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

= September 15 =

Name of french press/cafetière for tea
Is there a specific name for tea infusers that look a bit like cafetières? There's photos of what I mean towards the bottom of this page. I've my own one, so can take photos of it for our article if they're wanted. CS Miller (talk) 11:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I found nothing more specific than "tea infuser". Where context is clear you could call it a "théière", especially in English (in French the word just means teapot). I found sites referring to multifunctional models similar to your examples as "cafétière/théière", even in French. The company La Cafétière calls some of their models "Le Teapot" :-) (but lists them as "tea infusers"). ---Sluzzelin talk  12:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Mine doesn't have the cafetière attachment; the site I linked to was the only one with photos, so I didn't have to describe it. Mine (and the previous one, who's jug I broke), are squatter than typical cafetières, with a hight only slightly greater than their diameter. CS Miller (talk) 13:10, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * This is the one I have, and it's called a 'Tea Press', but I'd agree that the general term, including those that just have a basket and no plunger, would be 'Tea Infuser'. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 16:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Are consumer electronics (e.g. Sony Handycam camcorder) exported in containers or a separate compartment in a ship?
I am curious of "are consumer electronics like the Sony Handycam camcorder exported in containers or a separate compartment in a ship?".

Please answer my question. --Kiel457 (talk) 18:44, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Most likely on shipping containers. From the article Containerization: "As of 2009, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is moved by containers stacked on transport ships;"  If your camcorder crossed an ocean, it likely did so alongside hundreds of it's friends inside a standardized intermodal container.  -- Jayron  32  20:24, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Meaning "it IS friends" or "it HAS friends" ? 84.209.89.214 (talk) 23:42, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You'd really have to be quite incredibly stupid to be unable to work that out on your own, so I'm pretty sure you really did figure it out. Nobody who contributes usefully here is impressed by passive-aggressive grammar nazis, and being one doesn't help our ability to respond to the legitimate questions of our users.  If you don't have something useful to contribute, please don't bother saying it. SteveBaker (talk) 02:14, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Welcome stranger to our language called English. Unfortunately you fell victim to a trick question. Whichever way you figure, Jayron32's phrase "alongside hundreds of it's[sic] friends" presents a peculiar punctuational profligacy that prohibits any rational parsing. But despair not! Among our 100 most used words shines a gem that you perversely overlook which is the Possessive pronoun "ITS". See Frequency lists. Educated English people have enjoyed the blessing of this word for more than a century. You can identify us by our ability to communicate competently without throwing a tantrum laced with 3rd Reich ad hominem barbs (see Godwin's law) when reminded of grammar one should have learned as a child. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 12:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh do be quiet. There is no need to correct grammatical and spelling errors here, and Jayron32 has contributed more to these desks than you ever will. --Viennese Waltz 12:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That sounds like heckling and the fallacy called argument from an "authority" that Viennese Waltz somehow deduces from a quantity of posts that he guesses, nevermind their quality. The real number of grammatical errors that Jayron32 has posted to these desks can be left to historians to count as long as meddling admins keep the subject taboo by covertly deleting references to them. Jayron32 plays guitar in church and tells posters that thalidomide causes extra arms, but backs away from answering my question above and likely expects that other's sycophancy and bashing of the messenger will hide his substandard (for an administrator) behaviour. This environment of capable encyclopedia editors is a bad place to pretend that basic English grammar is not documented in reliable sources and has instead to be "made up" on a whim from misunderstood principles, such as the saxon genitive. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 22:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Very high-value items may come by plane. I know that at least one of my MacBooks came from Singapur to Miami in about 36 hours. This may in particularly happen for early shipments, to provide early adopters with the latest technology as fast as possible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:51, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

What is the genetic significance of being "ugly"?
So, what is it about just the very slight proportions of the face (over which one has no control from birth) that are the difference between eliticting a friendly loving smile from the hipster barista at Starbucks (and the concomitant free coffee I get) and causing the same lady to grimace and look away as quickly as possible?

What is it about "ugly" people that almost from birth we are conditioned to believe they are less than human -- wholly inferior beings?

The other factors of physical attractiveness (height, intelligence, body shape) have obvious advantages in health and natural selection, but what difference does 1/8 an inch on a nose and 1/4 an inch on a chin really make in practical terms? But it makes a whole world of difference in the real world.

