Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 November 16

= November 16 =

Inducing a past dream or similar dreams.
If you have had a dream that you want to have again, what are the best ways of making it (or a similar dream) more possible? I have read a decent proportion of the Dream article but the sections I read didn't help very much, and I couldn't read it all because it's awfully long. Thanks very much in advance for any help you can provide. I left but now I&#39;m back (talk) 00:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The same way that you get reoccurring nightmares, by thinking about it all day or by repeatedly being exposed to the stimulation that triggered it in the first place such as horror movies for nightmares. --121.54.2.188 (talk) 06:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Dreams are part of one's subconscious way of handling real problems and not a good way to seek escape from them. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This is emphatically not how it works. Vranak (talk) 02:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Why are Chips made from Semiconductors?
Might be a silly question, but why are modern computer chips made from semi-conductors and not full conductors? What would happen if the latter were used instead? Acceptable (talk) 01:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, I have found the HowStuffWorks article to be a better lay explanation of what semiconductors are and how they are used in transistors than the Wikipedia article (which, like many Wikipedia articles on technical things, get too technical too fast). The real advantage, as I understand it, of semiconductors over conductors (e.g., just copper wires), is that you can very carefully control the electrical conductivity of a semiconductor, which allows you create transistors, which act like little electronic switches. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Mr. 98 is right. Computer chips are made up of transistors, which cannot be made from just conductors. &mdash;Akrabbimtalk 02:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Possibly the OP thinks Semiconductor just means "poor conductor". As the article shows they are much more than that. The key feature of a semiconductor crystal is what kind of carriers carry an electric current. Useful devices (diode, transistor and more) can be made by putting together different semiconductor materials. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There are two things we commonly build from semiconductors - switches and amplifiers. In both cases, you need to be able to control the conductivity of the device electrically.  That's not something you can do with fully conductive materials.  Without the ability to switch - we'd have no computers or other digital devices.  Without the ability to amplify - there would be no analog devices.  Computer chips are actually made of layers of semiconductor - but there are layers of metal (aluminium) conductors in there too.  The semiconductors make the interesting switches and amplifiers - the conductors connect them together.  Both are important. SteveBaker (talk) 13:41, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * We can build both with fully doncutive materials, can't we, they just have to be massive (vacuum tubes and so on)? The reason we use semiconductors is that what otherwise would be a huge component can now be almost infinitely reduced, so that thousands of components that would have occupied a big board, for example, now fit on one chip? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Limitations such as component failure rate, heat dissipation and signal propagation time make it impossible to build a computer processor like the one you are using out of pre-semiconductor-era components. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Vacuum tubes are not fully conductive, since a diode conducts only in one direction and amplifier tubes (triodes, pentodes) have conductivity (in the plate circuit) controlled by grid voltage, with a small energy signal controlling a large energy signal. "Control" is where a small signal (like your foot on the brake pedal) controls a large force (like the brakes on the car). "Efficiency" is related to your question: some electronic circuits waste more energy than  others, while achieving somewhat comparable results. A computer with electromechanical relays uses more electricity than one with vacuum tubes, which uses more electricity than one with transistors, which uses (I expect) more electricity than one with chips, along with each generation being faster and more powerful. Even in electronics with chips, some older circuitry used more power than later CMOS chips, to achieve the same calculating power. Edison (talk) 02:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

