Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 September 19

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September 19

Flying car with umbrella design.

On most video about early, failed, designs for flying machines, you see a contraption with four small wheels and a gigantic umbrella that flaps violently up and down - powered by a gasoline engine. The driver (pilot?) sits way back, almost off the end of the machine. Inevitably, the thing flaps violently, making small 'hops' and shows no sign whatever of actually flying.

Looking carefully through the many videos, it looks like there are at least three or four different incarnations of this design. I'm trying to find out more about them - who made them? What was the history? What are they called?

One of the videos shows a cloth banner tied to the side of the car that looks like it says "Fly Car" or maybe "My Car"...the first one or two letters of the name are hard to read.

Any ideas about where to find out more? SteveBaker (talk) 04:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you thinking of the "Pitts Sky Car"? Zzubnik (talk) 09:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh! "Sky" car...I could see the 'Y' in the video, but I didn't hit on "Sky". That's a great start - thanks! SteveBaker (talk) 15:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The link, Pitts Sky Car and the external link of the video. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 11:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It is a famous silly invention, but the video does look like it achieved some lift on the downstroke. The propellor had vanes which closed when the assembly rotated a bit, then lifted when the propellor was brought downward. The car seems way too heavy for the amount o lift provided. A reference in the article says that the hopping might have been due just to the momentum of the propellor moving down. The car, engine and very complex gearbox seem so much heavier than the propellor that reaction to mass movement seems inadequate to account for the entire machine leaving the ground for brief instants. The sad thing is that the inventor had many of the parts of a helicopter in his design: a rotating blade assembly on a vertical axis, which has blades which can pivot, and which has an axis which can be tilted ahead or behind for forward or reverse thrust, and a design including multiple such propellors with different rotation to provide stability (like multirotor helicopters). He was just stuck on the thing getting its lift by pulling downward rather than just rotating. Early helicopters vibrated up and down quite a bit even with a rotating blade rather than this up and down blade. This design seems like it would have been a horrible boneshaker even if it flew, unless it had multiple propellors such that perhaps a central one would lift while the two flanking ones were moving the other way, to provide constant rather than intermittent combined lift. Edison (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - it seems silly, but it's founded on kinda reasonable principles. The "umbrella" works on the principle of a bird's feather where the hinged flaps open up to allow airflow to pass through on the up-stroke, and shut to force air downwards on the down stroke. In principle, it should generate lift. But the machine was so heavy, the amount of lift needed was enormous - and the vibration induced by all that banging up and down looks like it prevents the delicat little vanes from opening and shutting properly. You can see them somewhat working in some of the videos.

The video also shows that Mr Pitts didn't foresee the need to counter the torque which contra-rotates the fuselage every time the machine hops off the ground. If it had flown, the pilot would have become very dizzy. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The mechanism first rotates the disk in one direction (to close the vanes before the disk descends), then again in the opposite direction (to open them again before it ascends). The unfortunate result of the Sky Car spinning around only happens because the forward rotation happens when the car is firmly on the ground and the counter-rotation in mid-hop. So it spins in one direction. If it ever actually fully left the ground, those two rotations would cancel out and simply produce a violent shake (much as the reciprocating vertical motion clearly does!)...I'd have thought that introducing some damping into the drive shaft would help that. The examples in his patent contain multiple disks - which would also remove the rotation, much like the rotors in a Chinook helicopter do. SteveBaker (talk) 16:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The background here is that my wife and I have a small business making models for tabletop gamers - and we're looking to make some items in the steampunk genre - so I'm collecting real-world examples of machines that (in the fantasy setting of a hugely-successful Victorian world) might plausibly have evolved into something that worked. But to make good models, it's nice to start with real-world examples that failed - but which might (with a little generous leeway and imagination) have been evolved into machines that would have worked - and thereby produce a world just as advanced as ours, but based on entirely different principles. (Hence my interest in the Frost Airship Glider a few weeks ago). But I like to delve deeply into the subject matter - so rather than just make a copy of that one machine - I'd like to understand what changed over the life of the guy who was trying to make this work.

