Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2008 March 21

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March 21

The Bolles-Brendamour Company

The Bolles-Brendamour Company I recently acquired a bicycle headtube badge with this company's name on it. It was a sporting goods business in the 1920's and '30's in Cincinnati,Ohio. I am looking for more information on the company and the bicycles they sold. I would imagine the bikes were built by Schwinn or another company and rebadged when sold at the sporting goods store. Anyone know of or have ever seen a bike with the Bolles-Brendamour name on it?

• A Google search turns up very little. Hopefully someone from around that way has some more direct info. --jjron (talk) 14:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Mistake

In the East York Collegiate Institute article, you guys made a mistake. According to the TDSB site, there no such name as George A. Brown, but Gordon A Brown.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). -Elmer Clark (talk) 08:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Trolling or just being an a##hole?

I was playing a nice good old game of Halo on my PC when this guy reads my name and starts making crude comments towards me. I ignored it for awhile until it started to bug the crap out of me and my clan.(please excuse the poor use of grammar)What was his motive? Was it to piss me off? or Was it to get under my clan's skin? In the end we ended up banning him so all is good.--SlaveofBetrayal (Talk)

Maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he gets kicks out of making random strangers mad, maybe he was losing and was trying to make up for it by running his mouth. Perhaps you could have just muted him? Useight (talk) 05:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd got the impression that this was common. Quite probably just 'being friendly' in a spirit of 'heated competition' - some people love this sort of this and give back. Seriously. If you don't like it - yep - just ban him. Some people like 'trash talking' each other.. Don't ask me why.87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the title question actually presents two opposing ideas. In my mind, trolling is being an ass. It sounds like you took the best course of action, ignoring and then banning. --LarryMac | Talk 14:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

As we aren't him, I would say it looks like an example of cyberbullying. Which I am against. So your ban was justified, in my opinion. Neal (talk) 20:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC).

I don't appreciate that kind play and I am glad you all agree I took the apropitiate course of action. The fact that trash talking is not allowed in the server what so ever is the fact that bothered me the most and I wish people could follow the rules accordingly.--SlaveofBetrayal (Talk)

Dr. Detroit

Why is it Detroit became center of the auto industry? I'm aware Cleveland was a major car mfg center early in the 20h Century, & so was Indianapolis, with places like Racine, Wisconsin, & Springfield, Massachusetts, among pioneers. I'm also aware Detroit/area was fairly big in wagon manufacturing (in the 200K-plus/yr range). Was that the sole reason? Were there others? In a similar vein, why was the Model T so successful? Just price? Reliability? Something else? Thanx! Trekphiler (talk) 05:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Our article on the history of Detroit says Henry Ford chose Detroit due to the wagon industry and others followed him there. -Elmer Clark (talk) 08:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

One reason Detroit became a center for automobile manufacturing is its location. Almost all of the resources needed to make cars can come down Lake Huron or Lake Erie to the factories. The iron could come from the UP or Canada and wood could come from anywhere. One thing that wasn't so close was rubber which had to come from Central and South America. Henry Ford's good friend Thomas Edison tried to solve this problem with a plant called goldenrod which rubber can be made from. The plant wasn't productive enough to use on an industrial scale. The location of the other cities is also near the Great Lakes (Massachusetts by the ocean) so would have the same reasons for being a major automobile manufacturing center. The Model T was so successful mainly because of the price. The assembly lines were so fast that they made the car cheap enough for regular people to afford. I think the time it took to make a car was 90 minutes, but I'm not positive on that.

Incidentally, our article on the assembly line lends credence to the 90 minute thing. 93 man-minutes isn't really the same as 93 clock-minutes, but it's an impressive figure regardless. — Lomn 16:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The goldenrod research was to provide for rubber substitites in future wartime. Tires made from goldenrod were never very good or very cheap. Edison (talk) 22:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand New England was also strong in technicians/tech-skilled people, one reason Springfield nearly became "Detroit". Trekphiler (talk) 03:20, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

do NIOS passed persons face any difficulty??

The person passing from the National Institute of Open Schooling,Do they face any problems regarding jobs as compare to a CBSE or some other Board passed out?

Lilt

Does anyone know why Lilt is less fizzy than other carbonated drinks by Coca-Cola? Lanfear's Bane | t 14:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Presumably they don't carbonate it as much. Preference by the drink's original manufacturer most likely. -mattbuck (Talk) 20:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Would they have done this to make it distinctive as well or was there a demand for less fizz? Julia Rossi (talk) 23:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Free Range Chickens

Do free range chickens run away often?

