Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 June 16

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June 16

Coupon cash value

I have a bunch of coupons for Pizza Hut, 21 to be exact. Each one says "cash redemption value 1/20th cent". I took them to Pizza Hut to redeem them for the penny and they wouldn't honor it. Shouldn't they have redeemed them? 76.27.40.75 (talk) 01:12, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I was going to say "NO", but according to Cecil [1] it sounds like they should have. Good luck convincing them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:19, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It probably also says "Cannot be redeemed for cash", or similar. As I understand it, those terms are included to make sure there is consideration in the contract between the redeemer and the issuer. If the coupons had no value, then the contract would be invalid and the issuer wouldn't have to abide by it. It's a legal fiction, essentially. --Tango (talk) 01:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

According to the American Bar Association's Consumer Protection Law Developments, laws in Indiana, Utah, and Washington State require coupons to carry a cash redemption value. My hunches are (a) it's easier to put the value on all coupons and not worry about what state they end up in, and (b) that the merchant or local Pizza Hut doesn't have to redeem them for that cash value. Perhaps only the corporate headquarters does. --- OtherDave (talk) 01:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I do happen to be in Utah. The text on the coupon, aside from the "Get X Pizza for $X" is: "Expires 7/25/10. No double toppings. Participation, delivery areas and charges may vary. Delivery drivers carry no more than $20 cash. 1/20 cent cash redemption value. (c) 2010 Pizza Hut, Inc." There's nothing about it not allowing cash redemption. But maybe I'll have to contact corporate. 76.27.40.75 (talk) 01:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that the loophole here is that they require you to mail it to a corporate office. The assumption then is that it will cost you more to send the coupon than you could ever get back from it. Thus no worries about individuals hoarding thousands of coupons and sending them in. But this is speculative on my part, to be sure. It would be a clever solution! --Mr.98 (talk) 01:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it is the case that the corporation has to cover it, not the grocer. Postage is 44 cents, right? So to get back 45 cents with a net profit of 1 cent, you would have to get 900 of those coupons. However, 900 of them would certainly weigh more than an ounce. So you would have to add more postage - but then you would need more coupons in order to make it come out... and this looks like a hopeless situation. You're going to spend more than you would get back. And that doesn't even figure in the cost of your own time, i.e. all the labor it's taking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Might be worth doing just so you can say you've done it. APL (talk) 02:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

If the IP wants to do that, he's free to do so. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

They would probably also expire before you could collect that many. Does the cash value expire with the coupon? Adam Bishop (talk) 02:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Even if I have to mail in my 20 coupons, costing me 44 cents for the stamp, I'll do that. It'd be a net gain when the intangibles are factored in; bragging rights, mostly. The coupons expire in a range of 6/27 and 7/25, so I've got almost two weeks before the first one's go. I've spoken with Pizza Hut's complaint department and the Area Manager will be contacting me within three business days. I'll be sure to follow up here. 76.27.40.75 (talk) 03:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

You're a stubborn one, aren't you ? Be sure to get that penny framed, if you ever manage to collect. :-) StuRat (talk) 04:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

They might say they won't do it by mail, he'll have to drive to their headquarters, wherever that may be. So he would spend hundreds of dollars to get one shiny new penny, along with a photo op for the company newsletter's "Customer of the Month", and possibly coverage by major news organizations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:39, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The article says the HQ is in Addison, Texas, a suburb of Dallas; which is about 1,300 miles from Provo, Utah. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I am reminded of the chapter "I Want My Dollar" in Richard Feynman's memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. I'm doing this from memory, but I think it happened when he was working on the Manhattan Project. Apparently the US government decided to make it absolutely sure that the work done on the project could not be considered the intellectual property of anyone else, so they asked everyone to sign away any rights they might have in return for a legal-fiction payment of $1.

Feynman was happy to sign, but demanded to actually receive the dollar, and would not take "it's a legal fiction" for an answer. As I recall, the agent who'd been representing the government finally paid him $1 out of his pocket to shut him up, and then Feynman's labmates all wanted their dollar too...

