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April 19
[edit]City nicknames
[edit]Why is "PDX" (an international airport) a nickname for Portland? TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 23:14, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
- Several things in Portland, Oregon are named PDX. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
- This item lists some other cities where the airport codes serve as nicknames.[1] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:41, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps because there are other important Portlands, and "Portland, Oregon" is a bit of a mouthful?
- Also... why not? -- Avocado (talk) 23:51, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
- Because metonymy. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 05:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
April 21
[edit]Who is this cartoon character I've been seeing in memes lately?
[edit]Depiction from memory | ||
0 — | ||
Actual character is not blocky in appearance |
I wasn't sure if this question should be categorized under Entertainment or Humanities. To be clear, this isn't Bojack Horseman, nor does he resemble any Arthur character. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 17:41, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- Looks like a character from Peppa Pig. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:53, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- Took me a minute, but it appears this is Chill Guy. MediaKyle (talk) 19:30, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, now I know what this meme is called. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 19:43, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- What struck me as impressive is that the image on the right is not an image file. It's drawn directly on this page using the "graphical timeline" template. Did you enter the code by hand or use some sort of tool? JIP | Talk 12:22, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks, now I know what this meme is called. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 19:43, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
April 22
[edit]Western (USA numerology systems)
[edit]I want to know how Western USA systems define lucky number vs unlucky number. Because I was informed repeatedly 13 is superstition in Western culture, and 4 is superstition for Asians. I want to know is there other lucky numbers single digits lucky for western (USA systems). For Western or USA system is 0, 1, 2, 5 lucky? Because alot of people in USA dislike the number 6. I want to know is 8 or 9 lucky in Western or USA system because for Asians 8 are known as favorites, because 4 is only superstition for Asians for Western is 4 a good number? 2600:8802:B0A:5900:19BD:1815:9055:233F (talk) 03:33, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/astrology/what-are-the-basics-of-numerology/articleshow/105537229.cms https://www.numerology.com/articles/about-numerology/western-chinese-numerology/ Providing Reference links I went to Google New tech is they have Al's view took alot of time to research relevant information 2600:8802:B0A:5900:19BD:1815:9055:233F (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Besides 13 being unlucky, Western traditions about specific lucky and unlucky numbers are not nearly as strong as they are in Asia. In my experience people pick their own lucky numbers which are personal to them. Judaism has traditions about specific numbers that would be more comparable to Asia, see Significance of numbers in Judaism. Pinguinn 🐧 03:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Some information about numerological aversions in various cultures can be found in Triskaidekaphobia § Similar phobias. ‑‑Lambiam 08:11, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Cultural references are what makes numbers lucky or unlucky. The number 4 in Mandarin (and multiple other Asian languages) has nearly the same pronunciation as the word Death. Both are pronounced Si with a falling tone. Death should have a slight rising tone at the end, but in common speach, you might lose it and conversations would sound like: "How many are here for dinner tonight?" "Death."
- It is commonly believed that in Christian cultures, the number 7 is lucky and the number 13 is unlucky due to Biblical references. In the Bible, 7 is used for good thing like God resting on the seventh day. That concept extends to marijuana. If 7 is a lucky "spiritual" number, than any plant that has seven leaves must be a miracle cure for everything. 13 is used for bad things such as Judas being the thirteenth person at the Last Supper. Similarly, 6 is unlucky because it is part of the number 666, which is identified as the number of the beast.
- Every culture can have numbers appear for one reason or another and then have meaning attributed to them. The number 69 will easily get giggles because it is a refrence to a sexual practice. So, simplifying, 69 equals sex. For a long time (fading from prominence now), the number 42 was popular among many people because it was referenced in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything. The actual question was left unknown. I personally find it interesting to look at how culture affects the meaning of numbers. Some things you might want to search for: Why is 87 unlucky in Australia? Why is 3 lucky in Russia? Why is 8 unlucky in India? Why is 8 lucky in Hawaii?