While free range chickens have more space than caged chickens, they aren't running wild as you seem to think. My chickens have a yard of appox. an eighth of an acre and can be considered free range. They do have a fence which confines them though. It also aids in keeping predators out. Also, last year we bought a few chickens from a local farm when we lost some of ours to a predator. The chickens that we bought can legally be called free range although they aren't kept outside. They were kept in a barn and the only sunlight that they saw was through a couple of windows in the wall. They had never seen grass before we bought them. Dismas|^(talk) 15:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice answer - I think this was a joke though (I hope) and probably funniest of the day. Best wishes.87.102.16.238 (talk) 15:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This wasn't a joke....

While it's true that "free range" chicken are not really "free", I find the question of whether chicken tend to run quite interesting. (Yes, there were and still are some of those chicken held without any fences.) Apparently they don't run all too often, otherwise nobody would do it. But why do they stay close to the house/barn at all? Food? Fear of predators? Convenience? ... And how often do they go for a stroll? ... --Thanks for answering (talk) 17:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

When I first got chickens, we weren't as strict about keeping them in their yard and would let them roam. They did stay fairly close, though they did wander to the neighbor's houses. They would come back every night to roost and, although they could find food while scratching around on the ground, they would come back for food as well. Every so often though, we would lose one during the day and they wouldn't come back at night. We suspected that predators got them. When we moved to our new house, we started keeping them confined more often as we have more wilderness around us now than before. Dismas|^(talk) 17:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There are "feral" chickens which roam all over Fair Oaks, California. The town has an annual Chicken Festival where ... chicken ... is served in a variety of ways. There have been suggestions to round up the chickens, but they've apparently been there for years, they don't belong to anybody, they just wander the streets. They've become sort of a town mascot. Corvus cornix_talk 18:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

In villages that I have visited in the Usambara Mountains, non-feral chickens roam the dirt "streets" scavenging for food. Though they wander, villagers know who owns which chickens, and the chickens do not stray any farther than the outskirts of the village. I suspect that they don't stray because the people and the activity of the village keep them safe from predators, and because they do not want to be too far from their roost. Marco polo (talk) 20:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

When I was growing up we had chickens in a fenced in chickenyard. A very few went feral, flew over the fence, and set up housekeeping in trees in the woods. Not sure how long they lasted there. Perhaps a whole summer. They might have come back in the winter. Edison (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

dooomeeessstttacccatiooon :) Perry-mankster (talk) 22:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

What is purpose of the notch in butter knives?

Pretty much my question. I was eating breakfast in a swank hotel this week and they had a full table service. I wondered what the purpose the little notch in butter knives is for? The entry on butter knife didn't mention it. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess the obvious is that it makes the utensil readily identifiable. It may be as simple as that. FiggyBee (talk) 17:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally I think the article has it wrong - the top knife in the image looks like a fish knife, anyway - what's the knotch for in a 'fish knife' - yes - i've often wondered that myself!87.102.16.238 (talk) 17:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

One possibility (ie I'm guessing) is that the notch can be used to pick up a knob of butter (inverting the knife) - in a polite way - rather than spearing it. See cheese knife87.102.16.238 (talk) 18:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see that there could be considered two notches in the butter knife entry. I was originally asking about the notch on the side. The butter knife I used had a smooth rounded end (like the last two "butter spreaders" in the entry photo), but also had the side notch that the top two "butter knives" have. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 19:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree with 87.102 they are fish knives esp after checking with google images. Maybe the rounded end with a notch is a butter knife image like this[1] and these butterknives[2][ should replace the two fish knives in the article. A cheese knife usually has two prongs at the tip[3] for picking up the cheese slice. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Whether a butter knife (or a fish knife, for that matter) has a notch on it has NOTHING to do with its type. The notch is solely a design feature and is only meant to look nice: it has no meaning whatsoever. You can take two similar cutlery patterns by the same manufacturer, and one will have a notch in the top of the butter knife but not the fish knife, and the other will have a notch in the top of the fish knife and not the butter knife.

The difference is that a fish knife is supposed to be sharp (to cut through the backbone of a fish steak). A butter knife is generally blunt so it doesn't tear the bread. --NellieBly (talk) 07:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Butter knives are not used on bread, but merely to transfer butter from the dish to the side of your plate. Each diner uses his own knife to butter the bread (at a formal setting there will be a separate knife for this, smaller but similar in style to the main knife). I don't believe the Wikipedia picture discussed shows fish knives; they are too small, for a start. Gwinva (talk) 21:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The notch marked knife is used for transferring the butter from the butter dish to your plate. You then use a non notched knife to spread the butter. Each person should have a butter knife of his or her own and this knife should not have a notch. The only one with the notch is the one used to tranfer the butter.

best time for foliage in New England?

