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September 16

Muriatic acid, gelling agent

Does anyone here have experience with muriatic acid and how to make it more jelly like so it sticks on surfaces rather than dripping/running down? I thought about corn starch and other common food ingredients but those I thought about need to be heated up to work as intended, which is not an option with muriatic acid.

Very much appreciated for any knowledgeable input.TMCk (talk) 00:05, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• Moved to Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Science#September 17#Muriatic acid, gelling agent
  TMCk (talk) 01:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Piercing parlors

Is there anyone on here who's gotten a piercing in Montreal that can recommend a place that has a great track record for being safe? 69.156.171.5 (talk) 01:17, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Recommendations would be opinion - and we don't answer requests for opinion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

So if someone asks for recommendations for products or services, you never answer them? I find that extraordinarily hard to believe, especially when scores of evidence in the archives prove otherwise. I'm not asking for a medical opinion on the safety and aftercare methods of body piercings. 69.156.171.5 (talk) 02:14, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Try Angie's List or another service like that. We don't provide reliable recommendations for local businesses. It's not what we do here. --Jayron32 02:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

If someone happened to ask here for a recommendation for a local business in my city, I would have absolutely no hesitation in giving one. But it's not the kind of question that is likely to get well answered here. Reddit would be a much better bet, specifically or you can do a search like this one et voilà. --Viennese Waltz 09:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Even if we happen to have an editor here who has gotten a piercing in Montreal, I seriously doubt that we have more than two. What you want is large numbers of reviews so that you don't have to rely on one person's opinion, and we just don't have anything near that kind of critical mass, aside from the issue that opinions are discouraged here. Marco polo (talk) 13:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Jayron and VW have it right. I wouldn't personally have a problem with a rec from a respondent, but it's better to direct OPs to the kind of resources that will help with their questions. That's what we're all about, isn't it? :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Paintings by John Scougal, Scottish portrait painter

Why is there no mention in the works of John Scougal of the portraits he has painted in the late 17th Century of the Earls of Marchmont, who are part of the Hume family? I have one of the portraits, that of Captain Robert Hume, son of the First Earl of Marchmont, painted in 1694, hanging in my hallway in Washington DC.

Ian Hume96.227.102.182 (talk) 03:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

There are probably at least two reasons. Firstly it is not common in articles about artists to list every work by that artist. Secondly there may not be third party references to the portrait you own to be able to place such information within the article. If you know of any reliable references to your portrait you are free to add the information yourself or leave a message on the article's talk page directing someone else to the citation. Richard Avery (talk) 07:49, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Heroin production

After reading this article, I'm curious just how much of the world's heroin comes from what starts out as legal poppy fields. Am I wrong to think that most heroin comes from illegal fields of poppies much like marijuana or cocaine? Well, maybe marijuana isn't the greatest example. Dismas| 03:51, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

As indicated in the article you cite, legal production of opium poppy is limited to only a handful of countries, under the strict supervision of the International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations agency (its latest annual report is available here ). The objective of these controls is to ensure that none of the legal production gets into the illegal stream, and if it did, the country would be in danger of losing its very lucrative mandate to produce legal opium poppies for medical purposes. As a result just about all of the world's heroin comes from illegal fields. --Xuxl (talk) 09:31, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, the article says "...while mitigating the potential for diversion to illegal use...". If the chances are so low, why bother mentioning it? Which lead to my curiosity. Dismas| 09:49, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

It's only minimal diversion from legal crop to illegal production because of the oversight mentioned by Xuxl. Presumably having another route to production would allow some of that money spent on oversight to be spent elsewhere by the UN. Also, keep in mind that research scientists and engineers will sometimes grasp at straws when promoting their work to the public. I'll also mention that the opium poppy grows all around the USA and UK not to mention the native range of Asia Minor. I've seen it in gardens in the USA, but also naturalized on roadsides meadows. It is basically legal to grow as a garden plant in USA and UK, but there are laws that make it illegal to process the poppy into a drug. Unlike Heroin, opium is essentially dried poppy latex, so it doesn't even need any "processing" to speak of to turn it into a drug. I guess my point is, there isn't much point in trying to stop poppies from growing, and people from using the sap. On a related note, you might be interested in reading about kratom, which is a tree that grows all over Thailand that can be used as a mild intoxicant. It was banned to protect the opium industry there, because as opium prices went up above local wages, locals stopped buying it and started just chewing leaves that they could find anywhere. There have been several (expensive, useless) campaigns by the Thai government to eradicate this plant from their countryside. So while lab-made opioids might be useful in some contexts, I don't personally think this will have much of any impact on ethnobotannical practices around the world. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:58, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

