Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 October 16

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October 16

Location of Czech village Butterberg / Máselnik

I am searching for the exact geographical location of Butterberg (German) / Máselnik (Czech), a (possibly abandoned) village in the northern Bohemian county of Dauba / Dubá, classified as a part of the town of Sebitsch (German) / Dřevčice (Czech). Thus far, via google maps, I've been able to find a small collection of app. 8 houses just southwest of Dřevčice, which could be it.Butterberg (talk) 01:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have found the correct location. According to this historic map, the former Butterberg is indeed that cluster of houses on the hill about 500 meters southwest of Dřevčice. Marco polo (talk) 02:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that's an amazing web utility. I'd love to see that for my country (or any place I've actually been to). Jørgen (talk) 08:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Well I am truly astonished. Thank you so much for the response. I didn't expect to get a quicker answer from my English query than from my German one, that's for sure.Butterberg (talk) 10:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Entertainment Lawyer

where can i find an entertainment lawyer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.45.210.81 (talk) 02:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Try your local phone book. If you can't find one, call another lawyer and they may be able to point you in the right direction. Dismas|^(talk) 03:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Contact your local bar association or law society - their website may have a directory with specialties as well. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Do they maybe advertise in Variety (magazine)? Also, typing in "Entertainment Lawyer" into Google caused a large number of them to scurry out of the woodwork. SteveBaker (talk) 13:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

superstitions

can anyone tell me which is the most superstitious country (and also the least)? is there any survey about this? please inform me.

thanx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.50.136.193 (talk) 02:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like an impossible to answer question. On the first, what constitutes a superstition? How does one draw the line between a superstition and a religious practice? I'm not sure this is a quantifiable concept. --Jayron32 02:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no straightforward answer, as these days the people of any country have less and less in common with each other and more in common with their peers in other countries. There is no doubt some correspondence with lack of education, so you could try investigating that aspect. Also, if you believe that religion is superstition you could try looking at the more religious countries. I suspect that isolated communities would tend to have more superstitious ideas and traditions than urban ones.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Arguably Italy, in that it has the most churches per capita of any major country.[1] Red Act (talk) 10:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Surprised nobody mentioned Vatican City yet... ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Or arguably Jamaica. I can't find a reliable online source, but googling "churches per capita" turns up a lot of hits that claim that the Guinness Book of World Records lists Jamaica as being the country with either the most churches per capita, or the most churches per square mile. Red Act (talk) 10:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

According to The Largest Atheist / Agnostic Populations the 10 most superstitious countries are Croatia followed by Cuba, Dominican Republic, Kyrgystan, Argentina, Albania, USA, Portugal, Mongolia, Kazakhstan. Dmcq (talk) 11:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems even with their low numbers atheists are to blame for all the ills of America - see Glenn Beck blames godlessness for America's problems ;-) Dmcq (talk) 11:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

That would only be accurate if atheists and agnostic people were not superstitious - there are plenty of non-religious superstitions out there. Warofdreams talk 11:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't make too much difference to that list if the percent of professed agnostics and atheists who are really closet believers in superstitions is less than 50%. Dmcq (talk) 11:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any references for that? Warofdreams talk 12:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If you look at that list they only get to about 10% atheist with those. No 20 in the list gets up to 20% atheists, even if all the next 10 were 50% closet believers and the 10 I said weren't the US at 7 place would only move down a few places in the list, it is given as 3-9% atheist. AT the other end of the spectrum are places like Sweden or Japan where more than half the population are counted as atheists. Dmcq (talk) 14:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Further to that, the list would still be accurate if the proportion of atheists who are superstitious is stable across countries. For example, if 99% of atheists are superstitious in all countries, that ranking won't change. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but that's a big if. Superstitions, it seems to me, are based in culture - so there's every reason to expect variation. Warofdreams talk 12:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

