Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 June 2

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June 2

Troll (Internet) vs. human troll

Is there any difference between internet troll and calling human being a troll. Because if I personally calling names of human troll, this is likely to be a form of harassment behaviour. Why at internet we can call people a troll, but students cannot personally call a teacher troll.--69.229.240.187 (talk) 01:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In what way is the teacher in question anything troll-like? Bus stop (talk) 01:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Trolling is a specific type of disruption, and not just being a general obnoxious person. A troll is someone who asks a question or starts a discussion for the sole purpose of stirring up people's emotions. Trolls say things with the goal of getting you to type long, time wasting, angry responses. Only the internet really owes itself to trolling because of the particular way communication happens on the internet. It doesn't really apply to live-and-in-person modes of communication, like teacher-student interactions. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, there are similar things that can be done in real life. Instead of calling someone a troll, they're usually said be "being difficult". The troll label, as it's known on the internet, doesn't really cross boundaries though. Dismas|^(talk) 03:20, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it is just starting to. 86.4.190.83 (talk) 13:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

There are certainly real life trolls, but calling your teacher a troll to their face seems as unwise as calling them anything else other that "sir" or "miss" or whatever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 14:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Does your teacher live under a bridge? If so, they may be a real life troll, but I'd still suggest that you don't press the issue with them. TastyCakes (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Calling someone a troll in real life does mean something different to calling someone a troll on the internet. If you call someone a troll in real life, it implies that they're lacking in social skills and personal hygiene (like calling someone a Neanderthal), rather than the internet-specific meaning of someone who is deliberately annoying and argumentative. Steewi (talk) 01:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Or simply ugly. —Tamfang (talk) 06:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

How long is Euclid Avenue?

How long is Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH? The article does not say, and I would like to know, with a citation that can be used in the article. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

According to the ODOT straight-line diagrams, US Route 20 hits Public Square 17.45 miles into Cuyahoga County and reaches East Cleveland at mile marker 22.94. So the length of Euclid Avenue in Cleveland is 5.49 miles. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

A sexual matter

I know this is ver sexual, but im just really curious. Yesterday i was looking at my vagina bent over through a mirror and i noticed just under my vagina opening and before my butt, i have this ball of white stuf almost looks like a pimple but when i squeeze it nothing comes out. but it keeps on growing in size. i was just wondering is it supposed to be there, its located where my perineum is.

if someone could answer my question that would be sooooo GREAT !!

thank you .

Wikipedia doesn't give you medical advice for good reason. I recommend you seek professional medical advice/attention. Prokhorovka (talk) 07:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Go to the doctor, immediately —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 14:07, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised that no one asked for a photo! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.68.129 (talk) 14:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The Ref Desk has a very good record of handling questions of a sexual nature in a mature and respectful manner. --Tango (talk) 14:24, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

We can't give advice, but we can say that ain't right! —Tamfang (talk) 07:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Illegal File Sharing

If buying a DVD, reformatting it, and then sending it digitally to someone else's computer is illegal, wouldn't NASA be under breach of the law for doing this? Or have they paid some sort of fee that allows them to do that? Is there such a fee? iTunes and other organizations that legally provide copyrighted material can do it. I'm interested in how they can. Do they pay a regular fee to each publisher they stock, or to each individual artist? Or is it more complicated than that? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 12:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a very big "if". If someone brought a CD and you copied it onto their MP3 player because they had no computer then in many countries that would not be illegal. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Chances are nasa bought a copy of the reels (or the hard drive type thing the movie is stored digitally on) specifically for this purpose, or got a special licence from the publisher. Incidentally you cannot format a DVD. They are read only, and cannot be modified short of destroying the disc. Gunrun (talk) 12:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes you can, see DVD-RW

I assume he was talking about buying a dvd with a film on, which would be the non writable sort. Although the explanation below mine seems more likely. Gunrun (talk) 08:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The word "reformatting" comes from the article, and I suppose it means "transcoding". -- BenRG (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) For the original question, your "buying a DVD" analogy doesn't hold up -- there is no DVD of the new Star Trek movie to buy. If some enterprising NASA engineer had stolen the movie, then yes, that would be illegal. However, I find it quite likely that an unusual-but-legal arrangement was made -- possibly NASA purchased the film as a theater would. Possibly the distributor donated a copy for the PR value. It's quite unlikely that the process was anything like a standard consumer transaction, though. As for iTunes and the like, they certainly make some form of payment in order to legally sell the content, just as a brick-and-mortar store buys CDs in order to re-sell them. The details of such agreements are generally trade secrets, though I would suspect that Apple makes most payments to the various publishing groups rather than to individual bands. — Lomn 12:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

