Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 July 30

= July 30 =

Title for Research
What do you call " conducting research for the results you already have"69.156.146.136 (talk) 13:30, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Verification? Googlemeister (talk) 14:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Verification makes sense – and these obviously don't. This belongs to WP:RDL?  Kayau  Voting  IS   evil 15:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Corroboration? --Tango (talk) 16:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good grant management? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

It is commonplace to mount a research programme to support a decision you would like to take, but I don't understand why one would mount research if you already have the result. That, surely, would be duplication.Froggie34 (talk) 16:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be verification. The point of a study is not to tell the world about your patients --  no one cares how much less cholesterol accumulation or how much greater bone gain your patients achieved.  The results are only interesting because they (hopefully) represent the accumulation, gain, etc. of all people when taking the studied medication, undergoing the studied procedure, etc.  So if one cannot conduct a study and receive similar results with similar conditions, the initial results are not really statistically significant -- even p values less than 0.05 are chance 1 out of 20 times.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 18:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I call it "getting an NIH grant". Generally to get a grant in many NIH programs you have to have preliminary data to show that the project is feasible, and often the reviewers become so demanding in this respect that you practically have to have carried out the whole experiment in order to get a grant to do the experiment. Many researchers, I think, fall into a pattern of doing a project almost to completion, applying for a grant to do the project, using the grant money to finish it and then using the remaining money to do preliminary studies for the next grant. This isn't the way the system was designed to work but I don't think it should be seen as dishonest -- everybody pretty much knows that this is how it goes, including the program administrators and the grant proposal reviewers. Looie496 (talk) 18:27, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you mean Confirmation bias? 92.29.119.4 (talk) 22:34, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

@Looie496: If you have to fund your project with a grant of a previous project, how do you fund your first project? Quest09 (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A new investigator often has "start-up" funds from the institution or applies for smaller pilot project grants, etc. Unfortunately, competition is so fierce for all kinds of grants that even "pilot projects," which by definition should not require much preliminary data, often get dinged by reviewers for not having enough preliminary data. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 12:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I would call it "replication" of the previous results. Grant-giving agencies would be unlikely to fund an attempted replication if that's all that was proposed, but if Prof X has published an amazing and questionable result, Prof Y is likely to try and replicate the result as on of his control experiments, before going on to provide some new and important results, or perhaps demonstrating how Prof X's result did or did not come from failure to control a confounding variable. Edison (talk) 14:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Data usage for video calls
I'm currently living in a hostel, and will be buying a laptop shortly. My parents, who live some 5000 kilometers away, are enthusiastic about having video calls with me once they buy a webcam for the pc back home. But, the internet scheme i'll be using will only allow me 2 gbs of upload/download a month, so I want to know how much bandwidth video-chats use up, and whether it'll be a viable option. Can anyone tell me how much data video calls consume on per minute? Thanks in advance. 203.88.8.2 (talk) 16:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Heavens, haven't things changed! My parents asked for a telephone call each Sunday. Not sure I'd have wanted them to see me!Froggie34 (talk) 16:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Not massively helpful, Froggie. 203.88, I checked my bandwidth usage whilst making a video call on Skype for you and it worked out to be approximately 80 kBps upstream and another 80 kBps downstream (getting you approx. 200 minutes, or a touch over 3 hours, from your 2GB). Might be worth upgrading to a better internet package if that is possible. Skype voice calls require less (no more than 18 kBps). However, Skype will adjust its video quality to use what kind of bandwidth is available. I'm not a Windows man myself, and I'm guessing that you are, but I'd suggest looking into tweaking your firewall software to restrict the bandwidth it allows Skype to use. Brammers (talk/c) 18:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Those numbers also assume that you aren't doing anything else with your net connection. If you are also surfing the web and doing other bandwidth-intensive things - then you'll have considerably less than 2GB per month left over for these calls.  Perhaps you should look for an alternative ISP with less nasty rules...at the very least, ask your parents if they'd pay for any overage charges you get stuck with in making these calls. SteveBaker (talk) 13:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Question needs a title
I have an infatuation with a female singer and her birthday is a few months away. I want to do something to let her know I love her, but she's in another country and I don't want to be a creepy stalker so usually I just post a message of love to her here on Wikipedia, but I promised people I wouldn't do that any more as they consider it "vandalism". But I desperately want to do something, like post "happy birthday" across every page on Wikipedia on the chance that she might see it. I'm so conflicted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.236.125 (talk) 16:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you have a problem that is interfering with your ability to live your life, please visit a medical professional (such as a GP) and explain the problem. There are generally methods that can help. 86.164.66.83 (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree, it would be best to try to stop being a creepy stalker. If you must have an outlet right now, write her a physical birthday card and mail it to her, care of her record company, whose address will be easy to find.  The letter may reach her.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:13, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreeing with CT, hopefully you're aware that while she may be less creeped out by 'random nut vandalising wikipedia', on the off chance she does actually see it, she's still likely to be creeped out. It's definitely not going to be something she'll be happy to see. You may want to consider 86's advice, in particularly given that it'll be better for both of you and if you really love someone, you should not want to creep them out which you will do if you get her attention Nil Einne (talk) 08:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Why don't you just set up an unofficial fanclub / fansite? Hopefully your feelings will wear off eventually. 92.29.119.4 (talk) 22:44, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Aren't there usually proper internet channels, such as myspace or twitter, for fans to send birthday greetings to celebrities? 81.131.53.162 (talk) 03:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There's always Skywriting. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:54, 31 July 2010 (UTC)