(EC) Our article Poppy straw says with a source, as do other sources like that there are no reliable estimates for the level of diversion in India. Various sources like that and suggest unlike Turkey, diversion remains a problem in India. This source discusses some of the issues (and does give some very rough estimates of diversion) although it's fairly old.

Note that there's 2 different issues here. Your question relates to the percentage heroin originating from legal production which is probably low and not in itself the main concern since it relates much more to the fact control of illicit production hasn't been successful than whether preventing diversion is successful. The bigger concern as mentioned in these sources is what percentage of legal production is being diverted, since that's what those supporting legal production want to prevent, and it sounds to me like it is considered a problem, at least in India.

On that note, using a different opioid source without diversion probably isn't really that interesting. There's a reason for all this talk of Turkey and India, since as per the sources and others like , the US intentionally buys a big percentage from India and Turkey. Not because they're the best in the world at preventing diversion, but because they wanted to try and cut down illicit production by giving farmers them an alternative. Unless the yeast method is combined with nuking production areas, you're still going to have the farmers looking for a way to make money. To be clear, there are also a bunch of historical and political factors at play, and there does need to be some trust (which the US doesn't have for Afghanistan). In fact, I suspect some would suggest the stated diversion free method of producing it in yeast would end up being counter productive. (Also while I didn't read the article, I wonder how the authors plan to ensure their yeast strain doesn't end up the in hands of those in the illicit market. I think history has shown that while they may not be Walter White, they often don't have a problem getting people with sufficient technical skills and I'm sure they're always interested in new methods which may end up being cheaper, e.g. because it's harder to detect.)

Nil Einne (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"Warwick" page

I am a resident of Warwick, New York. When I searched for my town in the search bar, I was brought to Warwick, UK. This is unfair for a number of reasons: the largest Warwick is in Rhode Island, with a population of approximately 82,000. Second is Warwick NY, with a population of 32,000. Warwick UK is only third place, with 30,000. I believed this needs to be changed because why bring up the town where less people live? it should be more specific. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liammitchell0508 (talk • contribs) 18:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Probably more to do with being very old and well established many hundreds of years before the United States was founded, I believe they say size is not everything. MilborneOne (talk) 18:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

As for "unfairness", recall that Warwick UK has a castle built in 1068, and the area has been inhabited since the 6th century! Some other users might say it is unfair and US-centric to link to a small, relatively young town in NY or RI over a place that is much older in terms of human habitation, and of much greater historical importance :)

As for the 'problem' -- there are two choices here: make searches of "Warwick" go to Warwick_(disambiguation) -- or pick one of the many Warwicks to come up first. It seems that previous editors have picked the latter solution, probably based on historical reasoning. If the page that comes up is not what the user wanted, they can get there in two more clicks through the disambiguation page at the top of the Warwick UK article. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

You mean that any place whatsoever in the USA isn't the most important place of its kind, by default, just because it happens to be in the USA? How dare you even suggest such a thing? =) JIP | Talk 18:26, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe the way to solve the problem for Warwick and Worcester is to make the link go to the town that pronounces their name the 'right' way. That should get easy consensus, right?

