Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 May 17

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May 17

I have some mythology questions!

1. Can someone list any recent mermaid sightings any where in the world? 2. Do you believe in the Loch Ness monster? 3. Can someone give me some info on sirens in mythology? 4. Can someone name any mermaid fiction books for adults? Neptunekh2 (talk) 01:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

• 1. No, because mermaids don't exist. 2. This is not the correct place to discuss what I believe. 3. Did you read the article Siren? It's pretty extensive. 4. See Mermaids in popular culture. --Jayron32 04:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a terrible answer to number 1. There are sightings for all sorts of things that don't exist. Big Foot, Loch Ness Monster, Alien space-craft, etc.

I doubt there are many "serious", modern sightings of mermaids, though. They're a throwback to when people had a very different understanding of the world. No modern person would see something in the water and assume it was a human/fish hybrid. (Or even a human/cetacean hybrid.) It'd be like spotting a Vegetable Lamb. It doesn't make sense anymore.

No excuse for the relative dearth of mermaids in fiction though. APL (talk) 05:33, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that "No modern person would see something in the water and assume it was a human/fish hybrid". There are still lots of primitive people in the world with little knowledge of science (even putting Republicans aside...) . Of course, you might not have meant to include them as "modern". In either case, since such people still exist, it's still possible they will see a manatee and picture it in lipstick and a thong. StuRat (talk) 06:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

You have to define "modern" carefully. I've not sighted this mermaid in many years.... --Jayron32 06:31, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have doubts most primitive people who may still think mermaids exist would picture them in lipstick and a thong Nil Einne (talk) 09:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, just because they don't get science there doesn't mean they lack for porno mags. They still want the important things, after all. :-) StuRat (talk) 19:26, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find you're mistaken about what most of them have access to. I'm not even sure they'll necessarily find such things as thongs and lipstick attractive anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 03:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

1. Click. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Ooh, she's well bronzed

1 - British Columbia, 1967, and Israel, 2009. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess I was wrong. People do still believe. I'm incredibly disappointed that the newspaper photo from 1967 can't be found. I'll bet it's a classic. APL (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, the paper said to have reported the canadian mermaid doesn't seem to have its archives online, so I wasn't able to figure out if they had an article about a gorgeous blond mermaid in 1967. However, the Victoria Advocate's microfilms are online! I didn't feel like slogging through a years worth of papers looking for a mention of a mermaid, but google's slightly unreliable search did not turn up any mentions of gorgeous blond mermaids in that paper in 1967.

However, in searching for it, I did find that in 1961 a lot of papers reported on an AP story about mermaid spottings off the Isle of Man. ([1] [2]) APL (talk) 20:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

1 - Fiji mermaid. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

See Manatee Collect (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I sure wish I'd thought to include that link. :-) StuRat (talk) 19:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

You may be interested in merman, cryptozoology and list of reported lake monsters. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 02:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Be careful about using the word "primitive" to refer to people who don't share our technologies and values. I have not yet studied a people that is culturally inferior, and I personally don't believe that such a thing exists. The primitive versus modern thing is what people used as an excuse to try to westernize the Native Americans (along with colonization etc). Falconus^{p t c} 17:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Built-In Speakers

The home I am renting has speakers built into the deck, living room and bedroom walls. The previous tenants did not bother to hook anything up to them. What kind of cords/connections do I need for these outlets? Can I hook my PC to them? Thank you in advance --Endlessdan (talk) 12:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

