Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 January 8

= January 8 =

Pouring some Substance in Wounds: Saving Private Ryan
In Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, in one scene, when the medic Wade gets shot, his team mates can be seen trying to stop the bleeding of the wound. In addition to applying pressure to the wound, they open a packet and sprinkle some sort of fine, granular solid (much like salt) onto the wound. What is the name of this substance and what does it do? Thanks Acceptable (talk) 04:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * See here. Marnanel (talk) 04:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh there we go, thanks. Acceptable (talk) 09:25, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I recall that. Great film. I thought it was Sulphur of some sort also. Penicillin, discovered in 1928, was also used, but not en masse until this war. Whether the Germans had it, I do not know. I suspect some medics later became doctors. The Russian Christopher Lilly 12:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher1968 (talk • contribs)
 * It may have been called sulfa, not sulphur. (Pure sulfur should not be put on an open wound).  Sulfa is a short name for Sulfonamide (medicine), which does contain sulphur in its chemical makeup.  Nimur (talk) 12:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a potential danger for those with non-rhotic accents. Marnanel (talk) 12:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci's personal life
i learnt that leonardo da vinci was a homosexual???is it true??? please comment on this................

thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.243.147 (talk) 13:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It may well be true, but opinions differ. You can find a discussion of the evidence at Leonardo da Vinci's personal life. Warofdreams talk 14:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a movie about the great man on the History Channel last year, showing his life from boyhood, up to his death. Within the movie - more of a docudrama, there is featured a box in the central square of the city he lived in when young - I cannot remember where - into which people posted accusations against others anonymously, to be investigated by the Holy Office, or other such authorities. It was said that it could be used as a weapon of vengeance against anyone a person did not like. Such an accusation was posted against Leonardo, but the movie states that the matter was investigated, and no charges were brought against him. In one of the Book of Lists by Irving Wallace and family, their article claims he had young boys in his workshop, about whom a contemporary commented about this very thing - suggesting da Vinci was a homosexual - a similar accusation falsely brought against King James I of Britain. It is clear da Vinci never married, but that does not mean much, but also that he did have primarily male assistants and companions, however there is no solid proof after 500 years, as to the truth of these allegations. As much as I personally would rather no one was gay, even if he was, certainly his brilliance and foresight cannot be questioned. And I can understand that as much as many people may believe it has no bearing on his skill, it is still relevant in understanding exactly what kind of man he really was. The Russian. C.B.Lilly 05:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher1968 (talk • contribs)


 * If he had "young boys" around him, what possible relevance would that have to any supposed homosexuality? That comes under pedophilia, nothing remotely like homosexuality.  Please do not confuse these unrelated topics ever again.  It's as potentially offensive as saying, in this day and age, that you "would rather no one was gay".  Denial of what is, is no way to deal with one's issues.  --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   06:21, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * We're often guilty of judging the past by our own lights. The culture of Italy in the 1400s was such that young girls were not allowed to become apprenticed to a "male" profession such as being an artist was. I think that's the problem here: we look at a situation, imagine it's happening today and what it would mean in today's world, and presume it applied then too. Dangerous and wrong. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is a tendency to apply modern social behavior to the past. Hence the nonsense about Lincoln being gay. There was a wall of segregation between men and women, which we in the western world are no longer accustomed to, and men and women both were often effusive to same-sex friends in letters. (A leftover of that era is starting a letter to anyone with "Dear...") That wall still exists in other parts of the world, where straight men are publicly affectionate toward each other while opposite-sex public display of affection is considered gauche. (India would be an example). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed - it is dangerous to apply modern western culture values onto other times and other places. A vivid memory I have of living in Kenya was how adult men would often hold hands while walking beside the road - this would seem like "gay" behavior to our eyes - but truly nothing of the sort was meant by it. SteveBaker (talk) 16:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I understand that now. I was only relating what the Book of Lists had said about what the guy they quoted said. In his time, this guy who said that about da Vinci should have known better. As for my comment on not wanting anyone to be gay, I am not denying homosexuality. I realise it exists. That does not mean I support it. But I acknowledge this is the way of the world today, and ultimately, God will be the Judge. I did initially believe da Vinci might have been gay, but only because it had been said by a number of sources before I saw the film on him. Having seen that, I now suspect he was not. Being single of course does not mean you are gay. I know better than that, being 42 and still not married. But I am only attracted to women. I suggest that in Leonardo's life his mistress may have been the arts. I heard that bollocks about Lincoln too, and never gave it a second thought. Either someone is on an almighty anti gay witch hunt, or someone is trying to paint respected figures of the past as homosexual to make it seem more acceptable, or both. I apologise for any offence, but it seems that on this site a lot of others give their opinion, even if we shouldn't, so I thought I would try to balance things out so that the extreme right can't accuse us all of having a liberal agenda. As I said in a comment on TV3's Nightline website in New Zealand regarding the revelation by Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas as to his own coming out of the closet, that the orientation of any person has no real bearing on their skill in what they do. Leonardo da Vinci, gay or not, was a brilliant scientist and artist way ahead of his time.The Russian Christopher Lilly 12:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher1968 (talk • contribs)

