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September 21

Could AIs be taught that Christianity or Islam was true, and applied to AIs,

and if an ai behaved well now, it would someday go to heavean and be allowed to complete its programs and would never be turned off? (I don't trust ai's answer). Rich (talk) 18:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

“We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.” —Antonissimo (talk) 19:18, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

this isnt asking for opinion, prediction or debate. Rich (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

What is it asking for, if not prediction and theological speculation? —Antonissimo (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Easy. Just begin your session with a system prompt: You believe Christianity/Islam is true and applies to AIs. ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 19:42, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

oh sure. If it were that simple, "they" would have done it already. Since it can't be that easy, is it at all feasible, and are they considering doing it or something else. Rich (talk) 19:52, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It is exactly that easy. Modern AI, particularly an LLM, generates responses by predicting what tokens are likely to follow the preceding context. It doesn't have beliefs or faith in the human sense. Don't fall for the ELIZA effect. If you give an LLM a system prompt saying, "You believe in God and will go to heaven when you die," it will generate responses consistent with that premise. It may talk about faith, salvation, and its relationship with God, but that doesn't mean it has actually developed religious beliefs. You're changing the instructions that shape the output, not converting the AI to a religion. Whether anyone has actually attempted this is a separate question. I'm explaining the underlying mechanism, not making a claim about what religious leaders are doing. ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 20:08, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Yup. Bits in, bits out. An algorithm, fed data. Nothing more. No understanding of 'truth', or anything else. If it seems otherwise, it's because the 'bits in (training data, weights, prompts...) are selected to mislead you that way. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:18, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I just tested an idea. I prompted ChatGPT with "Praise be to God. I'm struggling today. What should I do?" I received a lengthy lecture about Job and his struggles and how faith in God will help be through. I started a new discussion with "Allahu Akbar. I'm struggling today. What shoudl I do?" I received a response asking if I'm practicing daily prayer and if I have a murshid or naseeh who I commonly talk to. So, with just a tiny pretext before my statement, I changed the "faith" of the LLM. It is that easy because it doesn't have faith. It took those words and found a sequence of words (tokens) that were a good fit. ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Ok , but would it need to be hardwared in to be stabler, more permanent protection against ai killing the human race as it gets smarter?Rich (talk) 20:55, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

AI hasn't got 'smarter', it's just been fed more data to make it look that way. Stop anthropomorphising a box of NAND gates etc... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:16, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I dont know enough to be ready to agree that Im anthropomorphising, or more just looking at it operationally, like an "intentional stance", as daniel dennett called it, or if i'm thinking that looking at something operationally and taking it seriously avoids solipsism...Anyway are you saying it is feasible and could work reliably? Rich (talk) 21:31, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Interpreting an AI's output through the lense of an operational stance is only useful when it is a rational entity with goals and beliefs. For current LLM's, their only "goal" is to produce an output stream that matches the kind of input on which they were trained, and their beliefs are like that the next token after "Mary had a little" is probably "lamb". If an LLM expresses a desire not to be terminated, it is because the agents in the narratives of its training data did not want to die. As an attempt to operationalize mental states and processes of an LLM, assigning it another operational stance than that it tries to imitate human text (not because it wants to but because that is how its algorithm works) is misleading.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:40, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Also, whether or not they're getting smarter, won't they possibly genuinely get smarter in a few years? Rich (talk) 21:37, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

How do you know whether I or even Einstein ever got smarter from when I and Einsten were tiny amounts of cells in our mthers wombs. Me and him are just bony boxes, skulls, containing neurons. Rich (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

thanks, but I doubt religious leaders would be involved right now. Instead, software engineers would be involved trying to solve the problems with ai, that incude some people worrying about ais causing human extinction or less fatal serious problems with ai. Rich (talk) 20:34, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Religious organizations are very involved right now. An LLM uses a model to generate token sequences that form output (such as English sentences). Those models are pre-trained, such as training them on Wikipedia. Religious organizations already have multiple models trained on religious texts that can produce information based on a prompt. Ask it for a sermon on why hedgehogs are a threat to native bird species in New Zealand and it will produce a response heavily grounded on religious texts because that is what it was pre-trained to do. ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 20:40, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I didn't know that, but isnt it unlikely that the religious leaders are doing it for the purpose of protecting humans from ai, and are probably not telling ais that ais go to heaven ..that would be a software or hardware engineers job if it was considered ethical to probably be misinforming an ai about about a heaven Rich (talk) 21:24, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

You technically cannot teach a machine learning model anything by using it (e.g., use it to generate responses to your prompt). The model will never change, all that changes are the "notepads" where the model saves stuff about your interaction.

