Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 November 4

= November 4 =

US State declaring bankruptcy
Has a US state ever declared bankruptcy? I have a friend from the state of Indiana who claims they once defaulted and as such came to an agreement with their creditors that they are disallowed to ever take on debt. I can't find anything about this, and it sounds a little excessive - I'm sure there's a nugget of truth to what he told me, as well as an exaggeration. I'm interested because I'm absolutely convinced California is on the path to bankruptcy (or bailout) - if there were a way to invest against it, I would take it.

On a side note, are there any municipalities not mentioned at Category:Government units that have filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy that have declared bankruptcy? Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Your friend is thinking of the Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act and its aftermath. DuncanHill (talk) 00:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * "So, what shall we call this act to enable really big improvements to our state infrastructure ?"
 * "Well, we could call it the Really Big Internal Improvement Act."
 * "Naah, that just sounds silly. How about ..." Gandalf61 (talk) 10:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, many did in the 19th century. Here is a page with some examples, don't know how complete it is. The last mentioned is Arkansas in 1933.John Z (talk) 00:43, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not exactly right. They may have defaulted, but that's always been different than "bankruptcy". The link you provided doesn't even talk about bankruptcies, and in 1933 the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 was in effect which certainly didn't permit States to declare bankruptcy (or put more correctly, the States didn't allow the federal government to administrate their debts). Shadowjams (talk) 09:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you think California's fiscal situation is going to hell, one way you can profit is by buying credit default swaps on California debt. A CDS is insurance against default. The greater the risk of default, the higher the price of the CDS. You could have tripled your money in a few months last winter had you bought CDS's on Greek debt and sold them during the peak of the European debt crisis. That said, I don't know where an average person can go to buy credit default swaps. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * With regard to the "1840s" entry in John Z's link, Sydney Smith was rather upset that Pennsylvania defaulted on its bonds (in which he had invested) and vented his spleen on the subject in some articles and letters, as was Wordsworth, who wrote a sonnet "On the Pennsylvanians". The state apparently did, however, eventually make good on its debt. Deor (talk) 01:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The above link (how it's described) isn't accurate... States cannot declare bankruptcy. In fact, States cannot be compelled to pay their debts (except maybe to the federal government). In fact the link is really referring to modern municipality bankruptcies which are covered under Chapter 9, but implicitly are with the consent of the state that they're in. The states have sovereign immunity which effectively precludes them from federal court jurisdiction, except in specific circumstances. The 11th amendment provides some key background on this fact. But no, a State has never formally declared Bankruptcy under the modern constitution, to my knowledge. I'd be very surprised if I'm wrong on that point... although if I am please tell me soon... Shadowjams (talk) 09:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Help in identifying found necklace for unknown deity (possibly Germanic in origin?)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3544/3336377574_af608d9a32_m.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/3336377368_78d76f9abd_m.jpg http://www.flickr.com/photos/36083176@N05/

So, kind of a long story but, about 15 years ago my oldest brother found this somewhere near our middle school. We asked the nuns there at the time what it was and the only answer we could get was the usual "it's the devil!" My brother passed away last year, and while settling his belongings we rediscovered it in a small jewelry box. Since then I have been trying to figure out what it is, but have had little luck.

I think it is related to late 1800's American Occultism because of the amalgamation of several different mythologies. The serpent eating it's tail is Germanic in origin I believe. The body of the figure on the front reminds me more of a Greek or Roman deity, but the head seems Egyptian. The text is Greek I believe, and the ABPACAE on the back I have seen referred to as a "mystic name" but I have no idea what that really means. Anyone have any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.46.60 (talk) 00:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * There is some information in our article on Abraxas (aka Abrasax). It even has an image of a similar piece of jewelry. ---Sluzzelin talk  00:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Just beat me to it... see also this image. Also, my sympathies about your brother. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * And see in particular the section on Abrasax stones. The creature is sometimes called "anguiped". ---Sluzzelin talk  00:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

North & South Indian migrants in Northeast India
How many North and South Indians migrate to Northeast India each year? How many of them return from the Northeast India? 99.245.73.51 (talk) 03:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The number of South Indians would be quite marginal, limited to staff in government institutions. --Soman (talk) 02:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

A political science question on violence in some areas
Any good resources/links/starting points for this question:

