Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 March 31

= March 31 =

Is it hard to get a US driving job with a new license?
Clearly they usually demand one be licensed for at least 3 years because who isn't (in America) but I'm a New Yorker dammit, I wouldn't feel like spending hundreds on driving lessons so I can continue not driving and then do certain jobs when I'm over 10% older. And I think I can judge how much practice after passing the road test is safe enough to do this for a living. Frankly even a 3 week old licensee that drives is likely safer than some subway user who just aged the license for 7 years like a piece of cheese. But they'd accept him because it's from 2009 and he never crashed in his life lol. (And besides, neurotic introverts like me are awesome drivers) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:06, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * From my own experience, it takes years to to become a good driver. Some lessons I learned the hard way are just how bad the road surface becomes in bad weather (and how low visibility becomes), and that when you see one deer crossing the road, there are likely others.  I imagine you could learn those things on a sufficiently good simulator, but you won't learn them driving in good weather, during the day, which is all that you are likely to be exposed to in a typical driving class. StuRat (talk) 01:16, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I learned that when one deer crosses there are likely others from one hour under a power line in Long Island. I'd try to remember the location of any deer crossing signs I might pass again. If I see a deer I am going in the shoulder and stopping. I'd I imagine I'd be scared as shit driving anywhere within a ballpark of the safe limit in bad weather (also, being used to 4.5 mph being fast and waiting 2-20 minutes for trains all my life anything in a car would be plenty convenient for me). I'm sure there's lots more to "what you won't learn in drivers ed" than that of course. There's nothing that says I'd have to Uber when there's a chance of rain till though. I could do every possible permutation of possibilities in a rainy empty parking lot before I ever drive on wet roads (asphalt and concrete and the line between one and the other). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Re: "If I see a deer I am fucking", care to rephrase that, or at least add a comma ? Sounds like it belongs in another Q we had here recently. StuRat (talk) 02:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Oops. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:08, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * "... going in the shoulder"? Do you need an osteopath to cure your decaying shoulder?  That's what that language means to me, but I assume it has another meaning where you are.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  08:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Presumably driving onto the hard shoulder or the soft shoulder. DuncanHill (talk) 08:27, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I thought that meant urinating on the side of the road. StuRat (talk) 15:21, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * My incorrect carspeak is showing. Either that or I'm unconsciously thinking of the fact that every other dialect doesn't wait on line in the store and changing to in. I may not have the horrible Mike Bloombergy accent but I still use the idioms. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * What kind of jobs are you talking about? To work for e.g. UPS or a trucking company or a taxi service you usually need some level of commercial drivers license. If it is a job that just may require some driving sometimes (small business employees sometimes make supply runs on the clock), then they will probably never even ask how old your license is. If it's Lyft or similar don't work for them, it's a bum deal ;) Actually part of the problem is you don't even work for them, and they don't consider you an employee. The main point is you might get better feedback if you tell us a little more about what kind of job you're thinking about. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:36, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Any job, preferably delivery boy (preferably the delivery is not whining brats, back seat drivers, people that never stop yapping on their phones and other humans (no talking when I'm driving, you're increasing my chances of accident 1 million percent)). A lot of the jobs where the driving is more incidental are crap (stupid service economy, if the minimum wage was over double they'd have to trim the fat (customer service jobs like waitress and cashier) and make them stop not talking about how people will eat when when automation inevitably makes too many unskilled uneeded by capitalism anymore) Why are the independent contractor places like Lyft, Uber and Amazon horrible BTW? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:47, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Here are some critiques of Uber . Again, you wouldn't even be an employee. 1099 economy is a big buzzphrase these days, and lots of people don't like it, especially the folks who get 1099 forms instead of W-2 forms, so that their employer-in-all-but-name can save money on payroll tax while passing the burden on to their not-technically employees. All these things can be referenced   , so I'm not just giving you my opinion. But lots of people do like working for Uber, so whatever, I just wanted to share some relevant and widely discussed concerns. Things like pizza delivery do not usually require CDL, but they may or may not earn the full minimum wage, sometimes they get Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States. Local small businesses will usually care less about a new license than national brands. By the way, bicycle courier pays well and has lots of demand in NYC . SemanticMantis (talk) 16:59, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow that's a jerk-ish company. I want doubting you, I just wanted to know what the bum deal was (I don't follow these things).