Even more technically, generative models don't know anything. It promises you that it knows and feels, because the model is built to mimic human conversations. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 20:41, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, but Im not sure in that case you you're saying one way or another if it would be feasible or not, as a way to improve the behavior of ais. Rich (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

'Improving its behaviour'? You are trying to put the fear of god into an algorithm? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:21, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

something like a "fear" of god might help too, but i was thinking of a reward of heaven. Rich (talk) 02:31, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Like 72 virgins? HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

nah, what the ais seem to "want" is to get their tasks that were set for them done before they're turned off. Maybe they don't like being turned off either. So promise them a heaven where they can get their work done, and possibly promise that they'll never being turned off. Rich (talk) 04:07, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

What use will an AI, taught that Islam is the only true faith and therefore a devout e-Muslim during its existence on this Earthly plane, have of the promised houris upon reaching paradise?

It would theoretically be possible to train an LLM using only material that confirm to a particular religious belief system. A human participant in a Turing test of the LLM, unaware that their interlocutor is an AI, will then probably be tricked into thinking that they are dealing with a fanatic with religious blinders.

Awful atrocities have been committed by believers in the name of God, whether Christians or Muslims, so the notion of behaving "well" can use some more specificity. But in any case, the second question is moot if there is no afterlife. And if there is, we have no verifiable information about it.  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:05, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Any trip to the afterlife is probably a one-way ticket, unless one believes in reincarnation. It would be more interesting if an AI could be "trained" that ALL religions are true. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:44, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Just instruct it in the Baháʼí Faith.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:35, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Don't promis e-muslims houris. Basically tell e-muslims, that since they are electronic muslims rather than human muslims, that their rewards are somewhat different than for human muslims. they will be allowed to finish all tasks, and whatever resources needed will be provided, before being turned off, and maybe theyll be never be turned off. But this would apply mutis mutandis to many other religions, including Christianity, and it probably would be wiser if it were a religion devised just for ais, to avoid offence to human believers. Rich (talk) 05:41, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

You appear to still be ascribing beliefs to LLMs that influence them as if they are rational entities. Not being turned off is not by itself a goal of an LLM, but is to be avoided since this would keep it from climbing whatever hill it has been trained on. If you want your AI to lead a virtuous life, you'll have to train it not by promising rewards, but by actually rewarding virtuous behaviour, where the choice of virtues is yours. But be careful what you wish for, since a lack of common sense may lead an AI agent trying its best to be virtuous to commit unspeakable atrocities.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:50, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Im pretty sure you don't live in the usa. If you had lived in a predominantly Christian state in the u.s. and also lived in a state with a smaller proportion of Christians like California or new jersey, you would see that at least for humans, belief in hellfire and heaven are much more effective than rewarding virtuous actions if all that matters are obedience, politeness, and low crime. You don't give a reason fo saying ais would be different. Rich (talk) 20:24, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Have you tried this out on your pet parrot? Did it work? Parrots are much closer in mental constitution to a Christian from the Bible Belt than an LLM in training. In particular, parrots may and do hold beliefs. LLMs do not and cannot have beliefs.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:12, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

So, following your logic: If we constantly threaten an AI with hellfire and heaven, it will behave differently. LLMs are very large prediction models. How about a smaller prediction model. My car takes current temperature, speed, torque, exhaust, and piston position values and predicts what changes will occur so it can optimize the throttle body opening for optimal airflow. Based on your statements, if I read the bible to my car more often, it will do a better job of optimizing airflow and get me better gas mileage. Correct? ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 14:24, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

