Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 April 18

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April 18

US Subsidize domestic agriculture/manufacturing

How does the decision for the U.S. to subsidize domestic agriculture/manufacturing affect global trade? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.35.222.219 (talk) 04:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm aware that the US subsidizes farming through agricultural price supports, but am not aware of any US program to subsidize industry. StuRat 05:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe these two texts might help you along: United States - Subsidies on Upland Cotton and Implementing WTO Rules through Negotiations and Sanctions.

And StuRat, yes, the US has been subsidizing auto and oil industries [1] in the past and aircraft industries [2] only recently, for example. -- Meister 09:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Google with search term "US agricultural subsidies" shows news articles about this. The decision certainly generates ill will towards the US amongst Australian farmers.Polypipe Wrangler 03:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Cho Seung-Hui, Isma'il ibn Jafar, and Wikipedia

Greetings,

I ran across an article in Yahoo! News, called “Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns”. An excerpt follows:

“The Washington Post quoted law enforcement sources as saying Cho (Seung-Hui) died with the words ‘Ismail Ax’ in red ink on one of his arms, but they were not sure what that meant.”

No big surprise that the Washington Post wouldn’t delve further into that item. So, ten seconds later, at about 0030Z 18 April, I had located the following on your site:

Wikipedia’s find feature first listed: “Ismail bin Jafar, the religious figure of which Ismaili Shiah Muslims follow and are named after.”

This link led to the following:

“Isma'il ibn Jafar (Arabic: إسماعيل بن جعفر, c. 721 CE/103 AH - 755 CE/138AH) was the eldest son of the sixth Shia Imam, Jafar as-Sadiq. To protect him from persecution, his father sent him into hiding and publicly declared him deceased.

As-Sadiq had, at one time, designated his son Isma’il as his successor, but Isma’il died before his father. Isma’il Axe is the name historically given to those closest to Isma’il who protected him in exile. Most Shi’i followers turned to the eldest surviving son of al-Sadiq, Abd-Allah, who claimed a second designation. When Abd-Allah died within weeks without an heir, many turned again to another son of as-Sadiq, Musa al-Kazim. This crisis of succession led to doubts about the true designation of Jafar as-Sadiq and many clung to the original designation of Isma’il and proclaimed the son of Isma’il.

Those who believe that Isma'il was the rightful successor to Jafar are known as Ismailis, while other follwers of Musa Al-Kazim are known as Twelvers. They went on to recognize five more Imams after Musa. The Nizari Ismaili Shias follow a living Imam directly descended from Isma'il ibn Jafar & Ali. Those Imams are the Aga Khans.”

I copied this to a Word document and printed it, but did not take a soft copy of the document with me. So, at about 0230Z 18 April, I went to the same link on your site to create a soft copy of your “on Isma'il ibn Jafar” page and at this point in time, the text had become:

“Isma'il ibn Jafar (Arabic: إسماعيل بن جعفر, c. 721 CE/103 AH - 755 CE/138AH) was the eldest son of the sixth Shia Imam, Jafar as-Sadiq. To protect him from persecution, his father sent him into hiding and publicly declared him deceased.

As-Sadiq had, at one time, designated his son Isma’il as his successor, but Isma’il died before his father. Most Shi’i followers turned to the eldest surviving son of al-Sadiq, Abd-Allah, who claimed a second designation. When Abd-Allah died within weeks without an heir, many turned again to another son of as-Sadiq, Musa al-Kazim. This crisis of succession led to doubts about the true designation of Jafar as-Sadiq and many clung to the original designation of Isma’il and proclaimed the son of Isma’il.

Those who believe that Isma'il was the rightful successor to Jafar are known as Ismailis, while other follwers of Musa Al-Kazim are known as Twelvers. They went on to recognize five more Imams after Musa. The Nizari Ismaili Shias follow a living Imam directly descended from Isma'il ibn Jafar & Ali. Those Imams are the Aga Khans.”

