Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 March 2

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March 2

Telemann vs Vivaldi

Hello. Is it easy for a common, non-musically trained person to mistake Telemann for Vivaldi? I recently heard Telemann's Sonata 3 for 2 violins and my friend (who was not aware of the piece) said it reminded him of Vivaldi; I understood that Vivaldi is better known than Telemann but as a musician I don't know how common people viewed it. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 00:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

They are both composers from the baroque period. I think that a person not used to classical music would be likely to find them similar. Marco polo (talk) 00:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Persons who are used to classical music would also be likely to find them similar. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

...arguably more so, because they could recognise the similarity of style. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:51, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, they were exact contempories. The Baroque musical period is rather a long one, but both of these were doing their best work in and around the 1720s. Whether they actually heard each other's music is another issue. Alansplodge (talk) 09:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

passing along ideas

I recently sent some ideas to the WB Shop and The Price Is Right online store. The ideas I sent to the WB Shop are three different versions of Donna Troy plush dolls. The idea I sent to The Price Is Right online store is a key ring. When I got replies from both stores, they stated they'll pass my idea along. What does that mean? And does it also mean the ideas might be acted upon?24.90.204.234 (talk) 08:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It means they will forward your communication to the people responsible for deciding which products are produced and sold. Don't hold your breath though as far as your ideas being acted on. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It might also be a lie and they have no intention of passing your ideas along. That seems more likely, to be honest. --Viennese Waltz 10:28, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

In many cases, companies (especially production studios/publishing houses like Warner Bros.) will have an official policy of not even reviewing suggestions that are sent in. Since you received a reply, I assume this is not the case. Regardless, though, the chances of anyone choosing to act on your suggestions on a corporate level are very slim. However, I don't think there would be any kind of corporate policy of lying to those who mail in suggestions. It is entirely possible that it was passed along, but don't get your hopes up. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 10:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

If they don't say who — or what — they passed it along to, they may have happily passed it along to the trash bin and not thought of it again. Technically not a lie. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:09, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Companies and individuals who create things are wary of receiving the "great ideas" others want to send them, because even if the great idea is obvious and trivial, or has been done before, if the receiver later markets their own independently created work which is in any way similar, the submitter may claim that "his idea was stolen." Sometimes a trusted intermediary (such as an agent) is the only way to submit your ideas for consideration. If The Price is Right people "accepted" someone's idea for a "talking keychain," a "flashlight keychain" a "glow in the dark keychain," "floating keychain" a "keychain with a 3d image," a "scented keychain" a "keychain with bluetooth connectivity" or a "keychain with a camera" then any such product they might independently develop in the future would be cursed with demands for payment from the unsolicited submitter of the obvious or trivial idea. "Ideas" are cheap. Fully researched ideas, with prototypes, production cost estimates, suppliers, and market research, are not cheap. Edison (talk) 15:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, companies often claim to release products "due to customer demand". There's a difference between submitting an idea for something that might be copyrightable/patentable (like a screenplay or invention) and a more mundane request for e.g. them to release merchandise for your favourite show or put more nuts in your favourite cereal. Hence companies may be more willing to act on the latter. Analyzing customer comments, requests, etc, is an important tool for marketing, so some companies may well keep records of what people are writing about. --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Economist building, london

So, this is fun, suddenly turns out I have an entire university coursework assignment I hadn't heard about before that is due in on monday, I am supposed to be working in a group to produce a short presentation on the above mentioned building, but noone thought to contact me until just recently, and whatever information they have managed to acquire, all I get is these instructions: 'If you would like to analyse the technical and the key characteristics and send me them' Somehow, then, I have to work out what these instructions actually require, find information on the building, which seems rather sparse to me so far, and write up an analysis, in spite of the fact that they are withholding what seems to be a substantial amount of research from me and implying that I am trying to get out of doing any work at all.

Anyways, if anyone here can sort of point me in the right direction regarding where i can find out about this place or what these rather vague instructions mean, that would be very helpful.

148.197.81.179 (talk) 12:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I expect that you've already found this, this and this. The Grade II Listed Building text is here, and the plaza outside is apparently, a rather nice outdoor art gallery. "The Economist Building provides the only outdoor public exhibition space in Central London committed to a continuous programme of sculptural works by contemporary artists". There's some geeky technical stuff here, but you have to subscribe to see it. Alansplodge (talk) 12:11, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you talking about its design and aesthetic impact, or basic area/height/construction data? The former will be easier to find than the latter, although that might be forthcoming from the landlord/owner/The Economist if asked nicely. Acroterion (talk) 18:32, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

This is all completely anecdotal, but the Economist Building is used as the canonical example of why major organisations building new headquarters in Britain try to avoid making them iconic designs. The Economist Building became an iconic design immediately it was finished, with the result that it was listed only 25 years later. That meant its owners were unable after 1988 to make any major changes to adapt the building to their changing needs or to provide more modern facilities. It is said that future buildings are therefore deliberately designed to be slightly bland and thus avoid listing. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:07, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

All I know is what's given in the original post, this was thrust at me at short notice with no explanation, and all I can find are a very few simple bits of information, the height, number of floors and so on, and the odd few words on the place. I'm not even sure how many of the buildings surrounding that plaza are even counted as part of the site. I think I need more advanced tecnical stuff, about the way the structure inside works and how it was built and whatever else. 85.210.118.31 (talk) 23:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The most useful thing I can find online is this book includes plans and some basic details of construction. A search for "Economist Building" and "Smithson" turns up lots of other books only available online in, at best, snippet form, but if you have access to a library, it should be a good start for your search. Warofdreams talk 00:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Christian Values

