Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 December 8

= December 8 =

Congolese woman
Can anyone identify this woman, either individually, or in a more detailed manner than in the file history or at Flickr? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 04:46, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * says Bangobango people group of Democratic Republic of Congo. Sleigh (talk) 14:21, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I had seen that page when I did a reverse image search at google yesterday. But I believe they got the image from wikipedia--in any case, it is uncredited there, and described as a "representative image".  Discussion of the image at Bantu peoples implies it was originally taken from flicker, where al it was described as was "Congolese woman". That's not to say it's not a Bangobango woman, but I was hoping maybe we could get something along the lines of "a woman wearing traditional Bangobango dress" or te like. μηδείς (talk) 18:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Alan Winnington/Winnington Baronets
Is Alan Winnington (de,, ) related with the Winnington Baronets? --Dandelo (talk) 10:38, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, not directly. Sir Thomas Winnington, 4th Baronet (1811-1872) only had two sons; one died unmarried at the age of 21. The other son, Sir Francis Salwey Winnington, 5th Bt. (1849-1941), had three sons, none of whom apparently had a son called Alan. I have discounted female children as they wouldn't have passed the Winnington name on to their children. You can follow the family tree backwards from the first page that I linked if you have the time, but lunch is ready now! Alansplodge (talk) 13:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, the 3rd and 2nd Baronets only produce one alternate line ending in John Francis Sartorius Winnington (1876-1918) who had two daughters before he was killed at the end of WWI. He would (I think) be a third cousin of the 5th Baronet; so if Alan Winnington was actually related, it would be only very remotely. Alansplodge (talk) 11:30, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Dip pen stuck in potato
In an old Laurel and Hardy short, the desk clerk at a low rent hotel placed the registry dip pen into a potato, when not in use. Was this really done back then, and for what reason ? Perhaps it kept the ink from drying into clumps on the nib ? StuRat (talk) 13:15, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I found The Cambridge Companion to Elgar, edited by Daniel M. Grimley and Julian Rushton (p. 36) which says "He (Edward Elgar) avoided writer's cramp by using a dip pen rather than a fountain pen, which required him to lean forward to the inkwell and clean his pen by plunging it into a potato.". I also found a novel called The Accidental Time Machine, by Joe W. Haldeman (p. 131) in which one of the characters asks (in reference to dip pens) "'Why a potato?' 'It keeps the points from getting rusty. You stick them into a potato when you're done for the day.'" This latter explanation seems less likely to me. We used dip pens and ink wells at our primary school in London in the 1960s (not many people believe me but I assure you that it's true). The steel nibs that we were provided with were plated (maybe with chromium?), and I never recall seeing one go rusty despite the way that we abused them (we used to play darts with them by throwing them into the wooden floors - the points would need a bit of straightening afterwards). We were given pink blotting paper to clean them with, as the deposits of dried ink made them drop big blots in your exercise book - a caning offence in my father's day (1920s) but would still draw adverse comments in the more enlightened 1960s. The trouble with blotting paper was that it left fibres on the nib and you had to be careful where you put the inky paper afterwards in case you got ink on everything. So using a potato to clean the nib sounds plausible, but I'd never heard of it until just now. Alansplodge (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * my guess is that it was just a gag. you poke a potato a couple of times and leave it out on a desk and it is not going to last long. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  19:44, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Elgar is not well known for slapstick; calling his bicycle "Mr Phoebus" after a character invented by Benjamin Disraeli was his kind of joke (no, I don't get it either). Alansplodge (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Elgar may not be joking, but the bit in the Laurel and Hardy clip probably is. things that are standardly performed or perceived as a joke can be found to be actually done by at least a few individuals as their normal form of business.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well maybe, but going in search of backup, I found this interview with a lady who runs her own calligraphy business in California... Q. "What tool do you use in your business that you can’t live without?" A. "Don’t laugh. A raw potato. Its my secret weapon. A former calligraphy teacher showed me this trick to clean the ink off the pen nib, and I swear it really works!" Alansplodge (talk) 20:14, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so far. It sounds like it was indeed used, and the blotting of excess ink seems like a good explanation. I agree that the avoidance of rust doesn't sound plausible, as a potato is wet inside, and the other chemicals found there would, if anything, promote rust, not inhibit it.

