Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 August 25

= August 25 =

K-lock on Sony TV
I'm try to add some resistance to (at least casual) burglary for the nickable stuff in my home. Computer equipment (laptops, monitors, desktop PCs, external disks etc.) are pretty consistent about having Kensington Security Slots. But I'm disappointed to discover that my midsize (26") Sony LCD TV doesn't. What do people typically use to make this at least somewhat difficult to walk away with? It's mounted on its stand, but it has the usual Flat Display Mounting Interface connection on the back - is there such a thing as a lock that attaches to this, a or secure staple through which a cable lock could be threaded? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Your TV's Flat Display Mounting Interface has M4 threaded holes. For a lightweight security you can attach one or more |M4 eye bolt(s) and pass a cable through them. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * One eye-bolt is useless (they can always rotate the TV to unscrew that one bolt). I did try looking for M4 security eye-bolts, but didn't find any.  But on thinking about it, two M4 eyebolts, with the cable strung through both, should prevent unscrewing. It would need a cable that locks to itself, like a bike-lock, I guess. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Which is pretty much this. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:00, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You can get stick-on pads for K-cables, not sure how strong the glue is - or the TV's case. There are also locks which will attach to the VGA port, if the TV still has one. CS Miller (talk) 15:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Even on computer equipment, those Kensington Security Slots don't look substantial enough to withstand a good hard tug. So, I doubt someone who had gone to the trouble of breaking into your home will be deterred by a K-lock, especially as they would have brought some tools to break in anyway.   Astronaut (talk) 10:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The way I understand this, these locks aren't meant to keep resist strong physical violence, but rather cause enough damage to the computer/TV/whatever casing that the device will be hard to sell, plus it might be unsafe to operate with a chunk of its casing missing. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 12:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Joint account question
Hi,

