Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2008 October 18

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October 18

Top sprinters/marathoners

If you look at the 10 fastest times ever run by marathoners, eight are from east Africa (and the other two were born in Morocco). And if you look at the top 10 sprinters, judging by 100m and 200m times—well, it's hard to tell because of the history of slavery, but looking at their wikipedia pages, they are almost all black and therefore probably almost all descendants of people from west Africa, at least in part. I think a lot of people recognize this but don't talk about it, maybe because it could hint of racism. But what *is* behind this? It can't just be training. zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:31, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Not undiscussed at all. See The Story Behind the Amazing Success of Black Athletes for example. Or a more science-heavy one: Some bio-medical mechanisms in athletic prowess. Rmhermen (talk) 01:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

You may want to look into Jon Entine's book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It.--droptone (talk) 20:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Mystery heavy metal clip

Please, someone help identify this recording:

http://4661862067007028647-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/wikifatman/Home/mysterymetal.mp3

It sounds very similar to the classic "machine gun" riff from "One" but definitely has a more contemporary, heavily de-tuned (dare I say nu metal) sound and higher production values. It couldn't be earlier than the late 90s, and I'm thinking it could be Slipknot or Meshuggah.

Can someone help? No guesses, please--only respond if you're familiar with the song.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 03:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

My guess could be exactly what you want, but I won't bother you with it.--Artjo (talk) 06:14, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Ha! That's a good comeback--my bratty "no guessing" stipulation was product of drunken editing last night, so feel free to speculate, now that I'm feeling more reasonable. However, my guess is you don't really have a guess.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

RE:Reference desk help: I've listened to it. I don't know that stuff. It is not Meshuggah. I can't say whether it is Slipknot or not - I've heard their albums only once. I only can say that it is not MFKR, which I know pretty well (a great album by the way). Sorry. Cheers.--  LYKANTROP  ✉ 12:41, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. I'm now thinking it could also be very recent Metallica, something off the awful St. Anger record, perhaps....but I don't think Metallica ever got that crazy with the detuning.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're in the UK, or if you have access to an iPhone, you might try Shazam [[1]]. Friends of mine who have iPhones love it. --Scray (talk) 17:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've heard of such services and would love to try them, but I don't think I have any way to access Shazam.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 02:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't download it. Could you put up a mirror on Ripway or the like? Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 07:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I had never heard of Shazam before. Seems similar to Zit! from GTA4. Try to find an apple store or mobile service provider shop that has an iPhone on display. They normally don't care what you download and if it's free for iPhone then you shouldn't have a problem. I got really bord in a Cingular-AT&T shop not too long ago.HitmanNumber86 (talk) 06:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding the deletion of content/images on wikipedia (admins please comment!)

Am I right in thinking that admins are still able to view deleted material (and images). This means nothing is ever truly deleted off Wikipedia, doesn't it? In effect then, wikipedia has lots of copyrighted material, it is merely not viewable to the general public but only to a group known as admins. Surely then it won't be long until someone prosectutes? --217.227.89.230 (talk) 12:09, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Can of worms. I have had a few images deleted from wikipedia. After It gets deleted, its viewable by the Admins, and the uploader, and if you are really, really good at poking around, you can find it, but only for a few days at best. ( my stuff was gone only after 2 hours! ). So, there is NOT a lot of copyrighted material lurking around, because it gets purged very quickly. So, no any material is handled to most copyright holders satisfaction. i.e. the melium copyright act has to have a complainer .... do a bit more research... $--~~~~$ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 13:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not correct. Once something is deleted, it is viewable only by admins - not by the uploader or anyone really good at poking around. Wikipedia:Oversight is the process where information is removed from the databases and becomes unviewable by anyone. Rmhermen (talk) 15:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

In most cases things deleted are visible to admins. There are some special cases where things are indeed permanently deleted because of legal reasons (see WP:OTRS). As for storing old copyrighted materials on Wikimedia servers, even in edit histories, I am fairly sure that any judge would laugh out of court the idea that you could be sued for infringement over that unless there was evidence that this system was being used in a way other than enforcement of administration of the site. (If admins were using this system as a way to trade MP3s, then maybe. But they aren't.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:53, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. If you view a picture on the internet, a copy of the picture is saved in a Cache on your hard drive. Such copies are not normally considered copyright infringement. I see the deleted versions as not much different than that. It cannot be claimed that the existance of deleted images in Wikipedia's database causes any harm to the copyright holder (which is different from publicly viewable images), and thus there is nothing anyone can "sue" for. Since no one could show damages, there is no infringement. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

What about the Internet Archive? ~AH1^(TCU) 19:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Internet Archive contains all sorts of ways for people not to have their material archived (using the Robots.txt file, for example), and is happy to remove any content that they archive if someone complains. Note that under the DMCA you don't automatically get sued for copyrighted content; there is a grace "takedown" period in most cases (esp. with things like Wikipedia where the content is contributed by anonymous internet folk—Wikimedia is not liable for their infringement so long as it takes appropriate action when complained about). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Size of a 10-week-old Yorkie?