Why have some ethnically diverse countries and localities experienced many instances of violence, while others have not? Evaluate the competing theoretical approaches, and examining the empirical evidence in the cases of India, Nigeria, former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.147.31 (talk) 06:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We don't answer homework questions here, unless you show that you did at least some of the work yourself and are stuck at some particular point. That said, ex-Yugoslavia was a model multicultural state up until to the war, so it had a by far longer history of peace and cooperation between ethnicities than it did of violence. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll add, this is a very complex question with a number of different theoretical approaches. you'd best stick to the resources your teacher pointed you to, oterwise you're going to swamp yourself and/or doa  crappy job with it.  -- Ludwigs 2  21:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Eugene O'Neill play with "Ape II" yacht and rowing crew race?
Hi, all. I'm almost sure I remember reading a short O'Neill play, years and years ago, in which one of the scenes took place on a yacht named, Ape II. Can anyone remind me of the name of the play? I recall the yacht belonged to a wealthy industrialist. Its socialite passengers were watching an Ivy-League crew (rowing) race on some American river and, as I recall, the dramatic tension was supposed to revolve around whether the industrialist's son ("Gordon"?) had inherited a tendency to mental illness from, I think, his troubled mother. It wasn't a very plausible story line, nor a very creditable work, as I recall (although I esteem O'Neill mightily for his other work); the idea was that if the son's team won the race that would somehow prove that he had not inherited the tendency. Btw, I'm of course familiar with The Hairy Ape; that's not the play I'm thinking of. Extra points ;-) if anyone happens to remember the home port of the yacht; I'm pretty sure that was mentioned in the play, as well. I'm asking because a good friend has a life-ring labeled "Ape II" and (I think) something like "Vinalhaven" as the home port that he displays in his home and that he says belonged to a relative's yacht by that name. It looks like a theatrical prop to me, seems to be made of paper and paste, and I think I recall the boat and port from O'Neill. Don't worry, I don't intend to call him on the conceit ( we all have our secret vanities, I suppose ) but the thing always sets my brain a-buzz, trying to remember the name of the play, every time I visit his house, and it would be nice to know. Any help appreciated. Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 09:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * What you're describing is almost certainly Act 8 of Strange Interlude, but in a hasty scan of the act I don't see that the boat is anywhere named, Ape II or otherwise. Deor (talk) 11:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Huh! I'd read Strange Interlude at least twice, I know, although not for a decade or two. I just now re-read Act 8, and you're of course correct. But no mention of Ape II. Very odd. I suppose it's possible I've confused two distinct stories in my recollection. Perhaps a short play by a different (?) author, published along with Strange Interlude in a collection of plays? I was so nearly certain ... As I recall, the industrialist yacht-owner was touting himself as something like the next step in man's evolutionary development, and had named his boat accordingly. I'm more confused about my recollection than ever, but I appreciate your reply, Deor, very much, indeed. Thank you. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 13:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Male and female accents (?)
For some reason, I am absolutely "deaf" to regional accents spoken by male native speakers of my language. That is, I don't notice their accents until I really try to. I've been involve with acoustics for quite a while and listening to people is an important part of my RL work. I can analyze voices acoustically, emotionally etc. - but the former takes effort. The same regional accents in women's voices seem striking - they are the first thing I hear. So, silly jokes aside, is it just my own idiosyncrasy, or a sampling bias glitch, or is it something related to the physics of female formants? Or could it be that the same accent is, indeed, radically different between men and women from the same area, same social and educational background etc.? East of Borschov 10:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Anecdotally, having grown up with parents of four different accents (father was vaguely Oxonian, mum is East London by way of a decade or so in Scotland, stepfather is NZ, stepmother is quite plummy) and the associated extended family accents, there isn't much difference except in timbre. I'm thinking specifically of my maternal great-aunt and uncle, who are fairly cockney and indistinguishable apart from the basic male/female differences. Out of curiosity, are you able to distinguish the gay accent? While it seems to be confined to male homosexuals, it's still fairly distinct within (and occasionally from) a regional/class/etc accent. Your ability to hear/not hear that might shed some clue as to how or why your hearing difference exists. → ROUX   ₪  10:45, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I have an interesting story that relates to this question. It's a bit long; I hope you won't object to that.
 * I'm friends with a speech-language pathologist, and a large part of her work involves listening over and over to recordings she has made of school kids who have complex speech impediments, trying to figure out what the kid is doing wrong with regard to placement of his lips/mouth/tongue as he speaks. A single sound substitution can often be identified by an untrained listener: when a five-year old can't say the letter "S", for example, it's typical that he will (unknowingly) substitute a letter he can enunciate; I once met one of her young clients who called his friend "Sam" by the sound "Ham". But when, as is often the case, a kid's speech is more of a jumble, and multiple substitutions for different sounds are taking place, it requires a lot of patience from a trained professional listening to the same "conversation", over and over, trying to understand what the kid is trying to communicate.
 * I remember one kid, in particular: My friend had listened to a recording of an initial session with him probably 20 times, with very little success. Even the kid's mother had great difficulty understanding him. My friend was very frustrated with her lack of progress. On a week end she visited another friend, who had made some marijuana brownies to try to help cope with the sickness from chemotherapy. My own friend isn't a drug user, had tried marijuana only in college, and that on a limited basis, but for some reason she indulged in eating a marijuana brownie with her friend. I saw her about six hours later, when she thought, as she said, the effects had completely subsided. Evidently they hadn't; because when she listened again to the recording of the kid, she was amazed. ( She always brings work home, she's profoundly dedicated; very overworked school employee. ) I was there, and I have no doubt from her response that her report of being able to understand the kid perfectly, without effort, was 100% accurate. She listened to tapes she had of other kids (three she'd puzzled out previously, one she hadn't listened to again after the initial evaluation) and had the same amazing experience of easy comprehension, no effort at all, she said, immediate understanding without having to replay and replay the recording, as she usually did. The results held up, too, i.e. the notes she made while evidently "under the influence" were accurate interpretations of what the kid was saying, or of what he thought he was saying, actually.
 * Now I would never encourage someone to try an illegal drug, but this example is corroborated by the experience of other drug users' reports, as I understand it. I've read that others have said that marijuana, especially, but also cocaine, can greatly enhance a person's ability to hear and simultaneously follow multiple "layers" in a musical performance, that they discover a richness and hear a complexity that they are sure is in fact objectively present, but that they never could grasp or appreciate before. Anyway, I thought you might be interested to hear of this because it seems to confirm the idea that the ability to "hear" complexity in sound might be state-dependent in some as-yet unresearched or undiscovered physiological way. Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 12:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * A related trope, and much more common, is the drunken or stoned person who has a brilliant insight, and upon waking up, is embarassed by its banality. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm ... the incredulity I infer in the above comment prompted me to investigate a bit: (1) "And the drug also seems to heighten the hearing — so that, for instance, strange chord formations seem easier to analyze under marijuana." Time Magazine, 19 July, 1943. (2) "It was concluded that alcohol ingestion in moderate amounts alters the central auditory processing under difficult listening conditions. When compared with a previous study using marihuana, it was found that the discrimination ability was reduced by alcohol ingestion while marihuana significantly improved speech discrimination. Journal of Otolaryngology. 1980 Jun;9(3):207-14. Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 18:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Very cool anecdote and sources, Ohio! :) CT, has there been a published study of the commonality of that trope, and if so how do those numbers compare with the relative frequency of having brilliant vs. banal insights when sober?   Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  18:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Ladies and gentlemen, it's my privilege and pleasure to announce that the 2010 OADDSC ( Ohio Award for Delightfully Droll & Supportive Commentary ) in the Truly Funny Demand for Sources category goes to .... WikiDao!!!!" Best, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 19:55, 4 November 2010 (UTC) 
 * [[Image:Face-grin.svg|17px]] Cheers!  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  22:17, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, a quick search yielded the Ballmer Peak] graph, which I think concludes this matter. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Roux: I'm not familiar with real (that is, not Hollywood) English gay dialects - despite having lived in the United States for a couple of years (Chicago, New England - eons ago). I sometimes notice peculiar tones in German spoken by gays in Vienna, but it's a world city and my knowledge of German is very basic to make conclusions (what sounds like gay may in fact be Italian). My native Russian language does not have a gay culture of its own, for good or bad. East of Borschov 13:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I doubt there's much explicit gender difference in accents, but there are probably sociological differences. Women (as a rule) are socially trained to be more cognizant of communication: it's entirely possible that women will be more aware that there are communication problems inherent in accents than men are, and therefore will be more likely to over-enunciate or otherwise try to compensate (which can often perversely increase the perception of an accent).  -- Ludwigs 2  18:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Brains are very plastic, but also very in-tune with economics, i.e. with the advantages and disadvantages of provisioning the very "expensive" physiological resource of neurons for different purposes. Combine that realization with the recognition that we were, for the overwhelming majority of our species' evolution, nomadic tribesmen, hunter-gatherers. This background leads me to ask, "What individual or genetic advantage might result from deploying precious brain resources in this assymetrical way?" Since the "advantage" that men (and evolution) are most interested in with respect to women is the opportunity for mating with a high-value/high-status female, I have to wonder whether regional accents are good indicators of value/status among females in his region of the world? And since the "advantage" that our hunter-gatherer forefathers sought with respect to other males was usually centered around the ability to defeat a potential competitor in battle, well, what then? Why wouldn't male accents be important-enough to allocate neurons to, in the OP's environment and context? Perhaps (just guessing) he's a very large, physically-imposing man who never really had to worry much about competitors in possible battle? Thus questions of relative status (with which accents are often associated as telltales) don't matter as much for him with men, since he's not likely to have to fight them and they're not potential mating partners. These suggestions may be very far off the mark, of course; this is speculation entirely. Another alternative could be that the OP just happens to be at one end of a particular normal distribution that evolution is trying out to see if his particular provisioning of neuronal resources confers any long-term genetic advantage. He's a mutant, in other words (as are we all, of course) or a "specialist", if you want a more polite term, and nature is just watching and waiting, metaphorically, to see if his particular mutation constitutes an advantageous pattern for configuring the very expensive physiological real-estate of the brain. Cheers, –  OhioStandard  (talk) 02:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanksgiving more important than Christmas?
I may be wrong but I get the sense over the decades the average american has shifted from thinking Christmas is the most important family holiday of the year to placing more emphasis on Thanksgiving. Is there any evidence for or against this anecdotal observation?

