Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 May 5

= May 5 =

open university?
Would I be allowed to apply for a course at the Open University whilst also taking a different course at another university at the same time? Also, how would this work regarding student loan funding, since both have different costs, would I apply for a loan to cover the more expensive of the two?

213.104.128.16 (talk) 15:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by allowed? ... I don't think anyone could stop you from taking an Open University course, if you wanted to take one. The real question is whether you would receive any course credit (towards a degree) for the Open University course at your primary university.  That would be up to the university.   Blueboar (talk) 17:09, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I mean, as in separate credit towards two different degrees at the same time, from different institutions, are there no restrictions there? 213.104.128.16 (talk) 19:04, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Who would be imposing such a restriction? Does any university say that if you study at another institution at the same time, you get no credit for your achievements at the university?  I very much doubt it.  How could it possibly be policed?  And why would they care?  Whatever you do outside the uni is your own private affair, and that includes being involved with some other educational institution.  Their whole ethos is about support for learning, not about creating stupid and arbitrary disincentives.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  20:50, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As for the loan, it would be in your best interest to contact the Student Loans Company directly. OU courses do qualify for funding as of this year but undertaking two courses at two separate institutions at the same time seems to be quite rare. Nanonic (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd be very surprised and shocked if you had any kind of problem with either the loan or enrollment by either institution, but again there's only 2 organizations that can answer that definitively. It's a free world after all you may do what you please . . . but its a free world if one institution chooses not to accept the other's course credit or loan, no opinion here its pretty much a yes or no by the interested parties.   Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   06:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The issue of the loan is a bit complex, as Student Loans in the UK are provided by the Government and then repaid once the candidate has finished a course is earning a certain minimum income. Usually this will cover up to 16 years of courses, paid to either the candidate or institution in installments. If you switch courses or universities, it gets a bit involved as part payment will have been made already on the original course. To be taking two courses at once isn't a usual state of affairs and may need to be topped up with a private loan as the government may see it as excessive. Especially if the candidate applies for the maintenance loans and grants (which help with the cost of living at university) twice. Nanonic (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I can see 3 potential obstacles. 1) The student finance rules don't envisage this situation. Contact them, but it is quite possible that they will refuse to give you two loans at once. You haven't said whether you would be studying full or part time at your other university; that could be crucial. Also consult the regulations in your main university. They could exclude taking substantial part-time courses elsewhere, because that would prevent you giving adequate time and attention to your main course. Finally, consult the OU regulations. One thing you might consider is to intercalate from your man course and take the OU course then. Then you possibly could claim the OU CATS points to your main degree, but it wouldn't be automatic. Or just drop out and finish your degree at the OU.,all these need lots of thought. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

US federal legislation vs. state legislation
G'day. Does a state legislature in the U.S. pass more laws than Congress, and are such bills more often vetoed by a governor than by the president? Recently I read that Jerry Brown signed more than 10,000 bills into law during ten years as governor of California (two terms served 1975-1983). That is more than any president in history, even in times when many laws were passed in the 20th century. And I heard that Ronald Reagan (in his National Convention speech 1984) vetoed more than 900 bills only in fiscal terms while serving as Governor of California. As I pick Ronald Reagen as exemple, he served eight years as governor and eight years as president, may it be that he signed and vetoed a lot more laws in the governorship as in the presidency? Are state legislatures more active than congress? Or does that vary from state to state and only larger states such as California pass so many laws? --85.176.224.153 (talk) 17:55, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd be curious to know the source you originally read. This is an easily gameable statistic. Structure matters a lot. For instance, omnibus budget bills could constitute thousands of provisions, but if they're passed as one bill that would count for one. Similarly, do Federal Regulations (published in the CFR) count? How about private laws? If it's a simple question of how many times the executive signed his/her name to a "bill" (as the term's understood under the appropriate constitution) then you could count the Statutes at Large for the term you're interested, and the state equivalent. That seems tedious, and not particularly instructive to me.


