Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 April 26

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April 26

Union

Is there such a thing as the office workers union in the UK? and if so how and where can they be contacted, and how would one join? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.59.90 (talk) 12:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

List_of_unions#United_Kingdom lists many UK unions. Several have names which could indicate that they serve office workers. You could also contact the Trades Union Congress, which is the national association of trades unions in the UK. --Jayron32 12:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is a direct enquiry route. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, Unite (used to be TGWU), GMB, and PCS would probably be the main unions for office-type jobs. Many banks have company-specific unions. As Jayron said, the TUC should be able to help. DuncanHill (talk) 13:21, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

It very much depends on the workplace. Unite and the GMB are general unions and would be the best bet if there is no more specific union for your workplace, but many workplaces will have a more specific union which office workers will be able to join - e.g. the PCS for the civil service, Unison for health and education, BECTU for broadcasting, CWU for post and telecommunications, USDAW for retail, etc. I suggest asking whether any of your colleagues are in a union and, unless there's some pressing reason to do otherwise, to join that one. Warofdreams talk 13:31, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Why would anybody sensible want to join a trade union, these days anyway?

Unions seem to be loosing the power they once had, especially if some recent disputes are anything to go by in the UK  :(

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 18:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a sort of glass half full/half empty thing. The half full option is to join and encourage others to join, in the knowledge that the greater the number of members, the more powerful the union will be. The half empty option is to believe that the decline in numbers is irreversible, or if not, you're going to wait for others to reverse it before jumping on the bandwagon. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

At least in the UK, there are many, many good reasons for employees to join trade unions, which have absolutely nothing to do with the political power they may or may not have. Most obviously, there is the ability of union members - but not non-members - to call on one-to-one professional support from negotiators, legal teams and so forth when an employer, or manager, behaves unreasonably in relation to your workplace or conditions of work - as an insurance policy, if you like. On top of that, there is the ability to act together, in an organised and coordinated way, in support of your own workplace interests, such as in negotiating pay and conditions. Many employers (still) only discuss pay and conditions with recognised trade unions through collective bargaining - many would regard it is immoral for those who are not union members to receive the benefits which unions negotiate with employers, without paying union subscriptions. Etcetera, etcetera. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Seconding this. Reminds me of an engineering lecture I once had about the professional responsibilities we had, and the extent to which they were policed by the professional body. Essentially, if you were involved in anything morally or legally dubious, it was your responsibility to speak up and, if all else failed, whistleblow. If you didn't, the professional body would strike you from their list and you wouldn't be able to get a proper engineering job. But what if you become a whistleblower and the company sues you, or fires you? What will the professional body do then? That is why you join a union. 86.178.225.111 (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Japanese cuisine and soggy salad

I am a foodie and eat out all the time and have for the past thirty years. I eat at lots of different restaurants and lots of different cuisines and all over the U.S., though my home base is New York City. I happen to adore Japanese food so I have eaten in an absurd number of different restaurants. I wanted to know if anyone knows why every single Japanese restaurant I have eaten in, consistently, ruins their salads by serving the lettuce dripping wet. It has got to be a cultural food thing. Always, the lettuce is wet. (For those of you who don't know. in Western culinary circles, lettuce should always be dried before serving in a salad). It really annoys me because I actually think the Japanese have amazingly tasty salad dressings.--98.116.33.87 (talk) 20:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting observation. Haven't really noticed when I've been to Japanese restaurants, but I'm pretty sure I've had dry lettuce with ginger dressing more than once... I'll have to be more perceptive in the future. To be honest though, I doubt that sort of thing--were it cultural (very unlikely...)--would be preserved, seeing as we Americans like to shift foreign foods into our comfort zone anyway. · AndonicO ^Engage. 00:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, see Gadget850's reply to the question below; quite relevant, I believe. Cheers, · AndonicO ^Contact. 00:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

"Salad" as Westerners understand it isn't really a Japanese thing, and most western-style salads I've encountered in Japan use cabbage rather than lettuce. A more authentic meal accompaniment is tsukemono. FiggyBee (talk) 01:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The article on lettuce notes that the Chinese eat it cooked. I don't know much about Japanese cuisine. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