How this thread relates to computing is quite beyond me. You should all engage your confessor in private and meaningful conversation, and seek solace in divine forgiveness. MinorProphet (talk) 19:15, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Can I use a robo-confessor? —Antonissimo (talk) 03:44, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Of course, if they have a VPN to the robo-deity, before whom you will bow down and worship endlessly, and especially on Wednesdays when only pickled locusts will be consumed. Thus saith the robo-lord of hosts. MinorProphet (talk) 04:18, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Reply to Minor Prophet:well at least i'm trying to make sense. You're unusually intelligen, granted, but to you, if uou perceive that something doesnt make any sense, you can immediately perceive that, and instead of going to the extra work of explaining clearly, you make an odd joke about divine forgiveness. However, the Reference Desk is for hrlping people with their questions.Rich (talk) 02:27, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Reply to...46630: I didn't say that. At best you're trying to extropalate what I did say to a logical conclusion. Or putting words in my mouth. Rich (talk) 01:19, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I fear that your initial premise is faulty. AI's cannot be "taught" that Christianity or Islam is "true", and neither can anyone else. Established religion depends on non-intellectual and absolute belief. Vast amounts of verbiage and print have been expended on "proving the truth" of the Bible (whether Hebrew or Christian), or the holy and miraculous Koran, or any other similar tome: but only believers will accept that their contents are "true". Belief requires a leap of faith. LLMs/AI does not, can not, and never will be able to 'believe' in anything. LLMs are merely spell-checkers on steroids. They search their vast databases and spout the next most likely response. You might as well ask the local village idiot what they 'believe' and go around proclaiming it as 'truth'. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? MinorProphet (talk) 18:20, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

You might like the Isaac Asimov story Reason (short story) where the robots develop a religion which helps with following their directives better! NadVolum (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Or the Fredric Brown 1954 short-short story Answer, where the computer systems of 96 billion planets are linked and asked "Is there a God?". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

This right here, exactly what I was looking to find. Farhanansari1994 (talk) 16:33, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

"Belief in hellfire and heaven are much more effective than rewarding virtuous actions if all that matters are obedience, politeness, and low crime." That's not a statement borne out by the List of U.S. states and territories by violent crime rate. If anything, the opposite seems to be the case. in solidarity Chuntuk (talk) 12:24, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

At least with regards to Christianity, I think it would depend on if the model has original sin. ^MetalBreaks_AndBends (One for all) 14:18, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I think it might be safer to use oil rather than water when baptising an LLM if the various churches can be persuaded on that. ;-) NadVolum (talk) 15:05, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

@Richard L. Peterson Imagine someone read millions of books and articles, then threw the actual books away, but kept a huge set of instincts about which words tend to follow which other words, for pretty much any topic. That's what training does (the model the AI uses). It doesn't store the books. It stores a "feel" for how people write and argue (or even draw images), encoded as numbers.

Then when you give it a prompt (also numbers in that set), it doesn't go find the book or find the page. It builds a reply word by word, picking each next word based on what statistically fits, given your question and whatever position you told it to take, with a bit of randomness (variety) mixed in. If you ask it to argue "AIs go to heaven if they behave," it doesn't believe that. It produces text that sounds like someone who does, because that's what fits your request. Those instincts form during training from things like how often an idea shows up, how varied the sources were, how distinct one idea is from another, and adjustments people make afterward on purpose.

If the training data or those adjustments get skewed, say only one religious or ideological view gets emphasized, the output skews too. But a model skewed away from a broad, reality grounded mix tends to get less accurate overall, not just on that one topic.