As you see, the relevant sentence was omitted. Peculiarly, the page this is quoted from indicated “This page was last modified 16:46, 21 March 2007.” Gentlemen, I’m not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories, but this is definitely a peculiar occurrence. Please explain to me why this relevant sentence was deleted from your entry on Isma'il ibn Jafar. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.120.3.123 (talk) 05:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone, including you. Here is the history of edits to the article. You can go back and find the point at which it changes, and identify the author who changed it. It is not peculiar. It is the way this encyclopedia works. I recommend reading of Wikipedia:About. Actually, having checked further, I see it was deleted in the current revision (21:58, 17 April 2007) and the reason given was that the assertion was unsourced. The sentence was first added to the article in the revision as of 17:22, 17 April 2007 (talk). So the assertion lasted on wikiedpia for 4.5 hours. Meanwhle, you might be interested in more speculation on Ismail's Ax on Boing Boing. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Salt on the creature's tail

I've been trying to think of the (mythological?) creature that you can supposedly render immobile if you pour salt on its tail. I remember hearing this tale of the tail when I was a kid but I can't remember what creature it was attributed to. Anyone know? Dismas|^(talk) 06:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

This and this talk about putting salt on a bird’s tail. And this tells us there was a 1910 movie called "Salt on the Bird’s Tail". JackofOz 06:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

For some reason I thought it was more specific than just "a bird" but then I could be wrong. That would explain though the incident described in the article for Woody Woodpecker. Dismas|^(talk) 08:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

What about an army. Since armies used to be paid in salt, giving them more might be a way to stop them fighting you, and the back of an amry is likely to be a safer place to get to than the front.

You can supposedly kill slugs by pouring salt on them. Tomgreeny 11:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Done that many times. Dismas|^(talk) 12:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes - that works because of osmosis - the slug's skin is a relatively porous membrane - when you dramatically increase the salt concentration on the outside, all of it's bodily fluids cross the membrane and the poor beast dies of dehydration. But I doubt that's the origin of the story because you have to cover the entire slug - not just it's "tail". SteveBaker 12:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Prevalence of freezing temperatures

Hi

I've asked this question on the science desk, but to no avail, so I'm hoping someone that frequents the misc help desk will know something. I'm looking for some numbers for an introduction about how common temperatures below OC are on Earth. I'd love to be able to say "90% of the Earth's terrestrial environment experiences temperatures lower than 0C each year" or something like that. Does anyone have any insights and/or references about this? Thanks heaps for your help!

Aaadddaaammm 07:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly just some semantics - "Earth's terrestrial environment" can be shortened to "terrestrial environment". Then it would depend what you mean by that. Are you talking about a list of temperatures recorded by all the meteorological stations in the world? Or are you talking about temperatures below the crust (caves etc.) and/or in the atmosphere? What would the cut-off point in height be - the top of Everest? If it's just cities you want, then you would have to source these lists and do the maths. Seasonal variances would come into play as well. I'm sure you appreciate the immensity of this. I would be surprised if such a study already exists. Sandman30s 11:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I would guess they want information about the eaths surface during winter, everywhere that tends to have some time under 0C during an average year. Maps of data like this probably exist, but I wound't expect much information with them. You could work out the percantage by copying the map into an art program and counting how many pixels there are, but this will take hours.

A couple of additional issues. There is a substantial portion of Earth's surface that experiences temperatures below 0°C occasionally, or most years, or even 99 years out of 100, but not "each year". For example, it is conceivable that in a rare year, the temperature in London might never fall below 0°C. It would be unlikely to find a map that shows this datum. Maps generally show climatic means. It might be possible to find a map that shows places with an average annual minimum temperature of 0° or lower. The next issue would be the projection of that map. The method suggested above would work only for a map using an equal-area projection. Marco polo 13:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

If you didn't need an exact number but could be satisfied with a very rough estimate, you could use 50° of latitude as a very rough estimate of a line poleward of which the surface, or near-surface, temperature drops below 0°C in an average year. (Land surface minimum temperatures will drop below 0°C much closer to the Equator, particularly at interior or high-altitude locations, but most of Earth's surface is ocean, and in winter the oceans are much warmer than land masses at the same latitude, such that, in many ocean zones far from land masses, ocean-surface winter minimum temperatures will be somewhat above 0°C even at 50° of latitude.) Unfortunately, it is beyond my math skills to calculate what percentage of Earth's surface is north of 50°N latitude and south of 50°S latitude. Maybe you should try this question at the math desk. Marco polo 19:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

23.4% Algebraist 20:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

(is the proportion of the Earth's surface at >50° latitude) Algebraist 13:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

"Marco polo" must be in Europe. In North America, except for the west coast, 50° is way too far north. --Anon, April 19, 01:05 (UTC).

