Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 March 10

= March 10 =

Are there any OTC antihistimines that don't cause drowsiness?
Maybe some that are specially formulated or a different compound than the typical?--108.54.19.166 (talk) 04:42, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * My local supermarket sells one such, in huge quantities. Or so its packaging claims. If yours doesn't, maybe you're living in the wrong country?


 * Incidentally, this is not medical advice, just a statement of fact. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I think what some do is to add a stimulant (like caffeine) to counter the effect, so not sure if that really counts. StuRat (talk) 04:59, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The list of ingredients on these does not mention any stimulants. I would paste the list of ingredients in full, but I wouldn't want to encourage self-dosing by those in countries where the tablets in question are made officially unavailable for whatever reason. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * All I know is every time I take an antihistimine, I start yawning like crazy, and If I'm at home I always end up taking a nap.--108.54.19.166 (talk) 05:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the packet in front of me says "non-drowsy allergy relief, 30 tablets", it cost me less than US$3 over the counter in my local supermarket, and can be taken to relieve the symptoms of a wide variety of allergies (it says). I normally take one in the morning after arriving at work, if I think I need it. It doesn't cause drowsiness for me. I'm in the United Kingdom, though, and until about two years ago I had to get similar on prescription instead. Maybe the USA is just a few years behind. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Generic OTC allergy medicine marketed in the UK as "non-drowsy" is usually Loratadine, Cetirizine, or Fexofenadine. Really all of them have some association with drowsiness, so if the OP experiences drowsiness with these, he definitely needs to talk to a doctor. All three are available in the US. 91.125.155.37 (talk) 14:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * From personal experience, I know it is possible to develop an apparent tolerance for the drowsiness effects of some anti-histamines. As a child, I took a prescription strength antihistamine for many years.  Drowsiness was one of the side effects, but I can't recall noticing much.  Some time later I learned that the ingredient in the antihistamine was the same ingredient in a brand of sleeping pills (different doses, I presume).  I discovered this after taking some of those sleeping pills in an attempt to deal with sleep problems I was having, but I found the sleeping pills had almost no effect, and didn't appreciably help me get to sleep.  The doctor later agreed that it was probably because my body had developed a high tolerance for that active ingredient after years of exposure in childhood.  Dragons flight (talk) 16:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Leicestershire village names
How did Stretton en le Field get its name? Why not Stretton in the Field? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.133.215 (talk) 10:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Likely related to the Norman conquest of England/Anglo-Norman language.--Michig (talk) 11:53, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * There are several books on the subject of Leicestershire place names and their origins. If the OP is in Leicestershire then maybe he/she could approach their nearest library to see if they have copies. Meanwhile I'll see if I can find an online reference. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC) It used to be part of Ashby de la Zouch council district, a town again containing a French/Norman element in its name . I wonder if that has any significance? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ashby de la Zouche is a different case: it's one of the many names where a geographical element (Ashby = ash-tree farm) is distinguished by adding the family name of the lords of the manor (de la Zouche). Ref: . --ColinFine (talk) 10:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Enter your email address twice
Maybe this is a computing question, but maybe it is more to do with culture in general. Many websites where you can sign up for something, shopping, newsletters or whatever, ask that you enter your email address twice. Except when changing your password, this is the only thing that is asked for twice. Why is this? and do they really expect people to not use cut & paste? Astronaut (talk) 14:29, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This xkcd discussion has a few answers.Sjö (talk) 14:38, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Remarkable how that discussion also gives an answer to the question asked earlier (OTC antihistimines), see softbuddy's response: It could be worse. I went to the pharmacist to get Zyrtec and they wanted to see some ID. When I asked why they sprayed it was to make sure that I wasn't cooking crystal meth with it.  . And btw: you cannot make meth from Zyrtec... 84.197.178.75 (talk) 13:10, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Generally, whether email or password, websites will only ask you to enter information twice when you provide it for the first time. This is probably most important with passwords, as the information is obscured, so you cannot check for typos visually. This is done to help the user - if they make a typo with either it will make their account inaccessible, either because their password is not what they think it is, or because the verification email was sent to the wrong address. Sure, they can copy-paste, and I'm sure many do, but if so they only have themselves to blame if they make a typo.  AJ Cham  14:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Sometimes websites will disable copying and pasting. 99.43.78.36 (talk) 18:07, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * If you don't have a super long email address and type at a resonable speed, the amount of time you save by copying and pasting is so small it's not really worth bothering copys and pasting most of the time. Of course if you use the same email address enough, it may be already in autocompletion. Nil Einne (talk) 16:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Speaking of auto-complete, I generally only have to hit 's', down arrow, enter, tab, 's', down arrow, enter. The whole process is shorter than me having to type out my email address once.  Dismas |(talk) 18:42, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