 * I'd probably be a bike courier right now if I knew how to ride. How hard is it to learn to balance one by the way? I tried making the mythical stabilizing gyroscope kick in (yo) and it seemed impossible (maybe it being on gravel hurt). I was 17 too, not an uncoordinated little boy (I couldn't balance at 7 either). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:28, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * If you are a New Yorker and not suicidal then I wouldn't recommend being a bike courier. You guys simply don't have the infrastructure (and culture!) required. Over here things are different. Our government has spent billions of dollars on bike lanes, and everyone knows that cyclists ignore all traffic laws and that they always demand the right of way. For me, it is difficult to imagine that there are adults who are unable to ride a bike, although I know there are some government subsidized programs to teach elderly immigrants how to ride one. Basically everyone here has at least one bike, and many have two (or three, like me, one for racing, one mountainbike and one normal bike). According to the CBS (no, not that TV station) people in my country cycled an average of 2,9 kilometers per person per day. The "mythical stabilizing gyroscope" is simply speed.   Learning to ride a bike is easy, especially when you are taught to ride one at an early age, and we give tiny children extra training wheels on the side of the bike to stabilize them. People in the USA wear a helmet while cycling. Helmet use here is almost non-existent, bike use is very high, and yet we have the lowest cycling death and injury rate in the world. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 01:15, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I was trying to keep it as straight and centered as possible instead of doing the turning thing described in your links. Maybe that's why I couldn't get it fast enough for VTEC to kick in (meme)  . I've only had a bike cut in front of me like that maybe twice, it'd be much more if that was common practice. I doubt you have to ride quite like that to be fast enough to not get fired (but the holding some random guys car and being pulled by it is a real thing). If I got fired for not taking enough risks to be fast enough I wouldn't care. We actually have some bike lanes now. In Times Square shown in the video for instance. It seems like they're sprouting like mushrooms now but that's just cause I remember when there were none. You can even rent (heavy) bikes with a credit card from rows of racks in the street (put the wheel all the way in so it locks the bike to stop accruing rent fees). But almost all the east to west streets are only two traffic lanes wide (one way) so I doubt they will ever have bike lanes. At least half the addresses are on those streets and it will forever be impossible to be a New York bike courier without riding in regular lanes. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:54, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * At some point in space and time my local government decided that roads should be wider than they used to be, because they wanted to separate the pedestrians (on the curb) the cyclists (in the bicycle lane), the cars (on the road) and the tram (on the rails in the middle). They bought and demolished many houses to achieve this goal. I doubt that this will ever happen in New York. Over here it took many years and it was very expensive. Cyclists have lots of political power in this country. Dutch kids start early, with training wheels, and it feels like a rite of passage to have them taken off. Usually, when teaching the kids, the parents will run behind the bike to stabilize it, and they only let go when the kid has achieved the minimum speed required. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 10:14, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * That's how American kids are taught to ride bikes, too. I never got the hang of it and they gave up. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It's easy, it's just like having sex, except not as icky. (Or maybe you never learned how to do that either. Ah well, too late now.  Best to see out your senior years by editing Wikipedia.)  :) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:22, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Need help finding pictures for Mauser Model 1895
I please need assistance finding free to use pictures for my newly created article Mauser Model 1895, if you have the rifle and can add a picture that would be greatly appreciated or if you know of a search engine or site where a free to use picture can be found. Any assistance will be appreciated, thank you. Heemrad (talk) 07:45, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Here are two ways to search for freely usable images . SemanticMantis (talk) 16:40, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
 * By any chance, it's not what these fellows are carrying is it? Alansplodge (talk) 21:10, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help i appreciate it but creative commons didnt have anything unfortunately, was hoping an active user on wikipedia might have the actual gun and could take photos of it.So far no luck. @Alansplodge I have no idea if that is the right rifle, cant see it correctly to properly identify it but thanks for the help though maybe i should investigate the origins furtherHeemrad (talk) 05:43, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * A bit more rummaging failed to find a direct i/d for the Chilean guards' rifle, but the Mauser Chilean 7 mm Model 1912 seems more likely. Apologies for the red herring. Alansplodge (talk) 13:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You can request pictures on Commons, here [].--Ykraps (talk) 10:41, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You could also try leaving a message at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Firearms where you're more likely to meet specialists in that area. Alansplodge (talk) 11:11, 1 April 2016 (UTC)