--Anonymous, 04:50 UTC, June 16, 2010.

Of course $1 in 1939? would pay for a meal or two Nil Einne (talk) 08:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

If they refused to pay the $1, couldn't he argue that the contract is void and he can thus sell his secrets to the highest bidder ? StuRat (talk) 15:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Didn't they have non-disclosure agreements back then? Googlemeister (talk) 19:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

According to Surely You're Joking (which I happen to have right here) it did happen at Los Alamos, but it was for three patents on civilian applications of nuclear reactors. No national secrets were involved (you can't patent a secret). And he spent the money on candy. -- BenRG (talk) 22:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the Manhattan Project patent policies were pretty odd for their time, and essentially everything at Los Alamos had special patent agreements, including the bomb itself. And apparently you can patent a secret, with a secret patent. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I can confirm this. I've had the exact same experience as Feynman. When I lived in the UK and worked for Philips Research Labs, I wrote several patents on the work I'd done there. The patents were filed - but I soon left to work just down the road at another company. Eventually, one of the patents was finally granted world-wide and Philips called me up to tell me that they owed me a pound. It seems that in the UK, it's illegal for a company that you work for to take over your patents without paying you for them...but they are allowed the sole rights to buy them...no matter for how little money. This is a bloody stupid law...but that's how it is. So I had a pleasant lunch and several beers with my old boss (who is a good friend) and he handed over a shiney new pound coin and I signed over my rights to the patent.

Several years later, I'd moved to the USA - working in Texas - and I get an email from Philips Research saying that they owed me another pound for a second patent that had finally been granted (it's not a fast process!). I said - something like "Oh - well, I live in Texas now - but that's OK - I'll sign over the rights via fax and we can quietly forget about the pound."..."OH! NO!" they said "We need a lawyer to do that in person! We have a gigantic problem!". So I naturally assumed they'd hire a local Texas lawyer to hand over the pound and notarize my signature. But evidently that was somehow not acceptable and several days later I get a call from Dallas Airport asking when I could meet with their lawyer and could I do it at the airport because he had a plane to catch? Philips apparently flew a British lawyer all the way to Texas to do the deal - the poor guy flew 8 hours across the Atlantic, watched me sign the document - then got back on the very next flight!

I was cheated though - he only paid me a dollar. Evidently, the actual amount has to be more than zero...but not much more! SteveBaker (talk) 23:27, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I can confirm likewise. Marconi Company in UK can take over an employee's invention and (I presume legally in UK) get them to sign a statement that says they accept zero remuneration. If the company file a US patent, US Code requires them to pay the inventor $1 regardless. That must be what SteveBaker earned so he was not cheated in Law. I think a qualified patent attorney is needed to notarize the signing, hence the transatlantic lawyer trip. (One's heart bleeds for the poor lawyer getting 16+ hours fee, meals and inflight movies.) As a result of an invention long ago I am the proud owner of $1 US and $1 Canadian. In scandinavian countries however an inventor has an inalienable right to a "reasonable compensation" (rimelig godtgjørelse) from an employer. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't get it, what is to stop you from simply refusing to sign the document for such a pittance and demanding $20,000 or whatever to sign? Googlemeister (talk) 14:00, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

@Googlemeister the same Law that guarantees the inventor a compensation gives employers a right to inventions made by their employees, unless previously contracted otherwise. An employee who refuses to sign the documents can be dismissed and potentially also sued. The issue of "whatever" sum is supposed to be settled agreably later when the value of the invention becomes clear. That can take up to 5 years during which either party can bring a disagreement to court. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Usually you have signed a contract with patent stipulations as a condition for working there. Anyone who is an employee of the University of California system, for example, has to sign a loyalty oath and patent agreement before they can get paid for anything. The loyalty oath says you won't overthrow the U.S. government (a nice legacy of McCarthyism), the patent agreement says that if you invent anything on the job, the UC gets first dibs on it. If you don't agree, you can't work there. All of that is prior to any actual invention registrations or anything like that. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:38, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Weather at world cup games

(Question deleted -- already asked on the Entertainment desk. --Anon, 04:52, June 16, 2010.)

