Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 July 6

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July 6

First (US) federal building named for a woman

Our article on Juliette Gordon Low mentions that she was the second woman to have a federal building named after her. I take this to mean US federal building and not world-wide. As it happens every time that I read something like this in one of our articles, I want to know what the first was. Why do we do this so often? Why make a claim about the second but not answer the obvious question about the first? So, what was the first US federal building to be named for a woman? I did some searching and quite a few pages mention Low. This one even claims that Low was the first. And if I do a search for first "federal building named after a woman" but then remove the name "Juliette" from the search, that's also the only link that comes back. Dismas|^(talk) 00:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

As for why we do this, in that particular article, it looks basically ripped off 100% from this source. So blame them for doing it, and us for blatantly copying! --Mr.98 (talk) 00:55, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The Mary Switzer Building apparently predates Low. meltBanana 17:32, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks! By the way, that's possibly our most poorly written article... Dismas|^(talk) 03:49, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

What type of psychology disorder is this?

What type of psychological disorder is it when someone constantly needs to hook up with the opposite sex to feel good about themselves? I know a girl that constantly needs to hook up with different men to feel good about herself. She even makes it a competition and says "Lets see who can hook up with more people, me or you." Also, what causes this in someone? Is it lack of confidence? Is it because she has a poor relationship with her father? Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.33.234 (talk) 05:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles like Sexual addiction and Hypersexuality may be helpful for background reading, but if you or anyone close to you has concerns about their health, please seek qualified medical help from a trained professional, and do not seek out or accept advice from random strangers on teh intrawebs. --Jayron32 05:48, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Category:.....People/history

I belong to a group and enter historical people and famous actors/actresses. My problem has been that the picture which I enter can be answered by the other person by placing the cursror on it or by clicking on Properties and seeing the name of the person in the picture. How can I use copy and paste and not have the name show up and give away the answer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smooth cassius (talk • contribs) 06:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

This is usually done by renaming the picture - don't provide a link to Wikipedia, instead upload the picture on a different Internet picture storage service provider, but before you do, give the file a nonsense name, or if you feel frivolous, title it with the name of another historical person to see how many people fall for your deception (i.e., cheat by reading the file description :). Of course, since the advent of tineye.com, these sort of games on the Internet have lost some of their appeal. TomorrowTime (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Romanization of Western Europe

Why was the Romanization of Western Europe - Spain, France and Italy, among others - so rapid and profound whereas Roman cultural influence in Northern Africa was negligible? --Belchman (talk) 11:24, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Just some ideas: only a thin strip of territory near the coast was (and for a large part is) livable, the rest was desert so too much penetration was unpractical/unworthy. But mediterranean Africa has nevertheless a lot of Roman relics, and so do other apperently un-roman places like, for example, Bulgaria. For example, Bardo National Museum contains one of the most importan collection of Roman mosaics outside Italy. You have to cosider that Muslims invaded these places, leading to the creation of the Ottoman Empire. And they were probably not very favourable to an exaltation of Roman (both pagan and christian) culture. Also Spain was subjected to islamization but it was reconquered.--151.51.61.119 (talk) 11:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

