Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 November 23

= November 23 =

Yellowstone Lake Location
Where is this on the shores of Yellowstone Lake (as in GPS coordinates)? I know that it's between West Thumb (44.432, -110.584) and Bridge Bay. It's likely on a pullout with the road very near the lakeshore.

http://videobam.com/LGkUM — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doctorcherokee (talk • contribs) 07:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)


 * That page gives me a virus alert and attempts to install software on my PC.--Shantavira|feed me 09:44, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Recipe for sliced hot dogs cooked in ketchup sauce?
When I was young, my father used to prepare hot dogs by slicing them and then stircooking them in ketchup until the ketchup stuck to the slices. Now a cooking-deficient college student, I'm stuck in my dorm room with basically no food besides these two ingredients, and hoped to prepare this. But the internet doesn't seem to know what I'm talking about, I can't find recipes anywhere. Anyone know what I'm talking about, and do you have tips/instructions for preparing it? It sounds really easy to prepare, but I've had bad luck cooking in the past...--Ye Olde Luke (talk) 12:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This sounds vagely familiar. Have you checked the ref desk archives? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:37, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I tried several combinations of keywords, but couldn't find anything except conversations about whether it was a culinary sin to put ketchup on hot dogs. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 13:59, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, that must be the one I was thinking of. A joke. However, part of that discussion I think had the advice to "experiment". Try something and see how it works. It might turn out the way Pop used to make them or it might not. But either way, it should be good. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a recipe from Kraft for fried hot dogs with ketchup. It also requires butter, so it may not be exactly what you need. Tevildo (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh Gosh, how times have changed! I thought student days was the time to meet the opposite sex (they number about 50% of the population). Give them a box of Cap'n Crunch and anything in the back of the fridge left by the previous occupants and they can conjured  up something that would pass Le Cordon Bleu. We didn't have pizza deliveries to the campus in those days.--Aspro (talk) 16:42, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * To quote Captain Kirk, "Survival is the first order of business." Once the OP is nourished, then the OP can worry about finding a date. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * ? Have-you-ever had a drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend Baseball Bugs ? The date comes first – food... is very low down on priorities, in fact, the only time you might eat in that fortnight of overwhelming and  suffocating dire, is after you serenade her enough to take her to a posh restaurant.  NO, Mc Donald’s will not do!!! Even if you're head over the hills in love  (or even lust)– it has to be a proper restaurant with candle light. This is not just just a girlies thing it. It is hard wired into our genetics. Come across an old flame  many  decades later, and that   magic bond still remains.  You have it completely ass about face.--Aspro (talk) 23:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Rrrrghl...ass about face. The way to a man's stomach... μηδείς (talk) 23:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm more into "inner beauty". :) Also, it actually works both ways. The way to a woman's heart is to cook for her. Assuming one is competent at it. And even if it's just beanie-weenies or something like that, the fact of being willing to do it will impress greatly. :) Also, I didn't see anything in the OP's question about cooking for a date. That was kind of inferred by some of the responders. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * “The way to a woman's heart is to cook for her.” Rule number one, two and three. Don't take the wind out of her sails by showing you can cook better than she! Period. Second: Let us go back to the hunter-gather thing.. as it is hardwired into to all of us (well some of us). In these  modern times, it may be impractical to  stalk, spear and load on to the back of the pick-up, a nice, large, juicy, wooly mammoth (it would ruin the rear suspension for one thing). The modern dearly beloved would not know how to skin it and turn the hide  into a ball-gown or how to whittle the tusks into a beaded necklace.  Fear not though. Civilisation has come up with a substitution for your monthly deliveries of 5 ton wooly  mammoths (or even bunny wabbits). It is called the credit card. Give her that (or those)  and admired her skill at consuming all 5 tons (or 5 thousand dollar equivalents). I hate (really hate!) shopping and spending money.  Yet, if you have the modern equivalent to one of these  creatures,  it saves you from all that hassle. Open a draw and all your cloths are neatly folded and clean, regardless of the state they were in when you took them of. I don't think there are any mammoths left in North America now but maybe you can test this out with truck loads of bunny wabbits.--Aspro (talk) 21:34, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The theory is that women are culturally "expected" to do the cooking, so when the man makes the effort, it's much appreciated. Nothing works all the time, though. If you're dating Rachel Ray or some equivalent, cooking for her might be a bit pretentious... unless you're really good at it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:33, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This 'cultural' thing is rubbish. The famous Chefs tend to be men – because that is a commercial thing. But women are instinctively (regardless of what school or upbringing they received)   driven to to see to it that the family is fed. All we have to do, is drag home the wooly mammoth in order that they can get cooking. Oh gosh, this is making me feel hungry.  It is hard wired into me to 'enjoy' the hunt, to take on beasts, far larger and more powerful than myself, so as to bring home  the bacon. Yes,  she (the-other-half) could do the same thing... but it would be out of necessity rather that the hungry hunt for opportunity. As for Rachel Ray, I have some ideas that revolve around using French truffles. Do you have her home telephone number?--Aspro (talk) 04:31, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Hotdogs are normally already fully pre-cooked. You are just heating them and browning to taste by cooking them.  I'd cut, cook and brown the hotdogs first--no butter being necessary due to the internal fat that will seep out on heating--then add the ketchup near the end.  Otherwise they won't brown.  (Of course boiled dogs aren't browned, so you may just not care, in which case add the ketchup earlir.)  After they are browned, add the ketchup (better to little than too much) and stir.  This will help drive off the excess water more quickly, creating a paste.


