Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 April 12

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April 12

Bald women

I was looking around on Commons and found a category of images of bald men. And one for bald heads in general. I don't see any images of bald women though which kind of surprised me. I know women have been bald but can't think of any examples. So, do we really not have any images of bald women? Seems like a big omission. Dismas|^(talk) 00:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

This babe comes to mind immediately. And this one, although she wasn't actually bald. True baldness in women (apart from side effects of cancer treatment) is rather rare. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I google imaged [bald women] and plenty of examples came up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sinead O'Connor in her Pope-ripping days. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Grace Jones comes to mind: [1]. StuRat (talk) 01:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

But Jones and O'Connor are not bald! they have shaved their heads, like Bugs says female baldness is pretty rare compared to male baldness. It is one of the major characterictics that differentiate men from women (or males from females if you prefer). Hopefully someone will be along in a minute to give us a proper genetic or hormone based explanation. Richard Avery (talk) 06:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Did anyone actually read the article, Baldness? The genetics and hormonal reasons for baldness are well explained in our article Baldness --NorwegianBlue ^talk 06:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Bald = "having no hair, fur or feathers", according to Wiktionary. It doesn't specify how that state was achieved. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

They do have hair, it's just really, really short. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

@Richard Avery, there are plenty of men who aren't actually completely bald, but who have male pattern baldness and choose to shave the rest of their hair off so they just show a naked head. Total baldness in men is actually very rare: I only know of two (Duncan Goodhew and a good friend of mine) and they are completely bald - no eyelashes, no eyebrows... Not even very old men are completely bald. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point. And there are not many women who exhibit male pattern baldness as such, although some women do get thinning hair as they get older. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see, I was thinking of any baldness, typically male pattern baldness, as total baldness wasn't specified in the original post. I don't think most people reserve the adjective 'bald' for people who are totally bald. If you're talking about alopecia totalis then I would agree that there is little difference between men and women. And don't forget Matt Lucas. Richard Avery (talk) 13:07, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Or Pierluigi Collina. 109.97.143.170 (talk) 14:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I know this will be a little off-topic, but in Ancient Egypt, men and women shaved their heads because of lice. Of course, they wore wigs, but still. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 06:58, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Gail Porter#Alopecia (though that article doesn't have a photo). --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Two of the footnotes lead to pix [2] [3] —Tamfang (talk) 18:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've known grown women and young girls who had cancer of one form or another and the radiation/chemo caused them to lose their hair, becoming quite bald until it grew back, typically more curly than it originally was. Edison (talk) 01:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Building heights

The buildings below have/had something in common:

• Chrysler Building
• Empire State Building
• Burj Khalifa (formerly Burj Dubai)
• Nakheel Tower (formerly Al Burj, never built, now cancelled)
• Kingdom Tower (approved, not yet built)

They have/had, at some point, kept their final height a secret. I'm not asking how to find out their heights, I'm just asking which buildings at any time period (whether it was 100 years ago or 10 years ago) in any place which kept their height a secret. If there are none apart from the aforementioned buildings, why? Would it be for legal reasons, or is it just because they didn't think of keeping heights secret? The first time I asked this, Astronaut mentioned that several proposed buildings kept secret their final height, but he did not mention any particular buildings. But are there any others aside from the above? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 06:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You've asked roughly this question twice in recent months: [4], [5]. If you didn't get satisfactory answers then, what makes you think that you will now? Warofdreams talk 09:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I was focusing on different questions at the time, like why the practice is common in the Middle East but not elsewhere, or if there are laws in most countries that would prevent secrecy for heights. The question about other buildings doing it was not answered. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You might want to start by defining "secret". In many jurisdictions, developers must submit planning applications which would detail the heights. I suspect, if we dig, your working definition of "secret" will be that the developer will not confirm the height to the press or other casual enquirers. "Secret" heights make for good press copy, as does teir later revelation. Are you sure you're not being caught up in the normal publicity bollocks associated with the construction of these follies? --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Secret, as in the exact height is not disclosed to the public, going as far as only two people knowing its exact height. And no, it's not about the promotion, this is actually a serious question. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As serious and secret as the recipie for Kentuky Fried Rat. Lordie Lord. Because that sort of "secret mix of ingredients" crap is never to be confused with marketing hype. Now I'm convinced. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In the days before marketing hype, a rival of Colman's mustard had a secret recipe so secret it caused the company serious problems when the only person who knew it died. Colman's took them over. The company? Keen & Son. Hence "keen as mustard". Apparently. --Dweller (talk) 10:59, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Apparently not, sadly. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, this question is getting out of topic. Can someone try to answer the question? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It appears not, no matter how many times it's asked. --Dweller (talk) 11:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

