Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 December 21

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December 21

Margaret Thatcher's entrepreneurial grants

I seem to remember that for a few months under the Thatcher government there was a scheme where an unemployed person could apply for a lump sum to start a company. Does anyone remember the name? 74.65.111.74 (talk) 01:52, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Enterprise Allowance Scheme. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the one! Different terms from what I remembered, but that's it. The article says that the program came with a guaranteed income of £40/wk. Does anyone remember what the regular dole was then? 74.65.111.74 (talk) 03:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I think they may have offered variations on this scheme at different times. From memory, it paid more than unemployment benefit, but you had to fund your 'enterprise' out of it, and if it failed, you counted as self-employed, and as such were no longer entitled to benefits. Basically, it was a gamble, and a way of fiddling unemployment statistics. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The terms did vary over the scheme lifecycle. At one time it lasted six months, in which time members would attend training in setting up a business, rather than having to sign on and make themselves available for work. During that time they could draw the allowance and make money from their business idea at the same time (assuming they had a viable business idea). After the six months they were supposed to be self-supporting in their new business. If it failed after that, they would be in the same position as anyone who had failed in business. I can't remember whether they would have been entitled to unemployment benefit if failing as a sole trader or partner. If they had set up a limited company then presumably they could make everyone redundant and then be able to start on the scheme again. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Value of bought degrees from degree mills

What are they worth? Probably nothing. But why do people pay several thousand dollars for them? Anyone in HR with a real degree won't let you get away with it.212.169.184.68 (talk) 03:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

They're useful if you want to write a book, or go on a public speaking tour, and need to pretend to credentials (I am assuming here that you are not an honest person). Kent Hovind got good mileage for his, before some enterprising internet denizens unearthed a copy of his comically inadequate thesis. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 03:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't think of that. I had my mind set in getting a degree -> getting a job. 212.169.187.44 (talk) 09:24, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Even in this case, I ask myself what is the value of a regular degree on the job market. People with degree will say: it does not hurt. People without: they never needed one. Quest09 (talk) 13:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It's difficult to assess the value of jobs that one did not get. While anecdotes are readily available identifying highly successful people who dropped out of college (or even high school), these stories are noteworthy primarily because they are exceptional. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, but Warren Buffett earned a master's degree in economics. In this July 2002 report from the U.S. census bureau, the average lifetime earnings of a working adult with a high school diploma was $1.2 million; a bachelor's degree, $2.1 million; a master's degree, $2.5 million; a doctoral degree, $3.4 million; and professional degrees (medicine, law, etc.) $4.4 million.

Now, one should be a little bit wary of those numbers, because they don't take into account when that money is earned. In principle, someone who goes to work straight out of high school has four years of earnings (and potentially four years of savings for future retirement) before our bachelor-degreed student gets out of school laden with debt. This article makes some rough assumptions and pegs the net present value of that bachelor's degree at about a quarter of a million dollars, even after accounting for the late start. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I've often wondered if this is a simple cause and effect relationship or something more complex. People who get a degree are likely to have more money to start (or their families do), have a higher intelligence than average, a strong family and friend support system, good study habits, and are fairly ambitious. The question, then, is if people with these same attributes, who don't get a degree, do just as well. Has this ever been studied ? StuRat (talk) 20:45, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Some people use them to get into countries via the 'scarce skill' route (which in the US could get you a H-1B visa and allow you to apply for a green card). Others pay to 'study' the subject, thus getting them into a country on a student visa. And it can help your cat get a job too, see List of animals with fraudulent diplomas! Nanonic (talk) 13:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that the INS etc are not aware of the need for universities to be accredited? I mean, if I wanted an H1-B, which I don't, and I went down there with a DPhil Marnanelensis, I would be taken seriously? Marnanel (talk) 14:20, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The USCIS are aware, a report issued in 2008 stated that up to 20% of the 65,000 H-1B visa applications that year were found to include fraudulent certification/documentation/supporting evidence.[1] The UK now has a central database of accredited Colleges/Universities to cut down on the number of Bogus colleges and thus reduce the amount of fraudulently obtained student visas. Nanonic (talk) 15:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

True, but as someone who works with the UK list, it's far from comprehensive - it omits lots of perfectly genuine institutions. Warofdreams talk 16:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

