Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 June 20

= June 20 =

What's English name of "Trigger" (drum sensor used e.g. death metal drummers)
Hi, I'm wondering what's the English/American name of "trigger". I mean this. There are called "Drum trigger" but I'm not sure is the standard name. Italian/English interwiki was wrong, it was Trigger pad. Thank you.

--DracoRoboter (talk) 15:30, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "Drum trigger" is the only term I'm familiar with when referring to electronic drums. They are particular type of MIDI trigger. —D. Monack talk 21:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It seems trigger pad redirected to stomp box for some reason. I moved the redirect to the more appropriate MIDI. —D. Monack talk 21:36, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Why does google.com.hk have doodles of snowy scenes today (6/20/10)?
71.161.58.42 (talk) 17:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it does not. Try clicking on the snowy scenes. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  18:29, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Apparently it's for Summer Solstice. 71.161.58.42 (talk) 19:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * With the American version, you can simply hover your mouse over the doodle and an explanation normally pops up. Dismas |(talk) 23:18, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, an explanation appeared there too, but in Chinese. I clicked through, found the same characters, copied them, and pasted them in a translator to find out it was about Summer Solstice. It's funny to my American eyes that snow would be associated with anything with "Summer" in the name. 71.161.48.53 (talk) 01:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That makes very little sense to me... The Hong Kong article indicates to me that it never snows in Hong Kong, at least not without severely breaking away from the averages.  These months are the warmest there too.  Why would it have snow?
 * The more likely connotation would be the end of snow, even if it seems a little late. Also it may be more directed as Chinese culture in general then HK in particular. However IMHO the most likely thing is someone simply screwed up and put the southern hemisphere doodle in a northern hemisphere location. Doesn't show any snowy theme for HK, only sunny/warm weather themes for selected northern hemisphere location and snowy & cold weather ones for selected southern hemisphere locations. Nil Einne (talk) 01:52, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Having lived in HK for 12 years, it had NEVER snowed in HK, even in the dead of winter. Having frost on one of the highest peaks in HK is enough of a breaking news. I'm guessing the snowy scene is a bit of a wishful thinking to cool down the muggy heat feeling in the middle of summer. --Kvasir (talk) 05:28, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Confusing logic question
What's the truth value of the statement "This statement is false."?--75.25.103.109 (talk) 18:52, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * See Liar paradox. Algebraist 18:57, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oscillatory. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I could kiss you for that. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The statement is not about anything in particular, so it has no truth value. It's kind of like asking what's in the Empty Set. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The King of France is not bald. True?  False?  See Bertrand Russell 's theory of names/descriptions that don't name/describe anything (I can't remember the term he used for "names/descriptions"). 63.17.90.134 (talk) 11:20, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you raise the same objections if the question had been 'What is the truth value of the statement "This statement contains a 9-letter word."'? See List_of_French_monarchs for a current royal scalp.Cuddlyable3 (talk)


 * The underlying problem is that 'truth' of statements - in either formal or informal languages cannot always be a boolean (on/off, true/false, black/white) thing. There are other possible states: "Indeterminate", "Meaningless", "Changing", "Entangled". So "This statement is false" is meaningless.  It isn't "false" - but that doesn't cause the expected paradox because in non-boolean situations, not being false doesn't necessarily mean that something is "true".  In this case, it's neither true nor false - it's one of those other things.  The question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" is another one of those.  Assuming you either don't have a wife or you've never beaten her - this question is simply meaningless - it is neither true nor false because it's based around a premise that is untrue.  The same is the case for "This statement is false" - there is an implied premise that a statement that is self-descriptive must also be logically consistent - and that's clearly untrue.  You can go to all kinds of lengths to try to make these things go wrong ("X is the set of all sets that do not contain themselves. Does X contain X?", "The barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself?").  But in the end, the issue is simply that some things do not have a simple boolean answer - there is no paradox when someone simply makes an incorrect assumption like that.  Mathematicians have known since Godel that there are things that fundamentally cannot be shown to be either true or false.  Computer programmers have long known that is it not possible to prove whether every computer program will or will not eventually halt.  Physicists realize that they can't ask whether Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead.  So it should be no surprise that fuzzy old informal languages have the same kinds of problem as formal systems. SteveBaker (talk) 20:23, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, it's simpler than that. the statement is a contradiction through reference.  basically it's the same as saying -p=p, except abstracted: X=p, where p is defined to be -X.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:39, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I think its value is just slightly more than that of 'this statement is true'. which is false if it is false and true if it is true but logicians often consider true. At least your statement is straightforward nonsense. Dmcq (talk) 12:02, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes SteveBaker, the barber shaves himself as well as everyone who does not shave themselves. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry - I slightly understated that question: "The barber only shaves every person who does not shave himself. Who shaves the barber?" SteveBaker (talk) 15:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)