The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
What are the dimensions of a normal-sized matchbox? From neutron star:
Neutron star material is remarkably dense: a normal-sized matchbox containing neutron-star material would have a weight of approximately 3 billion tonnes...
Unfortunately the citations for this statement mention neither matchboxes nor the rest of the information in the sentence, so we can't use them to calculate the volume of the matchbox. I've asked another neutron star question at WP:RDS, but it's looking at the weight and density of the star material, not the size of matchboxes. Nyttend (talk) 04:05, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our articles on matchboxes suggests that they "generally measure 5 x 3.5 x 1.5 cm", or around 26.3 cubic centimeters. Meanwhile, if we say "approximately 3 billion tonnes" is somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 billion metric tons, and neutron star density is somewhere between 3.7 x 1017 kg/m3 and 5.9 x 1017 kg/m3, this bounds the original volume assumed by whoever wrote that to between around 4.2 and 8.1 cubic centimeters, so I would say that the estimate might be off by a factor around 3-6. GalacticShoe (talk) 06:03, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience, matchbox size can vary considerably. A long time ago, people used to collect matchboxes for this reason. I would argue, therefore, that there is no general measure. In 2025, people don't smoke as much, and matches are rarely seen these days, but until recently in the US, it was popular for retail establishments to have their own matchboxes made for advertising purposes. As a side note, the final heyday for this kind of thing was the 1990s. Anyhoo, people who would often be active and dine out a lot would collect these things and either dump them in a large flower vase or if they were artistically inclined, mount them in a frame. I'm telling you that the "standard" size of a matchbox basically disappeared a very long time ago. It was likely true in, let's say, the 1950s and 1960s, when there were few companies making them. It hasn't been true in a very long time. Viriditas (talk) 21:49, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's very fair and I certainly haven't come across a matchbox myself in a long time, possibly years; that being said, I do feel like the given size of 5 x 3.5 x 1.5 cm is reasonable, and a matchbox a third that size would be unusually small. But at the order of magnitude of billions of tonnes, a 3-6x difference is really just splitting hairs on my part. GalacticShoe (talk) 22:35, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I have just proven myself wrong. I just scoured my house for a single matchbox, as I knew I had an old one around. Indeed, I found the last matchbox made by the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, circa 2012 in a drawer. It is exactly 5 x 3.5 x 1.5 cm. The fine print on the side says it was manufactured by Eddy Match, Pembroke, Ontario, but "Made in USA", which seems to imply it was made in Port Huron, Michigan. Viriditas (talk) 22:50, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I work in a grocery store and we stock packs of multiple matchboxes in our grilling section. The given size matches (snicker) my recollection, but I am not at the store right now to verify. In my experience, unless we consider extra long matches, every matchbox I've seen has been that size. I don't remember businesses having custom matchboxes. I do remember match books with the logos of hotels, restaurants, etc being given out by those businesses. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:44, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are at least five custom matchbox sizes. Until the 1990s, most restaurants, and some bars and clubs made their own matchboxes. Towards the end of this era, the sizes of the boxes started to vary more, with some of the more notable that I remember consisting of the "triangle" size used for weddings, the "mini" size that bars and clubs used to carry, and my personal favorite, the "long" and skinny, which I thought were cool. You can see images of all of these online. Virtually every restaurant had custom matchboxes made for them until maybe 20 years ago, and there were many different sizes to choose from. Matchbooks were a thing before the 1980s, and went out of a style a long, long time ago as people didn't like them, and if you lived in a rainy climate they could easily get destroyed. I remember matchbooks basically disappearing from the restaurant, bar, and club scene in the 1990s as the higher end places started using custom matchboxes instead. By 1995, matchbooks seemed to be on their way out. Viriditas (talk) 00:33, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. The word "matchbox" to me immediately recalls the 250-count boxes, which are significantly larger than that. This spec sheet gives dimensions of 4.75 inches (12.1 cm) x 1.375 inches (3.49 cm) x 2.5 inches (6.4 cm).
