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

= March 17 =

TfL (London) fare info
I'm living in London for just over three months in the summer. I'm trying to figure out just how much money I'll be spending monthly on transport. I'll be working in zone 1 and (maybe) living in zone 3. There is a First Capital Connect stop very close to where I may be living, and a Tube stop somewhat close. If I traveled via the first option, I'd still have to transfer to a Tube line to get to my final destination. Can anyone help me to determine the cost of both options?

Thank you! 67.2.241.156 (talk) 01:54, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Whatever the cost, get an Oyster card and it works out cheaper. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Assuming that you are working a normal five-day week, the cheapest solution will almost certainly be to buy a monthly Travelcard once a month for the three months of your visit. As TammyMoet says, it's probably wisest to get an Oyster card. The Oyster card is a form of electronic ticketing, now almost universally used, which avoids the extra expense of a paper ticket. As you'll see from the article on Travelcards, a monthly ticket for Zones 1, 2 and 3 will allow you unlimited journeys on the Tube within those Zones, and will also provide travel on First Capital Connect in those Zones, and unlimited bus travel. You can find a full list of TfL prices here.    RomanSpa (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2014 (UTC)


 * A monthly Zone 1-3 Travelcard (on an Oyster card) costs £141.40. This covers all Underground and Overground trains in these zones, and buses in all travelcard zones (since a single bus fare in London is the same regardless of distance travelled). -- Arwel Parry (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

FYI London's metro system is expensive compared to most massive, wealthy cities. --89.242.206.103 (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Because it's very old, very extensive and the subsidy by taxpayers is limited compared to European systems. Alansplodge (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! That simplifies things rather nicely. I am looking at housing in Wood Green, Brixton, and Haggerston. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each area? 67.2.233.39 (talk) 01:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * We have articles on Wood Green, Brixton and Haggerston. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Unlike the other two, Haggerston does not have its own tube station, but it does have an Overground station, so you can easily connect to the Tube network - your Travelcard will work fine there. When people come to London they generally get to know the city by first getting to know the West End. This (with a few side trips to Hampstead, Highgate, Kew, The City and the East End) will easily fill three months of evenings and weekends, so you should consider how easily you can get to the West End from where you live. Wood Green and Brixton both have direct tube connections to the West End; Haggerston does not, but it does have the best Vietnamese cuisine in London. Good luck with your choice! RomanSpa (talk) 02:28, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Traveline South-East will help you plan your journeys to and from your prospective home, and your place-of-work. CS Miller (talk) 18:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Reprogram transponder
Out of curiosity, if someone was going to steal a jumbo jet, is it possible to reprogram the transponder to send a different id code? For example, if one wanted to pose as a flight with a different nationality, or maybe appear as a cargo plane rather than a passenger plane? Obviously, it wouldn't fool people very long once the plane landed, but I'm wondering if one could fool people while flying over otherwise controlled airspace. 67.164.95.178 (talk) 20:16, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * From reading Transponder_(aviation), it appears that you can set the transponder to whatever value you want. Generally, you would use the value the air controller tells you to, but you could set it to something else.  RudolfRed (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the way the transponder works. Air Traffic Control tells you what value you should set your transponder to, and you change the numbers to reflect that. Some values are "preset" - 1200 means that you are a VFR aircraft outside of controlled airspace, 7700 means that you have an emergency, 7600 means that your radio is busted, etc. These are all numbers that the pilot puts in manually. There is no code that means "Hey, I'm in a cargo plane" or "I'm in a Boeing 777 passenger jet" or "I'm in a Piper Cub. The Air Traffic Control just tells you at the time of contact what code you should run for that flight (and you should be the only airplane at that moment that is squawking that specific code - that's how they know it is you), and that's what you use. If you have 10 Boeing 777 passenger jets flying into the same airspace, they will all have different codes. The way that Air Traffic Control knows what type of plane you are is because you tell them. Something like "Greensboro Approach, this is N123AB, type PA28/A with you at 3,500 feet, 15 miles from the Greensboro VOR on a 180 radial". ATC will reply with "Roger, N123AB, Squawk 1361..." I flew in and out of controlled airspace a lot a few years ago, and I usually had a different code. If you changed the code, the air traffic controllers would probably be able to figure out that it's you without too much of a problem, and will be coming on the radio to ask you what's up. But they will still be able to see exactly where you are with the new squawk code, how fast you are tracking, what altitude you are, etc. Falconus p t   c 21:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Minecraft Server
I'm creating a server for Minecraft and need help naming it. Anyone have any ideas? Please check if the name is already taken before you respond. Thank you!
 * http://khaozstudios.weebly.com/the-automatic-random-minecraft-server-name-generator.html 50.43.148.35 (talk) 23:17, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

outer space
hello, is possible missing malaysia flight went to outer space, in otherwords it go so high, it go into space and float away in space? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.228.200.40 (talk) 23:22, 17 March 2014 (UTC)


 * No. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The lift force on an airplane comes from the air. Long before it reaches outer space, the air becomes too thin to lift it any further.  It would need rocket engines, and more fuel than a passenger airplane can carry. —Tamfang (talk) 23:38, 17 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Not only that, but it would have to achieve escape velocity of 40,320 km/h (25,053 mph) 71.20.250.51 (talk) 00:10, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * For which it would need rocket engines and more fuel than it can carry. —Tamfang (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The jetliner could not possibly achieve it, but something going only 7.8 to 6.9 km/s (17,450 mph to 15,430 mph) could achieve low Earth orbit, and be considered to be in "outer space." Alan Shepherd's suborbital Mercury flight reached 101 miles and was considered to have reached "space" with an initial velocity of only  5,134 miles per hour (8,262 km/h). This is still way, way faster than the plane's engines could have achieved.
 * Edison (talk) 18:40, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