Our article (and thanks again for the link!) is kinda thin. From several un-attributed videos and still photos, the Pitts Sky Car seems to be just one example of several seemingly similar machines - it's not clear whether these were made by different people - or whether they are evolutions of the same design by one man. One of them has massive chains and gear wheels on one side of the machine, another has the drive shaft (for want of a better word) protruding upwards out of a large barrel-like thing that I take to be an enclosed gearbox - yet another has the drive shaft coming out of a fairly smooth rectangular box. The location of the driver's seat changes from one version to the other too. At least one looks like it's powered by steam rather than a gasoline engine. I was hoping to get some information about the chronology of the invention.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

One of my first articles! It looks a bit amateurish now, but if you can find any more details, feel free to contribute. Still, I'm glad somebody has read it. Alansplodge (talk) 11:52, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

With a very broad interpretation, based on the bird-like lift mechanism, this sky car could be seen as a subclass of ornithopter. I suspect there's lots of inspirational fodder with a search like this: [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I did a Google search to see if anything about John W Pitts or his Sky Car had appeared on the internet since I wrote that article in 2011. The only extra information that I found was from a magazine called Vertical (the one about helicopters rather than rock climbing). An article called The Weird and Wacky by Bob Petite published in January 2012 says; "Pitts first tried his unusual rotor system on an aircraft fuselage, but this was soon rejected in favor of an airframe on wheels, without the aircraft tail, capable [of] holding a pilot. The new design weighed 2,700 pounds and was powered by a 90-horsepower Curtiss engine." The Sky Car is also mentioned in a thread on The Steampunk Forum in which a contributor doubts that it is the downwash from the rotor which is lifting the machine, but simply that "when one heavy part of the machine is forced down some other part must go up, according to the laws of mechanics. This appears to be the first helicopter in which vibration was designed into it." Alansplodge (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

At 2,700 pounds, and with only 90hp to play with, it's not too surprising that it didn't fly. A modern helicopter such as the Robinson R44 (at 2500lb) needs a 250hp engine. The Robinson R22 had a 125hp engine - and it's max take-off weight is less than half that of the Sky Car.

Given that, it's clear that the SkyCar bounced because of conservation of momentum - when the rotor arrangement comes down, something else has to go up...so the car hops a bit. Since the rotor is kinda chunky compared to a modern helicopter, it must have weighed quite a bit - and it's moving pretty fast, so a short bounce each time it comes down was inevitable - it certainly doesn't prove that the contraption actually generated any lift. You can only imagine the frustration of the inventor, seeing that the machine hopped must have given him hope that with just some small tweak, he'd get into the air properly.

The patent on the rotor mechanism shows diagrams of conventional-looking airplanes with several of these devices being used both for lift and for forward thrust...so I guess that's some kind of confirmation that he intended to use this on fixed-wing aircraft.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Scottish referendum