A suggestion at Talk:Warwick (disambiguation)#Requested move got no consensus to move the disambiguation page to Warwick. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a consistent pattern at Misplaced Pages. I just noticed that Worcester directs to the English city, even though Worcester, Massachusetts, has nearly twice the population and has its own historical importance. Does this mean that each English person is twice as important as each American? It is true that English places will have longer recorded histories, but so what? The American places have also been inhabited for thousands of years, sometimes with very ancient archeological evidence. Of course there won't be consensus to remove English towns from their places of privilege as long as there are English people around to block consensus. Misplaced Pages has its strong points, but the privileging of less important places in England over places with the same name elsewhere is not one of them. Marco polo (talk) 19:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, the retort is that recorded history and current status are probably the reasons why we use the articles about cities. If I want to know about a famous site for fossils in the western USA, I go to La Brea Tar Pits, not Los Angeles. I didn't mean to dismiss the topics of pre-Columbian NE USA, but I did mean to offer a counterpoint to the OP's notion that population should be the sole criterion for this kind of decision. My perspective is that I see tons of US-centric bias on WP, but maybe I'm just unaware of places where bias may occur toward e.g. the UK. I would personally support every such link going straight to the disambig page, as seems to be the custom for TLAs, but building consensus toward that seems unlikely. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Since there is really no rational way to decide whether population or length of recorded history is more important, I agree that the only rational solution in cases where one place is not obviously more important than another would be for the unqualified search term to lead to a disambiguation page. That we don't have such a policy is one of the shortcomings of consensus as a process, though I don't actually support ditching consensus, as it is part of the heart and soul of Misplaced Pages. Marco polo (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually we had this problem solved in the first year or two of Misplaced Pages. All U.S. towns were intentionally put at "city, state". The endless debates where that consensus fell apart cover dozens of pages. Rmhermen (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• It's this sort of "Oh, we English are oh, so important" attitude even when it was the friggin Normans that built the Castle that'll have you in such trouble as of Thursday. I suggest you go with a DAB page for the name rather than waking up to find you've been outvoted by foreigners. and the article is been moved to Warick (UK, rump). μηδείς (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

  As opposed to the "We're American, no-one else's opinions are worth a shit" attitude? "Warick" doesn't make any sense at all to anyone who knows how to read and pronounce English. DuncanHill (talk) 16:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, you can have your precious wee double u back. μηδείς (talk) 18:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the real reason that US places are so consistently named "city, state" is that at the VERY beginning of Misplaced Pages, someone wrote a 'bot' that went through the US census records (or some data source like that) and automatically generated a basic stub article about every single city, town and village in the entire country with boilerplate wording about population size, latitude/longitude and so forth. That established a format that it would be exceedingly painful to go in and change - so it wound up being the standard. To this day, if you pick an unusual language version of Misplaced Pages, you'll often find that someone used that same bot to create articles on every single US city in a version of Misplaced Pages that may not even have an article about the capital city of the country in which that language is spoken! In many of the smallest Misplaced Pages language versions, 90% of the articles are boilerplate from that same original bot. SteveBaker (talk) 17:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

The thing about those horrible naming debates (and you'd find it hard to beat the one at Sega Genesis aka "Mega Drive") is that everyone loses sight over the fact that the name of the article is only important to reduce the number of mouse clicks by one or two for people reading the article. If I go to the article names X and I'm at the right place - then it took me zero extra mouse clicks. If there is an "If you wanted X at wibble then see X (wibble)" then it's one mouse click and if there is "if you wanted some other kind of X, then see X (disambiguation)" - then it's two mouse clicks. In every case, the war is over whether it should take zero, one or two mouse clicks to get someplace.

BUT: Joe Public doesn't give a damn. Really. So long as there is a thing above the lede for "X" that tells you that you got to the wrong X" and you should go to X (whatever) instead...that's fine.

So these debates are annoying, pointless and highly disruptive to the smooth operation of the encyclopedia. People make enemies, they don't do any useful editing, they wikilawyer, have votes about the kind of wording should go into the actual vote - then ignore the vote because consensus isn't voting...good editors end up losing their tempers and getting blocked or banned. The end result (if there *is* an end) is unsatisfactory to nearly everyone - and a month later, some innocent bystander says the wrong thing and it blows up all over again. It's just horrible...and for all that time, the readership doesn't give a damn that they have to click the mouse one or two times more to get to an article that's going to take them 10 minutes to read anyway.

Recognizing that fact leads Misplaced Pages's rule-makers to come up with seemingly unreasonable rules like "Which ever article named 'X' was written first gets to be called "X" - all of the others get to be called "X (whatever) and if there are more than a couple of them, we should make X (disambiguation)"". That's probably not the absolute most optimal way to minimize the average number of mouse clicks required to reach X and X(whatever) by the average reader...but it is the kind of clear-cut rule that helps to eliminate debate and let us get on with the important work of editing the article itself.

