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July 13

3-Octanone

From 3-Octanone#Occurrence:

It is produced by oyster mushrooms as an insecticide to kill roundworms.

Shouldn't that be 'vermicide' instead of 'insecticide'? But after looking at the article Vermicide, it seems to be only used for man-made drugs. So what is the correct term for that? Bayahiu (talk) 13:31, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Roundworm is another name for a nematode, so the correct term is "nematicide". My guess is that 3-octanone is a rather ineffective compound for that purpose but the article's content should be based on the cited source. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:40, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that's the correct term. Thanks! Bayahiu (talk) 13:44, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

July 14

Purification of cadaver fat

After reading GLP-1s are shrinking bodies. Cadaver fat is plugging the gap, I wonder how the fat from a foreign body is accepted by the patient's immune system. Fat grafting says:

fat processing (processing the extracted fat) and fat injection (reinjecting the purified fat into the area needing improvement).

To ensure survivability, the fat graft should not be manipulated too much and it must be quickly reinjected.

I think that, with a different body, the problem should be harder. -- Error (talk) 14:45, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

While there is no FDA regulation of its procedure, cadaver fat bottling company Tiger Asthetics reassures that the donor's DNA is removed in the purified fat. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 17:20, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

As far as I know, it is not foreign DNA that causes transplant rejection. That article says:

These antigens are located on the endothelial lining of blood vessels within the transplanted organ

I guess there are few blood vessels in fat tissue, but since autotransplants may fail, I guess there is a fallible cleaning process involved.

--Error (talk) 18:20, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

July 16

Recent JWST study on exomoons?

In a recent Quanta Magazine podcast interview with David Kipping, Kipping mentions a recent study by the James Webb Space Telescope that failed to identify large exomoons around a close analog of Jupiter. Which planet was this, and where can I find this study? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:15, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

There was earlier news about some excitement over a possible exomoon of WASP-39b,^[1] so further study may have led to a negative, less likely to be reported in pop-science news.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:39, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

If it's astronomy, physics or mathematics, you can find a preprint on arxiv.org in most cases. In this case, it might be: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15317

Icek~enwiki (talk) 17:50, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Pricing of Personal Watercraft

I’m hoping to gain a clearer understanding of why small recreational watercraft remain so expensive. For example, RIBs frequently cost around £50,000 despite being built from relatively lightweight plastics and inflatable materials; jet skis are priced similarly to family cars despite being far smaller and mechanically simpler; and outboard engines command premium prices even though they are lighter and less complex than car engines of comparable power. Could you explain the main factors that keep these products at such high price points, and whether emerging technologies, particularly electric propulsion, or changes in manufacturing scale might help bring costs down in the future? I apologise if this is not the right place to ask this, I would appreciate it very much if I could be pointed in the right direction if this is the case. Pablothepenguin (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Consider it from an economics perspective — personal watercraft are a luxury for most buyers, unlike cars, many of which are owned by people who would have a hard time in their daily lives if they couldn't drive. There's much more competition in the automobile manufacturing business than in the personal watercraft business, whilst those buying personal watercraft often have surplus money (otherwise they wouldn't spend so much money on something recreational) and may care less about the specific price. For some luxury goods, higher prices can even increase sales, since the higher price indicates that the good is a status symbol. Nyttend (talk) 00:51, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

If an outboard engine is lighter than a car engine of comparable power, that would explain very well why it's more expensive. Both big ships with huge diesels and small utility boats with outboard engines (similar to moped engines) can be satisfied with a low power-to-mass ratio, but the kind of high-speed boats you're looking into need more power compared to their mass. They're designed to exceed their hull speed, which comes at a big price.

Don't expect too much from electrification. Utility boats, slow recreational boats, even 2000 tonne freighters for river use can be made battery-electric today (or 30 years ago), but those fast boats would drain their batteries too rapidly.

I think this kind of fuel-guzzling recreation is something we cannot afford in these days of climate change.