Court Cases of Senior Citizens.

How many Fast Track Courts for Senior Citizens working in each State? How many Court Cases of Senior Citizens are pending in all Courts in each State? What are the Orders from Ministry of Law & Justice; State Governments; Supreme Court; High Courts for expeditious dealing with such cases? Can I get/read copies? Any orders from Central Information Commissioner for giving preference to Applications from Senior Citizens and target fixed? MVR-M —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.73.173.46 (talk) 07:15, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

What country are you talking about? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 07:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The first result in a Google search for "Central Information Commissioner" is this site, so it would appear that they're talking about India. Dismas|^(talk) 07:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

IP address traces to India. Surprised me. I figured senior citizen was a specifically American euphemism. --Trovatore (talk) 07:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but "Ministry of..." has a distinctly English feel to my ears. Anyway, now that we've got that straightened out, does anyone know what they're looking for? Dismas|^(talk) 07:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The U.S. has nothing named that specific. I like the Orwell references though. In the U.S., the euphemism is "social security". Shadowjams (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

No it's used in NZ [2] [3] [4], Malaysia [5] [6] [7] and according to Senior citizen in UK English Nil Einne (talk) 08:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It's also widely used in Australia. My sense is that 'senior citizen' occurs throughout the anglosphere. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

[8] [9] [10] mention some examples of orders and courts relating to giving cases involving senior citizens high priority Nil Einne (talk) 08:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

HEARTBEAT

Is every human's heartbeat unique? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.17.213.9 (talk) 13:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably. For a biological system as complex as the heart, it's unlikely that any two are exactly identical. Whether everyone's heartbeat is distinguishably unique, though, is another matter. — Lomn 14:03, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

In order for each to be unique they would have to be consistent, and I'm not sure they are. That is, everyone's heartbeat varies dramatically with age, weight, level of activity, diet, etc., and these differences would far outweigh any difference from person to person, so I'm skeptical that you could identify one rather average heartbeat against a database of, say, a million. However, if you had a very unusual heartbeat, perhaps it could be picked out of such a database. StuRat (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Taking thai massage

Hi iam a late 20 something man and I have never taken any form of massage. I just looked at a website offering thai traditional thai massage for around 20 euros and aroma oil massage for around 30 euros for an hour. Iam curious about this oil massage. I take they make you naked and massage you with oil everywhere?. I assume they have a bath where you can use soap to remove the oil after it is done. Is any form of massage with oil or without is worth it?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.99.136.3 (talk) 13:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I've never had a Thai massage specifically, but I've had masseuses use oil in massage before, to lubricate the skin. Yes, it's normally done naked (or rather, in underwear)- they give you a sheet to lie under, and just expose the body part they're working on while preserving your modesty. A fully-body massage will include the back, neck, arms, and legs. There is not usually a bath afterward; they use a small amount of oil, which is mostly absorbed by the skin- when you're finished, you can feel the oil on your skin, but it isn't especially messy. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 13:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Please see Thai massage. No oil is used in Thai massage because the massage is done through loose clothing, and involves mostly pulling and pushing rather than rubbing. Most other types of massage do use oil, but baby powder can also be used. I don't quite understand the last part of your question, but those prices sound reasonable and most people find massage very enjoyable, in fact I've often heard people say it's better than sex (which it is if you're quite lazy like me).--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Thai massage shouldn't need oil, but they may be doing some hybrid style (it's fairly common for bodyworkers to mix styles). as to it being better than sex... noooooo. but done well it does give the same 'afterglow' kind of feeling (endorphin release, with consequent euphoria and relaxation). Massage is good. --Ludwigs2 16:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Too heavy to fly

