Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2006 October 28

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October 28

Wristwatch in the movie "Jaws" (1975)

A question to which I have not found an answer. Think back to the night scene aboard the Orca, when the men were swapping stories about injuries, and Quint gave the immortal speech about the USS Indianapolis. What kind of watch was Richard Dreyfuss' character Hooper wearing in this scene? Thanks!! Captain Fog 01:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Captain Fog

heaters for aquariums

i'm buying a heater for my betta whose in a 10 gallon tank. does anybody know the cost of one that is pretty cheap but still ok? i went to "breeding bettas" and other sites, but they're not very specific. -Dixie48

• Try the classifieds in your local newspaper or on craigslist for a used one. -THB 03:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a really small heater, and you're local Walmart (whatever!) will have good ones. --Zeizmic 14:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC) thanks!

A quick question about plants

Hello, everybody. I just want to know one thing. I am planning to go to Philmont Scout Ranch in July of 2006 (this coming summer). My Scoutmaster advised me to go look at what kinds of poisonous plants are in that area. I immediatly thought of this place. Please help out as much as you can. Thanks and have a good day!!--Chilifix 03:03, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Try Category:Poisonous plants. Probably the ones your scoutmaster is thinking about poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. Please don't forget to practice Leave No Trace ethics, and have fun! -THB 03:12, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• • Oh, and to remember about the poisonous plants, "Leaves of three, let it be". -THB 03:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• • • Thank you very much, THB!!! And yes, I will try to follow the Leave No Trace thing.--Chilifix 03:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Price of a Fender Strat

This is going to be pretty obscure - but can anyone supply the price range of a Fender Stratocaster in 1967? I'm not asking what it'll be worth today, but what it would've cost then, in US dollars of course.

Someone with a late 60s' Fender catalogue would be of much help, or anyone else who's willing to help.

Thanks Harwoof 03:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly but sorta [1]. This looks like the bible, maybe your local library has it or can get it on library exchange [2]. --Justanother 13:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

FPS in doom movie

Its true that in DVD of Doom (film), you can do something to watch the ENTIRE moving in fps view???

No, that's silly. They would have had to film the entire movie twice. X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 04:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Would you eat crow if they really had done that? --Kjoonlee 09:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Crow can be tasty when prepared correclty. :) X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 08:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Not so silly IMO. They would have needed one extra camera attached to the active actor. All DVD players support different camera angles if the DVD's support them. Check if the Doom DVD has a 'camera angle' setup or something. It would not be something special or hidden I don't think. Sandman30s 12:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Line from Broadway Musical 50's or 60's

I vividly recall a line from a Broadway Musical that was said by the lead, unfortunatedly I cannot recall the name of the show, the year, or the character. The line is"...the Mexican Avenue Express?" Can anyone help me? Thanks John (email removed)

Are you sure it's Mexican and not Lexington? User:Zoe|(talk) 19:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

concerned about educational policy

should education be concerned with question of values, personal convictions or with only descriptive knowledge in specialized areas like physis economics etc..?

To educate is to give "intellectual, moral and social instruction" Concise Oxford. Meredith----

values and personal convictions cannot be taught, they can only be decided on by the individual. parents and societal institutions such as schools can influence those decisions through positive and negative stimuli, and i think each has an obligation to provide young people with tools to examine their values, and evaluate philosophical arguments in general, but after about age 5 it's extremely difficult to indoctrinate most people into any particular belief system or system of values. Lrpelkey 11:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think that anybody else's answer to your 'should' question will be of any greater weight than your own answer? --ColinFine 13:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Why do you(Lrpelkey) say after age 5? Surely later than that. I was a hardcore libertarian for years until recently I became staunchly anti-libertarian.(I'm in my 20's now)

So you changed from hardcore to staunchly. Not that big a change, I'd say. :) Hopefully, with the years, the insight will come that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. DirkvdM 06:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

School should not teach a specific set of values, religion or such because there are loads of varieties. In stead, if it does deal with the subject, it should give an overview of at least the major ones and inspire pupils to think about them through discussions. DirkvdM 06:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

musical notation displayed in Wikepedia pages

where can i find a font that will accurately display music notation found in Wikipedia pages? is this something i can enable my browser to do automatically, or is there some central location on this site for system/browser utilities specific to Wikipedia content?