If you utterly INSIST on debating which "X" should be "The One True X"...then you should only be arguing from the "which one saves the most mouse clicks" perspective. No other logic makes any sense whatever. So we really' shouldn't care which Warwick is the oldest, has the largest population, the most sex shops or the biggest number of Google hits. The only even slightly useful criterion is whether someone who types "Warwick" into the search bar expects to get to one Warwick or the other. I very much doubt that anyone can tell us the answer to that question with authority - so that makes a crappy rule to use to minimize arguments.

So in the end, we'll have dumb, stupid rules that exist mainly to cut off useless, wasteful, soul-destroying debates like this one is turning out to be. Hence we have rules like "whichever English dialect was used to write the first version of the article is maintained for the life of the article" - or "whichever article used the title first gets to avoid the 'X(whatever)' thing". This can be annoying to you personally - but any other rule you could possibly come up with would be every bit as annoying to someone else. So suck it up...live with it...and don't even think of debating whether "Tire" or "Tyre" should be the name of the article about those rubber things that go on car wheels if there is someone from Tyre in Lebanon ("the oldest city in the world") nearby...trust me, I made that mistake and that's another month of my life I'd like back please!

SteveBaker (talk) 16:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes the boot is on the other foot. If you type Boston into the searchbar, you get the place in Massachusetts rather than Boston, Lincolnshire which is the town it was named after. Alansplodge (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

As it should be, and a case where the unqualified version of the name is applied to the place that is obviously the most important. Likewise, I would never argue that there should be a disambiguation page for London, even though there are several other Londons, including one or two in the United States. In fact, I don't think that there are really many cases where Misplaced Pages gets this wrong. In fact, most English towns not linked from disambiguation pages really are the most important places with their name. There are those few cases though, where that isn't true. But I take SteveBaker's point that the issue isn't worth a lot of time and rancor. Marco polo (talk) 20:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:LAME is a repository of many silly Misplaced Pages disputes, including a number of arguments about disambiguation. --Dweller (talk) 13:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Pumps?

A photograph I uploaded to WikiMedia Commons was changed from category "Women wearing high-heeled shoes" to "Women wearing pumps". Now, with me being neither a native English speaker or a woman, I don't understand the difference. How are "pumps" different from high-heeled shoes in general? JIP | Talk 18:25, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Most of the footwear known as pumps of which I'm aware does not have high heels. HiLo48 (talk) 18:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

(ec) According to the WIkiCommons category system, "pumps" are considered to be a sub-class of high-heeled shoes. So someone was trying to place your photograph into a tighter classification than the broader class that you chose - which is definitely a good thing in helping people find the specific photographs they need.

HOWEVER: According to our article Court shoe, (which is what a "pump" is...in this context): "A court shoe (British English), or pump (American English), is a shoe with a low-cut front and usually without a fastening. However, some have an ankle strap." I presume the ones you uploaded the photo of were of that sort.

This is a somewhat unfortunate choice of category name because in US english, "pumps" are high heeled shoes - but in British english the word refers to a Plimsoll shoe (like a Converse all-star sneaker). That's a horrible mess - you couldn't imagine a more different style of shoe sharing the same name!! (And actually, this explains some confusions I've had as a Brit living in the USA).

So I guess I'd say that the recategorization of your photograph was OK - but the category itself is unfortunately named for non-US readers.

I think someone should head over to WikiCommons and make an effort to get the category renamed in some less US-centric fashion. That's not going to be easy however because I don't see a term for this sub-category of high-heeled shoe that's common to both US and British english...we simply don't have a shared word here. Perhaps "Women wearing high-heeled pumps" might make better sense.

Ikky!

SteveBaker (talk) 18:54, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem with there being very different forms of English around the globe, but there is a problem when the users of one form behave as if theirs is the only (correct) one. HiLo48 (talk) 22:11, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I remember getting very confused (and rather worried), when I was 4 and 3/4 and we were told to remember to bring our pumps to school the next day. I didn't have any pumps, though I think I might have seen on or two in old villages. I did have daps however. DuncanHill (talk) 22:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree just saying high-heeled shoes would cut out a lot of quite unnecessary confusion and I think it would be a better name for searches as well. Dmcq (talk) 09:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I notice there is a commons:Category:Men wearing high-heeled shoes but not for them wearing pumps so I would guess it is the better established term ;-) There is one painful picture there of a group of soldiers putting on womens' shoes to walk a mile. Dmcq (talk) 10:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