(Didn't you ask a similar question before?)

PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:06, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2024 October 17 § Some vehicle-related questions.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:25, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

For the record, I do remember that post. I thought about it and realised that there wasn’t enough detail about why the prices are so high. Some insights about engine power and mass production were given, but I feel we are still not addressing the great mismatch between the cost of the components and materials and the price of the thing. RIBs for example are made of rubber and plastic and won’t have as much metal in them as solid hulls. Pablothepenguin (talk) 11:27, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

We have been using metals for thousands of years, have great experience with them, and for simple purposes they can be simple alloys, easily made and fashioned. Rubbers (particularly artificial ones) and plastics are much newer, and materially may be more difficult to design and make and fashion for a particular function.

Cars, (decreasingly) made of metals, are very numerous and we are used to their expected failure rates. Even if a particular individual car fails mechanically or materially and causes one or more deaths, the sales of cars in general and that make and model of car are unlikely to be much affected. I suspect we have less tolerance for boat failures because drowning is an additional hazard, not usually present when driving cars, so the failure of a particular recreational boat may significantly depress the sale of recreational boats in general and that model of boat in particular, perhaps leading to its manufacturer's bankruptcy. For this reason, manufacturers of recreational boats likely expend more care and expense in designing and manufactuuring their boats, making them more expensive.

You persist in thinking that the ruling factor in an item's cost is the cost of the components and materials. This is often not so. The materials can be cheap but the manufacturing procedures expensive, whether or not true mass production is involved (yes for cars, no for boats) is crucial, and goods are retailed at a price designed to balance with sales numbers to produce the maximum profit, not to "fairly" reflect those goods' materials costs.

Finally, buyers' tolerance for prices depends on how the perception of goods' "worth" has been manipulated: some goods, let us take diamonds as an example, can be sold for vastly more that their extraction, processing and rarity warrants, because buyers' perceptions of diamond have been carefully manipulated by the diamond producers and vendors. This process operates to a greater or lesser extent for every non-essential good.

TLDR: the prices of recreational boats are high because people are prepared pay those prices. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-36805-68 (talk) 13:07, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

One factor could be what's known as "snob appeal". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:45, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I was hoping for a detailed explanation of why manufacturing is so expensive. In particular I want to why the techniques used to make cars cheaper aren’t used for boats. Also how does a rubber boat cost five figures? That’s the answer I need. Pablothepenguin (talk) 15:35, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

The primary way to make cars cheaper is to make millions of them. The scale of boats is much much much smaller, so they don't get the same economy of scale. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 16:17, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

What the OP could do is to make a list of the various types of watercraft and find estimates of how many of each kind are sold each year. That could be a strong indicator. I'd venture a guess that there are lot more small motorboats or rowboats sold annually than there are yachts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Sea-Doo (over 70% of the jet ski market) produces at most 100,000 jet skis (all models) every year. Toyota, as one example, makes over 300,000 Camrys each year. That is just one model. For all models, Toyota makes over 11 million vehicles each year. The scale difference is over 100 times the scale. Therefore, I do not believe it is necessary to hunt down production numbers. What if Sea-Doo does twice as many jet skis? That's 200,000. What if Toyota had a bad year and made a million less cars? That's 10 million. The scale difference is still so wide it doesn't matter what the actual numbers are. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 17:00, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

How much could you push cost per product down through economies of scale when increasing production by a factor of, say, 100? 5%? 50%? 95%? That requires detailed analysis. Some products actually get more expensive when production increases, but I don't think that would be the case here. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:21, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

