Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 February 15

= February 15 =

Being in the army and the navy at the same time?
Hirohito's article claims that he was a commissioned officer in both the army and the navy at the same time. Note that I'm not looking for cases where the army and the navy are a single combined armed force (Canadian_Forces e.g.); the IJA and IJN were separate (and sometimes even conflicting) organizations.99.245.35.136 (talk) 02:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Did he actually perform military duties in both armed forces or were the titles purely ceremonial?
 * Are there any other people with this special distinction?
 * Is this practice limited to Japan or does it happen in other countries as well?
 * Just an anecdote here, but my father-in-law was briefly in both the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army at the same time, mainly through a bureaucratic glitch. He enlisted in the Navy, and had gone through his Navy Recruit Training.  Because he had enlisted after graduating college, he was eligible for Officer Candidate School, which he applied to after Recruit Training.  Because he submitted his OCS application, the Navy deferred his enlistment so for a few months he wasn't part of the armed forces.  During that time, he was drafted by the Army.  When he contacted his Naval Recruiter, they basically said "Well, since you haven't been accepted to Naval OCS yet, there's nothing we can do.  Looks like you're going to Army Basic Training".  So he packed up and went through Army Basic Training, at the conclusion of which is application to Navy OCS was accepted, and he went off, (in probably the best shape of his life!) to Navy OCS.  Probably not exactly what you were looking for, but it's close.
 * On the question of Hirohito, my guess is that his commissions were ceremonial because of his role as Emperor places him as ex officio member of all of Japan's armned forces, much as the U.S. President is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military; though he usually takes no active role in direct military planning as real officers do... -- Jayron  32  03:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting story. Hirohito's commissions were before he became the Emperor. In fact, this was even before he became the Crown Prince. Furthermore his initial commission in the navy was sub-lieutenant, quite a low rank for ceremonial role (I think colonel Gaddafi had the lowest ceremonial rank ever?). 99.245.35.136 (talk) 04:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * On closer reading you're right, it's purely ceremonial. He was 11 when he was "formally commissioned in both the army and in the navy as a second lieutenant and ensign, respectively". From his's son, Akihito's article, we have: "Unlike his predecessors in the Imperial Family, he did not receive a commission as an Army officer, at the request of his father, Hirohito." So now my question becomes, is there any royal family out there that automatically receive a ceremonial officer commission? I don't mean cases like Prince Harry where it's dutifully earned, but "free commissions" that you receive without undergoing the proper training. 99.245.35.136 (talk) 04:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just picking around randomly, I think Hirohito may have been a bit of a slacker in the multiple-commissions-by-a-royal department. See Carl_XVI_Gustaf_of_Sweden.  The current King of Sweden was concurrently an officer in three different armed forces.  The article makes it seem like all of the commissions were genuine and earned, but its a bit sparse.  A line of inquiry for you to follow.  -- Jayron  32  04:37, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Prince William is a serving RAF helicopter pilot, but was recently married wearing the uniform of the Grenadier Guards. British Royals have numerous honorary military titles, but have usually served "for real" as well. In 1945, Queen Elizabeth was a Second Subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service but at the same time was an honorary Colonel of the Grenadier Guards. Her current appointments run to a very long list and include Colonel-in-Chief of the 48th Highlanders of Canada, Captain-General of the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery, Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Royal New Zealand Engineers and Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
