Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2008 October 25

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October 25

Cheap international phone calls

Hi there. A friend recently pointed out a website with information on cheap international phone calls. Great you might think, don't question it, just use it! What is really bugging me is, how do they make a profit from it? They are surely not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Anyone know how they make their money? PS: I don't work for this website, just curious and a teensy weensy bit worried I'm getting taken for a sucker. Titch Tucker (talk) 18:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

In Poland an international phone call using something like this can cost five times more than VoIP connection to a phone in other country. Only part of this is paid to a telecom for paid call. The rest is enough profit for such services. MTM (talk) 20:19, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

International calls on the traditional telecom networks are priced far above the actual cost of service. This is because the terminating carrier can basically charge whatever it wants (whereas in-country rates are often regulated or subject to competition). Actually carrying a call over a long distance is quite cheap, since many hundreds of voice calls can be sent over an optical fibre at one time. All the cheap-call people have to do is set up a local phone number, put it on the internet, and send it to a local phone exchange at the other end. You could literally do it yourself with two phones, two computers and two internet connections - how much would that cost? If people paid you $0.01/minute and used the line 1/2 the time, your income would be $216/month for each line. Scale up from there. Franamax (talk) 20:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I knew I was being ripped off but you have opened my eyes to how much I was being ripped off. Thanks for your replies, I shall now sit down and calculate the amount of money they have made from me over my lifetime. Well, maybe not, I don't want to go into a fit of depression. :) Titch Tucker (talk) 23:10, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

And to qualify my post above a little bit: a telecom company also costs more because they guarantee you an open, real-time circuit while you make the call, often using the ATM protocol (among others) to provide a smooth service that works exactly as though you had a copper wire connecting your phones. Cheap-call services may or may not provide equivalent call quality. Skype is free (for now) when used computer-to-computer, but you have to put up with echoes, dropouts, distortion, etc. when the service is busy. And in my scenario above with 2 computers, other customers would get pissed off when someone else tied up the line yakking for 2 hours to their aunt in Botsylvania. Telco's offer a guaranteed open circuit to the called party for the length of your call, which obviously will cost more than "as-available" service. Bottom line: if you're instructing someone in ongoing open-heart surgery, use a telco; if you're catching up on the latest gossip in Transeurona from a notorious gabber, use the cheapest service you can find and be happy if your call gets dropped. Just be careful about giving out your credit-card number online! Franamax (talk) 23:39, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

My credit card is safely tucked away, theres a credit crunch on you know. Titch Tucker (talk) 00:00, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

FWIW I use Telediscount all the time. The only problem I have encountered is that it will sometimes tell you that the number you want is engaged when it is only their lines that are engaged; you can still get through using your usual carrier. From some parts of the UK, demand seems to exceed supply and the Telediscount network is "engaged" most of the time.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

fake airplane

Did the aborigines build a fake airplane outside the Port Moresby airport to attract other airplanesBussyg (talk) 20:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you thinking about Cargo cults? As our article says: "Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices, and dining rooms, as well as the fetishization and attempted construction of Western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with sticks for rifles and use military-style insignia and national insignia painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, thereby treating the activities of Western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting the cargo. The cult members built these items and "facilities" in the belief that the structures would attract cargo intended to be sent to them.". Cargo cults such as this did appear in New Guinea - so it's possible it happened at Port Moresby - but I didn't see any specific mention of cults appearing at that specific place. SteveBaker (talk) 20:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

(after e/c) That is one of the things that happened with cargo cults. Here's a video. Franamax (talk) 21:00, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

If I had huge wealth, I would have rented an old DC-3 and hired it to fly to such a cargo cult airport and deliver a load of every luxury the cargo cultists dreamed of, just so they could say "SEE? WE WERE RIGHT!" to the non-believers. Edison (talk) 01:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You still could: John Frum. Rmhermen (talk) 03:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

And you could probably trade those "luxuries" for curiosities and rarities that were everyday items for those people. Your $1000 Hermes purse for my hand-carved jade amulet worth $1200 at Sotheby's. Then you go buy another purse and I carve another piece of jade. Trade pretty much always works out. Franamax (talk) 11:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Would It Be Possible to Buy Dichroic Lenses That Filter Out All Colors?

