Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 February 24

= February 24 =

info on montreal
is there any stores like marc emery's in the montreal area


 * Not sure what that is, but www.yellowpages.com may have an analogue in Canada; or maybe it even covers there, I haven't checked. That's the first place I'd look; both for store name and then for type, so you have some idea of what else might be there.209.244.30.221 (talk) 19:49, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Canadian version is . Thanks,  Genius  101 Guestbook  21:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Re-Naming of a Non-Profit
I would like to rename a non-profit corporation that will provide housing services through multi-family and single family affordable housing opportunities, but may also be used for nursing homes, retirement centers, governmental housing (military), or hospitals. Each of these will be under their own corporate entity, but will be ultimately fall under the umbrella of the approved non-profit. Initially, the name Phoenix Foundation or Phoenix Housing was discussed for its meaning of rising from the ashes, but this name has been used quite a number of times and would be very difficult to get approved.

Your help and input would be greatly appreciated and would help this entity in making the first steps on a very solid footing.

Thank you in advance.--RobertNOP1 (talk) 04:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How about a simple modification: "The Phoenix Egg Foundation" ? SteveBaker (talk) 04:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Phoenix Nestbuilders (?) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How about The Bennu Foundation? Would probably be too obscure a reference though. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure "rising from the ashes" presents a positive image for a housing services foundation. I would suggest something involving stability and shelter instead, but I don't have any prepared names. –  7 4   18:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It was the spontaneously busting into flames part that bothered me! SteveBaker (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * What country/region are we talking about? --Milkbreath (talk) 18:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There only seems to be the Phoenix in Arizona when it comes to places.76.97.245.5 (talk) 16:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really. And even if that were the case, there's nothing in this question to indicate that this corporation is named after a place. Tomdobb (talk) 16:55, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops. My google map apparently had myopia. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

This is from RobertNOP1 - Thank you all for your input, however, I am primarily asking for help in finding a new name and gave Phoenix as example only. Anyone eles think of an appropriate name. I like the Bennu, but this may give some people problems with the exact definition and intent for affordable housing projects, health care project, etc. . . I would like to find a name that would give people the impression of a new beginning, hope, building  —Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertNOP1 (talk • contribs) 18:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

comic book site
My friend is planning on promoting a comic series by posting a one-shot teaser on the internet to attract readers and probably publishers. Do you know any sites that could freely host these images without messing up the resolution or copyright issues?-- Lenticel ( talk ) 04:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comic Genesis claims to be a free comic hosting service run by Keenspot. Their copyright policy seems sensible, but I have no idea what resolutions are supported. –  7 4   05:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll talk to him about this.-- Lenticel ( talk ) 12:30, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

looking for documention
Is there documented information there could be a chance a GRANDCHILD could have scheuermann's disease from grandfather rated 100% Agent Orange. Not spina bifida. I,his mother, also have back problems including spinal problems. I found some info on the children able to have problems from deformities to death. Just looking for possibility of documentation on son or daughter being able to paa something onto their child. If the dioxin and other herbicides could be past down.

Thank You,

Pkatie


 * This is not medical advice, but I suspect the possibility of toxins passed from father to child to be extremely remote&mdash;there just isn't enough transfer of material in sperm. Genetic mutations, however, can be transfered (transferring genetic material is the point of sperm, after all) so exposure to mutagens might cause inherited genetic damage. Again, we cannot provide medical advice; please consult a medical practitioner for questions about your specifc case. –  7 4   05:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You definitely need to consult a professional. For example your comment "rated 100% Agent Orange" makes no sense to me but a professional will be able to ascertain what you mean and whether your understanding of the grandfather's condition is accurate Nil Einne (talk) 13:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OP wasn't looking for advice but rather for an other documented case. People here  might be able to point you towards a reliable source.  There is a birth defects registry, but that seems to have some commercial background.  The combination "Agent Orange" and "Scheuermann's disease" gets only 155 ghits and a lot of those are junk.  Since we can assume that, if there is a relation, many of the remaining are second generation cases, it seems unlikely there's a third generation one burred there.  Give it a try.  (You might have more luck with "Osteochondrosis" and "dioxins" or "TCDD".)  Spina bifida is well documented for second generation effect.  Scheuermann's disease is listed as "multifactorial with unknown causes".  (That means they don't know what causes it but are pretty certain that several factors have to come together for the condition to present itself.)  There's at least this one report that indicates there are occurrences of father to son transmission.   Even if you do find some other cases it may still be within the usual statistical variation and doesn't necessary help to establish a cause and effect relation.  Someone with access to medical databases and journal articles might be able to help you further.  BTW: If you are asking for help finding information or reference sources it's not good to include personal case history here.  That will make people think you are looking for medical advice which we can't help you with.76.97.245.5 (talk) 18:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

VIDEO KILLED THE ARTICLE
wikipedia needs to create a youtube section for educational material. It will will create more depth to your website and gathering information will be more efficient. I believe that it's faster to watch a video than to read an article, videos also depict information with more depth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.93.158.3 (talk) 07:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