- Don't confuse a personal favorite number with a cultural lucky or unlucky number. John Lennon considered the number 9 to be lucky and, as such, forced it to be prominent in his life. That doesn't meant that all of Western culture finds it lucky. It isn't especially lucky amongst the British. It has no special meaning throughout Liverpool. It was just one guy's preference. But, what if John's attempts to make 9 an important number in culture through means such as making a "song" in which he repeats "Number 9" over and over ended up working. People started saying "9" to mean "I am in the know and I am using the number 9 to indicate that I am special" just as everyone who usees 42 or celebrates on May the 4th? Then, over time, the source of the popularity would fade and people would begin asking why 9 is considered lucky. Then, surely, someone would look for anything related to 9 in the Bible and it would be yet another Biblically-sourced lucky number. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Electronic bagpipes
[edit]Dear ladies and gentlemen, On the page "Electronic bagpipes" you refer (among other subjects) to some OpenPipe project. When clicking on that name, we are informed that there is NO page with that title, and having tried to open the provided link [ref. 8], the result was devastatingly shocking: It proved to be a link to https://tanjungmaspermata.com/. I kindly invite you to visit my website (www.bagpipedia.nl), in which ALL my links function as expected. I hope that you'll be able to correct the present link [ref.8], thus enabling us to check the source of the term "OpenPipe". Kind regards, Wiebe Stodel. Wiebe Stodel (talk) 07:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- OpenPipe used to be here: [2] but that blog hasn't been updated since 2012. If openpipe.cc has been taken over by something else, I suspect the project has died. In any case, blogs like that don't seem like reliable sources we should be using on electronic bagpipes. Good luck with your bagpipe-focussed encyclopedia. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:46, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- PS, you can check out the old page on archive.org here [3]. It seems to be defunct since ~2018. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
April 23
[edit]How to create a new page
[edit]Hi! There are instructions on how to edit an existing page but no instructions on how to create a new page! Could you please advise me how to create a page, what is the review process etc.? kind regards, Atiqul Atiq10 (talk) 16:58, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- There are plenty of instructions. See WP:YFA. --Viennese Waltz 17:26, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- You have no user page for your At1q10 account. If you had one, its url would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Atiq10. (On mobile devices there is an extra m.) If you click this link, you will see a message that Wikipedia does not have a page with this exact name, but also a link that you can click to start editing the page. If you then save it (and you have the right to create new pages), it has been created. This works basically with any page name. If you discover that seachickens are an important topic that deserve an article, you can create it by going to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seachicken and clicking Start the Seachicken article. This is only advisable if you know the Wikipedia rules and guidelines quite well; otherwise your new article will likely be deleted and your effort will be wasted. For newcomers wishing to contribute an article it is better to follow the road suggested by WP:YFA. ‑‑Lambiam 22:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- One approach is to create a draft of an article on your PC as a text document, and write it to fit the rules in YFA. Once it looks good, you could create the article in Wikipedia in one fell swoop, i.e. copy and paste. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:51, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
- That's how I've always done it. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 17:36, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
- The ugly truth is that, if you don't yet know how to do it, you're not ready to do it. Start by improving other articles and learn the ropes. Add a few references to an article that needs them, copyedit an article that's too short or too long, add interwiki links where appropriate, whatever makes articles a bit better. A very high percentage of first articles are terrible and get deleted almost immediately, which dissuades people from trying again. Start slow. Matt Deres (talk) 18:14, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
April 26
[edit]500 ruble note from 1912
[edit]
This is apparently a picture of a 500 ruble note of the Russian empire from 1912. Why is there so much empty space on the right-hand side of the paper? JIP | Talk 12:19, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- It's for a security feature. The 'blank' area contains a watermark, visible when the banknote is backlit: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/note203912.html. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:25, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- The image file history shows that it is a 1614x731 reduced scan by User:Roman Poulvas from an 8094x4802 image uploaded by prolific Wikimedia Commons User_talk:Vizu.