Would it be possible to buy dichroic lenses that filter out all colors? So that If you were to put them into glasses, or goggles, you would see in black and white? Is there anywhere I might be able to purchase lenses like this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.237.183 (talk) 21:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You can purchase spectacles which reduce light intensity, such that only your night vision (see rod cell and cone cell) reacts. An ophtalmolgist won´t prescribe such glasses under normal circumstances. If you suffer from photo allergy, please see your medical advisor. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I wan't to purchase the lenses purely for the sake of having goggles that let me see in black and white, please don't assume things, because you didn't answer any of my questions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.237.183 (talk) 23:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

We're all volunteers here, nasty responses won't get you closer to the information you seek... Franamax (talk) 23:58, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I have seen viewing filters less sophisticated than the series of dichroic filters you describe. for black and white photographers to use when viewing a scene to get an idea what it would look like in B&W. The best I recall, it might have been light yellow, which limited the scene to brightness variations in basically one hue. White is the combination of all colors, or of complementary colors, or of a set of primaries, in proper amounts, and it is not some color that is left when light of all other wavelengths has been filtered out. The latter is "black." An old Kodak publication "Color as seen and photographed"[1]provides a great explanation of color filters and vision. Ansel Adams recommended [2] a Wratten #90 viewing filter when shooting black and white. It definitely does not make the scene look black and white. See also [3] which says a Tiffen #1 B&W Viewing filter does the same thing. Does that answer the question? Edison (talk) 01:08, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Conversion of a color image to a grey-scale image is a non-linear transformation. This implies that there is no passive optical component that can perform this transform.You will nee an active component such as a video camera. theoreticlly, if you simply reduce the amount of light sufficiently, (e.g., with a welder's helmet) your day vision will stop working and your night vision will kick in--this is a natural non-linear effect. In practice, I doubt this will work. -Arch dude (talk) 01:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Use night vision goggles with a grey filter to cut down the light coming in. Or a camera connected to a PC with the colour changed to greyscale. Dmcq (talk) 11:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Using night vision goggles (even with a super-dark filter) doesn't get you a proper monochromatic view. The goggles are almost completely insensitive to blue light - but super-sensitive to red and infra-red - so pretty much what you'd see would be just the red part of the spectrum...not at all a true monochromatic view. Basically - there is no possibility whatever of some kind of passive device producing a true monochrome image - as others have said, converting color to monochrome is a non-linear operation - so filters flat out cannot possibly work. The idea of blocking out so much of the light as to trick your vision system into becoming dark-adapted and seeing only monochrome would probably work - but isn't very practical because you'd have to sit around in the dark for 30 minutes every time you put them on - and you'd need different densities of filter for full sunlight, shadows, twilight, etc. So you're left with video cameras and displays - that's the only solution I can imagine. SteveBaker (talk) 18:05, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I've thought of this before too.(Ever since seeing 'They Live'.) I would love to somehow have "monochrome glasses", there's just no way of doing it. Color is a property of light, not a component of light. Light without color is like matter without temperature. It's a contradiction. What you're really trying to do is to change the color of the light hitting your eye. For instance, a bright red light you want to appear as a bright gray light, which means adding blue and green light somehow. A passive filter isn't likely to do this.

Sadly, I don't think you're going to come up with a solution that doesn't involve microchips and cameras. APL (talk) 20:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Night vision is not what a black and white image of a scene would look like, first because there is little sensitivity in the central foveal region, and second because the brightness balance of reds versus blues is vastly shifted form a normal black and white image. See Purkinje effect. Edison (talk) 21:37, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much, I think having one hue would work just as well as monochrome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.237.183 (talk) 22:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Then all you need is a piece of green-tinted (or red-tinted or blue-tinted) plastic. That's going to filter out all of the other colors - resulting in a monochromatic view of the world. NOTE: Monochromatic means 'having one color' - it's not the same thing as 'black and white'. Our eyes see in three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue. To get a monochromatic view - you just need to block two out of the three colors - which is very easy. To get a true 'black and white' display of a monochromatic nature - you somehow need to make the other two 'missing' colors be the same as the one you've selected. That means that if you use a green filter to block red and blue, you somehow have to make red and blue light that's the same intensity as the green - and that's not something you can do with a 'passive' device like a filter. To get a TRUE black and white view (like a black and white photo or black and white TV) - you need to add up all of the intensities of the incoming light and use the sum of Red+Green+Blue to generate equal amounts of red, green and blue to your display. That's even harder! To do it perfectly - you should also 'weight' the intensities of red, green and blue light that you add together to match the natural sensitivities of our eyes to different colors. Hence you need about twice as much green as red and about half as much blue as red. SteveBaker (talk) 13:06, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

