Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 September 20

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September 20

Feces

I have moved this to the Wikipedia Reference Desk: Science, as it seems to be the appropriate section. 75.6.243.251 (talk) 00:21, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Possibly. The question is at [1]. I replaced the title which must not be just "?". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:07, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

James Randi and Halloween

What does James Randi think about Halloween? Does he celebrate it?

Bowei Huang 2 (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Why don't you email him and ask? On the side, I don't think anyone "celebrates" Halloween. It's more of a "participates" kind of event. And as far as that goes, it's the most widely embraced event in America (due to it being a-religious). 221.11.61.226 (talk) 05:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I've known folks who claim to be witches, and they do "celebrate" Halloween. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

They may celebrate Samhain or some similar pagan or wiccan festival that falls on the same day. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

They might have stated "Halloween" just for conventionality, i.e. because everyone knows what Halloween is, whereas they would have had to explain that other one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:48, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Since Halloween has become a popular kids holiday, rather than having a deeper superstitious meaning, I see no reason why he would object. StuRat (talk) 05:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I wonder how many kids have any clue what "Trick or Treat?" is supposed to mean? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:48, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think most understand the "give me a treat (candy) or you'll get a trick (soap, eggs, toilet paper)" part, at least. StuRat (talk) 21:08, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I love these questions. Looking forward to finding out what James Randi thinks about chewing gum, Spiderman, corrugated iron, property prices in Mogadishu and the Jabberwock. --Dweller (talk) 12:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

James Randi's email address: randi@randi.org The Wikipedia reference desks are not, as you seem to think, the official spokespeople for James Randi. thx1138 (talk) 12:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Oy, this guy again. Methinks there is something rotten afoot here. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 20:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

He does this every year or so. Check the WT:RD archives (I think #65 or thereabouts) or the WP:ANI archives for a clear pattern of behavior. This is not new. Bowei has been doing this for years. --Jayron32 21:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

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META shipping calculator?

I have a hobby website with several hundred active members. I'm exploring the idea of selling some site-related stuff as a form of indirect site support (all proceeds would go to site hosting fees) rather than just asking people to make donations. After talking to my core userbase, I decided my introductory thingy would be a coffee mug, the economics of which are quite favorable. However, I'm having trouble estimating the shipping costs. All shipments would originate in the U.S., and approximately 10% would be to Europe (the rest domestic). Packing materials can be easily sourced and researched online, but I'm getting wildly variable figures from USPS.com and UPS.com and the like. Is there a "meta" postage calculator out there? Does anyone have any useful advice on how best to estimate this cost? I'm looking to move about 100 units in all, and allowing for people purchasing multiples, it would probably be ~70 shipments in total. Thank you for any help you can provide. 221.11.61.226 (talk) 05:26, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The most common way to quote US shipping prices is to offer one price for inside the US (and maybe Canada), and another for anywhere else. For multiple shipments, you could just keep the same shipping rate as your method of offering a discount for multiple purchases. Some products also offer faster shipping for increased fees, but I don't really see the need for that with with coffee mugs ("My coffee maker is running now and I need a mug !") StuRat (talk) 05:34, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Flappy white sheet thingy on the White House

Watching the news last night, I noticed behind the shoulder of the dull talking head they had 'live, from [outside] the White House' (why do they do that? It's pointless.) what looked like a flappy white sheet thingy on the White House roof. What is it? Is it a permanent thingy or a temporary one? Are they hiding some unsightly repairs or are they hoping eventually they'll be able to get the whole edifice off sailing the seven seas? Yours, intrigued of London. --Dweller (talk) 09:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It's symbolic. They're airing laundry. ;) -- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It's a white flag of surrender, which Obama has had mounted to the White House roof to signal his intentions to Congress. Marco polo (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The White House is undergoing renovations. Often work crews will cover materials with plastic or canvass drop cloths when they aren't working to protect them from wind and weather. Marco polo (talk) 19:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

So it's the TARP then. Dualus (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Dweller (talk) 09:02, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

"TARP"! Lol, literally. Good one. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Weird plant-type thing

What is this? Some kind of plant or flower? And what are the things inside the holes? --Viennese Waltz 19:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It's fruit of lotus and seeds. See also this. Oda Mari (talk) 19:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's the seed pod from a Lotus, or Nelumbo, the things in the holes are thus seeds. --Jayron32 19:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Amazing how much it resembles a wasp nest:[2] (even more if larva were still in the chambers). StuRat (talk) 21:01, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Digital photography noise

I came to think that in digital photography, noise is particularly evident in dark areas with short exposure times. My reasoning behind this is that there is the more noise the less information gets to the sensor, and the sensor gets the less information the less light has the time to arrive to it. With light areas this is no problem, as there is plenty of light coming to the sensor, and with long exposure times it's also no problem, because the sensor has more time to calculate the information. However with short exposure times and dark areas the sensor gets very little information to calculate the pixel values with, so it has to do a lot of guesswork, which means noise. Long exposure times would be otherwise OK, but they tend to result in blurry pictures, particularly when photographing moving subjects and not using a tripod. Am I correct here? JIP | Talk 20:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This is extensively covered in the Image noise article. The largest component of the noise, the Gaussian noise, is actually independent of the light level. At higher light levels, the incoming light drown out the small random noise; but at lower light levels, the noise dominates. Anonymous.translator (talk) 20:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Also, none of this is unique to digital photography, right ? Wouldn't film have the same problem ? StuRat (talk) 20:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Film doesn't have noise as such. Rather, it has grain (a given photosensitive particle is either "exposed" or "not", there is no halfway) and reciprocity failure (in a low-light situation, a photon striking a particle does not always expose it). --Carnildo (talk) 01:27, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's a function of Signal-to-noise ratio. At low light levels, there is less signal(light), but the same amount of noise. At brighter levels, the ratio is higher, so the noise is less evident. --Jayron32 20:59, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Does the exposure time affect this? At least when I looked at some pictures I had taken, it seemed that there was more noise in dark areas with shorter exposure times, while light areas were similar. Or maybe this was just a coincidence. JIP | Talk 21:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I would expect so. With more time the noise should "average out" and just make the darks a bit brighter and whites a bit darker. StuRat (talk) 21:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)At longer exposure times, you increase the amount of light on the sensors/film (more signal) at a greater rate than you increase the noise. That is, as long as signal is above noise, increasing the exposure time will increase both, but will tend to increase the signal faster than it increases the noise. (post EC) Also, as Stu notes, noise is random, so increased exposure to noise will cancel out, somewhat; while non-random signal will tend to be reinforced. --Jayron32 21:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)