World Beef Production
I figured with all the traffic on this page...  DRosenbach  ( Talk 02:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * 30 / 0.23 = 130, so yes it does. -- SGBailey (talk) 15:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, one needs to be careful with that. The 23% is likely to represent the quantity of beef being produced (say in number of heads or perhaps by weight) that is traded. Since not all of the world production may be open to free traded (say due to export controls and tariffs; health and food regulations, and other barriers) and the non-traded beef may be systematically different in quality compared to the traded-beef, it would be incorrect to naively price the whole world production based on the export-market price levels. Abecedare (talk) 02:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Shame about the lack of beef industry --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Le petit Nicolas
For my French class, I have to answer a bunch of short-answer (one or two sentences each) questions about Le petit Nicolas, but one of those questions, about chapter 19 "Je quitte la maison", has me stumped: "Expliquez le symbolisme de ce dernier chapitre." Can you please help me? --70.134.48.115 (talk) 03:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm happy to translate the question: "Explain the symbolism of the chapter you have just read."  (Not a direct translation, but a clear one, I hope.)  Does that help?  Marco polo (talk) 03:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * And there's also Symbolism, fwiw. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Anything can be symbolic. For example, "Je quitte la maison" could be a metaphor for leaving home in senses other than the merely physical, e.g. growing up, or giving up.--Shantavira|feed me 09:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Nicolas runs away when his mother scolds him for spilling ink on the new carpet, intending to amaze his parents by returning in a few years, rich and successful with a plane and a car. He asks his hungry friend Alceste to come, but Alceste refuses because dinner will be ready soon.  Reminded of mealtimes, Nicolas eats his chocolate and spends his last few coins on an eclair rather than a plane and a car.  He decides to borrow a more humble form of transport to run away, but his friend Clotaire won't lend him his bike, and the toy-shop man won't buy his toys so he can buy the bike from Clotaire.  Nicolas bursts into tears and the man gives him a toy car to comfort him, at which point Nicolas goes home happy and decides he'll definitely run away tomorrow instead.  Think about the symbolism of trying to sell your toy train and car to fund your escape to adulthood and the acquisition of real cars and planes! Le petit Nicolas is all about childhood.  In this last chapter Nicolas tries and fails to exchange the safe world of childhood for a car and a plane, symbols of adulthood.  He ends up with a symbolic car instead and goes back happily to childhood. Or something like that ... Que c'est chouette!   Ka renjc 18:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The tale is one of sexual repression. Nicolas is trapped in his Oedipus complex wherein his puerile libido drives a fantasy catharsis of arriving in streamlined (= phallic) vehicles by which he will steal the mother from the father. The superfluity of the two vehicles, car and plane is obvious when one notes their potent symbolisms of the controlling driver Nicolas first steering his mother as passenger, then stimulating her by speeding and finally attaining orgasm in the ecstatic catharsis of an aerial lift-off. There are other deeper issues. Why does the hungry friend Alceste refuse to partake in the adventure? He may suspect Alceste is secretly plotting against him. Nicolas' paranoia finds confirmation when Clotaire the false friend thwarts his escaping by bike and the toy-shop man joins the same conspiracy. At this point occurs a complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus, see The Primal Scream by Arthur Janov. By this stratagem Nicolas achieves a dual victory: the material reward of a free car plus this lesson in survival: Women cannot be trusted but men can be controlled emotionally. Nicolas is content to await the resolution of his sexual orientation until tomorrow, which for him will be puberty. It is obvious to a psychoanalyst that this is the classic Child development that leads to heterosexuality, homosexuality, both or neither. This could take years of therapy. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That's cheating - you've obviously read the sequel: Nicolas chez Mélanie Klein. Ka renjc 16:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Identify a skyline
Hello. Can anyone identify the skyline shown on this album cover? --Richardrj talkemail 13:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Seems that the band/singer is from Philadelphia so maybe it's that sky-line? Fits reasonably well with the skyline photo from the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Philadelphia_Panorama_From_Camden.JPG). 13:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk)


