Humanities desk
< March 31	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 2 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities 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.

April 1[edit]

Army and Navy Rank Insignia[edit]

At some point in the last few years the British Army has taken to displaying rank insignia on the chest instead of on the arms or shoulders. The new uniform recently announced for the RN follows this pattern. What is the reason for this change? DuncanHill (talk) 13:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here it says it's "to ensure an individual is instantly identifiable" - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 20:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Academically Acceptable to Make Your Own Qualitative Research Method Based on Existing Ones?[edit]

Please consider the following scenario:

Suppose that researcher X is a qualitative purist who thinks that contemporary qualitative research has a tendency to lean towards quantitative methods. Suppose, too, that he decides to use observational methods and discourse analysis to study a certain political phenomena. However, since these two methods are increasingly becoming dependent on mathematics, he decides to create a new method based on existing ones to fit his purist research orientation. Is it academically acceptable for him to do so? Do you know of any published articles or books that thoroughly discuss this issue?Rja2015 (talk) 14:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The only way to know for sure is to try it, and get the work published. If you succeed, then you know it's possible. If you fail, then you might want to stick with something a bit more well-known and reliable until you have more experience and perhaps a bit of a name in your field. I don't mean to sound insincere, I'm totally serious - there may be articles about the success if introducing new methods in qualitative research, but mostly people will just try to publish the actual research. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:46, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bicorne de l'Académie française[edit]

Académie française#Uniform says "[t]he official uniform of a member is known as l'habit vert, or the green habit.... It consists of a long black coat and black-feathered cocked hat (officially called a bicorne)..."

I was able to find some old pictures of the bicorne with an image search, but no comtemporary ones, and the Académie page about the habit vert[1] doesn't mention it or have pictures. It does have pictures of the tunic and ceremonial sword. The page about installing new members[2] mentions the bicorne as do a few other pages. Anyone know the status of the bicorne? Is it used only at initiation ceremonies? Abolished altogether? I found a page (from the UK I guess) stating "[t]heir uniform of a green velvet tailcoat, sword, brogues and bicorn hat looks ridiculous even to someone from a country that still has beefeaters"[3] so I can understand if they decided to phase out the bicorne, but it's hard to find info, at least without reading French. If a usable picture can be found, the wiki article surely needs it. Thanks.50.0.205.75 (talk) 16:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some image searches, here is perhaps some of the best results I've found. Empirically, it doesn't look like the bicorne hat is worn anymore. There's lots of pictures of Academie members in their famous habit vert, but non with headgear of any kind. I can find other French institutions which still use the Bicorne as a part of official dress, for example the École Polytechnique has such a uniform, see here. But the Académie does not seem to wear them anymore. I did find some manequins with them on display, for example here and here. But none of actual modern Académie members wearing them anymore. I have no idea what the copyright status of those manequin pictures are, but they look to be on public display somewhere, so perhaps a French Wikipedian could snap and upload a pic of them. --Jayron 32 01:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are (copyrighted) pictures dating from 2009 of Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned wearing the ~~Academie francaise~~Académie des beaux-arts uniform including the hat. Not usable on wikipedia, but indicates that the hat has not been completely discarded. Abecedare (talk) 01:48, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Update: corrected Académie française->Académie des beaux-arts in my previous post. The uniforms look similar, but there might be some specific difference identifying the exact academy. Abecedare (talk) 01:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As can be inferred from the following, they are the same. "The Academicians wear the dark blue woolen suit embroided with those yellow and green olive tree branches which are earning it its name of "l'habit vert" ". Hats are not mentionned. --Askedonty (talk) 06:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Both Academies are part of the Insitut de France (French language article). The Habit vert (again, French article) is the uniform of the whole institute, not just the Academie Francaise. --Jayron 32 12:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I feared that there might be a small distinguishing detail in the uniform identifying each academy (as in color and tassel position of graduation caps in some places). But the Academy site says, "Le costume, comme l’épée, est commun à tous les membres de l’Institut de France", so that should settle it. Btw, it too does not mention anything about the bicornes. Abecedare (talk) 18:07, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, the PICTURE shows a bicorne hat tucked under the arm of the mannequin. So, even though it isn't explicitly mentioned, it is shown in the picture. --Jayron 32 19:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I just thought of looking at the fr.wiki article[4] and it adds a little more info about the uniform--(it was purportedly invented by Napoleon and historically used culottes instead of the modern trousers it uses today, and that it's very expensive, taking 6 months to make. But doesn't say anything about the hat. Will see if any other replies arrive and maybe check Wayback Machine for old versions of the Académie's own pages, but am tired now, so not tonight. 50.0.205.75 (talk) 05:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think breeches would be a less ambiguous translation than culottes. Alansplodge (talk) 12:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How do I solve this problem on fair pricing of shares?[edit]

How do I solve this problem? Please help/advise. Thank you!

You are a mutual fund manager. You are interested in company FAB. Company FAB is an all equity company with 1M shares outstanding. Your research indicates that FAB has a CAPM asset beta of 2. You think that the expected free cash flow of FAB will be $10M in year 1 and will grow at 5% thereafter. FAB stocks are currently trading at $73 per share. FAB pays out all its FCF as dividends. FAB does not have any cash. The risk free rate is 4% and the market risk premium is 7%. Ignore taxes or transaction costs. a) What is the fair price of FAB shares in year 0? b) What will be the fair price of FAB shares in year 1? You expect that FAB shares will be trading at the fair price in year 1. You purchase 10,000 shares of FAB today and hold it for a year. c) What is your expected return from year 0 to year 1? d) What is the cost of capital of your portfolio? What is the CAPM alpha of your portfolio? e) What is the NPV of your portfolio in year 0? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.135.176.108 (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You might ask at the math desk, but say what you've tried so far. This sounds like a homework problem and they will likely be willing to help you through it, but not straight-out answer it for you. 50.0.205.75 (talk) 05:43, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently this "Jenny N.E. Dotz" was a prominent acting figure of some sort, but why do we not have her?[edit]

Either spelled Jenny N.E. Dotz or Jenny N.E. Dahtz, she's a prominent person in the acting arena somehow. But would someone please explain why we don't have an article on her? Would we please create said article? Thanks. --2602:306:B8A5:26B0:3D87:9AB2:40B5:53D6 (talk) 23:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done. It's possible someone might search for it, but I'll G7 it if necessary. Tevildo (talk) 01:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why are there still OLD people in OLD pictures?[edit]

I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS YOUNGER IN THOSE DAYS!

I look at pictures made MANY DECADES AGO, and there are STILL, OLD PEOPLE IN THEM?

Whatever happened to EVERYONE BEING YOUNGER decades ago? Why were some people STILL OLD in, say, a picture made in 1990, if everybody was supposably 25 years younger then?

This is a photo of two old people... IN 1990! <-- See that? Why don't they look younger if everyone was 25 years younger that year??? Something is obviously wrong here. *shakes head*

Oh, BTW, here's where it's even worse somehow! Even 100 years ago, there were OLD-looking people in 1915, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE supposably 100 YEARS YOUNGER! This is RATHER confounding, don't you think??? --107.138.82.107 (talk) 23:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry we cannot help with such confounding queries here, even on April 1st. Please ask Calvin's dad instead. Abecedare (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:B8A5:26B0:88C:7C1E:ACD2:A635 (talk) [reply]

Had they lived, they would now look 100 years older than they did in 1915. So, by comparison, the way they looked in 1915 would be young. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:21, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bingo. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:11, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]