If the dates here on Wikipedia are to be believed, Hey would have been 27 at the time. Maybe the confusion comes from the fact that apparently Hey did appear in the video, but as the woman in the giant test tube, not the girl. I guess some people didn't do their due diligence and just assumed that the "extra" female name in the credits must refer to the girl. I couldn't find the name of the girl (or any information about her, really) either. Long is the way (talk) 14:10, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To a historian of the 31st century (if there are still historians then), they will look very similar. For someone born in 1950, they may have looked more different while living through them. In general, it depends very much upon what one focuses (culture, economy, politics, technology, ...?) and from which perspective (that of an Appalachian miner, a South-African police officer, a Vietnamese scholar of economics, ...?). See our article on the 1970s and the 1980s and decide for yourself what strikes you as significant differences. In any case, the periodization in decades creates artificial boundaries ‑‑Lambiam15:50, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the Anglosphere, the rise of Neoliberalism? Reaganomics in the USA and Thatcherism in the UK had profound effects on the economy and society as a whole. Whether this is a greater difference than between other decades is debatable; the 1960s were radically different from the 1950s for example. Alansplodge (talk) 20:03, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The 1970s were post-pill, pre-AIDS. There's a reason people joke about not remembering them; it seems like it was the last time for adults to have "fun" without as much consequence as there had been earlier or would be later. --Golbez (talk) 03:00, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this is quite irrelevant, but our article Bodhisattva says that "Chinese Buddhists generally use the term pusa (菩薩)" to mean "bodhisattva", i.e. "a person who has attained, or is striving towards, bodhi ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood". This book, Asia in the Making of Europe, refers to "Kuan-yin, usually called simply Pussa (p'u-sa), the popular Chinese term for bodhisattva." Kuan-yin seems to be Wikipedia's Guanyin, who "has been more commonly depicted as female in China and most of East Asia since about the 12th century". --Antiquary (talk) 18:48, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's highly relevant! Re Kuan-yin, yes, she is Guanyin, who is more or less Avalokiteśvara in Indian etc Buddhism. As for Brewer - yet another wholly unreliable Victorian source we should not be bothering with. Johnbod (talk) 03:16, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair to Brewer's, it records 'Phrases and Fables', with the latter including " historical or literary allusions". The 'triple goddess' thing was likely a mistaken idea about Pussa that some European had spread and which was mentioned in European literary works, so the publication (Brewer himself died in 1897, the 18th Edition was published in 2009) could be explaining those allusions without necessarily implying that they're accurate . . .
. . . though it would be helpful if it mentioned that they aren't. Perhaps someone should send a copy of this discussion to Susie Dent, who edited the most recent two editions of 2012 and 2018, so that a clarification can be included in the next if the mention of Pussa is still present.
(Amusing coincidence department. In 1991 I was offered an editorial position at the OUP, but for logistical and other reasons decided to turn it down. If I'd accepted it, I would have become a colleague of Ms Dent.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 07:29, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Hindu's use the names of gods when naming children. Arjun, Hari, Chandra, Indira, Kali, Lakshmi, Naranya, Rama, Parvati etc etc are all common names. And yes it's the same for Buddhist figures - names such as Ananda, Tenzin, Tara, Dolma, Jampa, etc etc. Nanonic (talk) 00:29, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The generally reliable John F. Burton claims[1] that Ludwig Koch recorded (on wax cylinder or disc) a Quagga in Frankfurt Zoo. The subspecies is now extinct, and the recording supposedly lost.
However, Koch was born in 1881 and our article says that "...the quagga was extinct in the wild by 1878. The last captive specimen died in Amsterdam on 12 August 1883." and "The specimen in London died in 1872 and the one in Berlin in 1875."
So what is Burton talking about? Some other now-extinct species, perhaps? Or do we have the date of extinction wrong?
If Frankfurt did have a specimen, when did it die?
[I will post a pointer to this discussion, on the science ref desk.]
I suspect that Burton has misunderstood some account of Koch's activities which used the word quagga in a looser sense than a modern zoologist would. The Dictionary of South African English website says that "In earlier times the distinctions between the different species were not always noted, but the name ‘quagga’ is now used primarily for the extinct Equus quagga, a zebra once found at the southern tip of Africa and now recognised, from genetic information, as a sub-species of E. burchelli" (my bolding). Its citations include:
1979 "Two boys found guilty of malicious injury to property after shooting a Quagga at their local zoo...worked weekends at the same zoo."