They could be 4mm Banana sockets. You need to check their impeadance suits the copmuters amplifier. However, if the amps power is below that of what the speakers are rated at, then you risk wrecking the speakers. You need to the amp to supply more power -not the other way around. Unscrew the grill and see if the spec. is on the speaker ident plate.--Aspro (talk) 13:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Aspro, how can you wreck speakers by feeding them too little power? I've wrecked speakers by feeding them too much power. I agree that impedances need to be matched. Dbfirs 16:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Because people finding low power amps not delivering enough, naively turn the volume right up and leave it there. The tweeters burnout first. Haven't time to find a good tech reference but this covers the basics. [3] --Aspro (talk) 15:19, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I can imagine that an interaction between the clipping caused by over-running an underpowered amplifier and the crossover circuitry in the speaker might cause an excessive proportion of the power output to go through the tweeters. My experience of burning out speakers was in the old days of compressed cardboard cones (and before crossover networks) when tears in the cone were a common sight after running with high power amplifiers. Dbfirs 12:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the response but I don't know what any of that means! --Endlessdan (talk) 13:31, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

If you want to hook your computer up to speakers of these type, you likely need to do two things. First of all, You need an amplifier of some sort. You'll want to get an amplifier which is rated for the kind of speakers you have. If one did not come with the house, you'll need to buy one. First, look at the label on the back of the speaker, and find the power and resistance rating of the speakers; then go to your local home audio store and tell the clerk what kind of speakers you have; they will hook you up with the correct amplifier. There is likely a shelf where the amplifier was located before, or some other place where all of the built-in speakers are wired to. Find all of these wires, and figure out what sort of connection you have. The common options are

1. If the speakers wires end in stripped speaker wire, you'll need an amplifier that can accept bare speaker wires, see this image for two examples, the right side has a little clip-type receptical, and the left has screw-type recepticals.
2. If the speaker wires end in a connector, you'll need to have an amplifier with inputs for the type of connector you have. The common connectors vary depending on whether you are in the U.S. or Europe or the U.K., but frequently they are a) banana connectors see [4] b) TRS connectors, see [5] for two common sizes c) RCA connectors, see [6] d) rarely, it may be XLR connectors, which are more commonly used for large public-address systems and professional audio mixing boards, so likely overkill for a home system, see [7].

After you have installed the amplifier, you'll need to connect your computer to it. The amplifier should have an "audio in" receptical, usually running off of a small TRS plug (see above); while your computer soundboard should have an identically sized "audio out" receptical. You'll want to connect the "audio out" from the computer to the "audio in" on your amplifier, and then make sure the amplifier's selector switch is set to the "audio in" input channel. Then you should be able to run the computer audio through your built-in speakers. --Jayron32 14:25, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

This makes much more sense. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this. --Endlessdan (talk) 15:03, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I just checked your pic (not sure why I missed it last time). These look like banana connectors. You'll need sets of wires with the right sized banana connectors to connect from those outlets to the back of the amplifier, and an amplifier with enough outputs to handle them. You're probably also going to have to do some "trial and error" to figure out which sets of wires go to which speakers. The wires should be color coded, just match "red" to "red" and "black" to "black" and you should be good to go. --Jayron32 16:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Geneva Convention on Road Traffic

Wikisource has the text of the treaty of the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic in English. I have seen the French translation as well. Does any one know where I can find this document in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German or Russian. 14.139.128.14 (talk) 14:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

My search for an answer has so far been unsuccessful, but I have discovered the following information.

Convention on Road Traffic can refer to:

• The United Nations' Geneva Convention on Road Traffic (1949)
• The United Nations' Vienna Convention on Road Traffic (1968)

[The edit links are out of alignment with the sections, so I am editing the whole page instead of the section.]

—Wavelength (talk) 17:25, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Elizabeth II's visit to Ireland