But pleasing to see people walking a mile in other people's shoes. Maybe that's how Imelda Marcos acquired her fabulous collection. -- Jack of Oz 10:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

To add confusion, a straw poll of american women I've spoken to over the last day says that almost all of them think "pumps" are shoes with low heels...somewhere intermediate between high heels and 'flats'. So now we have yet another meaning. SteveBaker (talk) 15:56, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Just to add more to the confusion, I believe that in the UK, "pumps" meaning plimsolls (canvas sneakers in the US perhaps?) is a regional dialect word. In London, they were equally confusingly called "slippers", hence the former school corporal punishment of slippering (ouch!). A quick Google for "ladies pumps" in the UK brings up this sort of thing - low heeled and cut low at the front, like a court shoe without heels. Alansplodge (talk) 17:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a good thing the Reebok Pump didn't catch on! APL (talk) 17:02, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

September 17

Maximizing caffeine content in French Press coffee

Most guidelines for brewing coffee in a French Press coffeemakers calls for using water that is several degrees below boiling and to steep the medium coffee grinds no more than 4 minutes. Suppose one has no regards for the taste of the resulting coffee, but is rather attempting to maximize the amount of caffeine extracted from the coffee grinds, would the below modifications to the traditional method work towards this goals?

1) Pouring boiling, instead of below boiling, water into the coffee grinds. Or will the high temperature denature/destroy the caffeine in the grinds or something? 2) Steeping it for longer than 4 minutes before depressing the plunger. 3) Using a fine, instead of medium, grind for the beans.

thanks. Acceptable (talk) 05:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

1. Use lighter roasts for more caffeine. 2. Use finer grounds (if you don't mind cowboy coffee). 3. If you don't mind the taste, consider buying robusta, rather than arabica, as it contains more caffeine. Justin15w (talk) 15:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Soak the ground coffee in COLD water, overnight in the fridge, see cold brew for the details. CS Miller (talk) 15:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• Just a note to help international understanding - a French Press is a cafetière, and was invented by an Italian, and popularised by British and Danish companies. I had no idea that they were known as French Presses until reading this question! DuncanHill (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Duly noted. It's such a common theme, e.g. Canada thistle not being from Canada, and even us USians call Turkeys after Turkey, even though they are from N America! SemanticMantis (talk) 20:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Justin basically has it, but there are some subtleties on the roast. ] has the details on roasting and caffeine. But this page discusses how measuring by weight, volume, will affect the final content . This page goes through a similar discussion, but concludes that there won't be much difference in dark vs. light roast for most normal brewing methods. Personally, if I want very strong coffee that's not espresso, I use a Chemex filter. This allows for the easiest method of increasing caffeine - using more beans - without affecting taste much. E.g. if I double the amount of beans in my french press (and keep water volume constant), I find the brew unpleasant. If I double the amount of beans in my Chemex, it's still delicious :) Finally, some WP:OR, I don't think the hard boil will help you much, compared to a longer brew time with off-boil water. The cooler-than-boiling thing is to avoid pulling out some of the heavier volatiles, but caffeine is small and comes out fine, even with cool water. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

(And if you really want more caffeine without caring about taste, I suggest that caffeine pills are much cheaper than coffee beans... ) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

How the Vietnamese boat people came to the U.S. in 1975?

I want to know about how the Vietnamese boat people came to the U.S. in 1975. And what U.S. port that the Vietnamese boat people arrived? --Kiel457 (talk) 09:23, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"By boat" would be the simple answer to the first question. Can you explain more about any greater level of detail you may be after? -- Jack of Oz 10:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

There is a good article on Vietnamese boat people. The boats in question only took the refugees from Vietnam to nearby countries. They were then processed by various countries willing to accept them, and then flown to their final destination (the U.S., but also Canada, Australia and various European countries). Note this took place in late 1978 and 1979, not 1975. --Xuxl (talk) 10:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

If you do mean those who left around the time of the Fall of Saigon, the articles Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act and Vietnamese American#History have some information. Rmhermen (talk) 14:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

September 19

Flying car with umbrella design.