The change in format for the reduced scan is the cause of the large right-hand blank area, that is not on the earlier image.Philvoids (talk) 13:25, 26 April 2025 (UTC)- The original image was inappropriately cropped to remove the 'blank' part of the banknote. The newer image is not an error or an artifact of the scan; it restores a part of the note that's missing in the original image. The comment on the newer upload - with the full note - is "Образец банкноты (ОБРАЗЕЦЪ) с полем водяного знака": according to Google translate, "Banknote sample (SAMPLE) with watermark field". TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:33, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- For interest, downloading and manipulating the image can make the watermark more visible: it appears to be an enlargement of the portrait in the oval, with what might be a banner crossing the lower right portion thus ( />). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.194.109.80 (talk) 01:42, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- This is correct and visible on ruble notes offered on [~ 1912 Russia 500 Rubles - 5 Crisp Consecutive Notes - Peter The Great Portrait | eBay ]. No effort is made in the Numista catalog to show the watermark which is therefore invisible. Thank you TenOfAllTrades for your response that coincided with my less correct one, now struck through. Philvoids (talk) 11:22, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Scroll down just a little bit on the Numista catalog page I linked. The watermark is clearly displayed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 11:36, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- Rubbing the tip of a pencil on a piece of paper held flat above a coin you should get an image of the coin engraving with a rendering reasonably akin to the effect given by most watermarks when they are lit - using a banknote for the paper was the kind of horrendous tricks children could do - back then. --Askedonty (talk) 21:43, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
- Scroll down just a little bit on the Numista catalog page I linked. The watermark is clearly displayed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 11:36, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- This is correct and visible on ruble notes offered on [~ 1912 Russia 500 Rubles - 5 Crisp Consecutive Notes - Peter The Great Portrait | eBay ]. No effort is made in the Numista catalog to show the watermark which is therefore invisible. Thank you TenOfAllTrades for your response that coincided with my less correct one, now struck through. Philvoids (talk) 11:22, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- For interest, downloading and manipulating the image can make the watermark more visible: it appears to be an enlargement of the portrait in the oval, with what might be a banner crossing the lower right portion thus ( />). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.194.109.80 (talk) 01:42, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
- The original image was inappropriately cropped to remove the 'blank' part of the banknote. The newer image is not an error or an artifact of the scan; it restores a part of the note that's missing in the original image. The comment on the newer upload - with the full note - is "Образец банкноты (ОБРАЗЕЦЪ) с полем водяного знака": according to Google translate, "Banknote sample (SAMPLE) with watermark field". TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:33, 26 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'm old enough to remember when French Francs had big white spaces for the watermark. DuncanHill (talk) 21:57, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
A French tenner
April 28
[edit]The San Francisco Chronicle and the Reciprocity Treaty
[edit]I am trying to follow the history of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 and the position of the San Francisco Chronicle. Industrialist Claus Spreckels had originally opposed it, and the Chronicle appears to have upheld his position to protect the California sugar beet market. But Spreckels changed his mind in 1876, but as far as I can tell, the Chronicle did not. Much later, Spreckels's son purchased The San Francisco Call, and the sugar industry began to exert enormous influence in SF, even bringing down the mayor in the San Francisco graft trials. But back to my point: why did it appear that the Chronicle was continuing to take a position for tariffs when the industry had changed in California and no longer supported it? Viriditas (talk) 23:37, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
- I found this additional tidbit: "The San Francisco Chronicle in particular printed much material about Norwegian "slavery" in Hawaii, no doubt with the purpose of building up hostility to the Hawaiian sugar industry and thus towards the Reciprocity Treaty, [for] there were many in the United States, including southern planters and New York and California refiners, who were harmed rather than benefited by the Hawaiian sugar boom and wished to see the Treaty abrogated." Viriditas (talk) 00:24, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
- The problem with this explanation (Davis 1962), is it doesn't hold up. The New York sugar industry had lost most of its power by 1880, and Spreckels had the monopoly on sugar production in California. So why was the Chronicle still opposed to the treaty? It isn't clear who they were defending. Viriditas (talk) 00:27, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