Will there ever, ever, be another referendum on Scottish independence in the 70 years or so I'll probably still be alive? What about even further in the future? Pablothepenguin (talk) 09:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, if someone proposes it. Probably no time soon, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Alex Salmond said last night "Scotland has, by a majority, decided not at this stage to become an independent country" (italics mine). It's not an entirely dead and buried issue, but I can't imagine there being another referendum in the foreseeable future. --Viennese Waltz 09:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't go that far. Consider that the Quebec referendum, 1980 was followed 15 years later by the Quebec referendum, 1995. Proposed political status for Puerto Rico also shows that political status referenda were held in Puerto Rico in 1967, 1993, 1997, and 2012, or 4 votes in 45 years. Notably, the most recent vote went differently than the three earlier plebiscites. So, I wouldn't claim that the issue is necessarily going a way. Perhaps for a decade or two, and of course we cannot predict the future, but based on similar political situations in the past, it is entirely possible that Scotland could have another vote in the lifetime of the OP. --Jayron32 11:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This BBC article discussing the possibilities of a Scottish do-over sooner than "a generation" compares it to the Quebec situation, calling that a "Neverendum". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 22:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The general consensus is that there shouldn't be another referendum for "a generation". That's a sentiment shared by David Cameron and Alex Salmond. It's perhaps worth noting that younger voters have historically (ref) and yesterday (ref) been more likely to favour independence than older voters - in say 25 years the demographics will be different, but who knows whether yesterday's younger "yes" group will retain that view as they age, or whether (as the ScotCen link might suggest) that they'll migrate toward "no". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 13:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It may likely be the latter, as a famous <ed note: insert this here> quote falsely attributed to. Quotable Prime Minister once quipped “Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.” The implication being that political beliefs tend to change with age; old people tend to think like the old people a generation ago, relatively speaking, while young people are always more "liberal" If old people today are voting "no" more often, when the young today become old tomorrow, they'll vote like old people do today. At least, that's what Mr. Churchill seems to imply. --Jayron32 13:53, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No, he didn't say that. --65.94.51.64 (talk) 16:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

ed: so fixed... --Jayron32 17:49, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The leaders of all of the major political parties have said "stability for at least another generation" - and a human generation is normally taken to be 20 years - so it wouldn't surprise me if you get to see at least one more attempt during your lifespan.

The Northern Irish had their vote (See: Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum, 1973) - and various devolution votes for Scotland, Ireland and Wales were taken in the 1970's and 1990's - suggesting a roughly 20 interval for such things. But it's clear that the demographics make it quite pointless (and very possibly, highly disruptive) to have another Northern Ireland independence vote even every 20 years when the result is a 99:1 majority. Scotland's vote was incredibly close - and that's a tricky thing. If the support for this idea is fluctuating rapidly, then repeatedly re-testing the electorate will produce a random coin flip each time it's done - and eventually a split would happen by chance even though a small majority may not be happy about it and a large number undecided. It makes more sense to wait until a clear and dramatic change of public opinion (one way or the other) suggests that it's worth having a do-over.

However, technically, all that's needed for a "do-over" is to get a majority of people in the Scottish and British parliaments to vote to have one. Both British and Scottish parliaments are democratically elected - so ultimately, all of the people of the UK get to decide - and it's certainly possible for another vote to happen at any time - or never.

In practice, I'd expect that if a clear majority in the Scottish parliament voted for a do-over a decade from now, it would not be opposed by the British government - but it has to be understood that the cost of doing this is high - not just because of the vote itself and all the hoopla leading up to it - but also because of the undoubted economic damage done to both Scotland and the rest of the British regions caused by the uncertainty. So having such votes too frequently incurs a heavy cost. Personally, I think that this is not, and should never have been, a decision for the Scottish people alone to make. The English, Welsh and Northern Irish would all have been horribly disrupted had a "Yes" vote happened - and they all actually DID suffer to some degree from the weakening of the UK pound and precipitate drop in overseas investment and business development that came about from the period of uncertainty leading up to all of this. So I think everyone needs a say in if and when a do-over might happen...and the logical way for that to happen is (as this time around) at the agreement of both the Scottish AND British parliaments.

For it to succeed next time around, I feel that the terms of the separation (eg what happens to the currency, the legal system, European Community and NATO membership, the banking system, offshore resources, the military, the NHS, the post office, British Telecom, the Royal Family, pensions....and dozens of other important things) should have been hammered out, at least in outline, before the vote was scheduled. I suspect that a large fraction of the "No" voters chose that option, not because they didn't want an independent Scotland - but because they don't like signing a blank cheque...and that's what this vote amounted to.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't see that it automatically follows that being affected by something means you should get a say in it.

