Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 August 28

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August 28

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

Why were Frankincense and Myrrh considered valuable? Aren't they just a bunch of smelly tree sap (that anyone could easily get if they felt like it for some reason)? --76.211.88.37 (talk) 00:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, anybody who lived in certain parts of Yemen or Somalia could just go out into the desert and get some. Looie496 (talk) 00:51, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Being a natural product doesn't make something not valuable. Saffron is very expensive. --Jayron32 02:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Our articles on Frankincense and Myrrh suggest that both have medicinal properties, for what it is worth. And why is Gold valuable: all you have to do is find a source, then dig it out of the ground... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

76.211.88.37 -- In Hellenistic and Roman times, "aromatic resins" such as Frankincense and Myrrh had extremely important ceremonial, ritual, and medical uses in the Mediterranean civilizations, and there was a regular trade in such substances from "Arabia Felix" (Yemen and southern Arabia) to the Mediterranean. There was an interesting article about the "Rise and Fall of Arabia Felix" (due to the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity reducing demand, among other factors) published in Scientific American in 1969... AnonMoos (talk) 03:25, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that, unlike then, gold is now pretty hard to mine, since we've exhausted all the easy-to-access supplies. Spices, on the other hand, are now much easier to produce, thanks to modern mass production and shipping methods. The result is that the price of spices has gone down, relative to gold, to a dramatic degree. StuRat (talk) 03:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

A bit cheaper now; this ecclesiastical supplier quotes GBP10.13 (USD16.50) retail for 400 grams - almost a pound (weight). Although the harvesting and sorting seems to have remained unchanged, I suspect that the transport costs and risks are lower than in the 1st century AD. Cities like Petra made immense profits by taxing the overland incense trade[1]; the only alternative to stumping up bags of cash everytime a caravan went through a town, was a hazardous sea voyage. Alansplodge (talk)

It's odd to use the phrasing "considered valuable." Things are valuable if people are willing to pay for them. There's nothing "considered" about it. They were either valuable or not. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe odd phrasing, but I read the question as asking why people were willing to pay for them. Alansplodge (talk) 22:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I would expect that the finest perfumes cost more then gold even today. Googlemeister (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Without correcting for the effect of taxes, Chanel No. 5 - to pick an arbitrary but fairly prominent example - costs about £6 per ml, or $10, from a UK high street retailer. If we assume it's about as dense as water, that makes it ~$10,000 per kilo, compared to a current gold market price of ~$60,000 per kilo. It seems quite plausible that the most expensive end of the market is over six times more than this! Shimgray | talk | 15:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And if you subtract the weight of the water and alcohol, the value of the active perfume ingredients is probably already more than gold. Similarly, many meds are likely more expensive than gold, especially if you only consider the active ingredients. StuRat (talk) 22:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

On his second coming, I suppose he be given printer ink cartridges, parking permits and full healthcare cover.--Aspro (talk) 15:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Gaddafi and Rice

Did Gaddafi dated Condoleeza Rice? --DinoXYZ (talk) 01:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

No. --Jayron32 02:02, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Apparently he had a fan photo album which the State Department has called "creepy"[2] and given their diplomatic relations, I suppose he probably got a handshake out of giving up his nuclear program, but I doubt he got to first base. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 06:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a really interesting result of Gaddafi's ideology though. He thinks that black Africans are the superior race and will eventually rule the world. This is one reason why he was interested in a pan-African union recently, and he liked to use black Africans as mercenaries (which is not working out so well for any black people in Libya right now, mercenary or not). And of course, he was in love with the most powerful black woman he had ever met. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:50, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

If he had ever met Oprah, history might have been changed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Gaddafi's whereabouts

Where is Gaddafi? --DinoXYZ (talk) 01:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

No one is sure. I believe the last positive confirmation of his whereabouts was about a week ago; per 2011_Battle_of_Tripoli#Status_of_Gaddafi_family. --Jayron32 02:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I guess someone knows, but they're telling neither the media nor the rebels. HiLo48 (talk) 02:07, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Some news sources have been batting around the possibility that he was granted asylum in Algeria [3]. It's likely that he'll turn up in the next few weeks, either captured or killed in Libya, or gloating from some allied nation. Buddy431 (talk) 02:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I wonder why anyone thinks we would have information about Gaddafi that is not known to the military authorities, or to the world at large via the media. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 03:56, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the questioner is an intelligence agent trying to win the reward. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 04:56, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I just heard a noise under my house, maybe he's hiding out in my crawl space. StuRat (talk) 04:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure it's not a rat, Stu? HiLo48 (talk) 04:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the tunnels from his palaces leads to a under-water dock; he escaped in a submarine to Ireland, where he met up with Lord Lucan and is currently riding around the Cork and Kerry Mountains on Shergar. -- CS Miller (talk) 23:24, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Crawl space is right, Stu but in this case it is located in one of the million or so tenement buildings which American Islamic spies have found and converted to secret apartments and living space. Check you basements for undocumented crawl space construction and living space. --96.252.229.48 (talk) 00:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

EARTH. Googlemeister (talk) 14:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually he's working as a lifeguard at a popular seaside resort in Sicily. I know this because he swam out in the open sea to rescue me as I was about to be swept away by a powerful current.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

