Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 September 13

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September 13

what is the name of a picture that has meaning?

This is kind of hard for me to word correctly but, if you we're to see a picture of a black dog (like an outline that is just filled in with black to let you know that it means "Dog") with a long underline under it and the word "FLYING" just below the underline. This to me seems if the picture was asked as a question the answer would be "FLYING under DOG".

This was mostly just an example I need to know what that type picture question is called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.140.46.245 (talk) 01:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

See the article on: Rebus -- this might be what you are thinking of. (Joseph A. Spadaro 01:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC))

You mean like, a picture of two dice meaning paradise, or "|R|E|A|D|I|N|G|" meaning "reading between the lines"? We used to do quizzes on those in junior high and elementary. 142.161.53.190 04:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that that is what the OP is referring to ... and I think that those are called rebuses (rebi?). (Joseph A. Spadaro 05:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC))

Rebus (Latin) is the ablative plural case of the word res (thing). It literally means "by things" - see Latin declension. Cf. "omnibus" (the source of our word "bus"), which is the dative/ablative plural of omnis (all). The plural of the English word rebus would certainly not be rebi. I see no reason why we couldn't say rebuses. (As for omnibuses, just say buses and you'll be understood.) -- JackofOz 07:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

dingbat? ny156uk 06:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A pictogram. 81.242.80.87 15:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Broderband Printshop

To the people who own the Broderband Printhop Volume 22 Deluxe,

does it contain within the variety of fonts, a form of Garamond 3? --Writer Cartoonist 02:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This is about the sixth time you've asked about Garamond 3 or something closely related to it in about the last three weeks. Please - I'm begging you - just go and buy it. Here's a link directly to its page at a place to buy it; it costs about $30 there, or you can get it here for about $22. I've already given you links to free download sites where you could probably find some type of free imitation. --jjron 09:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Africa Geography

How did hippos get into the Ngorangora Crater in Tanzania?24.93.193.1 05:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

In a Volkswagen Beetle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.41.139.85 (talk) 02:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Ngorongoro is actually a caldera, which means there is no other way the hippo could get into it other than walking over the rim. By the way, pretty much every large land mammal of East Africa made it into the caldera, with the exception of giraffe, who presumably find the hike too challenging. Rockpocket 06:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I read somewhere that they took an early Thomas Cook cheap weekend and liked it so much they stayed :-) but maybe, more seriously, they were forced to range up to the rim of the caldera seeking food during times of severe drought, of course once they are up on the rim it is but a metaphorical small step to go down inside where, just maybe, the grass was greener. Probably took longer than a weekend. Richard Avery 16:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It is an interesting question, because hippos do not venture more than a few miles from lakes or rivers where they can immerse themselves, and there are no such bodies of water near the crest of the caldera. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer. Marco polo 17:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Discovering Oil

This question relates to one that was posted previously. In the answer someone wrote that they are doing expeditions to find oil, how and what are they doing to try to find more oil both here in America and abroad? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.120.230.72 (talk) 13:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

If you mean in addition to the drilling mentioned in the answer above, many thousands of person-hours are being spent in oil company offices all over the world evaluating data and economic risk; also the July 2007 count of seismic crews working to acquire data to be evaluated to decide on drilling locations totaled 69 crews in the US and 277 crews in the rest of the world. Cheers Geologyguy 16:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

How do they know where to drill, for instance parts of Alaska that is supposed to have enough oil for America to not be so dependent on middle east oil? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.167.59 (talk) 19:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Our article on Oil exploration may provide some good information on the topic. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

And, with respect to Alaska, see Arctic Refuge drilling controversy. Whatever the volume of oil present in Alaska, even high end volumes would likely be produced at little more than 1 million barrels per day, or 5% of current consumption. That won't do much regarding our import dependency, which is at 60%, and our annual rate of consumption is increasing at present by around 2-3% per year. Cheers Geologyguy 20:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Current estimates for the reserves in the entire US would only run the country for 2 to 4 years if foreign imports were stopped and demand prevented from increasing. Then you are dry - and every single barrel would have to come from outside - which would be a vastly more problematic situation than you have right now. Even if that were a desirable outcome - it's hard to imagine anyone spending the money to build a distribution network that could handle three times the present volume if it would have nothing to pump in a couple of years. They'd never get a return on their investment. As for finding new reserves, it doesn't really work like that. It's not like the place hasn't been explored minutely already - what might be found are things like oil-shale deposits that would have been ignored before because getting the oil out of them is so insanely difficult. When things get desperate, we can extract more from those places - but the cost is going to be horrific. There isn't a way out of this trap - in the end, between running out, steadily increasing extraction difficulties, global warming and overseas difficulties, the US needs to halve oil consumption in 5 years to avoid a disaster - and the rest of the world needs to follow within 10 years. In reality, it's going to be tough to stop consumption going up - let alone decreasing it. My prediction is: "A disaster"...or perhaps "Several disasters". SteveBaker 19:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Superhero