 * An example of a serving officer who had "real" appointments in two services was Colonel Frederick Sykes of the Royal Flying Corps. In 1915, "Sykes visited the Dardanelles to investigate the confused air situation and after writing a report he was appointed as the Officer Commanding the Royal Naval Air Service Eastern Mediterranean Station with the naval rank of captain, having briefly been appointed Colonel Commandant in the Royal Marines." It didn't work very well as "relations with other naval officers remained strained and many refused to recognise Sykes’ naval rank" Alansplodge (talk) 05:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Prince Edward failed to earn his green lid and is now an honourary Colonel and honourary 1 Star; Commodore RN and Air Commodore RAF.
 * ALR (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Prince Radu of Romania was made a Colonel of the Romanian Army, even though he never served, and even though we're living in a republic :( 109.97.189.88 (talk) 11:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Major Gaddafi promoted himself to colonel after the coup. Sleigh (talk) 10:57, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * According to our article, he was actually a lieutenant who promoted himself to colonel and was later given a honourary promotion by someone else to major general by someone else which he chose not to use. Nil Einne (talk) 15:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Prince Felipe (heir apparent of the Spanish throne) has military ranks in all the three Spanish armed forces. And although he is not deployed, he is in the chain of command. 188.76.228.174 (talk) 13:27, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought Qaddafi was a colonel before he took power? If so, we'd have to go with Master Sergeant Samuel Doe as having a lower rank.  Nyttend (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned above (although I realise I failed to sign until now), Muammar Gaddafi says he was a lieutenant until he promoted himself to colonel after seizing power. This other source says he was a captain . But it says in the reference footnote in our article, that he was never captain; he may have been due to be promoted to one but was passed over due to being 'politically suspect'.
 * gives two other leaders who may have been lieutenant, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (although from our article it sounds like even that rank may have been partially ceremonial and his leadership arose more out of family connections his uncle being the one he deposed) and Yahya Jammeh (our article suggests he was however the commander of the Gambian Military Police which seems a fairly high position for a Lieutenant, but both are unsourced anyway).
 * Nil Einne (talk) 15:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Chinese pentatonic scale
bonsoir all (or perhaps I might say ni hao :D ). Music has always been one of my interests, especially music of other cultures. I have just now begun examining the Chinese pentatonic scale and apparently not only are the "distances" between the notes different, but the notes themselves do not exactly correspond to any notes on a Western instrument when tuned the traditional way. What I would like to know is: would this non-correspondence be likely to bother someone with absolute / perfect pitch, and if so, how much? merci-grazie-gracias-arigato :) 213.118.213.177 (talk) 03:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You have to understand that the 12 divisions of the even temperament octave are completely arbitrary, and don't necessarily correspond to anything inherently meaningful. You could make a case for fourths and fifths both being pretty clear, but "perfect pitch" is an abstraction as well.  I'm not sure how much it matters.  162.111.235.14 (talk) 20:50, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, the only musical interval that has any real mathematical significance in the western world is the octave, which is any two frequencies standing in a 2:1 ratio. All other intervals are divisions of the distance between the two, out of which you can build any kind of scale you want to. As to the perfect pitch question, I would assume that may be dependent on the culture that a given person with perfect pitch was acquainted with. Instruments out of tune by just a few hertz can be extremely distressing to Westerners with perfect pitch. There are people who can aurally determine the difference between A440 and, say, A438, so I would guess that anything else with different frequency intervals could cause discomfort as well. On the other hand, someone born in China, and acquainted with the native music, with perfect pitch would likely have no problem with it. Just guessing, though. Evanh2008, Super Genius Who am I? You can talk to me... 02:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The octave is the only interval that is consistently tuned to an exact rational number in current Western music; but it's no accident that log(3)/log(2) is very close to an integer number of tempered semitones. —Tamfang (talk) 08:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