You must remember that Rome was in Italy; pretty much the entire peninsula was Roman-controlled by the late fourth century BC, and it was the last portion of the empire to remain in solid control of the Western Emperors; only in the fifth century, as the Western Empire was about to fall, did the barbarians take control of significant portions. Even then, the Eastern Empire controlled much of it, with parts remaining in imperial control into the tenth century at least. 151.51.61.119 has a good argument — the Arab conquest is key. Unlike the Germanic barbarians that overwhelmed the Western Empire, the Arabs weren't so easily influenced by Roman culture; the Goths in Spain, the Lombards in Italy, and the Franks in France began to speak vulgar Latin, but Arabic is the language of North Africa. Nyttend (talk) 14:09, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that the Romanization of North Africa (apart from Egypt and Cyrenaica) was less profound than that of Western Europe. (Egypt and Cyrenaica were less Romanized, because Greek remained the language of status in those parts of the empire, and because Egypt's indigenous culture continued to exist alongside the Greek-speaking Hellenistic culture.) Parts of North Africa, especially the fertile plains, coasts, and towns in the provinces of Numidia and Africa, were quite heavily Romanized. Berbers in the hills continued to speak languages unrelated to Latin, but this was little different from the ancestors of the Basques, who retained their pre-Roman language in the lands around the Pyrenees in France and Spain. Vulgar Latin was certainly spoken in the region during the early centuries of the Common Era. Saint Augustine was a native speaker of Latin from North Africa. Linguists believe that the region's form of Vulgar Latin evolved into a separate Romance language, African Romance, which was spoken in the region for several centuries during the Middle Ages. The difference between North Africa and Western Europe is that in Western Europe, Christianity remained the dominant religion, and Latin remained the language of prestige and status. The ruling classes in Western Europe continued to use their Latin-derived everyday speech, which was considered a form of Latin until at least the High Middle Ages. As nation-states and vernacular literatures evolved, the Latin-derived vernaculars gained status in Western Europe. In North Africa, by contrast, the Muslim conquest abruptly ended the privileged status of Christianity and the Latin language. The dominant religion was now Islam, and its holy language, Arabic, carried by thousands of Arab immigrants, became the language of prestige and status in the region. Prestige languages tend to win out, and, over time, Arabic and Muslim influence overwhelmed and largely effaced the effects of the region's earlier Romanization. However, that Romanization had been quite profound. Marco polo (talk) 14:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Belchman -- during the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, the Roman province of "Africa" (i.e. modern Tunisia and northeastern Algeria) was in fact pretty strongly integrated into the Roman empire. It was one of the main grain-exporting "breadbaskets" of the empire (second only to Egypt), and many ambitious individuals from the area joined the lower levels of the Roman bureaucracy and military, and had cosmopolitan careers which could take them anywhere in the empire, from Hadrian's Wall to the upper Euphrates river. If successful, they often returned to their native towns to retire, and endowed baths, temples, and amphitheaters there with their wealth. This situation was disrupted by the fall of the western Roman empire, the Donatist controversy, the Vandal conquest, the Byzantine Reconquest, and the initial Arab conquest. After the Vandal conquest, the agricultural hinterland was no longer so obedient to the coastal cities, and the grain exports greatly diminished. But the event which really destroyed the surviving remnants of Roman civilization was the Banu Hilal invasions of the 11th century AD, when the Fatimids of Egypt punished their rebellious Zirid vassal states in the Tunisia/Algeria area, by launching bedouin tribes from Arabia at them. This had a devastating impact on the hinterland of the Tunisia / northeastern Algeria area (outside the walls of the main coastal cities) -- the population declined, many areas formerly sown with agricultural crops were changed into pasture for animals, etc. Much of the region didn't really recover to the 4th century AD level of civilization or economic development until quite modern times, and for centuries there were wretched peasant villages huddling in the ruins of the ancient baths, temples, and amphitheaters... AnonMoos (talk) 19:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Figures for the battle of chancellorsville (and in general)

The info box sums it up this way for the Battle of chancellorsville: Union: 133,000 or so, Confederate 60,000 or so. I have a couple questions:

1. A few other sources, including some of the articles on here, have figures that are slightly different for the Confederatcy (more like 56,000) to way different for the Union (more like 110,000.) I can understand different sources being a few thousand off, but not 20,000. Is our info box counting all forces available int he battle, but other sources only counting the corps which were actually involved in the fighting?

2. Could the difference be regular soldiers versus volunteers? That doesn't make much sense to me, becuase they all volunteered befor ethe draft. Or, were some of the volunteers actually just state militias that came dwont o help? That would explain a 20,000 difference.

3. How are counts kept, anyway? I presume it has to be someone who is registered with some military, be it state or federal. but, pre-Industrial Revultion, you could have a bunch of [Vikings attack, and hundreds of citizens in a town charge at them with anything that would hurt, and it might get written up as the "Defense of Whathisname" if important enough.

