Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 January 22

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January 22

Uses for a 36"x36" plastic tub.

OK - I need to buy a bunch of 36"x36" square plastic tubs - between maybe 2" and 6" deep - watertight - don't need a lid or anything. Preferably fairly cheap.

Sounds easy? Nope.

Trouble is that it's tough to search for (Google sees "36x36 plastic tub" as finding anything with 36, plastic and tub in it - so I get 36x24", 36x30", etc).

I tried looking for large litter trays, cafeteria table cleanup trays, under-bed storage bins...you name it.

So...what other uses can we think of for a large plastic tub that I might Google for?

TIA!

SteveBaker (talk) 04:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

You might try "storage containers" or something like that, omitting the dimensions at first. You might also try contacting your local Lowe's or Home Depot or similar store and see what sizes they have and/or could get. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah - I'd tried that. Storage containers seem to be designed to fit through doorways easily - so none of them ever have both dimensions bigger than around 24". DIY stores have round ones for catching water from leaking hot water tanks, galvanized metal pans for mixing plaster in - some plastic ones with about a 1" rim around the edge (not quite sure what those are for!) - and some gardening pot stands that have a bunch of holes in the bottom. Nothing that quite fitted my needs. Very frustrating! SteveBaker (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

As for the search, I'd try including the word "square". StuRat (talk) 07:27, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I would call that a tray, rather than a tub - a search on "square industrial plastic tray" might be helpful. This UK firm sells one that's 1 m x 1 m x 12 cm, which is fairly close to your requirements - I'm sure similar non-metric sizes are available in the USA. Tevildo (talk) 08:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Searching for 36x36 tray in Google gave me a number of relevant hits. These seem pretty pricey, though. Matt Deres (talk) 14:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Aha! Yes - "Drip tray" or "Spill tray" seem to be the magic phrases. OK - now I see stuff on Alibaba for <$10. I dunno *what* Acklands Grainger are thinking with charging hundreds of dollars for a simple plastic tray! Probably a typo or something. Anyway - Alibaba to the rescue. Many thanks guys - I bow to your superior Google-fu! SteveBaker (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• Not to disagree with anything above, but just what are you planning in using these trays for, and do they actually need to be square? I have found you can buy 6" by 18" by 36" trays as great containers for paperback sci-fi novels at most local hardware depots, like Lowes or even Walmart. μηδείς (talk) 18:51, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I do actually need them to be more or less exactly 36"x36" and square. Trays/boxes/containers with one dimension well under 36" are really cheap and easy to find. So far, the cheapest 36"x36" container that I've found costs $80 - but 24"x48" under-bed storage boxes can be had for $10. Weird. SteveBaker (talk) 01:19, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Have you considered making them yourself ? You have fabrication equipment, don't you ?

If not, another thought is the water tray below a square planter. If you can buy those separately, I bet they would be less than $80.

Another term to search for seems to be "flood table". This one is $91, but seems to be what you want: [1]. Here's one for $40, although it doesn't look very flat on the bottom: [2]. Also, these may have drain holes in them, which you would need to plug. StuRat (talk) 01:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

That grow tray looks like it could work...and at $40, it's half the price of the nearest alternative! Many thanks for find in that. It looks like it's intended to drain water downwards into that central channel - and the round thing in the middle could be a removable drain plug...but I think that could work. Many thanks! SteveBaker (talk) 14:51, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

We did (briefly) consider manufacturing something ourselves - but it really needs either vacuum forming or injection molding. Doing an injection mold for something that big requires truly gigantic machinery and molds that cost a small fortune. Vacuum forming thin plastics is do-able - but not with plastic that's thick enough to be stable over such large dimensions. So, no - this is something we have to buy from outside. SteveBaker (talk) 20:22, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

It's interesting that searching for "3x3" (implication: feet) instead of 36x36 (implication: inches) produces an entire set of different, but equally useful, results! Just points to how primitive search engines still are in many ways! SteveBaker (talk) 14:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Excel

The chances to win in a dice game is represented by the following formula:

p−1+p−2+…p−(p+1)

p×h

Where p is the number of sides on the player's die and h is the number of sides on the house's die. For example, the chances of a player with an 8-sided die beating a house's 10-sided die is 25/80 (draws force a re-roll).

