Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 February 5

= February 5 =

Law: Inheritance per stirpes
Two cousins: Is there any legal system, in which the common boy - inherits twice as much as either of his half-siblings does? (Please notice that if such a jurisdiction exists it must provide for the inheritance to be shared per stirpes). HOTmag (talk) 11:24, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Became parents (in wedlock),
 * 2) Then they became widowed,
 * 3) Then they became parents (in wedlock) of a common boy - who consequently has now two half-siblings,
 * 4) Then they died,
 * 5) Finally, their common grandmother died and left intestate property inherited to her grand-grandchildren - being the common boy and his two half-siblings.
 * It took me a while to get my head around what you were asking with your five points! But basically, I think you're asking 'can somebody inherit twice as much as another relative'? Your question is asking for legal advice, but I think I can still point you towards will and probate. Mike Dhu (talk) 20:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think a question of the form "Is there any jurisdiction where the law works this way?" is a request for legal advice. However, it is a question that nobody is likely to be able to answer unless they know that it works that way in their own jurisdiction. (It doesn't in mine, I believe.) --76.69.45.64 (talk) 22:49, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Although this is a weird set of facts that has probably never come up, the legal issue actually arises with great frequency. Suppose that Tycoon has three children, A, B, and C, and A has three children, B has two, and C has one.  A, B, and C all predecease Tycoon, and Tycoon then dies intestate.  Does C's child get a one-third share, based on representation through C, or does she get a one-sixth share, with the six grandchildren sharing equally?  It will depend on whether the local jurisdiction provides for such inheritances to be shared per stirpes, meaning by right of representation, or per capita, meaning equal shares.  The determination may be affected by whether any of A, B, and C are still alive.  John M Baker (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The jurisdiction I'm looking for, must provide for the inheritance to be shared per stirpes. A,B,C all died, as you can figure out by reading my fifth point. HOTmag (talk) 16:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, I think the fact pattern unpacks to something like this:
 * A and B have children C and D.
 * C marries E, D marries F.
 * C and E have a child, G.
 * D and F have a child H.
 * G marries I, H marries J.
 * G and I have a child K, H and J have a child L.
 * I and J die.
 * G and H marry and have a child, M.
 * A, C, D, E, F, H, and J all die.
 * B dies intestate.
 * Let's also presume that G never adopted L, and H never adopted K. The question is, essentially, whether K, L, and M all share 1/3 of B's estate; or whether K and L each get 25%, and M gets 50%. Under the UPC (which doesn't use classical per stirpes, but I don't think it makes a difference in this fact pattern), each would get a single share. See § 2-113, which explicitly deals with "individuals related to the decedent through two lines". Note that many states have adopted the UPC in a piecemeal fashion, so even those other than the 17-odd that have adopted the UPC in its entirety may follow the same or a similar rule. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 22:53, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Your nineth point includes a typo, i.e. the letter J should be replaced by the letter G. Anyway, why do you think UPC is relevant although it does not divide the assets per stirpes? HOTmag (talk) 23:50, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Intestate distribution is complicated and often unpleasant. This is not legal advice but advice to seek legal advice:  If you have assets, get a lawyer to write a will.  By the way, the largest and one of the most complicated intestate distributions ever was that of the estate of Howard Hughes, which was divided up among 22 cousins.  The so-called Mormon will was rejected as a forgery.  If Hughes had made a genuine will in his last years, it might not have survived probate because he might have been considered insane in his later years.  An actress who made a questionable claim to have been married to Hughes on board an ocean liner (whose log book had then been lost) was paid an unspecified amount of money.  It is interesting that, although Hughes had been something of a ladies' man in his youth, no one showed up to claim to be his illegitimate child (and an illegitimate child would have claimed the entire estate, not a portion of it).  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It's my understanding that the UPC system is substantially per stirpes, and that in the fact pattern as arranged there is no difference between strict/classical per stirpes and UPC per stirpes. Could you perhaps explain why you think it makes a difference? It's been awhile since I've flipped through my T&E notes and I certainly could be missing something. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 02:18, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If the decedent - who left behind intestate property - has surviving descendants, then under the per stirpes method - the whole intestate property is (virtually) divided equally among these decedent's children each of which either is alive or has descendants alive. Please notice that this is not the case under UPC (e.g. when the decedent has no surviving children, but rather surviving grandchildren).
 * Logically, according to the per stirpes method, every heir - related to the decedent through two lines (e.g. in the case I've asked about), must inherit twice as much as any other hier - related to the decedent through one line - does. The reason for this, as explained above, is because the (virtual) heirs in the per stirpes method - are the decedent's deceased children - rather than the decedent's grandchildren. HOTmag (talk) 08:55, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Horoscope daily predictions
I noticed that the term Horoscope is monopolized since decades ago by those ridiculous daily predictions that many newspapers publish and even radio/tv stations broadcast. Those have actually nothing to do with the horoscope, yet now everyone thinks that horoscope means "daily predictions". Is there a more accurate term for those "daily horoscope predictions" and is there any Wikipedia article or a section in some article about those predictions? —  Ark25  (talk) 14:38, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Sun sign astrology. It's worth noting that (their writers claim) the sun sign horoscope still has something to do with astrology, but it's a very simplified system. And of course, more complex "true horoscopes" don't seem to have any more predictive power than the "You will meet a tall dark stranger" nonsense that the papers print. Smurrayinchester 15:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Astrology in any form is utter drivel, so why should you distinguish between different forms of drivel? Fgf10 (talk) 16:23, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * To be fair, people have fun keeping track of and organizing the various noble houses of Westeros as well. That something is fictional doesn't mean it isn't something people find studying or analyzing or keeping track of a worthwhile activity.  -- Jayron 32 16:33, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The Zodiac stuff in the Old Farmer's Almanac makes the point that it's for entertainment only. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:12, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the distinction you're looking for here is between:
 * The idea of writing a sufficiently generalized prediction that everyone will feel it's true - (which is what newspaper-style horoscopes do) - this relies on the Forer effect where any sufficiently generalized statement will be felt to be true by most people if they are told it was individualized to them. This works amazingly well - as Forer showed in a 1948 experiment which has been reproduced successfully dozens of times since.
 * The idea that you can work with an individual person, and by feeding them sufficiently careful probes, gradually come up with a rather specific prediction for them. There are two principle approaches to this - one is called "Shotgunning" where you fire off a rapid selection of essentially contradictory claims - watching the persons' reaction and homing in on the claims that produce the most positive reactions.
 * The latter clearly isn't possible in the newspaper version of astrology - but an astrologer meeting with you in person can employ shotgunning (and other Cold reading techniques) to get something that feels more personalized. In some cases, where the person being analysed is quite famous, Hot reading allows the astrologer to produce reports that match what the victim wishes to hear - and that can strongly reinforce the "prediction" by salting it with things that are known in advance to come true.
 * Of course none of this is "real"...as has been proven by countless careful experiments in the past. SteveBaker (talk) 19:31, 5 February 2016 (UTC)