Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 December 9

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December 9

Fastest way to drive around a corner?

In motorsport racing on a circuit track with production, road-legal cars, what is the fastest way to go around a corner (hence minimizing lap times)? In Top Gear, Jeremey Clarkson would frequently sort of drift or slide the car across the corners like in 4:00 of this Ferrari F458 episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgKjp1pq7iI

However, when watching Formula One, all the cars brake down and go around the corners without sliding. Which method is faster? Acceptable (talk) 00:06, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the first method is faster just for the corner, but then puts you in the outer lane, so you might very well hit somebody getting there and have farther to go to get back to the inside lane for the next turn. It might also wear the tires out quicker. StuRat (talk) 01:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Braking is faster. First, because limiting static friction is higher than kinetic friction. Second, because the direction of friction force during a slide (directly opposite to the direction of motion) is not the optimal direction (you want friction to go backwards and slightly to the side of the turn.) But drifting is more fun. --Itinerant1 (talk) 01:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Slow down going in, speed up coming out. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Consider who is more likely to be right: a century of the combined experience and wisdom of the world's racing car drivers or Clarkson? The method used by racing car drivers is faster, safer (giving you far more control), and less mechanically wearing, while the method used by Clarkson looks good on a TV program. FWIW you may notice if you watch closely that even when Clarkson himself is trying to set a quick lap he no longer drifts in corners. --jjron (talk) 07:03, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• It depends on a variety of factors, this site does an excellent job at covering it, better than could be done here.AerobicFox (talk) 07:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems like it's common to slide around corners in Dirt track racing, but much less so on a paved track (despite the video). I wonder if sliding on dirt wears the tires less? Buddy431 (talk) 17:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I would expect so, yes, as you're basically rolling on little balls of dirt in the latter case. StuRat (talk) 18:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and really a totally different issue. The frictional forces involved remove the advantages generally gained by taking a racing line through the corners, for example putting the power on as you go through and then exit the corner on dirt (as you would on the track) would likely lead to either wheel-spin or throwing the back-end out anyway. The lower friction also makes braking before the corner more difficult (you'd need to brake far earlier for the same effect), and as suggested drifting on dirt (or water, ice, etc) is less mechanically wearing. You may notice that rally drivers approach cornering in different ways too depending on the surface they are driving on (loose gravel, firm gravel, tarmac, snow, ice...) and the tyres they have fitted, whereas strictly track racing like F1 always uses the same basic technique. --jjron (talk) 16:27, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

language comprehension

I am at wit's end trying to recall where I recently saw the following line: "SirEdmundHillarywasthefirstmantoclimbMtEverest" followed by the same sentence spelled backwards on the next line. It was in a recently published book whose main theme was that intense and focused practice can accomplish extreme performance at just about anything. The above cited two ordinary quotes were presented as an example of practice. After "prcticing" reading for a while our brain gets trained to a level of performace where we can read an entire sentence even without spaces between words with ease. The same letters spelled backwards show the difference practice makes. I felt certain that I had read this in a recent book called "The Genius in All of Us" by David Shenk. Not so. I have gone over that book slowly page by page and it is not there. In desperation, I'm wondering if someone has seen this. I have never used this site to search for such a trivial thing and I'm not sure if this is indeed the right place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christyreuben (talk • contribs) 01:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

If you receive no answer within the next couple of days, I suggest you re-post this at the Language Ref Desk. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The Walt Disney font

Is there a name for the font that the "Walt Disney" is written in on the Disney logo? Is it copyrighted? Just curious... Dismas|^(talk) 01:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Waltograph? ---Sluzzelin talk 02:27, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that, according to Intellectual property protection of typefaces at least, "In the United States, typefaces, as such, are excluded from copyright protection, however they may still generate pertinent intellectual property considerations, such as design patents and copyrights on computer programs that generate scalable font files." -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

A more pertinent consideration would be whether or not the Disney logo is trademarked—which it most certainly is. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Walt used to draw cartoon panels in his younger years, and as you can see from the signature on the Walt Disney page, that logo is kind of a typographical rendering of his signature. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Westminster Bank of Brockley Cross in S.E. London S.E.4

Thread retitled from "Seeking Westminster Bank of Brockley Cross in S.E. London S.E.4/We banked with them for years and left a small amount of money in the bank when we immigrated to USA".

I'm trying to contact Westminster Bank Limited, Brockley Branch, Brockley Cross, London S.E.4 as from the early 1960's till most part of 1969 we banked with them. However, we immigrated to America in October of 1969 and left a small amount of money in the bank, this being the reason for wanting to contact them. Hope you can help. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.174.240.15 (talk) 04:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Westminster Bank is now known as NatWest, Brockley branch no longer exists, but you may be able to locate your account by calling their customer service at +44 121 695 9238.--Itinerant1 (talk) 04:35, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't seem to have much information about what is supposed to happen to dormant bank accounts - there is an article on the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008, which provides for money in accounts that have been inactive for 15 years to be distributed to charities, but as this Guardian article explains, it should still be possible to claim it back - I suppose you will have difficulty if both you and the bank have lost the paperwork (that is probably not unlikely given the amount of time that has passed). By the way, that article recommends mylostaccount.org.uk, which is apparently a free service for tracing lost bank accounts run by the British Bankers' Association, the Building Societies Association, and National Savings and Investments. 130.88.99.217 (talk) 11:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I am revising the heading from "Seeking Westminster Bank of Brockley Cross in S.E. London S.E.4/We banked with them for years and left a small amount of money in the bank when we immigrated to USA” to "Westminster Bank of Brockley Cross in S.E. London S.E.4”. (See WP:TPOC: Section headings.)