little blank boxes are driving me nuts. thanks in advance, and PEACE --10:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)~

• Hi, are you using Internet Explorer, by any chance? If your main font doesn't include the necessary characters, IE will not display them properly. Mozilla Firefox can make use of substitute characters from other fonts, if necessary. So you can either:
  1. Switch to a font that has more characters, such as Arial Unicode MS or Lucida Sans Unicode or DejaVu fonts
  2. Install more fonts and move to a browser with a "character fallback" feature --Kjoonlee 14:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Porsche model cars

Anyone know who made the first model representation of a Porsche sports car?

RALPH.

Isn't a Porsche sports car a model of a Porsche sports car? Vitriol 00:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Bakufuu Slash!! Kizna Arashi

what is this game? ive heard that its an eye toy game for the PS2.Will it ever be released in North America?thanks

Try Google. Guessing by the hits, I say it's very doubtful it will see a NA release. —Mitaphane _talk 18:51, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

WTF is "<>"?

one time i was reading a manga.The main charcter had meet an American kid,and whenever that American kid spoke, there was these signs;< >.For example:<oh what a lucky hit that was!>.But after a while those things stopped appearing,but they kept appearing on other American kids in that manga series.

I think it's a visual indication that the character is supposed to be speaking a foreign language. When you read the manga translated to English, the characters still speak in Japanese, only you get to read it in English. The <> thing means the character really is speaking English, or another non-Japanese language. It was the same way in 1980s Marvel comics. <> meant the character was speaking a non-English language. JIP | Talk 13:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a comics convention, see Speech_balloon#Foreign_languages. It's mainly an American thing (I think it originated and was standardized in 70's-80's Marvel comics) and was likely added by the American editor. 惑乱 分からん 13:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Incomplete information

–Price Chopper headquarters is identified as being in Rotterdam, New York, Can you provide full address including zip code?

From the whois

  Registrant:
  The Golub Corporation   
  501 Duanesburg Road 
  Schenectady, NY 12306 

Also switchboard.com is best for searching but I will leave that up to you. --Justanother 17:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it legal

Is it legal to sell yourself into slavery.

To the degree that slavery is illegal I imagine it doesn't matter who does the selling as I think it is the owning of slaves that is usually prohibited. --Justanother 17:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

In the U.S. in the colonial period, many immigrants came over "on credit" without having the money for passage. The arrivals who owed for passage were then auctioned off as indentured servants for a term such as 7 years to the highest bidder, to reimburse the shipping company. Today, illegal immigrants from some Asian countries are smuggled into the US in cargo containers and basically sold to people such as factory or restaurant owners for a very high cost of passage, and are made to live in horrible conditions until their debt is paid. Other people worldwide are trafficked for sex work and treated as slaves, sometimes with a payment to their families. So it used to be done under color of law, and it is still done and the laws not enforced.Edison 17:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Indentured servitude was quite different from slavery. Also, it was rare for the term of service to extend as long as seven years. Three or four years was more common. Durova 23:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. See prostitution. --Shantavira 18:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

If you could, who would get the money? 8-)--Light current 18:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yourself or your family presumably --froth^{T C} 19:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Not in the US, all slavery is forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. —Mitaphane _talk 19:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What if you're wearing a mask? --Trovatore 20:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

THats not funny!--Light current 20:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeesh, I hate to explain my jokes. But it occurred to me that this exchange will be archived, and people won't remember the context, so I'd better. The context is that there has been a rash of trollish questions where the questioner asks if some outrageous thing is legal, like beating someone to death with a cactus. Then he asks if it's legal if you're wearing a mask when you do it. --Trovatore 20:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes Im well aware of that. But we must not now be funny on pain of blocking. See my talk page 8-(--Light current 21:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I dont think its possible to sell yourself in to slavery. THe question is ill posed.--Light current 20:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Not so. In ancient Rome people in debt would sell themselves into slavery to pay off their debt. Plautus wrote about this as the basis for some of his comedies. Of course, you could also buy yourself out of slavery at a later date of you could generate enough money to do so (so you were not perpetually enslaved). Selling oneself into perpetual slavery is an interesting philosophical proposition. John Stuart Mill considered this in On Liberty (1859):

