Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 January 11

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January 11

Electrical conduit

Resolved

So I have this electrical conduit with 9 wires running through it into the panel. All the breakers are 2-1 pole. This is in Canada by the way, which has the same conventions in these matters I believe as the US. There are 3 blacks, 2 whites, 2 reds, 1 blue, and 1 green in the conduit. The board is a 3 phase, 4 wire, as it says. These aren't attached to any receptacles.

I don't quite understand what these are supposed to be. A black, a red and a blue suggests to me a three-phase circuit with a common neutral. So then maybe there is another 2-phase with a common neutral. But then there is another black with no neutral? That doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't really want to mess around with the circuit breaker, so I'm not going to be able to crack open the conduit at that end to see what runs where exactly. Is there any other way I can safely figure out what is going on with these? --69.196.176.227 (talk) 06:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Hire an electrician. --Jayron32 06:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It's possible to purchase a current meter that clips round each wire to measure the current flowing through it. I suppose you could identify the circuits this way by drawing current from different outlets. It's also possible to detect which wire is "live" with a sensitive meter (without removing the insulation), and identify the circuits by switching on one circuit-breaker at a time. But if you don't already know this, then the best advice has been given above. Hire an electrician! Dbfirs 13:59, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

You have at least two circuits, going by the number of neutrals, and probably some switch loops (I'm assuming this is a 12-ga branch circuit). As Jayron said, hire an electrician - this is beyond homeowner tools and skills. Acroterion (talk) 16:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, guys. I shall hire an electrician to wire everything for installation, I just wanted to safely figure out what was already installed in the space so I can think about options before beginning construction. The conduit runs directly from the panel, so could there still be switch loops then? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.176.227 (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

In the UK, it would be unusual to have switch loops running back through the breaker panel, but Canadian conventions might be different. There will be a limit on the total current that can safely pass through the conduit, especially if the wiring it tightly packed. Dbfirs 08:26, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Today I took a voltmeter and measured the voltages between the different wires. Between all the reds, blacks and the blue on the one hand and the whites on the other, there was 123 volts. Between the reds, 0 volts. Between two of the blacks, 0 volts. Between the reds on one hand and the blacks and blue on the other, 213 volts. Between the blue and two of the blacks, 213 volts. Between the remaining black and the blue, 0 volts. This makes perfect sense to me if the whites are indeed neutral, the reds are from one phase, two of the blacks are from a second phase, and the blue and remaining black and the third phase, supplied from a 3-phase, 4-wire wye service, exactly as the panel suggests, since 213 ≈ (√3)*123. So the problem is that the one black should more appropriately be blue to match convention. So I'm supposing the conduit runs two 3-phase MWBCs. Does this make sense? --69.196.176.227 (talk) 05:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, your analysis seems accurate. The original electrician must have failed to bring sufficient blue wire (illegal in the UK). Dbfirs 09:18, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! 69.196.176.227 (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Two questions about Cracker Barrel

This is somewhat related to my series of questions on American restaurants last year. Anyway, today's featured article is Cracker Barrel, which happened to be among those restaurants and chains mentioned in my first question on the topic. As stated in the article, they have locations in 42 states... but they are only in the United States. This is made obvious by the fact that it only has a Wikipedia entry here on the English Wikipedia. They don't even have a single location in Canada, unlike Waffle House which has at least one. But why? Is there any particular reason why: 1.) No other Wikipedia has an article on it, and 2.) Why they haven't expanded internationally? They already have locations in most states (although mainly down in the South), and there are several chains which have a presence in less states but have a presence in Canada, so why not Cracker Barrel? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I think we pretty much covered this the first time. The answers being money and lawyers. Dismas|^(talk) 14:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Well the answer for question 2 is money and lawyers. The answer for question 1 is "no one has written it yet". If, perchance, you have a working knowledge of another language, you could be responsible for fixing this problem. --Jayron32 14:14, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Cracker Barrel's branding, marketing, and in store ambiance are full of references to the historic culture of the southern United States. The company's managers may have determined that its branding would not sell well outside of the southern US and other areas (pretty much exclusively in other US states) with historic ties to the US south. Marco polo (talk) 17:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

That never stopped Kentucky Fried Chicken and Colonel Sanders from expanding internationally. But I hear what you say. Just because some US franchises spread their wings, doesn't mean all of them have to. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, to be fair KFC and Cracker Barrel are different sorts of restaurants with different operating models, different types of cuisine and service, etc. etc. The only things they have in common are "serves food vaguely connected to Southern U.S." The kind of scalability and expansion potential for a single-item fast food joint like KFC, compared to a sit-down table-service restaurant like Cracker Barrel is likely vastly different. Things like employee training and management, brand awareness, throughput of customers, etc. etc. all must weigh in to the decision. Part of the reason why most of the American restaurants which have been successful outside of the U.S. have been fast food restaurants like KFC and McDonalds is that their menu is very limited, they need less staff and less training to run the restaurant, which keeps startup and overhead down. Expanding a large table-service restaurant to a new locale requires a greater commitment in terms of startup costs, training of employees, establishing a brand identity, etc. than a fast-food restaurant does. One cannot downplay the limited menu as being a key to the difference here. McDonalds: Burger and Fries. KFC: fried chicken. Pizza Hut: Pizza. Cracker Barrel: ??? I've eaten at a Cracker Barrel many times, and even then I can't identify the one food item that's their "killer ap". Don't get me wrong, its good food, but there lacks that way of identifying the restaurant with the singular food item that makes people connect with it. That doesn't mean it is impossible to expand into foreign markets, but it does provide a level of additional risk which the corporation may not be willing to take. --Jayron32 19:36, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you're looking in the wrong place, Jayron. According to our article (which I had to read to learn about this expression), a "killer ap" is a computer program. Not many food items I'm aware of are computer programs.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:53, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

