Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 June 25

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June 25

"Small of your back"

What part of your back is the "small" of your back?

Where your back is the smallest ;) Typically just above your hips. --Haemo 02:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, basically the region of your lumbar spine. --jjron 08:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should better say "ideally" instead of "typically". :D --Taraborn 08:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

edits per minute?

How many edits per minute are in the recent changes (includes all actions of Wikipedia such as account creatons, blocks, good/bad edits etc.) in ALL of the languages of Wikipedia?--PrestonH 03:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I was about to be cute and say something like, "one point five metric fuckloads", but that's not too helpful.

I did a quick test just now, and over the past half hour, the English Wikipedia has averaged 180 edits per minute (yes, three per second). That's ordinary edits only, not account creations or blocks or anything like that. (I don't know of a simple way to count the others.)

I took a baseline for the 14 largest Wikipedias, so tomorrow at this time I can give you better numbers (smoothing out differing edit rates based on time of day). If you're still interested, I can do the same thing after a week, too. --Steve Summit (talk) 14:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm intrested.--PrestonH 19:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to get back to this yesterday.

Here are wikipedia edit counts, in edits/minute, for some popular wikipedias:

edits/min	code	lang
150.8	en	English
31.0	de	German
20.8	fr	French
13.8	es	Spanish
13.6	it	Italian
11.8	ja	Japanese
9.6	pl	Polish
8.2	nl	Dutch
7.4	ru	Russian
6.4	pt	Portuguese
5.5	zh	Chinese
3.8	fi	Finnish
3.8	sv	Swedish
3.5	he	Hebrew
3.2	tr	Turkish
2.9	hu	Hungarian
2.5	lmo	Lombard
2.5	no	Norwegian (Bokmål)
1.8	cs	Czech
1.6	ca	Catalan
1.5	da	Danish
1.3	ro	Romanian
1.3	sk	Slovakian
1.3	uk	Ukrainian
1.0	id	Indonesian
0.9	eo	Esperanto
311.8	TOTAL

If you're curious, the methodology here is to visit Special:Recentchanges, and look at the first "diff" link, which is always something like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=blort&curid=2883132&diff=141081446&oldid=139397446. The diff= number increments by one for each edit made. So by checking the recentchanges page twice, separated by a time interval, you get an immediate indication of how many edits were made over that interval. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Table presentation improved (I say) --Anonymous, June 28, 2007, 07:21 (UTC).

AAA Club (the Red Logo One)

For anyone that uses AAA as their insurance or benefits provider do you have to pay for membership monthly or yearly.--logger 05:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Membership dues are paid yearly, but insurance premiums can be paid either monthly or in one sum. Rockpocket 03:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

APA citation where reference work was downloaded from file-sharing network

Are the following citations correct and valid examples of how to cite file-sharing downloads in APA style?

1. Cook, David (1989). Player's Handbook, p. 15. From Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (The Complete Set by Dorian-X). Retrieved May 15, 2007 from urn:sha1:4CSH3LQT7CSVKOLP4NJZ6NJCBH4FZJYP.
2. Davis, Jonathan, lyricist (1999). "Falling Away From Me." Retrieved April 8, 2007 from urn:sha1:QEMYOTQJT4NEPQRDFFX3YCLVUUGZILRY.

I would think that admitting to illegal activities in any cited work is a bad thing, regardless of the citation. In any case, unless you actually read that material online, you shouldn't be citing it like that; APA style, if you have a document you don't need to state it's provenance, unless it was accessed online. If was citing a book, I don't say "Retrieved April 8, 2007 from my high school library". --Haemo 09:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Just because it came from a file sharing network, that doesn't necessarily make it illegal - so this is perhaps a valid question. However, using an illegal source as a reference is not acceptable to Wikipedia since the whole point of references is so that people can go and look them up for themselves. We most certainly do not allow you to encourage people to do something illegal - so for sure an illegal file sharing reference (such as you gave for the AD&D player's handbook) would not be acceptable. I guess I don't understand why you can't simply reference the actual book - I mean, even if you stole your copy - you can still find the ISBN, etc from (say) Amazon.com. SteveBaker 02:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The original book and the electronic version aren't necessarily the same; a song can be mislabeled or misattributed, a book can have OCR errors, combination of multiple books into one file can affect page numbering, etc. As I understand it, official electronic versions have to be cited differently from the print originals, so why wouldn't unofficial electronic versions? NeonMerlin 21:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Choosing chemistry as a subject

Do you need mathematical skills to be good at high school chemistry? --124.180.103.210 10:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Basic arithmetic and some algebra are generally enough. --TotoBaggins 13:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. It's not as mathmatically-demanding as it's sister subject, physics. Vranak

In more advanced chem classes you might get into some geometry and trig in calculating the density of various crystal lattices. StuRat 23:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Stoichiometry is much easier using linear algebra, but can be done without it. -anonymous6494 03:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Modding a FM radio to listen to ATC chatter?