Airmail delivery time
What is the standard delivery time for airmail from the UK to a central European country such as (my country) Austria? This says that airmail deliveries worldwide should only take 3 to 5 working days. But I'm not sure how the Royal Mail can make that prediction, given that the responsibility for delivery is only partly theirs and partly that of the mail service in the recipient's country. Lately I've been finding airmail from the UK to Austria taking anything up to two weeks, and that's without postal strikes or any other external factors. Is that a normal state of affairs? (ps. sorry that the link isn't embedded properly, it looked fine in preview mode) --Richardrj talkemail 17:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but it's anybody's guess, really. I've had packages and letters delivered here to UK from Holland and France which have arrived the very next working day after I'd asked for them, while from Spain things have taken weeks at times. I guess it depends on the individual country, so you might have to wait until someone with specific experience of getting mail from Austria comes along to answer. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( Talk? )  17:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * PS I fixed your link for you. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( Talk? )  17:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently I didn't You were right, it works in preview, but not on this page. How odd. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( Talk? )  17:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've encountered the same problem in the following post. Must be a bug.  Ka renjc 19:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It was caused by a url in the male attire section above not being closed, therefore thinking everything that followed it was also part of the url and getting it all confused. Nanonic (talk) 19:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice detective work! Ka renjc 10:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Were insurance payments made to the owners of WW II merchant ships destroyed by enemy action?
I understand that most insurance policies excluded damages as the result of acts of war. Is this gereraly a true statement? If a U.S. flagged merchant ship were sunk did the U. S. Government reemburse the ships owner for his loss?65.249.51.99 (talk) 18:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * When the USA entered the war the WSA (War Shipping Administration) took responsibility for the country's merchant fleet, including the "purchase or requisition of vessels" from private shipping companies, taking over from the peacetime United States Maritime Commission, which then concentrated on the building of new vessels. According to this, "The companies were paid fixed fees in addition to the charter rates for their ships. The WSA assumed all operating responsibilities and insurance liability for war-risk losses."  So yes, it appears owners' losses were underwritten by the state.  Ka renjc 19:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Random follow up question, were there any instances of insurance fraud from that policy?--droptone (talk) 00:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