See analogy and metaphor. Come back if these don't make sense to you. --Jayron32 20:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm really struggling to see the logic in...

"...they are only in the United States. This is made obvious by the fact that it only has a Wikipedia entry here on the English Wikipedia." HiLo48 (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

What I think the OP was trying to say was that the lack of presence is countries where English is not the dominant language is connected to the lack of Wikipedia articles in other languages. This could be remedied by writing those articles in those other languages, which was my point. --Jayron32 19:16, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I got that that's what the OP was thinking, but there's a lot of other English speaking countries. Expansion into those places could not be ruled out "by the fact that it only has a Wikipedia entry here on the English Wikipedia". HiLo48 (talk) 19:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the cause and effect goes the other way here. The lack of presence in non-English speaking countries leads to a lack of coverage in non-English Wikipedias, not the other way around. --Jayron32 20:08, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Dismas and Jayron are definitely on the right track. Expanding internationally is a huge pain in the ass, not just in legalities and politics, but also in logistics and standards. For one thing, Canada has different standards when it comes to food labeling laws (not to mention it all also has to be in French) and ingredients regarding stuff like sodium levels and trans fats. Quick serve chains and their limited menu simplify that hugely - there's, say, thirty items you need to worry about, not hundreds. On the logistics side, consider this: let's say you have a signature... barbecue sauce. Ingredients-wise, it's fine for selling in Canada. Who's going to make it? Will you have to regularly import it through Customs and all that entails? If you find someone in Canada to manufacture it, will it taste exactly the same as you want it to? Again, the number of items you serve will compound those issues. Matt Deres (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not even just logistics. Think about the difference in training someone to prepare the KFC's menu versus training someone to prepare the Cracker Barrel menu. "Put chicken in fryer. Take it out when the buzzer sounds." Done, you're now trained to work as a cook at KFC. Consider now how many different food items you'd have to be able to prepare to work at a Cracker Barrel. Everything from steaks to fried chicken to fish to pot pie to the side dishes and deserts. Now, train an entire staff to do so. Oh, and train the waitstaff. And bussers and dishwashers. And managers, both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house. At any one time KFC needs a manager on site, two or three cashiers, two or three cooks, that's it. You can run the entire operation seven or eight people, and their training is fairly minimal. Cracker Barrel probably has seven or eight cooks, including a head cook and various line cooks, who need to know how to prepare a diverse menu, as well as a back-of-the-house manager that needs to manage food supplies, maintain employee morale and training, etc. Plus the waitstaff and host/hostess and front-of-the-house manager (another 9-10), plus all of the cleanup staff. It's an entirely different animal. --Jayron32 20:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Forget about international expansion. What I want to know is why can't I get KFC's Honey BBQ Wings faxed to me or texted over the cellphone or printed out on my Hewlett Packard? I mean, dammit, Jim, they've had food replicators on Star Trek since before my parents got hitched! And I'm not talking about that gay bald French guy. What's with that facepalm thing anyway? I mean, if the Enterprise is a warship, what are they doing with as many women and children on board as the Titanic? Not that women don't make good field combatants. Just look at Boudicca. Or Boadicea. Or Bootylicious as I like to call her. She was just great as River Song! Not bad as the butch Lesbian on Upstairs Downstairs either. Although, frankly, I preferred James Spader on Stargate. And his boyfriend Skaara. Talk about chicken! μηδείς (talk) 21:25, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I think somebody got into the liquor cabinet. StuRat (talk) 05:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

To be fair, the complexity of training is the same for opening a new domestic restaurant as it would be for a new international location. (Language barriers notwithstanding, though in the extant example of Cracker Barrel one could get away with exclusively unilingual English-speaking staff everywhere except Quebec.) One does the same thing for an international expansion as one does for opening a new domestic location—bring experienced staff from one or more existing locations to train staff at the new location, and/or bring new hires to head office or another central location for part of their training (cf McDonald's Hamburger University). Doing this sort of thing internationally is complicated (and made more expensive) by the need to arrange appropriate work visas for the trainers/trainees, but the training itself is no more difficult. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:16, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Jeremy Bentham

I am pretty sure that Simon Sebag Montefiore mentions in his "Prince of Princes. The Life of Potemkin" that Jeremy Bentham joined his brother Samuel for some time in Russia. Of course I don't know whether anything he saw there was of value to him.

Since it isn't mentioned in Wikipedia's entry I decided to put it here as a question in case somebody is interested (I read the book on loan from the library, therefore can't provide any reference other than my memory.)