 * I agree that driving off the excess water is key. I'm surprised, though, that a dorm would have anything to cook with beyond a microwave oven (fire codes and all).  You might also want to start with sauces that are thicker to begin with, such as (some) bbq sauces.  I would personally broil it in a casserole dish, and give it a nice French name when I presented it ("La Viande bon Marché" sounds elegant). :-) StuRat (talk) 01:31, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW, if you want another cheap hot dog recipe, cut up those hot dogs and add them to macaroni and cheese. And, if you like tomato, you can substitute tomato juice for the milk and butter (still add the cheese powder, though).  This also makes the meal a bit healthier (to make it even healthier, substitute broccoli for the hot dogs). StuRat (talk) 01:32, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * That's a coincidence, my two favorite ways to eat Kraft macaroni and cheese are with sliced hotdogs or with broccoli mixed in. (I also add sauteed onions to either dish.) μηδείς (talk) 03:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Now try adding tomato juice, and see if that doesn't give it a little extra zing. StuRat (talk) 05:23, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Tomato sauce that hasn't been cooked for days does not agree with me--I use mustard rather than ketchup, myself. μηδείς (talk) 21:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Guinness records
In the Guinness Book of World Records, is there a record for having the broadest range of color vision? If so, who's the current record-holder, and how is this record verified? Thanks in advance! 24.23.196.85 (talk) 21:15, 23 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The Guinness Book organization doesn't make much of its material available online, so for your first two questions, your best bet is to contact them directly. Re your last question, there's a very technical paper here describing a method; another (easier-to-read) method is described here. Interestingly, being able to see ultraviolet light is rare but not unusual. 184.147.136.249 (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I very much doubt there would be such a record - and if there were, it would certainly fail to represent the actual person with the broadest range of color vision as the record-holder. The problem is in how you measure that range - producing sufficiently pure light sources with a wide range of frequencies and controllable brightness is exceedingly difficult and measuring whether someone truly can see that far out into the electromagnetic spectrum isn't easy.  You'd also have to ask yourselves how bright the light has to be for it to count...it's a really tough experiment to do well - and screening millions of people to find the person with the best range would be almost impossible.


 * Finding (for example) the very few people with Tetrachromacy has proved exceedingly difficult - they had to use genetic studies to identify potential candidates and after 20 years of searching, found only ONE person with that capability! Screening a large percentage of the population would be impossibly difficult.


 * The difficulty here is also that people who might have this ability often don't notice it. My son is colorblind - and didn't know it until he was 15 years old, John Dalton (the person who first 'discovered' colorblindness) didn't know it until he was in his 30's - and before him, nobody had ever noticed the existence of colorblindness (at least not to the point where they wrote about it).  The lady who is the one, known, functioning tetrachromat knew that her color vision was better than some other people - but had no idea that she was practically unique until scientists tested her for it!  For her, seeing all of those extra colors doesn't seem like it's anything special.


 * If you were (say) the tallest person in the world, or the oldest or the fattest, you'd notice that nobody you'd ever met or heard about was taller/older/fatter than you - so you'd probably have a suspicion that this was the case and seek to find out by consulting with the Guinness records people. But the person with the best color perception probably has no idea whatever that they are any different than anyone else because without some quite careful scientific testing, you can't compare your abilities with anyone else.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 15:43, 24 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, see qualia. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)