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What is the most professional way to staple pieces of paper? Should the staple run horizontally across the page, diagonally or vertically? Acceptable ( talk) 00:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Let me explain. What I'm trying to ask here is if there's a scientific/ psychological organization out there that does seeminglessly pointless and or random/bizarre experiments? There would be a purpose to it. Despite my own pointless, porposeless life (see question), I've noticed some subtle things. One of those things is that -we dont really know exactly what happens until we do it! Take a pencil and drop it. But before you do, try to picture what will happen. Chances are you didnt see that funny bounce it took. Things often dont happen exactly as pictured. You may say this is pointless, but I say all knowledge is important. So what would happen if you touched someone from ten feet away with a tuxedo, and not necessarily with an extended hanger? How about that tuxedo dangling from the end of a pipe (both the plumbers kind and the kind you smoke from)? Or stapled to the end of a solidified extension cord from 20 feet away(unplugged of course)? With or without forewarning? What if it had a "Kick Me" sign on it? I doubt this has ever been tried. The point is,- we would learn something. Maybe practical, maybe not. What if you stared at a glass for 16 hours? By yourself? Or painted a box blue and asked people to guess what was in it? What if it was orange? Would there be a pattern to the guesses with different colors? How long would it take someone to ask if there's a chunk of concrete in a grocery store? Now grocery stores dont sell chunks of concrete, but if you had the patience to stand there and eavesdrop indefinitely, well...who knows?
Sorry I rambled on. Hopefully, you get the picture. I just think that there is value in ALL questions, and have more to say about this in a future post. But, for now could you please enlighten me to any experiments of this nature. It would be greatly appreciated, and I would find it endlessly fascinating.-- Hey, I'm Just Curious ( talk) 01:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
We do experiments - mostly - not to find a specific answer to what happens to a very specific thing under very specific conditions. What we're trying to do is to find some underlying principle that covers a whole range of similar conditions. Hence (for example) we do not attempt to prove Newton's laws of motion by giving a push to every conceivable kind of object at every conceivable speed. A suitably representative sample is plenty. Once we've deduced the underlying principle - we don't need to do any of the infinite number of other possible experiments that will just produce results that will fit the same theory. Since one can only perform just so many experiments in a lifetime, it makes sense to maximise the chances of finding out something amazing and/or useful by carefully picking experiments that are likely to fall outside the range of existing theory. The experiments that you are proposing are of exceedingly low value because it is almost certain that they'll merely confirm what we already know. Obviously we're only "almost" certain - but rather than do some very obvious experiment in order to narrow that already-tiny sliver of doubt, it's much better to pick something 'big' and probe that instead. SteveBaker ( talk) 19:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to the Ig Nobel Prize. This sounds somewhat close to what I was getting at, but I dont think they take it far eneough. Laughing and thinking are two very important qualities to possess when trying to learn something, so I do give them credit for that. Same for shows such as Candid Camera and Trigger Happy TV. But, -they exist for entertainment purposes only. You can try to learn something if you're looking, but that's not thier stated purpose. Incidently, Trigger Happy TV is closer to the kind of ideas I have. But again, even that show's ideas weren't taken far eneough.I believe experiments should be done as extreme as possible. What we need here is scientific grain counters, if you will. Keep doing the mundane, boring, and cumbersome (but perplexly fascinating) and you'll eventually come up with something. For example, after Dom Jolly yelled into his giant cellphone, why not take people's blood pressure? Or see to what degree thier pupils dilated? How about asking if they had the sudden urge to go elsewhere? Not to avoid the scene, but to see if thier mind shifted into changing thier plans? "Why, I was going to go to my buddies house, but suddenly I have the urge to visit my crossdressing uncle..."
Did the weather change? Did they notice if certain colors around them seemed brighter? For that matter- did colors get brighter? There must be some sort of wavelenghth measurement you can take before and after of, let's say, the red fire hydrant sitting nearby. Did you say "spectrometer"? Why I happen to have one right here! Then check thier physiological reaction, to that!