How can I make the numerator function in Excel? Thanks, Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 18:27, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

This should be moved to computing or mathematics, Schuyler, as they are much more proficient in answering such questions than we are here. μηδείς (talk) 18:43, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Simplifying, your numerator is (p-1)+(p-2)+...+(p-(p-1))+(p-p)+(p-(p+1)) = (p-1)+(p-2)+...+1+0+(-1), the last three terms cancel out and you end up with (p-1)+(p-2)+...+2. This is just the sum of an arithmetic progression, with a first term (p-1), a last term 2, and the number of terms being p-2. The sum is therefore (p-2)(p-1+2)/2=(p-2)(p+1)/2. The way you would type this into excel, assuming "p" is entered into cell A1, is "=(A1-2)*(A1+1)/2. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:52, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• If draws are re-rolled, shouldn't the denominator be $p\times (h-1)$? So the result is ${\frac {p(p-1)}{2p(h-1)}}={\frac {(p-1)}{2(h-1)}}$.—Tamfang (talk) 02:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• But more generally, someday you may have a formula that can't be expressed in a closed form, and then you'll have to write a macro. (I wrote an Excel macro once, in ~1989. It found the simplest rational number between two given reals.) —Tamfang (talk) 09:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Question about my taxes

I'm a 25-year old single male in Texas with one W2, no dependents, very basic tax return with no surprises. But I'm a little confused at the final numbers TurboTax is giving me. I made $3429.50, and I had $114.62 federal income tax withheld and no state tax withheld. TurboTax says that means I get a refund of $376. How can I get a refund higher than the amount of tax withheld? I thought tax withheld meant "money from your paycheck your employer sent to the government for taxes, and because of erring on the side of caution it's often a bit higher than it should be." Then your refund is the amount of tax withheld that shouldn't have been. Am I completely wrong in my definitions? 2605:6000:EDC9:7B00:E017:92A9:4BB5:AD1D (talk) 19:52, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

We can't give legal advice, but you should look at tax credit and see if you have any that are "refundable", meaning they can be paid even if they exceed your tax liability.

You might consider looking into the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program to see if you can get free advice. --Trovatore (talk) 20:15, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

TurboTax has a great community forum to ask questions, they're usually answered pretty quick, I used it several times. Raquel Baranow (talk) 20:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Based on the information you provided it sounds like you qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a "refundable" credit, as Trovatore mentioned. So, the government is giving you money, in contrast to simply refunding money you paid unnecessarily. You're right, in general, about withholding. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 22:10, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Did Nixon "accept" his pardon?

Per our article on Burdick v. United States, associates of Gerald Ford claim that Ford carried an excerpt from the decision in his wallet, the part about how accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt. The implication is that Ford was justifying his action to himself, by making Nixon implicitly confess.

But it seems to me that there's a kind of obvious logical hole, namely that Nixon never had to "accept" the pardon at all. Burdick says that a pardon has no effect unless introduced in court, but because of the pardon, there were never any court proceedings against Nixon. And in fact, by Ford's stated rationale, that was actually the whole point; he thought such proceedings would be too distracting and damaging to the country.

So, the question, right, I'm getting to the question. Did Nixon ever, by any affirmative act, "accept" Ford's pardon? I suppose you can say that he could have actively refused it, and didn't, but that's a different question; I'm discussing only acts, not omissions. --Trovatore (talk) 22:55, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

An excerpt to Nixon's response to Ford's pardon of him is included in the Wikipedia article Richard Nixon. It has sources which you could seek out to find the full response. --Jayron32 23:17, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, I expect that's the most explicit thing there is going to be, if there is anything. In the excerpt in the article, Nixon doesn't really mention the pardon per se.

Still, if anyone knows of any other sort of overt act by which Nixon could be said to have accepted the pardon, I would be interested to know about it. --Trovatore (talk) 00:35, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

President Ford Pardons Richard Nixon from watergate.info has the full text of Nixon's response, which includes "In accepting this pardon, I ..." jnestorius^(talk) 23:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, very good. Thank you. --Trovatore (talk) 08:00, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

That was quite excellent, I am glad to have read both speeches. Thanks, User:Jnestorius. μηδείς (talk) 02:42, 25 January 2016 (UTC)