home cinema and cheap petrol

how do movie companies decide which cinemas to show their films at? If you owned a home cinema (perhaps with a few seats for your friends), would it be possible to screen the latest films?

also, given that petrol in the UK is expensive, and that it's relatively cheap in the US, and that the $/£ exchange rate is very good at the moment, would it be possible or even worthwhile trying to import petrol from the US (assuming, of course, that you have somewhere safe to store it etc)

thanks, Spiggy 08:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any figures to back this up but I doubt very much that you could make it economical on a small scale to import petrol from the U.S. to the UK. All your "profit" would be lost to transportation costs, tariffs, taxes, etc. Dismas|^(talk) 08:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

thanks Dismas

• If cinemas in Leicester Square, London are anything like other cinemas around the world, it appears they choose what to screen themselves provided they can pay the money it costs to screen the film. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• • Our articles on Film distributor and Movie theater may be of use. --Charlene 09:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

On petrol, the difference in price between the UK and US is entirely due to the taxes in the UK. The price of petrol, before taxes and/or subsidies, is the same worldwide, using current exchange rates. If the pre-tax price of petrol were lower in the US than in the UK, then oil companies would profit by importing US petrol into the UK until the US price rose to UK levels. This does not happen because no one is willing to sell petrol for less in the US than they could get in the UK before taxes. Importing US petrol into the UK and then selling it at the standard price or slightly below, while pocketing the difference instead of paying tax to the UK authorities, would be illegal and could result in very hefty fines or imprisonment. Marco polo 13:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Marco, there are also transportation costs involved. Any company would be more than willing to sell oil to X for $5/barrel less if it means $5/barrel more profit. For example, despite being the world's largest oil importer[3], the USA is also the world's 15th largest oil exporter.[4] Why? It's cheaper to move oil from Alaska to places like Japan and western Russia than back into the Lower 48. — Lomn 14:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The US does not currently export any crude from Alaska to Japan or anywhere else (we did export up to 7% of Alaskan Crude to Japan and South Korea from 1996-2000 -- but NONE now) - all Alaskan crude comes to the lower 48. All the crude we export - a whopping 22,000 barrels per day (compare 10,000,000 barrels per day imported) -- goes to Canada, and most comes back to us as refined gasoline. All the rest of the exports on the page cites are of refined products - and about a third of that is petroleum coke, the dregs of refining, most of which goes to Mexico. [5]. Cheers Geologyguy 15:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

You are right that I left out transportation costs. This is why Alaskan oil goes to Seattle and not to Japan: because Seattle is closer and it is cheaper to transport there. Because transport costs are lower, profits are greater on Alaskan oil at the port of Seattle than they would be on comparable oil shipped from Indonesia or the Middle East. Whereas the differential is not as great in Japanese ports. Transport costs largely explain where oil from a given source ends up. Marco polo 15:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The actual price of petrol in the UK is largely tax. A typical price today would be 92 or 93 pence per litre, of which Fuel Duty (which is imposed the moment the fuel leaves the refinery, or in your hypothetical situation, at the port) is 51.52p/litre for unleaded petrol (48.35p/l for ultra-low sulphur or sulphur-free petrol, 57.68p/l for leaded petrol);[6] don't forget that VAT at 17.5% is charged on the Fuel Duty as well as on the rest of the price of the fuel. On top of the tax, extraction costs, transport to the UK and refinery costs will typically add 27 or 28p (+17.5% tax) to the price. Then there's the retailers' profit margin, and the cost of transporting the stuff from the refinery to the filling station, which is the part of the price where there's much variability - it's more economical to use a 30,000 litre fuel tanker than a 20,000 litre one, but the price will still tend to increase the further away you get from the refineries. -- Arwel (talk) 19:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone tell me the location of the most northerly refinery in the UK please.--88.110.160.179 13:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

If you are more familiar with the UK than I, you can perhaps determine this from here. Cheers Geologyguy 20:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

As the list supplied by Geologyguy indicates, it's Grangemouth, just north of Edinburgh. Although each refinery is shown as owned by one (or occasionally two) oil companies, in practice all of them will draw from all refineries, with slight variations in the formulation of their fuel to suit their marketing strategies although in truth all fuel of a particular technical standard is much of a muchness. -- Arwel (talk) 21:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

E

How would I go about creating a new email adress, as well as the one I already have. I want to use them both for different things, so different people can contact me in different ways. Is there any way I can do this just using Internet Explorer as the rest of my internet access had stopped working for a while.~ ~ ~ ~

Yes, you can create a free email address that you only need Internet Explorer for (or any other web browser). The two most popular ones are Yahoo and Hotmail. Yahoo is far better IMHO. Just go to Yahoo or Hotmail and sign up. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I signed up to Hotmail as none of my choices of email adress were left on yahoo.

