Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 December 15

= December 15 =

Children Building Forts
In my experience as a child, and interacting with other children now that I am older, the idea of using furniture, cushions and blankets to build a makeshift shelter, called a 'fort', seems universal. We don't seem to have an article mentioning the phenomenon. Is it indeed universal? Are such things called forts in other countries and regions? Is there historical mention of the activity, e.g., "As a child, the future Mad King Ludwig was fond of building forts"? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Cubby-hole isn't much in itself, but it might have some useful links. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  02:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I certainly did it largely out of furniture, but when I got older it included local construction debris nearby my house. Unfortunately I never had a treehouse. Shadowjams (talk) 02:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Is "cubby hole" what you call a "fort" when constructed by a child in Australia, Jack? The article certainly mentions the phenomenon, but doesn't mention the term "fort". In my part of the US, however, a cubby hole is a nook where one places one's jacket, back-pack, and perhaps shoes in the pre-school and kindergarten years, not something you construct or hide in. As for a tree house, we did build forts down the woods of various kinds with scrap lumber. But the idea of a tree house didn't really appeal to me or my friends after one of the Ward boys drove his Big Wheel out of theirs and broke half a dozen bones, missing an entire summer. μηδείς (talk) 02:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I have the same def of cubby-hole here in Detroit as Medeis. As for the tendency for kids to build forts, I'd list "building shelter" as traditionally among one of lifes most important skills, so it's no wonder children want to practice at it.  In the current world, our ability to build shelter is less important, but still might save your life if you find yourself lost in the woods some day. StuRat (talk) 02:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Danish children don't build forts but caves (da:hule). See for example http://mads.gemal.dk/blog/221/hulemand which shows an example and says "Alle børn elsker at bygge huler" (All children love to build caves). PrimeHunter (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * OH, what a darling link. If you want to see the spitting image of my sister and her sons (although the boys are a little more dolichocephalic given their Russian roots, and now have a sister) do check out this link to exactly what I am thinking about.  Perhaps this is all just a matter of the psychology of scale.  See the etymology of hobbit, also mentioned below.  Perhaps we are all hobbits. μηδείς (talk) 05:17, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that while the name may be different, the result is the same. StuRat (talk) 04:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Damn! I've long harboured the belief that Danish kids construct miniature Elsinores and stand on the battlements proclaiming, "At være, eller ikke være, det er spørgsmålet ....".  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  05:03, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Elsinore is actually the city (went to high school there and lives nearby). The castle is Kronborg but Shakespeare called it Elsinore. Hamlet handles his mess with a piped link. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, my own OR suspicion is that this is nesting behavior, which is pre-human, and oxytocin-mediated. The two things that most interest me are, is "fort" building as I would call it universal in form among humans, or do some use sheets while other use pillows (or whatever) and what terms are used where for the activity? Do the brits call them forts? Do Californians? Do Enzeders call them lean-tos and build them with bedsheets? Or how about the French? How about tribes inhabiting tropical areas? As for the Danes, I wonder if Tolkien knew about the habbit when he named the hobbit after the Old English Hol-bytla. μηδείς (talk) 05:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * cubby or cubby-house was used as well as fort in Australia, but the materials of choice were rocks, branches, grass and galvanized iron if available, and it would not be built inside a house but in nearby bushland. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:03, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Brit here: not forts although we do a good line in sandcastles. Cubbyholes, in the days when houses had cupboards under the stairs that's where we kept everything from coats to old toys. (We used to call it a glory hole but I understand that that's got an entirely different meaning these days!) Back to the original, I think I used to call it a "hidey-hole". --TammyMoet (talk) 09:47, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Another Brit here - for me growing up it was either a fort or a den, depending on what the game was that was being player. Fort if under attack from friend or sister, den if playing house or something similar... gaz hiley  09:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Much of my childhood free time was spent in Epping Forest building "dens" (as in lion's den). Sadly, children here rarely have the freedom for that these days. Alansplodge (talk) 12:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * WHAAOE: see Children's den. Alansplodge (talk) 12:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, we call them dens here in the north of England, too, though it's quite a while since I've built one.   D b f i r s   17:17, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The Sons of Daniel Boone actually formalized the concept: boys were organized into forts (analogous to a Scout troop) who would build forts in the woods. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:22, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I doff my coon-skin cap to them. StuRat (talk) 18:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I grew up (and still live) in Australia, and our backyard had a "cubby house" (a small, shop bought wooden house on stilts with a ladder to reach it, and approx 2 x 3 x 3m in size) and a "tree house" (a few pieces of wood for sitting in a medium size tree, I think there might have also been some rope involved). Inside the house my brother and I occasionally built forts/bases (we called them both to my memory) out of furniture, sheets, cushions, etc. I'm guessing that depending on the housing densities in wherever people grew up the names might have different meanings (as we've seen to be the case with different countries) HandsomeNick (TALK) (EDITS) 01:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * xkcd strip 219: Blanket Fort calls them blanket forts, which I think you haven't linked yet. &#x2013; b_jonas 14:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A pre-made house is a Wendy house. Boys are allowed in if they play nicely Itsmejudith (talk) 09:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That's fine. Wendy houses are for cissies. We never allowed girls in the treehouse, as they have damp hands and don't keep secrets.  Wickwack 121.215.132.106 (talk) 16:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If Wendy houses are for cissies, does that mean forts are for transies? μηδείς (talk) 17:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Just a thought, but if anybody is bored during the Christmas festivites, they could merge all these articles into a single coherent page. Alansplodge (talk) 23:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Do I really want all four tires to wear out simultaneously?
"Conventional wisdom", dating back to the era of cheap rubber and rear-wheel drive cars, calls for rotating tires/tyres regularly, like every 5K or 10K miles or so; this causes them to wear evenly, but all four need to be replaced at once. In a front-wheel-drive world, though, is this really necessary?