One bit of evidence I can think of is the days before Thanksgiving are the busiest travel days of the year since people are going to see extended families. Still is there any sort of survey that has asked people which they consider the more important family holiday? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 11:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I offer as counter evidence my own observation that American expats rarely celebrate Thanksgiving beyond America's borders, but take raucous pleasure in celebrating Christmas. Personally, I completely forgot Thanksgiving the first year I was in China. A Chinese friend mentioned that the day was TG day and I was rather shocked. On the other hand, I'd never forget Christmas. The Masked Booby (talk) 12:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with The Masked Booby. Most Americans consider Christmas far more important than Thanksgiving. As for travelling, perhaps the weather plays a large part in their decision to visit relatives in November rather than December as many airports get closed, flights cancelled, etc. due to poor weather conditions during the Christmas season.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No. Thanksgiving is the day you have a big meal so that you're ready to sit in line all night for those great Black Friday morning deals on Christmas presents. Rmhermen (talk) 12:42, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A visit to the distant relatives on Thanksgiving is a way of seeing them over the holidays without having to share the really important day with folks you hardly know. (YMMV) —Kevin Myers 13:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The Thanksgiving vacation is shorter and less variable than the Christmas vacation. Almost everybody works for the first two days of the week, leaving only one day to travel.  (Notice that all the people traveling on the day before Thanksgiving are presumably taking two-way trips.  But some go back on Saturday and some go back on Sunday).  There's no standard time that the Christmas vacation starts, so there's no big concentration of travel on one day.  Paul (Stansifer) 13:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Historically, Thanksgiving was celebrated mostly in New England, where Christmas was largely ignored, until the 1860's or later. The modern "merchants' $mas"where people must spend themselves into the poorhouse buying gifts is largely a modern (20th century) invention. Edison (talk) 18:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Puritans didn't celebrate Christmas at all did they? Alansplodge (talk) 21:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture claims that the biggest food-gathering days of the year in America are Thanksgiving and Super Bowl Sunday. Presumably, Christmas is third. I'm sure a lot of Americans would say that Christmas is more "important" because it is (for them) a real religious holiday. Incidentally, I had a great experience with Thanksgiving in Prague at a big party held by the owners of a local hostel. They couldn't find turkeys so they served chicken, but it was great getting to know all the expats. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanksgiving more important than Christmas? Only in the same way that the World Series is the most important international sporting competition. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:05, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * As an American, Christmas is a much bigger deal in this part of North Carolina than Thanksgiving (which is a somewhat-big deal). Thanksgiving is widely regarded here as an excuse to eat a lot, and yes, we do travel a lot to do that.  Christmas however, at least in my family, tends to be something that we like to keep within the immediate family, and we usually (at least 75% of the time) celebrate it at home.  We often do our traveling before or after Christmas, but it is somewhat rare that we (my family) travel for Christmas with someone else.  I do come from a (semi) Christian family, so that obviously puts a different value on Christmas for my family than many families in the area who practice different faiths.  Falconus p  t   c 03:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanksgiving is an American holiday with spiritual overtones, while Christmas is a Christian holiday; with significant secular touches of harvest time and winter time thrown into them respectively. The shop-till-you-drop situation with Christmas really sprang up after World War II, when suddenly we were prosperous again after a 15-year depression-and-war doing-without period. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