On most video about early, failed, designs for flying machines, you see a contraption with four small wheels and a gigantic umbrella that flaps violently up and down - powered by a gasoline engine. The driver (pilot?) sits way back, almost off the end of the machine. Inevitably, the thing flaps violently, making small 'hops' and shows no sign whatever of actually flying.

Looking carefully through the many videos, it looks like there are at least three or four different incarnations of this design. I'm trying to find out more about them - who made them? What was the history? What are they called?

One of the videos shows a cloth banner tied to the side of the car that looks like it says "Fly Car" or maybe "My Car"...the first one or two letters of the name are hard to read.

Any ideas about where to find out more? SteveBaker (talk) 04:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you thinking of the "Pitts Sky Car"? Zzubnik (talk) 09:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh! "Sky" car...I could see the 'Y' in the video, but I didn't hit on "Sky". That's a great start - thanks! SteveBaker (talk) 15:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The link, Pitts Sky Car and the external link of the video. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 11:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It is a famous silly invention, but the video does look like it achieved some lift on the downstroke. The propellor had vanes which closed when the assembly rotated a bit, then lifted when the propellor was brought downward. The car seems way too heavy for the amount o lift provided. A reference in the article says that the hopping might have been due just to the momentum of the propellor moving down. The car, engine and very complex gearbox seem so much heavier than the propellor that reaction to mass movement seems inadequate to account for the entire machine leaving the ground for brief instants. The sad thing is that the inventor had many of the parts of a helicopter in his design: a rotating blade assembly on a vertical axis, which has blades which can pivot, and which has an axis which can be tilted ahead or behind for forward or reverse thrust, and a design including multiple such propellors with different rotation to provide stability (like multirotor helicopters). He was just stuck on the thing getting its lift by pulling downward rather than just rotating. Early helicopters vibrated up and down quite a bit even with a rotating blade rather than this up and down blade. This design seems like it would have been a horrible boneshaker even if it flew, unless it had multiple propellors such that perhaps a central one would lift while the two flanking ones were moving the other way, to provide constant rather than intermittent combined lift. Edison (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - it seems silly, but it's founded on kinda reasonable principles. The "umbrella" works on the principle of a bird's feather where the hinged flaps open up to allow airflow to pass through on the up-stroke, and shut to force air downwards on the down stroke. In principle, it should generate lift. But the machine was so heavy, the amount of lift needed was enormous - and the vibration induced by all that banging up and down looks like it prevents the delicat little vanes from opening and shutting properly. You can see them somewhat working in some of the videos.

The video also shows that Mr Pitts didn't foresee the need to counter the torque which contra-rotates the fuselage every time the machine hops off the ground. If it had flown, the pilot would have become very dizzy. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

The background here is that my wife and I have a small business making models for tabletop gamers - and we're looking to make some items in the steampunk genre - so I'm collecting real-world examples of machines that (in the fantasy setting of a hugely-successful Victorian world) might plausibly have evolved into something that worked. But to make good models, it's nice to start with real-world examples that failed - but which might (with a little generous leeway and imagination) have been evolved into machines that would have worked - and thereby produce a world just as advanced as ours, but based on entirely different principles. (Hence my interest in the Frost Airship Glider a few weeks ago). But I like to delve deeply into the subject matter - so rather than just make a copy of that one machine - I'd like to understand what changed over the life of the guy who was trying to make this work.

Our article (and thanks again for the link!) is kinda thin. From several un-attributed videos and still photos, the Pitts Sky Car seems to be just one example of several seemingly similar machines - it's not clear whether these were made by different people - or whether they are evolutions of the same design by one man. One of them has massive chains and gear wheels on one side of the machine, another has the drive shaft (for want of a better word) protruding upwards out of a large barrel-like thing that I take to be an enclosed gearbox - yet another has the drive shaft coming out of a fairly smooth rectangular box. The location of the driver's seat changes from one version to the other too. At least one looks like it's powered by steam rather than a gasoline engine. I was hoping to get some information about the chronology of the invention.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

One of my first articles! It looks a bit amateurish now, but if you can find any more details, feel free to contribute. Still, I'm glad somebody has read it. Alansplodge (talk) 11:52, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