WAG: Hygiene, or at least the perception. Dry implies unwashed, so wet is better. Just a WAG, however. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

There are a few things about food in Japan that don't seem to work to well with the tastes of the west, even concerning western-style food. A couple off the top of my head: Fruits are graded for juiciness and sweetness, so a extremely sweet, juicy peach will be considered supreme, even if the "peach" flavor of it is quite weak. Bacon strips are never cooked crunchy. "Freshness" is also of extreme importance, even when eating cheaply. The tomatoes at Subway are much redder and generally firmer than those from anywhere else that I've eaten. I think it's likely that they keep the lettuce wet because they're trying really hard to preserve its "shaki-shaki", the crispiness and the freshness of it, though they might have tried a little too hard. I also agree with HOG's observation on hygeine, and the fact that cabbage is often used in Japanese salads, though that would assume a bit too bluntly that they don't know what to do with iceberg. 219.102.220.42 (talk) 00:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Certified ethnic cuisine

Are the various ethnic foods (in grocery stores and restaurants) certified by one or more official organizations as being genuinely representative of their respective ethnic cuisines? I can imagine that economic motivations might cause some vendors to use very large supply outlets with assembly lines and not much human attention. When a store sells Russian salad dressing or a restaurant sells souvlaki, can a Russian or a Greek discern whether they are genuine? -- Wavelength (talk) 22:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Presuming you are referring to the US. Russian dressing is American; French dressing is American/British and the red orange version is very American. Much of the ethnic foods sold in the US are US inventions or modified for American tastes. Italian foods in the US are much heavier on sauces than those found in Italy. I have only found German cuisine properly prepared in one restaurant, and it sells American style dishes as well. I think every big Chinese buffet I have ever seen has chicken nuggets and French fries; General Tso's chicken is American/Canadian. American tacos are very different from real Mexican tacos. I think the only foods that are certified are kosher. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

And Halal ? StuRat (talk) 00:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks— couldn't remember the term. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:24, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The European Protected Geographical Status marks are a guarantee of authenticity, although obviously they only apply to a small set of local speciality foodstuffs rather than national cuisines as a whole. FiggyBee (talk) 01:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely you are going to get cuisine identical to a region outside of that region. Peculiarities of food make them travel poorly. Modern mass produced and standardized and stabilized food travels well. But foods dependent on local conditions and artisanal preparation are unlikely to be found far from their region of natural production. Bus stop (talk) 02:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions

Who is the author of "Wikipedia?" What was the date of electronic publication? What is the name of sponsoring institution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.60.175.69 (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

If you're asking for general reference, see the article Wikipedia. If you're asking because you want to cite a specific article, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, and the "cite this page" link on the left of articles. But be aware that some educators don't consider Wikipedia to be a reliable source, and many more don't consider it to be an adequate source for anything beyond background information. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Umm... I don't think Finlay answered your question very well. Anyone who has Internet access and an unblocked IP address and/or an unblocked account can edit Wikipedia. The "date of electronic publication" is whenever someone presses the "Save page" button on the edit screen. Wikipedia is owned, but not necessarily edited, by the Wikimedia Foundation. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 23:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

It's probably not too helpful to ask for the "date of publication", since this can be interpreted as the "Date of last revision" (as Scarian has done, above) or the "Date retrieved" - i.e. roughly, the time at which your browser requested the page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

My apologies to Finley, by the way, I really didn't mean to sound like my answer was x1000 better (which it probably wasn't). Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 23:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The servers and the Wikipedia trademark are owned by the Foundation. The copyright over the content is owned by whoever wrote it. --Tango (talk) 23:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all edits released under the CC-by-SA and GFDL? I remember some discussions about changing that, but I thought they decided not to...? Sorry, haven't been active in a while. · AndonicO ^Contact. 00:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You are right, but that has no bearing on the ownership of copyright. They are both merely licences to make use of copyrighted work, they do not assign ownership of the copyright to the foundation or to any other user. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Right. Copyright is still in possession of the author, but the author agrees that under certain conditions (defined by GFDL and CC-by-SA licenses), others can use the material. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Though the question lacks context, I suspect the person is asking because she wants to cite Wikipedia in a high school or college paper. The 'cite this page' link in the left toolbar is the easiest way to do it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 02:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Re: Las Vegas

