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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 July 19

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July 19

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Coin Act 1696

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Where can I find the full text? "Google" isn't the answer. I'd like to know about section 8 of the act, which isn't mentioned in the article. Section 6 prohibited the mixing of copper and silver. Did this apply in all circumstances, or just in a numismatic context? It would be a shame if natural philosophers were prohibited from carrying out chemistry experiments on the properties of the two elements. Nyttend (talk) 04:24, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

According to the virtual Parliament, your paper is somewhere behind this hyperlink. I'm not sure. I don't have Javascript on. Good luck! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:41, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As for Part 2, I'll just guess it only meant coins. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:42, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Found the text through your link, and expanded the article. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 12:22, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Passports during aircraft accidents

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Why the passengers' passports aboard the downed Malaysian MH17 flight (and some other accidents) didn't burn out (if they were inside passengers' cloth, which burned together with the bodies)? 93.174.25.12 (talk) 11:10, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What's the basis of your premise? Who says all the bodies burned? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:14, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
They must not have, since there are apparently lots of intact bodies (and body parts) on the ground, along with lots of intact baggage and plane parts. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:29, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The missile would have fractured the plane and lots of people could have simply fallen out. The fireball occurred when the fuel tank portion hit the ground. There is a widespread debris field, so a lot of the entities probably did not burn. I wonder, though - on an international flight, do the passengers keep their passports, or are they stowed in a safe or something? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:33, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
On an international flight, passengers keep their passports with them at all times. I can't imagine why it would be otherwise.--Shantavira|feed me 12:23, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd heard jokes about Americans being "insular", but this is bizarre... perhaps I should've known better in this case :S --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC) [reply]
A senior citizen who has never travelled overseas is not all that uncommon, and certainly not "bizarre". From about 18 onwards, the older people are, the less likely they are to have travelled (OR), and if they have, the less likely they are to have travelled multiple times (OR). -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 23:48, 19 July 2014 (UTC) [reply]
I've seen footage of a witness describing seeing bodies falling out of the sky. And there's plenty of unburnt personal effects in amongst the burnt wreckage. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 11:39, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are actually pictures or largely unburnt bodies if you look in certain places too. I don't suggest the be linked to from here. As for the photo with lots of passports piled up. I'm not sure if this was mostly for the photo. It wouldn't be surprising if someone thought it would help identify victims to gather all the passports even if it wasn't necessary and probably made things worse. Nil Einne (talk) 21:17, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if the OP has seen pics, similar to those I've seen, which are passports piled up after tragedies like this. I think there's a term for news photographer setting up pictures like this but I can't remember what it is right now (e.g. deaths of young children so the photographers set up a scene with a teddy bear) 87.113.181.226 (talk) 13:34, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what the term is, but I'm fairly certain I saw a clip of seemingly pristine passports being shown kind of the way you're describing. Actually from the crash, or file footage, I'm not totally sure. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:23, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When I've travelled long haul, I tend to keep my passport in a shirt or jacket pocket, or if I'm not going to sleep, in my hand luggage nearby. There are plenty of pictures of intact baggage from MH17. There's no reason to believe that passports stored within such intact baggage would have been spontaneously destroyed. Therefore passports can and regularly do survive such accidents. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:27, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When the plane breaks up suddenly, anything that is not very tightly fixed to the plane will be blown out of the plane. Initially, there is a big pressure difference between the inside and outside air which causes the air to rush out, and then everything gets exposed to the outside air, but at a relative speed of more than 800 km/h. The friction from the air at that speed leads to small objects being blown backward very fast. In a matter of seconds there will be a speed difference of hundreds of km/h between the severely damaged plane and the people and objects that have been blown out of the plane. Count Iblis (talk) 18:24, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is true—it's not uncommon for bodies to be found naked (or nearly so) after this sort of disaster—but it doesn't mean the passports will be destroyed, only that they will be separated from their owners' remains. --50.100.189.160 (talk) 04:37, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of current constituent African monarchs

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Hello,

first, I must commend this article and other articles about traditional rulers.

Does anyone have any information about how many traditional rulers (kings, sultans, emirs etc.) that exist in the world today? I am sure they must be some sort of list that contains such info as it is known how many tribes/peoples there are.