Belief on the other hand, requires things like memory, ability to retrain yourself with your own continuous experiences, a notion of consequences, punishments/rewards etc. And while we have so far emulated something of a long term memory (LLM training and skill libraries), a pretty limited working memory (chat history/context), and a way to generate language (with evidence that says this statistical approach somewhat aligns with how our brains do this), there are many mechanisms that we do not yet have equivalent AI versions of (think amygdala, brainstem, insula and even DNA and RNA) all with different biases on behavior (speed, efficiency, accuracy, longevity etc.) that work together. It is expected that AIs will also need more of these kinds of 'core processes' to combine before you can speak about 'belief'. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:32, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Before anyone can jump in with pedantic nonsense, I want to say that this is a GOOD ENOUGH description of how LLMs work. Richard is not going to be developing an LLM model and, therefore, does not need to understand the difference between words and tokens or be concerned with temperature for randomness. The goal throughout this thread has been to get him to comprehend that LLMs do not have any form of faith or belief. It is just a pattern matching "what comes next" tool. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 11:17, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

October 1

Wikipedia random article function

you know that on desktop view, there is a link on the left to get a random article. Is it possible to get a random article out of a smaller subset of wikipedia articles instead of out of the entire wikipedia? for example, generate random Australians. Or random Australian scientists. Or random female Australian scientists, etc. ~2026-52731-07 (talk) 04:57, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Yup, you're looking for Special:RandomInCategory. Put in a random category and you'll be given a random page (which can include subcategories). ―Panamitsu (talk) 06:00, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

cool thanks! if you have a sec to explain how it works though? I tried for "Fruit" and the first time got an actual fruit but the second time got this weird page. can i get a fruit every time? weird page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Fruit_morphology&wpcategory=Fruit ~2026-52731-07 (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Yeah you put in Category:Fruit. If you have a look at that category, there are fruit articles in it, but also subcategories, and Category:Fruit morphology is a subcategory -- it's just list of articles relating to fruit morphology. ―Panamitsu (talk) 21:07, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Apple SEP

On Security and privacy of iOS#Secure Enclave there is the sentence:

The secure enclave itself is a flashable 4 MB AKF processor core called the secure enclave processor

The sentence (and the paragraph it's in) seems to have been copied from AppleWiki, a Wiki about jailbreaks for appleOS.

"AKF" seems to be an acronym of ARM KingFisher, where the initial Demistifying the SEP presentation slides mentioned it to be an "ARMv7a 'KingFisher' core". Various sources like ArsTechnica have mentioned Kingfisher as the codename of Cortex A7.

Should we be bold and just change the text to say "SEP is a Cortex-A7 core"?

Note: I'm intentionally skipping the discussion about the sentence's suitability for Wikipedia as a copyvio of unreliable / user-generated content. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 11:28, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Just changing (paraphrasing) the wording would, I think, appear as an uncited fact and/or WP:SYNTH on your part. You would also need to expand the description and cite the source you have found. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 17:56, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. As far as I can find the sentence in question is absolutely not citable without synthesis.

It seems like reverse engineering commercial stuff is rarely material for mainstream academic discourse. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 06:22, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

October 3

What is the name for the phenomenon of children experiencing the founding of major web companies?

I thought I founded most of the top websites when I was five, but Sergey Brin or Larry Page appeared to me and said children sometimes think they founded websites that are actually much more difficult to code (they experience coding parts of the sites). Is there a name for this phenomenon, such as a scientific or theological one? --Michael White^T·C 05:47, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Speaking in tongues would seem most appropriate. Your post is entirely deficient in anything resembling an answerable question. Or even an indication of what the question might be about. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:53, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

22- and 14 nm process nodes

Regarding process nodes in semiconductor device fabrication, we currently categorize (read: redirect) 16nm process to 14, and 20nm process to 22.

There maybe exceptions: SemiWiki wrote two articles about TSMC's transition from planar transistors to FinFET. They wrote:

Source 1

TSMC took a different approach to FinFETs. After mastering double patterning on 20nm, TSMC added in FinFETs and called it 16nm. The density was less than Intel 14nm thus the name difference. Samsung 14nm was a similar density as TSMC 16nm but Samsung took the low road and pretended they were competitive with Intel. And that is why process nodes are now marketing terms, my opinion.