And that, in part, for the reason I stated: that if you are unable to define "secret" in this context then you're merely making a windy and vague assertion, and asking how many instances there are that qualify for that vague assertion. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Didn't I already define the meaning of keeping heights a secret? What I meant by keeping heights secret is simply not disclosing the final height of the building to the general building, and/or acknowledging the fact that the exact height is being kept a secret. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Not to my satisfaction, no. The construction of buildings generally involves the production of plans involving architects, civil engineers, builders, planning authorities, etc. That's worlds away from from the hermetic environments of Mr. Keen, Mr. Coleman, and Colonel Sanders. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I imagine our friend is thinking of cases like Coca-Cola, the formula to which is allegedly only ever known to 2 people in the world at any one time, and they never fly on the same plane yada yada. If you think about it for a micro-second, that claim is simply impossible to sustain. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 11:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

So basically someone can destroy Coca-Cola by killing just 2 people? (Most of these rumours I've heard at least have the formula stored in one or more secret locations.) Edit: I would note that at least two of those examples appears to be flawed. From what I can tell Nakheel Tower was never much more then a pipe dream, with various designs and heights bandied around. Perhaps the height would have been kept 'secret' according to whatever definition you're using if the design had been finalised and construction had started, but it's clearly not a comparable example. The case for Kingdom Tower appears to be similar except it looks like it's going ahead (at least as far as we know now) and the height has been confirmed at 1 km. In other words, neither of these cases seem to involve any real secrecy, if anything they involved fairly the opposite, people banding about heights even though they could never realisticly be achieved, as a PR move. Nil Einne (talk) 11:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Spoiler: For many years, the C-C formula has been used by a chemical company in NJ which produced the main part of the syrup, and was locked up in their vault as well. There is no possibility of the "secret" being lost. And with modern analysis, companies can pretty much replicate it well -- the problem is that in taste tests, other flavours are more popular than C-C <g> which Coke knew, and then made a huge marketing blunder anyway. Collect (talk) 11:59, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Note that "known to 2 people" (which is likely a bit of advertising magic anyway) does not have to equate to "stored only in their heads". Individuals who knew the formula could place an arbitrarily large number of paper copies of the formula in secure locations (bank safe deposit boxes, company vaults, etc.) that would be private as long as they were alive, but which could be opened by company officers (with the aid of a locksmith and drill, if necessary) in the event of the formula-holder's untimely death. Slightly more elaborate measures (encryption, dividing the formula into several sections) could in principle be employed to protect the 'secret' if any of these backups were inadvertently released/lost/stolen. Of course, the formula could be reconstructed from scratch if necessary, using a combination of careful analytical chemistry, old-fashioned trial and error, and going down to the Accounts Payable department and looking to see which flavoring agents the company bought a billion dollars' worth of last year. If you'd like a conspiracy theory, this actually took place in 1985. The two executives who held the complete formula died in an accident that was subseequently hushed up; Coca-Cola began a crash program to reconstruct the formula, and New Coke was introduced as a stopgap measure to buy time until the original formula could be rediscovered (and to discourage direct comparisons between the 'real' original formulation and the reconstruction). Of course, in a real hurry, someone who needs the Coca-Cola formula would just check the Wikipedia article: Coca-Cola formula. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, according to our Kingdom Tower article, its height will probably only be revealed in the opening ceremony (if the project actually makes it that far). And I am quoting:

The building has been scaled down from its initial 1.6 km (about one mile) proposal, which was never fully designed, to a height of at least 1,000 metres (3,280.84 ft) (the exact height is being kept private while in development, similar to the Burj Khalifa)

