Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 May 26

= May 26 =

Flag of Louisiana
Our article says this flag depicts a mother pelican "feeding her young with her blood". It doesn't say why (neither does Seal of Louisiana), or what the connection is between pelicans and Louisiana, but I found that with a bit of Googling.

I also found through Google the weird old European story about pelicans feeding their young with blood, but why did Louisiana add that element in 2006? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:06, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


 * "After the United States bought Louisiana in 1803, the land that would comprise our state was named the Territory of Orleans. President Thomas Jefferson appointed 28-year-old William C. C. Claiborne governor, and the territory’s legislative council authorized him to design an official government seal. Claiborne adopted a seal depicting an eagle holding a laurel wreath in its beak with fifteen stars arranged at the bottom to represent the states of the Union. But after Louisiana became a state in 1812, the seal was changed to a pelican perched on its nest, plucking at its breast to draw blood to feed its ten chicks... Why Claiborne changed the seal from an eagle to a pelican is not clear, but it might have been his way to honor the state’s Catholic heritage". Alansplodge (talk) 12:40, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Our article on Claiborne notes that although he was a Protestant, he was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery which is Catholic. Trans-Appalachian Frontier (p. 216) says that he married into a Catholic Louisiana family and by his "general posture of cordiality toward the church and its institutions" helped to incorporate Catholics into the political mainstream, during a time of intense anti-Catholicism elsewhere in the US. Alansplodge (talk) 12:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * As to the recent change, the answer is in Seal of Louisiana; "During the 19th century it was traditional in Louisiana flags and the state seal for the "pelican in her piety" to have three drops of blood on her chest. However, in later years the tradition (on both the state flag and seal) had been haphazardly followed, which was noticed by an eighth-grader at Vanderbilt Catholic High School in Houma who brought this to the attention of his state legislator. The issue was resolved in April 2006, when the Louisiana State Legislature passed a bill (House Bill 833/Act 92) which requires three drops of blood to be depicted on the pelican used in both the state's flag and seal". Alansplodge (talk) 13:05, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * As an aside, the Pelican has become something of the state symbol of Louisiana, since it was adopted for the flag and the seal. The Pelicans have been used as a mascot for both a basketball team and a baseball team based in the state, and the Tulane Green Wave university sports teams use a Pelican as their mascot.  -- Jayron 32 16:52, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * But hopefully he doesn't stab his own chest! Alansplodge (talk) 17:02, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * As a native of Louisiana I can also say that the Eastern Brown Pelican is the official state bird of Louisiana. --loupgarous (talk) 00:05, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * @Jayron32 - It's difficult to keep up with the flickering cascade of Tulane University's athletic mascots and heraldry over the years, but they seem to have gone back to the "Angry Green Wave" as their mascot in 2017 --loupgarous (talk) 00:21, 28 May 2020 (UTC).
 * The Angry Green Wave is the logo. The dude acting silly at basketball games still wears a Pelican suit.  See This tweet from just yesterday.  His name is Riptide, and he's still the mascot.  Not all college sports teams have a mascot that matches the nickname or the logo.  The North Carolina Tarheels mascot is a sheep named Rameses, for example, and the Stanford Cardinal has a goofy looking pine tree. -- Jayron 32 03:58, 30 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Irrelevantly, more than one person on seeing my Klein bottle model (the other way up) has compared it to an heraldic pelican. —Tamfang (talk) 00:54, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info, Jayron . Fun fact: our article Tulane Green Wave says "'The name 'Riptide' was selected for the performing pelican by the administration after a vote of the student body in which the students actually voted that the pelican be named 'Pecker.'"My guess is someone ran this past the university's lawyer, who foresaw endless social justice warfare in court if the school mascot were named "Pecker", so the suits punted and named him "Riptide". --loupgarous (talk) 19:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

UK Bus Questions
Dear all,

I have recently become an enthusiast of buses in the UK, both modern and vintage. Unfortunately, I have experienced difficulty in finding a suitable venue to pose various questions I have about buses. All I could find were forums for specific enthusiast groups, which tend to be very regional in their remit. And so, if anyone has any information about places I could go to ask these questions, could you please post it here?

