Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 January 3

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January 3

Color in a witch ball

How is the color added to, and maintained on, the inside glass of a clear glass witch ball? Papatollah (talk) 13:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

So other people don't have to look it up like I just had to... Witch ball. Dismas|^(talk) 15:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems to depend on when the ball was made and who made it. This site, which refers to antique witch balls, suggests older balls were made with coloured glass, "daubed with colour" inside, or silvered. I own a large Christmas ornament like a witch ball which, when broken, revealed that the glass itself was clear and the purple colour was indeed metallic paint on the inside of the ball. We have an article on Glass coloring and marking, and there is some information on how glassmakers coloured and marked glass in medieval times at Medieval stained glass#Applied paint and silver stain. Karenjc 20:13, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Trying to read financial statements

I'm trying to fill in the finance-related fields in {{Infobox company}} on the article South African National Roads Agency. The financial statements are in the Annual Report 2009 (warning: 6MB PDF) starting at page 104. Now I think I've managed to figure out the operating income, profit and total assets, but I can't figure out the revenue or the equity. Anyone here know how to read a balance sheet? Thanks, htonl (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think operating income and revenue are the same thing. Equity is the difference between assets and liabilities and should be the bottom line on the balance sheet - it may be called "shareholder equity" or "stockholder equity" or something similar. --Tango (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No. Please see Operating income and Revenue before guessing. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't a guess, it was a deduction. "Operating income" should be income from operations, which is the same thing as revenue. According to those articles, "operating income" is actually used to mean "net operating income", which is news to me. Accounting terminology is incredibly inconsistent, unfortunately, so sometimes such deductions end up being incorrect - that is why I prefixed the sentence with "I think". --Tango (talk) 18:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Tango, I'm really disappointed in this. Revenue is the amount of money received from sales. Income is profit: revenue minus the costs it took to create that revenue. Operating income is income when excluding the effects of interest paid (for the loans you took out to pay those costs) and taxes paid. This is all very elementary, hence my conclusion (which I still maintain) that you are guessing. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It is elementary for someone familiar with that specific accounting system. Different people use different terminology and sometimes (as in this case) they are contradictory. The terminology I'm familiar with defines "income" as "money coming in". Profit is income minus outgoings. What you are calling "operating income", I would call "operating profit" (or "net operating income" as I mentioned above, but I'd prefer "operating profit"). Take a look at our article on revenue - it begins "Revenue is an income...". --Tango (talk) 15:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really. You could define "income" as money coming in, yes, but you're ignoring and/or misunderstanding the importance of the word "operating". It is not (as you said) income from operations. As Comet Tuttle rightly said, it's income (i.e. revenue, or earnings) less interest and taxes. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 23:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I think we're clear on what "operating" means. The disagreement is over "income". I define income as money coming in, Comet Tuttle is defining it as synonymous with profit - money coming in minus money going out. --Tango (talk) 03:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, I would probably take issue with Comet's assertion that "income is profit", but that's not what we're talking about. You put that operating income is the same as income from operations, which is what I'm saying is wrong. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 07:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, obviously I was speaking loosely, but I think that definition is approximately the same as yours. A company's income can come from operations (eg. sales) or investments (and maybe a few other minor things). Operating income is the income from just the operations, not the investments or anything else. I think that's pretty much the same as saying it is total income minus interest. We are, of course, both talking pre-tax. --Tango (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This company is in a negative equity position of -798,943 Rand. In other words it has more liabilities than assets which is a strange position for a company to be in but note that this appears to be a Public Sector company backed by South Africa's Treasury - if a Private Sector company was in the same position it would have been declared Balance Sheet Insolvent, I'm pretty sure that it is illegal (at least in the UK) for a privately owned company to be in a negative net assets position (net assets being the same thing as equity.)

It's hard to define revenue as due to the company's Public status the company seems to get "revenue" from various sources, with it's main earned income coming from tolls (1,314,402) but it's also getting other sources of income like Govt. grants. --Coolcato (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

tallest bldg in new england.

i know the tallest building in new england is the hancock blg in boston. this made me curious about how tall the casinos in my area are. Foxwoods- mgm bldg and mohegan sun. i got my answer to the mohegan sun it is 32 stories high about half of the hancock whic is 60 stories. so my question is how many stories is the MGM resort hotel bldg on the property of Foxwoods casiono in Ledyard, CT? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.2.88 (talk) 17:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

According to this website [1] the MGM Grand has 30 stories. Mikenorton (talk) 18:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Although technically a "fact," it seems odd to me to speak of 'the tallest building in New England.' As a group of states currently joined mainly by political leanings, what specialness is there to New England that a tallest building should be measured within its bounds? It's like talking about the tallest building in the former Confederacy. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There are many many things that are still "New England this" and "New England that". It's a major marketing point and the phrase is still used to refer to the area. For example, do a search for [New England magazine] and you'll see how many publications are dedicated to it. N.E. has strict boundaries which are well known even today. You can't say most of those things about the old Confederacy. Dismas|^(talk) 15:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm completely flummoxed by the idea that New England is something other than a specific geographic location, comprising six states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). --LarryMac | Talk 20:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Having lived in other parts of the United States, and now living in New England, I can say that there is no other region in the United States that has such a strong regional identity. It is a much stronger identity than, say, "the Upper Midwest" or even "the Pacific Northwest". New England has a regional identity stronger than the individual identities of most U.S. states (Texas, Hawaii, and maybe California being the main exceptions). I think that this comes from the shared history of having been founded by religious dissenters, with an early economy based on mercantile activity, at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, Abolitionism, and other movements. As a result, the region shares something of a common culture. So it makes sense to refer to extremes within the region. Marco polo (talk) 22:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact that it is so much smaller than the other regions you mention may also help - does New England have a stronger regional identity than, say Washington? (Washington has approximately the same area, although half the population.) --Tango (talk) 03:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)