Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 December 4

= December 4 = British Airways allows a carry-on limit of 50-lbs providing the luggage fits into a 22" x 14" x 12" case or holdall. --jfs

Allergen free peanut butter
I read about a year ago that scientists were able to make allergen free peanut butter. I cannot wait. I LOVE peanut butter, but I have not been able to eat it for 15 years (an allergy that slowly developed and then got much worse--isn't that strange?) I was wondering if anyone could find out for me when it was going to be available for consumers, even at a high price.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 02:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. you have a bug. I had just had to put in a captcha because "Your edit includes new external links." And as you can see the message above, which I have not changed, contains none whatsoever.


 * Perhaps they found a way to remove the gene which creates the allergen ? In my case, the peanuts themselves are fine, but the liner between the peanuts and shells is irritating.  If this is the problem for everybody, then just being careful to remove this before mashing it into butter would help.  In the meantime, might I suggest you try some alternatives to peanut butter, like cashew butter ? (What, no article despite over a million Google hits ?: ) StuRat (talk) 20:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Here are some other peanut butter substitutes: . StuRat (talk) 17:38, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Question on supplements
Hello, i'm living in india and want to know about these supplements biotin and Oriyanna Hair Pro. Both the American brands, i want to know r these reliable? --Foyrutu (talk) 04:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * We cannot give medical advice here. The article on Biotin says that "deficiency is relatively rare and mild" (unless you regularly consume large amounts of alcohol or egg whites without the yolk).  The hair product contains many ingredients.  Perhaps someone here can comment on the chance of them being effective?    D b f i r s   07:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, i don't want medical advice. just want to know whether these supplements are effective or not. thanks.--Foyrutu (talk) 08:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It depends what effect you are looking for. Placebo effects are common.  In the case of biotin, my suggestion would be that there will be little or no effect except when administered to a person who consumes excess alcohol or egg whites, or who has a deficiency for some other reason, such as a very poor diet.  I would also suggest that there are cheaper and better solutions to such problems, but please note that you should consult a doctor for medical advice, and the above is merely my opinion.  I have no opinion (or a low opinion) on hair products.    D b f i r s   12:35, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * In general, nutritional supplements are not recommended, for the following reasons:


 * 1) As noted above, they only help if you are deficient in those nutrients. As long as you have a healthy diet, you probably aren't.


 * 2) You can potentially overdose on some nutrients, such as iron.


 * 3) The form of the nutrients in the pills is often not bio-available, meaning you can't absorb it very well.


 * So, if a doctor confirms that you are deficient in some nutrient, then, and only then, should you take supplements for the nutrient. Or, better yet, improve your diet to include more of that nutrient. StuRat (talk) 20:55, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Biotin is commonly found in multivitamin supplements. There is no reason to take more than you get in an ordinary vitamin pill. The hair pro product is silly -- it is essentially pure protein, in an extremely expensive form. (All of the "ingredients" of the hair product are amino acids, which are also found in any protein you eat.) Looie496 (talk) 05:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, biotin might not be provided in vitamin pills, as most people get what they need. There is some data out there suggesting that pregnant women often have a marginal deficiency of biotin  and there is some indication of possible association with birth defects  but so far as I know there is as yet no consensus that pregnant women in general should be taking supplements.  (The first paper says that but doesn't explain their reasoning - I would think, though, that a fear would be that if biotin affects the rate of some developmental process, then while having too little might be bad, having too much might potentially also be bad.  But since there's no data for that the authors wisely avoided suggesting it in print.)  Note also that the FDA recommended "adequate intake" levels range up to 30 micrograms a day, so 800 is a pretty big amount.  Also note that our article on biotin gives some of the symptoms of deficiency; the first paper hinted that optimally a woman would monitor levels ... though that's more medical fantasy than reality, I think.  The bottom line is that this is still a foggy, under-researched topic.
 * As for the reliability of specific supplements... the U.S. under the DSHEA system actually promises very little. The problem is, this country has two main lobbies - one which wants everything completely unregulated, the other which wants herbal supplements effectively banned lest they compete with more lucrative drugs.  The current system, which offers no real guarantees of anything, is the preferable of the two... but it leaves people with no real guarantee that what is in the bottle is potent (though dangerous impurity might lead to litigation).  One tactic advised by some is to contact the company website, in this case, I think .  You might be able to get some information about certification they do.  But I don't really have a good answer here and don't really know if there is one. Wnt (talk) 19:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Looking for en email
I'm looking for the email address of Chuo Gyorui (a brokerage company at the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market) address: Tokyo Central Wholesale Market, 2-1, 5-Chome, Tsukiji- Chuo-Ku, Tokyo 104, Japan. Please assist me in finding the email address for above company. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.195.201.138 (talk) 05:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The official site is this and you can find the email address at the bottom right. Oda Mari (talk) 08:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

