Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 February 17

= February 17 =

literature- poetry
Ahista burg-e-gul ba fishaN bar mazar maN pas nazuk ast sheesh-e-dil dar kinar maN

Who is the poet ? May I have the full poem ? (The poem may be from urdu, persian or arabic, and poet may be Saib Azerbi...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajaya kulshreshtha (talk • contribs) 10:11, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Narrowing it down some, the -e- construct suggests to me that it's not Arabic. —Tamfang (talk) 20:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The noun-e-noun construction is Persian (or Farsi) for "noun of noun". Gul is likely rose or flower, and dil is likely heart, as these are found in Urdu and Hindu poetry with the same meaning.  Man is the first person pronoun in Farsi. Persian grammar. μηδείς (talk) 22:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Longest section of river without a bridge
Looking on Google Maps at the Congo River, I was surprised to see no bridge joining the capital cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa. Indeed there would appear to be no bridge crossing the river at all between Matadi and Kabalo. Is this ~3,300 km the World's longest stretch of river without a bridge crossing it? Astronaut (talk) 10:26, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * According to Amazon River, the Amazon has no bridges along its entire length, which could be 6,937 km. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:39, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I thought I saw a bridge at Manaus, when I looked yesterday. However, I now see it crosses the Rio Negro, a major tribuitary of the Amazon. Manaus is at the confluence of the two rivers. Astronaut (talk) 10:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Movie rights to a book
Recently the movie rights to a non-fiction book about Rob Ford was purchased. article I'm curious why this is so from the perspective of copyright law. Let's assume the book is non-fiction and the movie will draw heavily from the research of the book but will not be using any lines from the book. Instead the events documented will be reimagined by other writers. Would copyright protection nonetheless compel the producers to pay for movie rights? Gullabile (talk) 11:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Starting with an existing book is a great help to the scriptwriters, who can begin their work on that basis and not have to conduct their own time-consuming original research. Another similar example is the recent film Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals. --Xuxl (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Movie makers also seem to believe, at least in some cases, that advertising a movie as "based on" a respectable and perhaps popular book will add to the movie's appeal. DES (talk) 16:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And I expect that it reduces the chances of anybody else getting in first and making a film about the same subject. Alansplodge (talk) 17:18, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * You'll want to look at derivative work and film rights and consider that it is normally cheaper to buy the rights than to pay the lawyers to defend you after, not including the cost of settlement or judgment. Personality rights may also apply. μηδείς (talk) 20:35, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Google Street View Car
When will it be in Skals, Denmark? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.195.199.252 (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I could be wrong, but I don't think Google announce the locations of their mapping cars in advance. Presumably they don't want lots of people standing around waving at it, holding up political slogans or large advertisements in front of prominent landmarks and doing other things that would greatly interfere with producing a useful ground-level photographic survey. SteveBaker (talk) 15:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I heard it will come in 2015? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.195.199.252 (talk) 15:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * As Steve basically said... Maybe. Dismas |(talk) 18:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * You could check with the city government in question. When google brought their trikes to photograph a large university campus I was working at, we were given advance notification from the university, who was in turn given advance notice by google. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Some people clearly do find out where the Street View car will be. Astronaut (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