How did Russian billionaires get rich?
The relevant articles tend to say thing like "made his fortune by capturing state assets at knockdown prices during Russia's rush towards privatisation". But how was this done, specifically? 92.28.250.172 (talk) 14:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * See Privatization in Russia. The cynical view would be that Boris Yeltsin (see the section on the 1996 election) essentially bribed a group of telecommunications and financial businessmen for their support in the 1996 election.  The businessmen had become moderately rich in the initial privatization efforts (the government issued vouchers to buy shares in state industry.  Most people sold theirs for cash to a smallish group of investors, who then made a lot of money), and then became fantastically rich when Yeltsin gave them large shares in some of Russia's state-owned assets. Buddy431 (talk) 14:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't you know they got rich saving money by switching to DirecTV? .  Grsz 11  14:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * When the Soviet Union and the ruble collapsed around 1991-1992, a lot of goods - particularly things like raw materials, scrap metals, etc - were still available at subsidized Soviet prices that did not take into account the fall in value of the ruble. If you were an insider with access to sources of these materials, they could be bought for almost nothing, and then sold on the open market for hard currency. The trick was that most goods were unavailable to the average post-Soviet consumer. You needed to have special connections to, for example, buy a ton of copper for pennies, and many of the persons who did did not understand capitalism enough to take advantage of those opportunities. But the few who did became millionaires almost overnight. --Xuxl (talk) 14:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

