Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 June 29

= June 29 =

Electronics prices in Narita International Airport
I have a short layover at Narita International Airport and plan on doing some electronics shopping.

Being duty free might mean that goods there might be cheaper, but being in an airport could also mean a high marker which negates the duty free savings. Is there any way of checking the actual prices of goods sold in the airport online? That way I can compare them against Amazon to decide whether it's a good deal or not and thus know in advance how much Yen to exchange. Johnson&#38;Johnson&#38;Son (talk) 01:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Why do you need to exchange dollar to yen? Just use your VISA credit card, I seriously doubt that you will find a single shop in Narita airport that does not accept VISA credit card. 175.45.116.105 (talk) 04:37, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There's the potential to have any savings that they would have benefited from being chewed up by exchange fees from Visa. Dismas |(talk) 16:32, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Credit card exchange fees are often better than anything mere mortals can hope to get from other small amount exchange methods. In fact, a common recommendation is to put a positive balance on your credit card (to avoid a cash advance fee) and get money that way rather than trying to exchange it anywhere. (Using your ATM card may or may not be the same, depending on the exchange rates offered and especially any fixed fees for international withdrawals. Also whether your bank does tag on any extra fees for cash withdrawals even with a positive balance as some do although at least they can't charge you their ridiculous interest rates, and how these compare. Using your credit card that way may carry additional risk if your bank doesn't offer the same protections surrounding misuse for a positive balance. I've also heard that in the US you may be sent a cheque for the positive balance, so need ensure you don't put it positive to far ahead.) Anyway getting back to the main point about using your credit card directly, just check and make sure your bank doesn't just an excessive fee (should probably be 3% at most). Or worse some stupid fixed or minimum fee (although possibly not an issue given the price of electronic items you're likely to purchase duty-free anyway).  Note that electronic items often only have minimal, if any, duty . Venezuela and Argentina seem to be two definite exceptions. But in most places if you don't have to pay a VAT or sales tax where you live, the savings if any, probably aren't coming from being duty free but other factors like such items being cheaper in Japan. (Although probably not helped by it being an airport.)  Nil Einne (talk) 23:41, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right. It should not be called Duty-free shop at all, it should be called Sales tax, VAT, and duty-free shop since most of the savings are from the lack of sales tax and VAT. I'll just go ahead and rename the Duty-free shop article since it's a complete misnomer.
 * Or perhaps when people say "duty free" they're just using it as a synecdoche for "sales tax, VAT, and duty-free" since most people aren't pedants and are not obsessed with their everyday speech being 100% technically correct. Johnson&#38;Johnson&#38;Son (talk) 09:34, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * My point was that duty-free shops are only worthwhile for electronics items if you are likely to be paying sales tax or VAT, everywhere else being equal. Although it may seem VATs are universal in the developed world, the US is a prominent country without a VAT. For some reason I thought you came from the US so thought it was particularly important, but guess I was wrong. However I did ensure my comment was universal precisely for this reason. Note that while there are state sales taxes in the US, they are often so low that their effect can be lost in noise when considering electronic items, especially given warranty hassles and exchange rates. As also mentioned, this doesn't mean it isn't worth shopping for electronics in foreign countries. Some countries are known for having significantly cheaper electronics than others, e.g. Hong Kong vs NZ (even when you remove NZ's 15% GST). But in that case the savings don't come from being duty free and often if you have the choice it's better to shop outside duty free shops. (Depending on local laws and the shops practices, you can sometimes avoid having to pay VATs or sales taxes if you're tourist for items exported, perhaps as a refund.) But since it sounds like your only option would be from duty-free shops, you don't have a choice, again something I indicated in my first post. (Admitedly most places known for cheap electronics you don't have a choice in the other way, since prices at duty free shops aren't close to comparable.)  This compares to stuff like alcohol or tobacco which normally have significant duties so you will often get significant savings at duty free shops (even with their frequently high markups), regardless of whether you come from a country with a VAT or high sales tax or not. Depending on where you live, clothing, shoes and other such items can have intermediate duties, so they can be worthwhile shopping duty free, especially if there is a sales tax or VAT even if only a small one.  If you want to argue whether duty-free shops are a misnomer, I suggest you take that to somewhere else since it's besides the point of the RD and unrelated to what I said. Note that nowhere did I say anything about the name being a misnomer, my only comments were about whether you're likely to save money and why. I explicitly mentioned sales or VAT taxes along with local prices (and obviously exchange rates) as the likely deciding factors since these are what you'll likely need to consider if you can't find prices online (and it's not looking like you can) and understanding these means you can apply them to your specific conditions. If you already understood all this before my first post, I'm sorry if my first answer was useless to you, but from my experience, plenty of people do not. A simple "I already knew or that" or "you've wasted your and my time, I already knew all that" or "your answer was useless I knew all that" or whatever would convey that point without needing to bring up pedantry (which I am, but that issue wasn't an example of one).  