Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 November 10

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November 10

Writing on windows

Every now and then, in films etc., you see someone using a special marker pen to write on windows (example) – where would one get such an item, and is the writing erasable afterwards? Thanks, ╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 11:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a little hard to tell from the photo but it's likely a grease pencil. Any good stationary store or similar shop should have one. Dismas|^(talk) 11:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Amazon offers these, among many others. They're basic dry erase markers, usually in fluorescent colors. --LarryMac | Talk 13:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

How about Crayola's Washable Window Markers? Or find something you like from here. Oda Mari (talk) 15:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Yea it works fine with a standard whiteboard marker. In chemistry at uni, people would write reactions and stuff on the fumehood glass. Good story, eh. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 18:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Dry erase markers, wet erase markers (i.e. overhead markers), and even permanent markers (e.g. Sharpies) can be used to write on glass. The last can be removed with organic solvent - acetone or ethanol for those working at a fume hood, but rubbing alcohol does the trick for those at home. -- 174.31.204.207 (talk) 16:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

White grease pencils on glass (plastic, plexiglass, etc...) are often used in military applications. Markings rub off nicely with a dry cloth. Haus^Talk 18:41, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Back in the 60s, even, there were guys on TV doing a "weather window" in which they would be outside drawing the weather patterns on glass with white markers, with the street scene visible in the background. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

They have been writing on windows long before the 60s. Whitewash was used. A liquid that turned to powder and was washable. Very easy to remove. Thus most writing was inside the window and writers had to learn to write in reverse. I know from my father that ths goes back at least to the beginning of the 1900s, but it is so simple a technique I an sure it must go back many years further.95.176.69.82 (talk) 15:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

florida keys

there are hundreds of keys but what are the main key names. for instance i found where it said 5 main key names but didnt list or i missed it. can you help? thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.74.158.161 (talk) 15:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Did you try Florida_keys#Major_islands? I'm not entirely sure you could identify only 5 keys as being noticibly distinct from the others, except maybe as population centers, and in that case some of the major settlements in the Keys include Key Largo, Florida, Marathon, Florida, Islamorada, Florida and Key West, Florida. Most of these towns occupy multiple islands (keys), however. There is a map in the main Florida Keys article which is quite high resolution (click on it, THEN click on it again when the file info page comes up) and you may be able to rough out the most important keys; however most of the largest (in area) keys are not necessarily those with the largest population. --Jayron32 16:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Are -almost- all parents somehow irresponsible?

If you don't have saving of several hundred thousands, there is no way you can guarantee that your child will be minimally provided, but does this make all parents somehow irresponsible?--Quest09 (talk) 18:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

On what do you base your assertion that savings of "several hundred thousand" are essential in order to provide the "minimum" for a child? What currency? What country? Who says what are a child's minimum requirements, and won't they vary from country to country? (There are countries where people raise families on a dollar a day; there are countries where children regard the lack of a pair of $250 trainers as a form of parental abuse.) Are you talking about parents' responsibilities to their children, or to society as a whole? Who says we have any responsibilities, other than the biological imperative to breed successfully and pass on our genes? Your question makes all kinds of assumptions, and any answer you get will be opinion and debate rather than anything useful, I'm afraid. Karenjc 19:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What currency are you talking about? In USD, I would say it costs a lot less than several hundreds of thousands of dollars to be "minimally provided for", at least in the short term. (You don't need savings of such an amount, in other words — you just need some sort of constant income.) Of course standards of being "minimally provided for" will vary quite a lot depending on who you talk to. But sure, many parents are pretty irresponsible, but that's nothing new. It is a oft-asserted fact that it is often the very poorest, who can barely provide for themselves, who reproduce in the greatest numbers, because rapid reduction is often correlated with lack of education, which is correlates pretty strongly with poverty. There have been a number of modest proposals as to what to make of that fact going back for quite some time now, some more successful than others. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