With a very broad interpretation, based on the bird-like lift mechanism, this sky car could be seen as a subclass of ornithopter. I suspect there's lots of inspirational fodder with a search like this: . SemanticMantis (talk) 16:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I did a Google search to see if anything about John W Pitts or his Sky Car had appeared on the internet since I wrote that article in 2011. The only extra information that I found was from a magazine called Vertical (the one about helicopters rather than rock climbing). An article called The Weird and Wacky by Bob Petite published in January 2012 says; "Pitts first tried his unusual rotor system on an aircraft fuselage, but this was soon rejected in favor of an airframe on wheels, without the aircraft tail, capable holding a pilot. The new design weighed 2,700 pounds and was powered by a 90-horsepower Curtiss engine." The Sky Car is also mentioned in a thread on The Steampunk Forum in which a contributor doubts that it is the downwash from the rotor which is lifting the machine, but simply that "when one heavy part of the machine is forced down some other part must go up, according to the laws of mechanics. This appears to be the first helicopter in which vibration was designed into it." Alansplodge (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Scottish referendum

Will there ever, ever, be another referendum on Scottish independence in the 70 years or so I'll probably still be alive? What about even further in the future? Pablothepenguin (talk) 09:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, if someone proposes it. Probably no time soon, though. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 09:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Alex Salmond said last night "Scotland has, by a majority, decided not at this stage to become an independent country" (italics mine). It's not an entirely dead and buried issue, but I can't imagine there being another referendum in the foreseeable future. --Viennese Waltz 09:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't go that far. Consider that the Quebec referendum, 1980 was followed 15 years later by the Quebec referendum, 1995. Proposed political status for Puerto Rico also shows that political status referenda were held in Puerto Rico in 1967, 1993, 1997, and 2012, or 4 votes in 45 years. Notably, the most recent vote went differently than the three earlier plebiscites. So, I wouldn't claim that the issue is necessarily going a way. Perhaps for a decade or two, and of course we cannot predict the future, but based on similar political situations in the past, it is entirely possible that Scotland could have another vote in the lifetime of the OP. --Jayron32 11:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This BBC article discussing the possibilities of a Scottish do-over sooner than "a generation" compares it to the Quebec situation, calling that a "Neverendum". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 22:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The general consensus is that there shouldn't be another referendum for "a generation". That's a sentiment shared by David Cameron and Alex Salmond. It's perhaps worth noting that younger voters have historically (ref) and yesterday (ref) been more likely to favour independence than older voters - in say 25 years the demographics will be different, but who knows whether yesterday's younger "yes" group will retain that view as they age, or whether (as the ScotCen link might suggest) that they'll migrate toward "no". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 13:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

It may likely be the latter, as a famous <ed note: insert this here> quote falsely attributed to. Quotable Prime Minister once quipped “Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.” The implication being that political beliefs tend to change with age; old people tend to think like the old people a generation ago, relatively speaking, while young people are always more "liberal" If old people today are voting "no" more often, when the young today become old tomorrow, they'll vote like old people do today. At least, that's what Mr. Churchill seems to imply. --Jayron32 13:53, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No, he didn't say that. --65.94.51.64 (talk) 16:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

ed: so fixed... --Jayron32 17:49, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The leaders of all of the major political parties have said "stability for at least another generation" - and a human generation is normally taken to be 20 years - so it wouldn't surprise me if you get to see at least one more attempt during your lifespan.

The Northern Irish had their vote (See: Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum, 1973) - and various devolution votes for Scotland, Ireland and Wales were taken in the 1970's and 1990's - suggesting a roughly 20 interval for such things. But it's clear that the demographics make it quite pointless (and very possibly, highly disruptive) to have another Northern Ireland independence vote even every 20 years when the result is a 99:1 majority. Scotland's vote was incredibly close - and that's a tricky thing. If the support for this idea is fluctuating rapidly, then repeatedly re-testing the electorate will produce a random coin flip each time it's done - and eventually a split would happen by chance even though a small majority may not be happy about it and a large number undecided. It makes more sense to wait until a clear and dramatic change of public opinion (one way or the other) suggests that it's worth having a do-over.

However, technically, all that's needed for a "do-over" is to get a majority of people in the Scottish and British parliaments to vote to have one. Both British and Scottish parliaments are democratically elected - so ultimately, all of the people of the UK get to decide - and it's certainly possible for another vote to happen at any time - or never.

