Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 November 5

= November 5 =

American Made, Really?
Many motorcycle manufacturers boast that their product is "American Made." What percentage of their product, to include components are really American Made? In example; Harley-Davidson: 87%, Victory:  75%, etc.--76.230.92.202 (talk) 00:11, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * At what level do you mean to measure at? Does the iron and coal that were melted down to make the steel have to been mined in America to count as American made parts?  Does the petroleum that was refined to make the plastic have to have been extracted form American soil?  Heck, there's a guarantee that the tires aren't American, since we don't have any rubber plants in America.  Any such percentages, if published, would be pretty much pure bullshit, when something claims to be "American Made" it is usually just marketing.  Even if the final assembly was done in America, some aspect of the parts or materials likely came from many other places in the world.  This isn't always a bad thing, if something is very expensive to make in the U.S., but much less expensive to make elsewhere, those costs get passed on to you, the consumer.  You may be willing to pay a premium for locally made products, but it does little good to build a motorcycle so expensively that noone can afford to buy it.  See The Wealth of Nations, especially Book 1, which deals with the real costs in the manufacture of goods, and why "buying local" just for local sake is quite anti-Capitalist.  -- Jayron  32  04:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * U.S. consumers are used to this information however, as the 1992 American Automobile Labeling Act requires new car labels to show percent country of origin. This site will let you look it up for various models.. However the act uses part value as the metric (not volume or weight) and counts Canada as U.S.-made among other issues. Motorcycles, work trucks and buses are not included in the act's coverage either. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 15:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Being endorsed by an act of Congress doesn't make it more true... -- Jayron  32  20:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I would think the key to "American made" is who's getting paid for building the object, i.e. are the laborers Americans, or are they elsewhere? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

What Polish people like?
What kind of products would have high success rate when imported to Poland (i.e exported from another country)? What do Polish people like? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.245.10.206 (talk) 07:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * From Economy of Poland, "Most of Poland's imports are capital goods needed for industrial retooling and for manufacturing inputs, rather than imports for consumption." and
 * "Imports: 		$149.6 billion (2009)
 * "Import goods: 	machinery and transport equipment 35.3%, manufactured goods classified chiefly by material 17.4%, chemicals and related products 14 %, miscellaneous manufactured articles 10.6%, mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials 9.6%."
 * AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Polish people (as opposed to Polish factories and industries) probably do not especially like industrial lubricants, industrial chemicals or mineral fuels. I think the OP is probably more interested in knowing what constitutes the miscellaneous manufactured articles.  Googlemeister (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking rather that the OP is looking for suggestions on what to import to Poland in order to achieve economic profit. I would liken this to an attempt at market research. Speaking as a member of the target group, but not as a representative one, I'd say... German cheese, German cheese is what I long for, one store chain imported some excellent cheeses from Bavaria at excellent prices some three years ago, and I believe the price was so low because they didn't really know what they were dealing with (I actually inquired often on whether it would be back, got no reply). So, German cheeses, they know how to make great cheeses, those Germans. Please, do not import crappy second hand cars or more useless clothing to Poland, do not import more toys or what people call 'gift ideas' but what I call 'dust collectors' to be placed on the shelf. Think first. Cheers. Note to readers: this answer was not meant to be offensive, really it wasn't. --Ouro (blah blah) 15:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The Polish section in my local supermarket is a shelf in the canned fish aisle. You could try going to your local Polish shop, though, they might have some good ideas. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 10:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The OPs IP adress refers to Hanoi, Vietnam, so I am not sure there is a local Polish shop in his/hers vicinity. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * A soft drink called Fart sold well in Poland, but not so much in North America. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 23:11, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

chitty chitty bang bang race car
would you be able to tell me what the make and model of the race car they used (in the chitty chitty bang bang movie)to make the chitty car.i hope you can help me. garry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.162.130 (talk) 14:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

See Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (car) on Wikipedia.Froggie34 (talk) 14:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Linked that for you. APL (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The OP may be confusing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (car), which was a film prop built in a number of versions for the movie, with Chitty Bang Bang, a series of real racing cars built and raced by Louis Zborowski. Zborowski's cars and their nickname inspired the movie car, but the latter was not adapted from a real racing car, although as this site suggests, the main driveable version was engineered by experts and had a powerful Ford V6 engine.   Ka renjc 14:56, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