People working for police departments, public school systems, or other bureaucracies have bought degrees from diploma mills to qualify for high paying jobs. Here is one recent article about an investigation of police officers (the article does not state whether they were found to be guilty, just that they were placed on leave). It says that per a union contract, a bachelor's degree leads to an automatic 4% pay raise, and a master's degree leads to an additional 2% raise. So 2 diploma mill degrees, costing perhaps a thousand dollars, would lead to a permanent 6% raise from the minimum $46,700 State Trooper salary. A search of a subscription ProQuest newspaper database discloses many examples too numerous to list here of educators and public employees who got raises or promotion with degrees purchased from diploma mills. Many school teachers have union contracts which produce automatic raises for getting a Master's degree. There were heads of colleges and junior colleges, and high school principals in large cities who were "Doctor" thus and such due to meaningless degrees purchased from diploma mills. Stories about such use of diploma mills go back many decades. The people running the bureaucracies just don't seem to care that the degrees people are rewarded for do not represent educational attainment, and can't be bothered to check up on the "university" in standard college handbooks. Some educational administrators in New Jersey used school board funds to purchase diploma mil degrees, then got $2500 raises as the reward for all their "hard word" and educational advancement. Reporters run scandal mongering stories and exposés,legitimate college heads and accrediting agencies express anguish, then the next year the fake institutions are back to selling diplomas for a few thousand dollars and no work. Private industry might also be subject to such fraud, but I could not find examples of it. Perhaps their HR departments are more careful. Edison (talk) 16:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Goodness, that's rather nasty. Even degrees from legitimate institutions shouldn't necessarily lead to a raise: I'd have hoped they'd have the sense not to give one for an Oxbridge MA, or a BA from CHS, and so on. Marnanel (talk) 17:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, that's a bad policy. Raises should be based on job performance only. StuRat (talk) 19:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

In a field like education the employee's own level of education has an effect on their performance that is difficult to measure. So why not encourage employees to further their formal education? Wouldn't doing so increase the overall level of service, even if a couple of freeloaders get a degree without learning?

(Course, it doesn't work if the employees cheat it with phony degrees.) APL (talk) 20:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be better to give them tests to judge precisely their level of knowledge of the subject matter they teach, rather than rely on some other institution to tell you if they are qualified. And, of course, proctor the tests properly, don't give them take-home tests, so they can cheat on those. This would also handle the reverse case, of someone who knows the subject thoroughly, yet lacks a degree. I would think this case would be particularly common in foreign language teachers. Who would do a better job in teaching French, someone who is a native English speaker with a French degree (possibly from a diploma mill) or a native French speaker without a degree ? StuRat (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The point isn't to exactly calibrate their pay to their abilities. (Ideally the administrator that hired them did that at least roughly when their base pay was set, and sometimes there really is a sort of test like you describe.) The point is to offer an additional incentive for employees to further their own education.

(Offering incentives for doing particular things is a perfectly valid way to motivate employees. I've even heard of places that offer incentives for carpooling. They're not interested in measuring each employee's total carbon footprint, they're just trying to encourage one particular behavior.) APL (talk) 02:19, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the point really is to exactly calibrate their pay to their abilities (and performance). They just do a lousy job at calibration when they assume a set increase in those skills due to the existence of a new degree. As for incentive, allowing (or better yet, requiring) teachers to retake the skills assessment test periodically and adjusting their pay accordingly would do a lot more to keep them on their toes. The teachers themselves would then have an interest in finding a university which would actually teach those skills, not just sign on the dotted line and cash their check. StuRat (talk) 07:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

A better way of keeping teachers on their toes would be to have their students work assessed independently, objectively, and blindly by others, and not by the teacher themselves. This used to happen in the UK before the days of "coursework". 92.29.126.195 (talk) 12:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Under such a system, wouldn't teachers of remedial classes rate poorly and those with advanced students rate highly ? Rating improvement in students from the beginning of the year to the end would help, but students, knowing this was being done, might just intentionally fail the pretest to look like they learned more. StuRat (talk) 02:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You can 1) compare with the students performance in earlier exams, 2) compare the classes taught by each teacher with the students performance in other teacher's classes, 3) adjust for the deprivation or otherwise of the catchment area of the school. I think 1) and 3), at least, occur in the UK 92.28.250.15 (talk) 10:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Image copyright, a Wikipedian and a British museum/art gallery

I've gone brain dead. About a year ago, a Wikipedian who admitted to accessing a museum's image files in an unconventional way, and using them on WP articles, was threatened with a law suit. Does someone with a better memory (which would include almost everyone who might read this) remember who was involved and know what has since happened? Bielle (talk) 03:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

National Portrait Gallery copyright dispute? ---Sluzzelin talk 03:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC

