Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 December 15

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December 15

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base images

I'm looking for FREE or very CHEAP satellite/birds-eye aerial photography of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. (GoogleEarth is great, but to license the image for the use I want it for would cost hundreds of dollars). Are any of you sleuths able to locate any? The NASA imagery looked too low-res for my purposes. It doesn't have to be super-high res as a whole, but you the camp should be easily visible and centered in the view at about 720X480 resolution. Thanks. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Um no? Talk to one of your fellow terrorists. I'm sure the US military isn't in the business of making high-res aerial photos of its military installations available "for FREE or very CHEAP". --ffroth 05:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Har har. I just need as high res as is already easily available on Google Earth but with easier licensing schemes. It ain't exactly secret stuff. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

There are tons of satellite images from the MODIS sensors of the Terra and Aqua satellites at MODIS Rapid Response website. Click the "Real-time" link at the top for the main gallery and archive. Learning how to use the website and find images of a specific place takes some time, and even then there's a good chance the site will be covered by clouds. Still, the satellites scan practically the whole planet repeatedly on a fairly quick cycle. The images are far larger than 720x840 pixels. The maximum resolution of the imagery is 250 meters per pixel. The website contains enormous amounts of imagery, perhaps you can find what you want there. Be warned though, the imagery is fairly "raw" and unprocessed. I'm sure there is imagery there that contains Guantanamo, but it may take some effort to learn how to find the correct images in the huge archive, and then some time to wade through them to find something without clouds or scanner distortion. Plus, I have no idea if a 250 meter per pixel resolution will be good enough to see much. In any case, it is a great website for satellite images. Looking at the imagery there you quickly realize that the vast majority of the planet at any particular time is either ocean, ice, or covered with clouds. Pfly (talk) 06:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look at those sites, that's just the sort of thing I was looking for. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that will work, unfortunately. Not only is 250m/pixel resolution not high enough to see much of anything, but they don't seem to cover eastern Cuba, just western. Ah well. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 22:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Check www<dot>cryptome<dot>org they have lots of that sort of stuff.

Water depth safety

An area university recently installed a new pool with a novel feature: a rock climbing wall that extends out of the pool, the idea being that no safety equipment is needed because anyone who falls will simply fall back into the water. This seems like a bad idea to me. Notwithstanding the possibility of hitting the wall on the way down when falling, or the chance of hitting someone else in the water at the bottom, the wall extends 12 feet out of the water and is surrounded by 7-foot-deep water. Is that even a safe depth for that height, especially if someone reaches the top and then decides to dive off? I've been unable to find any height/water depth safety charts online. Newsboy85 (talk) 05:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

If the height is 12 feet over 7 feet of water there is plenty to dive into. And if it is only 12 feet and clearly visible I should think people could be trusted to care for themselves and watch out. After all people "bomb" into pools, and we know we need to watch for that. An issue where Health & Safety has already been well and truly satisfied I should think. My pool has a 10 metre diving board and nobody has ever been struck by a diver.86.219.161.6 (talk) 11:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)dt

But even so, it still doesn't sound safe to fall with all the rocks sticking out of the wall —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.208.109.169 (talk) 12:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

How far do these "rocks" extend? Every climbing wall that I've ever seen only has handholds that stick out maybe 1-2 inches. If the person falling off the wall pushes away from it even a little as they fall, they should have no problem at all of clearing the wall. Dismas|^(talk) 13:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

What!?! They haven't placed sharks in the water below the wall? What ARE they thinking?

Of course, the real hardcore way to find this answer would be to find the Standard that covers diving platforms in swimming pools. Standards are NOT (repeat NOT) going to be found online anywhere because they are sold to institutions (engineering firms, government agencies, libraries, etc.) for a profit, and placing them online for free access would be very much a violation of their copyright. So, to find the correct standard, you're going to need to contact some place that has the standard you're looking for, such as a library connected with a university that offers degrees in engineering and related fields. However, there are not too many libraries around that will have ALL the standards in the world in their collection. It's a matter of money - why pay for standards that nobody will use ever? So even though you may find a library that has standards in its reference collection, this doesn't mean they're going to have the standard you're looking for.

To get you pointed in roughly the right direction, there is an online service that also sells standards that allows one to search for standards. However, its search engine is horrible to use unless you know precisely what the standard is called that you want. Anyway, the name of this database is "ILI Standards Infobase Online". Here's their URL: http://www.ili-info.com

I did a search in ILI and came up with a standard that may cover what you're looking for. However, I have some bit of doubt about it, since it seems to be a standard that is accepted internationally in Europe, but I can't tell whether it is accepted in the U.S. or not... At any rate, the standard is "EN 13451-4 : SWIMMING POOL EQUIPMENT - PART 4: ADDITIONAL SPECIFIC SAFETY REQUIREMENTS AND TEST METHODS FOR STARTING PLATFORMS." Released: 02/01/2001. Published by CEN:COMITE EUROPEEN DE NORMALISATION, BRUXELLES, BELGIUM. This is the English language version of that standard (hence the "EN" at the beginning of the standard's number), and is just one of a series of standards that are about swimming pools. If the information you're looking for is not in this standard, it may be in one of the other standards of this series.

So good luck. This would be where you'd go to get THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER to your question. If you find the correct applicable standard for something, it will be upheld in a court of law should any lawsuit arise. If the swimming pool you're talking about does not meet the standard's requirements, then they will be held responsible for any mishap. If they DO meet the standard, then they've covered their ass. Saukkomies 12:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll find the "EN" stands for "euro norm" or European standard, rather then "English" - I've seen the standard named as BS EN 13451-4, DIN EN 13451-4, NEN-EN 13451-4, and SS-EN 13451-4 (British Standard, Deutsche Industrie Norm, Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut, Svensk Standard). In any case, if you look here you'll find the page where the American National Standards Institute will sell you a copy of the standard for $55. -- Arwel (talk) 20:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Here's the original newspaper article, by the way, and the best picture of the wall I have. There aren't even hadholds - you just get to climb the nice wet slippery rocks themselves. http://www.semissourian.com/story/1297794.html Newsboy85 (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't say whether this setup violates any rules or regulations, but reading about this is setting off all kinds of alarm bells in my mind. Multiple wet slippery teenagers simultaneously attempting to rock-climb with the self-assurance that comes at that age combined with the "knowledge" they their fall will be safe. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Matt Deres (talk) 23:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks enormous fun to me, and I would love to take my Scouts there! DuncanHill (talk) 00:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

UNDERWEAR!

Is it true that in Japan there are vending machines that sell dirty, used underwear? Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.67.32 (talk) 13:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

According to this Snopes article, yes. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a better question would be. "What dont the sell in japan'. Esskater11 14:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a better question would be. "What dont they sell in japan'. ffroth 20:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think an even better question would be: "What don't they sell in Japan?". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think a more academic version would be: "What do they not sell in Japan?" Acceptable (talk) 22:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Even more academic yet, "What do they not sell in Japan?" --Masamage ♫ 23:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

To fix that, I'd go with: "What is not sold in Japan?". (Note the required full stop at the end) -- JackofOz (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

"Wat is not sold in Japan although WaT sells quite well." 86.21.74.40 (talk) 00:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That was a good one.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 21:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Can we get a category set up for 'Things not sold in Japan'? Lanfear's Bane | t 13:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

For only one entry? Easier to just note in the Wat article that it's not sold in Japan. -66.55.10.178 (talk) 22:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)