Branson? Guy Laliberte? Adam Bishop (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen our Billionaire article? Dismas|^(talk) 04:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll quote

From Through the Looking-Glass:

• "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
• "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
• "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all."

I want to be 100% certain that my understanding of the third line is "correct"/reasonable: To me, it means "The question is, who has the authority of deciding the meaning of words".

1. Is this the "standard interpretation"?
2. Is there something more subtle in this line that I'm not catching?

Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I always assumed (and this seems to be backed up by The Annotated Alice, which is the standard interpretation if anything is) that for Humpty Dumpty, the question is whether the speaker is master, or whether the words themselves are. That is, whether words have inherent meaning which the speaker must take into account, or whether the speaker can assign meanings as he pleases. Algebraist 13:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have understood it in the manner of being who has the authority (which speaker) of assigning meaning, and heard it repeated (in academic contexts) in that fashion. But I'm no specialist. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Both interpretations work excellently in the (academic) context where I intend to use it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 14:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems clear to me as a reader that Algebraist's reading is correct. "Which" means which one of a set of alternatives, and the alternatives mentioned in the previous line of dialogue are "you" and "words". Also, note that the previous verb was "make". In an era when servants were common, it was masters who "made" people do things, so if John makes James do something, it settles the question of which of them is the master. And besides, it's very Lewis Carrollish to imagine the words being the master. --Anonymous, expanded 18:57 UTC, November 7, 2009.

Thanks! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In this YouTube clip, the text is actually changed, to "The question is, which is to be the master, you or the word, that's all.", avoiding any ambiguity, and supporting the interpretation of Algebraist and Anoymous (and Martin Gardner, apparently) --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Guardianship of Floris V (1258-1266)

Something is amiss. In the article Floris V, Count of Holland it says his father William II of Holland was killed in 1256 when he was two years old. William II was married to Elizabeth of Brunswick-Luneburg (Floris mother), who died 27 May 1266. In the Discussion section of Floris V article someone also noticed it was previously linked to the wrong battle. Now it looks like it was not really a battle, but just a "squable" over the guardianship of Floris while he was becoming of age. This link shows this for 1263. Could the "Regency War" really be just a "squable" of the Hollandic noblemen? It looks like there were 3 guardians until Floris became of age when twelve. Would it be a correct statement to say that his uncle Floris 'de Voogd' (Willian's brother) acted as his first regent; then Adelaide of Holland was his second guardian from 1258 to 1263; then Otto II of Gelre (his cousin) as his third guardian (1263-1266). Apparently there was much "squabling" between Adelaide and Otto for some eight years (1258 to 1266) and the Hollandic noblemen. Apparently there was no "squabling" between Floris 'de Voogd' and Otto II of Gelre or the Hollandic noblemen between 1254 and 1258; the first four years of Floris' life - or was there? So, why was Floris' mother not the regent since she lived until 1266? Did the Hollandic noblemen have more power than William's wife? Would it not be more correct to reword the Floris V article something like ....First his uncle, then his aunt, fought over custody of Holland. Then in 1263, Otto II of Guelders served as his guardian until he was twelve years old and considered capable of administering Holland himself...? --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, by all means; and why not bolster the statement with a reference to your dependable source. Notes concerning specific Wikipedia articles are generally posted at thje relevant talkpages, in this case Talk:Floris V, Count of Holland.--Wetman (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Did as you suggested. --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 22:11, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Richard Ramirez's execution date?

Is it possible to know when will he be executed? Why so many years in prison? Since 1988... and John Allen Muhammad will be put down this Tuesday for a 2002 crime. --FromSouthAmerica (talk) 20:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ramirez is on death row in California which is famously slow about the death penalty. They currently have almost 700 people on death row but have averaged less than 1 execution a year for the past twenty years. Rmhermen (talk) 02:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

How often do they overturn death sentences? They could have lots of people on death row without being slow to execute people if they just often sentence people to death and then change their minds. --Tango (talk) 04:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

California apparently averages 25 years on death row before execution, twice the national average wait.[6] 75.41.110.200 (talk) 23:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)