1990 "Fifteenth annual sale of game — Werksplaas Tshipise. Game species:...15 Quagga."
That might, incidentally, also explain my own faint memory of seeing film footage of a quagga when I was a child. All my life I've wondered what on earth it could have been. --Antiquary (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Koch (born in Frankfurt) was recording animals and birds by the age of 8/9 ("His 1889 recording of the song of a white-rumped shama (Kittacincla malabarica) is the first-known recording of bird song"), so it's not improbable that he recorded a zebra at Frankfurt Zoo around that age.
From Quagga we know (as Antiquary mentions) that the name was applied to zebra in general in their native habitat ("The name is still used colloquially for the plains zebra" [Equus quagga]), and that quagga (now Equus quagga quagga) were first identified as a separate species only in 1778, so confusion is understandable. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Koch's own memoir makes this claim, which is a bit questionable. I can't find any evidence that Frankfurt Zoo ever had a quagga - but what it did have, according to this 1873 guide, was Burchell's zebra, a closely related subspecies (Equus quagga burchellii instead of Equus quagga quagga). It's possible that it was either labelled as a quagga when Koch was there, or (since he talks about it being the "last of the quagga species") he retroactively labelled it as a quagga - it's not extinct, but it was at one point believed to be so (genetic analysis has since revealed that some wild plains zebras are true Burchell's). Smurrayinchester13:15, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I notice from its article that one of E. q. burchellii's common names was/is bontequagga. It seems to me not unlikely that when the young Koch made his recording, Frankfurt Zoo's specimen(s) was(were) labelled "Quagga". (Zoos, I noticed decades ago, were sometimes slow to update their information panels.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 22:12, 2 December 2025 (UTC) ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 22:12, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a reason on why did the Enlightenment caused the shift from religious lifestyle to a more secular lifestyle? This was a Renaissance that revived classical cultures and arts. But why did the religion decline much further in Europe on modern and contemporary times, since the early 21st century and further? How did the knowledge changed since 18th century? ~2025-37397-24 (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not one thing, it's the emergence of a new thing from the interaction of many things, in this case, the revival of rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism. And as new as it was, keep in mind how old these ideas are and how the Enlightenment was only one recent iteration. You can go back in time and see these things play out over and over again. "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." Or more to the point: "Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation." Looking towards the past allowed them to bypass the religious institutional restraints on current ways of thinking and create something entirely new. This is how it is always done. We look to the past to create our future. Viriditas (talk) 21:56, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The European wars of religion, for which religion was always only one of the causes, mostly came to a halt in 1648. The Age of Enlightenment followed this, mostly in the 18th century, and religiosity amongst upper class people dropped. By then, people were no longer prosecuted for adhering to the wrong religion (mostly), but still weren't allowed to build churches for the wrong religion. The wave of revolutions at the end of the 18th century, including the French Revolution, made states religiously neutral, removing most pressure on people to adhere to any religion in particular, but most charity was still provided by churches. The next step (and the core of the answer to the question) was the rise of socialism in the late 19th and early 20th century, so that people in difficult times could get support from the state, labour unions and socialist political parties. With the new idea that religion is the opium of the people, religiosity amongst the lower classes entered a sharp decline. When labour parties reached the peak of their power during the post-WW2 reconstruction and build the welfare state, religion no longer served a purpose. The next generation didn't join church life.
I wouldn't be surprised if the current wave of neoliberalism, sending society back towards the 1860s, when entire families lived in flooded single-room basements whilst their employers lived in palaces, and large scale immigration from more religious countries (mostly Muslims), would reverse this secularisation. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:54, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By then, people were no longer prosecuted for adhering to the wrong religion (mostly)
People were prosecuted for being a Muslim or Jew. This cannot be labeled as adhdering to the wrong denomination of Christianity. ‑‑Lambiam21:17, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think Avocado meant to say, in some form, 'wrong religion or wrong denomination of Christianity' but the comment got borked in some way.