Silke — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.217.116.29 (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a pretty major omission! He did indeed spend some time there:

At this time Bentham was also preparing to travel to Russia to join his brother. He began the arduous journey in early August 1785 and in February 1786 arrived in Krichev in the Crimea, where Samuel was in the service of Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potyomkin. The two brothers were joyfully reunited after a separation of five and a half years. Bentham's period in Russia (approximately twenty months until his departure in the autumn of 1787) revealed some differences in temperament between the two brothers. ... Bentham found in his Russian retreat the opportunity for uninterrupted intellectual activity. He worked on penal and civil codes, and produced a French version of what would eventually become his Rationale of Reward (1825) (ODNB)

It seems he didn't engage much with Russia per se - he stayed firmly in his brother's cottage, travelling very little - but he did an astonishing amount of work, including the essays on the Panopticon. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Finding hotels for major event

I am trying to set up an event for next year, for which I would want to book the whole of a hotel, all the bedrooms, conference rooms, restaurant and so on, to accommodate guests and activities. However, I am having trouble finding a suitable venue, when I search for hotels in a particular area, I find large numbers of tiny B&Bs or other small hotels that can only accept a dozen or so guests. I have a large area within which I would be willing to base the event, but although I do not mind searching through and contacting large numbers of potential venues to find the best one (though even this is proving difficult when I can only search one small area at a time), I am disappointed to find that the majority of these are either far too small or too large for our needs. So, just on the off-chance, is there anywhere I can go to find out about hotels with space for between, say, 50 and 300 people, or at least that will tell me the size of the venue and maybe even let me use that as part of my search terms? or any way of advertising my needs and letting suitable hotels come to me?

thank you for any help,

86.15.83.223 (talk) 21:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe that most travel sites (Hotels.com, expedia, etc.) allow you to search for chain hotels over B&Bs as a matter of preference. You could also look through the major international chains, and go through their websites directly to see if they have anything that suits your needs. If you find a chain you would like to give your business to, I'm sure if you call them directly and explain exactly what you just did here, they have mechanisms in place to help you with what you're trying to do. --Jayron32 21:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Try asking the Chamber of Commerce for city where your conference will be. They might be able to provide you with a list of area hotels that match your requirements. RudolfRed (talk) 21:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Those sizes generally are reserved for conventions, so you might want to include that term in your searches, and specially look for hotels adjacent to convention centers. Avoid dates when a convention is already scheduled. You will likely be limited to major cities, as smaller venues won't have that many rooms to spare. Also, don't be stuck on reserving the entire hotel, when perhaps a few floors will do, and you better make the reservations many months in advance. StuRat (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I have been asking the hotels for information, but the process of emailing every place in an entire county or two and finding that only a very few are suitable is taking up a lot of wasted time and effort. But I shall try the chamber of commerce idea, and look on another few websites, see whether any have better search options. And yes, we are arranging this some 22 months in advance, so I hope we have plenty of time. 86.15.83.223 (talk) 21:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Assuming your enquiry is for the UK, the Tourist Information Service is set up to deal with exactly such an enquiry. If you can't find the body for the area where you want the conference located through a web search, simply ask your local one for a contact there and they will give you one. Failing that, contact Visit Britain who fulfil a similar function for the country. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Tammy's advice is good. You also probably want to use the phrase "conference centre" in addition to "hotel", or "conference hotel", if you're googling. That finds you places like this:

Manchester and Manchester

Chelmsford

Glasgow

and so on. Or try FindMeAConference, which is set up to help with exactly this. 86.140.54.211 (talk) 17:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Edinburgh has the Edinburgh Convention Bureau, a free service for organising conferences. The local council's economic development section should be able to put you in touch with a local equivalent, if it exists. Good luck. Dalliance (talk) 22:29, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Holding such events as you describe has been a major (amateur-run) activity of the Science Fiction Fandom community in the UK for several decades, and Fandom has built up considerable expertise and experience in running these Conventions at all sizes up to 4-figure attendances. (We have even held Conventions to discuss Con-running, some of whose proceedings have been published as guides, such as the jokily named Eagle Book of Conrunning.) You might consider contacting a local SF Club who would be able to put you in touch with dedicated Conrunners who would probably be willing to offer advice on venues and procedures. Alternatively, look at a website such as Dave Langford's Ansible where you'll see links to many forthcoming UK and other conventions, enabling you to contact their committees. Please remember, however, that these are all hobbyists (albeit often very experienced) who carry out these activities in their own time and at their own expense, so any advice will come as a favour rather than a duty. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 13:34, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Bug shoes

Is this phrase anything more than a term used by some blokes who sail wooden boats somewhere who hadn't heard of Urban Dictionary? A Google News search turns up articles about a 18th century training institute in shoe repair run by a chap with the last name Bug, but nothing on the subject of the article itself. Nevard (talk) 21:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Google Books produces, eg, this 1980s technical document using it, so it seems to be valid if obscure in the literature. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it should be a wiktionary entry, not an article. μηδείς (talk) 02:51, 13 January 2013 (UTC)