Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 July 15

= July 15 =

Winds in Last Flight
In her book Last Flight, where Amelia reported the wind direction and strength, was she referring only to winds aloft? Because I have identified several airports she stopped at (San Juan, Karachi, Calcutta, and Bandung, and maybe others I forgot about) where she would have encountered crosswinds strong enough to preclude takeoff if the wind direction and strength at ground level were as reported by her in the book! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:1AA:EC88:6F1A:C659 (talk) 02:36, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Anyone? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:1AA:EC88:6F1A:C659 (talk) 10:52, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Ty Cobb, lawyer
Ty Cobb is Trump's new lawyer. News stories make lots of jokes about how he is not his famous dead baseball-playing relative, but they do not answer the obvious question of how he is related. Grandson? Great nephew? Third cousin 4 times removed? Edison (talk) 03:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Every source I can read merely calls him a "relative". Given the way the cousin chart works, he's at best 2 times removed, probably 3 times removed by generation from the baseball player, which means that at the closest would be a great-grandson of the ballplayer, but likely wasn't, as such a close relation would have been mentioned were it direct.  The ball player had 5 natural children, three sons, so one of them could be the connection, but it's more likely to be more distant than that given the lack of mention of a direct descent.  Cobb himself was the oldest of three children, but the Wikipedia article doesn't mention gender, if the lawyer were a great nephew, that'd mean the ballplayer had a brother.  According to This he had one brother and one sister; the brother being a John Paul Cobb II.  Digging a bit deeper on the same website, the ballplayer also may have also had a half-brother Elvin Thomas Cobb.  Those may be some leads for your research.  -- Jayron 32 05:28, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If you're interested in looking into the Cobb family tree, this has some info [//www.ancestry.com/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=708&p=surnames.cobb] although I'm not sure it's going to bring you any closer to working out exactly how the lawyer is related. Nil Einne (talk) 05:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * (EC) [//www.superlawyers.com/washington-dc/article/the-kansas-peach/9e159e1a-544e-4565-9c7e-88e9f3b7996b.html] says 'is actually this Cobb’s grandfather’s distant cousin. “It’s not a big part of my identity,”' Well admittedly Super Lawyers sounds like some sort of untrustworthy spam site, it's actually evidentally a Thomson Reuters company so I guess can't be that bad. (Note I'm explicitly not commenting on whether it's an RS.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Dang, I would have posted that link first if not for the edit conflict with Jayron. Anyway, I suggest that the "grandfather" reference mean that they're nth cousins twice removed, for some value of n that is not a very small number. --76.71.5.114 (talk)


 * Another thought I had (and this is just me riffing, so it's not exactly reliable) is what the lawyer's actual birth name was. Ty Cobb's (the ballplayer) full first name is "Tyrus", which is not exactly a common name; as far as I can tell the lawyer is only ever referred to as "Ty" (never "Tyrus"), which means his birth name may be merely "Ty" or it could be "Tyrus" or it could be something entirely different, but got stuck on him as a nickname because of his last name.  For a related example, in the U.S., many people with the last name "Holliday" or "Halliday" or similar get stuck with the nickname "Doc" because of the original Doc Holliday.  You can see at Doc Holliday (disambiguation) there are several articles on people whose last name is "Holliday" or similar who use the moniker "Doc" merely because of the memorable historical figure.  For all we know, the same could happen frequently with the name "Cobb", where males with the last name get tagged as "Ty" even if their birth name were John or Steve or William.  Just me rambling here.  Carry on.  -- Jayron 32 06:04, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As a random comment, the baseball player does actually have a great grand son named Tyrus, I presume named after him [//www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/this-ty-cobb-prefers-hoops-over-baseball-34105533-020811]. There doesn't seem to be many if any mentions after a brief flurry early 2011 though suggesting the basketball never went that far. Nil Einne (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If any facts about lawyer Ty were available, such as his legal name, birth date and place, or parents, one might be able to do standard genealogy and ascertain the exact relationship to baseball Ty. Edison (talk) 03:02, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Doesn't he seem notable enough for a bio article? Edison (talk) 03:05, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Why doesn't Shantou have a metro system?
According to the linked list, the largest city in China (as ranked by urban area according to OECD methodology) without a metro system is Shantou. The 11 cities larger than it all have metros, generally exceeding 100km. Yet according to the Wiki article on metro system in China, there isn't even one under construction or planned to be constructed. What prevents a metro system from being built in Shantou? (According to wiki article on city, it's one of the most dense regions in China.) Muzzleflash (talk) 16:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Are the Chinese authorities planning to build any more metro systems?  Birmingham is Britain's second city and doesn't have a metro, although smaller ones do. 92.8.217.19 (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Birmingham has an extensive overground railway network so has no need of a separate metro system, though it does have a metro.--Shantavira|feed me 08:22, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It does, it's just above ground: Midland Metro. Smurrayinchester 08:50, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "Today, there is no subway service in Shantou. As planned, there will be 9 metro lines at the city. Line 1, line 2 and line 3 will start construction in 2018, and will be put into service by 2020..."   Alansplodge (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * By "wiki article on metro system in China" do you mean a wikipedia article on metro systems in China? If so can you mention what article you mean so we can fix it? (If you mean some other wiki, this should probably be fixed too but it's not something we're likely to be able to help you with here. Urban rail transit in China for example not only doesn't say there isn't one "planned to be constructed" in Shantou, it explicitly mentions albeit without a source a proposed "Shantou Metro (汕头市域轨道)" and has done so probably since at least 15 days before you posted [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Urban_rail_transit_in_China&oldid=788311238]. Transport in China links to the earlier article but otherwise doesn't seem to list proposed systems only those already under construction. No where does it say there isn't one "planned to be constructed" in Shantou. I can't find any other wikipedia article which seems to be significantly related to metro systems in China. Nil Einne (talk) 15:12, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks my mistake I did not see on the page urban rail transit in China that was a planned metro for the city. Thanks alansplodge, I will update the page. Muzzleflash (talk) 21:05, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * But you seem to suggest some page said there wasn't one planned to be connstructed in Shantou, what article was this? Even if the article urban rail transit in China did not list the proposed system in Shantou this is quite different from it explicitly saying that there was none planned for Shantou. The later is an omision since our article does list other proposed systems but should be expected on wikipedia, the former is an error (whether because it was true at one stage, incidentally this is why such statements should generally be dated or was incorrect when added). Both should be improved but an error is a significantly more serious thing. Note if none of our articles said there was none planned for Shantou but you simply assumed that because you missed the listing for the proposed system, this highlights an important point. As I said it would not be that surprising for our articles to simply lack some proposed or planned systems. You should not assume that none is planned or proposed just because our article does not mention any. Actually even in plenty of places outside wikipedia, you should take great care in assuming that just because a source doesn't mention something means that it isn't the case. Nil Einne (talk) 11:16, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As for why it's taken so long, it might be to do with Shantou being a coastal city with very soft clay soil on a significant earthquake faultline (a quake in Shantou 99 years ago killed a thousand people). Smurrayinchester 08:50, 17 July 2017 (UTC)