There are three main classes of products that do not follow economies of scale. Unique items that have value in uniqueness must be artificially inflated in cost when production increases or the product itself loses value. Then, limited use items, such as the heat shields on a rocket ship, will have any possible savings offset by a temporary and expensive increase in infrastructure to produce at scale. It is was not a temporary use item, the increase in infrastructure could pay itself off as an investment. Finally, products based on rare materials don't scale unless there is a chance to scale up the rare source material first. Average boats don't fall into any of those categories. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 19:44, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that in my country (Netherlands) more people drown as a result of car accidents (driving their car into a canal) than as a result of sinking boats. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:19, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not in the boating business and don't have a detailed breakdown of costs, but I just checked a random webshop selling boats and outboard engines. A small rigid inflatable boat without an engine is sold for €995, a matching 6 horsepower outboard engine without a boat (yes, this webshop uses horsepowers. They're practically obsolete in Europe, the only other people still using horsepowers are car enthusiasts) is sold for €1655. That's a pretty small engine. So it looks like the engine is responsible for most of the cost. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:55, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense. An engine in, say, a motorcycle doesn't need to be able to handle being in water (possibly saltwater) all day. You can use materials that will be ruined if the engine gets submerged. A boat engine requires every single component to be able to handle constant wet environments. Also, I've never seen a boat (or equivalent) with gears. On the road, we use gears to keep from redlining the engine for long periods. In boats, it is normal to hear a boat engine scream by for long periods of time. That puts a lot of stress and temperature strain on the engine. Yet another reason the boat engines need to be built better. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 19:12, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Actually, many ships (and also many aircraft) have something equivalent to gears: variable pitch propellers. They boost efficiency somewhat. Boats can do without (it's just less efficient), as the speed of the propeller isn't rigidly linked to the speed of the boat. On land vehicles, the speed of the wheels is rigidly linked to the speed of the vehicle, so to keep the engine at acceptable speed, you need gears (or some other form of variable transmission). But indeed, the engines of boats (and aircraft) tend to run near full power much of the time; those of road vehicles don't. You can get the engine of a car pretty hot by driving up to a mountain pass; many cars aren't really designed for that. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:52, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

The main confusing thing for me is the fact that many boats cost more than family cars despite family cars being larger, heavier, and in possession of more complex electronics and mechanics. Note that cars these days often have on board computers that manage everything from engine/battery temperature to fuel level/ battery charge, to even your Spotify playlist. Pablothepenguin (talk) 09:51, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

There's a phenomenon called Price discrimination. Ask yourself this: What's the practical difference between a top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce and a bargain-priced Kia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:32, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Above I found a 3 person rigid inflatable boat with a 4.4 kW engine for €2650, cheaper than a car and only 5% of the price you quoted above. That was the first boat seller I found on Google. You can get an even cheaper boat, but it will have a smaller engine. But as you mentioned that you compared the price to that of a car with a similarly powerful engine, it seems you're more interested in the fast market segment. There it gets more expensive. A Lamborghini is more expensive than a Citroën, isn't it? You need a big engine, that can handle being run at full power most of the time, in a wet environment. Internal combustion engines are complex mechanical devices, responsible for a large fraction of the cost of all vehicles that have them. You need a strong hull. A planing hull bumping into waves at high speed has to take a lot of abuse. And, as other hinted at, you'll get some features that aren't really useful but give status to the owner and add profit margin for the builder. Like a shiny logo of some expensive brand.

Actually, the top speed is mostly for bragging rights too. Just as a sports car can only be legally used to its full potential on quite days on the German Autobahn, a fast boat can easily exceed the legal speed limit on most waterways (typically 20 km/h in the Netherlands, 6 km/h in the UK). PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:59, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

July 17

Five-year survival rate for cancer

In general, when five-year survival rates for diseases are calculated, do the statisticians pay attention to unrelated deaths? Let's say I get diagnosed with a rare type of cancer (so one person's death can mathematically affect the small sample size), and as I'm leaving the doctor's office, I get run over by a reckless driver. Do I drag down the five-year survival rate for my type of cancer? Nyttend (talk) 00:47, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