How about Congo or Haiti? Witchcraft is not irregular in those places if I am not mistaken. I really wonder if I should offer any opinion at all, but I wonder if Japan is the least superstitious. They seem to generally have sane heads and sound minds. Vranak (talk) 15:32, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Japanese superstitions and also Omamori perhaps. While the Japanese evidentially don't skip the number 4 in floors as is not uncommon among Chinese and Koreans they do skip the number 43 in maternity rooms (according to the first article). According to the second article they also skip the number 13 in hotels although you could argue that isn't because the Japanese themselves are superstitious but they are afraid Western tourists may be. I largely agree Shantavira. In particular, there's likely to be some (imperfect) correlation with education. Going by stuff like the number of churches is not going to work, there are plenty of superstitions not tied with organised religions. Thinking of Chinese cultures... I've already mention stuffed like tetraphobia but there's also other stuff tied to numbers like the belief the number 8 is lucky (remember the olympics?). There's also feng shui, stuff tied to veneration of the dead and beliefs in the afterlife, during the Chinese New Year and various other superstitions. Doesn't appear to be a general article but there is an unsourced one on that which I'm also more familiar with which is Superstitions of Malaysian Chinese. Quite a few of these are probably present in parts of China. Traditional matchmaking and astrology are also not uncommon and usually have some sort of superstitious aspect. Some of these may have been traditionally discouraged by the communist government particularly during the cultural revolution but there's obviously some acceptance even by the government, e.g. the olympics again. And perhaps a key point here. Quite a few of these beliefs are not uncommon among people who can be considered atheists or at least agnostic even if they do have spiritual or religious beliefs (as mentioned in atheism). In many parts of the Western world though, many atheists are irreligious and probably also significantly less likely to be superstitious. Therefore as Warofdreams said, it's a big if. Hitting on one final aspect, what are superstitions? Religions have already been addressed. But what about stuff like belief in urban legends such as fan deaths, or traditional medicine (which covers a wide variety of stuff from herbs or tiger bones or whatever, to acupuncture, to faith healing), or belief in evil government conspiracies, or that the holocaust didn't really happen, or that aliens have visited earth, or vaccine nonsense or Chinese restaurant syndrome etc? The other complicating factor is people may do stuff for cultural reasons or just out of habit without really 'believing' in the superstitions. BTW, as for that list, it doesn't have that many countries. It has virtually no Muslim countries and African countries. Place like Saudi Arabia may very well have less then 7% atheists (although accurate statistics would be almost impossible to come up with) Nil Einne (talk) 16:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Baseball players, ranging from the devout to the atheist, typically will not step on the foul line when running on or off the field. Is that an American thing? Or is it a cultural thing? →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots← 01:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Bentham and Hooker

These are two well-known taxonomists.They spent most of their lives in India.They classified plants,animals and pretty much everything there was to classify.They conducted surveys of industries and even classified tabularly hundreds of Indian castes and sub-castes.Hooker even wrote about the peculiarities of people of each caste.But I could not find this "Caste Survey" anywhere.Does anyone know where it could be found?--Adi4094 (talk) 03:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure on the specific works you are looking for, but the people in question are George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker. With those specific names, you should be able to track down the works you are seeking. --Jayron32 03:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure they wrote on the people of each caste? In the British library catalogue I can find The flora of British India, Himalayan Journals: or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim, and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, etc. and A Century of Indian Orchids by Hooker, and a lot of other botanical works by both men, but no studies of the caste system. Are you sure this isn't a mistranslation? What was your source that told you about them? --82.41.11.134 (talk) 22:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Blocking calls to my landline phone

I've suddenly started getting loads of calls from annoying 'people' asking to speak to someone who doesn't live here. They are claiming to be Barclays Bank or Littlewoods but I doubt they are. One of them is just a machine. I've searched their numbers online and found loads of others having similar problems with these numbers. So how do I block these calls? I'm in the UK and I've got a BT landline being run by Orange. Thanks.91.109.234.25 (talk) 18:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You might like to look at Telephone Preference Service, It is free. I am subscribed to this and while it does not stop everything (we get calls with far-east accents asking for people we don't know, and then want to suddenly speak to us!!) it has reduced the annoying calls considerably. If it is an unrecorded call that sounds as though it might be from somewhere in the UK it is interesting to see what happens when you ask them for their contact number because you wish to report the infringement. Richard Avery (talk) 19:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

In the US I occasionally get some similar calls. Recently, the College of William and Mary was calling five or six times a day - as late as 21:00 - asking for money (a family member went there). Then they hung up when we didn't answer, making for an unpleasant answering machine recording! People that we didn't know also called from such far-fetched places as Denver, Miami, and Moncton, BC! Fortunately, I discovered a feature of my phone that shuts off calls from a particular number after Caller ID data comes through, so all you hear is one ring. If your phone doesn't have such a feature, then the phone company might do it for an extra fee. Xenon54 / talk / 19:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

My annoyance by telemarketers stopped when I installed an answering machine. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

..but the bill goes up when one has to call back. 86.4.186.107 (talk) 12:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US, you can get caller ID so you know who's calling, and answering machines where you can "pick up" in case it's a "real" call. With those two machines, in combination, you can effectively screen your calls. Just don't mention your name in the answering machine greeting - make it generic. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots← 22:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(Click) You know who is not you know where so you know what to do when you hear the you know what. PEEP. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Phones have become another spam conduit, just like email. Putting your number on an opt-out list just tells spammers that the number actually reaches a person, so you get MORE spam. There is really nothing to do under the current phone system other than install some kind of client side filtering that prevents your phone from ringing unless the call presents a white-listed caller ID or else the person calling enters an access code after your machine answers. There is talk here in the US of adding another digit or two to phone numbers once the North American Numbering Plan fills up in a few years. Personally if I could have a 20-digit phone number (long enough to be immune to war dialing) I'd want one. My friends could put it in their speed dialers so the length wouldn't be a problem for them. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 19:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Energy Drinks vs Coffee