When is the best time to see the foliage in the New England states, esp. in Vermont and Maine? Rather in the first half of October, middle of October or end of October? (Any even more specific times are even more welcome.) I know that some websites tell you about the foliage each year, but are there any sites with an overview/average to get an idea when it will be most likely in upcoming years? Thanks, thanks, Thanks for answering (talk) 17:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the weather. Yes, October is the best time in general but getting any more precise would have to take into account weather patterns. I don't have any links for you but just wanted to make sure you realize that whatever date range is given is still just a guess. The color in the leaves also varies slightly due to altitude. So if when you come, you don't find the color you're looking for, check a mountain side. Whenever you come, I hope you enjoy your stay here. Dismas|^(talk) 17:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. http://www.foliage-vermont.com/ seems to have some helpful information about 2007, they may have some about 2008 as the year goes on. Dismas|^(talk) 17:50, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The time of peak foliage depends not only on the weather and altitude, but also on latitude. The farther north you go, the earlier the peak comes. The timing is actually fairly predictable without huge variation due to weather. Weather is more likely to affect the intensity of color. You can't control the weather, of course, but you can be fairly sure of seeing some color if you book a holiday vacation according to the normal peak for a given region. In northernmost Maine and the higher mountains of central Maine, the peak may be as early as mid-September. The last week of September is a good bet for the mountains of central and northwest Maine and northernmost New Hampshire. The week around October 1 and maybe the following weak is usually the best time for the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains running through the center of Vermont. During that week, you will still see some green mixed in with the yellows and reds. During the following week, you will mostly see yellow and red in those places, and the peak will have moved south to the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts and the rolling hills of the lower parts of New Hampshire and Maine. By the second or third week of October, northern New England and the higher-elevation parts of southern New England are past peak, but we are enjoying our own peak foliage in the low hills of eastern Massachusetts (likewise in Connecticut and Rhode Island). Marco polo (talk) 19:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

See our article on leaf peeping. There's a map and everything. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The map in our article suggests earlier dates than I am used to seeing. I think that it may be based on old data (before the onset of climate change in the 1980s and 1990s). You might also look at the narratives and maps in this archive. Marco polo (talk) 19:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Plumbing

What does term top out mean in the plumbing fieldGilligan01 (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

My ability to summarize seems to have deserted me, so I'm going to point to this page, specifically the first paragraph. --LarryMac | Talk 19:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ways of meeting lots of people

How can I meet thousands of people in the shortest possible time? (meeting just on-line counts, too) --Taraborn (talk) 18:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think "thousands" is overly ambitious, and I am unclear what "meeting" technically entails, but a few preliminary suggestions might include:

• WP:IRC and other chat rooms
• Church
• Speed dating
• Depending on where you live, you might find websites like Meetup.com useful

--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You'll need to define "meeting" a little more rigorously here. Send them a message? Get one back? Become their "friend" on MySpace? What counts, what doesn't? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 18:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Who appointed you captain of the reference desk?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The Commodore Ref Desk, I guess. --Masamage ♫ 19:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The job had been open for awhile, so I took it! ;-) Some might call it presumptive—I call it entrepreneurial. Anyway, I've been around here a lot longer than this account's creation date would let on (more years than is healthy to admit). Note that it is simply an honorific title, of course. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Taraborn, I can't really help you if you need to meet zillions of people urgently. But if you're prepared to wait a little longer, you could always go into politics. Then you'd have a perfect reason to knock on every single door in your city or electoral district, and who knows how many new friends you'd make. Even better, run for the Spanish Senate and you'd have a perfect reason to knock on every door in your entire province. Better yet, run for President, and you'd have the ... you can see where is leading, I hope. When people ask you why they should vote for you, tell them you're a Wikipedia Ref Desk volunteer, and they'll in most cases promise you their perpetual vote and those of their entire family, then invite you in and make you their life-long friend. A few poor benighted souls will ask the Spanish equivalent of "Wiki what? What's the hell's that!!" and then slam the door in your face before you've had a chance to tell them. But that's the swings and roundabouts of public life for you. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful and funny replies :) In this case having them as an instant messenger buddy with whom you can have a 5 to 10 minutes lasting conversation about twice a week would be enough. --Taraborn (talk) 09:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You could sign up to an MMOG, either a free one like Second Life, or a subscription one such as Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, etc, where there are many people online at any time, and start chatting to whoever you meet there. Some will then exchange messenger details with you, and others will not. SaundersW (talk) 10:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Harder to shift in lower gears

When driving a car outfitted with a traditional manual transmission, why is it harder to attain a smooth 1-2 shift compared to a 3-4 shift? When I'm driving in 1st gear and let go of the gas to shift to second, I can feel that the temporary decrease in speed when I let go of the gas to be much more drastic than when I let go of the gas in, for example, 4th gear. Why does this phenomenal exist? My guess is that since the lower gear has a larger reduction ratio, its engine braking effect is much more pronounced than the higher gears. Am I right? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 20:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. If you're feeling a big lurch due to engine braking, then you're not putting the clutch in soon enough. FiggyBee (talk) 20:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Automobile Terminologies

I have several questions about transmission terminologies in automobiles:

• The engine torque after being multiplied by the transmission is called the transmission output torque.
• The transmission output torque after being multiplied by the differential gears is called insert name.
• Is the differential gear also called the final drive ratio and the transaxle ratio?

