Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 March 3

= March 3 =

Address
What Is The Address Of Mont Tremblant.173.178.93.250 (talk) 01:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know that mountains have street addresses as such, but this[www.tremblantmountain.com] appears to be the official website. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank You So Much Kid. I Hope That Helps Me. It Is What This Page Is For Helping.173.178.93.250 (talk) 02:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, Pop. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Our article on the village gives the postal code, and I'm sure they will be able to deliver mail to the mountain!  D b f i r s   08:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

DBfirs. I Am Not  A |Company That  Deliver Mail To Mont Tremblant. I Am Curious Because For  Homework. There Is A Lot Of Homework THese Days. 173.178.93.250 (talk) 01:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see. Presumably the address you needed was that of the "village" and associated conurbation, so my link should have helped, along with the website linked by BB.    D b f i r s   21:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Question Answer Website
Does anybody know a question  answer website. If you do know one can you tell me. Thank you. It is because i have a lot of homework these days and i need answers to my questions.173.178.93.250 (talk) 02:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * See List of online reference desks.—Wavelength (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank You WaveLength. I Found That Page Helpful. I Will Use The Websites Later When I Need To. Thank You.173.178.93.250 (talk) 03:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You probably want to ask your teacher if you're having problems, that way you can get pointers to try and help you solve the problems yourself rather than copying answers given to you by someone else. Chevy  monte  carlo  19:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes I Know  You Can Do That. You Can Ask Your Teacher But Teacher Will Not Give Free  Answer  To A Student Like That. Not Saying You Have To Pay Money Just Using  It As A Expression.HeheheHeHeHeH .173.178.93.250 (talk) 00:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)__

Transporting Horses
How do you transport a horse round the world? For example, with the Olympic Games, transporting a horse from Australia to UK or vice versa must be a heck of a job. Is it done by boat? Plane? Are there special vehicles for the transport? I've always been slightly curious about the idea. Worm   TT   11:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Racehorse transportation available internationally--Aspro (talk) 12:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting article on this topic. Dalliance (talk) 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. So, it looks like they are flown (something that surprises me) - but it's a rather expensive process. Interesting articles there though. Any more for any more?  Worm    TT   13:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Transporting horses to Australia (and quarantining them) for the Olympics was such a job that it wasn't done. The 1956 Melbourne Olympics had equestrian events held in Stockholm! Rmhermen (talk) 17:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I wonder if they fly Business Class, or "Coach"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's how they took Australian horses to World War I, and here's some information about horse transport today. Also, we have a page called Horse transports in the Middle Ages. Alansplodge (talk) 18:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There was no such problem for the Sydney 2000 Games, though. But not because our quarantine laws have been relaxed in the meantime; if anything, they're even more stringent now.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  18:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I would imagine a lot of the cost and issue with transporting horses is reducing the stress of the animal, although I would imagine drugs or laxatives would help. Chevy  monte  carlo  19:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the guy who has to clean out the plane at the end would prefer you not give the horses laxatives. Googlemeister (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Here in Europe, the least stressful, cheapest and most convenient way to distribute horses must be to turn them into sausages  first (although the fate for a  German horse  is  often the  würst).--Aspro (talk) 19:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you mean, "würst"? It's spelled "wurst" (or actually "Wurst" if you keep with the German grammar rule of capitalising all nouns). J I P  &#124; Talk 18:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all for your help, turns out that horses transported by plane (an idea I thought was inconceivable) is actually not as uncommon as I thought. Worm   TT   08:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And so are elephants (photo. And cetaceans (photo). Here's a LLoyds article on insurance risk of transporting large animals, including race horses . BrainyBabe (talk) 11:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In a recent tragedy, a group of elephants were flying over the American southwest, and the pilot made the mistake of announcing that the Grand Canyon could be seen through the windows on the right side of the plane. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. :'( ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * All we actually see on those photos are boxes... J I P  &#124; Talk 19:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And no trunk. Probably in the cargo hold already. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

CSX claim
A while back I heard a commercial, I think for CSX. The claim was that they could move a ton of freight some incredible distance, over 400 miles, on one gallon of fuel. Is there any data to back up this claim? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * See Fuel efficiency in transportation. Rmhermen (talk) 19:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And think about this, if a long haul truck is loaded with 30 tons of cargo and gets 6 mpg, they can claim to move 1 ton of freight 180 miles on one gallon of fuel. Googlemeister (talk) 20:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And then trains have some advantages over trucks, in that they avoid stop-and-go traffic, and generally go over relatively level ground along relatively strait routes, and don't need enough acceleration to enter a busy highway. But, of course, they neglect to mention the fuel disadvantages, namely that trucks are still needed, at both ends, unless the source and destination happen to be right at a train depot.  Then there's also the fuel needed to move the cargo between trains and trucks.  If you just put the cargo on one truck and ship it all the way, you don't need to waste that fuel. StuRat (talk) 03:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * To be clear, though, the fuel disadvantages StuRat discusses are outweighed by the fuel advantage of hauling heavy freight by train. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That depends. If you need to haul a truckload of parts from one location to another, both distant from train depots, with a nice road between them, the truck may very well be more fuel efficient. StuRat (talk) 23:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And that depends on the distances involved. If I have to haul a big load of something from Montreal to Calgary, there is no way that truck delivery could ever be as efficient as rail delivery. The six kilometres between the shop and the depot isn't going to come close to compensating for the savings made over the 2,000 or so km rail trip. --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 00:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course. I meant if the locations are "both distant from train depots, relative to their distance from each other". StuRat (talk) 00:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