raising bollard
Hi, if somone stands on a raising bollard in the road, the ones that block traffic except for delivery trucks, would it lift them off the ground? Just need to know this thx :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.80.209 (talk) 15:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The owners would be subject to a huge liability risk it it did and someone or their vehicle got damaged. Its your own fault if you dive into one but otherwise the owner is liable for your hurt or damage as per existing laws for any other type of street furniture.--Aspro (talk) 15:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The ever wonderful Yuotube shows even this one has a cut-out and return-to-rest . He uses the metal sign to reset the road sensor in order to recycle it.--Aspro (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ho Ho. Stay out of Truro, where the safety feature failed. . Kinda answers your question fully huh?!!!--Aspro (talk) 16:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I only have anecdotal evidence, but a friend of a friend had one of those bollards come up while his car was over the top of it and partially lifted his car off the ground with enough force that his head hid the windscreen, cracking it. I don't know what other damage there was to the car - the car park attendant told him he would be charged for any damage caused to the bollard! --Tango (talk) 16:33, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Cracked his head or the windscreen ? StuRat (talk) 21:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't believe that story. It breaches Newton's First Law of Motion. HiLo48 (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Car park attendants aren’t a good substitute for a solicitor (lawyer). --Aspro (talk) 16:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * That's right, smearing jam on a car park attendant and leaving them tied to an ant-hill isn't nearly as satisfying. :-) StuRat (talk) 21:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I was on a bus once looking out the window and saw a motorbike approaching the raising bollard (it was down from the bus just going through) and I thought "well obviously they don't stop bikes" and as soon as i'd thought this the bike goes straight over the 'sunken' bollard and it came up with his back wheel still on it. The guy on the bike kept control and carried on going but basically got his back wheel lifted up maybe a foot in the air. I did chuckle. ny156uk (talk) 21:50, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I would expect most injuries would be tripping over the edge of the thing when it's just above the surface. They should have blinding lights and noise to notify you well before they start to raise up. StuRat (talk) 21:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: I've corrected the section title, lest someone think the topic was a proposal to bring J. G. Ballard back from the dead ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:56, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Not a reference then to Robert Ballard who discovered the Titanic. As for raising it. Lew Grade said of his truly awful film ...it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic. Just thought that you would like to know that :-)--Aspro (talk) 15:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The one that used to be outside The Frog & Rosbif in Paris could easily lift a guy. With two guys, it struggled and gave up.  Astronaut (talk) 10:12, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That sounds like pure original research, of the very best kind ;-) HiLo48 (talk) 10:32, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sunday drinking outside a pub, with that bollard going up and down every few minutes. It's just too much temptation after a few beers :-)  Astronaut (talk) 10:53, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Not so much rising, as falling, bollards Bollards in a bus park in Ripon.JPG --ColinFine (talk) 11:37, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I used to work at a vehicle auction house where the front gate was protected by a rising bollard. I can verify that when the security guard minding the gate stops concentrating and raises the bollard too soon, the vehicle passing through the gate can be stopped pretty suddenly. Something with the weight of an old Mini could be lifted completely off the ground, whilst even a 7.5 tonne truck will be made to bounce a bit. A pedestrian can also be lifted off the ground, although there is normally a safety cut-off that ensures that, if something is on top of the bollard the extra weight causes it to stop rising after a certain point. In the UK rising bollards are often used to protect areas that are off limits to certain types of vehicles (e.g. buses and taxis only). Numpty car drivers wishing to take a shortcut will sometimes try to follow another vehicle through, attempting to fool the system into only registering the first vehicle. This has predictable consequences:    - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Converting Spreadsheets Into Tables
Is there any way to convert a Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheets into Wikipedia tables? Allen (talk) 18:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Try de:Wikipedia:Helferlein/VBA-Macro for EXCEL tableconversion. There are also other tools for table conversion listed at WP:EIW.- gadfium 20:13, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * And still more such tools at Tools- gadfium 20:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You could try excel2wiki.net.--Michig (talk) 20:20, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have an OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet, and I want to convert it into a table that I can put on Wikipedia. However, I want to preserve as much of the formatting (font family, font size, text color, etc.) as possible.  If not, I would like to know the wiki code for the formatting.  If you know how to do what I would like, I would appreciate it.  Allen (talk) 20:52, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't know about available tools for the job. The technique I have used is to use spreadsheet formulas to create the necessary wikimarkup text elements from the data in the spreadsheet.  For example: if column B contains size in mm, you can set up column H to be '=CONCATENATE("{ { convert|", B, "|mm|in}}")' - so if B5 contains "10.7" then H5 will contain "{ { convert|10.7|mm|in}}".  You can then dump column H into a text or CSV file before cutting and pasting it into the wikipedia article (it is a trivial matter to replace the tab or comma separators with the "|" character).  One other thing, unless it is absolutely critical to do so, I wouldn't try to preserve the formatting.  Astronaut (talk) 10:50, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You are also going to need "|-" in between lines. I usually put in the leftmost cell of each line then, after replacing the tab separators, I search for |- and replace with \n|-. Also if you have anything that uses unusual characters make sure that whatever you copy the spreadsheet to will handle it. There's nothing worse than finding all your Inuktitut syllabics have turned into question marks. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 03:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

adds show up in wikipedia pages
Hi,

Note sure if it is a problem with my browser. In between the every title of wiki topic subject and the article. There is ads appear (always). Seem some unscruppolous ads software manage to intercept all my wiki broswing and insert the ads. it does say "ads not by this site"

just want to let you know only.

best regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.2.128 (talk) 21:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * We've gotten a slew of such question recently, such as this one: Reference_desk/Computing, making me think it's becoming a real problem. Try the advice here: Reference_desk/Computing. StuRat (talk) 23:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I haven't seen any ads on Wikipedia, either at home (on Fedora 14 Linux) or at work (on Windows 7). I use Mozilla Firefox at both places, have people also encountered ads using that browser? My best guess is that it's because of malware. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC)