Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 August 15

= August 15 =

Air conditioner death?
A warning found in the owner's manual of a Hyundai Accent (model year 2013, if I remember rightly) rented in the United States:"Do not sleep in a vehicle with the air conditioning or heating system on. It may cause serious harm or death due to a drop in the oxygen level and/or body temperature."I can't imagine ever hearing or seeing anything of this idea before. Is this some weird twist on fan death perhaps? Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It's a warning to abjure responsibility in case anyone does die in the car, and the cause of death happens to be tied to either hypothermia or carbon monoxide build up. Companies will put seemingly nonsensical warnings just to head off potential lawsuits in the case someone dies or is injured doing something unwise with their products.  Happens all the time.  Just google "stupid warning labels" and you'll be inundated with similar examples.  The existence of said warning labels is in no way connected to the likelyhood of harm from the things the warning labels warn about.  It's arbitrary.  -- Jayron  32  21:07, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Is it usually the case that warnings of this nature are a result of the incident in question happening at least once before and the company being sued for it? I think that many of the entries on those stupid warning lists that circulate online are apocryphal or taken out of context anyway. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:15, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not that rare. People often die in cars by leaving them running with the heat on and sleeping in them.  Especially in their garage, in snow storms, when stuck in traffic, etc.  Here his a tragic story from about 18 months ago.  Terrible stuff. -- Jayron  32  21:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It's not the heater or A/C that kills, it's leaving the engine running.  However, since you need to have the car on to run either the heat or A/C for long, you can see how, indirectly, the heater and A/C can be "responsible" for deaths.  However, I think a more sensible warning would be to only run the car in a well ventilated area, whether the A/C or heat is on or not.


 * I also wonder if people who die like that lack a sense of smell. After all, car exhaust stinks.  It's hard to breath it in without noticing.  StuRat (talk) 22:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * This kind could be deadly, if it were to fall on the driver or passenger. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:40, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input; definitely a weird way of conveying these warnings. I thought the warning was focusing on the AC/heating itself, and somehow showing that the Hyundai engineers, like lots of Koreans, were subscribing to fan death.  Nyttend (talk) 03:34, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * All we need is a volunteer to sleep in an Accent with the engine running but the heating switched off, and we're in the money! More seriously, I would also interpret the reference to a "drop in oxygen level" (rather than saying anything about carbon mononxide) to mean fan death, as that's the standard mechanism proposed for the phenomenon. Tevildo (talk) 08:14, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I strongly suspect that this is Korean Fan death superstition. The "Drop in oxygen" and "lower body temperature" is a giveaway. APL (talk) 21:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

what is VPN in the following contacst?
I'm a nurse in the hospital, but now I'm on call. I've got a mobile phone that's called here "VPN". What does it stand for? 194.114.146.227 (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * See virtual phone number. -- Jayron  32  21:29, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Youtube
How do I get started with YouTube? How do I edit videos and upload them? Also, how do I get around the fact that I am reluctant to speak into a microphone?Note that I am interested in doing Minecraft related videos and other video games. How do I capture the feed off of my computer? Pablothepenguin (talk) 22:53, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Why don't I have an answer? Pablothepenguin (talk) 17:32, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Because none of the volunteers here have answered yet. My suggestion is that, first, you read this, and then come back here with any further questions.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * What I want to know is:-

Pablothepenguin (talk) 18:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) How do I conquer my reluctance to speak into a microphone?
 * 2) How do I edit videos before uploading them?
 * 3) How do I capture the screen of my computer and film what is on it?


 * No suggestion for (1). as for the rest, assuming you are using a PC:
 * (2): List of video editing software
 * (3): Comparison of screencasting software
 * AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I am asking how I can conquer my reluctance to speak into a microphone and how to use editing and screen capture software? Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The first question cannot be answered by this desk. We don't know your problem, and have never met you, so cannot tell you what your problem is or what course of action to take to solve it, with regard to speaking into a microphone.  Andy has given you links to Wikipedia articles that tell you kinds of software you can get to both edit and screencap.  If you want to know how to use that software, read the documentation that comes with it.  -- Jayron  32  20:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * More on the microphone issue, I seem to get very nervous in front of one and don't like the sound of my own voice. I don't know how to deal with this. Pablothepenguin (talk) 21:07, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you have any friends who are actors or have done any public speaking? I know YT isn't public speaking in the usual sense, but if you check out Public Speaking or Presentation Skills in your Yellow Pages, or online, I'm sure you'll find some resources you can use.  Here are a few links you might wish to explore for starters.  Maybe your local college or adult learning place has relevant courses. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:55, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Get a book such as "The Dummy's Guide to Presentations" to get some pointers, and whatever you're nervous about, practice. Practice may not make perfect, but it will make familiar. I was nervous the first time I rode a bicycle or drove a car. But I kept at it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:48, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe the main problem is that I don't like the sound of my own voice. Like many others, I find that it sounds a lot different when recorded than it does normally. I don't seem to be able to get around this. Pablothepenguin (talk) 08:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Forget about what you think you sound like. No-one else in the world has ever heard you sound that way.  To them, the way you speak is simply the way you speak, and is just the same as it always has been.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:41, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
 * To put it another way, our respective voices tend to sound somewhat different to us than to others. I read somewhere once that it has to do with various vibrations in the head which get intermixed with the voice, and of course that's not audible to anyone else. This, again, is where practice comes in. I don't much like my own voice either, but with practice I got used to it. It's also possible to experiment or tinker with one's voice, thanks to the wonders of voice recording. If the OP wants to sound a certain way to an audience, he could use his recorder to try to attain that inflection. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:18, 17 August 2014 (UTC)


 * If you're old enough for a beer or two, that might help the nerves. Regardless, I agree with what Ghmyrtle said about everyone hearing the voice only you think is the weird one. If you sounded weird to them, they'd all sound weird to you. A professor in college told me the same thing, and it helped a lot, for audio and video. Still pictures still scare me. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:32, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

How I'm supposed to be spending my leisure time
Does an ultimate leisure activity exist, and if so, what is it? Ronaldlheureux (talk) 22:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

See the answer that The Source Of All Knowledge posted in response to this same question, on Yahoo! Answers. VRtrooper (talk) 01:12, 14 December 2015 (UTC)