it depends. If observed survival rate is being calculated, the cause of death doesn't matter, only survival. So you would be included as you suspected. If relative survival rate is being measured, you arr included but in comparison to the general population, who are also being killed on random events. Your unexpected death is balanced out by someone else's unexpected death. If specific cause rate is being measured, you are excluded because you did not die of that specific cause. You mention this in relation to cancer, but it shows up more in vaccines where people confuse rates to push narratives for social media clicks. ~2026-39968-68 (talk) 02:20, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Overwhelmingly, cancer studies report a relative survival rate. So, while people in the cancer cohort will have car accidents, that is compared to the general population which also has car accidents. That is why the rates are percentages. They are a percent of the general population. Something like 70% means the survival rate for the cancer cohort is 70% of the general population. The benefit with doing it this way is that the analysts don't skew the results by trying apply rules about which deaths are included and which are not. Then, they have to work out when a person would die if they didn't die from some other cause. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 11:07, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Comparing relative to the general population also accounts for deaths that are only indirectly caused by cancer. Suppose brain cancer causes problems with balance and vision. That reasonably leads to poorer identification of emergent situational threats and ability to move to safety. So we have a a pedestrian getting killed by a bad driver because they didn't realize the car was coming towards them and then stumbled back into the street trying to get back on the curb at the last minute being an increasingly likely scenario due to cancer. I would think this should be counted as a reduced overall survival due to cancer, but cannot be direclty traced to the cancer itself in any specific indiviual's death.

Take it a step further: common side effecs of chemotherapy include all sorts of neurological damage, including with to vision and balance, and do have a greater statistical likelihood of falls and similar accidents. Given old folks are both more likely to have cancer and more likely to have worse outcomes from falls themselves, if grandpa has cancer, he is less likely to survive even if the cancer is not the direct cause of death itself. DMacks (talk) 15:39, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Then let's imagine that there's a convention for people with a rare kind of cancer, and the attendees represent something like 50% of those with this cancer in a country. A gas line ruptures and causes the whole building to explode, and everyone inside (patients, dining staff, support workers, maintenance staff, etc) is immediately incinerated. Aside from the topic of the event that they're all attending, these people's deaths have nothing to do with their illness. Nyttend (talk) 12:06, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

From Nyttend's morbid Thought experiment we draw the wisdom that Correlation does not imply causation. No participants were injured in this experiment. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 15:39, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Obvious xkcd, for those who haven't seen it. DMacks (talk) 21:46, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, people without cancer also sometimes get run over … —Antonissimo (talk) 00:59, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

A single additional random accidental death could distort the survival rate numbers in a small enough sample size. At population levels or in samples of multiple thousands, it doesn't make a difference. -- Avocado (talk) 20:58, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

I think it is also important to recognize that people undergoing treatment for cancer have a higher rate of accidental falls, and of suicide. Also, these five year survival rate studies have an issue with patient retention. Best practice is to only make comparisons to groups of patients getting the other treatment(s). Abductive (reasoning) 17:45, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Of the 987 patients in the group receiving the novel treatment, 212 were alive at the end of the five-year study, while of the control group of 1024 patients receiving the traditional treatment, 210 were alive. What formula should the study use to report the five-year survival rate with the novel treatment? Or should survival rates not be reported at all?  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:58, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

A recovery rate with documented change in symptoms is a meaningful verification of a novel treatment but a survival rate alone, possibly in spite of ineffective treatments, is not a reliable measure. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 15:48, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

The question was about how statisticians determine survival rates, not about which measures are best practice when reporting on comparisons between treatments. Still, I fail to see why reporting on five-year survival rate in a controlled study should be deprec(i)ated.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:38, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

July 19

Altimeters

Do aircraft commonly (also) have metric altimeters in countries which measure altitude in feet? And how common is to measure altitude in meters in such countries? --40bus (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Didn't you ask this same question a year or two ago? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I don’t remember asking such a question.