NHL in US cities
Are there any cities in the US where the NHL is the most popular or at least as popular as the (generally more) popular of the other US sports? Aaronite (talk) 15:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Detroit calls itself "Hockeytown". But you need to know what you are measuring. Hockey stadiums seat far fewer than football stadiums but baseball usually beats all sports in the butts-in-the-seats measure by having by far the most games. Football may have the highest TV viewership but a championship season can be a real driving force for souvenir sales. Of course, having a logo associated as much with the city as the team (say the "Old English D") can drive product sales as well. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 15:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Since when does hockey have the most games? Baseball teams play 162 games per season. And some parks routinely sell out. APL (talk) 16:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I said "baseball usually beats all sports in the butts-in-the-seats measure by having by far the most games". Rmhermen (talk) 18:20, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow. I must be an idiot. I read that sentence more than once as reading "Hockey usually beats all sports...".  APL (talk) 18:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Having lived in several places around the U.S., the places where Hockey is largely popular (most popular is debatable), where it has close to the popularity of the other sports, are New England (college hockey is even big there, when I was a kid in New Hampshire it was the most popular sport at UNH), Detroit, and Philadelphia. The other two American cities among the NHL's Original Six don't have as large of a hockey following, New York will always be a baseball town, and with three hockey teams in the New York metro area splitting loyalties, no one team captures the fervor you find for say, the Red Wings in Detroit.  The Chicago Blackhawks have suffered from owner mismanagement for years; their owners had intentionally refused to have a local TV contract, a situation that ended only in 2008.  Its hard to be popular if no one can see your games on TV.  Other than that, you're best shot is Minnesota, where hockey is still huge.  In fact, the fact that the NHL not once, but twice screwed up the hockey teams there (See San Jose Sharks and Dallas Stars) is one of the great shames of the 1990's southward expansion of the NHL, given its natural fanbase in Minnesota.  -- Jayron  32  20:20, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Although Minnesota calls itself "the state of hockey", and hockey is certainly popular there, supposedly the three most-supported professional teams are the Vikings, Packers and Twins, in that order. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Even though they're the only major professional team in town, I doubt if the Columbus Blue Jackets beat out the Ohio State Buckeyes in popularity. Corvus cornix talk  22:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how to judge popularity, and I imagine the Buffalo Bills are more popular by most measures than the Buffalo Sabres. However, in my experience hockey fans are way more serious than football fans, at least in Buffalo. My impression is that people in Buffalo are into the Bills if the team happens to be doing well, a kind of fair weather friend fan type. Sabres fans, however, are fans to the bitter end. This is all anecdotal, of course. Pfly (talk) 11:57, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers, but let me ask another, similar question: Is there any city in the US where hockey gets regular front-page sports press? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaronite (talk • contribs) 16:33, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thats slightly different. Many of the cities with NHL teams will give back-page (or front-sports-page depending on the format of your local paper) coverage to NHL teams as merited.  Here in Raleigh, North Carolina, we have an NHL team (Carolina Hurricanes which is our only major league franchise, and they do get decent press coverage because of that.  Heck, they even made the main front page of the News and Observer when they won the Stanley Cup.  -- Jayron  32  01:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure NHL teams get front page sports press in practically every city they're in. The San Jose Sharks even get front page coverage here in Sacramento, even though they're not really a local team, but they're the only NHL team in Northern California.   Corvus cornix  talk  20:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The Boston Globe Sunday magazine ran an article a year of two back about the time two or three decades ago when all the sports frenzy in Boston was focused on the Boston Bruins (Bobby Orr) and the Boston Celtics (Larry Bird and host of others), while the Boston Red Sox and the Boston/New England Patriots were dismissed as dead-end teams doomed never to win a title. Such was New England fatalism that even as late as 2001, a friend declared that "aliens will land on the White House lawn before the Red Sox or the Patriots win a national championship" a few months before the latter won the 2002 Super Bowl. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:59, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * San Jose, one of the 15 biggest American cities, is dominated by San Jose Sharks fans. 63.17.41.3 (talk) 03:41, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

time in distant lands
In places close to the equator, where there are no seasons, does the year mean anything? Might people there develop their own entirely different ways of measuring the passing of time? What might they be, what would be considered important enough there in a desert or jungle?