Not all my experiments would involve people. Just most of them. People talk, have feelings, and are more fun to communicate with than the fire hydrant. In the absence of people, you could try for example, mixing toothpaste with Einsteinium. Or Lawrencium with fur? How about fur, Lawrencium, toothpaste and Einsteinium in a blender? Since Einsteium and Lawrencium are man made and break down quickly, you could replace them with Technetium and a stick of gum. Then try burning it (don't try this with hydrogen!). The results probably wouldn't be as exciting, but who knows, maybe you'd discover a cure for cancer? Doubtful, but has it ever been tried? What, exactly, would happen?-- Hey, I'm Just Curious ( talk) 18:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, a real one. Ideally ex-mil, don't much care whose. I don't mind if it doesn't have torpedoes or anything like that, since I'd be renovating it anyway. The questions I have are as follows: 1) Is it legal under any circumstances for a civilian to own a nuclear submarine? I assume i'd need to have a license to own and operate a research reactor? 2) Where would I legally purchase fuel for it? 3) Where do I buy a submarine anyway? Russia have any laying around? I don't mind a u-fix-it sub. 4) I want to know how to run a nuclear sub. Anyone have any manuals for them or something?
Help me achieve my Hagbard Celine fantasy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.158.193.46 ( talk) 06:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
It is incorrect to say "civilians are not allowed to have....." demilitarized military equipment. Civilians own military airplanes from past wars. They own former U.S. Navy patrol boats. Civilians own tanks, which have been "demilitarized" in some fashion, as by removing the machine guns and the breach block of the cannon. A sub would probably have to have the torpedo tubes welded shut, the deck guns removes, and any ballistic missile tubes removed or welded shut. The World War 1(obviously non-nuclear) "Nautilus" was turned over to civilians for a zany attempt to reach the North Pole in 1931 [1]. Licensing of the reactor would be an issue, as would be ownership and control of the fuel. A fading superpower such as the Former Soviet Union (Russia) welcomes foreign hard currency, and might lease a sub, complete with crew, if the price were right. You could be the Skipper and travel around the world like Captain Nemo. How many million do you have? Edison ( talk) 07:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
And of course, legality and illegalaity vary by country. I presume that most of the above assumes the US. The situation might be different if 66.158 is a wealthy,(say) Moldovan! -- SGBailey ( talk) 14:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
We can't give legal advice anyway, so it's not really relevant to us what jurisdiction s/he is in. If this is serious, the services of a good lawyer to go through all the relevant laws and regulations will probably be much cheaper than the submarine itself. -- Random832 ( contribs) 19:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
No, not the first one created, temporally. I saw on the main page that there is, rather quaintly, an A-Z index of Wikipedia articles. However, it only starts at 0, whereas there have to be articles that start with various symbols: ', -, =, etc. (Also, the index doesn't exactly work... if you click on, say, CZ, when it finishes that category, it goes on to Ca, and not to Da.) So what would be the first article on Wikipedia? zafiroblue05 | Talk 07:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
What is the distance between London and Granada and London and Sofia? Does anyone also know flight length times? Simply south ( talk) 10:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Soapboxing removed. The RefDesk is for asking questions, not posting jingoistic rants. Matt Deres ( talk) 21:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I paid for something on eBay through PayPal with my credit card, and eBay says the payment went through, but my credit account doesn't say anything has been added to it. How long does it normally take for PayPal stuff to go through?-- Newitems! ( talk) 19:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I've gotten some great feedback here (and even helped out some with an update) with mysteries surrounding genealogical research, so I have one other one for you.
One ancestor emigrated from Seloncourt, France. The confusing part is, he's listed as being from Switzerland in the 1880 and 1900 census. And, the place name is "Salcourt." Now, if he's just giving info a cnesus taker can mishear Selconcourt as Salcourt (if he has a thicker accent), but France as Switzerland?
In your article, i found some clues - it's only a few miles from the Swiss border; very few, in fact. It wasn't even considered part of France till reabsorbed a couple decades before he came. It was Lutheran, whereas I think of most of France as Catholic. Perhaps he didn't identify himself with France, but yet on his deth certificate, it says France because they want specifics there?
Thanks, the people on here are great. Somebody or his brother ( talk) 20:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Dear RefDeskers, I come to you yet again for guidance on life's most important matters. It had so happened recently that I have obtained through purchase a top-loaded washing machine like the one shown here. This model, just for clarity, has a larger rotating drum for your washing and rinsing, and a smaller for spinning. Water has to be supplied from the shower or a hose, and is drained via another hose (we take water from the shower and empty the waste bath also to our shower).
Anyhow, today as I was doing the laundry (yes, I am that kind of boyfriend) we had a discussion whether one should use warm or cold water for rinsing. I am for using cold water, primarily because my old wardrobe-sized commie washing machine used cold water, and the missis is for using warmer water because it doesn't hurt the hands as much.
