Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 March 8

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 8

Chilled vodka?

I remember hearing something about keeping vodka in the freezer because that's the temperature at which it's meant to be drunk. What's up with that? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Why does anything have to be "up" with it? White wine is served chilled; red wine is not. Gagh is always best served live. These are how people like these things. What kind of deeper explanation are you looking for? --Trovatore (talk) 02:36, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, in Japan, the land of inventions, there is a brand (Mercian) which sells red wine meant to be chilled. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Chilling red wine is not a Japanese invention; even the stoic, solid, tradition-bound French do it: [1], [2]. (It may be that Mercian is one of the few wineries to explicitly claim chilled reds as a novel market niche, however.) It is said that the 'serve red at room temperature' rule of thumb is best observed if you live in a drafty Scottish castle or deep subterranean limestone wine cellar. Twenty-first century climate-controlled room temperature is a bit too toasty for virtually all reds, and their flavor will improve appreciably if taken just a few degrees cooler. More aggressive chilling can work quite well with lighter, less tannic reds (simpler, fruitier, unoaked styles particularly) as an antidote to hot weather; the astringency can give the wine a nice bite. On the flip side, white wines are often served too cold: straight from the refrigerator, just a few degrees above zero. Allowing them to warm just a bit means you don't numb your taste buds, and also means that you get more volatiles released. (Generally, the better the white, the warmer it can – or should – be served.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Vodka is meant to be more or less tasteless. Keeping it extremely cold helps this — it makes it just a cold sensation, ideally. For specific drinks, like the martini, the use of extremely cold spirits (vodka or gin) means you don't have to use ice, which means it isn't diluted. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I imagine the high alcohol content plays a part, as it tends to burn, if not cold enough to slow the reactions. StuRat (talk) 03:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Wish I would remember to put my vodka back in the freezer :) Astronaut (talk) 15:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a cultural thing. Russians generally do not keep their bottle of Stoli in the freezer, nor do they mix it with anything else. European and American "smooth" vodkas such as Svedka are more used in mixed drinks and are often chilled, which does reduce further the taste of the strong alcohol content, making it possible to get very drunk without meaning to because the drinks all taste like kool-aid and not booze. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Official Secrets' Act in the UK

Hi, I've looked on the Wikipedia pages for the Official Secrets Acts in the UK (there are multiple pages as there are acts from different years) but they're long, and I haven't found what I'm looking for. I know that people that sign the act can't disclose particular information, for example, those working for GCHQ can't admit to it if they do a secret job. But what if the police asks them what they do? Or a court? I guess courts enact laws, so the GCHQ employee can confidentially release information in court, but because the police only enforce the law, I don't know about them. The GCHQ guide thing [3] doesn't say about talking to the police. I don't work for GCHQ, the SIS, or the Security Service, and I haven't spoken to the police, but I'm just interested. If anyone knows anything, your help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. 134.83.1.243 (talk) 03:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Quibble: Courts only interpret laws, they don't enact them, legislatures do. In the case of the UK, that would be Parliament. StuRat (talk) 04:16, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks; I thought enact meant act out the law, whereas, according to Wiktionary, enact, for law, means to make the law. Learnt something new. :) 134.83.1.243 (talk) 05:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I had to sign the OSA when I was conscripted into the army in 1949, am I still bound by it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.130.94 (talk) 07:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

As Tango states in the post below, we don't give legal advice but if your asking from the point of view as to what you can tell your grandchildren then I can give some context. Most service people were bound by the 30 years rule. For those people working on very sensitive work they were bound by the 60 year rule (I.e. those working at Bletchley Park). Where caution needs to be exercised is that the clock doesn’t start from the date of signing but from the date of that which comes under the OSA – even if you have left the services. The OSA is a catch-all in that respect, 'anything' can be an OS. Even things that are public knowledge but when collected together could be considered useful to an enemy, is covered by the Act. However, common sense should be able to guide you if you just want to pass on to the kids your memoirs (or your recollections to your chums down the local pub). So in answer to your question – you might still be. However, people who posses 'sensitive' information tend to know the context of that information and so can withhold or speak of it accordingly without ending up in the Bloody tower. --Aspro (talk) 22:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