@Q Chris: That's not true - it's a very tiny "if" and an unusual take on the word "many". The Berne convention on copyright has been signed by all of the countries in blue on the map at right. In all of those places, it's illegal to copy music from a CD and give it to someone else.

In the NASA case, it's pretty much certain that they got permission from the copyright holders...which I'm sure was granted easily since for them, since the publicity of having actual astronauts watching the movie is well worth it.

For iTunes and other companies like that, yes, there is some kind of agreement with the copyright holders. It'll be heavily negotiated and probably include some up-front payment and a per-copy royalty. I doubt they deal with individual artists though - they'll be going through the publisher of the work who in turn will sort out royalty payments to individuals where applicable. I doubt there is a "one size fits all" solution yet - the various online retailers have such different business models that it would be impossible to come up with a single way to do this. That's one of the key factors preventing online movie sales & rentals from taking off as it should. SteveBaker (talk) 12:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Q Chris: Please don't intersperse your comments into the middle of someone else's reply - it's extremely disruptive to readability. I've moved the tail of my comment back up to where it belongs!SteveBaker (talk) 16:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. If you copy a CD owned by someone onto a different media also owned by them, without keeping a copy or giving one to a third party I don't believe that this infringes the Berne convention. If the astronauts purchased a DVD and it was transmitted to them and nobody else I think it would be the same situation. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

There's no clause in international copyright law that gives you the right to rip your own CD for your own use, as far as I know, let alone on someone else's behalf. The record companies won't sue you for it, but that's because the lawsuit would be a PR disaster, not because they couldn't win the case. -- BenRG (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there is some case law in the United States which suggests you can do exactly that. Space shifting or format shifting a recording – coverting it from one format to another – for personal use was explicitly upheld in RIAA vs. Diamond. That case confirmed that ripping a CD to your hard drive and copying the resulting file to a portable media player was entirely permissible. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:02, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This would be analogous to being entitled to make one copy of software (either to floppy disk or to CD) for security backup purposes, ie in case the original gets unusably damaged. There is then nothing to stop you using the copy for your actual re-installations, and keeping the original in pristine unused condition. There is no "sharing" with others involved. KoolerStill (talk) 22:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

There's no codified legal right to make backups either. Some software licenses grant you that right, but it comes from the licensor, not from the government. Copyright is the exclusive right to make copies, not just to share them. There's a long list of exceptions to that exclusive right, but none covering backup copies for personal use. (I agree that that right should exist, of course.) In the U.S. the Audio Home Recording Act effectively makes it legal to copy audio recordings onto an analog or digital audio recording device for noncommercial purposes. Again it doesn't say anything about sharing. So as far as I know it's perfectly legal in the U.S. to dub a whole album onto a cassette tape and give it to a friend. That applies only to audio recordings, not movies or ebooks or any other digitally encodable works, and it applies only to a limited set of recording devices and media, which excludes, for example, MP3 files on computer hard drives. The ruling in RIAA v. Diamond was that the Diamond Rio was not an audio recording device under the terms of the Act, which simply means that that section of the copyright code doesn't apply to it. Nothing in the rest of the copyright code gives you the right to copy songs onto the Rio. It is clear from the decision that the judge felt that people ought to have that right, and I'm sure that's a widespread feeling these days, but there's a limit to how much judges can bend the law to reach the conclusion they think is fair. It would be better if this right was explicit in the copyright code, and currently it's not. -- BenRG (talk) 11:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Andree Creuzot-French decorative artist

I'm struggling to find any information on Andree Creuzot, a French decorative artist. There was an article published about him and decorative art in the 'Paris ABC School of Art, Painting And Drwaing Course' (English Translation-1982) but I cannot find any other articles relating to Andree Creuzot. The information is for my Cambridge A-Level Art examination and I need to know his history, e.g. birth date, and any other information anyone can provide! I have to write a 3 500 word related study and I'm desperate!˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.2.64.46 (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