People's Republic Of China - no longer communist?
Is China still communist? Or is it now a capitalist country ruled by the communist party? Or what? Thanks 92.28.250.172 (talk) 14:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It has some aspects of communism and some aspects of capitalism. It is very difficult to have complete communism or complete capitalism. --  k a i n a w &trade; 14:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Economy of the People's Republic of China is pretty indepth.  Grsz 11  14:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It all depends, of course, on how you define "communism" and "capitalism". There is a rather bogus "no true Scotsman" argument that runs as follows: communist societies are not economically successful; modern day China is economically successful; therefore modern day China is not a true communist society. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * They have an authoritarian government which still exerts a strong degree of control over their economy, but they have loosened restrictions on private ownership and entrepreneurship. It's a self-consciously mixed or hybrid political and economic system. It's hard to categorize according to classical definitions of "Communist" or "capitalist," but then again, so is practically every Western economy, too. The labels are less important than they used to be. What people mostly want to know is how they act, not what the supposed underlying ideology is. They don't very well resemble anything of what Marx would have recognized as "Communist," albeit no "Communist" country ever has. They don't economically resemble the "Communism" that characterized the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * China was never communist, none of the countries were, communism is a state of having no real government, amongst a lot else. The point is that the soviet union, china and so on were aiming towards communism, hoping, or so they claimed, to achieve the ideals set out by Marx back in 1848. The question, then, is whether China is still aiming towards becoming such a land with no government and perfect equality..? 148.197.121.205 (talk) 16:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That's why I make the distinction between the term "Communist" in the strict Marxist sense, and the term "Communist" that is used to describe the general forms of politics and economies of the Soviet Union, the early PRC, and so forth. In almost any case, people today mean the latter and to say "but they were never truly Communist in the sense that Marx meant" is usually just being pedantic unless one is specifically discussing Marx's writings. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Our article title on the latter is Communist state, and the article on the movement is of course Communism. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