148.197.121.205 (talk) 17:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It is not correct to say that equatorial regions do not have seasons. They are just not the same seasons that are seen in temperate regions. Monsoon describes the strong seasonal shifts between wet and dry conditions in some equatorial regions. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A historically important development of notions of time took place in ancient Egypt. Sophisticated math was used to understand seasonal flooding. This understanding of yearly cycles was a key factor in agricultural development. See Ancient_Egypt for starters. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * See wet season and dry season.--Shantavira|feed me 18:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Even if there aren't weather-based seasons, there are still seasonal changes in astronomy, for example (views of the stars still change in the tropiocs through the year), so even if weather literally never changed for the entire year, the concept of the year would still be obvious. In places where there aren't pronounced changes in weather, there are strict monthly-based calandars that ignore the year.  See Arabic calendar.  -- Jayron  32  20:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * "Obvious" may be a bit strong; first someone has to figure out that looking at those lights in the sky is useful for something. --Anon, 00:25 UTC, November 6, 2010.
 * Modern society is arguable the first where people didn't figure this out on their own, probably because of the huge number of technological distractions we have for entertainment purposes. Every single known civilization I know of shows evidence of having figured out the patterns of the earth's movement around the sun, even if they had the reasoning behind those patterns wrong.  -- Jayron  32  04:59, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * But if they hadn't, would you know about it, or would people write about other aspects of that society? --Anon, 05:02 UTC, November 7, 2010.
 * Pretty much every part of Earth has seasonal shifts on an annual cycle. In the equatorial regions of Southeast Asia, as SemanticMantis has pointed out, there are pronounced monsoons.  The same is true in equatorial East Africa.  Typically, equatorial regions get two monsoons a year, one a month or two after the September equinox as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) moves south, and a second a month or two after the March equinox as the ITCZ shifts south.  Equatorial West Africa and the Amazon Basin of South America are rainy year round, but there are maximums around November and April.  In both of these regions, tributaries tend to flow from the south, which has a precipitation maximum in January/February, so the first 3-4 months of the year tend to be a time of high water and flooding.  Marco polo (talk) 00:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Hair
I've been combing the internet via google for guides on cutting / styling my hair, and while there's plenty of google hits they're all unhelpful fluff. Currently my hair hasn't been cut for several years, and is, to put it mildly, an awful unkempt mess. Similar to this, but worse. I want to cut it myself into a nice style, perhaps something similar to this but shorter. Can anyone here find a guide online for cutting / styling a full head of messy hair for a completely clueless person? All the guides I've found so far assume you already have nice hair and a substantial amount of knowledge on hair care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.198.81 (talk) 19:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Without claiming any special expertise, my understanding is that it is quite difficult for even a trained hairdresser to cut/style their own hair properly unless it is already in generally good shape: that's why the profession exists in the first place. If you're willing to run a high risk of making it even worse than it is now (bearing in mind that you can't correct mistakes when cutting), that's up to you, but my advice would be to swallow the expense and have the initial basic job done professionally, or maybe find an acquaintence with past haircutting experience who'll do it on the cheap. I know female salons in the UK charge what seems to be disproportionally more than male ones - maybe you could talk a barber into doing it out of hours? I once had the opposite problem of wanting to drastically shorten my own hair - then very long by male standards- and finding the only barber nearby was appointment-only and fully booked that day: instead I managed to bemuse a female salon into doing it for about half their normal price, perhaps for the amusement value. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The combination of 1. bad state of hair, 2. no knowledge of hair, 3. doing it yourself, 4. desire it to look like a professional has done it; all bodes for disappointment and horrible hair. I would recommend going to a professional, in particular a stylist (not your standard barber shop for men, where they are not used to making the hair look like it does in the "after" photo you gave). It'll be expensive this round, but you can ask them what they are doing, and questions about what products you should use, and once you have it "under control" you can probably go somewhere cheaper in the future. Hair is complicated and you really shouldn't attempt to do it yourself unless you are trying to look like a Stooge. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:39, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You might be able to find a Flowbee for sale somewhere. One of their main selling points is the ability to cut your own hair.  Dismas |(talk) 05:30, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * But poorly. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Its easy to use Hair_clippers with a comb guard so that your hair is all the same short length, although in my experience you get some fuzz building up around the lower back neck. Not quite so extreme as a buzz cut. 92.15.28.27 (talk) 15:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * My Google search for how to cut your own hair reported 7,420,000 results, of which the first one was the following page.
 * How To Cut Your Own Hair: Scissors, Shears, &amp; Hairstyling (with ads by Google)
 * —Wavelength (talk) 15:27, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * None of which resolves the question of how to get the results he/she wants. If you cut your hair at home, you will get what you pay for. The method on that page is basically "get your hair wet then cut it carefully." Which I'm sure the OP already could have figured out... --Mr.98 (talk) 20:18, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's sound
I was listening to this file http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Cs-Antonin_Dvorak.ogg and I think it should be split up into three files: one of a female pronouncing his ful name, one of a male pronouncing his ful name, and one of a male pronouncing his last name only. The file contains three files already. Could someone do this for me because I would have no Idea how. thnx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.78.167 (talk) 21:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I can see your point, but splitting it into three would mean that the pronunciation link in the article would only link to one of the files and therefore pronunciations, or would be messy, containing three separate links. That file itself dates from 2005, so it's certainly been around, but I'm not sure why the original uploader created it that way. --jjron (talk) 15:47, 6 November 2010 (UTC)