Here's a specific scenario: suppose one starts with the factory 50000-mile tires, and drive ~12-15K miles, at which time the fronts and backs are swapped. At 25-30K they're back to evenly worn, but driving continues in this configuration until the fronts are kaput; we note the rear tires thus still have useful tread on them (since they've been neither propelling nor steering the vehicle for 2/3 - 3/4 of their life).

At that point, ONLY the front tires are replaced; and from that time onward, when the back tires are shot TWO new tires are purchased, installed on the front, and the former fronts swapped to the back. The back tires don't wear out nearly as fast as the fronts for the reasons mentioned above, and one doesn't have to shake loose enough cash to buy four tires all at once ever again.

I've read Oversteer, which reinforces my belief that the best tires should go on the front of a FWD car, but that's another topic for another day, please.

What am I failing to consider here? Can someone besides a tire salesman tell me why I might want all four tires to wear out all at once?

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:12, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe the reason for rotating them is so that each tire wears more evenly. That is, the front tires might tend to wear more on one spot, and the rear tires in another.  By rotating them, you get more total wear out of each tire.  To use an analogy, think of socks.  They typically wear out at the toe and heel, on the bottom.  With tube socks, however, which can be put on at any rotation, unlike normal socks, you wear out a ring instead of a spot, so they last longer.  StuRat (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't speak to the tube socks analogy, but your statement about tires is correct. Before radials came along, there was a true "rotation" of the 4 tires based on the most vs. the least wear. By rotating them, in total they lasted a lot longer and would wear pretty much evenly - then you would buy 4 new tires. With radials, you "rotate" by swapping back with front. Regardless of the type of tire, once the treads are sufficiently worn, you buy 4 new tires. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Another consideration is that you might want to replace all the tires at once, so your car is off the road the minimum amount of time. If you replace them one at a time, that's 4 times as many trips to the tire shop. StuRat (talk) 16:07, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Replacing them in pairs is a reasonable compromise. I follow the practice outlined by DaHorsesMouth, except that I don't get anywhere near 50000 miles from a tyre of any quality, but roads round here are all corners!    D b f i r s   17:14, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Another problem with replacing them at different times is that either the front or rear will be lower than it was designed to be (whichever end has the most wear). This probably isn't enough of a difference to be noticeable, but it might be. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Possibly, but it's only a few millimetres, and loading makes a much bigger difference.   D b f i r s   07:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * All good answers, so I won't add to them except to highlight one consideration: since tyres wear unevenly left to right across the tread due to wheel alignment settings (camber and toe) and the law typically measures the minimum tread depth, it may be advisable (RefDesk please correct me) to rotate your tyres left to right as well. Most tyres are unidirectional so this would involve removing your tyres from the wheels and installing them on the side opposite, with wheel balancing to be redone. I haven't seen any references on this point though, so I wonder if I'm completely off point. Our tyre rotation article is basically unreferenced and in a bad state. Zunaid 14:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I was always taught to rotate both front-to-back and side-to-side in a cross pattern:

Rear                  Front Wheel                 Wheel Drive                 Drive █    █                █     █                (front) ^\  /^                |┌   ┐|         | \ / |                | \ / |         |  X  |                |  X  | | / \ |               | / \ |         |└   ┘|                v/   \v █    █                █     █                (rear)
 * → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 16:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * For bias-ply tires, that's what I learned also. But radials have their own rules. --jpgordon:==( o ) 21:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been told a few times in the past few years the recommended change (for FWD) is to move the part worn rear tyres to the front and fit new on the rear. The reasons seem to be explained on this page from a large tyre fitting company in the UK.  Another problem with the cross rotation shown above is that many modern tyres have a rotational direction.  To keep this correct the tyres themselves would have to be remounted on the wheels rather then simply moving the wheels around with the tyres still mounted.  Astronaut (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * With many modern tires, swapping them from the left to the right side of the car is impossible because it changes the rotation direction from clockwise to counterclockwise or vice-versa. Since modern tires often have tread patterns that are not symmetrical, this is a VERY bad thing!  Check that your tires don't have arrows marked on them showing which ones are intended to run on which side.  That said, you can still do front-to-back swaps...but the benefits are much reduced as a result.  I gave up doing tire rotation a long time ago...mainly because I don't like being hit with a bill for all four tires at once...I'd actually prefer them to wear at different rates.  The only concession I do make is that when I do buy new tires, I put them on the front wheels (of my front-wheel-drive car).  I get through two or even three sets of front tires before the back ones finally need to be replaced. SteveBaker (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you talk about switching not the tires, but whole wheels. You could, at least in theory, take the tires of the rims and just switch the tires without affecting the direction of rotation. However, in practice this would be fairly labour-intensive, and would probably also require re-balancing of the wheels. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Having driven for over 40 years, I've replaced a lot of tires. Years ago I didn't rotate them very often and either the front or rear would wear out first. I would buy two new ones to replace the worst two. But I've always been happier when I replace all four at the same time, which means that now I am diligent about rotating them so they wear more evenly. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)