So, the question is - which one is better to rinse laundry, warm water (call it room temperature warm) or cold water (cold like tap cold). Thanks for your input, answers from specialists will be appreciated. Cheers, Ouro ( blah blah) 21:32, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I often see ads where a person is saying something, but it’s obviously, and I mean really obviously, not their own voice. More than that, often the voice is quite noticeably out of synch with the lip movement - not by a whole second or anything, but still enough to be noticeable. I see this most often with ads for women’s products (hair, beauty, etc). These days, with all the high-tech stuff they have, one would have thought that synchronising a person’s voice to another person’s mouth (or even their own mouth) would be a piece of cake. But no. I’ve often wondered what they hope to achieve by such shoddy production, or do they assume women wouldn’t notice, or if they do notice, they wouldn’t care? Does this happen in other countries, or is it merely a manifestion of the Australian "she'll be right, mate" attitude? I hope that doesn’t come across as a rant; I am genuinely intrigued. -- JackofOz ( talk) 23:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
In the UK it's common on a lot of adverts that are used across Europe - so the original advert may not have an English-speaker hence the different mouth shaping to the voice. I think this is done to reduce advertising costs for companies. I find it very annoying, but not as annoying as changing the name of Marathon chocolate bars to Snickers, or Jif cleaning products to Cif to appease a pan-European market!! -- KizzyB ( talk) 10:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
It seems that the more annoying the ad, the better it does, in the case of badly dubbed ads, ads which don't even try to sell the product ("I'm a PC !"), and the headache producing "HEAD ON !" ads. So, would an ad featuring a dog defecating on the product be the most successful yet ? StuRat ( talk) 02:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
In the age of information highway, i wonder if its really important to showcase the product as somehow the viewers know it whether its on tv or as a hoarding, its aabout the strategy of conveing with a touch of mystery that evokes curiosity of the viewers to know what is it really about man. Vikram79 ( talk) 18:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I have written to companies before and said their ad was so bad, I wouldn't buy the product.I got form letter replies saying everyone else loved them.Still,I felt better for venting my spleen. hotclaws 19:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Some bad adverts (not necessarily dubbed), achieve cult status in the UK. The prime example is the Ferrero Rocher advert known as "the Ambassador's reception". It ran for years and was lampooned to high heaven, but people liked it because it was so awful. On reflection, it may even have been dubbed - I think the only word(s) spoken "to camera" was, from memory "mmm, delicieux" or something similar. Wonder if it's on youtube? -- Dweller ( talk) 11:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Miscellaneous desk | ||
---|---|---|
< November 18 | << Oct | November | Dec >> | November 20 > |
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. |
What is the most professional way to staple pieces of paper? Should the staple run horizontally across the page, diagonally or vertically? Acceptable ( talk) 00:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Let me explain. What I'm trying to ask here is if there's a scientific/ psychological organization out there that does seeminglessly pointless and or random/bizarre experiments? There would be a purpose to it. Despite my own pointless, porposeless life (see question), I've noticed some subtle things. One of those things is that -we dont really know exactly what happens until we do it! Take a pencil and drop it. But before you do, try to picture what will happen. Chances are you didnt see that funny bounce it took. Things often dont happen exactly as pictured. You may say this is pointless, but I say all knowledge is important. So what would happen if you touched someone from ten feet away with a tuxedo, and not necessarily with an extended hanger? How about that tuxedo dangling from the end of a pipe (both the plumbers kind and the kind you smoke from)? Or stapled to the end of a solidified extension cord from 20 feet away(unplugged of course)? With or without forewarning? What if it had a "Kick Me" sign on it? I doubt this has ever been tried. The point is,- we would learn something. Maybe practical, maybe not. What if you stared at a glass for 16 hours? By yourself? Or painted a box blue and asked people to guess what was in it? What if it was orange? Would there be a pattern to the guesses with different colors? How long would it take someone to ask if there's a chunk of concrete in a grocery store? Now grocery stores dont sell chunks of concrete, but if you had the patience to stand there and eavesdrop indefinitely, well...who knows?
