Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2008 October 16

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October 16

Fourth Century Map of The Eastern Hemisphere

The map below has various inaccuracies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:East-Hem_300ad.jpg

Details can be found on the discussion page linked below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:East-Hem_300ad.jpg 68.98.88.173 (talk) 05:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Map is correct, see link just above. Doug Weller (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Freemasons in the Bush White House?

What Freemasons have held high office in the Bush administration? NeonMerlin 01:55, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

That would be not including Bush himself? Bush was a member of Skull and Bones which is noted at Masonic conspiracy theories as being "...intimately tied to Freemasonry." Also don't miss the links to the Illuminati and the New World Order (conspiracy theory), they are both tied in with Freemasonry. This site has the truth as does their next page. Don't forget the Illuminati and go see the video (link is second from the bottom). By the way all that conspiracy theory stuff is crap. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 07:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Although you would say that! Viva la Cabal! FiggyBee (talk) 13:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Haven't you heard? There Is No Cabal. --Carnildo (talk) 21:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Information on James Kent china manufacturer from Great Britian/England

I would dearly love to find out as much as is possible about James Kent, china manufacturer from Longton, Stoke-on-Kent in England. I have done numerous Google searches and have come up with very little. I am hopping some one here can help me Charlie Find (talk) 03:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It's Stoke-on-Trent, which might help you in your searches. This may be of a little help. Since 1986 the company has been known as "James Kent, Limited" (previously known as "James Kent Ltd"), and has also produced material under the "Old Foley" brand. -- Arwel Parry _(talk) 20:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

What's a high IQ?

I took an IQ test and got 143, is that good or bad? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 04:25, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

This image will make you feel quite sharp. Darkspots (talk) 04:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Though of course you should realize that IQ testing is fairly controversial as to whether it tells you much. (And if you took an "online IQ test" you ought to disregard the results entirely). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Highest IQ I came across was a girlfriend with 198. She was seriously clever. 143 is OK. The idea used to be that people average 100. That makes a lot of people very uninteresting I suppose. Kittybrewster ☎ 04:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

198 would rank among the 2-3 highest (verified) in history, I would guess. --Scray (talk) 05:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not that people average 100, it's that 100 is the average score by definition. The test is about ranking people against others—the scoring is done so that the highest point of the bell curve is always 100. If that starts to change then they renormalize the scoring. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

An IQ of 143 would put you in the top ~99.7% of the population, so there'd be ~903,000 people with IQs higher than yours in the United States. Just to repeat, online IQ tests are genuinely worthless.--droptone (talk) 12:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, administering and scoring an IQ test requires a tester that is specially trained to do so; its not the kind of thing that can be automated. Any online IQ test isn't measuring anything more than your score on the test. It is pretty much meaningless. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Surely the top 0.3% (approx) - being in the top 99.7% isn't much to boast about... Warofdreams talk 13:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You can't know what without knowing what the standard deviation for the test he took was - different tests have different deviations. --Tango (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

IQ tests are a fabulous test of how good you are at IQ tests, there are of limited use for anything else. Online tests even more so. --Tango (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You are a genius or have maybe faked it? If you think you are a genius, why not try mensa ? they have a free test on the net--Radh (talk) 21:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

See the Intelligence quotient article for debate and controversies about IQ. See also Category:Intelligence tests for different flavours; maybe the one you took is among those? If it's a test you took yourself, e.g. on the internet, it's probably (even) less reliable than one done under laboratory conditions. jnestorius^(talk) 23:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

From IQ: "The two methodologies yield similar results near the middle of the bell curve, but the older ratio IQs yielded far higher scores for the intellectually gifted— for example, Marilyn vos Savant, who appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records, obtained a ratio IQ of 228. While this score could make sense using Binet's formula (and even then, only for a child), on the Gaussian curve model it would be an exceptional 7.9 standard deviations above the mean and hence virtually impossible in a population with a normal IQ distribution (see normal distribution). In addition, IQ tests like the Wechsler were not intended to discriminate reliably much beyond IQ 130, as they simply do not contain enough exceptionally difficult items.[1]" If you missed it, supposing an online IQ test (mine was administered in a one-on-one setting by a professional with an advanced degree, so I'm supposing there may be a degree of expertise that can't truly yet be automated) didn't have methodology problems, 143 as a score is suspect - as are any pseudo-precise values over 130; "Over 130" is pretty much as far as a useful bead goes, in as much as one number and the multitude of processing possibilities (see Neurodiversity and Asperger syndrome) really fit. There's an old saying about free - you get what you pay for. 98.169.163.20 (talk) 04:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Many online IQ tests will inflate your score because they want you to purchase a more detailed report... after one of those sites told me I had an IQ of 168 it becomes pretty clear that the real intelligence test is whether or not you click "No" to the offer. ;) ~ mazca ^t|c 14:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Be very suspicious of claimed IQ scores above 150. Edison (talk) 03:20, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Telephone strangeness

Last night I had one of those weird messages I get once in a great while. the answering machine message says, "We're sorry; your call could not be completed as dialed" (which, obviously, I couldn't have done since I was away), then a city name with my area code (now part of our phone numbers) and the first 3 digits of a number (not my phone number, though).

What causes this? My hunch is telemarketing computers, as perhaps some of them may be set up to call a series of numbers, then ring in if there's a connection; perhaps a signal from the answering machine renders it unable to be completed. I believe that's why sometimes there's nobody there when I pick up the phone; it's automated, but then when it rings back to the telemarketer switchboard there's nobody to pick up.