(I could make an argument that technically Islam can be classified as a denomination of Christianity (of a nontrinitarian form that was more widespread in the 7th and earlier centuries, but which has otherwise largely died out), but that's not a discussion to be had here :-) .) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 02:43, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is vim's substitute command. Applying, in vim, the command
s/religion/denomination of Christianity
(the optional closing / is omitted) to the text
By then, people were no longer prosecuted for adhering to the wrong religion (mostly)
results in its being replaced by
By then, people were no longer prosecuted for adhering to the wrong denomination of Christianity (mostly)
On reconsideration, the intention behind this change is ambiguous. Rather than non-assertion of religious prosecution of Muslims and Jews before Enlightenment, the intention may have been to note their continued prosecution afterwards. ‑‑Lambiam09:40, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the ambiguity. Yes. I meant that while persecution of people following the "wrong" denomination of Christianity became much more rare, persecution of Muslims, Jews, and followers of non-Abrahamic religions continued. While in Western Europe some legal restrictions were loosened or lifted, discrimination continued; and in formerly more tolerant parts of Eastern Europe, in many cases persecution escalated. See also pogrom. (TBF, prosecution decreased afaik, with the Inquisition less actively pursued.) -- Avocado (talk) 12:50, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not all countries were equally tolerant. In my country (Netherlands), Jews (the only significant non-Christian group) were tolerated (viewed with suspicion, but not burned at the stake or forced to convert) in the 17th–18th century, but only Protestant Christians could openly build places of worship. Tolerance was a good move financially and the Republic was ruled by money. Only in some Catholic-majority areas the Catholics were permitted to build their own churches (after the Protestant minority had taken the old Catholic churches, converted them to Protestantism and repaired them with public money). But given the large number of Jews who fled from Portugal to the Netherlands, I suppose the Portuguese were less tolerant. Maybe republics were generally more tolerant than monarchies. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:24, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
well, "only SOME Protestant Christians could openly build places of worship" - I have Remonstrant ancestors who weren't Protestant enough for the Dutch authorities, and fled the Netherlands for France. There were some executions. This all tends to be written out of the self-congratulatory Dutch version of history. Johnbod (talk) 12:05, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I was referring to the Age of Enlightenment and the word "prosecuted" means (to me) that is was state-sanctioned, using laws banning the wrong religion. Lynching people isn't prosecuting people. Some antisemitism did occur (even today), but, apart from a few years of Nazi rule in the 1930-40s and maybe some exceptions I'm unaware of, this hasn't been state-sanctioned in Europe for centuries. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:43, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I apologize. Many people say "prosecution" when they mean "persecution", so I'd interpreted the intent as the latter based on the gestalt of the message. You were the one to introduce the term to the discussion, so you would know what you meant by it! -- Avocado (talk) 13:31, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's only partly true, and not true at all for the first decades (Regnans in Excelsis is 1570). As with the generally less severe persecution of people who were too Protestant, there was a determination by the state to impose the form of religion chosen by it, and uphold the right of the state to make that choice, as well as widespread and often violent feelings among sections of the population against some "forms of worship" and abstract theological views. Johnbod (talk) 12:05, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Althought his oath to Hitler, was he remained loyal to Kaiser Wilhelm II in exile until his death?
The Kaiser released all military personnel from their oath of allegiance on 28 November 1918. (Herwig, The German Naval Officer Corps, p. 264). —Simon Harley (Talk). 08:38, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a question with no significance. What could Rommel, loyal or not (probably not), possibly have done for Willy while he was in exile? Drop off a bundt cake? Clarityfiend (talk) 11:56, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The booklet "La Anarquia explicada a los niños" ("Anarchism explained to the children") was published in 1931 by Max Bembo (a pseudonym of José Ruíz Rodríguez, aka Emmanuel José Antonio). Archive dot org has a copy of an undated later edition here, with a cover picture which is not attributed. There's a sticker in the corner saying "1959", but idk whether that's the date of the printing, or the edition, or the picture.