I just read about Queen Elizabeth II's visit to the Republic of Ireland, and was amazed that it is apparently the first visit ever of a British monarch to the Republic of Ireland, and the first visit of a British monarch to Ireland at all in about a century. Seeing as Ireland is pretty much the UK's closest neighbour country, why is it that there have been so few state visits? Is it just because of political issues regarding Ireland's independence, as I have read at Republic of Ireland – United Kingdom relations? JIP | Talk 19:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably, yes, and specifically fears of assassination attempts. StuRat (talk) 19:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Between 1969-1997, such a visit would have been impossible because of the threat. (Before that, there was a mixture, I believe, of political tensions from the new republic and a significant security threat.) For a long time, the UK partly blamed the Republic for failing to control the IRA (cf. the Border Campaign (Irish Republican Army)) although the IRA was a huge problem to the republic. The threat from the Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign 1969–1997 was, and is, very real in the UK as a whole, since the IRA carried out a significant number of attacks on English soil. It appears at least one effort was made now to disrupt the proceedings, even after the Belfast Agreement and the vast majority of the IRA demilitarising. In a sense, then, it isn't the Irish government itself, but rather the overwhelming possibility of a significant security threat. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:26, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There have only been 4 British monarchs who could have ever visited the Republic of Ireland, those being George V, Edward VIII, George VI, and Elizabeth II. George V saw Ireland overthrow him as monarch, so understandably he probably had little reason to visit. Edward VIII didn't reign long enough to visit much of anywhere, and most of George VI's reign was taken up with World War II. As to why Elizabeth didn't visit before now, part of it was the traditionl animosity over the status of Northern Ireland. Given security concerns, it may have been very unwise for Elizabeth II to visit Ireland during the time of The Troubles, which occupied most of her reign. --Jayron32 19:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Even now, Ireland defused a bomb on a bus today headed toward Dublin.[8] Rmhermen (talk) 21:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

... and the first visit of a British monarch to Ireland at all in about a century - if you're referring there to the whole island of Ireland, that claim is not correct. The Queen has visited Northern Ireland previously, but again it took a long time before it was considered safe to do so. George V did visit what is now the Republic of Ireland, in 1911, but back then the whole of the island was a British possession. Elizabeth is the first UK monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland following its independence from the UK. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Security might have been a concern, but honestly it's not like the Republic was lawless territory during the Troubles. Rather the reason is political. During Elizabeth II's reign, several US presidents have visited the Republic of Ireland, such as JFK, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton. Obama is also coming there now, coinciding with the Queen's visit. --Soman (talk) 15:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's clear the Queen is a far bigger target to many of the main threats in Ireland then any US President. Nil Einne (talk) 15:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

But at the same time, IRA and other armed Irish groups also operated inside Britain at the time, and well capable of targetting the British royals there as well. I'm not saying that there would be no security concerns, but at the same time the Irish gov't would have been able to ensure the appropriate security measures if there had been a political will on both sides. --Soman (talk) 16:46, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that there were some political problems as well as security problems. The Constitution of the Republic of Ireland used to contain a clause laying claim to Northern Ireland - this was removed as part of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Also, on visiting Ireland about 10 years ago, although everyone was friendly to me on a personal level, there was still a great deal of animosity towards the UK over the struggle for independance and the way "The Troubles" had been handled in more recent years. I remember listening to a radio phone-in where callers were getting very irate about things that happened 80 years ago. Hopefully this visit will help to put things into perspective but doing it any earlier might have made things worse. Alansplodge (talk) 17:45, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

For practically the entire period of the existence of the Republic of Ireland, it and the UK have effectively been engaged in a low intensity war-by-proxy. Such a visit would most likely have caused an outbreak of large scale violence. It's only in the last decade or so that relations between the UK and the Republic have "normalised" to the extent that such a visit has become possible. Could you imagine the chaos that would erupt in Miami if the US invited Fidel Castro to visit? Roger (talk) 09:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think "war by proxy" is a bit strong; there's been co-operation on anti-terrorist matters since the 1980s for example. But there have certainly been diplomatic impasses. Alansplodge (talk) 17:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

None of them would have been welcome before the Good Friday Agreement was implemented and shown to work. Nothing about them personally or Britain in general but the Orange Order with its 'a protestant parliament for a protestant people' keeps swearing loyalty to the crown rather than the British government and derives support from the act of succession. Anyway I'm glad now that a modus vivendi has been worked out for Northern Ireland and the Republic has relinquished its silly claim, so yes this is the earliest any of them would have been welcome and hopefully it will normalize relations. Dmcq (talk) 13:12, 19 May 2011 (UTC)