French Wikipedia does not have an entry for him, either. However, a Google search on the name (alternatively spelled Andre Creusot)brings up many references, in French. The results with the word "illustrations" also in them seem to be referring to the person you are seeking. Many of the pages have a Translate This Page link on them. But most appear to be references to books he illustrated, with no biographical data. A general work on French Decorative Arts for the period may make some mention of him. KoolerStill (talk) 23:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

suitable hat for south asian men

Baseball cap gives a hip hop artist looks. Fedora type hats is not my taste as i am in my mid 20s and about 5'7" tall. Please suggest me a decent looking hat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.22 (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

'Decent looking' is a mtter of personal preference and style — we can't give you an absolute answer. You might try looking through the list at our article on hats; perhaps something there will appeal to you. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Pork pie hat might work. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you could try a cowboy hat. A musician of south asian descent named Neal McCoy, wears one on a regular basis. --Lost Fugitive (talk) 19:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Just don't be one of those idiots who wears a stocking cap when it is 95F outside. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

mm he appears to be Filipino/Irish, not South Asian. Clearly that changes the hat situation completely. TastyCakes (talk) 22:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think all hats that do not serve a purpose are at least a little silly or pretentious. So unless you're looking for a hat to block the sun, keep your head warm or obscure your receding hairline, the choice will really be dictated by the image you wish to portray. Trucker? Tough guy summer tuque wearer? Melodramatic artist? I don't recall knowing or seeing many Indians that wear hats (other than turbans, of course), and so don't have any ethnicity-specific comments. TastyCakes (talk) 22:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a flat cap or a newsboy cap? If you're a dark South Indian, black and brown probably won't look any good, so you'd want white, cream, grey, or another lighter colour. Steewi (talk) 01:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I beg your pardon, I Should have mentioned that the sole reason for hat is sunglare. sunglasses may not be a good idea as I wear powered glasses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 11:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It's unfortunate you have already ruled out baseball caps, which were specifically designed to reduce sun glare, as an option because you dislike the alleged hip hop association. Perhaps you might consider a baseball cap with words stitched or printed upon it, saying "This baseball cap does not connote any hip hop affiliation." Tempshill (talk) 22:03, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what kind of music your into, but pick a baseball cap with something about your favourite genre (an artist you like is usually a good bet) and you should avoid being mistaken as looking like a hip hop artist. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:07, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Rules of chess without a universe

if the universe disappeared would the rules of chess still exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parosa2 (talk • contribs) 15:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Would it really matter? Livewireo (talk) 15:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Where would the universe go? Bus stop (talk) 15:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make the sound of one hand clapping ? Gandalf61 (talk) 15:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

articles relevant to this question: A priori and a posteriori, Platonic idealism, Ousia, Category of being. --dab (𒁳) 15:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Easy to argue this point. Once a notion has been discovered by man, it exists and cannot be made to unexist. Hence countries can disarm their nuclear weapons, but the concept cannot be uninvented. However, if there was no man to ponder said notion (or even animal etc as per your question) you could argue that it's as if the notion had never developed. Particularly if you considered that the disappearance of the universe could arguably mean the disappearance of time and therefore no sensible chronology (something didn't exist and then was discovered) continued to make sense. In a way, your question is a refinement (and much funnier version) of the classic If a tree falls in a forest, which has obvious weaknesses. --Dweller (talk) 16:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of any place for the rules to be stored or described - no. Of course not. Rules are like algorithms or data - they are information. Information theory (specifically Landauer's principle) demands that the system be capable of a change in entropy - not possible in an empty universe...or a non-universe. Worse still, if you consider there to be no universe - then there is no time - so how do you know that chess was invented yet? If you perhaps consider that the rules of chess always existed and that someone merely 'discovered' them - as opposed to them being 'invented' or 'created' - but then you'd have to say that all rules for all possible games 'exist' - we just haven't found them all yet. If you take that position then you should probably become a full-time philosopher so that I can more efficiently mock you! :-) SteveBaker (talk) 16:29, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The rules of chess only exist in human minds or in human artefacts such as books. If they disapeared, then the rules of chess would disapear also. 78.151.147.255 (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