Also, I will post my questions here anyway, some of which are quite obscure, so that you can provide any insights to them that you might have. The questions are as follows:


 * 1) After looking at historical bus companies in the north of England, I have noticed a lack of Scottish border crossings in their routes. This surprises me, as I would expect a company that operates somewhere like Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed to have routes that cross the border to provide much needed bus connections to places such as Gretna and Eyemouth. I have looked at lots of photographs of old buses in these areas and couldn’t seem to find any with Scottish place names in their destination displays. And so, I must ask, where are the buses that make the border crossings? And why can’t I find any photos of Ribble Motor Services vehicles north of Carlisle? Also, where are the Manchester to Glasgow buses?
 * 2) Why are Transport for London so resistant to using LED destination displays on their buses? Isn’t that the cheap industry standard now? Who on earth is still making the old roller blinds? Couldn’t they at least try out the LED displays on a review basis?
 * 3) Why on earth were buses so “regional” in the 1960s? What I mean by that is, why were there bus bodies that rarely or never appeared in one area but are extremely common in another? I know of several examples of this phenomenon, especially in London. For some reason London once had, and occasionally still has buses, such as Routemasters and Regal IV Buses, that have never shown up anywhere north of Watford. Also, I notice that Eastern Coach Works bodied and Bristol chassis single-deck buses were as rare as hens’ teeth in Scotland, but were all over the place in such places as Exeter, Plymouth, Swansea and even places as far north as Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland. What on Earth is going on here?
 * 4) Why did we lose so many chassis and body builders? Whatever happen to such names as, AEC, Park Royal, Guy, East Lancs, Eastern Coach Works, Daimler, Leyland, Bristol, Harrington, Northern Counties, Weymann, Metro-Camell, and many others?
 * 5) Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?
 * 6) Final question, and it’s about models of buses. Why are they so hard to come by? Shouldn’t they be mass-produced in the thousands? Also, why do people always fail to use the metric system when listing the measurements of buses, both actual buses and model buses? I could go on all day about model buses, and I will continue for a bit longer. How come no-one in this industry has attempted to market these models to younger enthusiasts? I think these models could hold the same function as toy cars, which often use the same die casting production methods. Another thing, why do they always use numbers such as 1:76 scale? Why can’t these people give the exact dimensions in mm or cm?

I hope you are not overwhelmed by all of these questions? I look forward to hearing from you soon? Pablothepenguin (talk) 15:53, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I can answer part of question 4 with reference to The Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade (2002)—Harringtons being the largest factory in Hove for most of the 20th century, and indeed one of the biggest employers. Harringtons were bought out by a company called Robins & Day in 1960 (not a name I'm familiar with, but apparently originally part of the Rootes Group); they shut down the Hove factory and works in 1966 and brought the Harringtons name to an end.  Harringtons had been founded in Church Street, Brighton no later than the early 20th century (I don't have an exact date), but their vast factory (the Sackville Works) was opened on the south side of Old Shoreham Road in 1930.  (Now the site of a retail park.  The extent of the works, including its dedicated siding from the West Coastway line, can be seen on this 1951 OS map.)  The last bus built at Hove was registered FFJ 13D in 1966, apparently.
 * For help with other questions like these:
 * If you haven't already joined The Omnibus Society, you may wish to do so. I am not a member, as my interests do not lie specifically in bus operations, but through membership of a closely related enthusiasts' society I personally know several members, and I know the society is a wealth of information on questions such as these.
 * The PSV Circle is another similar society; again I personally know several members and can (indirectly!) attest to its usefulness.
 * LOTS (the London Omnibus Traction Society) is especially strong on London-area matters.