The book was published in 1931, and the cover of the re-issue is undoubtedly a faithful reproduction of the original cover, so the image, which looks to me like linocut but was perhaps a line drawing in a style suggestive of woodcut or linocut, was almost certainly created in 1931 or perhaps late 1930. It is signed "R. Pujol P.", which possibly (or even probably) stands for "Ramón Pugol Pinxit". This could be the artist Ramón Pugol (1907–1981), but this is a rather common Catalan name, and I see no other work attributed to this Pujol in a similar style. ‑‑Lambiam21:12, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be a split responsibility. The current Administrative Arrangements Order, dated 13 May 2025, lists "Biosecurity, in relation to animals and plants" as the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and "Biosecurity, in relation to human health" as the responsibility of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. How that actually works at the coalface, I do not know. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]22:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd guess (following a breadcrumb trail from former agencies and departments) it would be the Department of Home Affairs. It would be handy though if someone who's actually crossed the Australian border has any documentation they picked up at the time. Daveosaurus (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A quick Google suggests that the Depatment of Agriculture sets the standards [2], but the Border Force does the enforcement [3]. Anecdotally, Border Security: Australia's Front Line is shown on British daytime TV and I recall seeing Border Force officers confiscating packages of strange SE Asian medicine from tearful travellers. Alansplodge (talk) 13:17, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alansplodge, your last comment reminds me of an interaction with biosecurity a couple of years ago — I had been in the US and bought some spices not available here (still in unopened McCormick packaging from Wal-Mart), and I declared it. The officers were a bit bored (I was the only person in the queue), so when I told the officers that I wasn't sure of its status, they began chatting; at one point they said basically "it's obviously not alive, and we can tell that it's a normal commercial product, so it's fine, but we have so many people who bring bags of unidentified powdered substances". Nyttend (talk) 02:26, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(blacklisted link: www.change.org/p/nominate-sam-altman-as-a-living-saint ) Is there really such a thing as living sainthood? I thought saints had to be deceased before canonization. Living saint just redirects to saint. Thanks, ~2025-38367-99 (talk) 06:10, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The image in the petition gives a hint which of the two applies. But if the product of delusion, it is even funnier. ‑‑Lambiam09:26, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it can be established that there is an ancient cult of veneration of the blessed Samuel, vicarious financial martyr through his sacrificial loss of Other People's Money, for which the nomination linked to provides some evidence, albeit only contemporary, the Pope might consider equivalent canonization. ‑‑Lambiam09:19, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But, as our Saint article notes, canonisation provides an official recognition of sainthood. Saints live among us; they're just not yet recognised by the Church, and most will never be. (The article did say "...in Heaven" further down, but I just removed this because it relied on a citation from Pope Francis which also says there are saints on earth.) Marnanel (talk) 15:20, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The website referred to by the OP can be read as bitter sarcasm. The proposal for a living sainthood is an ironic emphasis on the societal benefits (vs a potential dystopia) of Sam Altman´s involvement in AI. To "AI or not to AI" is a complex and controversial topic. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 09:41, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a cynical observation: If literate speakers of the English language can´t differentiate between a neutral declarative statement and satyrical hyperbole, we should do something to support NI (natural intelligence)... --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:54, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all. Yes I was particularly asking about the RCC or at least Christianity, since the petition proposes requesting the Pope to confer sainthood, iirc. Among non-Christian magesteria, I know that at least in the Church of Emacs, Saint IGNUcius is definitely still with us. For Altman, I hope that the dilemma is not resolved by the recent jump in DRAM prices resulting in Altman's martyrdom. But if that happens, then at least he would be able to become a saint in the, um, canonical manner. ~2025-38367-99 (talk) 01:36, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current article for the Bell X-2 research airplane states that test pilot Mel Apt was the first person to exceed Mach 3, doing so on September 27th 1956 moments before dying when the plane crashed. However, the article also states that, 20 days earlier, fellow test pilot Iven Kincheloe reached an altitude of 126,500 ft and a maximum speed of 2000 mph. That said, though, other sources I have read say Kincheloe's top speed was 1500 mph, but the FAI accepts the 2000 mph figure, as does the US Air Force Museum. If Kincheloe did indeed reach 2000 mph, given the speed of sound at 126,000 feet, is it possible that he, not Apt, ought to be credited as the first person to reach Mach 3? ~2025-38533-33 (talk) 19:30, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Search engine enquiries which yielded impressive looking calculations inform me that at this altitude Mach 1 is approximately 704 mph (thus Mach 3 = 2,112 mph), but also (of course) that the speed of sound in air is dependent on its temperature and density, both of which can vary. I presume that these factors may have been measured at the time, and that the researchers might have mentioned if Kincheloe had indeed attained Mach 3; however the above suggests that given average conditions, Kincheloe fell at least 5.6% short.