An alternative viewpoint, as SteveBaker pointed out, is that the rules of chess are simply one of an infinite number of possible game rules that can be described mathematically. From that point-of-view, the rules will exist as long as mathematics exists. Whether mathematics would exist if the universe didn't exist is a much broader question. Note 1: We can continue to offer possible opinions and links to relevant articles, but please try not to start a debate. Note 2: I have changed the section title from "question" to make it easier to find. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 06:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thats like having infinitely many monkeys typing for an infinately long time, or like the library of the tower of babel short story by I think Borges, where every possible sequence of letters etc is recorded. Such things do not exist, so the answer is still no. 89.243.113.64 (talk) 19:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Akon

What were the songs sung by akon in the closing ceremony of dlf indian priemer league in southafrica 2009? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.245.190 (talk) 16:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I know for sure that he sung Smack That... beyond that i don't know...Rkr1991 (talk) 13:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Why don't commercial airplanes have parachutes?

I can understand that in sudden catastrophic events parachutes would be useless. Also, opening the doors at certain heights would cause massive decompression.

But where an aeroplane is in trouble and may have to make a risky landing, or it is likely that it is going to crash, why do they not have parachutes for passengers to evacuate? I'd rather take my chances with a parachute, even if untrained, than take my chances with a mountain. Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks 82.22.190.200 (talk) 19:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Because an untrained parachutist would be extremely dangerous, and a 'risky landing' would surely always be a better risk than trying to co-ordinate the safe release of some 300+ parachutists from a 747. The risk-to-reward would be hugely in-favour of a risky-landing. The pilots are trained for difficult landings, the average passenger is not likely to be trained in parachuting nevermind doing their parachuting in a high-pressure (mentally) and high-stress scenario. That added stress would make the job 10x more difficult for an experience parachutist never mind your average Joe. ny156uk (talk) 20:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

not to mention that 300 parachutes would weigh a lot, meaning that the aircraft could not fly as efficiently, not to mention that it would not be a trivial thing to store that many parachutes. Statistically speaking, aircraft accidents that would require a parachute are very rare, so the cost does not equal the risk, even if you assume that the parachutes would be used properly. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

But there are whole plane parachute systems. [1] Bus stop (talk) 20:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The planes these are made for are tiny in comparison to the main commercial passenger planes. TastyCakes (talk) 21:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Some good points there, thanks. Perhaps the term "risky landing" was not really appropriate, thinking more for scenarios where it is clear that the plane is in serious trouble. In terms of training, does it take much training to jump and pull a chord? Basic training could be included in the safety talk the flight attendants provide. But I take your point about the numbers of passengers and the nightmare of evacuating them all under that level of stress and possibly violent movements of the aircraft. I dunno, I just think I'd feel happier knowing I have the option. Maybe I'll sneak on my own and a door pick. 82.22.190.200 (talk) 20:44, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Think of how long it takes to get off the plane at the gate, when people are just grumpy. Airplane accidents almost never develop over a nice span of five to ten minutes that would allow the everybody to put on a parachute, file quietly to the rear (only those doors might be suitable) and jump, not hitting the tailplane (which apart from the ill effects on the passenger, might take the plane down more quickly), hopefully with enough altitude for safety but not so much that they'd be dead from exposure or hypoxia before they made it down. Airplane accidents generally happen suddenly and quickly, and the plane may be doing things that are best done with the passengers and crew belted in. Also, mountains don't obligingly stand aside until you're ready; either you avoid the mountain by maneuver, or it arrives as a surprise. The only large airlines that you could jump from with a reasonable degree of success were the Boeing 727, the MD-80 and the Douglas DC-9, which had airstairs under the tail, and all but the MD-80 are out of service. See D.B. Cooper for the 727 escapade. Acroterion _(talk) 20:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

DC-9s do survive in service in penny numbers, although I think the majority are cargo conversions now. The last 717 was delivered in 2006, so perhaps there are a number of 727s out there as well. Incredible as it may sound, there is a highly risky procedure on large airliners to open the doors to bleed out smoke. The only time I can think of where it was used is South African Airways Flight 295. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The Boeing 717 is actually a lot more modern than the 727. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