It's your call, of course, but in my view you'd be better off with a yahoo account and a username you're not 100% happy with, rather than a Hotmail account and a username you like. Yahoo has a simpler, cleaner interface, better spam and virus protection, fewer annoying ads and integration with all of Yahoo's other services. The capacity is the same on both - 1GB. Why don't you open one of each, try sending a couple of emails to yourself and see which one you like best. I'm betting it'll be Yahoo (and no, I don't work for them!). --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll send you a Gmail invitation if you want a Google mail address. Dismas|^(talk) 12:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Gmail is probably the best one yet. It has alot of space, good virius protecton, etc. I love it more than yahoo or hotmail, so far.

Agree that Gmail seems to have the most street cred and functionality. Also, I'd not recommend Hotmail, since this report last month, in which a company looking for "expert Internet users" automatically deleted any email queries from Hotmail accounts on the grounds that "You can't pretend being an internet expert and use a Hotmail account at the same time." In other words, Warning: using a Hotmail address may be seen as a sign of technological n00biness. Jfarber 13:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Chalk up another agreement that Gmail is superior. For my own experience, I've found Hotmail to be rather reliable (providing one's address is kept safe) in terms of avoiding spam; only recently have I begun being disappointed in certain flaws about it (read the article The Rape of Lucrece). I've had my current Hotmail address for around seven years now, but would gladly transfer all the contact information and saved e-mails to my Gmail account if I had the time and patience to figure out how to do it. V-Man - ^T/_C 01:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Car brake lights

Why are the car brake lights always red and not someother colour?

Well, to be universally intelligible, they all had to be some one colour ;-). And red, probably because it is the colour of fire (or at least, burning coals) has always been associated with "danger!", "stop!", etc.

Red also has the handy characteristic of not damaging your night vision so it makes the best choice for tail lights/brake lights.

Atlant 13:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia entry on Automotive lighting has a lot of information and links to various laws and standards. Brake lights are red because laws governing automotive safety and construction require them to be red. Now, why was red picked? I think Atlant is probably on to something. The references in Automotive lighting may also help with that. - Eron ^Talk 13:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Red is also 'nature's' classic danger colour because of blood being red, and as humans are one of nature's creatures, we respond strongly to that colour (this hippy dippy answer was brought to you by Perry-mankster 14:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC) peace man)

surely red should mean the car is going as red means hot and engines are hot when they are working. So then break lights should be blue as engines are cold when they have stopped. or it could be red as the breaks get hot when the car is stopping. This is rather confusing, whoever invented it should have organised colour coding better.

Well what would you have picked? I can't see what would be any better than red. It's a strong colour that is easy to see even when the sun is shining brightly, unlike many others, and as mentioned above, doesn't blind you at night. It's the perfect colour for brake lights. --Alex16zx 14:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Red is commonly used in traffic signs and lights. Stoplights and stop signs are both red. Red is the color used to mean 'stop'Ipmin 15:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

also red light has the shortest wave length, ergo is least likely to be 'scattered'(defused/dimmed) by air molecules, exhust fumes, fog etc Perry-mankster 15:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, "longest", but your main point is correct ;-); colors towards blue are far more strongly scattered by rain, snow, fog, etc.

Atlant 16:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

thanks Atlant, answer done in a hurry, should have thought it thru first;-)Perry-mankster 09:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

One obvious thing is that they can't be white - you need to know whether another vehicle is coming towards you or going away. Your headlights need to be both bright and as much like natural daylight as possible because you use them to see with - so white makes sense. For tail lights and indicators, the desire is not to dazzle the person behind you - yet still to be visible from a reasonable distance. I suspect this convention dates back to ships, trains and horse-drawn carriages - it's surely a lot older than the automobile. Hence the decision to use red may not have been a particularly well-thought-out scientific thing. SteveBaker 12:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not from ships. [I don't remember the exact rules] but a ship shows navigation lights for about 135 degrees on either side of its bow; red for the port side of the ship and green for the starboard side. Under certain circumstances, they may show a white stern light while moving or a 360-degree white "riding light" when standing still or at anchor.

