Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 November 15

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November 15

Introducing Prime Minister's Questions to Canada

Justin Trudeau promised to introduce Prime Minister's Questions to Canada[1]. But our article Question Period says Canada already has it (like most commonwealth countries). What am I missing here? 731Butai (talk) 01:41, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

In Question Period, members of Parliament can direct questions to any other member (well, to the Speaker of the House, technically), not necessarily to the Prime Minister. In practise, questions are often directed to the PM anyway, but often also to other cabinet members, or to any other member, depending on the issue under discussion. It also takes place every day instead of once a week. For example, if you check the Hansard for the last session of the 41st Parliament in June, click on "Oral Questions" (the official name for Question Period), and as far as I can see, no one asked Stephen Harper any questions and he didn't speak at all. Now the Liberals want to introduce a weekly period where the PM answers questions specifically. The idea is apparently to make the PM "directly accountable to all Canadians". Adam Bishop (talk) 11:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Edit to add that the UK also has Question Time in addition to Prime Minister's Questions, as do other Commonwealth countries. So the introduction of a PMQ session in Canada would be similar to the way things work in the UK Parliament. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:16, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Birthdate of Nicolae Ceauşescu - which calendar?

I asked the following question at Talk:Nicolae Ceauşescu/Archive 3 over 7 years ago, and am still waiting patiently for any response. In the meantime, maybe I'll ask here and see if my luck is any different. Here goes:

• I've looked extensively for any information about this, in vain. Was his date of birth, 26 January 1918, according to the Julian calendar then applying in Romania, or has it been converted to the Gregorian equivalent? This is relevant because Romania did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1919, the year after Ceauşescu's birth.

Thanks in advance. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:49, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, you'll probably never find an answer; the birth records from WW1 are patchy even in paperwork-obsessed countries like Germany, let alone the Balkans. Ceaușescu was born to an alcoholic smallholder in a village near a disputed border in a war zone after four years of war; any "birthdate" is just going to be a nominal "he was born at around this time" date from when the authorities got around to registering the birth. ‑ iridescent 10:08, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand that some published dates do not necessarily represent the "truth", but they're the best we have so we have to go with that. But the question of which calendar was being used is different. There are only 2 possibilities. I think the more likely one is that 26 January was from the Julian calendar in use at the time of his birth. But I have to accept it's possible, if unlikely, that he was born on 13 January (Julian) and at some later time this was converted to 26 January (Gregorian). In the absence of any evidence either way, the question remains unresolved. He may have started out life as a peasant, but he became President of Romania, so I'd be surprised if there were not some reasonably comprehensive biography of him in which this detail is revealed. That's assuming anyone ever knew, one way or the other. Is there any detailed information about how Romania administratively handled the change of the calendars in 1919, particularly as it applied to living people? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:24, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

According to this article (found from following the sources on the ro-wiki version of his bio), his birth certificate was registered on 26 January, but gives his date of birth as 23 January—if that certificate was issued at the time of registration, that would be on the old calendar. It looks like the 26 January date given in the en-wiki article is wrong either way. ‑ iridescent 10:31, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good enough for my purposes. It should be 23 January (Julian; = 5 February Gregorian). I've alerted Talk:Nicolae Ceaușescu to the need to change this. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:34, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

(EC) The Romanian article gives the birth date as the 23rd, with links to two newspaper articles, the second of which [2] has an image of the birth register [3]. According to google translate, 26 is doua zeci si sase and 23 is douazeci si trei (dispensing of diacritics). I see 26 in line 2, and possibly 23 in line 3, where the latter seems to refer to the birth date (s'a nascut). If this is indeed the original birth register, then dates presumably would have been entered according to the calendar then in effect. This birth register appears to be a fairly recent find, the offical date given during his time in power was the 26th. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:36, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

The old boy was unavailable for his 72nd birthday, but he did leave his country a nice Christmas present. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:31, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you could ask here? Contact Basemetal here 12:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Having known a few Roumanians before and during the time of Nicolae Ceauşescu's death, my sympathy lies with Bugs' unhelpful comment: Nicolae Ceauşescu's Dead. μηδείς (talk) 18:39, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks, all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:34, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Horsemill. Would the animal work on its own, or would it always be led by a person?

In a horsemill, used for grinding or other purposes, back in the middle ages and olden times, would there have to be a person running it the whole time to make sure the horse/ox/donkey went round and round in circles without stopping?

Or was there some clever method I am not aware of that "motivated" or somehow made the animal to go round in circles, grinding non-stop? I'm assuming that without a person leading it at all times, the animal would simply stop working... but then, I am asking because I don't know.

2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:55A4:2B34:D86D:81F5 (talk) 20:58, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

If the animal is stupid enough: Carrot in front of mouth attached to stick attached to body. I don't know if the animal is stupid enough. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

As a child I saw a mill which was pressing sorghum (like sugar cane) with a horse or mule walking in a circle. There was a man in attendance, but I don't think he was walking in a circle. He just stood here and encouraged the animal, while feeding sorghum into the press or mill. Many mills or other machines powered by an animal walking in a circle or on a treadmill needed someone to feed raw materials into the machine, or to process the output of the machine. Edison (talk) 22:56, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

What kind of encouragement? Words? Gentle prodding? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:03, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

There are numerous videos of these things in operation. I found Horse powered saw mill, Belize which has a team of eight horses supervised by one man standing in the middle, while the horses go around on their own. Later in the clip, the supervision is done by a small boy. There's also Antique Horse Mill where a single horse does the work apparently unsupervised. However, I also found TEN HORSE-POWERED SWEEP Runs Corn Shredder which seems to take about a dozen people; but judging from the amount of general faffing about, it seems likely that neither the horses nor the humans have ever done this sort of thing before.

As to how you train a horse to do this, I don't know, but in the days when horses and carts made regular delivery rounds, the horses would generally learn the routes and halts without the driver having to tell them. I found this page about Romania where horse-drawn transport is still common, which says "From time to time a cart driver falls asleep at the reins, but even then the horses usually know where to go". Alansplodge (talk) 01:02, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, guys :) 2A02:FE0:C711:5C41:55A4:2B34:D86D:81F5 (talk) 01:47, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

One important factor is that horses are creatures of habit, almost as if they all had OCD. So, once you establish the routine, not only will they be willing to walk in a circle with a harness on, they will feel very much like "something is wrong" if not allowed to do so. Also note that the genetic tendency to avoid work is an evolved method of conserving energy, where starvation is a concern (as it was with people). However, animals not prone to starvation (say if their numbers are limited in other ways, such as predation) may lack this evolutionary adaptation. StuRat (talk) 17:35, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, I learned today that a horse-powered device like this may be called a "whim", although apparently not if its purpose is milling as in the original question. --70.49.170.168 (talk) 05:11, 20 November 2015 (UTC)