(*looks*) I stand corrected. I assume I got lost amongst the whole renaming from MD to Boeing. Thank you! Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:56, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think as a result of the DB Cooper incident all 727s and DC-9s had their ventral doors configured to be inoperable in flight, although that could obviously be reversed. According to Airliners.net [2] no 717s were built with ventral airstairs. DC-9s linger at Northwest Airlines, but I suspect Delta's going to park them as they merge operations. I doubt there are very many 727s in regular passenger service anymore. Acroterion _(talk) 21:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe the difficult part of parachuting is making sure you are up the right way when you open the chute. If you a spinning out of control when you open it you'll just get tangled up and it won't work. You could try some kind of static-line system, but that would slow things down even more. A standard evacuation takes several minutes, I think, and that is with people jumping onto an inflatable slide one immeadiately after the other. A parachute evacuation would take significantly longer and the risk would be significantly greater than even a very rough landing, so you would only want to do it if you were certain people wouldn't survive the crash. I doubt there are many situations in which parachutes would be useful. --Tango (talk) 20:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(EC) I think we are forgetting that the average 747 travels at speeds of over 500mph, and having 300+ people jumping out would be a hazard both to them and to the plane itself, as one or more of them is bound to hit the wings or the tail, and this is even with a coordinated jump (which would never happen anyway, because the in-flight safety video would be too long). We are not talking about an airdrop over Arnhem here, with trained troops jumping out of propeller planes. These are jets. and who's going to strap a parachute onto a baby, chuck it out, and hope it lands safely? Best just to leave it to the trained pilot to get us all down safely. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 21:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You're forgetting that they also tend to fly at 30,000 feet. Recall what happens when the plane depressurizes! People would probably freeze to death and suffocate before they got halfway to the ground. SteveBaker (talk) 04:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the idea was that the plane is obviously going down and there was no way of getting it to fly properly. By that stage, it would be much lower than 30,000 feet, and decompression/freezing/suffocating would not be a problem. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 09:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I can think of a situation that would make people want to jump. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This might be worth considering, just for the entertainment value of watching the cabin crew on the taxi-out, pantomiming putting on a parachute, clipping a static line, jumping out a door, avoiding the tailplane, floating down to god-knows-where and making a landing. Then they'd do another one for if you had a baby. That's way better than where they show you how to buckle a seatbelt. Me, as long as the pilots are in the plane, I'll stay in the plane. Franamax (talk) 22:02, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The trouble with all of these crazy schemes (including the earlier one about having GPS and radios in life vests for example) is that the cost is INSANE, the amount of weight it would add is just nuts - and the number of times it would be potentially useful over (say) the last 50 years can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Almost all airline accidents happen soon after takeoff or landing - or on the ground...the ones (like this recent Air France crash) that happen while the plane is flying straight and level tend to happen so quickly that nobody can do a damned thing about it. By far the most important thing we could add to help passenger safety would be a simply silvered mylar smoke hood with a filter for you to breathe through. Such things have been known to be useful for at least 20 years - and would cost just a couple of bucks each and could be tucked into the magazine storage pouch - and would have saved hundreds of lives over the years. For all of that cost/benefit, we still don't have them as a legal requirement. The problem is that airline travel is already amazingly safe. Storing 250 relatively heavy parachutes on a commercial flight in the hope of mitigating a risk that's MUCH less than one in a million - is flat out stupid...it's a waste of money - a reckless waste of fuel and increase in global warming hazard - and in the next 50 years, it would be pretty surprising if it saved even one life. The airlines could save VASTLY more lives by donating 1% of the money that would cost to (say) a children's hospital someplace. We're all thinking about the Air France disaster - but if (as it appears) the plane broke apart at 30,000 feet over mid-Atlantic without the pilots even being able to turn on the radio and say "SOS", the parachutes would have been completely useless. The only thing that would have saved those people was to somehow avoid the thing blowing up or falling apart in the first place...and if we ever figure out what it was - you can be sure it'll get fixed. SteveBaker (talk) 04:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually the word they didn't get out was mayday rather than SOS (edit) and I also wonder whether it was that they didn't have time to make the emergency call or whether with the problems the plane was apparently having they didn't have a working radio --Polysylabic Pseudonym (talk) 02:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the many good points made above, here's yet another reason. Putting on a parachute isn't a matter of "slip it over your head and tighten the strap around your waist" as in the lifejacket safety lecture. The thing is a bulky backpack or chest pack and you have to strap yourself to it so tightly, and so correctly, that the straps will support your entire weight (whereas a lifejacket only has to keep your head above water). Even if you had a few minutes available, would you be able to do it correctly, the first time, in the space available in a typical airline seat, with people and walls bumping your arms and not even enough room to stand up straight? No, you would not! --Anonymous, edited 04:40 UTC, June 3, 2009.