OK, how big is a 10-week-old Yorkie? Would it be small enough to fit in your hand? I'm trying to check some facts here to see how badly someone's lying to me. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 14:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, unless someone eats it, it will be exactly the same size it was when it was made. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:40, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean Yorkshire terrier, as opposed to Mattbuck's Yorkie (chocolate bar) or some other Yorkie? If so, then the answer is "I dunno". jnestorius^(talk) 14:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Presumably a dog. It's for a scambait if you want to know... some scum is trying to trick people into paying him extremely large amounts of money to adopt dogs, and I was just checking up on some of his "facts". 66.188.52.51 (talk) 15:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen a newborn Yorkie, but this page gives the birth weight of pups as 3 to 6 ounces, so I'd guess the palm of the hand thing might be pretty close to the truth. Karenjc 20:49, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I also found a reference to a 10-week-old Yorkie weighing 21 ounces. I can hold a bag with a pound and a half of sugar in my hand, so ... mmmm, yeah, probably. Karenjc 20:55, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

All right, thanks! --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 23:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Yorkies can vary quite a bit in size, from 'teacup' to fairly large (for a small dog). Doug Weller (talk) 11:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

In my experience: Small enough - yes. Inactive enough - definitely not! SteveBaker (talk) 13:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Need a new MP3 player

Being a music junkie, it's been really hard for me to get by with my little Mobiblu cube (I love the thing to death, but a gigabyte it just not enough)... As such, I've decided it's time for an upgrade. Problem is, I've no idea what to get. So I need some help.

iPods always seemed nice enough, but I've heard too many PMP "purists" complain about how they're overrated and the battery life is crappy, blah blah blah, etc. The Zune looked kinda cool, but, being as I am a Linux user, I don't think it would get along well with my computer. I have heard wonderful things about Archos, but a quick tour of their website made my wallet cringe and I didn't really see anything I'd like, anyway... And Creative has always seemed like a good way to go, but, as with Archos, I didn't notice anything that really matched what I'm looking for.

I've got about 60 gigs of music (and growing) that I'd like to be able to fit (although I doubt I'll ever pass more than 100 that I'd actually listen to). And I'd probably have some videos and pictures and what have you, so a decent screen would be nice. But I really don't want something that's uber-expensive because it's got tons of fancy features and stuff (which is why I don't want things like the Archos 5... A web browser would be pretty schweet, but I'm not paying that much for something that I can use to surf the 'net when I could just as easily get on a computer or use my DS). Basically, I'm looking for something with 60+ gigabytes of memory, a good screen (doesn't have to be perfect though), average or above average sound quality (I've got normal, five-bucks-a-pop headphones, but my hearing is pretty good and I can tell the difference between 128 and 192 kbps), and hopefully for an okay price. Pretty much what you'd see in an iPod or a Zune, only not an iPod or a Zune (and a bit cheaper, if I can swing it). :P Oh, and if it's something that you can customize the firmware and stuff on on (yay Linux!), that would be awesome.

Any suggestions? Or am I just living in a fantasy land by hoping for something like this? Thanks in advance.

(Sorry for another one of my "wall-of-text" style questions, but I like coherency.) --69.146.230.243 (talk) 23:32, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

From our header: ...if you need advice or opinions, it's better to ask elsewhere. -hydnjo talk 00:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, he's asking for pretty specific things based on specs at the end of it. He's basically asking "what are the options for MP3 players with 60+ GB of memory?" though he's taking about as long a road to that as he can find. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

60GB+ narrows down the field quite a bit as there aren't a lot with that much memory from what I can see. Browsing NewEgg.com's MP3 player options pretty much narrows it down to Archos and Cowon players, starting around $300. If you were willing to go with less memory (do you need ALL of your music on the player at the same time?) you'd have more options. Go to NewEgg.com and click on "Mp3 players" and if you drill down enough you can view all of their holdings by memory capacity or any other variable you can dream of. But very high memory Mp3 players are pretty expensive, so far as I can tell. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

An opinion: iPod Classic - 120GB - $249 -hydnjo talk 01:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried asking the Computing desk? They don't bite much. --Blue387 (talk) 02:40, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't you mean "they don't byte much"? Okay, that was lame. Useight (talk) 05:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the model you end up buying, can I recommend the free alternative to firmware Rockbox which has done wonders for me and works on all the players you mentionned. I've been using it on a second hand Toshiba Gigabeat (40gb) bought for $70, 2 years ago and it's never let me down. 190.244.186.234 (talk) 18:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)