"By selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself.... The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom to be allowed to alienate his freedom"

In other words, Mill refuses to allow a person voluntarily to sell himself into perpetual slavery. However, one could infer, he probably would permit one to sell oneself into some type of contractual slavery (as the Romans essentially did). Rockpocket 21:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Contractual slave = indentured servant. StuRat 00:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey thats not funny. So its allowed 8-)--Light current 00:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not allowed if owning slaves is illegal. --Justanother 02:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There are many examples of laws that prohibit the purchase of illicit drugs but do not per se prohibit the selling of such drugs. Obviously selling and buying go hand in hand, so the practical effect is a ban on both parts of the transaction. JackofOz 07:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It's typically the other way around, it is illegal to sell something illicit, but not to buy or own it. This was the case for alcohol in the US under Prohibition, which banned the sale, production, and distribution of alcohol, but not the purchase or possession. This was so they wouldn't have to find prison space for the millions of people who would continue to buy alcohol, no matter what silly laws were passed. StuRat 17:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Clocks turning

Is there an article which shows, with good overview, IN WHAT PARTS OF THE WORLD, at which times, clocks are set back/forward? Is America's one-hour-back happening this weekend, or next..? 81.93.102.3 19:51, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Spring forward, fall back. Seriously 8-)--Light current 20:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

That really doesn't answer his or her question, LC. In the US the clocks go back to standard time on the last Sunday in October (October 29, 2006). The time is adjusted at 2 AM. Our article on Daylight saving time is pretty comprehensive in covering the subject globally. Rockpocket 20:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I should add, of course, that there are variations in different states (see here) and that in 2006 the date changes to the first Sunday in November (November 4, 2006). Rockpocket 20:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well in the UK we change at 2.00 AM 29 October. I think well then be back on GMT (we have been ob BST) No joke!--Light current 20:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe the plan is to change the spring forward/fall back dates next year in the US. Personally, I think time zones (and especially daylight savings times) are all just foolishness, and we should all use UTC, instead. StuRat 23:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

They are done for reasons that I cant quite remember now. 8-|--Light current 23:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

You should try visiting Russia - where all the railway timetables show Moscow time, even though local time can be up to 9 hours different! -- Arwel (talk) 15:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't have any trouble with that, just set your watch to Moscow time and you always know when trains will arrive, no matter where you are in Russia. The only problem is in trying to relate that to others who are still using those silly time zones. The solution, get rid of the silly time zones. StuRat 22:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I gather the most efficient means against the silliness of timezones is to fit two enormous jet engines on sides of the equator, and turn these off and on to stop earth from rotating. Thank you for your answers! 213.161.190.228 08:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

F-14's and UFOs

Is there any relation between UFO's and F-14's? Any encounters? Any UFO's that turned out to be a F-14? Thanks, Myth

Look at the article UFO.--Taida 20:44, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Pointing or linking to diffs in the page history

moved to Help desk--Light current 22:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a n antivandalbot didn't revert you this time! ^_^ Hyenaste ^(tell) 23:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yers!. It did the last time. Id forgotten about that!--Light current 00:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

"Cut off" sound

What is the name for (and is there a Wikipedia article on) the sound that is sometimes used when music is "cut off". The only example I can think of is in the infamous tastless 9/11 tribute on YouTube (the sound between the Enya song and Yakety Sax). It sounds a bit like when you're turning the dial on a radio. Thanks. --Adam (Talk) 22:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

That's probably the sound made when the needle on a turntable is carelessly pulled off a vinyl record. If you hear that sound, then the record has been scratched. Thus, the sound indicates that somebody was more concerned with stopping the record immediately than with preserving the record. StuRat 22:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Anyone know where I can download this sound off the Web? --Adam (Talk) 23:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Google is your friend. —Mitaphane _talk 20:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it like a rough sounding upward glissando sound?--Light current 00:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)