When I was in high school I studied scaling in Physics class. The text described a Soviet Union built plane that was twice as big in every dimension as the American plane it copied. Because the mass was eight times as much and the surface area of the wings was only four times as much the plane never got off the ground. What were the models of each plane described? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 18:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it's a true story. It was probably just made up for the physics question. The Soviet Union had brilliant engineers and mathematicians. They wouldn't have made such an elementary mistake. --Tango (talk) 18:39, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but we have smart people, too ... --Sean 19:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

a) That better have been a exclusive we - I'm not taking responsibility for American idiots! b) That was a break down in communication, more than anything else. That's a much easier mistake to make than building a plane that could never fly due to being the completely wrong shape. --Tango (talk) 19:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubt this as well; the Soviet Union had competent aerodynamicists. What they weren't so good at was designing efficient airplanes, hence the reproduction of the DC-3 as the Li-2 and the copying of the Boeing B-29 as the Tu-4. As an aside, such a plane would simply have higher wing loading, which would in turn require a higher take-off speed, more power, etc. It would not necessarily preclude flight. Acroterion _(talk) 19:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this is apocryphal - nobody would be so stupid - especially not the Russians who always had pretty good aircraft designers.

But taking this as a pure physics thought experiment, perhaps it's not so stupid. Remember that:

1. Lift is proportional to the square of the airspeed multiplied by the area of the wings. So if we could figure out a way for the the plane to fly just root-two times faster than the original (40% more), then it would have 8x the lift of the original - which would handily counteract the 8x weight increase.
2. But hold on! The cubic capacity (and therefore, approximate horsepower) of the engines would be 8x more (assuming we're literally doubling the size of everything). Failing that, we'll just bolt eight times as many engines of normal size onto the plane and get 8x horsepower that way (hey - that worked for the Spruce Goose!).
3. The drag force that these more powerful engines have to overcome is proportional to the surface area of the front of the plane...which is only 4x larger than the original - and it's proportional to the square of the speed (which only has to be root-2 faster). Hence the power-to-drag ratio is such that the plane can go root-two times faster with it's 8x more powerful engines.
4. Our 8x more powerful engines (or 8x as many 1x engines) will consume 8x more fuel per hour than the original plane - but because we get to our destination root-two times faster, we'll need root-two times less fuel for a given trip. Less fuel makes for a lighter plane - so the original 8x weight estimate is wrong!
5. However, life is not so simple. Why should a plane that's 2x larger WEIGH 8x more? Does it need eight times as many pilots, eight times as many control panels? The skin of the plane only has to protect the passengers from the same amount of air pressure loss - so although it's 4x in area, it doesn't have to be 2x in thickness unless it's structural. I think a 2x larger plane would be considerably less than 8x heavier.

Hence, the plane should fly just as well as the original...and get you to your destination a lot quicker! Who is the stoopid designers now? Those Russians are starting to look pretty smart! (Except this is apochryphal.) If it were truly the case that larger planes were so much less efficient than small ones - why would the trend for airliners to be getting bigger and bigger? The truth is that large planes are actually MUCH more efficient than small ones - and airlines only fly small aircraft on routes where there aren't enough passengers to fill big ones.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Steve, that works ok if your original plane was slow, but once your root-2 faster speed would get into the near supersonic range, your drag is going to increase in a non-linear fashion. Also, your take off and landing speeds will need to be root-2 higher. For that, you are going to need to beef up the landing gear, but more importantly, you are going to have to do a large scale rework of your airport infrastructure since your takeoff and landing distances are going to greatly increase. Within a limited frame, you might be able to simply double the dimensions on a plane, but don't expect it to work on a 747. Googlemeister (talk) 13:57, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