 * If it's not just a numbers question though, as for who's more "active", that seems to be a qualitative question that's almost impossible to answer. Shadowjams (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Also keep in mind not every U.S. President had the Line-item veto so that will skew results (presidents before were more cautious NOT to veto a bill because of its "riders", but Presidents with LIV partially veto lots of stuff). Also the differences between state statutes on how their bills become laws differ immensely in some situations, add to that both Presidents and Governors having friendly legislators or one house of the bi-cameral legislatures vetoing a bill by the opposition controlled other house and basically doing the dirty work for the governor or president before it even reaches his desk.  The proverbial "Passed by the House, killed in committee in the Senate" etc.
 * Long answer, short I am sure you could put together some accurate numbers for the Federal Government and some of the larger states but why, its really apples and oranges comparing them or even comparing presidents, take for instance Clinton had a hostile opposition controlled Congress for 6 years, and Reagan an opposition House for 8 (Congress for 2), yet George W. who although capable was not the status of either Clinton nor Reagan I think we can all agree, had a very friendly Congress for 6 years, thus George W. would "seem" better than Clinton and Reagan not because he was, just because he lucked into a very agreeable Congress for the vast majority of his presidency, likewise for Governors or for comparing state vs. state. In short although good for trivia it really doesn't mean anything, and its why most political pundits really don't spend much energy on detailed comparisons other than to score some cheap temporary point.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   06:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Marketdiamond seems a little confused on this issue. As the article Line-item veto in the United States makes clear, only Bill Clinton had a line-item veto power, and only for a short time. No other president before or since has had the option. Textorus (talk) 10:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting Textorus, I keep hearing news blurbs about it so I had assumed others had it as well, then again I don't put in assumptions to my posts usually and did not do so here, just raising the point without any details, though my pural syntax was overreach. As you can see by word count IMHO the other points are much more relevant than LIV's effect alone, but did learn something interesting, thanks.  Market St.⧏  ⧐ Diamond Way   10:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Photograph of a 19th-century Bosnian woman
The woman on this photograph is supposed to be Umihana Čuvidina, a Bosnian poet. However, I find it somewhat unlikely that she is the actual subject, given that she was born in 1794. The earliest known photograph of Queen Victoria was taken in c. 1845 - by that time, Čuvidina was over 50. Surtsicna (talk) 23:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that's a photo? The resolution is so poor that I can't whether it might be a painting -- and in a quick web search I couldn't spot anything with higher resolution. Looie496 (talk) 23:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks nothing like early 19th-century paintings I've seen. For a start, it is black-and-white. Surtsicna (talk) 23:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * But it could be a monochrome photo of a painting. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:36, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I suppose you are right. It could be. The new question is: is it a monochrome photograph of a painting? I very much doubt it, but it is a possibility. If not, can it be a photograph of Čuvidina? Surtsicna (talk) 23:40, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Radio Sarajevo says it's a daguerreotype that is believed to be of her. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Wasn't it fairly common for old portrait photos to be "touched up" by artists? So maybe she was 50 but the artists were particularly generous to the age of the subject, just like photoshop, smoothing out wrinkles and the like. Vespine (talk) 03:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Not all women over 50 are all that wrinkly, and this image is of quite low quality. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is clearly a photograph, not a b+w reproduction of a painting. It looks nothing like the paintings of that era. I'd say it's it's unlikely to be earlier than the 1840s. It looks like a calotype or daguerrotype. Paul B (talk) 10:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Earliest-born known human to be photographed
This is inspired by Surtsicna's question. History of photography shows us a photo of the Boulevarde du Temple, taken in 1838, which is the first photo of human beings. But they're unidentified, and even if we knew who they were, they wouldn't necessarily answer my question, which is in two parts:


 * Who is the earliest-born identifiable person to have been in a photo, and when were they born? --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * And if that person is not notable, who is the first notable such person? --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:47, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Seems like the photographers themselves, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:1839_photographs. Although Nicéphore Niépce made the first photograph in the world of an engraving of Pope Pius VII in 1822 which was later destroyed in the attempt to recreate it.--The Emperor&#39;s New Spy (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's Robert Cornelius according to http://petapixel.com/2012/11/15/the-first-hoax-photograph-ever-shot/ . He was born in 1809.--The Emperor&#39;s New Spy (talk) 00:03, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but I'm not sure those are what I'm after. The key here is not the date of the photo, but the date of birth of the subject.  There could have been photos taken after 1839, of people born well before Cornelius.  Also, a photo of an engraving or a portrait, or even a cadaver, is not what I'm after.  I'm after a photo of a living person.  --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  01:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course he isn't it, but I believe the first U.S. President photographed was Andrew Jackson who was born March 15, 1767, so that would give you a baseline to work from. -- Jayron  32  01:09, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Van Buren and Jackson are getting much closer to the ballpark. I suppose there's a natural limit; if the earliest photo of humans was in 1838, then it would be hard to imagine anyone born before 1738 getting themselves photoed.  At the moment, we're looking for a birth in the period 1738-1767, and probably closer to the later date.  I'm actually surprised this hasn't been nailed down for a Wikipedia article already.  Maybe it's there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  01:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * A random search for a daguerreotype of a really old guy produced Martin Routh born 1755.--Melburnian (talk) 02:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Wow, he was born just 5 years after Bach died and the year before Mozart was born. Fantastic.  Any earlier takers?  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  02:42, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This site mentions Dr Ezra Green (born 1746) as a contender, together with other possibilities.--Melburnian (talk) 03:03, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This question was discussed on the German WP back in 2006. Our results can be found here. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Google Translate German -> English hasn't been working for me lately ("server failure" keeps coming up), but I get the general gist, which seems to accord pretty much with Melburnian's results. Danke.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  08:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's nothing personal Jack, I get the same message. Alansplodge (talk) 15:22, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The last link in the German discussion hints at a fotostream with eight early photographs, including one of Baltus Stone, b 1744. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 16:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks one and all. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  20:43, 8 May 2013 (UTC)