See also Socialist market economy. As someone in China once put it, "We are the Communist Party, and we shall decide what Communism means." The Communist party is definitely in charge and in fact owns much (most?) of the country - companies, banks, you name it. Not entirely unlike state capitalism, keeping in mind that "state" in this case means the Party, not the official state. (This distinction is significant: the Chinese Communist Party actually exists outside and above the law and the state.) Some have drawn parallels between the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and the period of NEP in Lenin's Soviet Russia, when the Party permitted some measure of private enterprise. Finally, please pardon the plug, but there's a book about the rulers of China out recently called The Party, by Richard McGregor, which is very interesting reading indeed.--Rallette (talk) 08:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Earnestly-plugged references are always desirable, no need to excuse them. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Identity of subjects in 19th century painting
Inside one of the rooms at Arundel Castle, family seat of the Dukes of Norfolk, I recall having seen a portrait of two young women in 19th century costume. They are obviously members of the Fitzalan-Howard family, but can anyone identify them? Thank you. Their identity has bothered me since I first saw the portrait on a visit to the castle in 1975.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe you could ask the people at Arundel castle archive ? Surely they have records of the collection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 19:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Bio on Stephane Gauthier, a French Economist who received his PhD from MIT?
Kindly locate & add bio / cv of Dr. Stephane Gauthier, who received his PhD from MIT & is a French Economist in Paris. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.249.80.228 (talk) 15:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All Wikipedia editors are volunteers. You are welcome to join us.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Nothing on him at French wikipedia. Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  15:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You, OP, may also want to read our "notability" requirements at Notability (people), but you may also request a new article at WP:Requested articles/Biographies.  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  15:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This may be the person concerned, if anyone wishes to consider doing something about it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:05, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

divorce rates with and without prenuptial agreements
Hello expert researchers. I am looking to find out if divorce rates are different for couples that have prenuptial agreements compared to couples who don't have such agreements. My google-fu is failing me – I'm only turning up articles that say high divorces rates are reason to consider a prenup. But what I want is simple statistics: in marriages with prenups, this percentage get divorced; in marriages without prenups, this percentage get divorced. Stats for Canada or the US would be ideal. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.22.236.140 (talk) 17:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This article says, "There are no statistics on how many prenuptial agreements are written, probably because they do not need to be filed until they're enforced, attorneys say", so there may be no way to find what you're looking for. Even if such stats did exist, I imagine situations with prenups will generally have confounding factors (later marriage, wealth disparity, etc.). --Sean 18:05, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts Sean. I appreciate it. If anyone else does find the stats, please still do post here. One of the reasons people shy away from prenups is the feeling that to create one is to set oneself up for divorce. I hoped to find some hard data that speaks to this fear and whether it has any actual basis in experience. --User:67.22.236.140 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.107.246.140 (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I don't know why my number has changed. I am the same person who wrote that. Also, how do you make the signing work? --User:67.22.236.140 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.107.246.140 (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.134.250.140 (talk)
 * To make a signature, just type " --~ ", or press the button that looks like a writing pen. --Sean 20:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And your IP address will change if you use a different machine, or connect through a different ISP; but if your ISP allocates IP addresses dynamically, it might change even though you are using the same computer in the same place. This is one of many reasons why registering an account is helpful. --ColinFine (talk) 08:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