As far as a potato not lasting long, I suspect they would last a lot longer than you might think, perhaps months. I've forgotten about potatoes in a cabinet before, only to open the cabinet weeks later and find they had all sprouted. And, of course, potatoes are dirt cheap, so you can easily replace one that dries out, sprouts, or rots. I also suspect any slits in the potato would quickly "heal". Potatoes and onions are amazing things, I like to call them undead, based on their ability to recover from just about anything short of boiling them. StuRat (talk) 11:31, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Slits in potatoes don't heal, they scar, at best. μηδείς (talk) 21:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * That's why I put it in quotation marks. They seal the potato, so it stops losing moisture and admitting bacteria. StuRat (talk) 10:41, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Clearing the sandpit in Long Jump
Are there any rules or regulations that cover the (admittedly unlikely) event that an athlete competing in the Long Jump actually clears the sand pit? Would the jump be a foul or would they be awarded a maxmimum jump distance? Likewise, in throwing events, is there anything covering someone throwing their object beyond the final line of the measuring sector. Nanonic (talk) 15:36, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Speaking from distant memories of school-level competitions (I once briefly held an under-16 County (Kent, UK) record in the 8lb Shot put), in throwing events the distance lines are only there for the informal guidance of spectators and competitors – the actual distance measurement should always be done with a steel or fibreglass measuring tape from the landing point to the edge of the throwing circle. The only problem would, I'd think, be determining whether the object landed within the permissible angle of the Sector if it did so beyond the end of the marked Sector lines and line-end flags.
 * In the (presumably representative) USATF 2006 Rules, the relevant Article III Section 1 Rule 187 goes into some detail about marking out the Sectors for the various throwing events, but I can see no suggestions of any maximum distance restrictions.
 * Regarding the Long jump (or Triple Jump), the eventuality seems so unlikely that there may be no relevant rules in existence. Note that in the above-linked Rules, Article III Section 1 Rule 185 Long Jump Item 6 states:
 * "It is recommended that the distance between the take-off board and the end of the landing area shall be at least 10 metres."
 * Since 10m is more than 10% greater than the current Long jump World Record, it's being exceeded in our era seems nigh-on impossible: should future athletes begin to approach 10m, doubtless the recommendations would be modified, since no-one would want to see an athlete injure him/herself by landing on the edge of the pit (or beyond). As for the Triple jump, the event's nature guarantees the final jump phase being shorter than in the Long jump, so the potential problem is taken care of by the former's set-up. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195 90.201.159.157 (talk) 16:49, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * IAAF Competition Rules 2014-2015 (4 MB PDF) pages 199-200 says:

RULE 185 Long Jump Competition 1. An athlete fails if: ... (d) after taking off, but before his first contact with the landing area, he touches the runway or the ground outside the runway or outside the landing area; ... 3. An athlete shall not be regarded to have failed if: ... (d) if in the course of landing, he touches, with any part of his body, or anything attached to it at that moment, the border of, or the ground outside the landing area, unless such contact contravenes Rule 185.1(d) ... Take-off Line 4. The distance between the take-off line and the far end of the landing area shall be at least 10m.


 * The World Record is 8.95m. They probably didn't have beyond the landing area in mind with "outside the landing area", but a literal interpretation says it would be a fail. If a jumper is about to go a little long then I suppose he could deliberately put down a leg to touch something inside the landing area first, but the whole thing is rather theoretical if the 10m minimum is satisfied. In practice I suspect the officials would either try to conservatively measure the actual jump length, or give the distance to the far end of the landing area. If they declared a fail then the jumper would probably protest to the Referee. Page 147 says:

To arrive at a fair decision, the Referee should consider any available evidence which he thinks necessary, including a film or picture produced by an official video recorder, or any other available video evidence. The Referee may decide on the protest or may refer the matter to the Jury. If the Referee makes a decision, there shall be a right of appeal to the Jury.
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 16:53, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The 1980s javelin redesign was in (small) part because the world record was growing too close to the far end of the stadium. Footage of Uwe Hohn's remarkable throw is available at video sites of varying copyright compliance. jnestorius(talk) 00:19, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

How do they turn off/on the fuel pumps when a gas station closes/opens?
Not the emergency shut off. I'm looking for the method in which the older gas stations (before they were all 24 hours and took credit cards) would shut down the pumps at night, and then turn them back on in the morning. Is their a switch inside the station? A breaker box? A key that must be turned at the pump? Anyone ever worked at a gas station and know how they turned off/on the pumps? Just to be clear, this is for a story I'm writing, not looking to steal gas :) Thanks!  Ditch &#8733;  18:14, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I've seen the forecourt lights and the pumps being turned-off at the same time, without anyone walking out of the kiosk. I would be surprised if there isn't a switch inside that turns off the power supply, but I don't know for certain. Alansplodge (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I used to work at a country general store that had a couple pumps out front. They had just a simple switch behind the counter.  It was the same as what you would use to turn off a light in your house.  If you need a bit of realism for your story, it also had an ancient piece of masking tape above the switch that read simply "Pumps".  Dismas |(talk) 19:16, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * For fiction purposes, persuade your local gas station to remove the lower nacelle or cover of the pump. I haven't looked in side for many a year but the electric motor (the circuit breaker of which is back at the cash desk, so that it can be turned off in emergencies)  usually turns a wheel - via a  V belt. On that wheel (which drives the pump) is a square nut. A crank handle can be placed over it, to hand-crank the pump. This is for the reasons of: a prolonged power cut or  WW3 breaking out and the survivors needing to... well as a author you know that scenario already. Also, the circuit breakers or on/off switches  in old stations the would have be on the distribution board (for cost reasons) but modern stations may also have infra-red flame detectors for auto-shut off.--Aspro (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Now that you have me thinking about it, how far are we going back? I have never seen any key on the pump itself. The nearest, is that some nozzles and holsters had holes at the base so that a padlock shackle could looped through. We have had credit cards for some forty years - is this an ancient historical novel, where one had one had to  change gear with a floor shift and control the a/c by winding the side windows up an' down and rely on the local blacksmith to change the tires? --Aspro (talk) 20:55, 9 December 2013 (UTC)