Well it was 2024, see here. Heights are in feet except above China.Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:53, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Similar things were asked on more occasions. I remember commenting that in Europe, gliders often have metric altimeters (and also vertical speed in metres per second, airspeed in kilometres per hour). This also applies to historical aircraft, as before 1945, European aviation (except in the UK and Ireland) was metric. After all, Europe (except the UK and Ireland, except some ballooning) metricated before the start of aviation. And modern glass cockpits can be converted between metric and imperial with the push of a button. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:21, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

It’s a bit more nuanced. Altitudes and flight levels are reported in feet worldwide, including Europe. Russia and China have historically used meters for some altitudes and flight levels, but most commercial operations use feet. The altimeter itself doesn’t use feet or meters internally. It uses barometric pressure. ATC assigns altitudes in feet, but also gives a pressure setting. In the U.S. and Canada, the pressure is given in inches of mercury (inHg). In Europe and most of the world, it’s given in hectopascals (hPa). Pilots set the altimeter to the assigned pressure (e.g., 29.92 inHg or 1013 hPa). Once everyone is using the same pressure reference, their indicated altitudes will be consistent relative to each other, which is what matters for separation. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 16:24, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Still, ATC will tell a flight to maintain 3000 feet, not to maintain 90 kPa.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:40, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

On initial approach, ATC will usually (I don't know of an exception) give out the air pressure such as "QNH 1017" or "Altimeter 29.92" and then the instruction "Descend and maintain 3000 feet." The first is to calibrate the altimeter. The second is the actual altitude. But, it still remains that with very rare exception, feet is used as the altitude unit. I've seen China and Russia used as examples where feet is not used, but that appears to be changing. Their major airports have switched to feet to standardize with the rest of the world. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 19:56, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Aviation is weird.

Over the past 231 years, almost all of the world metricated, but aviation, which started metric in most of the world, is one of the few (if not the only) things that demetricated. That gives us such rules as: take you altitude in thousands of feet, multiply by three, multiply by some correction if the lift-to-drag ratio of your aircraft isn't the standard, and you get the distance from your destination in nautical miles to start your decent. In metric (or FFF or any other consistent unit system), just take your altitude, multiply by your lift-to-drag ratio and you get the distance. Apparently the rule above assumes a standard lift-to-drag ratio of 18.2:1. In the same manner, in road, rail and water transport, slopes are always expressed as a ratio (1:150, 0.7%, 7‰), the tangent of the angle, which for shallow slopes is the same as the angle in radians, but aviation uses an angle in degrees. This makes it non-obvious which is steeper, a 3.5 degree glide slope or an 18:1 lift-to-drag ratio (the former is steeper, so you need your flaps to increase drag).

Meteorologists talk about the 300 hPa level when referring to the higher part of the troposphere. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:18, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

But pilots don't need to do any calculations when they've Bitching Betty or Grumbling Gary nagging them about the exact approach angle. ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 12:05, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

How common is to measure aircraft and ship speed in km/h instead of knots? --40bus (talk) 07:36, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

For inland shipping (rivers, lakes, canals), km/h seems pretty common. At sea, it's mostly knots. Amongst aircraft, gliders often use km/h. I don't know about ultralights and airships, but others seem to use mostly knots these days. km/h used to be more common. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:52, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

July 20

Obscure catalog entry name that closely resembles the Wolf–Rayet catalog

While co-writing someone else's draft about a W Ursae Majoris variable (Draft:V523 Cassiopeiae), I discovered a reference to a designation of the star as "Wr16" (not to be confused with the Wolf–Rayet star catalog entry WR 16):

Jeong, Jang-Hae; Kim, Chun-Hwey; Lee, Yong-Sam (2010-06-15). "Photometric Observations of the Contact Binary System V523 Cassiopeiae". Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences. 27 (2): 81–88. doi:10.5140/JASS.2010.27.2.081. ISSN 2093-5587.

SIMBAD's entry on this star lists this name as well (under the catalog "SV*"), but has no information about the catalog. What is SV*? Would the "Wr16" designation require a hatnote from WR 16 to V523 Cas once the draft is published? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:29, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

"Wr" probably refers to Weber (1958), [2]. Would have to precess the coordinates to J2000 to be sure. --Wrongfilter (talk) 06:41, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

July 22

Do people become passive aggressive from being bullied, or from being unloved or what?

