Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 November 20

= November 20 =

Gym exercise machines always starting at really low intensity
I've been going off and on to various gyms for most of my adult life. One thing that always puzzled me was why, when you choose a program on something like the treadmill or the handbike, it asks questions about age and weight, but doesn't use that information to adjust the difficulty level. Whatever I put in, the machine will start on the lowest possible intensity and I'll have to manually adjust it up. Which isn't exactly difficult, and I assumed I'd been doing it wrong anyway, but now I've finally hired a personal trainer... and he doesn't know either. He adjusts the machines after starting them just like I was doing. So I guess the machines are programmed to start on really really easy to save the manufacturers from vexatious lawsuits, but then why do they ask for age and weight at all? 129.67.118.14 (talk) 01:28, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Age and weight are used to calculate caloric burn rate as well as determine the difficulty level for preset "fat burn" courses on the exercise machines.--WaltCip (talk) 01:52, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, that makes perfect sense now. I never used the fat burn programs; they didn't seem relevant to skinny scrawny guys :-) 129.67.118.14 (talk) 02:25, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Am a bit surprised that your trainer doesn't know this or maybe he is just being economical. The best explanation I got for starting off slow, is that when you exert yourself above normal activity it causes micro-tears in muscle, tendons and bone. At the same time it places more stress on the heart and the rest of the cardio-vascula system.  So if one is starting a program  for the first time or after a break one needs to allow the body time to repair. In doing so, the body becomes becomes stronger and one can go slowly up a level without the same risk of  muscle sprains or torn hamstring etc. Also, these days it is easy to monitor ones heart rate to ensure it is working hard but not over doing it. Rather than using expensive gym equipment (which requires repetitive actions which itself can lead to RSI) why not try 5BX, [The 5BX Plan]. Air crew need to be very fit and this is easy to do at home. --Aspro (talk) 15:53, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

How do people who live in very cold places wash their body?
Like Eskimos who live in ice houses, how do they bathe? How often do they bath? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.102.151.235 (talk) 11:33, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You might want to read the article on Bathing. Although it does not cover all human societies, it does illustrate that modern bathing is not a universal phenomena.  It's not as necessary to bathe everyday when it gets cold enough, and it is reasonable to heat a bath, bathroom, or bathhouse (or even build the bathhouse on top of a hot spring).  Also, igloos can be quite warm.  Ian.thomson (talk) 11:49, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * See Taking Steam: "Eskimos call it muk’ee, and it is their traditional method of bathing. In a land where water is locked up in ice for the eight frozen months of the year, the people had to develop a system for bathing that required very little water... The steam bath gets you cleaner than a shower, and provides an opportunity for socializing as well... It is a small, two-room building made of logs or lumber..." Alansplodge (talk) 15:23, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also see a 1917 photograph of a Kozgee, the traditional men's meeting room which could double as a steam bath. Alansplodge (talk) 15:30, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, Eskimos and Inuits don't live in Igloos anymore, and haven't for well over a century. They live in modern wood-frame houses like many other people.  Most of them likely shower or bathe like other people in cold climates do.  -- Jayron 32 19:43, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, igloos made from snow were usually used as a temporary shelter during hunting expeditions rather than a family home. Alansplodge (talk) 22:29, 20 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The world offers many cold places, and many ways of keeping clean. The Russians have a type of sauna called a banya, and homesick scientists (or their media-savvy fund-raising advisers) built the Russian bath in Antarctica. Apparently tourists can "hot spring" on Desolation Island. As for the igloo, our article describes several types. In Inuktitut it just means "house", but in the specific English meaning of "snow house", it's only fair to point out that saying they haven't been used "for well over a century" is not accurate, certainly in Canada and I suspect in Alaska and Greenland too. Very few Canadian Inuit (NB already plural, no S) had been "settled" into government villages by 1900; they were still living on the land and continuing their hunting and fishing as they had done for centuries, aware of and trading with European whalers and explorers, but more or less self-contained as a culture. See the writings of Knud Rasmussen (I can't believe we still have to redlink his cross-continental dog-sled trek) or any of the other Arctic expeditions of the 1900s. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 00:18, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The Talking Steam link shows logs being used which means it is below the tree line and would not be common for most Inuit. By the way it is Inuit in English and Inuits in French for the plural. Igloos were not universal throughout the area occupied by Inuit and Qarmaq were also used as were sod houses. In the western Canadian Arctic and possibly into Alaska an igluryuaq was common in the winter. The Inuit didn't really move into settlements until after WWII but until the mid 1980s (I think we got our first house with running water in 1985) most Inuit homes (social or government housing) did not have running water, honey bucket, but some came with bath tubs. The single room 512 house, called a matchbox house and was 512 sqft, had no room for a tub or shower and unlike the Tiny house movement didn't have a second storey. So if you wanted a bath or shower you had a few options. If you lived in a 3 bedroom house you could try and heat enough water on an electric stove. If you lived in a matchbox then you had a gravity fed oil stove/heater which was easier to heat water and take a sponge bath. You could also make friends with one of the Qablunaaq (used in general for anybody who wasn't Inuit), a teacher or some government worker, and use their shower as all their houses had running water, but they still had honey buckets. We were lucky as my wife worked at the school so once a week we would go to one of the teachers houses. By the way there were no sewer tanks and all the waste water was just dumped under the house. Today all the houses have water trucked in and sewage pumped out by a honeywagon. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 03:27, 21 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I am curious, would the plural of qablunaaq be qablunaat? μηδείς (talk) 01:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes and with references. Of course it depends on which dialect you use it could be qallunaat. I just used the local dialect. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 01:36, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I have read enough of Michael Fortescue that I suspected the -t form was plural. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 04:42, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Birth dates for brothers James Otis Jr, and Joseph Otis
In searching family genealogy I keep coming up with birth dates for James Jr. and Joseph that do not make sense. I find James Jr.'s birth date as Feb.5, 1725 and Joseph's as Feb.22, 1725. Please help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.214.60 (talk) 17:13, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Is this maybe an Old Style and New Style dates issue? -- Jayron 32 19:41, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that's probably the most likely explanation. Joseph's gravestone here gives his date of birth as "22d of February OS. A.D. 1725".  Assuming the 5 February date for James Otis's birth is NS, he was born one year and 28 days before his brother - 5 February 1725 NS = 25 January 1724 OS. Tevildo (talk) 20:40, 20 November 2016 (UTC)