Thank you,

with best regards

Morten Norway — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mortennorway (talk • contribs) 15:55, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "traditional rulers"? The 1905 referendum restored the traditional rulers of the House of Oldenburg instead of the French rulers of the past 87 years. However, your link makes me guess that you're more interested in tribal rulers, so it would help if you'd clarify what you're asking about. Nyttend (talk) 21:51, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From our List of monarchies article:
African constitutional monarchies
African absolute monarchies
African subnational monarchies
There may be others that haven't made it into our article, perhaps somebody else can think of some. Alansplodge (talk) 23:12, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this is germane to the discussion, but Hugh Quarshie traced his ancestry and is possibly the current Chief of Abe in Ghana, according to this article. Is the OP more interested in rulers of larger tribal areas? --TammyMoet (talk) 08:54, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Missing from the list are at least three traditional monarchies in South Africa: Zulu, Bafokeng and Balobedu. These just off the top of my head, there may be other tribal leaders with royal status that I'm not aware of. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:47, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sodanomics

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Why would a store (I've observed this in Walgreens and CVS, pharmacies, and Food Lion, a grocery store) sell 20 oz bottles of soda for $1.79 and larger 1.25L bottles (42.2 oz, over twice as much) of the same soda for 99 cents? Is there evidence that the price premium for the less soda is due to the increased handiness of the smaller portion size? 75.75.42.89 (talk) 17:05, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not any sort of convenience fee, it's just prices being raised on people either not paying attention or not caring. The manufacturers, distributors, and sellers know that the smaller bottles sell better so they throw on a ton of mark up. One of the guys who filled the soda fridges at my last job said you can get the 20 oz bottle for pocket change at the factory. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:29, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the bit about customers who don't care or pay attention (or aren't able to do the math). These seemingly illogical prices are in reality part of a price differentiation strategy. In the US, we also have a mixture of ounce and liter measurements, making it rather difficult to compare the cost of a 20 ounce bottle with a 2 liter bottle. I suspect that this is intentional on the part of the bottlers, who don't want people comparing to find the best price. Constantly changing prices also make it more difficult to compare, as you would have to run continuous comparisons of all sizes in each place you shop. StuRat (talk) 12:41, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

75.75.42.89 -- Are you sure they're in the same state of refrigeration? It's quite common for convenience stores to charge a high premium for instant cold gratification... AnonMoos (talk) 20:04, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And quite common for the supplier to pay supermarkets for the privilege of having its wares sold right next to the tills. --NellieBly (talk) 03:22, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I used to buy the 650ml "contour bottles" (one per day, refrigerated) from the work restaurant. The work restaurant, cleverly but certainly not inappropriately, stocked neither smaller nor larger sizes of the same cola. (This is similar to how larger supermarkets have such bottles, and often the smaller cans, in the "ready to go" refrigerated area near the door, with the better value large sizes in more distant areas of the store.)
One of my colleagues who had a bit of a problem with excessive sugar intake, would instead bring in his own 2 litre bottle of cola, and just swig straight out of the bottle, which looked a bit odd in the workplace. I'm not sure how many he got through in a day.
These days I buy 330ml cans in the supermarket, in packs of 8, 12 or 20 depending on whatever the best offer that week is, and carry them into work myself, two per day. Another thing that's changed (in the workplaces I've seen in the UK that have externally serviced restaurants) is that such places no longer permit the employer to locate a (free) water cooler in the eating area. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:25, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that most people won't finish a 2 liter bottle in one day (and shouldn't, due to the amount of sugar/corn syrup), so it will tend to go flat. This might explain why it's a less popular choice. StuRat (talk) 12:41, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer 1.5 or 2 liter containers to aluminum cans or glass bottles for home consumption, because once you open a can or glass bottle, you have to drink it all fairly quickly or throw it away, while with plastic screw-top containers, you can take irregular swigs as you choose. For some reason apple soda here seems to have a different style of carbonation or interaction with carbonation, and doesn't go flat as quickly as some others... AnonMoos (talk) 15:46, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Once that goes flat you would have something similar to apple juice, which is still drinkable. With normal soda you end up with just sugar water (corn syrup water, actually), which doesn't taste very good at all, unless you're a hummingbird. :-) StuRat (talk) 17:13, 20 July 2014 (UTC) [reply]
One thing User:AnonMoos may like about the UK and many parts of Europe (I don't know where you live), is that 650ml soda bottles here are all plastic screw-top containers. Of course, that also means they don't sell them in packs (mostly), but only expensively individually. For home consumption, I do exactly what you do, and I even keep separate supplies of caffeinated and decaffeinated for different circumstances. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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