Thoughts? Am I close?Somebody or his brother (talk) 12:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible you have more than one phone in the house and you picked it up as someone was dialing? I'm sorry I can't suggest more I'm mostly just adding a title to your question 88.211.96.3 (talk) 12:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

No, nobody was home at the time; though my dog is big enough if he wagged his tail just right I suppose it could have knocked one off a bit. :-)Somebody or his brother (talk) 12:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

WAG here... I have had this problem occassionally, and I always assumed it was an artifact of robo-dialling coupled with the 3-way calling feature. The telemarketer, prior to dialing YOUR number had dialed a disconnected number, hung up, and immediately dialed yours. Due to some quirk of timing of the hanging up and dialing proceedure, the 3-way calling feature was activated, and you "hear" the prior number dialed, which is currently playing the "sorry, this number is no longer active" message from the prior number dialed. Because the timing between hanging up on the prior number and yours was so short (the telemarketer wants to make as many calls as possible), the 3-way calling was activiated. If there was a live person before the telemarketer called you, this wouldn't be a problem since they likely hang up when the telemarketer did. However, with the pre-recorded "no one lives here anymore" message, there is not a live person to hang up, so the message just plays and plays. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; makes a lot of sense.Somebody or his brother (talk) 14:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Totally unrelated, but once I called a friend and he picked up his phone (to dial out to me) before the first ring. He was quite confused as to how he was already talking with someone without dialing. I wonder how long that opportunity time is; had he picked up too soon, I would've got a busy signal, but if he waited a bit longer to pick up the phone, it would've started ringing. Useight (talk) 18:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I've known that happen too - very strange and takes a while to work out what's going on. --Tango (talk) 18:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I've heard that in the telephony business this is called "glaring" -- the two callers are metaphorically glaring at each other as they each expect something else to happen. --Anon, 22:01 UTC, October 17, 2008.

Sounds to me too like an artefact of computer-dialling - the dialer is not waiting long enough for the line to clear after the failed call. I very much dislike robo-calls and if I've had a few calls where no human voice presents itself within a second or two, or a call where the human speaks after even a slight delay I launch into my tirade: "Are you using a computer dialler?"; "I've been getting calls that screw up my voice mail, is that your company?" "You better stop right now, I can complain to the CRTC and the rule is that if your telecom equipment disrupts my telecom equipment, your equipment gets disconnected from the network". It's at least partially true and pretty much always get a very hasty we'll-take-you-off-our-list-right-now response. Franamax (talk) 05:45, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Koffiefontein

I recently had the displeasure of driving through Koffiefontein in South Africa, a blink and you miss it town. As you enter, you go over a small bridge and take a right hand turn, and enter the village. What I want to know is, after this right hand turn you pass a giant coffee pot, understandable, but you also pass to paintings on two pieces of wall. I say painting because they are not graffiti, they are very well done black and white paintings probably 2meters by 2 meters each, they are of Hitler and Mossolini. Why are they there? who painted them? ect ect ect Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.115.175.247 (talk) 13:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

A quick google for "Koffiefontein murals" suggests they were painted by an Italian POW during the Second World War, when the town was used as a prison camp. FiggyBee (talk) 13:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The article in question could benefit from some WP:BOLD edits, it is rather stubby, and well referenced info on the status as a POW camp and photographs of the murals in question would all be very helpful in filling out the article. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Immigrant families split betwen ships; common?

In doing some research, I found no boat that my ancestors could have come on all at once; but names are spred out over at lest 2 boats, and maybe 3. Was this common? Or have I missed the ship they came on? (I could have, since we're not sure what port they even came through; but we *do* know my gggreat grandparents came from Ireland with 11 kids! And, they didn't have group rates in the 1870s, I don't think :-)

I suppose with 11 kids, it would have been hard to afford the costs of sending everyone at once; they're all over the same year, but er several months' time, if this is them.Somebody or his brother (talk) 14:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It was pretty normal to have part of a family (usually the father) emigrate to a new place, and then once they were established send for the rest of their family. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Tracking down immigrants to North America (if that's where the great-grands were headed) can be difficult. I've seen ship lists from the early 1800s for various destinations in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island (St. John's Island at the time). These were mainly from Scotland, and tended to have many passengers with the same or similar names. A single ship landing in Pictou in 1815 had seven men named John McKay -- several listed as "very poor," and one "very poor indeed." --- OtherDave (talk) 16:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It did occur. My own great-grandfather came over with his mother weeks after his father and some siblings and weeks before the rest of his siblings. There didn't seem to be enough time between the trips to earn much money so the reasoning for this was obscure. Perhaps they worried about losing the whole family if one ship sank? As for finding records, it varies - if they came through Ellis Island, you're all set. They are online at: [1] Rmhermen (talk) 16:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Could be unfinished business (can't have everyone leave until you've sold the house), or it could be a desire to have a place waiting for the rest of the family when they show up. --Carnildo (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

This happened to me in 1957. My father came first (by air) and got himself a job and a place to live, and then a few months later my mother and I followed (by ship). --Anon, 22:05 UTC, October 17, 2008.

State Taxes Paid Out and Benefits Recieved?

Hello,

I'm looking for information about how much money each of the states pay in taxes to the federal government and how much money they receive in benefits from the government.

Thank you,

--Wellington grey (talk) 19:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

There's a good bit of info about this at the Tax Foundation. There's also a nice detail of the Federal->State direction at the Census Bureau. — Lomn 20:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)