That's probably true - but even if the original plane flew within mach 1/root-two, it still took off at somewhere under 200mph - so the 2x larger version can still get into the air without problems. Sure, the runways would have to be longer and all sorts of other problems would arise - but those don't make for a plane that won't fly - which is what we're told happened here. My point is that the simplistic take on the physics made in the stated facts simply doesn't hold up. You have to look at ALL of the aspects of the problem and not just jump to a silly answer based on naive assumptions. It is certainly the case that the design of aircraft can scale - at least over some range - and without doubt, large aircraft are more efficient than small ones. Don't take my word for that - A 1/8th scale radio controlled model of a Cessna can only lift enough fuel to fly for about 10 minutes...the real thing can fly for several hours. The model flies at about 15 to 30mph - the real thing flies at about 150mph. SteveBaker (talk) 14:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if this actually happened, but if Stalin had TOLD his engineers to "make it twice as big", they might have been afraid to tell him it wouldn't fly, as that could result in their execution. StuRat (talk) 03:27, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Stalin wasn't stupid. He trusted his experts - there is no way the USSR could have achieved the things it did otherwise. --Tango (talk) 11:51, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The article Suppressed research in the Soviet Union implies differently, and my general impression from varied reading over the decades is that, as with other murderous dictators, few dared to contradict Stalin's pronouncements however casual and however uninformed, and that much Soviet effort was wasted in consequent scientific and technological false avenues, notwithstanding other undoubted achievements. However, history is greatly open to individual interpretation. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:03, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The Tu 144 was widely regarded as at least partially copied from Concorde. They needed to add canard wings to keep it in the air and it famously crashed at the 1973 Paris Air Show, ending the project. There was a rumour that the Soviets had been fed misleading intelligence by the British[11]. Alansplodge (talk) 13:07, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

And for an example from another murderous dictator, Mao's Great Leap Forward starved some 20 million Chinese to death because nobody was willing to take the risk of telling him that stopping private farming and building backyard steel mills was an incredibly stupid idea. StuRat (talk) 13:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Mao and Stalin are quite different in this respect, though. When Stalin did murderous things he usually did them deliberately, unlike Mao. And though he did dabble in scientific areas occasionally (linguistics and biology in particular), he generally left that sort of thing to the people in the Academy of Sciences. In most of the cases of Soviet repression of scientific disciplines it was not the person at the top (e.g. Stalin) responsible, it was the case of people within the discipline using political/ideological attacks as a way of jockeying for power. The fact that they had a system that was susceptible to that sort of thing is of course the responsibility of those at the top, but Stalin didn't take a personal interest in most of that sort of thing (with the exceptions of linguistics and biology, again). --Mr.98 (talk) 15:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The myth itself probably has some relation to the Russian "tsar projects" like the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Tank and even the Tsar Bomba. (Which unlike the other tsar projects, did actually work, although it would have been a hard weapon to use.) In any case, in the USSR, it was generally up to the design bureaus and the military men to decide what kinds of weapons or planes or rockets would be built. This didn't guarantee ideal results—Beria insisted that the first atomic bomb design be a rip-off of the Nagasaki weapon, even though the Soviet designers had already come up with a more efficient indigenous design by that point, because he wanted it to be absolutely guaranteed that it would go off as expected—but it did guard against absolutely silly things on the whole, especially since the designers in question had no interest in being executed or otherwise punished for failure. Soviet engineers get a bad rap, but they were quite good at many things, and were far better at some fields than the United States for quite a long time. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Soviet engineers are who taught McGyver all he knows Googlemeister (talk) 15:34, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not the engineers I doubt, it's the pointy haired boss high above them who knows nothing about science or engineering and makes decisions purely for political reasons, not for scientific ones, that I fear. In a democracy they cause a certain amount of trouble, but in a totalitarian state they can have the engineers executed for failing to build their "brilliant concept", which makes them far more dangerous. StuRat (talk) 11:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