— Kingdom Tower Wikipedia article

This implies that Burj Khalifa started the trend of keeping building heights secret, which brings me back to my question: What buildings aside from the aforementioned ones keep or kept their height a secret? And please stop talking about Coke since none of you are getting any closer to answering my question. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, I somehow missed that bit about the Kingdom Tower, but the point about Nakheel Tower still stands. Nil Einne (talk) 12:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I notice you also don't seem to have restricted the answer to skyscrapers. In some countries, people have a right to know the details about what's being constructed near them (perhaps by accessing plans submitted to whatever government agency gave approval, sometimes they may even have a right of feedback before approval is given particularly if the building may be consider out of character to the rest of the neighbourhood), particularly in residential areas but it's unlikely this applies to every country. Most commonly the people involved in construction and the developers and the owners (if any) will also be willing to give some idea but if you do live in a country without a right of access to such details. and the the developers for some reason are uncooperative and ask the builders to keep all details a secret, it's easy to imagine a scenario where the neighbours (the only people likely to be interested) have no idea of the final height of a house going up next to them (and have been unable to find out), and in the early stages of construction not even how many storeys it may be. Is this a building with a 'secret height'? It seems to fit you definition of the height not being publicly known. (There are of course likely to be plenty of cases when no attempt is made at secrecy, but no one bothers to ask so technically you could say it's not publicly known.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the question refers to skyscrapers only. No one would probably care what the height of my house is anyway. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's usually kept under wraps and/or not confirmed to prevent "one-ups" by competing developers. You see this a lot with rival college sports teams, where Team X announces plans to install a new 50 ft big-screen in their stadium, and then cross-town rival, Team Y, announces their own plans to install a 55 ft screen...basically to take the wind out of their rival's sails...but it can also be an effective tactic to promote fund raising, alumni donations, etc....plus some good press. As far as buildings go, I don't know any specific examples, but the principle still applies. I can imagine a scenario in which a developer promotes their plan to build 3,000 ft skyscrapers as "the tallest building in Houston" (for example), but then a competing firm could come out at the same time and say they are developing plans for a 3,100 ft skyscraper. Whether are not they are really planning to build it or not is irrelevant, especially with people's short attention spans these days (and building projects get announced, but never built all the time), but it's a good tactic to get their company some press, while belittling their competitors. The bottom line is that their is no real "advantage" to acknowledging or promoting the specific height of a building...and a little mystery never hurts things either. But I'm sure, in most cases, the true height could be determined through public or private records, at least in the U.S. See also: 1 2 (note the paragraph under the "Projected Height" graphic about half-way through) Quinn ^{░ RAIN} 02:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Before the building is built, what difference does it make how tall they say it's going to be? That number is going to change in the process of building. Once it's built, you couldn't keep the height of a building a secret for very long anyway. There are many ways to determine the height of a building, from measuring shadows to bribing the building supervisor with a barometer. You measure the length of shadow of the building(x), measure the shadow of a ruler(y) that you know the length of(L1), and y/L1 = x/L2, and L2 is the length of your building. You don't even need access to the building itself. Any smart 5th grader could do this. If it was my building, I'd be saying "Get a yardstick, figure it out yourself." Listmeister (talk) 18:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Twitter Handles

Is it the same thing if you type the handle name in caps or lowercase? Like @RheaTweets is the same as @rheatweets?? (I'm new to Twitter >_< ) 117.226.188.88 (talk) 08:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes it's not case sensitive, so don't worry about capitalisation. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll answer my own post here. I am aware of a friend whose user name contains a small case letter i, but who is being cyberbullied by someone using the same username but with an uppercase letter I. So I may have been wrong. However, I've never had any of my tweets go astray if I've addressed them to (for example) @freddyvancat instead of @FreddyVanCat. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:41, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure it is an uppercase i and not a lowercase L? It is quite common to use the fact that those letters look identical in a lot of common fonts for malicious purposes. --Tango (talk) 09:50, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

No I've seen the two names side by side in a serif font. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:37, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The Twitter system seems to behave oddly under some circumstances if thisreport is accurate. Dbfirs 07:29, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

John Philip Sousa Bridge (Washington DC)

Just curious, is there a walkway along the John Philip Sousa Bridge? Kansan (talk) 17:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, on both sides. Part of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you have to march across without loitering? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)