How appropriate, since he was just swept away by a powerful current in history. StuRat (talk) 07:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking for relatives in Germany

This has been moved from the help desk with a link to here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

My wife left Kindelbruck in 1953 and emigrated to Canada in 1959. She still has 2 sisters living in Kindelbruk. Charlotte Hafermalz and Margaret Lausze. We have attempted a few times to sent letters and birthday/Christmas card, but there is no response to any of our correspondence. Can you clarify for us if they are still alive? Are they still living in Kindelbruck and if so could you supply us with proper addresses Since my wife is totally blind I am writing this letter,

On behalf of my wife Gertrude I as her husband am writing this letter

(Redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.219.110 (talk) 00:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I have moved your post to here, which is a better forum to receive an answer. I do not speak German but I have performed a search. The two links below this post are the best I can do. They are telephone book listings. I searched the exact names you provided in Kindelbrück. I found nothing for either entry but I did find some listings for people with the same last names. It's very possible these people are completely unrelated but it's also possible they are relatives. I have no idea. Meanwhile, maybe some other people will be able to provide a more targeted answer.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

• German "White Pages" listings for Hafermalz.
• German "White Pages" listings for Lausze.

Kindelbrück in Thüringia is a township of some 1 750 inhabitants, so it seems likely that the people listed above are relatives of you wife. There is an email contact for the administration of the district, poststelle@vg-kindelbrueck.de. You or your wife may consider to write to the officials in person. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

PS: If you need help (I am a native German speaker), please leave a message on my talk page. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Also try the same telephone book listing as above with the names Margaret and Charlotte. Both search turn out results (Müller Margarete, Böttcher Charlotte and Grube Charlotte). Maybe they changed their names in the mean time. Quest09 (talk) 11:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Zecco can't give a history of stocks' asking prices. Anyplace that will?

See, when I try to buy CYBL for .0001 each, it says .0001 at the moment but the asking is .0002. I'd rather wait until it's .0001, where it CAN'T go any lower, so that every time the price goes up, I would only gain; I would never lose (anything but the commission.)

I tried asking Zecco's customer service for where I could find a graph/chart of historical asking prices for Cyberlux Corporation. They didn't have such a feature. Therefore, I must ask: What other financial reporting services (preferably free) will have a graph/chart of the historical asking prices of any given stock? Also, is it possible for any stock's asking price to reach .0001? (I've never seen asking prices fall below .0002...)

(N.B. As a college student, I need to start small, so I ought to invest in the tiniest stocks first. I'll be investing $300 in CYBL in the next few days, hopefully at $0.0001 per share so that I'll have 3,000,000 shares. If it isn't possible, I guess I'll have to invest 1,500,000 shares at .0002 each.) --70.179.163.168 (talk) 09:49, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I can't answer your question directly, but befor handing over any investment money it would be wise to get some investment advice, perhaps from an economics educator or other apropriate person.190.56.112.245 (talk) 22:52, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no way to buy any stock so that there is no possibility of loss. Stock can become totally worthless, so you can always lose 100% of what you invested. (Imagine a company that goes bankrupt and closes - their investors aren't going to be able to sell their stock, so it will have a $0 value.) I'd recommend reading a beginner's guide to investing and personal finance, because "invest[ing] in the tiniest stocks first" is a pretty bad strategy, even if you don't have much money. I'd recommend I Will Teach You to Be Rich, which at times is overly-basic and annoyingly-written, but is an excellent personal finance book targeted at the 20-35 crowd. Probably a more sensible investment strategy would be to buy equity-heavy index funds (because you are young and can tolerate risk). If you start an account at Vanguard, you can trade their index funds commission-free. (Same with Schwab, but their index funds have higher expenses.) Anyways, that's my two cents. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, if a company goes bankrupt, the shares are usually canceled with no reimbursement for common shareholders. I'm not familiar with Cyberlux but any company trading at 1/100th of a cent must be considered at high risk of bankruptcy by the market. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The reason why you don't see ask prices reach 0.0001 is because those who are selling want to make a profit off of their trades, and selling at 0.0001 would very likely not make a profit. You can read about market makers to learn more about who "they" are in this case. Good luck, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Is there any reason why it can't be .00016 or .00022 and it just gets rounded? In any case, this seems like a great way to lose $$$ as for stocks like these you can not guarantee a buyer. Googlemeister (talk) 15:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That's what the market maker concept is all about. Each over-the-counter security (such as CYBL) has a designated market maker that is responsible for providing market liquidity for that security. They will always buy the stock. Have you ever wondered why you can just immediately sell stock in seconds without your broker having to go find a willing buyer? It's because there's a market maker who will always buy it. The concept of ask price vs. bid price is usually the result of market makers wanting to make a profit off of the stocks they are compelled to buy. As for rounding prices: I believe, but cannot verify, that it is the convention of the Pink Sheets (where CYBL is traded) that stocks are priced to the ten-thousandth. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand about the market maker concept, but I don't see how it can apply in a situation with an essentially worthless stock. How are they going to implement a bid/ask spread if the stock is already denominated at the lowest non-zero value? Googlemeister (talk) 13:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)