We don't give legal advice, consider asking the army or some other suitable party if you're not satisfied with the advice they provide. Nil Einne (talk) 11:55, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The OSA is an Act of Parliament, so it binds everyone within UK jurisdiction (which includes UK citizens outside the UK). It isn't a contract, so signing it doesn't really do anything. It is just a way to make sure you are aware of your obligations and to prove that you were aware of them. This is explained in our article at Official Secrets Act#United Kingdom 2. --Tango (talk) 17:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

(@134.83.1.243): People in SIS, GCHQ, etc., aren't above the law, so naturally the police can question them like anyone else. When the discussion doesn't about stuff material to their job (like a driving issue) the most they'll be asked is their occupation ("civil servant") or maybe where they work ("in the foreign office in whitehall"). People with secret jobs have a non-lie, non-specific thing they say (in many circumstances) when asked about their job (at cocktail parties, on mortgage applications, and when chatting with Plod) - it's rarely interesting or very secret-sounding ("I'm a civil servant at the home office"). Police enquiries that have nothing to do with the person's job or workplace or their official duties will rarely go beyond that (as they rarely go beyond that for anyone, as it's usually not material what someone does day to day). For enquiries starting in the official domain ("who stole MI-5's paperclips") that gets handled either by the department's internal people, or by the Special Branch (often the Met's special branch). That only leaves a few cases where a non-official enquiry has to probe into an official area (e.g "I have reason to believe there may be child pornography on your government-issue laptop; under the terms of section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, I require you to tell me the secret password"). At that point the secret-agent-man has to say "that covers official materials which may be subject to the terms of the Official Secrets Act"). From there, ordinary Plod knows he has to defer to special-Plod (which is again usually the Special Branch, although not all forces have an SB per se). Chief Officers and other senior usually have the necessary PV to know some secret stuff (at least that the suspect works at SIS and not "universal exports") so if say an SIS officer was suspected of child-porno crime, his case would probably be handled by the relevant Inspector or Chief Inspector (someone who doesn't normally do day-to-day police work any more). Simply saying that something is covered under the OSA isn't that much of a revelation - OSA used to cover all kinds of trivia, and even now it covers a wide range of stuff that's far from the glamourous world of spying. There are probably cases where the great additional bother of conducting an investigation of a relatively minor crime outweighs the public interest in pursuing it, in which case the DPP gets a phonecall from the relevant agency and the prosecution gets dropped under the public interest clause (which they do already in other circumstances, e.g. for stuff that's too expensive to prosecute in comparison to the likely convictions they'd get). I'd imagine that if two SIS officers come to blows in the office over some personal thing, that might only be handled as a discipinary thing rather the assault charges that might arise if it'd happened in a normal office. But serious crime (e.g. if one SIS guy had stabbed another in the office) they'd investigate as above and prosecute as normal. When things get to court, judges can usually be prevailed upon to keep secret stuff out of the record. 87.114.9.76 (talk) 21:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

In regard to stuff that secret-agent-man might do as part of the course of his duty, that would be illegal if you or I did them (bugging phones, intercepting internet traffic, breaking into houses and rummaging through your wife's unmentionables): these days that's handled under a legal framework (the security service act 1989, the prevention of terrorism act and its many children, and RIPA) which specifies the circumstances under which stuff is legal, and what happens to officers who go beyond that. Before then the legality was a bit shadier - MI5, SB, and GCHQ acted in part under the terms of Home Office Warrants (which are essentially documents the Home Secretary signs saying it's okay for them to do otherwise illegal stuff, because it's in the national interest). It was decidedly questionable if the HS had the statutory authority to write these magical "get out of jail free" cards (it's parliament that makes statute, and I don't know of any act that explicitly devolved such sweeping power to the HS, except wartime stuff like DORA). Had the rip-roaring MI-5 of the 1960s and '70s (as described in Wright's perhaps rather fanciful Spycatcher) come before a properly backboned court, its officers might well have been done up for all kinds of stuff, regardless of nice letters from Rab Butler and Roy Jenkins. But they didn't, and were't blinking likely to. 87.114.9.76 (talk) 22:22, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

87.114.9.76 (talk) Thank you so so so much for all that you have written. It is really interesting, and you've been of unbounded assistance. Thank you for your help! 134.83.1.243 (talk) 22:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Treatment for would-be political suicides

No objections were lodged on the talk page to this question, so here goes:

In 2004, there was a liberal (or "progressive") guy who shot himself at Ground Zero in New York because he was despondent at George W. Bush's re-election. It turned out he also had some personal relationship stuff going on that contributed to the suicide, but there have been others who have killed themselves, or tried to, either because of despondency at a political situation or as a political protest. See Szmul Zygielbojm, Jan Palach, Lee Kyung Hae, etc.