True, another plan could be to fit all planes with passenger ejector seats (with individual buttons so you can get rid of the boring idiot sitting next to you - oh, sorry, that was my wife), or make the whole plane out of the same indestructible material the black box is made of, and fit air bags. Not practical, but it'd make a great Disney movie. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 04:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I know you were joking, but you don't actually want to plane to be indestructible like the black boxes (even if it could be done without making the plane too heavy to take off). That would mean that all the energy of the collision is transferred to the passengers inside (it has to go somewhere), it is much better if the plane crumples (as the landing gear is designed to do, I believe) to absorb the energy. --Tango (talk) 14:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course I was joking, but the serious side of me had to add the bit about airbags. If they work in cars, why not planes? If you had enough of them on all sides of each passenger, we might have a solution, if the fuel doesn't explode, and so long as the plane had enough space for people and three airbags each. Of course, a ludicrously impractical idea, but then, so is the idea of parachutes, which is what we are discussing. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

This is an excellent thread. --Dweller (talk) 08:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone might want to add here a link to the interesting research about how much safer planes might be if all the seats faced backwards, towards the rear of the plane, in the event of a forced landing. Apparently there are psychological reasons why they don't do this, although the increase in survivability is clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.134.43 (talk) 09:24, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

If you can provide a link, that would be helpful. In the meantime, I would just like to say that if I suffered from backward-motion-sickness, I'd prefer to be facing front, rather than blowing chunks for the whole journey before exploding in a ball of flames. On a more serious note, without a link, I can't see how forward-facing or backward-facing seats can have any kind of survival advantage over each other in a plane crash. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 10:43, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

My guess is that you would be pushed into the seat's cushion during the sudden deceleration, instead of hitting the next seat in front. You'd also have a soft shield against any debris flying from the plane's nose. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 11:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I might go look for a link, but I do remember an airliner mechanic explaining this to me, and saying all military aircraft are like that. He also demonstrated that a thumped aircraft seat has a tendancy to go forward, and the weight of the person behind striking it could crush the person beneath. I don't recall ever hearing of this happening in an actuall accident, though. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:56, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

"All military aircraft" are certainly NOT like that. Here is an example of a C-17 where the troops are facing to the side, and here is another example where they are facing front. --Zerozal (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I've heard that before, including about military aircraft doing it (it's certainly not all military aircraft, but maybe the ones designed to carry out a similar role to commercial airliners, transporting 100s of people from A to B). I don't think there are generally many injuries caused by being thrown forwards during the crash, though. Generally there are two types of air accidents - ones where everyone gets out safely with a few minor injuries and ones where you have a loss of all hands. Backwards facing seats wouldn't help in either of those cases. --Tango (talk) 14:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is a link to a source that argues rear facing seats on a plane are safer and why: http://archive.mailtribune.com/archive/2001/august/080501n1.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.101.134.43 (talk) 15:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The rumour I heard is that the best thing to do is get a seat near the tail, as, apparently, 9 times out of 10, it breaks off during a crash, and drastically increases your survival rate. This is a horrible topic for me, because I'm getting on a plane next week! In any case, rumours and schemes and ideas as good as they might seem, it would be best to just stick with what we are doing already, and that is trusting the trained pilot to get us from A to B. Plane crashes only make the news because they are rare. Car crashes happen every day, in their thousands, so they are not 'news'. Don't worry about it, get all you can from the free food and drinks, and look down on the world and see all the ant-like people rushing around while you go off on holiday, that's what I say. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:11, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

That sounds dubious. If the crash is severe enough for the plane to fall apart, I would expect the loss of all hands, regardless of where in the plane they were. --Tango (talk) 20:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

We aren't supposed to be passing on rumors here. If you have actual statistics on how many people survive airplane accidents or where in the plane they are, please cite sources, otherwise don't speculate. Remember that you can't go by what gets covered in the news media: they have no reason to treat every accident equally. --Anonymous, 04:11 UTC, June 4, 2009.