Nil Einne (talk) 14:00, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't have a credit card. Johnson&#38;Johnson&#38;Son (talk) 06:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * In that case, it depends what the taxes are for where you live. If you are usually in Europe, where VAT is around 20%, a duty free shop can save you a bit, even if you pay 10% for getting the exact amount of Japanese yens. But if you are from a US state which has 6% sales tax, then you are unlikely to save anything, because most manual exchange transactions done by a manned desk are charging you above that level of tax just for the transaction. I could not find electronics prices online for the Narita shops --Lgriot (talk) 11:47, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * An interesting point is that Japan only has a consumption tax of 8%. This isn't super low but is fairly low. Considering the generally higher prices at duty free shops, this likely means at most you should expect perhaps 4% savings over everyday prices in Japan. (Probably actually none.) So if the prices you see at regular shops in Japan (and you can surely find some online e.g., , , or perhaps  for a simple comparison) are about the same or only a bit cheaper than what you'd pay locally, you can guess it's unlikely to be worth it. If you really want, you could take off the consumption tax completely (our article suggests some stores don't include it anyway) but I think it's unlikely you'll get prices that good (in fact as hinted I suspect you'll find prices are higher compared to non duty free shops in Japan) at a duty free shop in the airport. Nil Einne (talk) 13:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I did find which I think is one store at Narita Airport and it has some recent dates, although I admit I couldn't figure out if the prices were at the airport store or what.  also has a small number of electronic items, it's fancy enough that I guess the prices are updated.   is evidentally a website for Audio Plaza but while it has prices, they look to me like they may be rather old. The fact that the root website is suspended  isn't a good sign for the details being up to date. There also is or was an Audio Space   but  doesn't seem to be very helpful ignoring the fact if it were working, it'll probably be outdated too. Especially since "was" seems to be right . Again ignoring the probably old prices, none of the other ones I found on that site e.g.   seem to include electronics.  P.S. Depending on the length of your stopover, you also need to consider whether you can get to these stores. Some stores will only be in some terminals, so you'll need to move between them if not currently planning to. Worse, some may be before security which means you'll have to clear customs and immigration and then security and any immigration check to get back to your flight. If you are planning to do that, there's the question of whether you have enough time to visit a nearby store outside the airport.  Nil Einne (talk) 15:07, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Movement of Adolphe Féder
I've been working to write and improve the quality of the article on Adolphe Féder for some time now but the question I can't seem to answer is: what art movement can Féder be classified as? He was obviously a member of the École de Paris, but alas this is not an art movement, just a collection of artists that frequented the same cafés. As I am not well versed enough in the classifications of art, I've found the task very difficult but perhaps it can be accomplished by someone here. Thank you! CawheeTalk 07:56, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * After the mid-1920s there are no longer really any clearly defined movements in art. See the article on Neo-Fauvism which is supposedly the last coherent movement. He is himself, and his work defines itself, rather than having to be tied into any particular movement. Wymspen (talk) 10:13, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * FWIW: The de:WP says Fauvism.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * His early links with Matisse indicate that he had some links to the Fauvist movement - but most of his significant works date from a much later period, and have little in common with Fauvism as a coherent style. Wymspen (talk) 11:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Human Civilization
What country in Africa did the first humans come from? 2001:569:766D:AB00:E873:900E:29D7:FB8C (talk) 17:45, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Early human migrations says


 * The most recent common ancestor shared by all living human beings, dubbed Mitochondrial Eve, probably lived roughly 120–150 millennia ago,[18] the time of Homo sapiens idaltu, probably in East Africa.[citation needed]....The broad study of African genetic diversity headed by Dr. Sarah Tishkoff... located the origin of modern human migration in south-western Africa, near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola.[19]
 * Loraof (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * this has nothing to do with civilization. the first humans were not yet behaviorally modern. and even behaviorally modern humans lived as hunter-gatherers for like 40000 years afterwards Asmrulz (talk) 23:45, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The title doesn't really fit the question. That happens from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:57, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The extent of humanity's indebtedness to Africa is a contentious issue. Asmrulz (talk) 00:45, 30 June 2016 (UTC)


 * No Africa, no humans. Seems important enough. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:54, 30 June 2016 (UTC)


 * As far as I am aware, the only contention is the extent to which the main wave of humans leaving Africa mixed with the descendants of previous waves out of Africa. Iapetus (talk) 10:44, 30 June 2016 (UTC)


 * It's going to depend on what species you define as the first "human", but a case could be made for Olduvai Gorge and/or Laetoli, both in Tanzania. StuRat (talk) 16:58, 30 June 2016 (UTC)