Are these correct? Acceptable (talk) 21:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Purpose of differential gear reduction

What is the purpose of the reduction gear in the differential?

For example, suppose the following for a car:

• Differential gear- 2:1
• 1st gear- 4:1
• 2nd gear - 3:1

So the torque after being multiplied by the differential and transmission is 8:1 and 6:1 for first and second gears, respectively. But why not just have the following?:

• Differential gear- 1:1
• 1st gear- 8:1
• 2nd gear- 6:1

Would the car not perform similarly? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 21:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you need a differential whether it changes the gear ratio or not. So, they might as well add a reduction gear there. This allows you to change your overall gearing just by swapping out the differential. That wouldn't be possible, under your idea. Friday (talk) 21:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There are (at least) a couple of reasons, mostly relating to ease of manufacturing and engineering. Take a look at the picture of a cutaway differential at right—the drive shaft enters at the bottom right of the image, the power is transmitted to the rear axles at lower left and upper right. In order to have a 1:1 differential gear ratio, the incoming drive shaft (with its helical gear) would have to drive the bevel gear of the differential around once for each revolution of the drive shaft. Accomplishing this would require a larger helical gear (and consequently more weight, and more space to accommodate) or more aggressive pitch (requiring more costly materials or reducing the torque the gear can survive). In other words, it's just 'easier' to have a reduction at the differential.

Similar arguments apply at the transmission/gearbox. Material strength puts a lower limit on the size of the smallest gear in the set. If the highest gear ratio is 8:1 then the largest gear must be eight times larger (roughly) than the small gear with which it meshes. Dividing the gear reduction into two stages thus reduces the size and weight of the transmission/gearbox.

Per Friday, it is also possible to adjust the overall gearing of a vehicle by swapping the differential—a process that is almost always faster, easier, and less costly than replacing the entire gearbox. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Free or cheap music composition software.

Is there any free or cheap (cheap means $0-40, not $200-2000) software I can use to compose music? Please no MIDI stuff, it sounds too unnatural to me. MalwareSmarts (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

How about trackers? They usually sound a lot better than MIDI and there are a million of them available for free. FL Studio comes in a few different flavors with different prices—I used it once a long time ago and thought it was both very easy to use and produced very good sounding results. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 00:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Schools abroad

When I finish my undergraduate degree, for a change of pace I'm considering moving to the UK, specifically England. I want to get a Master's degree, what would in the US be a MFA in Graphic Design; I understand that MAs in the UK are still around 2 years of study, like MFAs here. Furthermore, I'll be moving with my boyfriend (we plan to get engaged by then), and he's graduating this summer with a degree in Biology so will need to get work. Does anyone have some advice as to resources I can use to conduct research as to schools offering Master's degrees in Graphic Design and areas with large companies where he could get work? Kuronue | Talk 23:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

For courses, Prospects might be useful. The Sunday Times University Guide is probably the best-known information source about how students feel about their university, as well as facilities, local area etc. For jobs, The Guardian Newspaper has a large number of job adverts, but mainly in arts areas. Most of the biology-related jobs seem to be for teaching posts. Milkround offers job ads and information for graduates, concentrating on graduate-training programmes (The Prospects site also does job ads). One of the British-based orgs in Category:Biology_organizations might be useful; I don't know much about them, but my own trade body does ads, and the British Society of Biologists (or whatever!) probably will too. --Kateshortforbob 00:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

It may not be such an easy matter for your boyfriend to find work legally if he is neither an EU citizen nor possessed of rare skills as a biologist highly in demand in Britain. British employers are not allowed to hire non-EU citizens unless they can make a convincing case that no EU citizen was available and qualified to fill the position. Even if your boyfriend does have unique skills that might be needed, some employers will hesitate to go through the bureaucratic effort of sponsoring a non-EU citizen. Marco polo (talk) 00:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I need to correct myself. It seems that the situation has changed since I tried this. There is now a program called the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme, for which your boyfriend might well qualify. According to the UK Border and Immigration Agency, most applications are decided within 3 months, so now would be a good time for him to apply. Marco polo (talk) 01:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point - what sort of visa or whatever would we need to do that? We'd be living there at least two years, and probably by then be married (particularly if it helps). (BTW, this will be in about 2 years when I graduate, he's got a job lined up for after he graduates already around here in the meantime). Kuronue | Talk 00:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: with a little research it seems the best way to do that is to get married first, then when I get a student visa, if we're there 2 years he can legally work (since that's longer than 12 months). Kuronue | Talk 01:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)