I know we are not here to spread rumours. If you read the post again, you will see that I was against the idea. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 05:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I stopped reading your item just before the place where you made that point. --Anon, 08:24 UTC, June 5, 2009.

A study by Popular Mechanics, covering 36 years of plane crashes, states "The rear cabin (seats located behind the trailing edge of the wing) had the highest average survival rate at 69 percent. The overwing section had a 56 percent survival rate, as did the coach section ahead of the wing. First/business-class sections (or in all-coach planes, the front 15 percent) had an average survival rate of just 49 percent." The FAA, on the other hand, says no seat is safer than another. The accident database at Planecrashinfo.com shows that many terrible crashes still have a fair percentage of passengers make it through alive. 152.16.59.190 (talk) 23:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the parachutes: all the above is true about how parachutes are very difficult to use. It's really hard to come up with a situation in which 300 parachutes would make a difference. If the plane is above 10000ft then your parachutists are probably going to die from hypoxia or hypothermia on the way down. If it's under 10000ft then the plane has to be descending relatively slowly or people won't have a chance to get out. If it's descending slowly then trying to make a landing is almost certainly a safer option. Likewise the plane has to be relatively stable (not tumbling or spinning) for anyone to have a chance, which also means a landing is a better option than parachutes.

But the biggest problem is probably the temptation to try to use parachutes when things look very bad, but it's actually safer to stay with the plane. There's a saying among sailors, "never get into your lifeboat until you have to step up into it", referring to the times sailors have abandoned ship only to see their ship sail away quite happily leaving them stranded in mid-ocean. All in all, parachutes would probably kill more people than they would save. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

UK Stop and Search

I am aware this treads the line about asking for legal advice, but I can assure this is a hypothetical question. If I'm walking down the street in the UK and a policeman walks up to me and says "I'd like to Search you, please Stop", what are my rights? Can I refuse? Prokhorovka (talk) 21:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Stop and Search | Home Office. Also see Liberty: Your rights - Stop and Search. In short, the answer to your second question is 'no'. Angus Lepper^{(T, C)} 21:39, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I wish this and all the other opposites to freedom in the UK could be listed in an article - they need making manifest. 78.151.147.255 (talk) 23:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps - but Wikipedia isn't a political weapon. This is one of those cases where people who feel strongly about it shouldn't be editing an article like that. I doubt you'd be looking for the cases where your freedom isn't being infringed upon and documenting those just as carefully. SteveBaker (talk) 04:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

All I meant was a straight list of new developments in survelliance in the UK, like CCTV, recording of emails sent, and many other things. I cannot think of a suitible title. 78.146.98.203 (talk) 14:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

As a matter of interest, and I know one would get it in the neck if one actually tried this, do they have to accept your description of oneself as English, Indian, Chinese, Nigerian or whatever independent of what one looked like? Is ethnicity basically uncheckable self description? Dmcq (talk) 06:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest, I don't think it matters what ethnicity you claim to be. If they want to look in your bag, they will look in your bag, not trace your family tree. It's a different matter if you give a false name and address, though, as that can easily be checked. Other than that, you can say whatever you want. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 09:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

They have to note down ethniticity to check whether they are discriminating. If everyone said they were black that would hurt their figures. Dmcq (talk) 12:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, the links in particular were great. Now if I'm every stopped, thanks to Liberty I'll know that what they can and cannot do is intentionally vague! Prokhorovka (talk) 09:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Jigsaws for right-handers?

I just tried out a brand-new electric jigsaw on some 1/4" fine-grain sanded plywood, using the scrolling setting. I made a test cut both convex and concave, to check the operation and roughness of the cut edge, following the instructions for "good-side-down", using a blade that looked about right for the cut (not a metal blade, not a ripping blade). I'm right-handed and I cut with the finished piece on the right and the offcut on the left. Not sure if that's how R/H-jigsawers do it, but that was my instinct. The workpiece was clamped through cloth, close to the cut; the offcut was a ~2" triangle, unsupported, weighing perhaps an ounce.