Sorry I rambled on. Hopefully, you get the picture. I just think that there is value in ALL questions, and have more to say about this in a future post. But, for now could you please enlighten me to any experiments of this nature. It would be greatly appreciated, and I would find it endlessly fascinating.-- Hey, I'm Just Curious ( talk) 01:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
We do experiments - mostly - not to find a specific answer to what happens to a very specific thing under very specific conditions. What we're trying to do is to find some underlying principle that covers a whole range of similar conditions. Hence (for example) we do not attempt to prove Newton's laws of motion by giving a push to every conceivable kind of object at every conceivable speed. A suitably representative sample is plenty. Once we've deduced the underlying principle - we don't need to do any of the infinite number of other possible experiments that will just produce results that will fit the same theory. Since one can only perform just so many experiments in a lifetime, it makes sense to maximise the chances of finding out something amazing and/or useful by carefully picking experiments that are likely to fall outside the range of existing theory. The experiments that you are proposing are of exceedingly low value because it is almost certain that they'll merely confirm what we already know. Obviously we're only "almost" certain - but rather than do some very obvious experiment in order to narrow that already-tiny sliver of doubt, it's much better to pick something 'big' and probe that instead. SteveBaker ( talk) 19:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to the Ig Nobel Prize. This sounds somewhat close to what I was getting at, but I dont think they take it far eneough. Laughing and thinking are two very important qualities to possess when trying to learn something, so I do give them credit for that. Same for shows such as Candid Camera and Trigger Happy TV. But, -they exist for entertainment purposes only. You can try to learn something if you're looking, but that's not thier stated purpose. Incidently, Trigger Happy TV is closer to the kind of ideas I have. But again, even that show's ideas weren't taken far eneough.I believe experiments should be done as extreme as possible. What we need here is scientific grain counters, if you will. Keep doing the mundane, boring, and cumbersome (but perplexly fascinating) and you'll eventually come up with something. For example, after Dom Jolly yelled into his giant cellphone, why not take people's blood pressure? Or see to what degree thier pupils dilated? How about asking if they had the sudden urge to go elsewhere? Not to avoid the scene, but to see if thier mind shifted into changing thier plans? "Why, I was going to go to my buddies house, but suddenly I have the urge to visit my crossdressing uncle..."
Did the weather change? Did they notice if certain colors around them seemed brighter? For that matter- did colors get brighter? There must be some sort of wavelenghth measurement you can take before and after of, let's say, the red fire hydrant sitting nearby. Did you say "spectrometer"? Why I happen to have one right here! Then check thier physiological reaction, to that!
Not all my experiments would involve people. Just most of them. People talk, have feelings, and are more fun to communicate with than the fire hydrant. In the absence of people, you could try for example, mixing toothpaste with Einsteinium. Or Lawrencium with fur? How about fur, Lawrencium, toothpaste and Einsteinium in a blender? Since Einsteium and Lawrencium are man made and break down quickly, you could replace them with Technetium and a stick of gum. Then try burning it (don't try this with hydrogen!). The results probably wouldn't be as exciting, but who knows, maybe you'd discover a cure for cancer? Doubtful, but has it ever been tried? What, exactly, would happen?-- Hey, I'm Just Curious ( talk) 18:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, a real one. Ideally ex-mil, don't much care whose. I don't mind if it doesn't have torpedoes or anything like that, since I'd be renovating it anyway. The questions I have are as follows: 1) Is it legal under any circumstances for a civilian to own a nuclear submarine? I assume i'd need to have a license to own and operate a research reactor? 2) Where would I legally purchase fuel for it? 3) Where do I buy a submarine anyway? Russia have any laying around? I don't mind a u-fix-it sub. 4) I want to know how to run a nuclear sub. Anyone have any manuals for them or something?
Help me achieve my Hagbard Celine fantasy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.158.193.46 ( talk) 06:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
It is incorrect to say "civilians are not allowed to have....." demilitarized military equipment. Civilians own military airplanes from past wars. They own former U.S. Navy patrol boats. Civilians own tanks, which have been "demilitarized" in some fashion, as by removing the machine guns and the breach block of the cannon. A sub would probably have to have the torpedo tubes welded shut, the deck guns removes, and any ballistic missile tubes removed or welded shut. The World War 1(obviously non-nuclear) "Nautilus" was turned over to civilians for a zany attempt to reach the North Pole in 1931 [1]. Licensing of the reactor would be an issue, as would be ownership and control of the fuel. A fading superpower such as the Former Soviet Union (Russia) welcomes foreign hard currency, and might lease a sub, complete with crew, if the price were right. You could be the Skipper and travel around the world like Captain Nemo. How many million do you have? Edison ( talk) 07:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
And of course, legality and illegalaity vary by country. I presume that most of the above assumes the US. The situation might be different if 66.158 is a wealthy,(say) Moldovan! -- SGBailey ( talk) 14:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
We can't give legal advice anyway, so it's not really relevant to us what jurisdiction s/he is in. If this is serious, the services of a good lawyer to go through all the relevant laws and regulations will probably be much cheaper than the submarine itself. -- Random832 ( contribs) 19:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
No, not the first one created, temporally. I saw on the main page that there is, rather quaintly, an A-Z index of Wikipedia articles. However, it only starts at 0, whereas there have to be articles that start with various symbols: ', -, =, etc. (Also, the index doesn't exactly work... if you click on, say, CZ, when it finishes that category, it goes on to Ca, and not to Da.) So what would be the first article on Wikipedia? zafiroblue05 | Talk 07:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
What is the distance between London and Granada and London and Sofia? Does anyone also know flight length times? Simply south ( talk) 10:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Soapboxing removed. The RefDesk is for asking questions, not posting jingoistic rants. Matt Deres ( talk) 21:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I paid for something on eBay through PayPal with my credit card, and eBay says the payment went through, but my credit account doesn't say anything has been added to it. How long does it normally take for PayPal stuff to go through?-- Newitems! ( talk) 19:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I've gotten some great feedback here (and even helped out some with an update) with mysteries surrounding genealogical research, so I have one other one for you.