Hi, basically, I want to organise a trip for my friends and I to get to Las Vegas but without flying [at all]. How much would tickets on a cruise ship cost and then the road trip from California to Nevada cost? Taking into account hotels and petrol [gas] etc. etc. Are there any sites on the web that can organise these sorts of "adventures"? Thanks very much in advance. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 23:20, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Cruise ships mostly call in at Long Beach. It's 280 miles from there to Las Vegas; you'd generally do that in a day (it's maybe 5 hours drive, depending on traffic). The website of a car rental company will show you their vehicles, which obviously vary in size and efficiency; we can't pick which vehicle you want. Gas in California run at about $2.95/gallon (ref) and about $2.80 in Nevada. The Super8 on Koval (which is perfectly good) in Vegas costs upwards of $40/night depending on what kind of room you want (ref). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, Long beach is noted. Thanks very much for all that information. Now, how would I get tickets from the UK to Long Beach? All I need is the site that offers that sort of info and I can do the "leg work". Thanks in advance! Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 23:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Cunard Liners and other ships from the UK sailing to the USA would generally go to New York, not to Long Beach (I don't know how good your geography is, but sailing to California would mean going a lot further; all the way down the east coast of the USA, across the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, then back up the west coast of Mexico). If you really don't want to fly, I'd say your best option would be a liner to New York and then Amtrak through Chicago and down to Kingman, AZ, then a midnight connecting bus to Las Vegas. The ship would take a week and the cheapest option is around $2000 per person.[1] The train would take about 3 days and the cheapest option would be around $200 per person (it gets more expensive quickly if you want sleeping accomodation).[2] It'd be a heck of a trip, good luck! FiggyBee (talk) 00:40, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I highly recommend Amtrak sleeping accommodations. Even the cheapest sleepers get you meals included. Edison (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I second Amtrak - the transcontinental trains go through some spectacular places. Otherwise, if you take a transatlantic cruise, you'll have to rent a car and drive, which could take two or three very exhausting days from New York if everybody drives in shifts (no hotels at all if you don't mind leaning on each other to sleep), or a week or so if you take the scenic route. US 66 from St. Louis to Arizona is a traditional itinerary. Acroterion _(talk) 03:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Do note that Amtrak is notorious for not running on time. It is good between New York and Washington DC, but from there, I have personally seen delays on the order of 12+ hours. Also, service is somewhat infrequent, probably 3 trains a week from Chicago westward. Googlemeister (talk) 15:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Addendum, it seems they have gotten much better in the last couple of years, with some trains going from 5% on time to almost 75% on time. Googlemeister (talk) 18:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

As to the frequency of service, make that one train per day from Chicago to Los Angeles via Kingman. But first you have to get to Chicago, which means another train, and changing trains isn't just a matter of stepping across the platform and waiting 5 minutes the way it sometimes is in Europe. Anyway, see www.amtrak.com for details. --Anonymous, 04:41 UTC, April 29, 2010.

If you want a bit of a different adventure, a freighter might be the way to get there. You can do something an American can't do: you can travel by freighter between American ports. So you can go, say, Southampton to New York to Long Beach and make your way overland from there. Obviously you're not trying to do this fast! --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 05:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Jpgordon, I'm almost inclined to give you a cookie or something as a thank you for that link. Really. This actually is for me maybe not life-changing, but... unfathomably great. Have to process this when I have a bit of time. Really, thank you! --Ouro (blah blah) 10:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Guys, all this info is absolutely brilliant. Thanks very much to you all! Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 02:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Too bad that direct Amtrak service to Vegas closed several years ago. The station concourse was the casino at The Plaza[3], so you could lose all your money without ever setting foot on real Nevada soil. PhGustaf (talk) 03:24, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

You place greater faith in the Plaza's janitorial practices than is perhaps warranted. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)