Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 June 27

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June 27

casette

when recording a casette, can I press Pause and then resume recording from where I left off? --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 01:34, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Wow, it's been a long time since I used a Cassette deck. I think you can, but I'm not entirely certain. Your most obvious option is to try it and see (1) if it works; and (2) if it works well, i.e. "smoothly", which could be a different story. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:30, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs On the Maxell UR 60 cassette, there is a 7 second white sound/blank (no magnetic tape), what do I do to those 7 seconds? --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 02:46, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you talking about the tape's "leader"? When I wanted to record something, typically I would use a pencil to advance the cartridge past the blank part, just to be sure I had actual tape in contact with the read-write head. I assume you're talking about starting "record" and doing nothing for 7 seconds and then pausing? That would be the equivalent effect. You just have to be sure you're past the leader. Try it and see if it works. Unfortunately, the article I linked says nothing about the pause button. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:59, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

This guide[1] seems to be for a particular brand, but it says the pause can be used during recording. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:17, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I've had a couple of tape recorders and cassette decks in my time; they all allowed pausing during recording. I used that function all the time as pressing the stop button directly sometimes left a slight sound. If you're trying to insert a new recording immediately after a previous one (i.e. you want to play to find the end, then pause, then record), you may have to force down the buttons. Matt Deres (talk) 17:51, 27 June 2020 (UTC) Wow, that's knowledge I never figured on having to dredge up again...

Good cop/bad cop origins

What is the oldest known description of the good cop/bad cop technique (not just the oldest use of the phrase)? 173.3.152.194 (talk) 05:17, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

We actually have an article on this at Good cop/bad cop, but it doesn't mention the origins. There is a link to a 1983 CIA manual which discusses the technique (page 26, marked as "K-10", where it's just called "friend and foe" and notes that it works bets on teens, women, and timid guys), so that's a possible start at least. Our article also calls the situation a "Mutt and Jeff" without explanation. I've never read them, but, based on our article, I'm not sure how they're related to the concept. Carrot and stick is also linked and that seems much more apropos. It also takes us to operant conditioning, which is the more highfalutin term for the same process. That link suggests that the concept was studied in the social sciences by at least the mid-20th century, but obviously the concept itself was widely recognized long before (the carrot/stick article says that term originated in the mid 1800s, but that's still just the term for a process long understood). At the very least, I think you're going to need to decide what makes a given setup a "good cop/bad cop" one, versus a "carrot and stick" one. Matt Deres (talk) 18:11, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

This blog references the 1983 manual but has found the actual phrase in 1969. I suspect that the "Mutt and Jeff" term just refers to them being opposite characters.

London Cage: The Secret History of Britain's World War II Interrogation Centre (p. 203) says that an official report into the activities at the London Cage, the MI19 facility for interrogating captured Germans, found that: "Army guards were ordered to be somewhat inconsiderate in their treatment, thus leaving the interrogator to ingratiate himself by ostensibly improving the prisoner's lot". However, I would imagine that the technique is actually as old as the hills. Alansplodge (talk) 19:06, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. That's what I was trying to get at, but failed to quite reach. :) I would bet that, before "carrot and stick" (or "sugar bread and whip"), there was another term and another and so on as far back as you'd care to go. Matt Deres (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Although the question was not about uses of the phrease, I checked the OED Online to see what it turned up. It has no entry for "good cop bad cop" as a phrase, and mentions it in only one quotation, from 2004, so that's no use. But it does have an entry for "mutt and jeff" as an interrogation technique, which it describes as US usage. The earliest citation is from the 1940 book Police Interrogation by W.R. Kidd. This book is listed on Amazon, which describes the author as a Berkeley police lieutenant. --76.71.5.208 (talk) 21:49, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

For its use in Police Interrogation, see here. From the description there – one officer kindly, stumbling, the other tough, relentless – I guess that the first corresponds to Mutt (described in our article as dimwitted) and the second to the Jeff character (said to be inspired by an irascible real-word person).  --Lambiam 09:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

TV Tropes has a page on the subject. Most of its examples are recent, but it gives one (kind of) from The Iliad. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Harvard school of public health diet

I asked a question awhile ago similar to this but not really I'm following this diet which I think is quite effective and there are some things I need help with understanding about it. I'm trying to understand what they are recommending and not recommending? Even if someone can list the things on there they are recommending and what they're not would be of massive help?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_diet#Harvard_School_of_Public_Health

-- 110.151.91.52 (talk · contribs)

Too much of anything is bad. Whatever diet you follow, try to keep it varied and balanced, and use fresh products as much as possible. The following table is a somewhat simplified summary of the recommendations from Harvard:

Group	Good	Bad
General	Natural products	Factory-processed stuff
Carbohydrates	Whole-grain foods, veggies, beans	White bread, white rice, sugary things
Proteins	Fish, poultry, nuts, beans	Red meats, sausages
Fats	Plant oils, nuts, fatty fish	Saturated fats, anything made with trans fat
Fiber	High fiber: whole grains, veggies, fruits	Too little fiber
Drinks	Water (and some coffee, tea, low-fat milk and alcohol)	Sugary drinks, a lot of alcohol
Salt	Some is fine	A lot is bad
Vitamins	Multivitamin supplement + extra vitamin D	—

 --Lambiam 14:14, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Why are hash browns triangular?

In the UK, hash browns (whatever their brand) are invariably triangular [2] - why? Amisom (talk) 17:31, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

If your grandma made hash browns, they would proabably look something like this. Presumably, the industrial version is a poor attempt at replicating that "homey" look. (Maybe you need to find a new grandma?) 107.15.157.44 (talk) 00:12, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Arby's potato cakes are the only only ones I've seen in the U.S. that are triangles. Square or oblong patties are the norm for preformed. Restaurant or homemade ones are so loose they have no shape. Rmhermen (talk) 02:57, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

They're round at Burger King. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:43, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

In this Martha Stewart recipe the cook wants you to cut the round cake into six wedge-shaped servings. Burger King's "stuffed hash browns" are oblong rectangular – at least in the UK.^[3] Now I'm hungry.  --Lambiam 08:36, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's grandma ever cooked hash browns in the UK, they're a fairly recent introduction from across the Atlantic (perhaps 1980s or 1990s?) and are almost invariably bought frozen here, in small triangles. The traditional British analogue, with some healthy green vegetables added, is called bubble and squeak. Alansplodge (talk) 20:54, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

The article doesn't explain the name "bubble and squeak" (sounds like a drowning rat). 107.15.157.44 (talk) 01:00, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

The name comes from the tradition to add a live rat to the mixture being fried to provide some protein. Seriously, the article states, "The dish is so named because the cabbage makes bubbling and squeaking sounds during the cooking process", referencing The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.^[4] Sounds like an explanation to me.  --Lambiam 09:36, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

That's odd, somehow my eyes skipped that sentence when I allegedly read the article. 107.15.157.44 (talk) 14:46, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Supposedly it's rhyming slang for "Greek".[5] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:10, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

That's bubble and squeak to me.  --Lambiam 09:39, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Hence the irreverent nickname for Prince Phillip: "Phil the bubble" (his original title was Prince Phillip of Greece). Alansplodge (talk) 14:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Further to the history of hash browns in the UK, US Department of Agriculture - Export Briefs (1984) p.3: "HASH BROWNS (UNITED KINGDOM). UK company wishes to import first class hash browns in cans or shrink wraps – 24 x 400gr . Initial research indicates enormous trade and consumer interest". Alansplodge (talk) 12:58, 2 July 2020 (UTC)