La Bayamesa = Cuba's National Anthem
Why does the music of Cuba's National Anthem sound so much like one of Mozart's arias in The Wedding of Figaro? Could it be that Figueredo adapted it from Mozart's aria rather than compose it outright? I am not trying to discredit it. On the contrary, I was born in Cuba and consider myself Cuban American. But the first time I heard Mozart's aria, I recognized it immediately. It cannot be just coincidence. Also, I understand that this aria by Mozart had been adopted by the same regiment that does the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, and I saw a video of them playing it. It sounds exactly like La Bayamesa (except for the introductory notesto Cuba's national anthem, which were composed by somebody other than Figueredo). I really would like to know the true history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anitinamartin (talk • contribs) 04:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Having checked out La Bayamesa, I presume the Mozart aria you're referring to is "Non più andrai" from The Marriage of Figaro. I can see why they remind you of each other, but to my ear they're sufficiently different so as not to be mistaken.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  04:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

was the bible ever written
was the bible ever written, and could another one be written. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 11:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well we can deduce from its existence that it was written. Others have been written; think Quran, Pearl of Great Price (Mormonism), etc. I think it depends upon your definition of "bible" --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the first edition of its books was comprised by oral texts. 188.76.228.174 (talk) 14:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of them, but presumably not the epistles. Warofdreams talk 14:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Please note that there is no universal understanding of the word "bible". Is the New Testament in the bible? Is the Old? Is the Book of Esther? Different people have different answers to these questions. See Biblical canon for more information. On the substance of your question, see Authors of the Bible and Mosaic authorship. As far as 188.76's answer goes, yes, many scholars hold that opinion. But many do not. --Dweller (talk) 14:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It is slightly more difficult, at least the last time I read catholic authorised textual origins literature. Many of the books comprise multiple written and/or oral traditions wedged together in a process called "redaction." Each of these could have been composed of further oral and written sources that were redacted into a text that was redacted into the copy that became transmitted by copying tradition to us. At each point of redaction, more and more of the "oral text" may have been lost (or was lost if the text isn't holy to you, and you apply normal contemporary scholarly approaches to documentary transmission). So the Bible is in fact an excellent "Hypertext." It is densely self and cross referential, especially the bits attributed to Jesus. The Jesus character closely cross references previous texts in the bible. But the Old Testament collection densely cross references itself anyway. And each of these texts (including three of the four canonical gospels!) was produced by reauthoring and merging of texts, and oral traditions, and texts made from oral traditions and texts. It's as messy as Wikipedia page histories. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

followup
could a bible be written today, or would it have to be oral tradition first. what if there was a conspiracy to agree to witness things that didn't happen, by a small group of people intending to create an intentinoal religion. would it be possible, and could they write a bible.

i'm asking because apparently there are conflicting stories, for example that joseph smit found some plates, and so his bible was not written, ony translated, or that the bible fell from the sky. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.254.208 (talk) 15:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * note that I'm not just asking about actually printing a "bible", i could do that myself in one sentence ("In the beginning, God created everything just as it is now; it's still the beginning.") i'm asking about somethign that would be the word of God and accepted by millions. could that be written today, or is it impossible for some theoretical or practical reason.--80.99.254.208 (talk) 15:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Certainly, there are people who claim to have heard the voice of God, and have written down what "He" said. Depending on whether or not you believe the people involved, the events behind the Three Secrets of Fátima may be exactly what you describe: three Portuguese shepherds claimed to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary and wrote down what "she" told them. The secrets are now part of official Catholic Church doctrine and are widely believed in certain Catholic communities as part of the word of God (or at least Mary). Smurrayinchester 15:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I rather doubt they are part of official Church doctrine. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  18:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Marian apparitions do not form part of Catholic doctrine, and are specifically named in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as matters of private revelation and hence private faith, not something that can be 'known' to be true. And the secrets of Fatima aren't even things that would be doctrines, anyway. 86.161.214.73 (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

hey, thanks for the response but I mean something totally different from christianity, not something jesus and mary based. could that be written today, with millions accepting it, and why-why not. a good candidate would be steve jobs and stories around him, for example. so the idea is that a bunch of guys just invent a whole new religion by pretending to have witnessed things that never happeened. coudl this happen for practical or theoretical reasons? --80.99.254.208 (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think something starting as an oral tradition is difficult nowadays. We don't live in an oral culture, everything is recorded nowadays. Even insignificant events can be traced back many years through newspapers, not to mention internet fora, blogs, twitter etc. Something is not likely to be believed if there is no documentation whatsoever.
 * A conspiracy, yes, I think that is quite possible. It can be quite profitable to scam people into believing a made up reigion, just look at Scientology, which is based on science fiction stories. However, the more people involved in a conspiracy, the more difficult it is to keep the story straight. Most major religious scams were started by a single person, who came to be the ultimate authority (e.g. Muhammad, Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard)
 * However, the bible as we know it was not written as one book of course. It is actually a collection of books by multiple authors living centuries apart. The contents of the bible existed long before there was an actual 'bible', so that's quite a different scenario. -- Lindert (talk) 16:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The plot of the film The Invention of Lying might be relevant here. Astronaut (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There are still ephemeral cultures; and, while many working class people are literate, few working class people are authors and predominantly produce oral or ephemeral texts rather than permanent texts. While some of these texts are preserved despite ephemerality (consider Know Your Meme's rather pathetic attempts to curate one small corner of internet culture) larger reasons for the lack of new religions seem to be based around increasing irreligiosity and the market being cornered by existing devotional practices.  On top of this, new religions in the past fifty years or so either have strong literary traditions (Scientology), or are something less than lying (Sub-Genius, Discordianism, some interpretations of Satanism and of course Flying Spaghetti Monster and Invisible Pink Unicornism). Fifelfoo (talk)