And your question is? Richard Avery (talk) 08:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Wikimedia Commons stores videos as well as pictures. It is just harder to get videos because of copyright issues and then I'm not even mentioning the fact that editing video in a wiki fashion is a nightmare. - Mgm|(talk) 09:43, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The Reference Desk isn't for suggestions about things Wikipedia should do; if you have a suggestion for Wikipedia you could post it at Village pump. This is divided up by topic and you should read the introductory text there. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 11:25, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I would dispute that in terms of information, videos are more efficient. Text is an infinitely better organizer of complicated ideas and content, and you can navigate it quite quickly. Video, on the other hand, basically forces you to watch it straight though, at the pace of the person who created it, and usually cannot sustain complicated diction or grammar. Not to mention the whole difficulty of wikifying video concepts. There are some things videos are better at than text—but for most purposes of an encyclopedia, text should be primary, while images, sounds, videos, etc., are secondary, ways of giving certain types of evidence that text cannot give very well (how something sounds, how something looks, how something appears while in motion, etc.). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * One example, compare these two diagrams showing the same physical process. Which of them is quicker and easier to understand? In my opinion the static one wins hands down—same amount of information (if not more), delivered near instantly, while the animated one takes an unnecessarily long amount of time to show something that a few arrows and our clever visual forebrains could put together in an instant otherwise. (Barring the fact that the animation on the right has some scientific/conceptual problems as well... which are impossible to correct without the original source that produced the animation, another strike against the idea.) In short, animation for its own sake—without attention to what animation can do better than text—is a horrible, horrible, horrible idea, and one which is for a number of practical reasons incompatible with the requirements of Wikipedia (easy to edit collaboratively, easy to cross-reference, etc.). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think the OP is talking about animation. More about live action video and other such things. Personally I agree with you, text is usually far better. But I also read this a while back so it appears the OP isn't the only one who feels that way. Kids these days, eh? :-P N.B. I'm not saying we should follow the OP's suggestion Nil Einne (talk) 13:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Videos may support the written word (and that's how Wikipedia uses it) - but:
 * You can't efficiently search video (try searching for all occurrances of "Deuterium-tritium fusion" in a bunch of videos).
 * The audio track is essentially impossible to edit, so you can't easily correct errors of fact, grammar, pronunciation without re-recording the entire track.
 * You can't conveniently add footnotes and references to a video.
 * Video is a linear media - I can't quickly scroll down to the "History" section of the Oxygen article and find out who discovered it without waiting through a 20 minute presentation about stuff that I don't care about.
 * Video is costly to store, costly to stream, etc. I can pull a bunch of text onto my Kindle and read it - despite lack of color or fast screen updates.
 * Text can easily be cut-and-pasted seamlessly into another document.
 * Text can be edited right there in your browser with no additional tools.
 * Take (for example) my article on the Mini car. Since November 2006, it's been edited close to 1000 times by about 150 people.  If each person who improved the article just wanted to insert a tiny bit of additional information or change the phrasing or correct a small error - how could that be possible AT ALL with video?   Suppose that after reading a book on the subject I discover that the car was manufactured for a short period during 1968 in Portugal...how could I add that into a video?  Firstly, I'm adding 10 seconds of new material...but I don't have video of the car being made in Portugal to create 10 seconds of additional material.  Next, my voice has a british accent and perhaps the narrator of the 'video article' speaks with an Australian accent...the change of voice over just one sentence would be glaring and horrible...I'd probably have to re-record the entire article.
 * No - a video version of Wikipedia would be unmaintainable and almost impossible to search or to quickly dip into for an occasional fact. Your suggestion sucks in every possible way! SteveBaker (talk) 13:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec) I just opened IE and as I thought the gif is static. Text is currently superior to video for users. Sure videos are great if you have a connection that can handle them but text will always load. With text I can jump to the section in an article that I want rather than having to wait and fiddle with a video to find what I need. That's assuming that I don't want to read the whole thing. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 13:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just opened IE (and am typing this in it now). It's not static although it does have problems (artifacts/ghosting) here. Looking at the image page with the original GIF it appears fine. Are you sure you're not using some ancient version of IE like IE6? IE7 has been out for over 2 years now and was long overdue (IE6 was ancient even then) so you really should upgrade if you are. Speaking of SB's problem re: voice, we do have spoken versions of some articles but they suffer from the problems SB describes. Nil Einne (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep. I forgot again. I was using the one work computer that still has IE6. Nobody uses it for Internet access, some minor work related stuff and then only with Firefox. The only reason I left 6 on it was because I can't get 7 to support Inuktitut syllabics and it gives me one computer that can look at the odd page that is set up for IE. And some pages are still like that. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 20:45, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm kind of forced, aren't I? I've got several sites that don't load well in Chrome or Firefox, so I have to use IE6. Installing IE7 would bring my computer to a grinding halt due to memory bloat and space on harddrive issues. - Mgm|(talk) 11:00, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Your objections are interesting and I think the OP's suggestion is a good one. Isn't SVG supposed to be able to do animation with Javascript or SMIL? Then you could do animations like "Example 2" and they'd be correctable and editable by anybody with a text editor instead of inaccessible to anyone without external tools, or in the case of more complex animations the original project files. Even if SVG animation isn't supported by browsers, mediwiki could render it as gif, like it currently renders SVGs as PNG. .froth. (talk) 18:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Videos almost always have extremely annoying music. --Milkbreath (talk) 13:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No, absolutely the worst idea for an "improvement". Just take a look at some of those "how to..." or "instructional" videos you can find on Youtube an you will instantly see it is a very bad idea.  Astronaut (talk) 15:11, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * "Worst" is a little too superlative, don't ya think? I mean, hypothetically, "Now that we have experience creating an online encyclopedia, I suggest we delete all the articles and start over from scratch." would be just a bit worse, right? –  7 4   18:45, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you be "too superlative"? --Tango (talk) 18:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Nothing succeeds like excess (Oscar Wilde). --  JackofOz (talk) 21:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I meant to say "absolutely the worst idea for an "improvement" - so far." :-))  Astronaut (talk) 23:30, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * While I agree that text is far better, at present, I wonder how many of these shortcomings of video are inherent and how many are only limitations of current technology. For example, I can easily imagine video that would allow you to jump to any section or subsection immediately, using a table of contents. StuRat (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