Fair enough. That said, I've seen conflicting statements of exactly what Mach 1 at 126,000 ft is, with some placing it, as you do, at 704 mph but others placing it as low as 660 mph. I'll have to do more research into this, but until I do I'll refrain from changing anything in the article.
The earliest cite in the OED Online is for 1919, when the Manchester Guardian used "World War No. 2" as a heading. (Obviously they were speculating about the future.) The next cite is from Time (magazine) in 1939, a week after the invasion of Poland: "Some of the diplomatic juggling which last week ended in World War II was old-fashioned international jockeying for power." --~2025-38436-32 (talk) 07:08, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well found. This seems important enough that I uploaded and transcribed the article.
The Supreme Court is established by Article Three of the United States Constitution. As far as I can see it does not require any qualifications at all for who may sit on the court, not even age or citizenship, much less status as a lawyer. I do not know whether Congress has established any such qualifications by statute. I imagine that would be within their authority; this does not seem to be explicit in the article, but they do establish, for example, the number of justices. --Trovatore (talk) 06:58, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
VIP-hood is not a formal status; the level of deference with which the SCOTUS justices are treated is up to any hosting organization or similar. The US is somewhat peculiar in that many citizens can name all SCOTUS members. In most countries, the appointment of members of the highest national judicial court is not a news item. An overwhelming majority of people would not be able to name even a single member of this court and would also not recognize their names, and the members will not expect, in general, any special treatment beyond standard courtesy. ‑‑Lambiam12:37, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Changes in the ANAP Ideology According to the Manifesto Project Database
According to data from the Manifesto Project Database, the ANAP's election manifesto in the 1999 Turkish general election suddenly shifted sharply to the left compared to 1995 — to the point that it became more left-wing than established social-democratic parties such as the CHP and the DSP. Statistically, it jumped from being the second-most right-wing party to the most left-wing one.
This really surprised me, because in my impression the ANAP has always been a center-right party. So the question is: Did the ANAP actually undergo a major ideological shift during this period, or is there a problem with the Manifesto Project Database’s coding/methodology, or is something else going on? Ataled (talk) 11:53, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've not looked at the Manifesto Project Database, but I suppose that any appearance of a shift to the left was an optical illusion designed to deceive the electorate. If so, it did not help. The government at the time was an ANAP-led coalition whose other members were the Democratic Left Party and the Democrat Turkey Party. ANAP lost 46 of its 132 parliamentary seats in the 1999 Turkish general election, a stunning defeat. To remain in the government after this defeat, they had to join again a coalition, now led by the Democratic Left Party but also containing the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (think Grey Wolves), which they did without qualms. ‑‑Lambiam13:00, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is the root of the names of Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart? Brave Heart is used as her de facto family name in the article... but I don't assume that she was born into a family with this family name & has received the given names Maria, Yellow, and Horse?! --KnightMove (talk) 14:19, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, but that does not help directly - even the less as those persons were far from having family names. Was she named Yellow Horse at first, Brave Heart later, or the other way round? Or otherwise? Who gave her the "White" name Maria then? --KnightMove (talk) 21:29, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think I will bother her with this and just accept that it is unknown. As she, a bit inconsistently, treats either "Brave Heart" or "Yellow Horse Brave Heart" as her de facto family name, I will just accept that these are two Lakota names she has received at any stages in her life. --KnightMove (talk) 22:01, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is the full name for the academic degree "Pd. B."? It's not clear to me what degree that would be, issued before a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science. Lovelano (talk) 04:51, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our article San Ferry Ann is illustrated with an alleged poster for the film. The poster is sourced to IMDB. The poster is obviously an over-painting of the poster for Father Came Too. Is it a genuine poster or something someone made up one day and which ended up on the internet? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 01:10, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's an explanation here on a collector's site; "A terrible mishmash of a poster where apparently the Australian poster artist had no original U.K. material of San Ferry Ann ( 1965 ) at hand to copy from". Abductive (reasoning)10:49, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a song by Pino Daniele called "Je so' pazzo" (covered by Neri per Caso) in which the singer is speaking as Masaniello. It implies that he painted his face black (I don't use the word "blackface" because that comes with a different cultural context).