My friends are moving into a house in the next couple of weeks (it's for university, so people are coming from all over the place). One of my friends will be there much earlier than the others; however, they aren't very organised and so haven't set up a joint account for the house for paying bills and things. Is it allowed for me to make a joint account with this friend and then leave once the other inhabitants have joined the account? Thanks, 92.2.182.60 (talk) 12:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Before some smartarse-cum-pedant comes along asking which country the OP is talking about, it's pretty obvious that it's the UK. As to the question, I'm not getting why you would want to be one of the joint account holders if you're not going to be living in the house.  Why can't you just leave him to set up the joint account himself?  Having said that, if they want a joint account in all the holders' names, they are all going to have to be there in order to sign the papers, provide ID and stuff. --Viennese Waltz talk 13:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A Whois lookup indeed places the OP in the UK. Please speak civilly about anyone who is unaware of that function. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't even whois them. I could tell they were from the UK just from their tone, spelling and so on. --Viennese Waltz talk 13:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * {edit conflict} Thanks, Viennese Waltz. The reason is that the others won't be there early on, and they live all over the country, so only one will be there on the 4th. But she'll need electricity, and can't set it up unless there's a joint account. So I was wondering if I'd be able to step in to help her out. Then, when the rest of them finally move in, I was hoping to get myself removed from the account, and let all the others join up. Sorry, I know that it wasn't very clear. 92.2.182.60 (talk) 13:23, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Why not either set up the electricity supply using either your account, or hers, and then transfer it over to the new joint account once the other housemates arrive and get round to opening one? Warofdreams talk 13:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) Well yeah, that's certainly possible – anyone can join or leave an account at any time. It seems a lot of hassle, though.  All the cashpoint/debit cards would need to be reissued with the new names, for example.  One more question – why does she need a joint account to set up the leccy bill?  Can't she just set it up in her own name?  --Viennese Waltz talk 13:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) That is possible, yeah. Will give it a bit of thought. Thanks to you all. :) 92.2.182.60 (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * VW: Good for you. Without an IP look up, I couldn't be sure, and I don't think it's unresonable that people don't automatically know what someone from the UK sounds like. For example, I wouldn't suspect the OP isn't from the US (although I don't know if I'd completely rule out they are for example, someone from the UK who just moved to the US to go to university). But from their original comment alone, I can't rule out them being from NZ. Let alone Ireland, Australia, Canada. Even South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia I can't quite rule it out. Or heck I would say it's possible to be someone from a non English native European country. I fully admit I wouldn't have guessed you were from Austria (ignoring your name) from your words alone even if it isn't relevant here, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I'm glad that you automatically know from my tone and spelling that I'm currently living in NZ (do you also know I grew up in Malaysia?) but I don't ask people to guess when it's relevant. It's also nice to know the moment I step off a plane in the US and start posting, you will automatically know I'm in the US from my tone and spelling. I wasn't aware my tone and spelling change the instant I go to a different country. (How well does this work? Can you tell which part of China I'm in if I go there? If not is Taiwan part of China?) However I still believe even if some people have this amazing ability to tell precisely what country someone is currently located in from their tone and spelling alone of a single short message, regardless of where they learn their English and even if they only arrived in that country a few hours ago, respondents without this amazing ability shouldn't have to guess where someone may be from. So asking for this common courtesy of telling us isn't unresonable. (Just to be clear, this is directed at VW rather then the OP. And I have no problem with guessing where someone is from from their message, I do it myself, but I do acknoledge it's only a guess and I could be wrong so I don't have a problem with people asking for confirmation of where someone is from. ) Nil Einne (talk) 09:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Joint account question (from the other side of the pond)
Referring to the question above: Is this sort of thing, setting up a joint account to pay house bills, a common thing in the UK? When I shared an apartment with three friends in the US, we would write what the bill (electric, water, etc) was on a whiteboard in the kitchen and split it four ways. One of us took on the chore of paying said bill and the rest were obligated to pay our quarter. And the bills were in the name of the person who would pay the bill. We were friends, so we didn't worry about one of us stiffing the other three when the bills came due. Dismas |(talk) 13:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it's pretty common, yeah. When I shared a house we had a "house account" which was in one person's name.  Each person in the house paid a fixed monthly amount into that account by standing order.  All rent and utility bills were then paid from that account.  Seems like a pretty fair system to me.  The only thing it doesn't cover is household items like toilet roll and whatnot, I guess one option there would be to set up a petty cash float for those items.  Phone bill was an interesting one, we used to have itemized bills so each housemate would have to go through the bill and identify which calls were theirs. It's more of an issue if the house is not a group of friends I guess.  Again that is a pretty common situation in big cities like London, people come and go from shared houses all the time. --Viennese Waltz talk 14:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I am interested in the claims above that imply that a 4-way split of a rent or utility bill could even be possible. In every roommate situation I've ever seen in the US, the landlord or utility requires that one person be legally responsible for paying the bill.  In turn, that person becomes the nag who scolds the other roommates to pay up.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've been in roommate situations where the landlord accepted separate checks from each tenant. I don't recall what the legal situation was.  We may have been jointly and severally liable. --Trovatore (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Not sure if my posts above are one of the claims you're referring to, but in the scenario I'm advocating that wouldn't be an issue. Yes, the rent or utility bill might need to be in one name, but if a household bank account is opened which each person pays a fixed amount into each month, then the owner of that bank account simply pays the bills from that account.  Because the funds are already in the account, no nagging is required.  The name(s) on the bank account need not be the same as the name on the utility bill.  --Viennese Waltz talk 16:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe I'm being a cynic but with a bank account, you can't tell who put in $X on X date, you can only see that it was done. So if the situation arose where someone didn't pay in, you wouldn't know who it was that was slacking on the payments.  Dismas |(talk) 20:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's done by standing order. At the beginning of the tenancy, each housemate authorizes monthly transfers from their individual account to the household account.  It's not done on an individual basis from month to month.  Unless one housemate cancels their part of the arrangement, it's not possible to slack on the payments.  Also, bank statements always have a name or account number showing where the credits to the account came from.  --Viennese Waltz talk 20:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Apart from possible liquidity problems which can't be foreseen at the time of signing of the (witnessed?) authorizations, that sounds way more practical than my experience. A long time ago, I was in a living situation similar to Dismas's. We were nine people sharing a (lovely Jugendstil) villa. Though we all liked one another, and there was a general sense of trust and no petty arguments over "Who moved my cheese?", we still had two grand slackers, who inevitably failed to pay up at the end of the month. I didn't envy the poor person who was responsible and accountable for all of us, by name and signature. (Most people don't enjoy reminding people to pay up). ---Sluzzelin talk  21:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you transfer money from a bank account you can can't you? At least you always can here in NZ AFAIK. Is it really the case in the US ir the UK or whatever that transfers are anonymous i.e. no name or account number of the tranferee? I wouldn't have expected that, except from stuff like Swiss Bank accounts and the like. Don't you at least get a reference field or something where each tenant could put their name or some code to represent them or something?? Nil Einne (talk) 22:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you can make an anonymous payment into a UK current account - for instance by paying in cash at a bank counter - but in the scenario under discussion it's clearly in the depositor's interest to make it known who paid the money in, so he would give a suitable reference. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * For a standing order, if no preference for identification is given, then the bank will normally add an identifying line (either the account number or the name). For electronic transfers, the option is given for an identifying comment.    D b f i r s   17:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * When I was house-renting, it was different for different utilities (about 15 years ago in Ontario). Basically the tricky part was that the landlord was responsible for paying rent on the water heater (it's common here for the water heater to not be owned by the home owner) - as renters, that was not our obligation. So if the bill came to X, the landlord had to first remove the rental portion of the bill and then split the remainder to calculate our individual portions. Matt Deres (talk) 13:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Many years ago, my roommate forgot to pay the bill and our electricity got shut off. I had a kerosene lantern handy, and was reading by it. Roommate and girlfriend came back, I groused to roommate, he waffled, and she said, "Wow! We can listen to the stereo by candlelight!" More recently, I've discovered that it's possible, if not awkward, to bring a water heater home in a SAAB convertible. It's helpful if the trip home involves no right turns. PhGustaf (talk) 20:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Ancestral map of Ireland
Back in the 1950-1960 era (I believe)the NY Daily News or the NY Post used to print a map of Ireland around or on St. Patrick's Day. This map showed the surnames of families in cities and counties of Ireland. Americans could see where their families came from. Can you tell me how I can get a copy of this map of Ireland? I don't believe the paper prints it anymore and I no longer live in NY. I have retired to SC. I would appreciate whatever you can do. Thank you.

Patricia (Magrath) Sellazzo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patricia Sellazzo (talk • contribs) 21:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Online I've found this, which unfortunately isn't a very nice picture, and for which I can't vouch. For Scottish clans, Wikipedia has this excellent map, but not it seems for Irish clans. List of Irish clans has a table which lists home towns and locations for some clans and surnames. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There was a map like that in my history book, showing the locations of various clans during hte norman invasion.--92.251.170.187 (talk) 21:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Pre-orgasm feeling
I'm looking for references regarding the feeling just before a person experiences an orgasm, how intense this feeling normally is, and how long it normally lasts. Please note, this is purely a question asking for references; it is in no way medical advice, since the question is not asking for diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment advice. Thank you for your time. 137.30.164.176 (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The book Human Sexual Response by Masters and Johnson is a classic reference that describes the phases of the Human sexual response cycle. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)