There is also something to the fact that humans have a psychological need to work. If you have so much money that your childen never have to work when they become adults, there is evidence to show they are not necessarily "better off" than parents whose children have to earn their own way once they are of age. The Poverty threshold varies from place to place, but for Poverty in the United States, that number appears to about $10,000 per year for a single person, with an additional $4000 or so per additional person living in the same family unit. That's a pretty modest $22,000 per year or so for a family of four. Now, that $22,000 won't get you much more than four walls and a roof, three squares a day, and some clothes; but anything more than that is still a luxury. Parent's aren't irresponsible if they don't provide Playstation 3's their children... --Jayron32 21:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you underestimate when you say that anything more than that "is still a luxury" (if you have to live in a slum, that's a pretty big toll... if you haven't been poor, you probably don't understand exactly all of the costs that come with it... you haven't, for example, included medical care as one of your "requirements", which I think most people would not categorize as a "luxury"), but anyway, I think the point that standards vary as to what minimal provisions is pretty clear. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The way I read the question was that the OP was saying that before conceiving a child, a couple should have all the money that they will ever need to raise that child to adulthood. For most of us, that's simply not possible and never has been. And if it were only the people who did have that kind of cash who reproduced, we (as a species) wouldn't get very far at all. For most of us, there's an assumption that we'll be able to find a constant, or nearly so, income through our professions. Dismas|^(talk) 21:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The thought of only the ultra-rich reproducing is interesting. Ponder the implications of it and it will be clear why that kind of "birth control", if implemented, would not work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:28, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I meant the question as Dismas rightly read it. If you don't have several hundred thousand dollars in the US (or the equivalent abroad), you'll raise your children based on the supposition that you'll get some pretty constant income for the next 16 or 18 years. It does not imply that only the top 1% should have children. Baseball Bugs is right when he say it would not work, since the poor and middle class would disappear, and with them the whole society. But it implies that you'll have to be at least a little irresponsible (or at least inconsequential, or optimist if you prefer). There is nothing out there which guarantees income in the the year 2025 (even civil servants could be facing a pretty different situation in 15 years time, with a broke government not paying them). The follow-up question is not should only the wealthy reproduce? It is actually where does this optimist come from? How can you suppose that you'll have a source of income in your profession the next 16 years? Quest09 (talk) 12:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

At the very least, optimism comes from the knowledge that we've had many such economic setbacks and we've always bounced back. And in general, "Where there's life, there's hope." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Where there's life, there's the prime directive: Reproduce!. The cultworthy film Idiocracy reveals the dystopic consequence of unintelligent people having more children than intelligent ones. Made me LOL. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, the children of parents less able to provide for them also live shorter lives, which balances the pictures and makes humankind's survival possible. Regarding Quest's question: you start by the assumption that you have to gather means for the 16-18 years of life of your child which is mostly impossible. Just imagine if money didn't exist: would parents need to gather water/food/clothes for 16 years OR would it be enough to be well informed of sources of water/food/clothes? Gathering doesn't provide you any more security than information does. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 13:05, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

A lot of folks, rich and poor, consider producing children the most valuable thing they've ever done. And being wealthy is no assurance of long life either. Look at George Washington Vanderbilt, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:55, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

One assumption you seem to be making is that the person will be in the same profession for 16-18 years. I've been out of college for 13 years now and have had a few different professions, not one of which used my degrees. But all along, there were people working beside me who were raising kids on what we were making. Basically, I don't see why anyone has to be locked in to one career path. People are resourceful when it comes to making ends meet. Dismas|^(talk) 20:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The big brains that God (so to speak) gave us are what get us in trouble, but also what make us resourceful enough to have a chance to get out of that trouble. Also, I would bet that many of your co-workers that have kids, have pictures of their kids on their desks or walls. Very seldom do you see pictures of money on people's desks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

If an absence of wealthy parents mean that the children end up flawed, I suspect a lot of us must have a lot of problems. HiLo48 (talk) 20:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The Kennedys never lacked for money, but a number of them have been what could safely be described as "flawed". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:44, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of whom, wasn't it Jackie O who said something like: If you get the raising of your children wrong, there's not much point in getting other things right? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:02, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

That might be why Jackie made an effort to raise her kids outside the influence of the Kennedy clan. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a Picture

I have been tryng to find a picture of a cityscape, such that I can draw a building of my own and add it to the others already there, then print it out on a huge sheet of paper. As such, it needs to be really big and detailed, with the buildings neither too small and far away or too close, and if possible, something with a little water in the foreground. Also it would need to be at least reasonably realistic looking, though not necessarily a photograph, just not a painting, outline, made of food or whatever. I have been looking all over the internet for a while, but then I thought, maybe someone out there already knows of a picture just like this, or where I might find one, so I thought why not ask here, just in case. I hope you don't mind. Thanks in advance, 148.197.121.205 (talk) 20:52, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

By really big, it seems I mean between 15 and 50 million pixels, although preferably paper shaped. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

You might find something to meet your needs on this page at Wikimedia Commons. Antiquary (talk) 21:33, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Lots of very high res pictures at Wikipedia:Featured_pictures#Places; those at Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Panorama tend to be particularly high res, but you may get more the dimensions you're looking for in one of the other subcategories. Please note and follow the licensing terms on any you may wish to use. --jjron (talk) 07:01, 11 November 2010 (UTC)