Is caffeine the sole active ingredient in Energy Drinks that provide mental stimulation to increase alertness? If so, then will a bottle of energy drink containing 150 mg of caffeine provide the same stimulation as a cup of coffee providing 150 mg of caffeine? Do all the other stuff such us ginseng, taurine, vitamin B's have any role in mental stimulation? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

See Ginseng. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, do not forget that sugar is food energy. Much of the sugar in your energy drink will reach your brain at some point and provide fuel. Googlemeister (talk) 20:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

We have articles on each of those ingredients which describe their benefits, if any. You can look the information up as easily as we can... --Mr.98 (talk) 16:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

BBC radio archive

Does a recording exist of the BBC quarterly programme "The Countryside in Summer" for 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.222.133 (talk) 21:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest you go to the BBC radio website [2] and contact them. I have found them very helpful in the past. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.186.107 (talk) 05:49, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Translation of the word "free"

In reading some of the comments about the possible meaning of "free" and the possibility of purposeful ambiguity, I wondered if the word "libre" in the Spanish and French versions conveyed the proper range of meaning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waltermclauren (talk • contribs) 22:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I am having difficulty understanding the question. "Versions" of what? Are you talking about the translation of an English work to Spanish or French, or a translation of a Spanish or French work to English; or are you asking whether the word "libre" would be nicely unambiguous to use in the English language in general circumstances? (And this question probably belongs on the Language reference desk, where people smarter than I, about languages at least, reside.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

In French, "libre" means free in the sense "without constraint", and "gratuit" or "gratis" mean "without paying" (source: Concise Collins Robert dictionary). This is different to English, which has only one word for both meanings. I assume the question refers to the free speech vs free beer distinction. I don't know Spanish but I believe they have a similar division. Wikipedia has an article Gratis versus Libre. --82.41.11.134 (talk) 22:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language might be a better place to ask this. --82.41.11.134 (talk) 22:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Cúba libre? —— Shakescene (talk) 22:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Vive le Quebec libre!" Words of Charles DeGaulle that endeared him to the rest of Canada. We use "gratis" in English to mean no-cost. "Gratis" is from Latin, "Free" is from the German side of English. "Liberation" is freedom in English. Etc. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots← 23:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I hope you're kidding about endearing himself to the rest of Canada. As far as I know, that angered a lot of Canadians who (rightly, in my opinion) thought that he was meddling into Canada's internal politics. See Quebec seperatism#Emergence. Or actually, Vive le Québec libregENIUS101 19:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

"Gratis" as a root has to do with "pleasing". Something that's "gratis" is a "favor", rather than charging for it. Another good English word for something free of charge is "complimentary". →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots← 23:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Free" in the sense of no payment in English is really short for "free of charge". There's the common English colloquialism, "Free, gratis and for nothing." —— Shakescene (talk) 00:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

‘I wondered if the word "libre" in the Spanish and French versions conveyed the proper range of meaning’ really calls for the services of a recent troll. Or those tiresome (and almost always mistaken) souls who always harp, "The —–— have no word for ———" [war, hatred, revenge, etc.] On the other hand, one of the purposes of Newspeak in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four was to limit the meaning of words like "free", so that while "equal", for example, still existed as a word, "all mans is equal" would be as obviously absurd as "all mans have red hair". Thus "Freedom is Slavery" on the walls of the Ministry of Love (miniluv). —— Shakescene (talk) 00:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Though, in a strict sense, "all men are equal" is false and obviously absurd unless you mean, "equal before the eyes of the law" — and even then, it's an ideal, not a reality. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

This comes up in the OpenSource software community all the time - the ambiguity of the word "free" in the context of "free software" in English has often been a source of confusion. Hence, it has come to be explained as "free (as in free beer!)" versus "free (as in free speech)"...and of course not all OpenSourced software is both of those things, so the need to disambiguate is paramount. We might say "Firefox is free (as in beer) and also free (as in speech) - but Internet Explorer is only free (as in beer)." SteveBaker (talk) 03:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I've always thought "free as in beer" told you a little too much about the demographic in question... --Mr.98 (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Here are lots of English dictionaries whose many definitions of "free" you can scour. For when and how these meanings have arisen see the etmology of free. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

There are many, many senses of the word "free": something can be "free" because it is unrestrained ("free speech", "free-running water"), independent ("free state"), or liberated ("freeman"); because it is available for no cost ("free lunch"); or because it is rid of some contaminant or substance ("sugar-free"); or because it is not occupied or engaged ("a free seat", "free time"). There are a number of universities called Someplace Free University, which are "free" because they are independent and nondenominational, not necessarily because they don't charge tuition. --FOo (talk) 04:06, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

We have an article, Gratis versus Libre, that describes two meanings of "free" when applied to information. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 19:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)