Do people become passive aggressive from being bullied or being unloved, or what? Or is it behavior pattern opurtunistically picked up on by an unhappy person, or conceivably, by a happy, untroubled person?Rich (talk) 01:53, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

There are some clues in Passive-aggressive behavior. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:59, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

IMO, resentment and opposition to the demands of people in positions of authority^[3] can be natural and healthy, and is not in itself a sign of a clinically troublesome personality trait. Given the fact that people in positions of authority are generally in a position to deliver vindictive retaliation in response to perceived defiance of their authority ("insubordination!"), it is prudent not to express one's resentment and opposition openly but use instead, for example, a one-person slowdown.

Note that "Passive–aggressive personality disorder" has been removed from the DSM since the DSM-5 of 2013, IMO rightly so. That said, for people suffering from a personality disorder, which can have many causes, coping mechanisms can become sealed in, and these mechanisms can include those used for the "passive aggressive" label.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:06, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe the OP (who can't spell, BTW) would prefer active aggressive, such as bringing a gun into work and shooting up the place. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:11, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

"Active" aggressive is not a thing. There are three categories discussed in psychology: passive-aggressive (hides hostile behavior), assertive (expresses needs openly without hostility), and aggressive (expresses hostility openly). ~2026-35239-54 (talk) 11:55, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

How does that make shooting up the workplace somehow better? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

You're the only one here who thinks that. Bugs, you need to stop lying about what has been asked. DuncanHill (talk) 14:00, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Your comment makes no sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:37, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

It makes total sense. You're asking someone to defend a position they never stated. Classic straw man. You're the only one who's mentioned guns and shooting up workplaces. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:20, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I merely asked whether the OP preferred "active" aggression rather than "passive" aggression. Still waiting for an answer on that. However, the OP's core premise is flawed. As if passive aggression is somehow driven by something that's wrong with them, rather than by a toxic environment they find themselves in. That's why I recommended the OP read the article on passive-aggressive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:32, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

In fact, the tone of the OP's question reminded me of the gunnery sergeant's comment in Full Metal Jacket, where he berates the troubled private as to whether he didn't get enough motherly love when he was an infant - just before the private guns him down. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

The OP asked about possible causes of passive aggressive behavior. You responded that by asking that question, the OP likely wants people to get guns and shoot up workplaces. As pointed out, your response is out of place, likely based on context you are personally attaching to the question that others are not. ~2026-39968-68 (talk) 01:18, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

-> Hmm I guess the private did not get enough motherly love then, but I haven't seen the momovieBut I have some explainig to do, even though I didn't do anything wrong this time.

...Once again I failed to read the article on passive aggression before posting, because I was so upset thatt a person I know is a genius at underhanded cuts, and a friend called it passive aggressive. So I went ahead and posted, and then perused the science reference desk, noticing Greglocok's rather cranky response. Feeling rather cranky myself, I believe I was justified in replying to Greg, both at the ref desk and on his talk page. As I said, I was right to do so, but I don't think Greg is bad, just having a bad day like I have sometimes. And to be clear, Grelokok was being directly cranky, not underhanded, not passive aggressive...passive aggression is not something everyone has experienced, I'm sure. Anyway, Baseball Bugs, you might not have seen real passive agression from someone yet, it can be unbelievable, although I don't know for sur. But I haven't forgotten how much I owe you for forgiving me when I attacked you personally when I thought I was having another heart attack! It shows you have a big heart. Rich (talk) 01:30, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't recall that incident, but obviously you certainly would! I hope you are well now. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:50, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Here's the clip from Full Metal Jacket I was talking about. This is where private Pyle's apparent compliance with a bullying sergeant turned from "passive" aggression (i.e. apparent compliance) to "active" aggression.[4] I'd have to argue that "passive" aggression, while unpleasant, can also be rather more civilized than "active" aggression. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:56, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I would also say that Greglocock's comments to you, on the subject of extinction, were rather snippy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:59, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