Some of my rather snobby friends have said before that "ugly" people are literally genetically inferior and unhealthy, and their face is nature's way of telling us that. Is this true? If not, then what is it? Zombiesturm (talk) 19:19, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Not all facial attractiveness is about symmetry, but faces with higher facial symmetry are often seen as more attractive. From that article: "Evolutionary theorists in biology and psychology argue that more symmetric faces are preferred because symmetry is a possible honest sign of superior genetic quality and developmental stability." -- this is a somewhat contentious claim, but at least some serious scientists do consider it as a possibility, and there are two citations with that statement. Other info at Physical_attractiveness. Always remember sexual selection can be capricious, and not all traits are adaptive traits. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:13, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Ugliness is a correlative sign of poor genetic or childhood health, parasite burden, the poorly-raised children of unsuccessful families, and things like being accident prone, and otherwise bad fatherhood material. Note, however, that the scars a wounds of soldiers are often considered to make them handsome to women, given the correlation between those injuries and masculine bravery. Semantic has already given the appropriate links. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Ugliness is a human construct. Different societies and different times have produced different ideas of what is ugly. HiLo48 (talk) 01:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Figured someone would get around to the usual relativist nonsense, but replicated studies have shown that symmetry and other markers of health are universally considered beautiful, while dissymmetry and deformity is considered ugly. You won't find a single person on the planet who thinks Angela Basset is ugly compared to Andre the Giant, except, of course, HiLo48. μηδείς (talk) 02:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * To say that there are some universal standards of beauty/ugliness is NOT the same thing as saying that every standard of beauty/ugliness is universal. There are both universal and relative standards of beauty/ugliness.  Concepts like symmetry and healthiness are universal, but other standards vary greatly based on cultural expectations and the like.  It isn't as simple as saying "it's all universal" or "it's all relative".  -- Jayron  32  02:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. HiLo48 (talk) 02:25, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * @ Medeis, Ah, so those Hapsburgs that Velasquez painted with their big noses and odd lips were poorly bred with a 'parasitic burden' were they. And the recently late Richard Keil, was he ugly? many people would think not. Was he poorly bred with a 'parasitic burden'. Never heard so much bo***cks in my life. On second thoughts perhaps Medeis is being "ironic" Richard Avery (talk) 08:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm with you Richard Avery. I mean, just look at Prince Charles - heir to the British throne and with the ugliest features I've ever had the misfortune to look at. Or maybe that's because I would prefer to abolish the UK monarchy. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * So, the same people who insist race is a social construct argue that people with certain features within their race are attractive because of it? (Or perhaps the argument is there are no such thing as good looking people?) None of this skepticism has anything to do with contradicting what I've said. So long as saying everything is relative, one becomes an instant self-certified expert in everything by remembering that one phrase. μηδείς (talk) 19:57, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Here are two counterexamples to the notion that ... dissymmetry and deformity is [universally] considered ugly: Lip plate. Kayan people (Burma).  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Those are not congenital deformities, Jack, they are basically forms of jewelry/adornment/in-group identification and given an otherwise ugly person a lip plate, hip huggers or a tattoed forehead doesn't exactly make them look gooder. The underlying issues are sexual selection, and that signs of youth, symmetry, health and fertility attract human males to mates, and masculinity, money and battle scars attract women to males.  All this is ceteris paribus and has been well covered above and well documented in the literature. μηδείς (talk) 02:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It's long been known (since the 1800's when Sir Francis_Galton played around with composite photography) that a very average face is widely considered to be the most beautiful. Galton projected dozens of faces onto a screen at once to make his "averages" but modern computer technology can do better - and they confirm his results.   The reason for this seems fairly logical.  The human perception of beauty in other humans has to do with finding a good mate.  People who differ greatly from the average are likely to either be unhealthy or have some widely divergent genes.  We've evolved to look for individuals who don't have diseases or 'bad' genetics - and recognizing the most average people as desirable is how we do that.   It's not just people - pure-bred dogs are considered more attractive than mutts, very 'typical' landscapes are often considered more tranquil and so forth.    We're highly attuned to "average" when we're making a snap judgement about things.


 * This also explains why there is a difference in the perception of beauty between cultures and across the span of time.  If you live someplace where people tend to have longer noses - then long noses are probably considered more beautiful than short ones.


 * Perrett et al. (1994) found that this simplistic approach isn't quite right.  They first made a moderately attractive face by taking the average of 60 photographs of randomly selected people. Then they asked people to find the 15 most attractive people in the original sample and averaged those.   Finally, they constructed a third image by exaggerating the differences between the strict average and the average of the top 15 faces.  This face rated more attractive than either the strict average or the average of the best 15.   It's hard to make sense of what that means.


 * But there are MANY other studies - and most of them come out on the side of "average = beauty" for a specific culture.


 * Of course these are all generalities - individual preferences in the observer and some specific divergences from average may swing the balance where there may be some obvious reproductive benefits to not being average (eg most women prefer taller men to average-height men) - but as a statistical best-guess, average is beauty.


 * I don't think we're "conditioned from birth" to reject certain faces. Quite the opposite, in fact.  I think we've evolved since long before birth to tend to prefer individuals that might confer a greater probability of reproductive success - that means "average" and we've decided to use the term "beauty" to explain a seemingly mystical attraction to certain (very, very average) people.  Obviously, we're only able to do that from what may be deduced in a quick glance at someone - so much may be missed by doing that - we know that "beauty is only skin-deep" and all that.