 * People are a lot more sophisticated now than in Biblical times, so, while there are always a few idiots who will believe anything some nut says, getting a religion started on the scale on Christianity, Islam, etc., would require some serious proof of miracles. "Some guy says he saw some weird stuff" isn't going to be enough to start a major religion, these days.  If some woman claims a virgin birth, we're going to want to do a DNA test on the paperboy who happens to look just like the baby.  StuRat (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd like a reference for the claim that "people are a lot more sophisticated now". Educated, yes; but there are a lot of credulous people out there today, too.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The sophistication isn't just education. We now have ways to verify things which didn't exist in Biblical times (like DNA tests).  We also have access to experts around the world who can tell us how any particular illusion might have been pulled off.  And we have ways to record things for experts, not present at the time, to evaluate later.  StuRat (talk) 22:45, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Another side of sophistication is the demand for a different kind of incredulous fact—ancient aliens are more credible within our cultural schema than invisible sky fathers. Yet another side of this is that not all religious practices involve faith.  Many involve devotion, which doesn't require credulity, only a pleasant feeling of worship.  Religions are also social spaces, so there are reasons to religious adherence other than faith or devotion.  Finally, some religions claim to, or can evidence, modes of practice that are believed to have inherent benefits regardless of devotion.  If you wish to extensively sit down in quiet and play mind games, then Western Zen may be for you; etc.  Many of these reasons for religiosity have substitutes: why meditate when there's Shark Week?  Why seek miracles when you can get an MRI?  Why cultivate an internal structure of sin when you can simply be neurotic and medicalised?  Fifelfoo (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

80.99.254.208 -- For scriptures created in modern times whose authorship has generated controversy, you can look at Urantia Book and yes, the Book of Mormon, etc. Using the word "bible"[sic] in lower-case when you really mean "scripture" does not add clarity to your questions. In any case, an idea which you seem to have vaguely in mind (i.e. that it is thought that the text of the Jewish/Christian Bible was handed directly from heaven without any human intervention) hasn't ever really been a formal doctrine of traditional mainstream or "orthodox" Christianity... AnonMoos (talk) 22:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

reference check
is this story true: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c65_1291178670

(someone arrested for having an orgasm over TSA groping). if it's true what was the result of that case? I've never heard of liveleak before and want to know if it's legitimate also. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems to be a spoof, but one that was so titillating that it has been spread around the Internet as if it were fact. Marco polo (talk) 16:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Snopes says it is not true:  RudolfRed (talk) 16:45, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing this up! I had my doubts... --80.99.254.208 (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You can tell it's a spoof by the guy's name... "Percy Cummings" indeed ;-)) (ref: here)  Astronaut (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * LOL, "orgasm", "spoof" and "Cumming". This thread certainly has a lot of spunk. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  18:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Come on, you guys are all nuts. I'd better get off this topic before I lose control.  That's it.  I'm spent.  It would only have been better if his first name was Skeeter.  Ok.  Fer real.  I'm done now.  -- Jayron  32  19:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Would you like a cigarette? --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  01:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you didn't ask them if they'd like a fag. StuRat (talk) 01:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No, I usually have a couple of fags, and when I've finished I have a cigarette or two. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  07:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

What's a good way to sell a short domain hack domain name for big bucks?
It's less than 8 letters so it's easy to remember, and the word, without the dot of the domain hack, is a very common word, and would be intended for many great causes.

I want to buy it and resell it to a corporation or someone for far more $. However, I have an aversion to ebay (high selling fees and poor customer service.)

What other places are great to resell the domain at? Moreover, how is this process done? Thank you. --129.130.209.247 (talk) 19:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * sorry to disappoint, but usually the process is to buy it and wait, wait, wait, up to 15 years. You (probably won't) get offers from time to time, and would end up accepting one for probably $5k-$10k.  It's an OK investment at 3, 4, or 5 letters, but at 8 letters it's just pure speculation on your part, especially since it's not .com.  Sorry to disappoint you. 94.27.166.132 (talk) 20:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I mostly agree, but should you wish to auction it immediately and take that risk, there are a number of specialised domain name auction sites out there; I'm sure the internet has something to say about which is the best. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 13:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Really? Which one is it? 88.9.105.3 (talk) 21:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Surely, if someone were willing to pay lots of money for the domain name they would have already bought it for themselves. The stories you hear about people making lots of money from domain names are either people that bought them in the early days of the internet (or, at least, in the early days of that TLD) or people that bought names that were worthless when they bought them but become very valuable later (one good trick is to hear about a planned corporate merger, guess what the merged company will be called, buy that domain name and then sell it to the company after the merger - unfortunately, everyone knows that trick these days so it's very difficult to hear about the merger before they've bought the names themselves). --Tango (talk) 22:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)