APL (talk) 17:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Depends on whether you believe in democracy, or some semblance thereof. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

So everyone in the world should get a vote in the US presidential elections? 86.136.125.63 (talk) 20:15, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

"Scotland's vote was incredibly close". Look at the actual vote, not the dodgy opinion polls, and compare the result of 55.3%:44.7% with such knife-edge contests as the 2008 US presidential election (52.9%:45.7%). Not quite such a drubbing as we might have expected a year ago, but still nowhere near close. Henry^Flower 21:33, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure this is what Steve means by "incredibly close": It's incredible that anyone except the most unreconstructed separatist (independencist?) would think the result was anywhere near close.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No, not at all. In a matter of such importance, I think a 45/55 split is indeed remarkably close. Given an 84% turnout, that means that less than half of all eligible voters said "No". (Although, admittedly, only a little over a third said "Yes"). The uncertainty in the result due to non-voters is larger than the majority...and in a matter as important as this, that's a really close result. SteveBaker (talk) 15:18, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Just days before the poll, it was "a cliffhanger", "on a knife edge", "too close to call". What actually happened was somewhat less breathlessly dramatic, yet somehow you see it as "incredibly close"? Give over. Comparing actual votes cast with numbers of potential voters is a non sequitur. The people who chose not to vote are irrelevant, because they voluntary excluded themselves from the picture. Voting isn't even compulsory in the UK, but even in countries where it is, like Australia, it's only the votes that are (a) actually cast and (b) considered "formal", i.e. valid votes, that are given any consideration in determining the outcome. The votes that could have been' cast but were not, can hardly be called "uncertain". They are in fact completely unknown, and unknowable. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:27, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like the "cliffhanger" report was hype, for the purpose of getting more citizens to vote. As for those who didn't vote, unless someone takes a poll of those folks as to how they "would have" voted, the only thing you can infer is that they didn't care one way or the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:46, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

No true Scotsman would call it close, in other words. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

And if I heard right, the true Scotsman (Salmond) who had been pushing for this for so many years has now stepped down. You could say he is resigned to the result. And, no, 54-46 is not very close. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The way I read the poll, the true Scotsman is the one who wants to be British. Still leaves nearly just as many who don't. Close, in that sense, but not dramatically close or worth recounting soon. Close enough to ask their children again later. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:31, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

As far as votes on a national break-up go, a 10+% margin is not close. THIS was close. - Eron^Talk 22:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Yet they never could convince a majority of Quebec voters to go for it, and perhaps for the same reason - failure to address details of how it would work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

One thing I've wondered about is the reverse situation. Would it be possible for England to declare its independence from Scotland? That is, to kick Scotland out of the UK? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:16, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, but that would be a hell of a burn. I think they'd need Wales and Northern Ireland's opinions, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

That raises an interesting question. Has any country ever kicked out a portion of itself, as opposed to trading or selling it or being pressured into it? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:36, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

"White" South Africa created so called "homelands" in furtherance of it's apartheid policy. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:53, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

As our article Singapore#History, History of Singapore#Separation and Singapore in Malaysia say, Singapore was basically expelled from Malaysia. While there was negotiation andI some in Singapore were undoutedly pleased and Singapore quickly embraced its independence (and despite unamity in parliament without the participation of the Singaporean representatives, there were a number of people in what remained of Malaysia who wanted reintegration albeit on Malaysia's terms with some even suggesting that was partially the intention [2]) it wouldn't be accurate to call it a voluntary seperation on the part of Singapore. (There were obviously internal pressures that lead to it, as well as external pressures which while not aimed as seperation contributed to it. I presume these aren't what you're referring to since probably nearly every case has them.) Nil Einne (talk) 18:17, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