In the Soviet "design bureau" system, the bosses were engineers, like Sergey Korolyov. There were, of course, security/Party people assigned to projects, but if the engineer/designer thought they were doing things in a piggish way, they could—and often did—"write to the top" (literally, to the Central Committee or even the General Secretary) and that could get real investigations, results, etc. I'm not saying it's the most efficient system—there were lots of problems—but the military technology side of things was by far the only aspect of the system that actually seemed to work pretty well. It's the other industries that had the severe problems. Agriculture, a total mess. Heavy industry in general, horrible. And so on. Those are the ones where the 5 year plan says a 500% increase, so they fudge the numbers endlessly because the plan was ridiculous. But military stuff—pretty well organized, a stiff competition with the West. The military was a state-within-a-state in the USSR, and had a large amount of autonomy from the Party. This led to its own problems—a lot of corruption by the 1970s, and a stagnation by the 1980s, not to mention the coup attempt against Gorbachev, the poor handling of Chernobyl, etc.—but when it came to production itself, they weren't any worse than the US (some stuff worked, some stuff failed). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:11, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Was this supposed to be a military plane or just some commercial plane flown by Aeroflot ? StuRat (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it matters for designing planes. The designers were the same for the military planes as for the commercial planes, I believe. E.g. the Tupolev Tu-104 and the Tupolev Tu-16 were both constructed by the same design bureau, Tupolev. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Buying a derelict house in Liverpool, UK

Any estate agents lurking here? :-) I'm just wondering if £750,000 is a reasonable price for this property [12], even though it is a total mess, abandoned for 3 years and partly burnt out. Intact, inhabited houses on the same street are on the market for much less. 86.140.52.196 (talk) 18:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

We have insufficient information to know. You need to know how much work still needs to be done to finish the conversion and how much work needs to be done to fix the fire damage. To work out if it's a fair price, you need to estimate what you'll be able to sell the apartments for and what the cost of getting them ready for sale will be. You then do the first minus the other, minus all the fees and taxes, minus a bit of profit, and that gives you the amount you should spend buying the property. To find out how much you can sell the apartments for, you need to ask an estate agent. To find out how much the remaining work will cost, you need to ask a builder. --Tango (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that valid in-date planning permission on any property will increase it's market value, especially - as in this case - where the planning permission is for a conversion of a property into flats/apartments. Nanonic (talk) 18:51, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not interested in buying this house (actually two semidetached houses) myself. Just curious, cause the planning permission must be the only valuable thing there which isn't wrecked. It's near my brother's place and I walk past it whenever I go round to his. In the same street there is a nicely renovated 6 bed house with people living in it, on the market for £559,000. 86.140.52.196 (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how this property could possibly be worth that amount of money - or even 1 per cent of it! Your best bet, if you really want to buy this, is to wait until it goes to auction and get it there. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:17, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Tammy, 1% is £7,500 - you couldn't buy a lock-up garage for that, let alone a very large plot with planning permission. DuncanHill (talk) 00:03, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Experienced real estate agents here in the U.S. will tell you that some owners have very definite ideas regarding what their house is worth--ideas that sometimes have no connection to economic reality. I could ask $750,000 for my current home, but that's not a price a sane real estate assessor would put on it. Maybe, though, someone who didn't need a loan wuld come along and I could win the greater-fool lottery. --- OtherDave (talk) 20:11, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

A quick search of estate agents in the area suggests that 2 bed apartments rent for between 500 and 1200 pounds per month in that area. This house is supposedly splittable into 12 such apartments. So you could expect to get a monthly income from 6,000 to 12,000 per month. But looking at the area it's in - I don't think you're going to get into the luxury end of the market with this property - so 1,000 pounds a month might well be the best you'd get. If you were to buy the house at 750k, with a 6% fixed-rate mortgage over 25 years, you'd be paying a little over 6,000 a month on the mortgage - so you need to be earning at the top end of that range just to break even. Since it's going to cost you a ton of money to restore it and outfit it as apartments, and since you won't get 100% of the rent as income (figure taxes, insurance, the time the place is empty between tenants, repairs, etc) - it's hard to imagine how you'd make a profit unless you were able to hit rents of at least 1000 pounds...probably much more. Of course after 25 years you'd own the place outright - and have a pretty healthy income! So if you could struggle along with it just breaking even over all those years - you'd eventually have a pretty good retirement!