 * Sadly, nature and evolution are hardly ever "fair" - they are brutal, biassed, arbitrary, unthinking, unkind, mechanisms, and it requires "conditioning from birth" to overcome that innate biological bias.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 18:34, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Some links to go with your points: Averageness (bad title, refers to attractiveness) Koinophilia, and this great resource from one of the current leaders in facial attractiveness research, including averageness and symmetry . We should also mention Assortative_mating, which in part explains the persistence of various phenotypical faces, and why we aren't just becoming more similar looking.


 * But I have to say that I think you're wrong about dogs. If we indeed prefer purebreds, it's because humans have spent centuries of artificial selection to make each breed suit human preference. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Abraham Lincoln was considered ugly, which is probably why his career didn't amount to much. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * What you're really saying is that beauty isn't everything - which is obviously true. But if you check Abraham_Lincoln you'll see precisely what I'm talking about.  His (admittedly superficial) ugliness to people of the time was actually their subconscious perception of several possible genetic conditions that were not even known at the time that we've only subsequently been found that he suffered.  Had he not succeeded in his career by other means, he might very well have had a hard time passing his genetic material on to the next generation. SteveBaker (talk) 00:37, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Pretties often marry pretties and uglies often marry uglies. And sometimes pretties marry uglies. And all these combinations often reproduce. A comment from Rodney Dangerfield: "I once dated a girl who was really ugly. She was so ugly, if you looked up "ugly" in the dictionary, they had her picture there. She married an ugly guy, and they have two very ugly kids." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * True - but that's not the point either.  If you there are two equally available, possible mates who are utterly identical in every respect - except that one is uglier than the other - wouldn't a statistically valid majority of people take the more beautiful one?  If the answer is "Yes" (and I'm quite sure it is) - then there must be some reason why one seemingly arbitrary arrangement of bodily shape and/or coloration is deemed slightly preferable as a mate than the other.  Since there is considerable agreement between people from the same cultural groups as to which people are more or less "beautiful" - this isn't a random occurrence.  It's somehow built into us to make that choice.   There must be a reason for that...and (for what it's worth) the reason is the perception that an average face and/or body shape is somewhat statistically linked to an increased reproductive success rate.   Evolution grabs onto that fact and builds a preference for averageness into our brains - and we have chosen to label that averageness "beauty".


 * It's not 'politically correct' to judge people by their exterior appearances - but we all do it - and it's built into the very architecture of our brains to do that. Of course there are exceptions - we are intelligent, reasoning beings and we can think through things beyond superficial beauty.   I'm sure that back when we lived in caves, the slightly ugly guy who was a really good flint knapper would find a mate ahead of the gorgeous hunk of a guy who was a complete klutz.   But pick two good flint knappers, one with a non-average face, and the other with a very average face, and the second guy gets the gal more often than statistical chance would predict.


 * Sorry...but on the average, beautiful people will be more successful than ugly people...and that standard is measured by other people according to how average you happen to look. It's not fair, it's not politically correct, it's not nice - but nature isn't any of those things.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 17:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I totally agree with the post above me. It's the same with racism or any other comparison between people. Most human beings try to not have any prejudices against anyone because we were taught so. This has developed in society. People think just because the value "equality" isn't given by nature doesn't mean the civilized can't try to create it. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is just a lie to comfort those nature wasn't nice to. It's impossible for humans to perceive objectivity, so we tend to say beauty is subjective. Just look at children. They say what they think, they are most direct and can be perceived as very racist. Later they learn that this is not acceptable in society (created by men) and thus the natural opinion is suppressed. The truth is just not "nice". --2.246.24.240 (talk) 14:05, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The problem is that human societies have evolved faster than human genetics. We sometimes talk about the evolution of 'memes' - kinda like 'genes' but for the realm of ideas.  So the idea that average-looking appearance translates into reproductive success is no longer true - but our genes will take thousands of years to latch onto that fact.  So memetic evolution has outpaced genetic evolution and we end up with this contradiction between a genetic impulse to be attracted to average-looking ("beautiful") bodies and an intellectual knowledge that it makes more sense to be marrying someone with brains and money, who would be an intellectual partner that would keep you together as a team through the life of your children.


 * As humans, we're faced with this challenge all the time. Here is a big, delicious chocolate donut...our genetic history says that high calorie foods are to be grabbed and wolfed down at every opportunity...our memetic history says "OMG! That's going to make you fat and unhealthy - leave it alone and run away!"...and it's not always clear which system of "evolution" is winning out here.


 * What we need is a genetic change that allows us to turn off those old gene-based biasses when memes tell us that they are stupid...but it could take a long time for such a thing to evolve.  When it does, the concept of beauty may well fall by the wayside...along with racism, sexism, ageism and a bunch of other -ism's that have fallen by the wayside as societal evolution outpaces biological evolution.  But until it does, it takes an effort of will to turn away from that donut - or not feel a twinge of excitement when a pretty girl winks at you.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)