Atlant 13:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

hotel rates

What sort of rates can I expect at common types of hotels?Ipmin 14:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Where? City, country... they vary wildly from place to place. - Eron ^Talk 14:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

In the Western United States.Ipmin 14:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Even then, the variance is huge. Cities are generally more expensive. Weekends and weekdays may vary. The quality of hotel will drastically affect rates. Why not check out either generic travel websites or specific hotel chain sites and do some sample pricing? At a rough guess, though, anywhere from $30 to $200 a night could fall under "common". — Lomn 14:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Lomn. With those caveats, my experience is that you can expect to pay about $100 a night for a decent room in a decent hotel in a decent neighbourhood. You can get rooms for $50 or less, but for the most part these will be lesser quality rooms at lesser quality hotels in worse neighbourhoods. At the other end of the scale, the sky is the limit. - Eron ^Talk 14:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

$100 is what you will pay for a decent room in a budget hotel in major U.S. cities, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, or Seattle. At a more standard business traveler's hotel, such as a Sheraton, you would pay more like $180 in a major metropolitan area. On the other hand, you can have a perfectly decent room in a budget motel, such as EconoLodge, near a freeway at the edge of a metropolitan area, for around $60. Marco polo 15:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Since you said USA, there are also these which may offer a lower per-day rate, but typically assume you will stay for about a week or so. Also Category:Hotel_types has a few things to say, but it looks a tad incomplete. HTH. dr.ef.tymac 17:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Las Vegas is an exception to the normal pricing structure. Since they assume that guests will blow a lot of cash at their casinos, many casino hotels will offer rooms at rather low rates to lure the suckers customer in. So, you might be able to find a nice weekday room for $30 a night, with a good special. StuRat 04:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The regular rate or the special, secret wikipedia rate? Clarityfiend 18:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Let me add to this that the price of a hotel room has very little relation to its quality. The price mostly depends on location (downtown versus suburb) and add-on services such as concierge, indoor swimming pool etc. If you don't care about location and add-ons, you can save a lot of money. Most $50 hotels have the same quality standards as $200 hotels. Chl 17:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

US ARMY M1 CARBINE

HOW MANY ROUNDS IN A CARBINES CLIP...AAALIBRIS

According to the entry for M1 Garand rifle, eight. - Eron ^Talk 22:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

But you asked about the M1 Carbine, didn't you? It was magazine-fed (didn't use a clip) and the magazine capacity was fifteen. - Eron ^Talk 22:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The article says 15 or 30, actually. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

From what I read, 30 was for the M2 version, so I didn't include that. As to what the original question wanted, I'm still not sure. M1 carbines used magazines but M1 rifles had a fixed internal magazine that was loaded by means of eight-round clips. I think the desired answer is somewhere in there between the two entries. - Eron ^Talk 02:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The op probably meant Magazine (firearms), as that article explains in the opening paragraph, they are commonly and incorrectly referred to as Clip (ammunition). Vespine 01:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I want to go to Somaliland (Part 2)

So I've found a round trip ticket from Luton to Istanbul for $300. And a sub $300 ticket from Istanbul to Yemen. But I still can't get the cost of going to London down. How do I get a cheap summer fare from LAX to London? I see that Expedia advertises London rates before May 31 for $400 something but the cheapest summer flight I can find is $950. lots of issues | leave me a message 22:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

A cheap summer fare from the US to Europe?! Good luck. That's when everyone wants to go, so the airlines charge what the market will bear. I would suggest trying for a last-minute ticket, which can be cheap because the airline wants to fill the seat. But in summer, there are few unsold seats, and you could end up missing your connection in Luton. Marco polo 01:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

For this reason, it may be cheaper to fly directly from the US to a hub in the Middle East (e.g. Dubai), rather than via London or anywhere else in Europe, as I suggested last time you asked. Marco polo 13:03, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried Priceline? Corvus cornix 16:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

If I remember correctly flying to Dublin is much cheaper then flying to London, You can get raynair flights for as little as 1c ex. taxes and charges each way from Dublin to Luton, just watch out for extra baggage and insurance charges if you don't actually need them. Ken 20:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. And thank you ken for telling me about Ryanair. I can save $50 flying to Dublin and then Luton--and it's probably easier! lots of issues | leave me a message 09:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)