On inspecting the offcut, I noted that the bottom-side was indeed a perfect cut and the top-side had the (burr? swarf? splinters?) rough-cut on it. Also, the brand-new blade had left red paint all along the edge/side of the material. This effect was uniform from the start to the end of the cut i.e. it didn't start an inch or two into the cut.

On unclamping the workpiece, I was met with a surprise. The edge was perfect on both top and bottom and there was almost no paint left on the side of the material. I'm left to conclude that the difference is down to one of my cutting technique; the offcut side was unsupported; or the blade is designed for "right-hand" cutting.

So my question is: are jigsaw blades designed for this method of use, workpiece-on-the-right? Since my Mom will be doing the actual cutting (wall-thingy for her grandson) and she's left-handed, it's a matter of interest to me. Thanks for any help and I recognize this could be a weird one, even for en:wiki! Franamax (talk) 21:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the blade (any type of blade) edge on, you will see the two edges are identical. The blade mounts centrally on the saw. So there is no "handedness" in it. The effect you achieved would be from your putting sideways pressure on it, unintentionally, trying to keep the blade clear of your marked line, as well vibration from the lack of support for the offcut. A left-handed person would be doing the same thing. For a larger item, or a large odd-shape offcut,especially in thin material, the vibration factor would be considerable. It would be best to rig a support on each side, for example clamp the offcut to a length of timber supported between 2 chairs, even if it involves re-clamping it in new positions a few times. KoolerStill (talk) 04:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

There are three different machines that people call 'jigsaws': the Coping saw, the Scroll saw and what Wikipedia calls a Jigsaw (power tool) - but I'd classify as a lightweight "Reciprocating saw" - which is what you are presumably talking about...the quality of the cut from one of those things never seems very good to me...for small, quality work, I use a scroll saw - which is amazingly precise, controllable - albeit a bit slow. For craft jobs it's an awesome tool - you can guide the work with two hands - it's supported all the time. The reciprocating saw is just brutal. You obviously can't support both sides of the workpiece properly - and it's tough to get a good view of where the thing is cutting. Where possible, I clamp the good side to the workbench and hold the waste side with my spare hand. Sadly, that sometimes mean you have to work wrong-handed...and for small cuts you can't do it because you don't want to get your fingers in the way of the blade! It's OK for hacking out rough shapes from plywood or MDF - but I expect to have to do a lot of finishing afterwards. (Although for really fancy stuff, I usually use my home-built computer-controlled 3-axis milling machine...but it suffered a bit in our last house move - the framework got damp and warped - so I'm currently rebuilding it...bigger, faster, stronger and more precise!) SteveBaker (talk) 04:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that it isn't a case of handedness. My guess would be that the down-stroke cuts cleaner than the up-stroke. One solution would be to clamp another (waste) piece of similar material on top of the nice one being cut, and then cut through both together. The shredded edges would then be on the second (waste) piece rather than on your nice piece. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually - I think the upstroke is the cleaner because on the way up, the teeth of the blade are pulling the material up against the underside of the tool - so there is no vibration. On the down-cut, the blade is pulling the material away from the plate on the underside of the tool and vibration is much more likely. That results in the saw alternately imposing no cutting force and a lot of cutting force onto the wood - versus a steady force if the material can't move. But the teeth on the blade are oriented so that it does most of the actual cutting on the upward stroke...which is supposed to help that. One of the reasons you get a better cut with a circular saw or a band saw is that those machines only move in one direction relative to the material.

In extreme cases, with very thin material, you might consider clamping the workpiece on top of some thicker 'sacrificial' plywood or MDF offcut and cutting through both layers at once. That takes a lot of the 'bounce' out of the situation because your workpiece is sandwiched between the bottom plate of the saw and the thicker sacrificial wood and therefore cannot vibrate at all...but as I said before, reciprocating saws are really not precision tools...they are a method of last resort when neither chop saw nor circular saw nor scroll saw can handle the work for one reason or another. SteveBaker (talk) 13:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)