 * I don't really think it fits at all, in terms of the numbers of buildings, the shapes, the placements (even imagining it from a different angle). --Mr.98 (talk) 16:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Only a guess I guess but my guess would be London. Look at the much smaller centre front building with 4 chimney stacks and I am thinking Battersea Power Station on the bank of the the River Thames. 92.22.6.186 (talk) 20:20, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I would concur with that, and add Canary Wharf in the background (pointed top), but some of the others look just too tall. I would suspect therefore that it's not a single picture.  Ron h jones (Talk) 20:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The solid block of high-rises does not look like London to me. I suspect that the power plant could be Philadelphia's Trigen plant. If so, this would be a view of Philadelphia Center City from the southwest, as opposed to from the east, as shown in the view from Camden above.  Marco polo (talk) 21:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It might be 2 or three or four skylines put together. I would guess we are talking about the one in the background, although it appears the closest. The lightening is almost certainly not of the same photograph as the most prominent skyline. The same thing for the rays of light emanating from the upper right. It could be Manhattan from Central Park. Bus stop (talk) 21:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's Battersea Power Station; the smokestacks look too high in relation to the distance between them. It also isn't a good match for the linked image of the Trigen plant, which has 10 smokestacks that appear to be about equally high. I just did a Google Images search on the terms "philadelphia" and "4 OR four chimneys OR smokestacks", and the only hit in the first three pages that resembled the album image was this power station in New York City; but when it was in use it had that big coal-loading apparatus, and according to the page where the image was linked from, the smokestacks were demolished in 2005. So I doubt it's that one. (Here's another image of it with the smokestacks but without the loading apparatus.) What this seems to show is that this was a relatively common design for big power stations and it will be hard to find the right one. --Anonymous, 00:22 UTC, November 17, 2009.

Well-paid student jobs
In just under 2 years I'll be going back to school to get my MA. I can borrow money to cover some of my living expenses, but probably not everything, and it is an MA so my spare time will be less than most undergrads have. So I'm looking out for student work that's a bit more flexible and better paid than the usual supermarket or bar shifts. Ideally something I could do from home over the internet. I'm working now, but 2 years' worth of evenings and weekends should be enough to pick up some new skills (I hope...). Anyone got some ideas to throw at me, other than prostitution? 89.195.228.168 (talk) 20:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * When I was similarly as a student seeking unskilled work I was advised to choose between Trash collector and washing bodies in a morgue. I chose a summer job doing the former but in retrospect the latter might have been more educational. OTOH the clients don't tip so well. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You should try and find a job that uses the qualifications and work experience you already have. Undergrads need to find unskilled work like bar tending (and prostitution), but a mature post-grad should be able to find a well paid part time job using the skills they have. --Tango (talk) 22:17, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Various skills are called for in prostitution.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really. If you have certain skills you can get more money doing it, but at the lowest level it is pretty much unskilled. --Tango (talk) 23:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * From what experience are you judging?--Leon (talk) 06:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Experience isn't the only way to learn. --Tango (talk) 06:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * A "well-paid student job" is something of an oxymoron, assuming you are unskilled. The difficulty is that with some unskilled jobs, there is an investment by you and by the employer to learn more skills. But a student job is essentially a temp job. It can be very difficult to get a decent temporary job, even if you have a bachellor's degree. If it were me, I would concentrate on finding a job that had something to do with what you were getting the MA in—even if it was just administrative/research work around the department where you will be working and didn't pay well. (It would at least be a decent investment of your time, unlike being a trash collector.) --Mr.98 (talk) 01:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Why wouldn't you seek a teaching assistant or research assistant job? They typically pay a stipend plus free tuition. This adds up to more money than other plausible legal entry level jobs, and provide things you can list on your resume besides "bartender," etc. It is a good deal for the student and a good deal for the college, which doesn't have to pay s faculty member. Edison (talk) 02:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Depending on what the MA is in and at what university, there may or may not be such jobs available. If there are, then it is certainly a good option. You shouldn't be looking for entry-level jobs if you have a degree and several year's work experience, though. --Tango (talk) 03:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you doing now? You haven't made it too clear what experience you've got.  I'll add that I don't think finding work need be that easy, regardless of credentials, though (I think) work experience really helps.  I've got a physics degree, and despite around 40 job applications my search for work was fruitless, so I decided to take up a fully funded PhD place!--Leon (talk) 06:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Well you've got enough time to do some teacher training. I don't know where you're located, but in the UK there is a high demand for one-to-one tuition for schoolchildren, and that's typically self-employed at around £30 per hour. If you had a basic adult education teaching certificate, you could teach adults in your subject at a local college, which pays around £20 per hour less tax and NI. With a teaching certificate you could work in the private education sector. Something else you could start now is some voluntary work, which will give you a feel for paid employment: it may not pay as well as teaching, but home carers work hours to suit, and you could even work nights as a carer which would pay even more. How's that for some ideas? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)