It's an odd situation in the UK where England has 85% of the population. A British friend and I were kicking around the idea of a vote for English independence - leaving the Welsh, Irish and Scots to get on with it together. It's inconceivable that the English would be given the opportunity to vote on that - yet the Welsh, Irish and Scots have all had (to varying degrees) referenda on that exact thing for their regions. If such a vote were to happen, and England seceded from the union, the consequences for the English would be comparable to the loss of Scotland - but the consequences for the Scots, Welsh and Irish would be vastly more profound. So why wouldn't everyone demand that they get a say in the matter. It ends up being just a matter of degree. Because the English happen to be in the vast majority - we don't get a say. Weird. SteveBaker (talk) 15:18, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not that odd. Most sovereign states do not have an even population distribution spread across all political divisions. 85% is a bit more skewed than most, but not outrageously so. The U.S. for example, has over 50% of the population in 8 of its 50 states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Georgia. Much more than 1/2 of the population of Russia is concentrated in the area of "Old Russia", the territory that comprised Russia historically before it began colonizing central and eastern Asia. Population in a country is one of those things that roughly follows a Pareto distribution; population is concentrated in a few metro areas; and the largest metro areas are an order of magnitude larger than the next class of metro areas and so on. This leads to there being a dominant region/metro area in a country, and the ethnic/cultural group from that area thus dominate that country. --Jayron32 18:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

More: See Zipf's law, and how it applies to population distribution: Central place theory covers a bit of it. This article discusses just that. --Jayron32 18:42, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I heard that there might have been some suspicious activity during the counting that might look like rigging the vote. Pablothepenguin (talk) 15:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

In which direction? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Vote rigging I've heard of is biased towards the no campaign. Pablothepenguin (talk) 20:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Would you mind pointing us to some citations of these allegations you've heard of, or at least tell us where you heard of them? As a UK citizen formerly resident in Scotland and with Scottish ancestry (ultimately from Lewis), I'd be very interested, but I haven't myself heard a whisper or seen a hint in the UK press. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 12:37, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

If you google "vote rigging in Scotland", there are plenty of claims being reported upon by sources (reliable and otherwise), but no credible source directly claiming such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:47, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Sources who have made allegations of voting irregularities include the Russian election observers team and David Icke. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Can anyone give me a damn good explanation why I should put up with the long wait to another referendum? I should be taken more seriously. Can't we just declare independence despite the result? Why should Westminster give a damn if they lose 9% of their populace? Pablothepenguin (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

1. Can anyone give me a damn good explanation why I should put up with the long wait to another referendum? -- Sure. It's because referenda cost money and cause economic and social disruption. Having them too frequently is simply not productive. Certainly people change their minds - but that's a slow process. You should put up with it because you really don't have a choice. Another issue is 'voter fatigue' - the more often you ask the same question, the fewer people can be bothered to go to the polls to answer it. The result is that the final tally of votes becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the people involved - and the result gets less and less reliable.
2. I should be taken more seriously. -- You were taken seriously, there was a referendum, the result of which would have been profound if it had turned out your way. The referendum was well publicized, openly debated with intelligence and full access to information, equal amounts of media time were provided to both sides, there was a truly awesome turnout - and the result was sufficiently clear as to leave no doubt. Yep...you were definitely taken seriously...and so were all the people who DIDN'T want to leave the union.
3. Can't we just declare independence despite the result? -- Well, the problem with declaring independence (which you, personally, could do right now if you wanted to) is that unless the systems of government, the enforcers of law and other aspects of a civil society follow your lead, it doesn't do much good. If the police enforce laws generated by the UK government, then if you decide to ignore those laws, you'll be the one going to jail because the majority did not agree with your decision. There are plenty of precedents for this. The State of Texas (where I happen to live) was once an independent country - and some Texans do not believe that their joining of the United States was legal. So, there are a whole bunch of Texans who insist on behaving like independence for Texas is a fact. They refuse to pay Federal taxes, for example. Their claim is that since Texas is independent, then this is an OK thing to do. Sadly, the Federal tax collectors disagree - they call for these people to be arrested, and Texas State law enforcement are happy to do so. They also print and distribute Republic of Texas passports and when they try to travel abroad, those passports are not recognized by other countries...and, again, it doesn't end well. Bottom line is that you can declare what the heck you like - but unless the majority (and especially the systems of government) agree with you, it's not going to work for you.
4. Why should Westminster give a damn if they lose 9% of their populace? -- If it was just 9% of people vanishing, I'm fairly sure, that would be OK. But it's not. It's 9% of the people and 30% of the land area and just about all of the oil and gas reserves...and so on. Also, it's not 9%...the majority of those 9% don't want to go. So it's more like 4%. But to allow that 4% to leave the union while the 5% of Scots who don't want to leave are allowed to stay would mean that there would be no line one could draw to provide the 4% with a place to live. They're all mixed up with the scots who want to stay. More than that, Westminster was OK with letting the Scots go off and make their own country - if Westminster had been opposed to the idea, they'd never have allowed the referendum in the first place. But when the people of Scotland were asked, most of them didn't want to go.

