Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 March 26

= March 26 =

Register of American companies?
I was referred here from the Help Desk with today's dumb question: Is there a publicly available register of American companies, that will tell me the years when they started and (if appropriate) when they closed? I would like to go back to at least 1990, but anything would help. Writing about companies, their "vital years" puts them in the context of their industry. But there is typically no media publicity when they start so I was hoping there might be a central register where I can get that information. I tried the SEC registers (1 2 3) without any luck.--Gronk Oz (talk) 07:34, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Gronk Oz, an internet search suggests that US companies are registered at state level, so there is no national list. Many are registered under Delaware General Corporation Law. TSventon (talk) 07:46, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * that is what I was afraid of, because typically I don't know what state they were established in. Thanks anyway.--Gronk Oz (talk) 08:30, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , you may get a more knowledgeable answer in due course. Do you have an example in mind? If not, you could come back when you have. TSventon (talk) 09:09, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It came up while I was looking at Seasilver, though I think it would be something generally useful. "Seasilver" is the name of a product and also one of the two companies involved (Seasilver USA, Inc. and Americaloe, Inc.). I have been able to reconstruct the start date (I trust it's not SYNTH to work back from a 2002 article that says it was ten years old).  I still don't have a closure date for Americaloe.--Gronk Oz (talk) 11:06, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , I tried looking for Seasilver USA, Inc. . It was based in California so I looked for California company search online and searched at https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/ . That showed me it was registered in Nevada, so I searched at https://esos.nv.gov/EntitySearch/OnlineEntitySearch and found both Seasilver USA, Inc. and Americaloe, Inc. . I hope that gets you started. TSventon (talk) 11:41, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I was asked this question by a patron and I suggested this. It is a 292MB data file of over 7 million companies. She said it worked for her once she got the resources to load it. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 23:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

neutral expressions and interpretation
An old teacher told me that someone did a study where they showed a film clip of a character with a neutral expression following a snippet of some object or action. Obviously, interpretation of the person's thoughts varied with context. Is there a name for this phenomenon or fallacies therefrom? Temerarius (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * There is a well-studied phenomenon in cognitive and social psychology called projection, which can briefly be defined as the tendency to ascribe one’s own affects to others. If I'm disgusted by something, it is hard for me to accept that someone else is not, and working from my assumption that they are, confirmation bias can ease me into falsely interpreting their behaviour as surfacing from the expected disgust. Some researchers refer to such fallacious projection as "projection bias", although that term is also and perhaps more commonly used with a completely different sense. --Lambiam 22:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)


 * See Priming (psychology). Modocc (talk) 21:27, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Why are Switchblade 300s/600s so new if they're effective mature tech from day 1?
1 and 2 decades newer than drones that fired missiles. I can't be the only person who thought why don't they also make drone-missile hybrids?Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Do you mean a missile that can be steered remotely? That exists on many levels. There are many shoulder-fired projectiles (very tiny missiles) that can be steered. In Desert Shield/Desert Storm, there was extensive use of air-to-ground missiles that could be steered in flight. Often, the video from those was used in the evening news. If, however, you are asking why it took so long for drones to fire missiles, it is an ethical issue. It simply took time before the people who pay the bills could accept drones with guns and missiles. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 23:45, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Aren't they usually steered in-flight by either an onboard computer that sometimes follows decoys that wouldn't fool a human, a joystick or similar connected to the missile by wires, GPS/inertial guidance which is better for houses than something doing evasive maneuvers, or someone aiming an infrared laser or radar spot on the target and it calculates a spot hit like an advanced cat? When did they start driving bombs like a remotely piloted airplane and flying them into targets from any angle desired and up to 6 to 25 miles from the pilot? Didn't it use to only be a few kilometers if a human was flying it? And if they technologically could've afforded to shoot from the drone from the beginning (the first lethal model flew 1994) then the lateness of Switchblade kamikaze drones in comparison should be more surprising. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:04, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Battery technology, perhaps? It's extremely light. Infantry lug it around (easily), that's the whole gimmick of it. Card Zero  (talk) 01:13, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That was one of my guesses but the 5.5 lb one is 1 decade older than the 50 lb one and probably has a worse air resistance to volume ratio. Or maybe it took 10 years to make the larger one's batteries not overheat? The idea wouldn't necessarily be useless without 2010s batteries, as small engines exist and could be turned off for a quieter final dive. Or maybe running it on engines part way then a smaller battery within earshot. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:39, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Courtesy link: AeroVironment Switchblade.- gadfium 04:20, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * A human driving a projectile by missile-eye view is apparently called television guidance, reasonable experimental results in World War Two but never widely used. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Or indeed a pigeon driving.... Fgf10 (talk) 16:59, 27 March 2022 (UTC)