Thanks in advance.209.244.187.155 (talk) 13:32, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I have seen detailed records of which soldiers were on the muster rolls of a particular civil war company in a particular month. Some of these records naturally were lost or destroyed, but paper enlistment forms were certainly kept, and muster rolls were certainly recorded. But many were missing in action, some were ill or wounded and left behind when the unit moved on, perhaps to go home, or be captured, or die. Some were on leave. Some were in the process of transferring from one unit to another. Some were separated from their units and fighting with a different unit. It would not be surprising if a unit with 2000 on the books had 10%, or 25% absent on a given day. The total number of men who served in a given company over the years of the war might be much higher than the number fighting in a given battle, due to deaths /desertions/capture/injury versus enlistments/draftees. Official unit histories were written and official paper were published as multi-volume compilations in the decades after the war, based on reports of colonels and generals of both sides, who generally knew how many soldiers they had from week to week under their command. When a unit surrendered, names were recorded and they were paroled or exchanged or sent to a POW camp. Edison (talk) 15:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

In much of military history, definitive numbers are infamously difficult to arrive at. Numbers for Civil War battles are pretty good, compared to earlier conflicts, because so many records were kept, as Edison says above. Officers were expected to know how many men they had under their command at any certain time, though their count was often not exact or up to date. Even when we know about how many troops were near the battle, there can be discrepancies in accounts, because one historian may count all of the soldiers who were theoretically available, while another historian may only count those who played some role in the battle. As for (2), I think there are rare occasions when historians forget to include local militia in their total, but I don't know how often that happens in Civil War accounts. —Kevin Myers 13:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; that's very informative. We are so used to doing everything with precision today, sometimes it's hard to get my mind around what it used to be like.209.244.187.155 (talk) 18:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Nullification of future wills?

Do US states generally permit someone to include a clause in a will that nullifies any future wills? I don't ask for my own purposes; I'm curious because of the final paragraph of the "Birth and early years" section of Hetty Green, who attempted to add such a passage to her aunt's will. Nyttend (talk) 14:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Does the contract-law concept of unconscionability apply to estate law also? If so, I have little doubt this would fall under it. But IANAL.—msh210℠ 16:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I've tried unsuccessfully to find you a US reference for this, but my instincts say it can't be right. Certainly this suggests that there is no such thing as an irrevocable will, in English law at least. (Mutually irrevocable wills for couples do seem to be a possibility in some circumstances concerning inheritance for step-siblings - some details here but this is not relevant to Hetty Green's circumstances.) The general principle behind wills is that they are a snapshot of your intentions and can be revoked or rewritten at any time, provided you are still mentally competent. Some events will (normally) automatically invalidate an existing will, such as the marriage of the testator. A testator can also invalidate a will by deliberately destroying it completely, preferably in front of witnesses aware of his/her intentions. So if Hetty's aunt had written such a will and then got married, or if she had burnt it in front of her lawyer shouting "I revoke this will!" as she did so, I doubt he would have warned her she could never make another valid will and must die intestate because of the "no more wills" clause in the revoked one, particularly if the latter was now a heap of ashes. It's a fascinating anecdote though; maybe someone else can come up with more concrete info? Karenjc 16:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) This observation is not about wills, but is related: In contracts this never works, I'm told, because if the parties to such a contract want to amend it, they just also amend the part of the original contract that attempts to forbid modifications. This column by an attorney mentions this in the context of video game development contracts. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

In the Hetty Green case, Hetty alleged a contract to make mutual wills. (The description on Wikipedia is not accurate.) The court's discussion suggests that the doctrine of mutual wills is recognized by some jurisdictions but not others; I don't know how the applicable law has developed in the intervening 142 years. The general rule is that the testator can always change a will, but the law will in some circumstances allow a tort or contract claim based upon some enforceable interest of the would-be beneficiary. For example, Anna Nicole Smith, in Marshall v. Marshall, argued that she was entitled to a nonprobate claim, based on her husband's promise to leave her money in his will. John M Baker (talk) 19:36, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Would one individual's massive wealth of Pt crash the price of it if he kept it all to himself?