BUt I read in the newspapers that maybe the pilot went to high. so wat happen if he goes too high--just hypothetical if he kept going higher and higher, and ignored all the safety,, does plane fall apart, or does the air get to hard for passengers to breathing.--198.228.200.18 (talk) 01:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The plane is pressurized to make sure that everyone has breathable air. Going too high could affect that but the pilots would notice.  If the plane did attempt to go past its service ceiling, then the engines would not work as well and the pilots definitely would notice a lack of power in time to correct the situation before any of the engines gave out.  Dismas |(talk) 01:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * No, the plane should not fall apart, although if you really overdo it, it is possible. The aerodynamics become less favorable if you are operating above the altitude that your plane is designed for (see coffin corner), the pressurization is more difficult (but should still work, at least up to a point - remember they aren't designed to fail right at the legal limit), and, as Dismas said, the engines will reach a point where they are struggling. I don't think that the 45,000 feet that they were talking about would have been likely to cause any of these problems, especially given that the plane supposedly flew for hours after that. I think that if the airplane started going substantially higher than that, then maybe. Disclaimer: There may be other problems too, but I don't fly anything that can physically get above about 14,000 feet no matter how hard you try, so I confess that I am not really an expert here. 24.136.161.202 (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Commercial aircraft typically fly at 35000 ft. If MH370 altitude did reach 45000 ft that is still a long, long way from space, which is usually said to start at 100 km.  Astronaut (talk) 16:53, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * @Edison:  I was referencing  "...float away in space" from the original query (it's not as easy as one might assume).  ~:71.20.250.51 (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The short answer to "what happens if he kept going higher and higher, and ignored all the safety" is that the plane will reach an altitude (called its ceiling) where it can no longer keep climbing and also keep moving fast enough for the wings to keep lifting the plane. If he tries to climb higher, it will stall, meaning that the wings stop producing lift and the plane starts falling.  The only way to get out of the stall and continue flying is by descending, but there have been cases when an airliner crashed because there was a stall and the pilots did not act correctly. --50.100.193.30 (talk) 09:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * On a side note, I heard a story of one of the first Russian cosmonauts in space (Yuri Gagarin was NOT the first - he was merely the first to come back alive!). The Russians didn't really know what escape velocity they needed so they just used trial and error. This became apparent to one cosmonaut, as he left the atmosphere, then orbit, then radio contact range, then...... No-one knows where he is now, after 40+ years.  KägeTorä - ( 影 虎 )  ( Chin Wag )  11:10, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Citation to a reliable source is needed for the claim of Russkies in space before Gagarin. Gagarin was the first Russian (and the first human) in space. If the Soviets had done an earlier fatal orbital or suborbital manned launch, the US would have detected it and used it as anti-Soviet propaganda at the time. I don't doubt that there are fringe theorists expounding about Soviet space fatalities, just as some claim no humans went to the moon or into space at all.. Edison (talk) 14:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That would be the lost cosmonauts theory. Rmhermen (talk) 17:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)


 * See also this informative article: http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html 86.181.15.157 (talk) 10:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

See also the Kármán line article. Now, there is an astronomically small probability that the plane ended up in an orbit around the Sun by tunneling out of the combined gravitational potential well of the Earth and the Sun. Count Iblis (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * In other words, as I said, "No". --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:01, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

the rough and the smooth
Today I was reminded of the existence of smooth collies when I saw a rough one and a smooth one out walking together. I was struck by the similarity between them in size, shape and coloring. Is coat length governed by a small-enough set of genes that they could be littermates? —Tamfang (talk) 23:30, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Three genes according to genetic basis of length and texture of a dog's coat. And only one for length: The fibroblast growth factor-5 gene. I'll leave the litter question up to geneticists. ---Sluzzelin talk . 23:34, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * According to our smooth collie article, in the United States, they are considered one breed with only one breed registry (and were until 1993 in the UK). So you should be able to get mixed littermates. Here is a forum discussing it: Rmhermen (talk) 01:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Mazda CX-7 2007-2012 Recall
In February 2014 I received a notice advising that my vehicle fell into a range of affected models that required a Mazda dealer reprogram the PCM to avoid potentially failing an emissions standard test. I have been unable to find anything about this recall from this year online. The best I could find was the following forum (which includes a picture of the letter I also received) http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/forum/f123/emissions-recall-164967/

Can anyone help me find out more information about this recall? My vehicle is a 2010 CX-7 and I have been unable to find any recalls for that vehicle in 2014. I would just like to know more before I take my vehicle in. Thanks 70.124.93.247 (talk) 23:44, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure; is this it? TSB: 0102012 - 06/15/2012 - Recall MSP36 - ECM Update For EVAP Performance —71.20.250.51 (talk) 00:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That information seems to match up with what I have here. I'm not sure if it's at all useful but the letter has "Emission Recall 7113L".  Not sure what that stands for. 70.124.93.247 (talk) 00:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is a list of service bulletins and recalls for your car (2010 Mazda CX-7), but seems to need updating (most current Date of Bulletin: Nov 19, 2013):  ~Sorry that I can't be more helpful, ~: 71.20.250.51 (talk) 01:27, 18 March 2014 (UTC)