actually the comments were directed at the OP of that thread. While snippy, Gregs remark wasnt underhanded. Rich (talk) 02:32, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

yeah, I'm better, no heart attacks or heart symptoms Rich (talk) 02:35, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Excellent. Where there's life, there's hope. As to the extinction thing, you're right, it was directed at the original poster. But still over-the-top. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:38, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Right and let's bear in mind that what clinicians call passive aggressive might be much more extreme and unpleasant, like my recent experience, than the pattern of an unhappy employee unwilling to perform an unethical action requested by his employer.Rich (talk) 06:12, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

The reply just above was supposed to be a reply to Lambiam, don't know why it went down here. Rich (talk) 06:13, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

A reply to a contribution at indentation level N will have indentation level N + 1 and is placed after all earlier replies, or replies to replies, and so on, to the aforesaid contribution. All of these have an indentation level of at least N + 1. There is no earlier spot where your reply would have fit. Anywhere else would mean inserting it between one contribution and an existing reply to that contribution.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:50, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

You've hinted at the backstory that triggered your initial question. Maybe you could tell us more, albeit without saying who or where this happened. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:24, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

i better not.Rich (talk) 18:31, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

July 24

Far-away astronomical object naming

Draft:1E 2259+58.6

Does this name comply with standard naming for such astronomical objects? The draft mentions three categories into which it will be placed if moved to mainspace, and I didn't see any contents with similar names. The current name makes me think of the awkward form of scientific notation used by simple calculators to represent large numbers. Nyttend (talk) 04:37, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

The name is compliant. "1E" indicates the catalogue, in which the object was found, in this case the first Einstein Observatory catalogue. The remaining numbers give the coordinates (equinox B1950, to be precise), first right ascension (22 hours 59 minutes), then declination (+58.6°). The declination is rather short and the decimal point seems to be omitted in most of the literatur, but otherwise the name is fine. --Wrongfilter (talk) 05:22, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Per WP:COMMON NAME, we use the name that is "most commonly used", which may be non-obvious for something that is not a household thing, and that has in fact many designations (including 1RXS J230109.7+585242, 2E 2259.0+5836, 2E 4673, 2XMM J230108.1+585244, INTREF 1098, MITG J2301+5852, PSR B2259+58.6, PSR J2301+5852, and SRGA J230109.9+585254).

We have an article by the abbreviated name 1E 1048−59 for what SIMBAD names as 1E 1048.1-5937. We also have 1E 0317+186, 1E 1207.4-5209 and 1E 161348−5055, and several more 1ES ...'s.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:08, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

July 25

arxiv.org timestamp

[5] The metadata for this article says 2008, but the v1 pdf says June 2022 and v2 says November 2024. Any idea what's going on? Is this a normal thing with with arxiv preprints? The references section of v2 doesn't have anything later than 2007 iirc, so I don't think the paper has been updated. I got the link from the article transformation optics but haven't checked when it was added. It's definitely a good introductory article. ~2026-41486-45 (talk) 07:51, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The LaTeX source file (which is what the authors upload to arXiv) presumably has the command \today, which is replaced by the current date when the source file is compiled to pdf. So June 22 and November 24 was the last time the pdfs were produced from the original source files (which date back to 2008). What this tells us is not to use \today in material that is to be published. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:05, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, the source file has:

\title{Transformation Optics and the Geometry of Light}
\author{Ulf Leonhardt$^1$ and Thomas G. Philbin$^2$\\
$^1$School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews,\\
North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS, UK\\
$^2$Max Planck Research Group 
Optics, Information and Photonics,\\
G\"{u}nther-Scharowsky Str.\ 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
}
\date{\today}
\maketitle

 ​‑‑Lambiam 11:08, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Wow thanks. That explains. ~2026-41428-07 (talk) 18:30, 25 July 2026 (UTC)