Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 January 12

= January 12 =

St. Nazaire harbor
Does anyone happen to know whether the German Kriegsmarine stationed any E-boats (not "U-boats") at St. Nazaire during World War 2, and if so, what part of the harbor were they moored in? I know where the U-boat pens and the big docks (Normandie dry dock, Basin de St. Nazaire and Basin de Penhoet) were, so it would be helpful if this was defined in relation to those landmarks. Thanks in advance! 24.23.196.85 (talk) 02:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This artcle (in German) seems to have some details on the deployment of E-boats / Schnellboote. There is no mention of Saint Nazaire.  Cherbourg is given as a base for the 1st flotilla (4 E-boats) in 1940.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:47, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. In other words, I'll have to use my artistic license.  (Especially now that I've read that all of St. Nazaire was burned to the ground in 1943.)  :-(  24.23.196.85 (talk) 21:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems that German torpedo boats was based there at various times during the war - they were more like a small destroyer than a fast attcak craft. During Operation Chariot, the St Nazaire commando raid, HMS Campbeltown was disguised as a German torpedo boat. It was also a base for minesweepers. The problem with St Nazaire is that it's a long-ish way from the English Channel, which was where the action was for the E-boats. Alansplodge (talk) 01:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you, but I don't think a crew of twelve men and one woman can successfully operate something that big. I think I'll just go ahead and turn one of them mini-destroyers into an E-boat -- nothing wrong with dressing history up a little, right? 24.23.196.85 (talk) 04:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Go right ahead. History has never been "what actually happened", but "what someone says what happened".  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  05:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll try to keep it at least halfway-plausible, though -- no Quentin Tarantino-style BS for me! 24.23.196.85 (talk) 01:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Underwater tunnel in South Asia
Is there any underwater tunnel in South Asia? If yes, then how many? Which is the first one to be established? Where are those tunnels situated? Thanks -- Zayeem (talk) 05:01, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * India is currently constructing its first underwater tunnel: This source says that the tunnel in Kolkata under the River Hooghly for the Kolkata Metro will be "the first time that a transportation tunnel running 20 metre below a river will be built in India." -- Jayron  32  05:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, is it the first one to be built in South Asia? -- Zayeem (talk) 06:40, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Vietnam finished "conctruction" [sic] of its first in October 2012. China built a tunnel under the Huangpu River in Shanghai in June 2003. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Forgive me, but isn't "South Asia" just a recent renaming of the concept "Indian Sub-Continent" according to the same politically correct rules that require us to say African-American even when we're talking about some of the oldest families in the United State of America? Is there some source that refers to "Indian sub-continentals" as "South Asians" as opposed to south Asians prior to the 1960's? μηδείς (talk) 23:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't get me started. It's probably best to simply note that our own article on South Asia says "Different sources vary in their statements of which nations are part of the region". HiLo48 (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think, unfortunately, wikipedia tends to confirm that in the battle between the nominalists and the realists, the nominalists were correcter than even they imagined. μηδείς (talk) 02:50, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

C A Latimer Author
Does anyone know if he is still alive and if so how to contact him please?85.211.131.113 (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Courtenay Allen Latimer: An obituary in a couple of East Anglian papers gives his date of death as the 12.09.2011 and his age as 82.  This fits with the year of birth of C. A. Latimer in 1929.  There is also an obituary in the Times which may clarify if this is the author C. A. Latimer or a different person of the same name.  The Times requires the payment of a "small fee".  You may verify the matter at a library.  The Times obituary was published on 14.09.2011.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for this, I found his publisher and they confirmed the above today.85.211.131.113 (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

peugeot advertising slogans\taglines timeline
I would like to know the timelines of certain taglines. The taglines are: "peugeot.live the pleasure" and "engineered to be enjoyed" Both of these taglines belong to peugeot. The reason i need the answer is that i have a marketing project and this is related to the project. All i want to know is when these taglines were introduced and till when they were used by peugeot. I have searched the net but i cannot find anything that answers my question. Please help. THANK YOU 92.97.145.199 (talk) 12:05, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