In reality, what would be the US government's response if a superhero like Superman came down and saved a city from doom, like a huge meteor, for example? --WonderFran 15:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Calls for speculation, however - After a train rescue that left a hundred people injured, a series of lawsuits has forced superheroes, known as "Supers," into a government-sponsored witness protection program in exchange for a promise to stop all superhero work. Lanfear's Bane 15:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Obviously speculation but...Literally the same thing you see in Superman movies. In reality some people would call said superhero a saviour, others would fear the massive power (i.e. non human) that superhero has. Some would panic and push to have the person placed under control. Some would be wishing/wanting them to do vastly more than is perhaps realistic. Essentially whoever the poor bugger who happens to be super-human is they would have an extremely difficult life. A little depressive, but we have enough cries of people 'playing god' who only have human skills, never mind super-human! ny156uk 16:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It would depend entirely on the actions of the superhero. Obviously there are occasions when any government does things that are wrong and morally repugnant. If the superhero chooses not to allow such actions, the government might declare war on him/her. In one of the Superman movies, he rids the world of nuclear weapons. It's easy to imagine this being taken as an act of war by all the target nations (especially those like Israel whose conventional weapons are not a sufficient deterrent to its enemies). --Sean 18:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the best answer to this question is to be found in Alan Moore's Watchmen. Check it out. --24.147.86.187 20:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Average age of the Wikipedians

What is the average age of the editors of Wikipedia? Is there any graph about the topic? --Taraborn 15:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a difficult question to answer, as there's no requirement for anyone to give any verifiable information about their identity. A smattering of unverified, self-selected and self-reported data are available on Meta, see m:List of Wikimedians by age. There, the oldest individual was (reportedly) born in 1921 (86 years old!). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias says that the average Wikipedian is aged 15–49. That doesn't narrow it down much but you may be able to find some more info linked from that project page. -- Diletante 16:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Another difficulty is that there's no clear definition of "editor". If someone goes several months without touching anything, are they an editor during that time? What if they've never written an article, but occasionally correct punctuation? It probably wouldn't effect the average much, but you never know. Black Carrot 17:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I am 13. Marlith ^T/C 01:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Most likely editors who contribute frequently are either very young or near retirement (just an estimate). · AndonicO ^Talk 01:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Suspended disbelief sort of

Is there a specific term for when on a TV show or movie the on-screen time is much different from the story time? I mean like "WE HAVE FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE BUILDING BLOWS" and there's a 15 minute action scene before the climactic explosion. --froth^t 22:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Someone might have coined a term for it in Roger Ebert's Little Movie Glossary feature. I haven't had time to browse through the 600+ entires yet. Zagalejo^^^ 23:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Searching google for movie "real time" "fictional time" gave me Rope, where the movie was 80 minutes, covering 100 minutes of real time. It also said "Scientific American analyzed the method of time compression". So time compression? Or what I'd call it is DBZ effect, where Namek is going to blow up in 5 minutes, and 20 episodes later.... --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This may be related to the concept of starships which travel "at the speed of plot." - Eron ^Talk 23:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

There is also a term called initiatory time from what I can find, but it doesn't apply as much. What initiatory time is is more like the transistion from our real time to the fictional time. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 00:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Sloppy. Black Carrot 16:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd note that incongruities between real time and on-screen time are exceedingly common, although usually skewed the other way. Not sure if there is a specific term for it; cinematographic time dilation maybe :)? More generally it might possibly be considered a continuity problem/error. 38.112.225.84 17:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with a lot of movies is that in the 10 minutes that the bomb takes to go off, they may wish to show what the hero is doing for those 10 minutes AND what the bad guys are doing - so it maybe takes 20 minutes to show 10 minutes of action. "Overlapping time" maybe? I doubt there is an official name for this. SteveBaker 18:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

On smaller scales, it's also a case of the difficulty in cutting the exact length of footage required to make the clock sync up, especially when a certain amount of dialogue and action needs to be shown. I'm fairly sure the first episode of 24 had something like this, even despite their "real-time" gimmick. Confusing Manifestation 10:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)