is there a published account that Wikipedia *can't* work and will go down in flames?
I personally believe that Wikipedia can't possibly work as a concept (despite the fact that it does, at the moment), and that, therefore, it will go down in flames within ten years. Is there a published confirmation of my suspicion? Thank you. 84.153.188.184 (talk) 17:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Try googling for news article like this one. There are lots of them. --  k a i n a w &trade; 17:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note, BTW, that the linked article was published on 5th December 2006 and claims that "Wikipedia will fail in four years, crushed under the weight of an automated assault by marketers and others seeking online traffic."
 * It appears we have a month left to live. Goodbye, cruel world. TomorrowTime (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Note a few things. 1. "Wikipedia" is not static. Certain aspects of it are likely to be consistent, but, as has been demonstrated over the last few years, some aspects are more fluid than one might have guessed. New tools for fighting vandalism, automated entries, spam, and so on, are created and used and implemented all of the time. Some aspects of its much-vaunted "openness" have been rescinded over time. So any prediction of the future operation based on the status quo might be woefully wrong for a number of reasons, especially since the "problems" are generally incremental, and there are a lot of technically clever people contributing to Wikipedia who are probably willing to help solve them. 2. You're not going to be able to "confirm" your suspicion without it actually happening in this case. Which means that you're going to have to wait in 10 years and see where we all are then. Might be true, might not. But there's no article that can "prove" this to be the case, any more than they can "prove" that in 10 years we'll all be wearing underpants on our head. There might be suggestive trends, but there's no real confirmation there, unless you are just looking for "confirmation" that someone else out there feels the same way you do. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I would also note that even if Wikipedia were to collapse in ten years, it's licence allows anyone else to publish an archive of the encyclopedia or use all of the content that we have made to start a new encyclopedia with different editing rules. So, as long as anyone has an archive copy of Wikipedia, our work-to-date can't be undone by mass-vandalism or even the server being shut down. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * "It turns out that the people who believe in truth and objectivity are at least as numerous as all the crazies, pranksters and time-wasters, and they are often considerably more tenacious, ruthless and monomaniacal. On Wikipedia, it’s the good guys who will hunt you down," observes David Runciman, Cambridge University, reviewing Andrew Lih, The Wikipedia Revolution; his is the most sensible description of Wikipedia ever: read it.--Wetman (talk) 19:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Your suspicion, as stated, contains a paradox, so nothing could possibly confirm it. No evidence could ever make a proposition including "Wikipedia can't possibly work as a concept ... despite the fact that it does" true. --Sean 20:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds a lot like the zeroth law of Wikipedia - "The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work." Incidentally, does anyone know who first came up with that quote? I'm sure it's been discussed before, but can't find it now. the wub "?!"  23:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia already has "gone down in flames." In fact it is continuously "going down in flames." Wikipedia is a dynamic entity. It is metamorphosing daily. That is actually a plus. A person reading Wikipedia only needs look at the History of the article and the Talk page as well as the History of the Talk page (plus archives—whew!) to understand a lot more about a topic than a "static" encyclopedia article can give you. The repository that Wikipedia is will continue for the foreseeable future. Its demise is based on thinking of it as an online Encyclopædia Britannica. It can fail in some ways as a replacement for Encyclopædia Britannica but still be very valuable. Bus stop (talk) 23:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Everything ends in one way or another. Will wikipedia still be here for the remainder of our lifetimes, or our childrens? It might do. What's certain is that something will come along one day to make it redundant and old fashioned. As of now, Wikipedia is making a good job of creating an encyclopedia Jack forbes (talk) 00:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * One thing about Wikipedia is that (depending on your perspective) it is either stabilizing or stagnating in recent years. See VPM for the most recent analysis to show this.  In several major metrics, from new users, to new administrators, to number of edits per day, to number of new articles, Wikipedia reached a plateau sometime around 2007 and has showed much slower growth since then.  Depending on your perspective, this either means that a) Wikipedia has reached a mature phase, and no one expected it to maintain the astronomical growth it showed in the early years, and that this is a healthy thing or b) Wikipedia is being crushed by its own weight, and its entrenched culture is driving away old contributors and keeping out new ones, which explains the decline in production.  You will likely find an equal number of people who ascribe to each perspective.  I personally hold mostly to perspective A), but then again I'm still here.  If you ask people who have left Wikipedia, they will likely tell you more about perspective B.  In reality, it is such a huge community, you will get a wide range of opinions on what is really going on.  The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, as it always is.  -- Jayron  32  04:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Or it could be that we are running out of Japanese train stations and US elementary schools to write about. Googlemeister (talk) 13:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a fait accompli. Even if it froze now and was developed no further, it would still be a much better encyclopaedia than all rivals. The only way it could fail would be if every copy of it was erased. 92.15.10.141 (talk) 12:58, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Absolutely true. If the community spirit that built Wikipedia turned out to be a fad that faded away, we'd just say "Well, lucky thing that the good feelings lasted long enough to make an awesome encyclopedia.", Restore from an old, known-good database dump, and lock the database.
 * If you're worried about a sudden catastrophe (Perhaps you believe WP will literally go down in flames.), you could use the Database_download feature to get your copy of the database today. APL (talk) 14:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that a successful libel lawsuit for millions might give some irate article subject ownership of the servers and the name. The Saturday Evening Post, a well known US magazine, was shut down when it lost a libel suit in the 1960's. It was gratifying when someone pointed out that the articles would still be available for anyone to copy in such an event, so it could be open for business the next week under a new name. One failure mode would be a loss of interest by vandal fighters and administrators, leaving many articles in possession of propagandists, advertisers, promoters, loons, hoaxers, rabid nationalists, racists, and vandals. It might be indistinguishable from Uncyclopedia with the accuracy and credibility of any wall covered with graffiti or any extremist blog. All that gives it value is the hard work of thousands who create and improve articles and remove point of view edits and vanispamcruftisements, while requiring civility among contributors. Edison (talk) 14:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)