Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 January 14

= January 14 =

Difference between the MetroEd adult education program and the San Jose Job Corps?
What's the difference between the MetroEd adult education program and the San Jose Job Corps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.170.206 (talk) 03:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * They both intend to provide career-oriented education; the main differences that I could find:
 * MetroEd adult education program: "Metropolitan Education District ... created as a joint powers authority by six school districts in Santa Clara County" — Not free
 * San Jose Job Corps: "administered by the U.S. Department of Labor" — No cost
 * Generally speaking, community based organizations have a better reputation than federal ones; but you should inquire locally. ~:71.20.250.51 (talk) 06:28, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

CRUSADE WAR
Why did the crusade war start? What impact did it have? Did it have any importance? 180.234.241.218 (talk) 11:07, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Crusades --Viennese Waltz 11:11, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Or see Crusade (TV series), in which case it started in 2267, and had basically no impact. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:21, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Samsung Galaxy S III sim card size
This is really a question about improving the Samsung Galaxy S III article, but whenever I post a question on an article talk page I have to wait ages for a reply (if ever), so I'm posting it here instead. The article does not mention the fact that the S III takes a micro sim card rather than a standard sized sim card. I was surprised by this, since it seems to be a pretty fundamental piece of information about the phone to me. So I looked for reliable sources to add this information to the article. There are a dozen forums and so on which confirm it, but the official page on the phone's specifications doesn't mention it either. Why is this? Why has no-one, either on the Samsung website or the Wikipedia article on the phone, thought to mention this fundamental piece of information? Or is it really not as important as I think it is? --Viennese Waltz 11:09, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Samsung UK's specifications page for the phone does say microSIM. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:23, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that Wikipedia's referencing requirements for facts like this (per WP:V) are not a rigorous as some people like to believe.  The standard is that referencing is required when a fact is non-obvious and likely to be disputed.  (The exact rule is: "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." - there are additional rules for biographies of living persons). If this gizmo uses that card standard - then I very much doubt that anyone will dispute it, and it's a pretty obvious fact if you just look at one of these phones with the back removed.  Honestly, I don't think I'd bother chasing down a reference for it unless someone comes along to dispute it.  That said, if you can find a good reference, then it's good to provide it, even for obvious/non-disputed facts.  But nobody in their right mind will demand a reference for "The sky is blue" or "Water is wet" or "2+2=4".   If you really wanted to be anal about it, and couldn't find a reference, you could just photograph the card slot and add that to the article.  SteveBaker (talk) 14:28, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Simply cite the user manual. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Swiss Catholics relatively less industrious?
book link

I noticed this line from an influential work of sociology published in 1975:

"Naturally, every national population is large enough to include some individuals who have quite spontaneously developed the qualities that make for quick adaptation to the requirements of the modern world. Some ethnic and religious groups also seem more likely to generate individuals of this type. Swiss Protestants, East European Jews, the Parsis in India, and the Ibo in Nigeria have been nominated by various scholars as groups representing this tendency. Most men and women throughout the world, however, must acquire their modernity on a more individual basis."

It seems the author is implying that Swiss Catholics are not as industrious as Swiss Protestants. This isn't an observation I've heard before and wonder if there is scholarly inquiry about this subject. Gullabile (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The general premise sounds like Thomas Sowell's 1995 work, Race and Culture which makes similar comments about the Malay Chinese, Indians in Africa, etc. μηδείς (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The premise goes back a lot further than that: see Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * (after edit-conflicting) The attribution of a "different" work ethic to Protestants goes back, at least, to Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. A study conducted by ETH Zurich's KOF and the European Investment Bank, comparing French-speaking Catholic and Protestant communities near the religious border in the cantons of Vaud and Fribourg found "that Reformed Protestantism reduces referenda voting for more leisure by 12, for redistribution by 7, and for government intervention by 6 percentage points. These preferences translate into higher per capita income as well as greater income inequality." (Basten, C. and F. Betz (2012): Beyond Work Ethic: Religion, Individual and Political Preferences, KOF Working Papers No. 309, August, Zurich). ---Sluzzelin talk  19:54, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you above. I'm not sure what that summary of results means but I'll have to check out the link. Gullabile (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * In order to assess differences regarding work ethics, the study looked for specific referenda, held since 1980, as a measure of preferences for leisure, redistribution and intervention. Some examples include votes to "prolong the length of legally required vacation" or "to lower the official retirement age" (leisure), votes to expand old-age and disability insurance or to cut unemployment insurance benefits (redistribution), and votes on price regulation in general or on agriculture (intervention). Overall, the authors counted "8 referenda on leisure, 24 on redistribution, and 12 on intervention". The evaluation resulted in Protestant areas being less leisure-friendly, less redistributory, and less interventionist in their preferences when compared to Catholic areas nearby (percentage points given above). One newspaper article I found summarized this as Protestants voting "more right-wing" than Catholics, but that's not the point the study is trying to make. It also compared pre-tax incomes and Gini coefficients 1980-2000 within the same communities, and found that the more "Protestant" the area, the higher the average income and the greater the inequality of income. The link I provided links to the actual study as a pdf-file, where you can find more differentiated data. ---Sluzzelin  talk  20:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * That approach is badly flawed though. It's known that people are more productive if they have appropriate amounts of time off of work - so it might very well be that more "industrious" people understand that having more vacation time improves their productivity - and that might well cause them to demand longer vacation times.   Also, I suspect that those who oppose longer vacations are not the ones who would benefit from them!


 * Not only that, but some very industrious people (myself included) hate "doing nothing" during their vacations - and wouldn't consider using their retirement to veg out in front of the TV or waste it on playing golf every day.  I use that time to pursue projects of my own - so I judge myself to be incredibly industrious 365 days of the year - and probably will be until the day I die.  Yet I frequently demand more vacation time, a shorter working week, and earlier retirement in order to increase the time during which I can do projects that *I* want to do versus those that my employer thinks are the best use of my time.  My projects (such as the business my wife and I have started) also earn income - so even by economic measures, my time outside of work is used productively.


 * You also can't simply measure income to determine who is most productive since a super-industrious street cleaner won't earn anything like as much as a lazy-as-all-hell banker.  Measuring income is more likely to be a measure of intelligence or education levels than pure "industriousness".   Since the emphasis on good education is very much a cultural thing - and parental influence is a strong determinant of educational success - it follows that a particular cultural slice might achieve higher income levels by promoting education without being more industrious.


 * So I very much doubt that it's possible to do any kind of 'bulk' measurement to determine the industriousness of a particular cultural slice versus the general public - and I would dismiss arguments that make that claim.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 14:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)


 * You may (or may not) be interested in Is the Protestant Work Ethic Real? by Joshua Keating. I offer no opinion, being a lazy Protestant who doesn't care about money, except when I haven't got it. Alansplodge (talk) 19:05, 18 January 2014 (UTC)