How many online on WIkipedia?
How many online on WIkipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.195.199.252 (talk) 15:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * About 250,000 people visit Wikipedia every day - and that varies between about 8,000 and 10,000 per hour through a 24 hour period. It's impossible to know how long they spend reading whichever article they look up - so we can't tell how many of them are simultaneously reading our articles (which I think is what you're asking).  If we assume that they each spend 10 minutes reading whatever it is that they came here for, then there are probably about 1500 people in the world who are reading a Wikipedia article right at this very moment.  About 115 million people have visited the site - and about 15,000 people edit the encyclopedia fairly regularly.  We are usually in the top ten most frequently visited sites on the Internet - and currently we are the 9th most popular.  However, the 8 sites that are beating us (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, AOL, Apple and CBS) are mostly search engines, social media and so forth - sites that people go to for news and such like.  As a source of long-term, stable information, we are far ahead of any other web site.  For comparison, Twitter is number 25 and NetFlix is number 46. SteveBaker (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * WHat about now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.195.199.252 (talk) 15:58, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * About three less because they got bored by your response and went off to annoy someone else over on Twitter! :-) SteveBaker (talk) 16:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I've spent countless hours in the nonnegative matrix. Still stuck at equal to or greater than zero. Can't be the only one. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:16, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There were 9,445 in the last hour, and 8,979 in the one before. Horatio Snickers (talk) 23:29, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is the UTC zone where it is?
Why is the UTC zone where it is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.195.199.252 (talk) 15:48, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See Royal Observatory, Greenwich. -- Jayron  32  16:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Basically, it's just a matter of history. It could be anywhere.  We British were the first to build the maritime navigation systems to accurately measure longitude on board our sailing ships - so (naturally) we put the zero-degree longitude line right through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich (just outside London).  Because clocks were used in the determination of longitude before the advent of GPS and such, the standard for where UTC is came from there.  (It used to be called "GMT" which stands for Greenwich Mean Time).  If you visit the observatory at Greenwich, you'll see a brass strip set into the ground with a line etched down the middle.  This is the zero meridian...if you stand over it, you have one foot in the Eastern hemisphere and one in the West.
 * By luck, it turns out that this is a particularly good choice because it puts the messy business of the "International Date Line" (where it's Monday here...and Tuesday half a mile away over there!) right down the middle of the Pacific ocean, where very few people live to care about that. If we had the chance to do it again, the present location is probably the most logical choice. SteveBaker (talk) 16:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It was decided at the International Meridian Conference in 1884, involving delegates from 21 countries. Mikenorton (talk) 21:04, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, kinda. As our article notes, the decision was merely the result of an obvious "pragmatic argument for continuity with most nautical charts won the day and the French delegation abstained in the vote."  The French continue to fiddle with the definitions to this day.  When the new millenium rolled in, the French declared a new meridian running a short distance away from the Greenwich line to be their new national standard - mostly so that they could start the new millenium celebration ahead of everyone else.  Of course, this new definition isn't use for anything practical - it's just a matter of nationalistic posturing. SteveBaker (talk) 02:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Actually, that was just planting trees along the previously named Paris meridian (which France had clung to until 1911). See Le Méridienne verte.  Astronaut (talk) 13:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The UTC zone is where it is for the same sorts of reasons UK stamps don't have the name UK on them, and American urls don't end in .us. HiLo48 (talk) 03:16, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

1998 Air China hijacking
In 1998 an Air China pilot hijacked his own plane and landed in Taiwan. What ended up happening to him? Hack (talk) 16:20, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * See December 8, 1998: Taiwan charges Air China pilot with air piracy, and 18 months later, Jun 29, 2001: Hijackers face an uncertain fate: FORCED REPATRIATION - Facing lengthy prison terms or even the death sentence upon their return, eight plane hijackers from China have been sent back home which says; "Four other hijackers -- Zhang Hai (張海), Zhang Wenlung (張文龍), Yuan Bin (袁斌) and Xu Mei (徐梅) -- were repatriated in the same manner on Wednesday [27 June 2001]". Yuan Bin was the Air China pilot and Xu Mei was his wife who had also been on the hijacked flight. The article continues; "...all the hijackers have served jail terms and have been released on parole in accordance with Taiwan law". I have not been able to find out what happened to them in mainland China, but my guess is that they're still in prison somewhere. Alansplodge (talk) 19:32, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

slug getting in through a crack in a wall or through a window
is this possible, how can they do this and if not where are they coming from and what is a good way to stop them doing so? Horatio Snickers (talk) 22:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is a good article from UC Davis: — One way to control them is by using copper tape (made especially for this purpose); another is to use beer traps 
 * Although the article relates to slugs (and snails) in gardens, it should also apply to indoor slugs.  If you're finding them inside, at least one must have entered somehow; if you find many, there's probably some dark and damp place where they're breeding — at the bottom of potted plants would be a good guess — especially if there is gravel/stones for drainage.   ~Good luck!  ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 01:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh! Slugs!! My mind went to slugs first.  Thanks for clearing that up, 71.20.250.51.  Dismas |(talk) 02:51, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * See also: Eliminate Slugs Inside the House ~:71.20.250.51 (talk) 03:32, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * HAHAHAHAHA! I thought this was about keepin bullets out yo windows! μηδείς (talk) 05:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * If you keep the humidity down, I don't think they will want to come inside. StuRat (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you have any pets? I have a long-haired cat who frequently brings slugs into the house because they get stuck to her fur. -=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 22:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I would rename such an animal Sluglust. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  10:10, 19 February 2014 (UTC)