- I think that it is important to separate opinions about sugar production and sugar refining. Southern farmers were producing sugar which would be in direct competition with Hawaiian sugar. Refiners in New York, the South, and California were not competing with incoming sugar. They wanted cheap sugar to refine. However, the closest route from Hawaii was to San Francisco, reducing supply costs only for those refineries. To add to the complication, Spreckles, whome you mention, was heavily invested in Hawaiian sugar production. It is most beneficial to him to have free trade of cheap sugar from Hawaii (his personal plantations) to San Fancisco (his refineries). 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:52, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. As luck would have it, I just learned that scholar Merze Tate (1905–1996) studied this question in Hawaii: Reciprocity Or Annexation (1968), and devotes an entire chapter to it (Chapter 6: "Treaty in Jeopardy"). It's free to read online if you are interested.[4] I'm reading it now. Viriditas (talk) 21:42, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
- Wow. I just finished it. I don't think there's any other source out there that covers the subject with such breadth, representing almost every major viewpoint. One thing that isn't explored as much as it should be, is the role of M. H. de Young. He seems to take a populist POV which was inevitably proven correct by history, but was defeated by the immense historical forces at work. The reciprocity treaty led to higher sugar prices on the West Coast and poor labor conditions for workers on Hawaii sugar plantations to the detriment of both Southern and East Coast planters. But the U.S. government was committed to the annexation of Hawaii for regional and strategic interests and would not deviate from that plan (and their single-minded commitment towards that goal is frankly astounding given the long controversy and public disapproval). In between all of this, Tate makes an interesting side argument: even though the treaty didn't benefit the U.S. government directly and hurt the purchasing power of consumers, weakened worker's rights (before annexation, after which it became stronger), and damaged domestic production of sugar beets (and Southern and East Coast production), the treaty strengthened the infrastructure for shipping and distribution (we would see this eventually turn to tourism and militarism). Viriditas (talk) 23:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
- Governments pushing through controversial policies with no public support to serve the "national interest" – however and whatever this may be determined to be – is a recurring theme that should not be astounding to the student of history. ‑‑Lambiam 07:22, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
- Wow. I just finished it. I don't think there's any other source out there that covers the subject with such breadth, representing almost every major viewpoint. One thing that isn't explored as much as it should be, is the role of M. H. de Young. He seems to take a populist POV which was inevitably proven correct by history, but was defeated by the immense historical forces at work. The reciprocity treaty led to higher sugar prices on the West Coast and poor labor conditions for workers on Hawaii sugar plantations to the detriment of both Southern and East Coast planters. But the U.S. government was committed to the annexation of Hawaii for regional and strategic interests and would not deviate from that plan (and their single-minded commitment towards that goal is frankly astounding given the long controversy and public disapproval). In between all of this, Tate makes an interesting side argument: even though the treaty didn't benefit the U.S. government directly and hurt the purchasing power of consumers, weakened worker's rights (before annexation, after which it became stronger), and damaged domestic production of sugar beets (and Southern and East Coast production), the treaty strengthened the infrastructure for shipping and distribution (we would see this eventually turn to tourism and militarism). Viriditas (talk) 23:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks. As luck would have it, I just learned that scholar Merze Tate (1905–1996) studied this question in Hawaii: Reciprocity Or Annexation (1968), and devotes an entire chapter to it (Chapter 6: "Treaty in Jeopardy"). It's free to read online if you are interested.[4] I'm reading it now. Viriditas (talk) 21:42, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
April 30
[edit]x or + head tack tail
[edit]I'm trying to identify the origin of an old chair and footstool pulled out of storage. I know it predates 1895 when it was put into storage. The unique feature is that the nails (tack nails?) have x or + heads on them. They are not round circles. Is there a name for this type of nail? 68.187.174.155 (talk) 11:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
- "Clavo" or "clavo nail" is a general term for a nail with a decorative head. Some of them have heads shaped like crosses. For example [5] [6]. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? CodeTalker (talk) 17:32, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yes. The ones on this furniture are more pointed (a bigger gap between the points), but with the term "clavo", I can do a better job of identifying manufacturers who many have supplied the furniture without leaving a proper brand on the underside.
- And thank you. I very quickly identified the nails as being of Chinese origin and then I found that they marked their furniture in a different way and I found the craftsman markings at the joints to indicate which parts connect where. Therefore, it is very likely that this set is of Chinese origin, which helps identify the source. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
May 1
[edit]How to get supporters for cause?
[edit]I am trying to get an Auntie Anne”s open in Glasgow or the surrounding area. How do I find people who want the same thing? I’m getting very frustrated due to the lack of locations near me.
Also, why do they keep opening locations in the South of England? We need one up here badly are we are surely more important than down there?
I appreciate all of your kind words. Thank you. Pablothepenguin (talk) 10:00, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
- Haven't we been over this before with you? Last time it was frozen yoghurt, this time it's pretzels. The answers that you received last time will also pertain to this question. --Viennese Waltz 10:59, 1 May 2025 (UTC)