One ancestor emigrated from Seloncourt, France. The confusing part is, he's listed as being from Switzerland in the 1880 and 1900 census. And, the place name is "Salcourt." Now, if he's just giving info a cnesus taker can mishear Selconcourt as Salcourt (if he has a thicker accent), but France as Switzerland?
In your article, i found some clues - it's only a few miles from the Swiss border; very few, in fact. It wasn't even considered part of France till reabsorbed a couple decades before he came. It was Lutheran, whereas I think of most of France as Catholic. Perhaps he didn't identify himself with France, but yet on his deth certificate, it says France because they want specifics there?
Thanks, the people on here are great. Somebody or his brother ( talk) 20:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Dear RefDeskers, I come to you yet again for guidance on life's most important matters. It had so happened recently that I have obtained through purchase a top-loaded washing machine like the one shown here. This model, just for clarity, has a larger rotating drum for your washing and rinsing, and a smaller for spinning. Water has to be supplied from the shower or a hose, and is drained via another hose (we take water from the shower and empty the waste bath also to our shower).
Anyhow, today as I was doing the laundry (yes, I am that kind of boyfriend) we had a discussion whether one should use warm or cold water for rinsing. I am for using cold water, primarily because my old wardrobe-sized commie washing machine used cold water, and the missis is for using warmer water because it doesn't hurt the hands as much.
So, the question is - which one is better to rinse laundry, warm water (call it room temperature warm) or cold water (cold like tap cold). Thanks for your input, answers from specialists will be appreciated. Cheers, Ouro ( blah blah) 21:32, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I often see ads where a person is saying something, but it’s obviously, and I mean really obviously, not their own voice. More than that, often the voice is quite noticeably out of synch with the lip movement - not by a whole second or anything, but still enough to be noticeable. I see this most often with ads for women’s products (hair, beauty, etc). These days, with all the high-tech stuff they have, one would have thought that synchronising a person’s voice to another person’s mouth (or even their own mouth) would be a piece of cake. But no. I’ve often wondered what they hope to achieve by such shoddy production, or do they assume women wouldn’t notice, or if they do notice, they wouldn’t care? Does this happen in other countries, or is it merely a manifestion of the Australian "she'll be right, mate" attitude? I hope that doesn’t come across as a rant; I am genuinely intrigued. -- JackofOz ( talk) 23:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
In the UK it's common on a lot of adverts that are used across Europe - so the original advert may not have an English-speaker hence the different mouth shaping to the voice. I think this is done to reduce advertising costs for companies. I find it very annoying, but not as annoying as changing the name of Marathon chocolate bars to Snickers, or Jif cleaning products to Cif to appease a pan-European market!! -- KizzyB ( talk) 10:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
It seems that the more annoying the ad, the better it does, in the case of badly dubbed ads, ads which don't even try to sell the product ("I'm a PC !"), and the headache producing "HEAD ON !" ads. So, would an ad featuring a dog defecating on the product be the most successful yet ? StuRat ( talk) 02:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
In the age of information highway, i wonder if its really important to showcase the product as somehow the viewers know it whether its on tv or as a hoarding, its aabout the strategy of conveing with a touch of mystery that evokes curiosity of the viewers to know what is it really about man. Vikram79 ( talk) 18:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I have written to companies before and said their ad was so bad, I wouldn't buy the product.I got form letter replies saying everyone else loved them.Still,I felt better for venting my spleen. hotclaws 19:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Some bad adverts (not necessarily dubbed), achieve cult status in the UK. The prime example is the Ferrero Rocher advert known as "the Ambassador's reception". It ran for years and was lampooned to high heaven, but people liked it because it was so awful. On reflection, it may even have been dubbed - I think the only word(s) spoken "to camera" was, from memory "mmm, delicieux" or something similar. Wonder if it's on youtube? -- Dweller ( talk) 11:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)