Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 February 6

= February 6 =

name for a dress
I’m trying to find the name of a certain dress. It’s modern, sleeveless, covers the front and back of the legs, but most notable is that the left and right sides for the legs are non‐existent. Does anybody know what I am referring to? --96.40.43.34 (talk) 13:56, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Does Cheongsam fit? Astronaut (talk) 14:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Are you using "dress" in the sense of a garment commonly worn by females or in the sense of formal attire or a uniform? Some formal attire has a name, some uniforms have a name - often the organization to which they apply. I wasn't aware the former had names. Can you clarify. -- SGBailey (talk) 14:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Dresses as common garments do indeed have names, types, categories, etc. See e.g. Dress. They can also be described with a specific vocabulary for features, e.g. Empire waist, etc. I can't help the OP, but many dresses do have names. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:45, 6 February 2014 (UTC)


 * A Tabard covers the torso. I don't think the dress itself has a name, but you can describe it as a dress with high side splits. --TammyMoet (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * With a bit of googling, your description led me to "double split maxi dress," many types on Ebay here: . Only the OP knows for sure, but those seem to fit the description pretty well. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:22, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Using that eBay link, I found this which I think is closest to what I think the OP is getting at. It has a front "flap", if you will, that covers the gap between the models legs and the OP is wondering if there is a name for a dress that also has a back flap that covers the buttocks and the gap between the legs as seen from behind.  This would leave, as OP says, "the left and right sides for the legs [are] non-existent".  Dismas |(talk) 22:46, 6 February 2014 (UTC)


 * double slit dress seems like a pretty good fit, yeah. Thank you. --96.40.43.34 (talk) 01:11, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

When was the London Pass introduced?
For some research I'm doing on a vaguely related subject, I could do with inserting this fact. I found a passing mention somewhere stating it was introduced "over ten years ago": I think it was on a webpage which was undated (!). Cheers, Hassocks  5489 (Floreat Hova!)  13:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * 1999 --Viennese Waltz 14:13, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks – I must have missed that when I looked on the site a while ago.  Hassocks  5489 (Floreat Hova!)  14:20, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Gideon Mantell, LL.D.?
On a walk around West Norwood Cemetery today, I noticed the tomb of Gideon Mantell. The inscription reads: TO THE MEMORY OF GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL, LLD FRS MRCS. The LL.D. has a noticeable gold rectangle around it, which can be seen on our picture of the tomb. This puzzles me, particularly since the article doesn't mention his having a law degree. Was it added later? Why? Marnanel (talk) 15:54, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps to indication that it was an honorary degree (from Yale):  —Another possibility is  that the golden box could  indicate a posthumous degree (?) —Additional research required.  71.20.250.51 (talk) 17:32, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The stone inside the rectangle appears different to that outside it. (There are some marks which cross the line, but they appear to be damage/stains rather than patterns in the original stone.) It does therefore look like the "LLD" appears on a small rectangular section of stone that was added later to replace what was originally there (possibly because it was incorrect or damaged). There must have been something there, though, as otherwise the remaining letters would be off-centre. Proteus (Talk) 18:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * This says the grave was "restored" (and gives a link to a PowerPoint showing old and new graves) but the contractors seem to have broken up the original (accidentally or deliberately?) which is now down in Sussex. Perhaps the work on the new grave was slipshod as well. Thincat (talk) 22:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Curiously,our German Wikipedia article does actually seem to credit him with the LLD degree Lemon martini (talk) 01:53, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Animals on the internet
There are lots of animals that have facebook profiles, twitter account and even skype, but I suspect these are being run by their human masters. Are there any animals that have a genuine web presence and/or actually interact with social networking sites? Horatio Snickers (talk) 22:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * How many animals do you know of who are fluent in a human language? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:35, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing that OP means something like Koko the gorilla having some sort of rudimentary computer interface which they can use to post things to various networks. Not that an animal would type out 140 characters of some human readable language.  And, no. I know of no case where an animal actually makes posts themselves to any social media.  Dismas |(talk) 22:39, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I was thinking tic-tac-toe playing chickens. μηδείς (talk) 23:09, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, I understand that it is not many animals that have a human language - I personally own goats and can interpret often what they are trying to say (in a very basic sense of course) - I imagine it would be difficult for a goat to interact online even through a (possibly human) interface. But could a dolphin be used to tweet? Or a talking monkey - would it be able to communicate online? Also how do I get my goat on the internet? Horatio Snickers (talk) 23:15, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * These activities require holding some rather advanced and abstract concepts. The animal is not going to understand the interface is anything other than a shiny rock.  It's not going to understand it has an audience.  An animal could certainly be trained artificially to respond to what would in effect be commands, not discussion, which require language and theory of mind.  The closest I could seeyou coming would be something like the late Alex the parrot.  Users could have chosen an item, and asked him to describe it.  Alex could do this with very basic, visual-level concepts. Responding "red" to "what color?" is not exactly tweeting. μηδείς (talk) 23:24, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * For parrots, more like "squawking". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:32, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Quick! Register the domain name Squeaker. μηδείς (talk) 02:37, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * There are lots of projects out there that are pushing to make this happen:
 * http://mashable.com/2013/03/01/interspecies-internet-peter-gabriel/ and http://interspecies-internet.org discuss an effort to allow animals to communicate via the Internet.
 * http://media.wbur.org/wordpress/11/files/2013/07/0709_dolphins-research.pdf discusses a keyboard for use by dolphins to allow them to communicate with humans. Putting this onto the internet would be trivially easy.
 * http://redapes.org/multimedia/apps-for-apes/ "Apps for Apes" - a project to allow Orangutans to use touch-screen tablets for "enrichment" of their environment.
 * http://news.ph.msn.com/sci-tech/peter-gabriel-wants-to-talk-with-animals-online-1 Peter Gabriel uses the Internet to create music with a bonobo.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 04:57, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Way back in 1998 Koko did a live chat on AOL, she signed, and her human partner/friend typed into the chat box. You can read a transcript here . This was a huge new-media thing in its day, and helped raise a lot of money for Gorilla research and conservation. Come to your own conclusions, but I think Koko had pretty good notion of what was going on. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:03, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Monkeys can't talk. Sleigh (User talk:Sleigh talk) 23:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * That doesn't mean we can't communicate.And do so better than some of you humans it seems Geoffrey_R._Chimpanzee
 * First Koko is an ape, not a monkey, and she doesn't "talk", she uses American sign language. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)