Lyrics:
Je so' pazz, je so' pazz Ma chi dice che Masaniell Poi nero non sia più bell? Non sono menomat Sono pure diplomat E la faccia nera l'ho dipinta per essere notat
But I can't find anything that says even that this happened, much less why. I tried asking Google Masaniello si dipinse la faccia di nero?, and the AI summary says yes, but when you go into the deep dive it says no. Did Daniele just invent this, or is it part of some folk account? --Trovatore (talk) 05:05, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not speak Italian but I have read that idiomatically, a black face in Italian may refer to a gloomy or disappointed or angry facial expression. Is that a possible explanation? Cullen328 (talk) 08:49, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Masianello is described as bruno di carnagione,[7] and the terracotta statue of Masaniello by Raffaele Vaccarella has indeed been given a rather dark complexion. Perhaps this plays a role. ‑‑Lambiam16:15, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the short story 'The Crown Derby Plate' by Marjorie Bowen, first published in 1933, Miss Pym is visiting a remote house on the edge of Fenland. The occupant is of an odd, unkept, and dirty appearance, and the house itself appears not be lived in. When Miss Pym asks "Where do you live, Miss Lefain?", she receives the reply "Mostly in the garden", and to this "Miss Pym thought of those horrible health huts that some people indulge in". What were those horrible health huts? Unfortunately Google is obsessed with 1950s California proto-hippies. Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Almost all early uses (pre-1940) found are for simple health clinics, not for dwellings. An early use that may perhaps refer to a dwelling, in which case it does little to explain the notion, but might also refer to a health clinic, is in Appendix Volume III to a report by the Indian Famine Commission. The appendix bears the title Evidence of Witnesses from the Bombay Presidency taken before the India Famine Commission, 1898. The following is from page 226, reporting on good care taken of a poor woman whose hut had been flooded and who had to be evacuated with her child to "a place of safety":[8]
A few days later I came across them again in a health hut.
Since Bowen appears to have assumed her readers to be familiar with a notion of health huts as dwellings, it is curious that there are not many more uses. ‑‑Lambiam10:14, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I got the impression she meant some kind of health fad, like monkey glands and radium. Fresh air was something of a cure-all for a time. DuncanHill (talk) 17:15, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Me too; perhaps what we would call a gym, for whirling Indian clubs and the like. I think Charles Darwin used a hut in his garden at Downe, for drenching himself with freezing water and other tactics to cure his lassitude and excessive flatulence. Johnbod (talk) 17:45, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
King's Official Birthday#Australia notes that the King's Birthday has no fixed date in WA, being determined annually by a proclamation by the Governor. How far ahead of time is the proclamation typically made, and how easy is it to predict the date beforehand if you know the dates of school terms and the Perth Royal Show? I assume it's awkward for holidaymakers, calendar manufacturers, and the like, unless governments' date choices tend to be predictable; if they aren't, I can imagine allegations of corruption along the lines of Julian calendar#Motivation, second paragraph, but that seems very unlikely for a country like Australia. Nyttend (talk) 02:33, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The proclamation for the 2026 and 2027 occurrences of the "Celebration Day for the Anniversary of the Birthday of the Reigning Sovereign" was made in May 2024.[9]Hack (talk) 06:19, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Courtenay Edward Wellesley was born in 1850, the son of Edward Wellesley, an army officer who died in the Crimea War. Major Wellesley was the second son of Richard Wellesley, the illegitimate son of the Marquis Wellesley, the elder brother of the first Duke of Wellington. There is a great deal of information on Courtney Wellesey's father and immediate relations in 'Letters of a Victorian army officer: Edward Wellesley 1840-1854' edited by Michael Carver, in fact Field Marshall Lord Carver, a grandson through Edward Courtenay Wellesley's second marriage to a lady called Nora Scovell.