Sadly, you're clearly in the minority. You lost. Sometimes you just have to understand that your opinion didn't win out. You think this is a good idea, but most of the people around you don't agree with you. What would you expect to happen in that situation? Should the majority of Scots who see a clear advantage in remaining in the union be pushed out because a smaller number of them disagree? You're in the minority and you have to live with it.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Well said, Steve. People who participate in democratic processes only for so long as it gets them the result they want, but immediately disrespect the process the moment it produces a different outcome ... well, it could be said they have no abiding interest in democracy at all, since they use it only as a means to an end, rather than viewing democracy as the thing itself. Those who think that way are welcome to find an uninhabited island somewhere, populate it with themselves, declare it The True Scotland, and run it along totally undemocratic lines. Wouldn't that be fun? If some people didn't like the result of the first election for President of True Scotland, they could always go and find another island and call it The Even Truer Scotland. And so on. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem being that those deserted islands are kinda hard to find and tend not to contain all of the things the dissenting people need. So what actually happens when people don't accept the results of a democratic process that turned against them is the kinds of rioting, uprisings, terrorism and other nastiness that's currently happening throughout the Arab world. At least some of them have the reasonable grounds that their present leadership were not fairly elected (or, in some cases, not elected at all) - but that's clearly not the case for Scotland.

The bottom line is that while you might want to separate out the Scottish-independents from the Scottish unionists and draw a line between their two territories - or separate out the Sunni from the Shia and the Sufi's - or the Texas-is-an-independent-Republic crazies from the Texas-is-a-US-state people...you just can't do that. The physical geography that they occupy doesn't permit that kind of division.

On the few occasions that relocation of people or geographical division has been tried (eg Partition of India) there have been massive upsets as a result (some estimates of a half million deaths!) - other recent examples are things like the Cypriot intercommunal violence and "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.

As a species, we've even tried dual governments - one geographical area, two sets of governing authorities. Where within one geographic area, one set of laws applies to one set of people and another laws to the other set. South Africa's infamous apartheid system shows that this doesn't work out too well.

When people in the minority stubbornly refuse to accept a democratic result - but cannot be physically/geographically separated from the majority, things tend to go very badly for them. If you wish to live a happy and fulfilled life, you're going to have to accept majority rule because as hard as it may be to swallow - it's the only thing that we humans have found that truly works. If you absolutely cannot tolerate British rule, you can always go someplace else on this large and diverse planet - there is still room for everyone to find their own niche.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Best font for taking notes

What're the best fonts for taking notes? The latex default of Computer Modern seems a popular "choice", but with it there is a bit of a dissonance with the often shoddy content. --86.50.42.2 (talk) 11:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

There have been studies on how font and typeface affect readability, but I'm not optimistic that such studies have been done specifically for note taking. Picking one of the typefaces that did well in one of these studies is probably good, if you think readability of notes is good [3] [4] [5] [6]. There is some debate about the use of serif, but generally they are seen as increasing readability, except at very small sizes.