—Wavelength (talk) 19:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

New to boating

I want to get into boating but I am completly new to it and seem to find any info about how the design/manufacture side works. Sorry if I dont explain this well or I am completly off.

I think boats are different to say cars or bikes where you just buy the completed end product. For example, I always used to hear about Phantoms and after looking on the internet I've found that there are several hulls (Phantom 21, 23 etc) but no mention of a manufacturer or designer. So how does it work? Is the Phantom just a design made by someone and its up to the person who wants it to find someone who can manufacture it? --178.208.219.151 (talk) 06:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I think Phantom is the manufacturer, in the UK, it seems. This page lists them and other manufacturers, with contact info: [1]. StuRat (talk) 06:53, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you interested boating, boat ownership, or boat building? Most boats are purchased pre-built, new or used, just as with cars and bikes, although many people do built their own boats, just as (to a much lesser extent) with cars and bikes. Naval architects sell plans and some companies sell complete kits. Have you gone down to the shore and talked to owners of boats similar to what you are interested in? Many skippers are happy to take on volunteer crew for racing, day sailing, and more. Search "sailing yacht crew finder" for websites dedicated to matching volunteer crew with captains seeking help on long passages. In our case, we'd be happy to be joined by one or two adventurous vegetarians for our upcoming couple month cruise to Borneo, not for watchstanding assistance during passage so much as to allow for alternation between hiking / diving and boat tending. So go down to the water and make some new friends. Most skippers are more than happy to talk about their boats. -- ToE 15:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

On a totally different tack (appalling pun intended), if you can't already, learn to swim. HiLo48 (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

And remember the adage that a boat is more properly defined as "a hole in the water that you throw money into." Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr

In 1944 and 1945 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, sent black children from his church, Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem, New York, to a small town in Vermont for two weeks in the summer. I was 11& 12 and I can't find any information about these trips. There was an article written about me in the Amsterdam News. I have searched for any information for years and I get nothing. Contacting the church and the newspaper gets no results! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laeeqa (talk • contribs) 07:39, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It looks like it must have been the Fresh Air Program, described in The Vermont Encyclopedia [2]? The article says it that the Vermont church involved was the United Church, Johnson, Vermont. The programme continues till today. I'm sure they would be very pleased to hear from someone who took part in the first exchange. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

being jailed

I just read about Joe Gordon and got curious about Thai's court ruling. I live here in the Philippines. Let’s say I translated some parts of the book of The_King_Never_Smiles and posted them on Facebook. Would the Thai government jail me like just like what they did to Joe Gordon? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.148.210 (talk) 12:41, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Does the Thai government have any jurisdiction over the Philippines and/or an extradition treaty of some kind? P.S. Who's Joe Gordon? The only Joe Gordon I know of was a long-deceased ballplayer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

That’s what I want to know. This is the right Joe Gordon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.148.210 (talk) 13:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

That link seems to time out - I think you want: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/1112/111209-insults.html -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you Finlay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.148.210 (talk) 14:53, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Gordon is mentioned in our articles Lese-majesty (section: Thailand) and Bhumibol Adulyadej (section: Lèse majesté). While our article Bhumibol Adulyadej is blocked in Thailand, it is visible there via any of its redirects, such as Rama IX. -- 203.82.82.129 (talk) 14:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The guy got arrested when he went to Thailand. So it appears that anyone who insults the king of Thailand and then goes there, risks the same fate. Keep in mind that this is just a guess, and that we are not allowed to give actual legal advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Products Americans are allowed to import but not to make

Has anyone ever attempted to make a comprehensive list of all the products which Americans are allowed to import from abroad, but are not allowed to make domestically under U.S. law? For example I'm thinking of horse meat (though it may be nominally legal to produce), certain sassafras products (at least according to [3]), and radio scanners which are not blocked in the old analog cell phone frequencies (though their import is technically banned). I'm sure there are others... Wnt (talk) 15:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Point of order - Obama just signed a law allowing US citizens to manufacture horse meat. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand how Americans can physically do that, unless you mean American horses. --Trovatore (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Hemp. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Americans manufacture horse meat from hemp? We are a clever people, aren't we. --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I was trying to come up with a proper verb, I sat there thinking, and just went with "manufacture".  :) The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The usual term is "slaughter" -- but it was always allowed; however, the USDA had stopped inspecting horse slaughterhouses, and so they were not allowed to sell their product in the US. The net result is that people were either letting unwanted horses starve to death, or send them to Mexico or Canada, or slaughter them for glue and hide. The policy certainly didn't save the lives of any horses. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 20:34, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah - I knew I forgot one of the examples, and hemp was the one. Wnt (talk) 01:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Champagne, Sherry and other wines with geographically based names. The same also applies to many cheeses and other foods products such as Parma ham. See Appellation. Roger (talk) 22:03, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that applies to the US. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 22:06, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Semi-generic lists the wine exceptions and Protected Geographical Status does not mention a treaty with the U.S. Rmhermen (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe they can be produced in the US, they just can't be labelled with those names. StuRat (talk) 23:41, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