Pan's Garden by Algernon Blackwood is dedicated "To M. S.-K. who made with me these little paths across Pan's tangled garden". I can't see anyone in our article on Blackwood with those initials. Do we know who it was? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 17:28, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is experiencing music generally considered an example of qualia? I have no idea how others perceive anything from before Bach to after Rosalia, but whenever I am listening to complex compositions, I see (not at all clearly) some biomorph 3D geometric forms which are shape-shifting, subject to some symphonic / instrumental metamorphosis. Remotely similar to an animated Frank Gehry building floating in the sky, bubbling and pulsating.
Googling gives some prolix psychological papers, but I find no clear definitions to what entails auditory perception. Neither am I sure if my spatial perception actually exists or is just a bit of imaginative hallucination; I do extensive work in 3D modelling and have great interest in the visual arts, from painting to architecture to cinematography, so I am possibly just "transcribing" my cerebral emotive (?) response to a language I am familiar with.
Because of the "other minds problem", we cannot know whether anyone other than ourselves has a subjective, conscious experience – whatever that may mean. The philosophers who write about qualia rarely (or perhaps never) mention the experiencing of, specifically, music, as a quale. But timbre is often described as "colour", which in its visual sense is the poster child of the qualia posse, and few people will disagree with the statement that experiencing music can be a subjective conscious experience, one that is very different for music by one's favorite artist or composer than for some other compositions, which one may even strongly dislike. As such it fits the definition.
Your synesthetic experience, which I think is fairly rare in this specific form, is unrelated to the initial question. (It may be related to what the The Synesthesia Tree labels as "timbre–shape".) It seems to me that it wouldn't qualify as an emotive response. For most people, auditory perception has no visual aspect, and any spatial aspect is restricted to where the sound is coming from, relative to the subject. ‑‑Lambiam01:20, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are people whose perception of music includes visions of colours, in a fairly consistent way – see Chromesthesia. At least two active music reviewers on YouTube mention this, and it adds to their appreciation and understanding of the relationships of keys and harmonies in a piece. The French composer Olivier Messiaen used his synesthesic mental colour perceptions as part of his composing technique and mentioned the colours in his written scores, and the Russian Alexander Scriabin constructed a colour-light accompaniment to his symphony Prometheus.
Your experience seems along the same lines, and I suspect is not particularly uncommon, but simply something that people do not often talk about. I myself (to be anecdotal) do not have marked synesthesia, but certain types of music evoke mental images to me, typically of natural landscapes, and especially when I am drowsy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a company XYZ traded on NASDAQ whose stock went down the toilet over the past couple of years. It's now a penny stock if I'm using the term correctly. Its main product is basically crap and nobody buys it, competitors' stuff is better and cheaper, and now the product itself might be dangerous enough (design defect) to warrant a recall that the company probably can't afford. On the other hand, the company is making noise about some new dubious deals in the works. Anyway I tend to think that all things considered, the company is worth less than zero and is headed for bankruptcy. It does have some nice retail channel deals that might be useful if the product was more attractive. Current revenues maybe a few million US$ a year, down from maybe 10x that a few years ago, but I haven't checked the numbers so these are just guesses.
That said, there are lots of other, more competent companies operating in the sector, that are privately held. I know sometimes a crappy publicly traded company will get acquired by a privately held one as kind of a backdoor IPO. The private company "merges" with the public one and boom, it's on the exchange without going through the whole SEC process.
Any idea of the value of a NASDAQ listing as a company asset for such purposes? I'm not seriously looking for investment advice (I'm too broke), but am just trying to size up the picture. Thanks. ~2025-39770-07 (talk) 00:02, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