You can look at it another way: If you have a million dollars to invest (realistically, that's what it might take to purchase and restore this place) - then you could be taking in close to 100,000 per annum in rent on it - which sounds like 10% interest back on your 1M investment - which is really pretty good! But you'll have periods when some of the apartments will be empty - times when people trash the place beyond what their deposit covers - times when you have to spend months getting someone evicted for not paying their rent - times when the roof will leak, appliances will need replacing, etc. This also assumes you're going to do the work of managing the place yourself - that would be a pretty significant amount of work. Letting agents charge around 10% of the rent.

The other thing to bear in mind is that 750k is the asking price...in the present economic climate - I'm sure you could get it for a lot less.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

(OP again) Thanks a lot for the calculations Steve! The building looks attractive even in its current state, with beautiful big windows at the front, so if you didn't cut any corners on the renovation I'm sure the flats would be great. This is the next street to Lark Lane, so it is a desirable area. But just from walking past, I don't really think it's big enough for 24 comfortable bedrooms. 81.153.237.22 (talk) 23:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that the flats would be more likely to be sold than rented, so you need to look at sale prices for flats in the area rather than rental values. DuncanHill (talk) 00:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

A two-bedroom flat in Parkfield St = £140,000, but conversions in that property might be smaller (hard to imagine 12 apartments in that building) and garden may differ. Other local values vary £70k-250k, average £153k. I agree £750,000 sounds a lot, when you add in costs of development, and difficulty selling in a downturn. Gwinva (talk) 00:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The lower floor windows are boarded up. The upper floor windows are all boarded up or broken and dilapidated. The blurb "some fire damage" can cover extensive gutting of the building shell by fire. It's obvious that no one has tended the garden in a long time. I expect the roof is ruined. The local council has reportedly given permission for conversion to apartments but be aware that they can also require the owner to restore what seems to be a derelict shell. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

In the United States, restoring a property like that could easily cost the equivalent of £200,000 (or twice that, depending on what's required), so you'd have to add that, and multiple transaction costs, to the cost of purchase before calculating whether you could rent or sell the units and break even. Even if they claim there are 24 bedrooms in the building, I doubt that you could carve out of it more than 8 two-bedroom units (if that) that middle-class people would want to rent or buy. It might be a winning proposition, but it would totally depend on the renovation cost. Marco polo (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't imagine any developer would look to refurbish the existing building. More likely they would simply demolish it and build a block of 12 flats. Even if it cost a million to do that, if they sell them for £200,000 each, they can easily make a large profit. Astronaut (talk) 04:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

World Cup orange dresses

As [this article] discusses, these women were thrown out for their attire considered ambush marketing. I don't get it - his edition of the World Cup doesn't seem to be associated with the color orange (the mascot is yellow and green for instance). The brewery which sold the outfit has a red, not an orange logo and the dresses don't seem to be decorated with any logo either. What exactly has someone done wrong here? Rmhermen (talk) 20:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Bavaria Brewery (Netherlands)#World Cup Ambush Marketing campaigns has some more info. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:43, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

and Leeuwenhosen. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The Dutch team is associated with orange, so that at least explains the colour. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 12:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Because of the House of Orange. Alansplodge (talk) 12:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

This article, also from the BBC, explains it: "The mini-dresses, sold by the brewery as part of a gift pack, may only have had a tiny outer label carrying the brand's name. But prior to the stunt, the firm made sure they were instantly recognisable in the Netherlands by arranging to have one modelled by top-ranking Dutch Wag Sylvie van der Vaart, the wife of Real Madrid's Rafael van der Vaart." --Tango (talk) 13:00, 17 June 2010 (UTC)