Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007 November 9

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November 9

Surveys

I want to conduct a survey about "third places" the place you go other than your home or work, for a class project. Are there any existing surveys on third places?74.79.230.85 00:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

This is the reference desk, a place for asking questions that have answers. It isn't really a place for polls. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 04:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

He or she is actually looking for existing surveys about The Third Place. Zagalejo^^^ 04:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh! Apologies; I misunderstood the question. And I don't have a good answer. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 12:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I imagine many third places have had surveys done on their use by the public. I dialled museum admission +survey into google, and there seems to be payload there. You can take it that most institutions that fund third places will be interested in the uses made of these third places. How much of that is accessible thru the web is for you to find, but since a significant proportion of third placesa re run by central or local government, there's a good possibility that careful searching will reveal results. Whether they will help your survey, I cannot say. Meanwhile I anticipate much less has been done, and much less will be accessible, on looking at third spaces from the other end of the telescope- surveys of people to find out which third places they use, for how long &c. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Sudanese foods

I am completing a class project and thought it might be nice to bring in some Sudanese foods. Does anyone know of some simple and tasty recipes 00:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

This looks like a good place to start. It focusses on making Sudanese food without too many hard to find ingredients. Steewi 01:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

How many pages to stop a bullet

In response to the recent tragic Finnish school shooting, I became curious. How many pages of paper from a book (let's assume that the book has no cover for simplicity sake) does it take to stop a .22 Long Rifle bullet from point-blank range? Similarly, how many pages does it take to top a 9mm Parabellum? Thanks. Acceptable 01:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I've never shot any books (although the Mythbusters have, and found them not to be effective at stopping bullets). I can tell you that 9mm has 3 to 4 times the muzzle energy of .22LR, and that an FMJ would go through the book easier than a hollow-point. FiggyBee 02:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

1168 Marlith ^T/C 02:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I once shot a bundle of newspapers point blank with a .22 rifle, and as I recall it went in a good four inches or so. --Milkbreath 02:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I recall telephone directories being used for this purpose at some point. No idea how effective they were. Exxolon 02:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a proper source, but paper could be relatively effective here I would guess. Still a few inches of penetration is not unreasonable. It's going to depend heavily on how dense and heavy the paper is. And sometimes the lowly .22 penetrates better than larger more powerful rounds, helped by the small diameter. I've shot through 2x4 lumber with a .22 before and it came out the other side- that might be comparable to a book of similar size. I don't know what kind of wood it was tho; I imagine that could be a factor. Weather-treated 2x4s would stop the bullets though as I recall. Friday (talk) 02:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

A French soldier in the First World War was saved by his copy of Rudyard Kipling's Kim, which stopped a Boche bullet. DuncanHill 12:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Amazon lists a current paperback edition of Kim at 368 pages. Pretty good book. Does the source say whether it was hardcover or paperback, and how many pages the bullet went through? I can't help thinking that this question could best be answered by a user with a gun, a large backyard, and a nice thick book. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 12:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

From the Kipling Society website - "Many of you may have heard the story about how one of Kipling’s books stopped a bullet and saved a young man’s life. This story was related in the July 1952 Kipling Journal. Maurice Hamonneau was a young soldier in the French Foreign legion in World War I. He narrowly escapes death due to his French translation of Kipling’s Kim carried fortuitously in his left breast pocket. A grateful Hamonneau sends his battle-scarred copy of Kim along with his Croix de guerre military medal he subsequently received to Rudyard Kipling. Kipling, of course, is flabbergasted and deeply moved. He accepts these valuable tokens on the condition that they would be returned once Hamonneau had a son. The collection of fourteen letters documents the budding friendship from the initial contact in 1918 until 1932 when at Hamonneau’s request, Kipling returns the medal and the copy of Kim back to Maurice Hamonneau for Hamonneau’s son Jean."[1] 368 pages strikes me as rather large - my paperback OUP edition has 289 of the actual text. DuncanHill 12:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

With all of these stories of item XXX stopping a bullet - you have to ask at what range it happened. On a large WWI battlefield with bullets zipping around all over the place, it's quite possible that a bullet that would have gone through two inches of paper at a few hundred yards would be stopped by a quarter inch of paper at a few thousand yards. SteveBaker 12:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

What do we mean by 'point blank range?' If we're talking about putting the book so it touches the barrel of the gun and pulling the trigger... I can't help thinking that bullet's going through that book, unless it is, like, the twenty-volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Point blank range is supposed to be a technical term meaning that you are close enough that you just aim where you're wanting to hit, without correction. But, people use it in a less technical sense to mean "short range." Friday (talk) 19:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Why are we wasting all this paper, can't we experiment using stacks of AOL CD's or something else equally annoying? A line of Kerry Katona's. Actually that has been vandalised but I don't have time to revert it right now... Lanfear's Bane | t 16:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Psht... fixed. FiggyBee 17:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I haven't shot up any phone books, but the existence of Powder-actuated tools proves that a .22 load packs quite a whallop; it's no trouble at all to use the medium tool load to blast a hardened nail through a 2x4 in the thin direction and then continue on some distance intp poured concrete.