How common are spoiler warnings outside of the Internet?
As most people know, spoiler warnings (sometimes called spoiler alerts) are used when (a) major plot detail(s) (usually the ending) is discussed. They are most commonly found on fansites, fan wikis and reviews of some movie and TV critics. As I found out when I asked a similar question here on them (while I was logged out), the term was coined (or at least popularized) by a book called Spoilers which revealed many famous endings, although the actual concept (of warning people about major plot details) has been around since the beginning of media. After reading an article of HowStuffWorks which had a spoiler warning (although I wouldn't have affected me, since I already watched the film being discussed), I began to wonder just how common are spoiler warnings outside of the internet. How common are they in print media? I know Roger Ebert uses them sometimes on his reviews, but are spoiler warnings common in other media, such as news, reviews, analysis, print encyclopedias and other information materials? I know that when media is discussed in print media, they don't want to discuss too much about the plot, but when they do, do they use spoiler warnings? And before the Internet, were such warnings common in media? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 10:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * BBC TV often schedules its football program Match of the Day immediately after a news broadcast. The news programme contains a summary of the football played that day, including the game that's just about to be featured on MotD. So they'll give all the results for the other games, but then say something like "Arsenal vs. Everton is on MotD immediately after this; look away now if you won't want to know the score". Then they'll show a graphic with the score, but won't read the score out. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 10:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That particular program was already mentioned in my old question. Any other examples? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 10:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it will be almost impossible to quantify how common they are. But they are definitely used, e.g. if a game or award show just finished recently you sometimes hear on news broadcasts here in NZ some sort of spoiler warning. Particularly if the particularly channel is the one showing a delayed telecast (they usually use it to advertise as well). I also see these on various reviews and news articles. These are online but some of them traditional print media, e.g. . I don't see any reason to think these aren't also in the print edition when the articles appear in the print edition. Note that these don't necessarily use the word 'spoiler', so you can't always find them in that way. See for example this search . Incidentally a search in the Google news archives for the same phrases finds this result from 1969 which according to Spoiler (media) was before the invention of the term (although the article itself uses 'surprise spoiled' so it's not really that far). This was before the invention of usenet let alone the world wide web although depending on your definition of internet may not be before the internet. (Again it's rather difficult to define 'common', my guess is it would vary between types of media and probably country and language to some extent.) I doubtful they are used in print encylopaedias although I expect the number of spoilers is fairly small anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 11:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The OED Online contains this definition of "spoiler", at the end of their "spoiler" entry under the header "Draft additions June 2007". Five quotations are offered, from 1971, 1981, 1993, 1998, and 2001. The 1971 quote is: D. C. Kenney in National Lampoon Apr. 33/1  On the following pages, the National Lampoon presents, as a public service, a selection of ‘spoilers’ guaranteed to reduce the risk of unsettling and possibly dangerous suspense‥. Psycho: The movie's multiple murders are committed by Anthony Perkins disguised as his long-dead mother [etc.]. I know this doesn't really answer the question, but I was surprised to learn the term has been used this way for at least 40 years. Pfly (talk) 10:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Doh, I just read our Spoiler (media), which explicitly mentions this 1971 issue of National Lampoon as "one of the first print uses of the term..."--although the footnote citation only links to that issue and does not back up the claim "one of the first print uses". Pfly (talk) 10:20, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Technology
I know that technology is moving forward, but i was wondering what exactly makes it go forward, why is it that computers are faster now and what dont we have then that we have right now that enable us to create smart phones? if you guys could give me examples in your own field of expertise and just answer on how you define 'moving forward in technology'. thanks Mah Ad ik  usap 17:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Computing speed correlates roughly with the amount of transistors that can be fit into a given chip size. Our ability to fit more transistors into an integrated chip has been known for awhile to follow an exponential function. The reason it gets more and more, and why we can't just jump to whatever the physical limit is, has to do with the fact that it takes clever inventions, discoveries, and "know-how" to push the limit on technology in general, and certainly in chip development. There are people whose jobs it is, right this moment, to figure out how to push the existing limit of chip speeds, and this is non-trivially difficult work that consumes many billions of research dollars around the world.
 * Roughly speaking, all technological development is to some degree exponential, in the sense that the effort it takes to achieve x development is going to be considerably less than it will take to achieve x+1, or probably even x*2, to use an algebraic metaphor. The reason for this is that every success effort can assimilate and build upon the previous efforts. Inventing the first internal combustion engine is hard, but once you've done it, you've now got a template to build upon, to focus in on the places to optimize, to start playing around with the variables.
 * Now the definition of "moving forward" is a trickier one than you've let on. Definitions of "progress" are necessarily teleological — they assume there is a fixed direction towards the "goal" of being "better." In technology, as with all things, there is disagreement about what direction "better" is, and for whom it is "better." Is clock speed the measure by which we should measure "progress" in computing? I suspect if you got a number of clever technologists in a room and had them discuss the question, they'd probably come to rather different conclusions. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * One reason is tools. Even if we had all the knowledge we currently have a thousand years ago, we wouldn't be able to make computers anytime soon starting with just hammers and axes.  Each generation of tools could be used to build slightly better tools, though, until eventually we would be able to make computers again.  There are rare exceptions, though, of technology which could be constructed in ancient times, if they had the knowledge.  An electric battery is one such device, which only requires an insulator, like a clay pot, metals plates, like copper and lead, and an acid, like vinegar. StuRat (talk) 20:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Competition. During the last ice age, the increasing human population created increasing competition for resources. A change then came about where brain started to win over brawn. This competition between brains drove technological advancement.--Aspro (talk) 22:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Profit nowadays?Heck froze over (talk) 19:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