But there might be other considerations. For instance this work talks about how typeface can influence mood [7]. If you don't like shoddy content with a classy typeface, you might try comic sans to communicate a lack of authority. If you just want to have some fun with it, try fraktur. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Define "best". The clearest fonts are the obvious choices: Times Roman, Ariel, Lucida and Courier fonts - but it depends on what you're trying to achieve. As a computer programmer, I need a fixed pitch font with a clear distinction between '0' (zero) and 'O' (capital-O), and between '1' (one) and 'l' (lowercase-L). So Courier is a clear winner. But if you're a cartoonist - maybe you want an all-caps version of Comic Sans to get a feel for how your punch-lines will look in a speech balloon. If you're working on a low-resolution screen, or trying to cram a lot of notes into a small amount of screen real-estate then a different kind of clarity is required and an old-school 8-bit raster font might be the best choice. It's a highly situation-dependent thing. We're not good at giving opinions here - so unless you have some very specific needs. Notes are generally for the sole consumption of the person who is writing them - so it's not like you have to care what anyone else thinks. SteveBaker (talk) 14:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd go with a fixed width font, like Courier, since the ability to create quick charts, ASCII drawings, etc., is rather important for notes I've taken. Which do you think is easier to read ?

+--------+-------+
| R.O.I. | YEARS |
+--------+-------+
|  10%   |   1   |
|  21%   |   2   |
|  33.1% |   3   |
+--------+-------+

+--------+-------+

| R.O.I. | YEARS |

+--------+-------+

| 10% | 1 |

| 21% | 2 |

| 33.1% | 3 |

+--------+-------+

StuRat (talk) 18:05, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I think your interest and skill with fixed-width font tables and graphics puts you in a pretty small minorty :) OP mentions LaTeX, which can already handle tables just fine. If I wanted to type to make graphics, I'd use TikZ or pstricks. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:41, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It's got to be a lot quicker to make tables my way. Admittedly they aren't pretty, but the usual goal of note taking is to get the substance down, in a readable manner, quickly, not to make it look impressive. StuRat (talk) 21:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Why not forget the lines and just use the tab key for tables? Most of use wouldn't have time to create ASCII art. Dbfirs 06:27, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I was just killing two birds with one stone to show how ASCII art is also messed up with proportional fonts. Here is the same comparison without the lines:

R.O.I.  YEARS

10%       1
21%       2
33.1%     3

R.O.I. YEARS

10% 1

21% 2

33.1% 3

(I spaced them out since tab doesn't seem to work here, which is one problem with using tabs, they behave differently depending on where you are.) StuRat (talk) 13:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

See [8], you should make it hard to read, that'll make it easier to remember. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 23:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Nobody ever agrees with me on this, but I enjoy ProFont because it's monospaced, and readable even at very small sizes.

However, if your problem with Computer Modern is that it's too formal for casual notes, I suppose you could go with a handwriting font. Blambot.com has various interesting ones. (Dialog Fonts) and (Handwriting Fonts).

APL (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Since no one else has said it yet, how about hand-written notes? Seriously, if this is for a class or otherwise meant to be for learning the material for which you are taking notes, you're much better off hand-writing the notes. You'll remember the material much better, because of your hand-brain connection which you likely developed as a kid. See this recent news piece and/or this more scholarly piece Transcribe the notes later on a computer if you really need to. Just my 2c. El duderino ^(abides) 09:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Not all notes are taken in lectures for the purposes of subsequent memorization. I find that doodling during lectures is at least as effective at note-taking FOR THAT PURPOSE. But in a business meeting, I may be noting URL's, people's names, names of software packages, snippets of software, etc. The idea of transcribing them later is kinda silly, and the whole point of taking notes is so that I don't have to remember them! SteveBaker (talk) 19:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that's why I said "if..." El duderino ^(abides) 22:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)