You might consider this purely a matter of semantics, but an argument could be made that if you can't legally call your "bubbly" Champagne, then you don't actually make champagne, after all, Protected Geographical Status is all about labeling, not manufacturing. As Rmhermen points out, our article gives no indication that there is a bilateral agreement extending PGS to the U.S. It does mention that NAFTA imposes some similar restrictions; Annex 313 declares Bourbon Whiskey & Tennessee Whiskey (U.S.), Canadian Whisky (Canada), and Tequila & Mezcal (Mexico) to be distinctive products of their respective countries. -- ToE 00:59, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

That's complete nonsense. What products you're allowed to make is a totally different question from what you're allowed to call them. --Trovatore (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I should cut this Gordian knot right now by saying that here I'll arbitrarily exclude any "proprietary" right that belongs to one company, author, inventor, country, region etc. but which is off limits to the majority of producers that would potentially export to the U.S. just as it is to Americans. Wnt (talk) 01:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Real amer absinthe is as rare as Cuban cigars in the US but it is legal to import it for personal use only. Retail sales are still banned. --Aspro (talk) 23:12, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

While I appreciate the efforts people have made to list things here, it would still be most desirable if there were some recognized source that had addressed the question. Has no manufacturers/industry association, chamber of commerce etc. ever spoken about this? Wnt (talk) 18:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

One has to ask: Do any anomalies represent a large enough financial incentive for a US manufacturers to lobby the lawmakers? The market for amer absinthe etc., is surely to small for the large industries (which have the lobbing power) to readdress the imbalance. For would be producers of Germanic horse meat sausages it must be Wurst and any producer trying to lobby the lawmakers to produce the Uzbekistan equivalent must be thinking "Qazi". --Aspro (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

There is surely very rarely an incentive for a government to prohibit domestic production but allow imports (although the reverse is still common...); most (all?) examples are no doubt going to be limited to the category of quaint anomaly of the kind you mention. All I can think is that there might be items which the US believes no more of should ever be produced, but you're allowed to import existing instances. Old-mechanism guns, perhaps? Items which do not meet domestic production standards (fire safety, electrical safety...)? I think you're quite right to say that if there was a significant market, the US government would give in: governments love good balance of payments figures, and the US hasn't been experiencing many of those recently. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 23:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Pulau Jemur

I am writing a short novel, and Pulau Jemur is one of the stages upon which the story is set. My question is: Do we know when the observation post on Pulau Jemur was erected? I need to know whether it fits the chronology of the story.

Thank you, Lyle Case — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lccase (talk • contribs) 20:11, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Apparently the post was a response to a Malaysian claim from August 2009, so I guess it was established after that incident. But according to our article even the Japanese had a defense set up on the island in WW2. 80.122.178.68 (talk) 22:09, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

French food

Why are French people healthier than Americans even though their food is full of fat? --108.225.117.205 (talk) 20:45, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article on everything: French paradox. 80.122.178.68 (talk) 20:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Some pure original research and appalling generalisations from some very small samples. Americans eat huge portions of food very often at all sorts of places - walking down the street, at sport and other entertainment, between meals, in the office, etc, etc. The French eat smaller portions, at meal times, while sitting down and talking, with much less snacking in between times. HiLo48 (talk) 21:09, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

A more edifying discussion might contrast France (obesity rate 10%) and the UK (23%), whose populations are genetically, educationally, politically, medically, and economically far more comparable than France and the US. LANTZY^TALK 23:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the problem with portions sizes, but also the US has many unnatural and unhealthy "foods" which the French spurn. For example, contrast butter with margarine full of trans fats. In the area of food, being open to try new things isn't always good, when those things or processes were created in a laboratory and never adequately tested on humans. StuRat (talk) 01:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

French people consume more saturated fat, roughly the same amount of total fat, less trans fat, and less food overall. When scientists talk about saturated fat being bad for you, it's normally done with the assumption of constant caloric intake. Substituting X calories of omega-6 (e.g. canola oil) for X calories of saturated fat (e.g. butter) is good, but substituting 3X calories of anything for X calories of saturated fat is bad, because extra calories make you more likely to get overweight.

Even more importantly, the French are much more active physically than Americans. This article estimates that an average American walks 140 km/year, and an average Frenchman walks 404 km/year (and, in none of the 9 European countries for which they offer data, people walk less than 350 km/year.)--Itinerant1 (talk) 02:24, 10 December 2011 (UTC)