Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 August 14

= August 14 =

Tips for returning to school in a big exam year?
Ok I'll be going back to school in September. I have big, important exams this year. The trouble is I'm a little lazy, and while I have been doing the minimum required up to now, so that last year in maths only one of my small class was a very good result. Some tests in other subjects went badly as well. Obviously I'm going to start working hard, but do you have any other advice?--178.167.185.133 (talk) 00:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Foist decide that you are going to do better, and that you will put in a better effort. Set an amount of study and homework that you are going to do.  Make yourself accountable so that you report truthfully what you have done to someone. Plan to reward yourself if you actually meet the standard you set. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Study skills self help information | Cook Counseling Center | Virginia Tech. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Study skills and Study Skills - How to Study. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Open Directory - Reference: Education: How to Study. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Here are a few tips from me.
 * Try to develop a love for your subject(s) that is strong enough to overcome any tendency toward laziness.
 * Try to associate with other students who really want to study (if they are good associates in other respects), and avoid the negative influence of students who prefer to party. (Think about how much your progress can be set back by even one accepted invitation to a party, when your time could have been spent in studying, not to mention the problems that can result from drunkenness.)
 * According to your time and other factors, you might want to reinforce what you are learning by teaching it to students who are having difficulty in understanding it.
 * Use some of the remainder of your summer vacation to review what you studied in your previous school year, because it is likely important for understanding what you will learn in the coming school year. Also, try to find out, as soon as you can, what you will be studying in the coming school year, and begin to familiarize yourself with some of the concepts.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 04:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * [I am revising to my second tip by adding two passages, each one in a set of parentheses.—Wavelength (talk) 14:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)]
 * [I am adding a fourth tip.—Wavelength (talk) 14:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)]
 * [I am revising my comment of 14:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC), by striking through the word "to".—Wavelength (talk) 02:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)]
 * Decide just how important this course is to you. If you decide that your interests lie elsewhere, then go elsewhere! Life's too short to waste it doing stuff you don't like. Having a degree isn't the be-all and end-all, you know. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Course? It sounds to me like the OP is still in secondary school, probably entering the year they're going to do their exams for the Junior Certificate or the Leaving Certificate. While there are alternatives particularly to doing the Leaving Certificate, for better or worse lacking secondary school qualifications in many developed countries, including I'm guess Ireland usually does greatly limit your options later in life so is not IMHO something that should be recommended lightly. In particularly, if the OP doesn't even have any basic secondary school qualification yet (the Junior Certificate in Ireland I think) I would urge great caution before abandoning secondary school and at the very least consider what you'll do instead, such as attending a vocational school Nil Einne (talk) 10:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Common Errors in English. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:33, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Glossary of Mathematical Mistakes. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ask your parents to do a Web search for how to help children succeed in school.—Wavelength (talk) 15:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 July 25, and the two book articles mentioned.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 20:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There are lots of good bits of advice here that I won't repeat, and instead I'll add, maintain good physical health. Your brain is part of your body- it works better when you're healthy.  Get plenty of sleep, regular physical exercise, and healthy food- it really does affect your ability to absorb, retain, and use knowledge. I found the book Brain Rules to be a very interesting and non-scientist-readable review of how brains work and how to use them effectively. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If you have attention deficit disorder, keep on your meds. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * See Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies. Wavelength (talk) 21:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * See Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 May 2
 * and Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 May 8. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Foam on pond
i first ask for help to try and a problem with my pond so i will ask again i have a problem with foam on top of the water i have kept ponds for the last 20 years and never had a problem like this my water is taken by pump to three large filters then back to the pond by means of a man made water fall can you help please my computer skills are poor but i dont need bonzo bugs telling me so if you dont know the answer but out bugs  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.9.58 (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, Bugs wasn't the one who criticised your typing skills last time. In future it's generally a better idea to keep responses within the same section, rather than starting a new one. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There's actually a very good answer to your question under the original post. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * He still hasn't told us what the water source is. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And Tammy's right, the original section has a lengthy and good response. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have seen detergent, soap and phosphate contamination cause suds in bodies of water which have aeration/splashing/agitation of the water. How it got in the water is the real question, but I recall vandals thinking it was funny to dump detergent in fountains. Edison (talk) 20:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've seen a waterfall that produced foam when the water hit the lower part of the river. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 22:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've seen foam appear on the surface of a severely algae-infested swimming pool after the pH was brought back to the right range and the pool heavily dosed with chlorine. The foam in that case was greenish-brown in color and several inches thick!  It clearly consisted of dead algae - which in this context is a good sign that we were winning the battle to clean it up.  The foam was quite effectively removed by the pools 'sand filter' - but that quickly became clogged by this material.  Hence, it's essential to clean/backwash/replace the filters after such events, and it's possible that the problem here relates to that kind of thing. SteveBaker (talk) 03:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

pigs
What documentary is this from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYUSKWhb3sk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.16.252 (talk) 15:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Your best bet would probably be to contact the uploader of the video and ask them. Tyrol5   [Talk]  17:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I doubt that, given that 90% of the stuff on YouTube has just been re-uploaded from other sites. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Dark Circle  meltBanana  18:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a good candidate. One of the obvious things about the video is that it was made sometime before the end of US nuclear testing in 1992. Just naming off the documentaries I have seen, it is not from Atomic Cafe, Radio Bikini, or Trinity and Beyond. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Checking some more, I think that's absolutely correct. The narrator voice is the same as the short clip contained in this interview regarding Dark Circle (e.g. starting at 2:36). --Mr.98 (talk) 20:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)