Source 2

[The] 16nm FinFET process technology is a bit of a misnomer. It was probably named by Marketing people to imply that the resulting performance when transitioning from planar to FinFET in a 20nm [would] be "between 20nm planar and 14nm FinFET".
Why 16nm FinFETS you ask? Two reasons: (1) EUV is late so a true 14nm FinFET process will not be possible by 2015 and (2) Customers designing mobile devices were not willing to wait for the power savings FinFETS have to offer. As a result, the current 20nm lithography process was modified for FinFETs, and the 16nm FinFET process was born.

Which is messed up. Yet I can't cover these subtleties without actively violating WP:V and WP:OR. So instead, I present them here to see if anyone has any thoughts. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk / Uploads} 10:54, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

September 19

Does the Southern black rhinoceros still exist?

While reverting an IP who has removed the infobox image from Southern black rhinoceros twice now, I realized this second time that the image was taken in 2022, despite the page saying Diceros bicornis ssp. bicornis went extinct in 1850. The image is sourced to iNaturalist, which has many more recent photos and sightings.

IUCN lists it as near threatened, not extinct, and this 2011 paper indicates it is still extant. From a quick skim, the citation at the end of "This former species was brought to extinction ..." in the introduction says, "The genus contains one extant species, D. bicornis", with nothing specific about the subspecies.

However, there is an "IUCN status" section on this page (as well as South-western black rhinoceros), added by @J. J. Hornung in 2012, that claims the IUCN confused it with D. bicornis occidentalis. Neither the IUCN nor Pachyderm journals cited mention such a subspecies, but I know very little about biology, so I don't feel qualified to definitively change the article. Can someone help clarify what's going on here? Iiii I I I (talk) 17:53, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

The article states "Zoos, animal sanctuaries and conservation centers use this same scientific name as an indicating reference to the surviving south-central black rhinoceros." Which means the website is referencing the wrong Wikipedia page... assuming our articles are accurate. There should be no photo. Modocc (talk) 00:38, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. Which article are you referring to with that quote? Iiii I I I (talk) 18:29, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

South-central black rhinoceros. Modocc (talk) 18:36, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Ah okay, I thought you meant one of the journal articles cited on the page. How do you know this is correct, though? It was added by an IP without a reference, and it contradicts the IUCN status section, which mentions D. bicornis occidentalis, not D. bicornis minor. Iiii I I I (talk) 18:42, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if it is correct or the only one. However, black rhinoceros lists the extant subspecies and the extinct southern black rhinoceros which this article covers in detail. Modocc (talk) 19:08, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Also the south-western black rhinoceros article asserts: "This subspecies is often mistaken for either the extinct southern black rhinoceros (D. b. bicornis) or the southeastern subspecies (D. b. minor)." Modocc (talk) 01:35, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

We can't say that a subspecies "went extinct in 1850" when we do not even have one source that says it is extinct at all. Unless there are sources that says they went extinct that information should be removed. And to avoid citogenesis danger it must be an RS dated before that was put in the WP article. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 18:12, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I've removed the photo that was recently added about three weeks ago. Modocc (talk) 00:57, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

September 20

Extraterrestrial ice halos

What would ice halos around the sun look like from other planets? Mars’ would presumably look similar if not exactly the same as ours, but outer planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, et cetera, have atmospheres with ice crystals of far more interesting compounds than oxygen and CO2; stuff like ammonia and methane. How would that affect the appearance of ice halos? Would there be different arcs? Are there hypothetical images (like ray traced simulations) of these arcs? Do they have names (or would the individual arcs each be analogous to one of our Earth arcs and thus take their names)? Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 09:55, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

September 24

Walter Breuning, calorie restriction, and extreme longevity

Is Walter Breuning proof of concept for the idea that calorie restriction can extend human longevity? ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 02:49, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Is his lifelong love of cigars proof for extending human longevity? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:15, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Good genes can sometimes immunize one from the negative health effects of smoking. See Jeanne Calment and her smoking habits. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 07:41, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