When someone is suicidal, or survives a suicide attempt, he or she is taken to a psyche ward. But assuming that such a person does not have something like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, for which there are standard treatment programs of medication and therapy, what would they do with a guy like one of the above-mentioned people if he survived? I can't imagine that a daily Zoloft and a weekly hour with a therapist would solve a problem the guy sees as completely external. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I still think anyone who wants to commit suicide as a protest is rather unbalanced, so they should probably be locked up in the loony bin. StuRat (talk) 04:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, since political protest in many contexts can be suicidal, this implies that the locking up of political dissenters as mentally ill is justified. StuRat, I think you need to look into the subject a little further before making such sweeping statements. You could do worse than start by reading Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

There's a major difference between taking part in a protest at the risk of being killed and outright killing yourself. StuRat (talk) 04:42, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there? If the outcome is inevitable, what is the difference? If suicide by cop is suicide, why isn't suicide by political dissent? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

The difference is intent. If it's your goal to die, then it's suicide. If that's not your goal, then it's not suicide. StuRat (talk) 04:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

And if you goal is to live, then taking part in a political protest may be irrational - which 'justifies' the confinement of protesters as mentally ill. This is a complex issue, and trite responses will get us nowhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, you are oversimplifying things. Just because your goal isn't to die doesn't mean your only goal is to live. Martin Luther King is an example. He realized he might be killed, but that certainly wasn't his goal. Neither was his sole goal to live. Rather he was willing to risk death, without seeking to die. The same was true of Gandhi. StuRat (talk) 05:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

"Just because your goal isn't to die doesn't mean your only goal is to live". Very true. But once one starts portraying apparently-suicidal acts (like political dissent) as 'a goal to die', one can lock up dissenters. The mechanisms of state control implicit in the confinement of the 'mentally ill' are rarely that concerned with intent, in any case. I'd seriously recommend you read Foucault: it is one of his more accessible works, and actually entertaining (in a visiting-the-asylum sort of way) as well as thought-provoking. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

In such a society, they can lock up or kill anyone for any reason, anyway. StuRat (talk) 05:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

How does on distinguish a society that can 'kill anyone for any reason' from one that chooses to do so (or chooses to pretend to do so) for particular reasons? And why does it matter? Martin Luther King chose to pursue a course that substantially increased his chance of an early death, precisely because his only goal wasn't to live, but to make the world a better place to live in. He was apparently wiling to make the sacrifice for a cause, should it be necessary. Political suicides may believe they are making the same choice. They may well be wrong (and I'd suggest that they almost certainly always are), but there is nothing inherently more 'irrational' in their choice than in MLK's. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Using the "ends justifies the means" argument only makes sense if the "means" (possible or certain death) has a reasonable chance of accomplishing the desired "ends" (changing society). Committing suicide is extremely unlike to cause society to change. This makes doing so irrational, while MLK's actions, which were likely to bring about a change in society, were rational. StuRat (talk) 05:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

And who gets to decide whether actions have "a reasonable chance"? Do you think that at the time that MLK carried out his actions, those in a position to decide who was 'rational' (or at least, those in the position to confine those they saw as 'irrational') would have seen his actions as likely to bring about change? And would this have made them more, or less, likely to confine him? AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

That his actions were bringing about change was irrefutable (that's why his enemies hated him so much). At each step in the process some goal was accomplished. StuRat (talk) 06:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, hindsight is rarely used in the diagnosis of 'mental illness'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:22, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If you're trying to judge someone's sanity, you'd better look at what happened in their past. And, unless you're talking about MLK's first protests, he would have already had a record of success. StuRat (talk) 08:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