I was reading a Wiki article on Gothic architecture, which led me to the page on Christian values, as if Christian values influenced the architectural style. Anyway, as I was reading the article on Christian values, I drew a blank in my head, because the "historical" Christian values were the teachings of Christ, and then the article reports that the current "21st century Christian values" are censorship, censorship, and more censorship. I am not sure if I am interpreting this correctly, but it seems that Christian values have changed from something desirable to something undesirable, many of which are political and positions made by Fundamentalist Christians. My question is: so, is the point of the article trying to persuade me to think that modern-day Christians are not following Christ's true teachings, thereby rendering them as unchristian and immoral by the judgement of the Christian God? Or is the article trying to say that modern-day Fundamentalist Christians are misusing the word "Christian values" to fit their own worldly appetites for restrictions on sexual norms? All I can is, the article does not really paint a very bright picture of Christianity, but rather a sexually oppressive religion that rules through fear. WTF? SuperSuperSmarty (talk) 16:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

1. love of God: "You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" ,
2. fidelity in marriage: "Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder"
3. renunciation of worldly goods: "Gather not your riches up upon this earth, for there your heart will be also",
4. renunciation of violence: "If a man strikes you on one cheek, turn the other cheek",
5. forgiveness of sins: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us",
6. unconditional love: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you".

censorship of sexual content, especially in movies and on television the desirability of laws against induced abortion sexual abstinence outside of marriage and abstinence-only education the promotion of intelligent design to be taught in public schools and colleges as an "alternative" to evolution the desirability of laws against same-sex marriage and support for laws against the acceptance of homosexuality into mainstream society the desirability of re-instituting faculty-led prayer in taxpayer-funded schools — Preceding unsigned comment added by SuperSuperSmarty (talk • contribs)

It is important to note that there are many many types of Christians on this planet, with extreme variances in accepted doctrine. For any Christian theological interpretation that you can take, you will find many Christians who believe something completely different. For example, I see the Prosperity Gospel promoted sometimes, but a lot of Christians feel that the Prosperity Gospel is decidedly against the teachings of Jesus. For the purposes of this conversation I'm not saying "one group is wrong, the other is right", but naturally each of the two groups of people that I mentioned believe pretty strongly that the other group is not on the right track. The only way to really answer your question is for you to research what Jesus meant (you can read the texts, look at theological positions, etc), and decide if modern-day Christians are acting according to Jesus's teachings. With my interpretation of things, I see many Christians acting in ways that I find decidedly opposed to Jesus's teachings, as well as many Christians who are working toward what I believe we are called to do. But really, this is a very very subjective question. To get even a half-decent answer, you must first establish what Christian Values are. Falconus^{p t c} 16:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I see that it was you who proposed the listed Christian values (I took the liberty of reformatting them; feel free to undo if you don't want them numbered). By the values that you proposed, do you think that modern Christians are following them? I know many who are following them (making an effort anyway), and I know many who are not following those six examples, per my interpretation at least. Falconus^{p t c} 16:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think most people who called themselves "Christians" historically followed the teachings of Christ, either, particularly pacifism (only a few sects, like the Amish, actually do). What they followed was the Old Testament (pre-Christ) teachings, including killing off you enemies. It's a mystery to me why billions of people have insisted they followed the teachings of Christ, when clearly, they did not. (I don't think pacifism is a good idea, myself, but I don't insist on being called a Christian, either.) StuRat (talk) 17:08, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I see a comparison with communism. In true communism, everyone is supposed to share the wealth equally. The nations which called themselves communist didn't actually do this, though, but only used communism as a propaganda tool while enriching the ruling class on the backs of the workers, same as always. StuRat (talk) 17:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Good point; I learned in Christianity class (which was teaching about Christian history and theologies, not teaching us to be Christians) I recall the teacher making a point that the early Christians were pacifists, but when religion became the religion of the Roman Empire, and the church gained political status, pacifism was discouraged. In any case, as Christianity made the transition from being persecuted to being forced, I believe that there were a lot of complaints about the changes that accompanied on a level of doctrine and who joined (let's face it, the level of commitment is quite different depending on whether becoming Christian is the cool thing to do or if it is likely to get you mauled to death by a lion). Falconus^{p t c} 17:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I took the liberty of adding a wikilink to the page under scrutiny. Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Returning to your original post, in which you ask what is the point of the article in question, the article in fact should not have any point of view, and the only point of an encyclopedia article should be to inform. Any interpretation that you make from that information (for example, that the use of the term Christian values is inconsistent between groups or, going a step further, that some groups' claimed Christian values are not really Christian values) is your own. As Falconus has said, you really can't generalize about Christianity as a whole. It certainly is not true that all or most Christians subscribe to Christian fundamentalism, which is the typical theological basis of the Christian right. For a discussion of the diversity of Christian political views, see Christianity and politics. Marco polo (talk) 18:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

That article is so bad I'm almost tempted to nominate it for deletion. For one thing, the article is strongly leaning toward a POV (as well as bad formatting) in the lede just by listing the teachings of Jesus and Christian teachings in separate paragraphs the way it does. I can think of several ways of fixing that. Second, it only lists American Christian values, when American Christians comprise about a tenth of the worldwide Christian population. And, to boot, the entire article seems to be viewing Christian values from a protestant (southern conservative) paradigm. I'm going to edit this thing... Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 19:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

We Wikipedians are called upon to write articles that demonstrate a neutral point of view. That does definitely not mean "no point of view". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I get that. I honestly do; but the way the article was a few minutes ago was just implying way too much for my taste. It is slightly better now. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 19:59, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

There is more than one definition of point of view. I think my wording made it clear that I intended the second linked definition. Marco polo (talk) 20:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)