WW I identity of woman living at Aveluy France battlefield
I am looking for the identity of the woman pictured on page 61 of Look magazine dated August 11, 1964, whom, it is said, lived  in the house pictured on page 60 of the magazine throughout the three battles at  Aisne. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.180.49 (talk) 14:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think we're going to need some more information. Finding information about a picture in a 50 year-old magazine is very tough. Can you tell us the context of the picture?  Was it attached to an article?  Worse still, there are four magazines called "Look" (See Look_(disambiguation)) - one of which ceased publication in 1971 - so we wouldn't even be able to find back-editions online.  In which country was the magazine published?  I suspect you're talking about the US magazine - which was heavy on photography and thin on text - and that's the one that went out of business.  SteveBaker (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * We do have an article on each of the three battles, but none mention specific residents of the area. Without a more precise location and perhaps a look at the photos, this might be an impossible question for us to answer.  However, the area today has many small museums and a visit to some of them with your photos, a chat with local historians and a look at local newspaper archives, might resolve your question.  It won't be easy and could take a lot of lengthy research.  Astronaut (talk) 13:19, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Same image?
Is this image the same as this one? If it's a bad digitalization, I'll upload the latter over the former. Brandmeistertalk  19:17, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * They certainly look like the same image of the same person - even his eyes are pointing in the same direction. The en.wikipedia hosted image seems to be sourced from de.wikipedia, with some message about permission from "Kirill Igor Lysenko and a Kurd from the St. Petersburg Club for Mariners and Submariner"!  The ru.wikipedia hosted image come from a different source and also claims it is of Преминин, Сергей Анатольевич - the same person.  However, do take note of the russian copyright notice and the fair-use rationales.  In other words, you will have to look into what Commons says about fair use of russian images.  Astronaut (talk) 19:57, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * On WP:AGF basis I assume that the free license is correct. If the former image is actually a copyvio, I'll upload the one under fair use. Brandmeistertalk  20:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC) Nevermind, will leave it as it is. Brandmeistertalk   20:28, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Electrocution
I read that Edison used electrocution of animals as a way to make AC electricity look dangerous in the public eye, to give his competing DC electric distribution system an advantage in the war of the currents. Does that mean DC electricity doesn't electrocute people? 117.226.157.167 (talk) 21:00, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't -- ANY high-voltage current, whether AC or DC, can be lethal. AC might be more painful, but that doesn't mean that it's more dangerous!  24.23.196.85 (talk) 21:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * War of Currents gives the historical background to this. Rmhermen (talk) 21:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that AC is more dangerous, because it is considerably easier to disrupt the heart rhythm with AC than with DC. They don't differ significantly in terms of the tissue damage caused by current flow, though. Looie496 (talk) 18:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * There is some info Electric shock and some although I didn't check the sources of either but they do suggest lower average thresholds for 60 hz AC. I have head that AC can be more likely to propel you away from the source (and  mentions something similar) but neither article mentions this, our article only mentions that 120V may often be too low for this to happen, while exceeding the let go threshold. (It may be the claim AC is more likely to propel you away is misinformation arising from the generally lower thresholds and perhaps misunderstanding of the effect of AC on muscular contraction.) My impression is this is something still sometimes debated with different opinions either way but doesn't get much interest because the general focus is to treat both as an electrocution risk at anything above ultra low voltage. Nil Einne (talk) 04:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Gmail File Attachment
Gmail doesn't let you attach executable files. But there's a very easy way around this, by simply changing the extension from .exe to .jpg or suchlike, and then reverting it back once the recipient downloads the file at their end. Has Google not noticed this, or do they just not care about extensions being changed? As far as I've seen, changing extensions in no way damages the original file. Just makes it unreadable until it's reverted to the original extension. 117.226.157.167 (talk) 21:06, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I would guess that they reasonably assume that it is not possible to accidentally run a .jpg image as an executable file, because anyone with sufficient knowledge to change the extension would be expected to know the dangers in doing so.   D b f i r s   21:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * There is always a way to make any kind of file be acceptable to gmail - you can (for example) use base64 encoding and send it as an ASCII text file. So you're right in saying that Google can't stop you from doing this kind of thing.  But that's OK - they don't want to stop you from doing it.  The point is to try to avoid people clicking on, and executing some kind of malware program thinking they are going to be opening a PDF or viewing a picture.  Windows won't execute an executable file unless it has an appropriate extension...so changing the extension is enough to protect people who either don't know what they are doing - or who just fail to notice that there is a problem.  I don't think Google mind you exchanging executables with other people via Gmail.  You could probably just Zip them up instead and achieve the same effect. SteveBaker (talk) 23:28, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Some OR here as I was recently bitten by this while attempting to send a zipped archive of files and gmail rejected the zip attachment, so it clearly unpacks it to check. Very frustrating as no indication is given of where in the archive the exe files are located. I got around it by using bcrypt to encrypt the zip archive (supplying the password as plaintext in the body of the email so the recipient could decrypt it). Kram (talk) 11:31, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, you can leave the *.exe extension, and just tack *.txt or whatever after that. I wish they would just pop-up a warning when I email an executable, and let the person on the other end decide if they want to block it or not, but, until they do, this is a reasonable workaround. StuRat (talk) 01:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)