UK and US Stock Markets during the war
What happened to the stock-markets during World War 1 & 2? Were they closed/suspended or were people still making a living by trading on the exchange? What about people who owned stock? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * According to the article NYSE, the market was closed for a little more than 4 months in ww1 and not closed at all during ww2 Phil_burnstein (talk) 17:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The LSE was "closed from the end of July until the new year" in 1914. and "closed for 6 days and reopens on 7 September. The floor of the House closes for only one more day, in 1945 due to damage from a V2 rocket – trading then continues in the basement." in 1939, according to their official history. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 17:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Paradox
You could ruin your perfection if you commit a mistake but if you're perfect in the first place you wouldn't commit a mistake, thus could you in no way ruin your perfection? 94.196.9.90 (talk) 16:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * So you're saying that perfect people can't stop being perfect because in doing so they'd be doing something that isn't perfect? It doesn't really follow because 'perfect' things stop being perfect all the time - in fact, most things are 'perfect' until they go wrong. But I'm no philosopher. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 17:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are confusing two kinds of perfection. One calls someone perfect because they have never made a mistake. The other calls someone perfect if they are inherently incapable of making a mistake. A perfect person of the first kind can make a mistake and become imperfect. A perfect person of the second kind clearly cannot. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see a paradox, all you're saying is that being perfect implies you are perfect. That's a tautology, not a paradox. --Tango (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yep - it's people who are always inconsistent that you need to worry about. SteveBaker (talk) 21:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh boy that's so close to something I read once that I cannot find anywhere, or maybe it was on TV. Something like "At least I always lie. It's people who aren't consistent you have to watch out for." Please tell me you know what it's from! .froth. (talk) 21:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just made it up...although presumably other people also just made it up. SteveBaker (talk) 03:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think froth is thinking of Jack Sparrow's quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: "Me? I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man, you can always count on to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for. Because you can never predict when they're going to do something... incredibly... stupid." (It's what sprang to my mind first too, even though it's not really the same as what Steve said.) Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 07:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you I would have never remembered .froth. (talk) 17:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice? I am a nobody so therefore I'm perfect.-- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You might be interested in the Free will article. --JGGardiner (talk) 01:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "You could ruin your perfection if you commit a mistake but if you're perfect in the first place you wouldn't commit a mistake, thus could you in no way ruin your perfection?" That is correct.  If someone or something makes just one mistake, that person or thing is not perfect.  We might use the phrase almost perfect.  The reverse is also true: a person or thing that is perfect cannot make even one mistake.  If there were a way to prove that a machine were perfect, for example, you could indirectly prove that it would never make a mistake in futuro.  A machine might appear to be perfect until it made one mistake.  Note the word "appear" here; the machine would not be proven to be perfect in this case.  If you wrote about it later, you could still say, "The machine worked perfectly for two years."


 * If someone or something makes just one mistake, that person or thing is not perfect. - OK, who's perfect? Not me, not you - because we make mistakes all the time.  But what about a tiny baby.  A baby is incapable of making a mistake.  Thus, it's perfect (by your definition).  But somewhere along the track, it loses its perfection, not only by becoming capable of making mistakes, but because it actually makes them.  The paradox is that it would never learn - anything - if it did not acquire the capacity to make mistakes.  Then it spends the rest of its life in a fruitless quest to regain the perfection it once had.  But it learns rather a lot along the way.  What's better - to be perfect but know nothing; or be imperfect and get to learn a lot?  I know which option I'd choose.  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Suppose that you were perfect and you were delivering a speech. The fact that you were truly perfect would prevent you from making a single mistake.  At the same time, you and your audience would know that you were not really perfect if you made just one mistake in your speech, even if you had delivered speeches for ten years and never stammered once.75.89.22.45 (talk) 02:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)