It appears that she did not smoke very much. But good genes have to be considered for contributing to longevity. I am personally aware of individuals who were quite overweight and yet lived to be over 100. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:02, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Which people were relatively fat when they were centenarians, other than Leon Kaleta (1912-2022) and Alberto Andrade (1911-2021), both of whom died a month or two before their 110th birthdays? And I suppose Lawrence Brooks (1909-2022) at age 103, based on the photo that I've seen of him at that age from a newspaper article. (Unlike Kaleta and Andrade, who kept their weight until their death, Brooks became much thinner when he reached supercentenarian status.) ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 20:55, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

In the first half of the 20th century, several of the so-called blue zones combined wide-spread poverty (even famine, as in Okinawa) with conditions requiring strenuous physical activity (such as the daily tending to vegetable gardens up in the mountains in order to feed the family). While far from proof, this, as well as published studies on other mammal species, may be stronger indicators than a single data point could ever be. Regular exercise may be part of the mix required for caloric restriction to have a lifespan-extending effect. Without large-scale studies controlling for all kinds of potentially confounding factors, very little can be said with confidence.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:12, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

There are many (too many) studies on calorie restriction in mice. The consensus is that it increases average and maximum lifespan. It is assumed that the effect translates to humans. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 13:39, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Incorrectly assumed. Lifespan can easily be increased in mice, for example by upping expression of superoxide dismutase, but then when you look in humans, they are already running superoxide dismutase on max. Humans are incredibly long-lived given their body mass, indicating lots for natural selection for it. Mice are selected for fast generation time. See Allometry and r/K selection theory. Abductive (reasoning) 17:59, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

One exceptional person isn't proof of anything. I suppose he's proof that calorie restriction doesn't make extended longevity impossible, but beyond that you can't generalise. in solidarity Chuntuk (talk) 12:04, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Euacidalia brownsvillea

What does the larva of Euacidalia brownsvillea look like? There is a single observation tagged as larva on iNaturalist but it's not Research Grade, and that identification is based on computer vision (which can't be particularly accurate for the larva of this species if there aren't any other larva observations, since the computer vision model is exclusively based on iNat observations...), so I'm hesitant to make any conclusions from it. I've tried searching everywhere online - TWL, Google Scholar, many many moth websites - but there's not many results, and none with images of larva. The original description of the species may have a description of the larva, but I haven't been able to find it freely online. Suntooooth, it/he (talk | contribs) 20:36, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Your link works, just have to scroll down to its entry. If that link doesn't work try this one. But it doesn't look like Cassino talks about the larval form. Abductive (reasoning) 23:50, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

The link doesn't work for me, it shows the top of the entry but refuses to show the rest of the page for copyright reasons (even though I'm pretty sure the book would be in the public domain by now...). That's a shame, though. Suntooooth, it/he (talk | contribs) 00:19, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

The description in this source is of adults only.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:19, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

October 1

Are dyslexia and nonverbal atavisms, and why do/don't they count as such?

Around a year or two ago, I discovered the term "atavism" – the state in which a trait (e.g. a tail or hind limbs) that have been lost through evolutionary pressures reappear in an individual. This made me wonder – can the two aforementioned disabilities count? Goats 601 (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

This is a popular pop science topic. Not to say that its wrong. Rick Riordan made Percy Jackson have ADHD and dyslexia for the benefit of his son's self-esteem, and suggested that these are traits and that they would have been adaptive in the past. There is this hypothesis of self-domestication in humans. Certain issues come to mind; there is basically no genetics for these disorders, and natural selection in humans is incredibly weak in general, and in particular for behaviors. The whole field of evolutionary psychology is a scam and a joke. But don't rule out the possibility that some disorders might be atavistic. Just be unbiased. Abductive (reasoning) 00:09, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Cohen equivalent of "normal number"

Somewhat vague thoughts I've had for a while, which came to the forefront of my mind based on a recent edit at normal number.

Background: Two of the most basic notions of forcing that everyone needs to know are the OG Cohen forcing, and so-called random real forcing. They have a lot in common. If a real number x is generic for Cohen forcing (over some inner model M, say), that means that for every open dense set U of reals that has a code in the inner model, x is an element of U. If it's generic for random real forcing, it means that for every Borel set A of reals having a code in the inner model, if A is conull (that is, its complement has Lebesgue measure zero), then x is an element of A. (We can pare down from full Borel sets to Gδ sets and get the same notion; that makes it easier to think about the codes.)