Atlant 17:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, nails are pointed, and have way higher sectional density than a .22 bullet. Friday (talk) 17:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say a single page if it was one changing the law on gun ownership :P ---- WebHamster 18:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Despite maybe not being able to stop the penetration of the bullet, will a 600-1000 page textbook reduce the velocity of the bullet to a non-lethal velocity? Acceptable 00:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Prisionera

When will Prisionera return to Telemundo? Ericthebrainiac 02:14, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

AA Battery Hack from 6volt Lantern Battery??

I just opened an e-mail attachment that showed a 6 volt lantern battery (the bulky square one that fits in my flashlight) being prised open to reveal 32 standard AA Batteries - the message being that anyone who uses a lot of AA batteries can save themselves shed loads of dosh by following the simple instructions above. Am I being naive in wanting to believe that story? Or is it true? 81.145.240.17 17:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Snopes says no, and a quick internet search seems to corroborate this. Crabula 17:46, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Video for ya... [2] Dismas|^(talk) 21:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have seen people selling the thing to do the reverse, a casing for you to put AA batteries in and use it as a 6V battery, but no where near as many as 32 AA's (it was something like 8). --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It certainly used not be true (the battery contained 4 "F" cells), but things change. It's definitely true for certain battery types, though. For example, if you use A76 cells, you can buy them individually at quite a high price or you can buy an A544 6V "photo" battery, take it apart, and find 4 ordinary, labeled A76 cells at about 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the individual cells.

Atlant 00:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

A 'battery' is technically, a collection of 'cells' (just like an artillery battery is a collection of guns - same word - same meaning). Most cells produce 1.2 to 1.5 volts. Non-rechargable 'dry' cells produce 1.5 volts - that's just a fact of electro-chemistry. So, in order to make a 6v battery, you absolutely have to use four cells wired in series. A 9v battery needs 6 cells for the exact same reason. That's why pulling the 6v battery apart produced those four F cells - and why you can replace a 6v battery with four AA's (although they'll go flat a lot sooner than the four 'F' cells would - so it's not necessarily such a smart idea). Same deal with camera batteries. The AA and AAA batteries you buy are not (strictly-speaking) 'batteries' - they are really just 'cells' - although I suppose at a pinch you could say they were batteries that only contain one cell. SteveBaker 04:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Latina and Polynesian Porn sites

Hi I'm just wondering if anyone here knows of any good free sites with latina and polynesian chicas? Lesbian would be best but if not hardcore porn. Thanks in advance LocoLatino 18:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Why do I get the sense that a new user with few or no other edits is about to pop in with an answer to this question? Sonic Craze 21:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have the answer! For hot lesbian action, guaranteed to please, just click on this link and be delighted! (What? This kind of hot lesbian action turns me on... -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Im afraid to click on the link becuase im not on my computer =/Eskater11 22:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It isn't porn, and it doesn't make any noise. It's just an advertisement for my favorite comic book, Hothead Paisan:Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Ive got an idea, GOOGLE "FREE LATINA PORN" you can be garunted at least 10,000 hits. Also _{www.porninspector.com} Eskater11 22:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you Google the phrase "free latina porn" (with quotes), you get 295,000 hits. Without quotes, it's over 4 million. MrRedact 03:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

He said he wanted free latina porn, not free latina pedantry ;) Rockpocket 03:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Surgeon vs Anesthesiologist

Generally, how does the average and starting salary of a surgeon and anesthesiologist compare with each other in the United States? Thanks. Acceptable 21:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

That depends—are you talking about a general surgeon, or one with a particular specialty (a neurosurgeon, for example)? The salary surveys at PayScale.com seem to suggest that anesthesiologists in the United States tend to do somewhat better (financially) than general surgeons, but not as well as neurosurgeons. A lot depends on exactly where they're working and the nature of the work that they're doing. All of them look to be pretty well-paying jobs; I wouldn't want to choose between them on the basis of salary. Note as well that anesthesiologists pay higher malpractice premiums, which may offset their salary advantage to some extent. (Malpractice premiums in the United States vary wildly from state to state and even within a single state. This article noted that in 2003 a general surgeon would pay about $10,000 for malpractice insurance in the state of Minnesota; the same surgeon would pay a base rate of $174,000 in Dade County, Florida.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)