wilson watson
he recently wrote a book does anyone know what the name of the book is and can it be added to the site? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.20.189 (talk) 17:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * What Wilson Watson do you mean? The only one I can find on Wikipedia is Wilson D. Watson, who died in 1994. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps a book was recently written about him ? StuRat (talk) 20:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * How to Write From the Afterlife: Tips on Ghostwriting. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Anyone can write a book these days, and they do, so that does not make them notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia.--Shantavira|feed me 21:24, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Downloading Earth google
Can you recommend the safest, certified and unadulterated Earth Google Download?62.24.111.246 (talk) 18:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The Google Earth article links to Google's download page. I wouldn't get it from anywhere else. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed, why on Earth would anyone even consider getting it from anywhere else? Astronaut (talk) 12:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Suzy Kendall
There is an interesting fact missing from the Suzy Kendall Biography page. Unfortunately I can not supply the fact, just point in the right direction. Your biography covers these facts. She was born in Belper. She married Dudley Moore. She was in the film, "30 is a dangerous age, Cynthia" The interesting fact combines these. During the film "30 is a dangerous age, Cynthia" Dudley Moore's character quotes a limerick (probably written by Peter Cook) to Suzy Kendall's character; which was obviously inspired by Miss Kendall's real background. It starts, "There was a young girl from Belper." I think it ends with the words, "Help Her." I think it would be interesting to include this limerick in the biogrpahy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.245.106 (talk) 21:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * This page is for asking questions. If you wish to propose an addition to an article, you can suggest it on that article's discussion page or add it yourself, as long as you have a reliable source for that information.--Shantavira|feed me 21:29, 4 December 2011 (UTC)