In practice, I'd expect that if a clear majority in the Scottish parliament voted for a do-over a decade from now, it would not be opposed by the British government - but it has to be understood that the cost of doing this is high - not just because of the vote itself and all the hoopla leading up to it - but also because of the undoubted economic damage done to both Scotland and the rest of the British regions caused by the uncertainty. So having such votes too frequently incurs a heavy cost. Personally, I think that this is not, and should never have been, a decision for the Scottish people alone to make. The English, Welsh and Northern Irish would all have been horribly disrupted had a "Yes" vote happened - and they all actually DID suffer to some degree from the weakening of the UK pound and precipitate drop in overseas investment and business development that came about from the period of uncertainty leading up to all of this. So I think everyone needs a say in if and when a do-over might happen...and the logical way for that to happen is (as this time around) at the agreement of both the Scottish AND British parliaments.

For it to succeed next time around, I feel that the terms of the separation (eg what happens to the currency, the legal system, European Community and NATO membership, the banking system, offshore resources, the military, the NHS, the post office, British Telecom, the Royal Family, pensions....and dozens of other important things) should have been hammered out, at least in outline, before the vote was scheduled. I suspect that a large fraction of the "No" voters chose that option, not because they didn't want an independent Scotland - but because they don't like signing a blank cheque...and that's what this vote amounted to.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't see that it automatically follows that being affected by something means you should get a say in it.

APL (talk) 17:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Depends on whether you believe in democracy, or some semblance thereof. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

So everyone in the world should get a vote in the US presidential elections? 86.136.125.63 (talk) 20:15, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

"Scotland's vote was incredibly close". Look at the actual vote, not the dodgy opinion polls, and compare the result of 55.3%:44.7% with such knife-edge contests as the 2008 US presidential election (52.9%:45.7%). Not quite such a drubbing as we might have expected a year ago, but still nowhere near close. Henry 21:33, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure this is what Steve means by "incredibly close": It's incredible that anyone except the most unreconstructed separatist (independencist?) would think the result was anywhere near close.  :) -- Jack of Oz 21:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No, not at all. In a matter of such importance, I think a 45/55 split is indeed remarkably close. Given an 84% turnout, that means that less than half of all eligible voters said "No". (Although, admittedly, only a little over a third said "Yes"). The uncertainty in the result due to non-voters is larger than the majority...and in a matter as important as this, that's a really close result. SteveBaker (talk) 15:18, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Just days before the poll, it was "a cliffhanger", "on a knife edge", "too close to call". What actually happened was somewhat less breathlessly dramatic, yet somehow you see it as "incredibly close"? Give over. Comparing actual votes cast with numbers of potential voters is a non sequitur. The people who chose not to vote are irrelevant, because they voluntary excluded themselves from the picture. Voting isn't even compulsory in the UK, but even in countries where it is, like Australia, it's only the votes that are (a) actually cast and (b) considered "formal", i.e. valid votes, that are given any consideration in determining the outcome. The votes that could have been' cast but were not, can hardly be called "uncertain". They are in fact completely unknown, and unknowable. -- Jack of Oz 12:27, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like the "cliffhanger" report was hype, for the purpose of getting more citizens to vote. As for those who didn't vote, unless someone takes a poll of those folks as to how they "would have" voted, the only thing you can infer is that they didn't care one way or the other. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 13:46, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

No true Scotsman would call it close, in other words. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, September 19, 2014 (UTC)

And if I heard right, the true Scotsman (Salmond) who had been pushing for this for so many years has now stepped down. You could say he is resigned to the result. And, no, 54-46 is not very close. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The way I read the poll, the true Scotsman is the one who wants to be British. Still leaves nearly just as many who don't. Close, in that sense, but not dramatically close or worth recounting soon. Close enough to ask their children again later. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:31, September 19, 2014 (UTC)

As far as votes on a national break-up go, a 10+% margin is not close. THIS was close. - Eron 22:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Yet they never could convince a majority of Quebec voters to go for it, and perhaps for the same reason - failure to address details of how it would work. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:14, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

+--------+-------+
| R.O.I. | YEARS |
+--------+-------+
|  10%   |   1   |
|  21%   |   2   |
|  33.1% |   3   |
+--------+-------+

R.O.I.  YEARS

10%       1
21%       2
33.1%     3

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