Someone a few days back on the science ref desk was asking something about if a large asteroid of refined platinum (with a value, given the current price of platinum, in the quintillions of dollars) were found. One respondent said that would drive the value of the metal down seriously. But what if the person kept it all to themself? Would the knowledge alone that the guy had it make other people buy and sell theirs for less? Please ignore all the scientific aspects of this situation. Just assume the guy already has the huge rock on his property. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:55, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

There are really two reasons someone would buy platinum. Firstly for its utilitarian purposes, and secondly as an investment; precious metals are frequently bought for one or other (or sometimes both). If one is buying for simple manufacturing or short-term commerce, then the laws of obvious supply and demand pertain - you buy as much as you need for the best price you can, and sell what you make of it as soon as is practical. Investment is a different matter - for investments you want longer term confidence in price stability. If one party (or a cartel) can significantly increase the supply, that's a Damocletian sword hanging over the long term price, and that'd greatly reduce the investment value of the material. It's difficult to quantify how much that would be, as doing so requires divining the intentions, motives, and future prospects of your hypothetical hoarder. This is precisely the circumstance that pertains for diamonds and, do a degree, for oil. Serious investors do not keep a large chunk of their assets in diamonds in a vault somewhere, and while people invest in oil futures, they do so over a modest period. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I endorse Finlay McWalter's analysis. And although the buyer at the catalytic converter factory won't be affected much this week, because the amount of platinum for sale on the open market has not changed, in the coming months and years there will probably be rising prices, if the hoarder keeps hoarding, because platinum mine operators now have this gigantic new risk to incorporate into their analysis of whether to dig new mines or invest money in an increase of production; and some mine operators will decide not to make such investments. By the way, two works of fiction about a tremendous diamond horde that must be kept secret in order to not cause the prices to crash are The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and The Twenty-One Balloons. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

You endorse his analysis yet give the opposite answer? Finlay said the uncertainly would reduce the price, which I agree with. It wouldn't increase the price. The miners can't just increase the price to compensate for the uncertainty. They either have to accept a drop in profits, or go out of business entirely. Even if it starts to look like all the miners will go out of business, that probably still wouldn't increase the price since most of the platinum market is secondary (that is, platinum being sold by people that previously bought it from someone, rather than having mined it themselves). People won't pay a high price for newly mined platinum if they can get it cheaply from other people. --Tango (talk) 21:36, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually my answer was 100% in line with Finlay McWalter's answer. He or she treated platinum's value as two separate items: as an investment and as a manufacturing material; and stated that as an investment, the price would drop; but that as a manufacturing material, its price would be determined by supply and demand, as always. In my scenario, the miners aren't sitting at their computers and clicking the "up" button to increase the price; the price is going up because over time, supply will constrict, for the reasons I stated. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The value comes from two causes, but there is only one value. Investors and consumers pay the same price for the same good. --Tango (talk) 19:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not being specific enough. I think that event #1 is that platinum investors would almost all flee the market immediately upon learning of the hoard, because nobody knows whether their few ounces of rare metal is going to be rare or common tomorrow. This would cause an immediate and large price drop. Then event #2 is that platinum miners would mostly stop investment in expanding production, for the same reason: they don't know the value their platinum will hold in a year, or a month, or next week, making any additional investment very risky. Over time, the glut of platinum on the market caused by event #1 will be used by platinum manufacturers. This might take a long time or a short time ("Look, everyone! Platinum necklaces are cheap now! I'll take twelve."). As the glut becomes used up by manufacturers who use platinum, the price will rise because little new supply will enter the market, due to event #2. I don't have any data to suggest how many months or years this might take. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah! I get it! I'm sorry for being so slow... --Tango (talk) 23:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

See also the examples at Cornering the market. Rmhermen (talk) 20:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

No. Diamonds are an example of a commodity of which there exists far more in reality than is actually in the market. De Beers controls and limits the flow of diamonds which in turn keeps the price high. It's mentioned briefly at Diamonds as an investment. (Possibly this cartel/monopoly situation no longer exists in the diamond market.)77.86.6.186 (talk) 23:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

As above - it depends on what the market thinks the likelyhood is of the guy selling the rock. It could cause panic selling if they think he's not going to keep it.77.86.6.186 (talk) 23:15, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

By the way also see Platinum as an investment - it says that Pt production is ~150 tonnes per year .. (that's a cube of Pt about 2mx2mx2m) - depends how big that asteroid was..77.86.6.186 (talk) 23:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)