 * Hope that helps a bit. Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  16:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Edit to say that although it is principally for rail enthusiasts, the Rail UK Forums have an excellent Bus and Coach sub-forum which has a very broad remit indeed. Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  16:56, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * And from that, this thread discusses LED displays in London. Alansplodge (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "Why are old photos of buses from the 1960s-1980s always under copyright. Shouldn’t some of these have expired by now? Also, why are the photographers so greedy in the first place? Since I can view the photos for free on the internet, and since I can also download them and print screen them very easily, what could the photographers possibly gain from not declaring them to be public domain? Wouldn’t Creative Commons make more sense in this context?" In many jurisdictions copyright exists from creation of a work. Making something public domain would then require an action. It might not be that the photographers are looking to gain, just that they haven't thought that anyone else would wish to use the photos and haven't bothered to make any definitive statement on rights.--Khajidha (talk) 21:36, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, most of the photos I see come from a site called Flickr, and the copyright status has to be indicated when uploading a photo there. Photo up-loaders must make a conscious decision about what option to select from those available. The fact they are not selecting public domain or Creative Commons suggests a sincere lack of brain cells on their part, given that Flickr requires that they select the status before being able to upload the photo. Some of the knobs on Flickr even have messages which say “This photo must not be copied” or words to that effect. I know that some of the, sell their photos, but I very much doubt they could earn a living off of that. Given that they were presumably around in the 60s, one would have thought that they were getting enough cash from their pensions, or even jobs if they are still working. Pablothepenguin (talk) 22:07, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, it's only now, as a result of this thread, that I have realised it is possible to license one's Flickr photos as CC0/public domain-equivalent. I have uploaded over 4,000 photos to Flickr (mostly of buses, as it happens!), starting about 10 years ago when CC0 and PD were not available as options to choose from, so I uploaded all mine with the least restrictive licence available.  I have never changed any settings since.  Looking at the upload interface, I can see that it is indeed possible to select an alternative licence (it defaults to "Attribution Creative Commons"), but it is so well hidden I had never noticed it.  Frankly I would be happy to relicense all of my pics as CC0 if there is a way to do it in bulk, but I don't fancy doing all 4,000-odd one by one!  Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  23:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * , it was considered a problem in the UK in the 1960s that we had lots of small, very antiquated vehicle manufacturers that didn't seem up to competing with the big manufacturers from abroad (Ford, the Germans, etc.). The government drove essentially the entire British-owned car industry into merging to form British Leyland, creating...one gigantic, very antiquated manufacturer that wasn't able to compete with the big manufacturers from abroad, and was totally impossible to manage, and had endless labour disputes, and squabbling between divisions. (Notoriously, it's been claimed Jaguar deliberately sabotaged a company-wide attempt to save money by standardising engines by building a car into which BL's standard engine did not fit...although I've seen an interview with an engineer who said they just claimed it wouldn't and nobody from head office thought to check. Might cite that in the article if I can find it again.) It's been held up ever since as a case study for governments of how not to help industry. Blythwood (talk) 11:52, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * To answer another of your questions; Q.1 about cross border bus routes, I suspect this is because rural routes are (or have been) subsidised by county councils; there is little incentive to spend money on somebody else's people.
 * On Q.6: in Imperial units, the scale of 1:76 gives the very satisfactory scale of 1 inch to 6 feet (or 76 inches). It's a traditional model-making scale in the UK and widely used by companies like Airfix. Don't forget that British buses would have been built in feet and inches before about 1970 and probably for a long time thereafter unless they were being designed from scratch.
 * Alansplodge (talk) 12:54, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Q.6 Have you tried typing these three phrases into your favourite search engine? "corgi model buses" "matchbox model buses" "triang model buses". You will lots of different models available. --TrogWoolley (talk) 14:23, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Some good answers on dot matrix can be found here (not a reliable source though). I'd summarise as a perception that blinds are clearer and easier to read and because the London routes are less variable than those in many cities. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:43, 27 May 2020 (UTC)