US constitutional law question
The article "Flag desecration" says"The United States Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and reaffirmed in U.S. v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), has ruled that due to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unconstitutional for a government (whether federal, state, or municipality) to prohibit the desecration of a flag[...]."Really? I mean, I haven't read those cases, but I thought that the First Amendment applies only to the federal government, and that it's the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause that bars states and municipalities from restricting free speech and the like.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 19:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, you're being a little hypertechnically correct, I think. A sort of phrase seen often in Supreme Court rulings is "...because of the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment."  Everyone knows that it's the First that is preventing flag desecration banning in the US, and if you talk about it actually being the Fourteenth, well, you're being as pedantic as all of us here on the Reference Desk.  Incorporation of the Bill of Rights is relevant but you seem to know about this already.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The theory, in general, would be that state governments cannot deny rights that the federal government grants. Flag-burning as a protest is considered protected speech at the federal level, and states cannot override that protected speech. The only solution for this [non-]problem is to pass a constitutional amendment authorizing the Congress to ban flag burning as a protest. The reason I state it that way is that burning the flag ceremonially is in fact the proper way to dispose of a flag, as per the flag code. Attempts at banning flag-burning pertain specifically to trying to stifle protests - and that's why the Supreme Court has struck down such attempts in the past. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The original poster obviously knows all that because of his discussion of the Fourteenth Amendment, and you have your first sentence backwards; the federal government does not "grant" rights in the US. Rights are held by the people, unless they decide via law or constitutional change to reserve those rights to a government at some level.  The federal and state governments do not "grant" rights to the people; the US is not a monarchy.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:13, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The US is not an anarchy, either. Until the Bill of Rights came along, there were no constitutional guarantees of the citizens' basic rights. I might have better said that the Bill of Rights "protects" the rights rather than "granting" them, in keeping with the spirit of the 14th amendment. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I could also argue that because the Constitution and all the laws are a result of the will of the people, the people in effect "grant themselves" the rights enumerated therein. If the people decide (goddess help us) that the flag is a holy relic to be protected from vandalism, then they (or we) will amend the constitution accordingly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:32, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

IP law question
I've noticed in the past few years that more and more companies seem to be using other companies to own their intellectual property. For example, Kraft food products now say on their labels "distributed by Kraft Foods North America" (or some such) but "copyright Kraft Holdings" (or some such). Toys R Us uses "Geoffrey Inc." or something as its copyright and trademark holder. Etc. Did something change (or become more prevalent) in the past few years to make this a more common practice, and what was it?&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 19:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The use of a well-known brand name is marketable in its own right, especially by corporations expanding into new territories, and the actual owners are careful not to allow their brand name to be infringed or genericised (this happened to "hoover"). As a result, the names of luxury car marques such as Lamborghini and Ferrari are seen on up-market goods that have no connection to car manufacturing. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Although that is all true, it's not relevant to the original poster's question about a phenomenon that I've noticed, also. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And, why would companies not want that their product name gets genericised? That seems as an advantage to me, since people will see your product as the most typical product in its class. 212.169.188.228 (talk) 15:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I also see this as an advantage, although every IP lawyer runs around frothing at the mouth at the idea that their clients' (and prospective clients') trademarks might be genericized. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:08, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It's only an advantage if you forget that genericization means that your competitors can use your trade name for their (possibly substandard, possibly even dangerous) products. --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 20:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't forget. I still think it's an advantage.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, a more basic question may be appropriate first: Why do they do it? Why have a separate company to own intellectual property?&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 23:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Googling for "intellectual property holding company" pulls up some informative looking documents including this law firm's article on the subject. According to that site: "Over the last decade or so, many businesses generating significant revenue from intellectual property such as patents, copyrights, trade names and marks, software and know-how (the IP Assets) have organized intellectual property holding companies (IPHCs) to reduce federal and state taxes while separating valuable IP Assets from other corporate liabilities. Recently, states have started to aggressively challenge this tactic. However, substantial state and federal tax savings can still be realized if IPHCs are organized and operated correctly." --- Medical geneticist (talk) 23:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's kind of what I suspected was going on. If I were a gigantic company, I'd want my various income sources spread out into different units, so that if one does better or worse any given year, I could consolidate the holdings for tax purposes in a more rational way than you can if they are all in one big entity. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hm, okay, thanks, I guess that makes sense. Perhaps also for liability (if the company loses a huge lawsuit, at least it doesn't lose its intellectual property, as it doesn't own it, or something like that)? That was my (lay) thought. In any event, my initial question — what changed recently — remains to be answered. Any takers?&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 07:13, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well the text from a ref MG showed right above does say "while separating valuable IP Assets from other corporate liabilities".... Nil Einne (talk) 10:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry for speculating, but all that changed might be "somebody finally thought up the idea". Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 20:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)