That's it! Thank you, Sluzzelin. One day I will learn to go straight to your page and ask you. :-) Bielle (talk) 04:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Is that case is still pending? Did they file a case? What happened to the images in the meantime? The article doesn't say. Ariel. (talk) 07:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The latest information is in this Signpost article, from earlier in the month. Warofdreams talk 10:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Amaze me: link to something from later this month. —Tamfang (talk) 09:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Closest I could get. Matt Deres (talk) 21:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

electrik

the self-induced voltage produced by a ritating armature is often called the counter-voltage or back-emf. why would it be called 'counter' or 'back'? what is implied by this terminology and what electromagnet principleis illustrated by the 'counter' nature of this induced voltage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.82.80.47 (talk) 04:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying that the name is counter-intuitive ? :-) StuRat (talk) 18:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

See Counter-electromotive force. Nanonic (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

satellite

If I wanted to watch free to air satellite tv from a European satellite on my computer, what equipment would be required? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

TV: You need a satellite antenna (possibly with remote controlled rotation/azimuth), a receiver (to convert the satellite signals to something you can display on your TV), various connecting cables, and, of course, a TV which accepts the type of output coming from the receiver. If you look at some products and packages here, you'll see that it isn't cheap: [2].

COMPUTER: You need a satellite antenna (possibly with remote controlled rotation/azimuth), a card for your computer (to convert the satellite signals to something you can display on your computer), various connecting cables, and, of course, a computer powerful enough to display the satellite images at the resolution and frame rate you desire. Here's one card: [3].

Beware that satellite broadcasts have multiple formats, so you may not be able to decipher them all. It also might be illegal to view the shows without paying, although the chance of being caught is negligible.

I suspect that getting your European TV fix via streaming Internet video is a better way to go, and will become an even better option in the future. StuRat (talk) 18:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean Freesat. This List_of_Internet_television_providers#Europe wuld probably enable you to watch much of the content without further equipment. 92.29.125.87 (talk) 19:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

"List of free-to-air channels at 28°E" is the list of programmes available from SES Astra satellites located at 28.2 °E (Astra 2A/2B/2D) and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5°E (Just over 28°E is the standard installation alignment in the UK). The “Freesat” setup finds only some of these channels by default, but others can be added, though some are encoded. Other programmes are available from Europe by rotating the dish. Many European satellites are not designed to broadcast to the UK, and may need a larger dish and higher amplification if they can be received at all. Dbfirs 23:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Unknown tool - what is it?

I'm trying to find out what this tool is. It's not heavy duty; you can bend it with slight stress with your fingers; it is not sharp and pretty dull. Is it some sort of a kitchen tool? Somthing for art? Please help. Thanks! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35240&id=100000355168602&l=e0aaf92b6f —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.195.96.237 (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The writing on the blade seems to be Danish. Richard Avery (talk) 15:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks like it says:

(a brand name?)

FATTY

Rustfritt Stal

The last is "stainless steel" in German. I was thinking it might be a cantaloupe scraper, or maybe a sculpture tool until I saw the "FATTY". WikiDao ☯ (talk) 16:06, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It says "Rostfritt stål". It is Swedish, not German or Danish. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:43, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The brand name is "Nilsjohan", and it appears to be a butter curler; see here. (Note in particular the second picture below the large one; click on it and then enlarge it.) Deor (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Very good detective work. Bus stop (talk) 16:34, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

And for anyone curious about what a butter curler is, as I was, here's an explanation: [4]. I would create an article here, but I seem to recall Wikipedia having some silly prohibition on articles about common household objects. StuRat (talk) 18:10, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

We would have an edit war over whether it could still be called a butter curler when it was used to make chocolate shavings and/or wax shavings. Bus stop (talk) 18:24, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Alternate uses doesn't necessarily mean alternate names. But, if there are alternate names, redirects could be used to handle those. StuRat (talk) 21:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

This is great; Thanks to all of you! I was guessing something to do with an older kitchen tool, thinking in the line of pastry, but this all makes sense! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.195.96.237 (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Article created - expansion welcome. If we have spork this is fine too. Exxolon (talk) 19:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It could use a pic: Would the original question asker consent to us using one of his pics ? StuRat (talk) 21:44, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I've added a freely licensed pic of the end product, can't find one of the item itself. Exxolon (talk) 22:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I've added a bit, too - and another ref, but I dunno if this passes wp:notability. Matt Deres (talk) 21:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

How can I order

Could you please tell me how I can order the Victorian Farm, Victorian Christmas etc. If you could let me know at email removed I would appreciate it. Scott —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.136.115.67 (talk) 16:12, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If you are referring to the television programs, BBC has them on DVD. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)