Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 April 17

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April 17

Pot sizes

Are cooking pots marked in litres or quarts in the USA? I live in Canada and we only do litres. One Boston pressure cooker bomb had 6L stamped on it according to one source.--Canoe1967 (talk) 06:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

They tend to be in quarts, although pots imported from other nations may very well be labeled in liters. So, that probably does mean the pot was imported, although it's always possible it was made in the US for export, but was sold domestically instead. StuRat (talk) 07:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I've never used a pressure cooker, but lots of things are marked both ways, on opposite sides. Looie496 (talk) 14:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

CNN is reporting the Boston pot is imported from Spain. Probably no dual labeling requirements. (Just checked four pots in my kitchen - only one had a size and it was labeled "4L/2qrt" which doesn't even make sense.) Rmhermen (talk) 15:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah - that's weird. Quarts and liters are almost the same size - so to one significant digit, 4L/4qrt would make more sense. Perhaps they're using Winchester quarts?! (That's a very archaic measure - so I doubt it) SteveBaker (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe they were thinking of a quart being 2 pints (thus 4 litres is roughly 8 pints) and somehow got both their maths and their terminology totally confused. If you're gonna stuff something up, it's not good to be half-hearted about it, but best to make a complete cock-up. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:16, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe they wanted to say 4 L and 2 qrt (of a liter). OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

You mean like 4.5 L? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:37, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Or 4.25 L? -- Q Chris (talk) 07:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I mean 4.5 L, expressed in a rather non-standard way. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:36, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you suggest any possible advantage, purpose, point or benefit of such a marking? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:47, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

@Rmhermen @SteveBaker. You could try filling the pot with something accurate like a measuring cup. You may also wish to list it on Ebay in case some collectors are looking for them.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:33, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that qrt QRT means quart. The abbreviation for quart is qt. I don't have any pots with sizes but I have some glass and ceramic cookware that has imperial and metric and they use l and qt. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 07:54, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

alarms

I have trouble with losing track of time whilst busy with something, so I thought what might help is if I had an alarm that would beep at me once every hour, something I could just quickly install on my computer and set up, anyone know whether such a thing exists and where I might get one?

213.104.128.16 (talk) 15:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

That depends heavily on your OS. One simple solution is just a digital watch: if you have one, they usually have a setting to beep once on the hour. —Rutebega (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This also has the advantage of working while you are away from the computer. Note that this feature is normally called a "chime". An "alarm", on the other hand, is set for a specific time. Actual alarms (for important events) is another option I'd recommend. My cell phone allows me to schedule events on it's calendar and set off an alarm before the event. I typically give myself 3 hours to get ready and drive there. If you don't have the ability to set the alarm before the actual event, you can always schedule the actual event early, for the time when you need to start preparing.

And, if you don't wear a watch or have a cell phone that can do this, how about a clock with an hourly charm ? This should be more reliable than a computer, which may fail to ring when the computer is off, the volume is turned down, etc. A clock plugged into the wall with battery backup is the most reliable. StuRat (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

How about http://www.dailyalarms.com ? An online alarm clock that lets you set over 1000 alarms per day. Just set an alarm for every hour while you're at work (or whatever). SteveBaker (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

mm, I didn't want to buy a whole new watch or yet another clock just for this, I was hoping for something I could set for once an hour, rather than having to manually set each individual hour, but until then, this might work. And actually I'd rather it not run while I'm away from the computer, since it'll keep waking me up all night. then again, do you have to go into those alarms and turn them off each time, too, because that would get annoying. 213.104.128.16 (talk) 19:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

If you are running Microsoft Windows, you can easily use the Task Scheduler to do this. Just create a small Win32 program that plays a sound file or displays a message, and let it run once an hour. [You can also use the "schtasks" command-line interface to manage your tasks.] --81.170.199.71 (talk) 21:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Batch script;

@echo off
:start
ping -n 60 localhost>nul
START/min sndrec32 /play /beep.wav
goto start

77.101.52.130 (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Just copy that to notepad and save as timer.bat on desktop, we assume?--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:03, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

AFAIK "ping -n 60" will send 60 requests within few seconds. Not suitable to use as 'wait for 60 minutes'. If OP is on Windows, OP can download Resource Kit from Microsoft and use sleep.exe in batch file. Task scheduler suggestion by "81.170..." is also good. - manya (talk) 04:15, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like a handy idea for a batch file. Someone should write one that works and add it to the Batch file article. Add 'remark' statements where they can adjust timing. If it was in Linden Scripting Language you could probably sell it on Second Life Marketplace.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh right yes, it should be "ping -n 3600" for an hour wait. 77.101.52.130 (talk) 11:04, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

You can do it on the Calendar in Outlook. Set up a recurrent appointment lasting 1 minute, every hour, with an alarm at the time the appointment starts. You might get annoying reminders when you set up real appointments but there should be ways round that. The computing desk would know. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Apimac timer is nice for Mac computers. Bus stop (talk) 10:42, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

You could get an analog clock that plays Westminster Quarters.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 22:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

'Rank' of New Zealand National Party MPs

Here is the National Party's list of MPs. Under the first third of MPs, it gives the MP's 'rank'? I'm not sure what this refers to. At first I thought their seniority in terms of time served in Parliament, but some lower-ranked MPs have served longer than higher-ranked MPs. Then I thought it was a government seniority thing, but some of the MPs without a 'rank' are ministers. Does anyone know what the rank refers to? User:SamUK 18:55, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

As far as I see, only one MP without a rank on that list is a minister (outside cabinet as it were) Michael Woodhouse. The exclusion of a rank for him may have simply been a mistake as he has a rank here [1]. Perhaps when his position was moved (if it was moved) after the most recent cabinet reshuffle when he was made a minister [2], the person involved forgot to give him a rank. Edit: It was changed, you can see the older version here [3]. Nil Einne (talk) 19:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I forgot to link to Cabinet of New Zealand#Members and other ministers which appears to be up to date. [4] is useful if there is doubt. I noticed in the old list Simon Bridges was also not given a rank despite being a minister, but again perhaps it was a mistake. Nil Einne (talk) 20:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be a creature of the NZ electoral system. There's no mention of it in Electoral system of New Zealand. But this says:

• How do I become an MP?

• In an election, as a voter you get two votes: one for a person to represent your electorate and one for the political party you want to form the government. You might choose an electorate MP from a different party to the one you give your party vote to.
• Therefore, you can become an MP in two different ways. You can become an electorate MP by being elected by the people in that community. Otherwise, you can become a “list MP”, which means you are chosen by your political party and given a ranking on their list. The number of people on that list who become MPs depends on how many party votes the party wins. If you are high up on the list, you are more likely to get a seat in the House.
• You can both stand for a particular electorate, and be included on the party list.

(my bolding) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Rank being their list rank was my first thought but the ranks listed are not the ranks from the last election and as far as I know most parties only publish/finalise lists just before an election (but I'm not sure of that). It's probable the order of the later few MPs is their order according to their list ranking in the last election (after the ministers, speaker and perhaps some other exceptions) but I never checked and they aren't given a rank anywhere. Nil Einne (talk) 14:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

LiveJasmin: Member Chat vs. Private Chat

When you browse performers at LiveJasmin, you can see that while some are available, some are unavailable. Among the unavailable performers, some are "in private chat", while the rest are "in member chat". What is the difference between the two? I occasionally use LiveJasmin credits to interact directly with the models myself, but as far as I can tell, I only have one option to do so, and I believe it to be the "private chat" option. --81.170.199.71 (talk) 21:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)