diffs between Ontario International Airport and LAX Airport
Since both airports is international airports is there any differences between those two airport. Is Ontario Airport a more like orange county airport in Irvine or it is a semi-international airport only goes to places in Americas. Do Ontartio Airport in California to to outside travels like Ghana or China?--69.226.34.161 (talk) 22:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a table of airlines and destinations at the article you linked, on the Ontario airport. It mentions exactly one non-US destination, namely Guadalajara, Mexico.  Airports love to have the word International in their names, as it connotes prestige, and a great many airports have it even though you're most unlikely to fly overseas from there. --Trovatore (talk) 22:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * (e/c) A general comparison: You can fly anywhere from LAX, but for the most part it's old, dirty, and ugly. Although the Virgin America gate area was quite nice, and the security line was nonexistent at 5:30 AM. (Too bad I had to eat Burger King's god-awful breakfast because of the bizarre foodservice layout.)
 * Ontario is comparable to Wayne. It's a bit nicer than LAX. Although it's an "international airport" the only place it flies to outside the US is Guadalajara on Aeroméxico, according to our article.
 * "International" merely means the airport has the appropriate customs personnel to clear incoming international flights. There do not have to be any international flights; hell, there does not have to be any commercial flights at all! An example of this is the general-aviation-only Akron Fulton International Airport. Xenon54 / talk / 22:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That's very strange. How do they justify paying customs officers to work there, when they apparently have nothing to do? --Trovatore (talk) 22:25, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's the home of the Goodyear Blimp, and given that the world HQ is just up the street from KAKR (whereas KCAK, the nearest commercial airport, is 15-20 minutes down I-77) it's plausible there are international business travellers coming to visit. The airport averages just about 70 operations a day, well below equivalent airports in busier areas. Xenon54 / talk / 23:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Worth noting is that among the teeny tiny so-called "international" airports in the United States, it's quite common for there to be no regular customs and immigration personnel on full-time duty. If an international passenger or cargo arrival is planned, customs and immigration officials are called out as needed.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. As I understand it, "international" status has legal implications.  For example, I believe that murder at an international airport is a federal offense ( for no obvious reason &mdash; just part of the trend towards federalization of the criminal law as far as I can tell ).  I wonder if there's ever been such a case at one of these technically-international airports. --Trovatore (talk) 01:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There almost was, at Detroit, a couple of weeks ago, but the guy was unable to set off the bomb. As far as federalization is concerned, keep in mind that the feds are responsible for international stuff in general, and aviation to a large extent, so it's no surprise they would step in, in an international case. I wonder if a deadly attack were from a domestic source, though, whether it would come under state or federal law? Or whether it would depend on whether it was true terrorism or just some angry or deranged character bringing a gun to the airport? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Explain this address number
I noticed that some house numbers in Bensenville, Illinois are rather unusual (e.g. 16W638 Red Oak Street). Can someone explain these house numbers? 128.2.247.150 (talk) 23:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be great if we had an article on house numbering which answered this exact question? It's always worth searching first, as you'll get an answer all the quicker that way. Warofdreams talk 00:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't explain why house numbering in Southern California resembles the height of mountains in the Himalayas. (Then again, the page couldn't just say that the Southern California numbers were created out of stupidity.) Shannon  talk   contribs  02:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You mean 5 digits? They're probably numbering from a point in the downtown. That's fairly common in large cities. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No - These numbers aren't anywhere near places like L.A. and Santa Ana. They're commonly seen in suburbs and often repeat from street to street. For example, there's five houses numbered "29632" on adjoining streets near where I live. Shannon  talk   contribs  05:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That might be a question you should pose to the town council or the city engineers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:25, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The house numbers in Southern California are indeed numbered consecutively from downtown LA, even if you're in the suburbs. The further south you go, such as into Torrance, California and Lomita, California, the higher the numbers get.  Even though those cities are independent and not part of LA, they still have streets like 250th Street, which is one block either north or south from 250th Place, for example, and the numbers on the cross streets will be 250xx.  Woogee (talk) 20:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Makes sense, except that near where I live (I'm talking about an area I go to a lot in a nearby city, actually) there's no numbered avenue, just endless suburbs with no pattern in street numbering. In Laguna Beach, they have 3 digit numbers, but at least it makes sense. Shannon  talk   contribs  01:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * House numbering is wildly variable in different parts of the country. I used to live in a town in New Hampshire, where common practice was to number every house in order from one end of the street, odds on the right, evens on the left.  Every number was used, so the fifth house on the left was #10, and the 35th house on the right would be like #71.  Made it real easy to find numbers.  I also lived in Chicago, were house numbers were determined by the Chicago street grid, also very easy to navigate, since each cross street was asigned a number, and houses always began with that number; since Division Street was 12th street north, every house on the cross streets started with 1200 at Division street.  Now I live in Raleigh, NC, which uses a system kinda sorta like Chicago, except the city isn't really laid out according to a grid pattern, so it makes it sort of random.  In all of Wake County, the 0,0 point for house numbering is the North Carolina State Capitol, and you can kinda sorta figure out how far you are from the capital by your house number.  The house number has nothing to do with how far along your street you are; I have a 4-digit house number but am the 5th house on the street.
 * I'm pretty sure that bit about Wake County is inaccurate, or at least over-generalized. I lived a bunch of different places in Wake County, including Raleigh, and I never noticed correlation with distance from the state capitol building. Maybe right up in downtown, that is the case, but I don't even think that fits with my recollection of the few landmarks I know addresses for. Nimur (talk) 13:10, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 5 digit house numbers are not unique to Southern California. It's common here in Washington too. My house has a 5 digit number. I live a block from the county line. Addresses are generally by county around here, from some county center point. As a result you see some silly street numbers and addresses. I took this picture of 635th Place NE--an extremely tiny "street" in the mountains. It's the middle of nowhere. 635th Place NE?? Pfly (talk) 06:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking at Google Maps and Bing Maps, I notice that Red Oak St and Red Oak Ave in Bensenville form 3 distinct sections, with its name alternating between ...street and ...avenue depending on which map you look at. All three sections seem to be quiet residential streets. The westernmost section has numbers >800, the middle section only appears to have the number 16 along its entire length despite there being approx 20 houses there, and the eastern section has numbers 100 - 500.  Perhaps the weird number scheme helps identify which section of the road the address is located in.  Astronaut (talk) 06:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)