What is a "Court Originator Number" and where can I find it?

I was at fault in a motor vehicle accident a month ago. I'm taking a defensive driving course online so that I won't have points assessed against my driving record. In the registration, the driving course prompts me to enter the court name, case #, and the court originator number. I'm not sure what the court originator number is or where I can find it (I found the case # on the form the court gave me for the defensive driving program, but I see no other number there).

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.35.8.31 (talk) 22:03, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

We're going to need to know where you are. It would probably be easier to phone the court, though. --Tango (talk) 23:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The IP address resolves to COLUMBIA, MISSOURI, UNITED STATES, so that's a good guess. --Tango (talk) 23:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I tried looking it up online and had no luck. I'll take your advice and call the court on Monday. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.35.8.31 (talk) 23:27, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Economic crisis

Hi. What is the actual triggering mechanism for the current economic crisis and market crash, ie. what caused/started/is responsible for it? Also, could events like this possibly be caused by something as simple as fluctuating oil prices, lack of progress etc? PS: the bot responsible for updating date headers has malfunctioned, its last edit was on the 23rd. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:56, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Original cause would be the dot com crash. Led to the Fed (US central bank) cutting interest rates to 1% as there were worries of deflation (as seen in Japan in 1990s). This meant that borrowing was cheap so it led to a housing boom in the US (similar things occurred in the UK, and Europe). Simultaneously, financial markets weren't earning much interest on lending money to the government/companies, and found that mortgages were a great way to earn good returns. So they allowed people to borrow huge amounts, thinking that housing was a one-way bet, and hence in the worst case scenario they could repossess and sell-on the house someone borrowed against.

However, all good things come to an end, and as inflation started creeping up central banks were forced to increase interest rates to slow the increase in prices. This increased the rates people had to pay on their mortgages, and many people found that they could not meet repayments. Also, it became too expensive for many people to get new mortgages. So there were many people who couldn't keep up repayments on their homes, and could sell their homes either. Banks started to make repossessions, and that was the beginning of a recession in the so-called "real economy".

On the financial side, banks who had been making big bets on mortgages (Northern Rock and Bradford&Bingley in the UK, and WaMu and Wachovia in the US) started going bust. This was bad in itself. But, what was worse was that banks began to worry about whether other banks would go bust. So they all stopped lending to each other (in the lingo: "money markets dried up"). They have also stopped wanting to lend to companies and individuals. Without being able to borrow or invest, the economy is producing less, and people are consuming less - this is basically what constitutes a recession (falling output, technically for two successive quarters). 92.4.224.251 (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I strongly recommend listening to these two podcasts from This American Life: [4] and [5], they really help to explain how this whole crisis happened. - Akamad (talk) 00:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I recommend those two podcasts too - they are very clear, approachable and (in Wikipedia terms) "well sourced". SteveBaker (talk) 05:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

None of this was a big problem 'til they switched on the Large Hadron Collider, then 3 days later it all went to hell. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin' :) Franamax (talk) 11:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This train wreck has been happening in slow motion. Most banks saw it coming from May 2007, but were powerless to stop it. To say that it started on any one day is misleading. I know you were being funny, but I'm just sayin' Plasticup ^T/C 17:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, 9/11 also played a part in the economic crisis. The Fed cut interest rates even more after the attacks, which just kinda led to what 92.4.224 was talking about. --71.117.41.245 (talk) 01:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)