While this isn't an area I know much about, I don't believe treatment of suicide attempts is as simple as you question seems to suggest. Even in more for lack of a better word, 'ordinary' cases, people who have tried to take their own lives may not suffer from something like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder although may have a range of conditions which may be subject to psyhiatric care (particularly I believe depression). Take a look at these cases of self-immolation, [4] [5], while in nearly every case the people had pre-existing contact with mental health care institutions, their individual cases are quite variable and quite a few didn't have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, so the treatement is often fairly individualised. (Most of these appear to be the more 'ordinary' cases rather then attempts at a political statement or whatever.) Self-immolation is probably a rare form of suicide in the developed Western world, [6] [7] [8] [9] but may be more common elsewhere. [10] [11] while concentrating on intervention before any attempts are likely also relevant. Similarly [12] while discussing suicides in the Aboriginal Australian context may be useful as it discusses various types of suicide. I think [13] may also be relevant since it emphasises you have to take care not to read too much into a suicide, while it may be seen like a political statement or have had that effect, that may not always be the primary intention or cause. There may very well be features common with more 'ordinary' suicides like depression, with or without 'good reason'. Nil Einne (talk) 11:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I don't want to get too much in to the debate above, I believe there's now general acceptance in medical ethics that people on a hunger-strike shouldn't be force fed if they are capable of forming a rational and unimpaired judgement (see Declaration of Tokyo) although this doesn't seem to be followed a lot of the time. While there's sometime similar sentiment people who attempt suicide shouldn't be treated if they make a rational decision to refuse treatment [14]/[15], I think it's rare that this is followed. (And of course arises much more in cases when the person has a terminal illness or similar although [16] mentionmed in the earlier sources was not such a case.) The discussion above appeared to be more trying to stop future attempts but similar issues arise there. Suicide intervention claims (without sources) that in the US anyone who expresses the intent to harm themselves is 'automatically determined to lack the present mental capacity to refuse treatment'. I think the number of 'political' cases in the developed world is probably small enough that it's not something commonly considered in ethics cases anyway. Further, I think it's generally accepted one of the reasons why many suicide attempts fail is because the person didn't really want to die (perhaps realising so after the attempt but when there was still hope). If a person really wants to commit suicide for political reasons, this issue won't arise so the proportion of failed suicides may be lower. (And unlike in terminal illness cases, the person may not suffer physical limitations making it more difficult.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Although on a superficial level the cause of the suicide may look to be external, there's almost always an internal component. It's really not "my wife left me, so I'm going to kill myself", or "the creditors are hounding me, so I'm going to kill myself" or "George Bush got reelected, so I'm going to kill myself", but rather it's more "my wife left me, which makes me think my life is worthless, so I'm going to kill myself", or "the creditors are hounding me, and I don't see any way out, so I'm going to kill myself" or "George Bush got reelected, which causes me to think that the world is irrevocably broken, so I'm going to kill myself". Therapy or medication can potentially help someone get over whatever internal mental process is equating some (completely survivable) external event with justification for killing themselves. Of course therapy won't cause Bush not to get reelected, but it may cause you understand there are ways of dealing with it other than ending your life. -- 71.35.120.88 (talk) 17:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

So could Jan Palach have been talked into accepting a life under Communism at a time when there was no inkling that the system would ever be dismantled in his lifetime? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Shortest Featured Article in Wikipedia

What is the shortest FA in Wikipedia? --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Possibly Miss Meyers. See Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_statistics#Ten_shortest_articles_2. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I asked this question because I will nominate A Free Ride for FAC if it is listed as a GA. So I need to look at another short article. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 06:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible to rent music stands in the San Diego area?

Is it possible to rent multiple music stands and have them delivered to a location for a one time event in the San Diego area? Who can we contact?--128.54.193.69 (talk) 08:36, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

A large music store might do that. StuRat (talk) 08:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

These people rent them in San Diego. There seems to be quite a lot of companies doing this. I found them by googling "music equipment rental". --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Paint.NET

How Do You Make animations in Paint.NET?98.71.63.61 (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

apparently, you can use a downloadable plugin to do this: see the Paint.net forum [17].

I've not tried this myself, so I can't say how effective it is. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

No download.98.71.63.61 (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

There is a working link for the download at the bottom of the first posting in the thread: it is labelled 'AnimationEffect v0.85.zip'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Paint.NET does not have native support for animated images. However, I have used this plugin and it works quite well. (The download link can be found at the top of the page) To create an animated GIF or PNG, create one animation segment in each layer. Every layer is considered a separate animation frame. When you press "Save", select the ".agif" file format. The plugin saves the .gif file with a .agif file extension so in order for a browser to recognize the file, you need to change the file extension to .gif. (If you use windows, right click on the file and select "rename"). If you have any questions, I would be happy to help. Best, Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 22:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

When I'm animating through microsoft paint, which I gather is broadly similar, I just open up windows live movie maker, go to add image and select all the scenes I want to add and the time I want between each of them, works perfectly and pretty simple too. 148.197.81.179 (talk) 11:17, 9 March 2012 (UTC)