I want to listen to ATC chatter of the airport close to my house but I don't want to shell out around $200 for a cheap scanner. As ATC is basically FM at a few Mhz higher than the FM broadcast range, can I modify a FM receiver to tune into that range? Is it legal (I think it is as I'm not transmitting anything, just receiving, but I ain't no lawyer)? --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it were illegal, nobody would find out... There's no way to tell someone is listening to a radio signal as far as I know, unless they talk about it, or you hear it coming out of their house. I don't know about the radio modification, but if you google, you might find a streaming internet radio for this. I know I used to listen to police radio and such over streaming audio. It's more boring than you'd think -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 10:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It is possible to detect a radio reciever -- the Allies used this during WWII to find German submarines by searching for their radar detectors -- but I'm not aware of anyone who goes out searching for illegal radios. --Carnildo 21:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure it'd probably be illegal, but like phoeba said it's unlikely anyone would care --froth^t 13:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The NZART is the body for amateur radio in New Zealand. They may be able to give advice on the legality or otherwise of receiving ATC transmissions. DuncanHill 14:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There's LiveATC, but you should inquire about the regulations in your jurisdiction. Splintercellguy 15:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it is possible to detect an FM radio that is merely passively tuned into a particular channel. This is the principle behind the British TV detector vans. They work by picking up emissions from the IF generator inside the radio or TV. The British TV detector vans can detect whether a TV is turned on - and if so, which channel it's tuned to - from the street outside the building where the TV is situated. Whilst I'm not aware of anyone routinely monitoring that kind of thing for FM radio - it's certainly possible for authorities to do so if there were some kind of specialised security need. SteveBaker 16:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

But if the normal radio scanners are freely available, I don't see why would modding a FM receiver (or building one from scratch with the tuning coils slightly modified?) be illegal. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The LiveATC site linked above says that while possession of scanners or other receivers capable of picking up ATC transmissions is not illegal in the UK, the actual reception of transmissions not intended for the general public is. I believe that a similar situation used to apply to transmission equipment in the UK - anyone could own radio tramsmission equipment, but its use without the proper licence was illegal. DuncanHill 14:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

So it's like "You can freely sell pot on streets, the buyer just can't smoke them."? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

No: the possession, supply, and use, of cannabis are all offences under UK law. But I must state WikiPedia does not give legal advice'. DuncanHill 22:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Before you go mucking about with radios, check this website, that carries ATC feeds from many airports around the world: Live ATC --Charlene 13:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I was just substituting pot into the radio regulations to show how absurd that is... not that I'm going to sell it or smoke it or posess it or anything. Also, LiveATC doesn't provide NZAA feeds so that's no use. Thanks for the advice though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

There have been lots of situations in UK law where it was legal to sell something and to own it but not to use it...even in the realms of radio equipment. When the first Citizen Band radios appeared, there were a gazillion cheap American ones on the market that operated in the 27MHz band - but it was illegal to operate them in the UK because the 27MHz band was reserved for (of all things) radio controlled model planes! The 'approved' UK band was elsewhere but CB radios that could work in the approved slot were expensive. Because it wasn't illegal to sell or own the 27MHz sets - practically everyone bought the freely advertised, cheap, 27MHz systems and used them illegally. In the end, the UK government caved in - allowed 27MHz for both radio controlled models and CB radios. However, for FLYING radio controlled models (which can be kinda dangerous if they get 'shot down' by an idiot with an illegal 27MHz CB), the government opened up the 35MHz band - so all of the model plane nuts had to buy new (and expensive) radio gear so that the CB nuts could legally do what they'd been doing illegally for some time already using cheap equipment. SteveBaker 14:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

AT&T 1718 Digital Answering Machine

Hello. I bought an AT&T 1718 Digital Answering Machine from a garage sale. (The actual answering machine does not say the model. I guess that it is an AT&T 1718 Digital Answering Machine according to its look compared to the Internet.) It does not come with a manual. However, I found one on the Web. The Web manual says that if the answering machine's memory is full, some or all messages must be deleted. How I can archive all of my messages and still accept new messages? If parts are needed, where can I get them in Canada? Thanks. --Mayfare 17:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If you mean you want to save all the old messages but still have memory for new messages, there are, in general, two options:

1) Increase the memory of that device. Some devices, like digital cameras, allow you to add memory cards, but that seems less likely on an old answering machine.

2) Move the messages you want to keep off the device. I suggest just playing them and recording them on a portable tape player. There will be some loss of quality, but since these are phone messages, not music, I doubt if this will be noticeable. StuRat 23:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Comic grading

What is the highest grade a comic can possibly have on the CGC scale with both a 7mm hole and 11mm tear in the front cover? NeonMerlin 00:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

According to Comic Guaranty LLC: "CGC does not reveal their grading standards" - so this is going to be hard to answer. I guess they want you to pay them $$$ for their opinions. SteveBaker 02:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)