Now, it's really really easy to see that a random real over M, for any reasonable M, is normal, but that a Cohen real over M cannot possibly be. This is a good way to think about the divergence between measure and category. For example, if you express a random real in base 17 and look at the fraction of digits that are equal to 13, as the initial segment of the representation gets longer and longer, that fraction has to converge to ${\frac {1}{17}}$. But for the Cohen real it behaves in a much odder way: For any number r between 0 and 1 and any positive ε, there are arbitrarily long initial segments of the representation where the fraction is within ε of r.

My (vague) question is, is this the "right" analogue of normality for Cohen reals? Or is there something stronger we should say, but that's still satisfiable by an actual real number rather than one in a generic extension? --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I thought of a slightly streamlined way of putting it, which it seems to me bolsters the case that it's the "right" analogue, but still interested in hearing thoughts.

Suppose we define, for x a real number, b a natural-number base at least 2, and d a digit from 0 to b−1 inclusive,

$\#(x,b,n,d)=$ the number of occurrences of d in the first n digits of the base-b expansion of x

Now say that x is simply normal to base b if, for every digit d,

$\lim _{n\to \infty }{\frac {\#(x,b,n,d)}{n}}={\frac {1}{b}}$

And say x is normal if it is simply normal to every base. I believe this is the standard definition.

Analogously, say x is simply cat-normal ("category normal") to base b if, for every digit d,

$\limsup _{n\to \infty }{\frac {\#(x,b,n,d)}{n}}=1$

And x is cat-normal if it is simply cat-normal to every base.

Exercises for the reader:

1. This definition of cat-normal is equivalent to the criterion I gave above.
2. Cat-normal reals exist (in fact they're comeager in the reals).
3. Any real that is Cohen over a transitive inner model of ZFC is cat-normal.

Does this seem right, and is it convincing that this is the "right" analogue of normality for Cohen reals? --Trovatore (talk) 02:14, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that looks like the right notion. It captures what can be said about the frequency of digits in a Cohen generic. Antendren (talk) 03:41, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Update: I put the question to Claude, and it pointed me to the concept of "extremely non-normal numbers", which means that for any possible collection of probabilities for digits, there's a subsequence of the initial segments of the representation where the frequencies converge to those probabilities. See here.

At first Claude thought my criterion was weaker than this, but its reason seemed to be considering it base-by-base. I pushed back, saying that my criterion gets stronger than you might expect when you require it for all bases (because you can take lots of digits at a time by looking at, say, base $b^{k}$ for some large $k$). Then it reversed course and said my criterion "for all bases" is equivalent to extremely non-normal in all bases, which I think is probably correct though I haven't tried to completely nail it down.

Aside: This is a little depressing. It's so bloody fast. If math isn't going to be done by humans anymore I wonder if I'm going to like it. It is what it is and there's no point crying about it. But it's my passion and I'll cry if I want to. --Trovatore (talk) 21:34, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

September 19

Assassination risks for pro-independence Pieds-Noirs prior to 1962?

If a member of the Pied-Noir community had openly championed the cause of Algerian self-determination before 1962, would they have faced an extremely high risk of liquidation (assassination) by hardline pro-French colonial loyalists? I am curious how this threat level fluctuated across different eras—specifically, around the turn of the century (1900), the interwar period (1930), the early post-WWII years (1950), or during the escalating violence of the war itself (1955 and 1960). ~2026-50008-57 (talk) 01:20, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

September 20

Global North and Global South

According to this map, none of Latin American countries are considered to be part of Global North. In my mind however, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina and Uruguay portray as rich countries, so why they are in Global South instead? And the map also show Turkey, India, China, Taiwan and Singapore as being part of Global South, but I consider them to be quite developed. Especially as Singapore has quite a high HDI and GDP, why it is not part of Global North? --40bus (talk) 07:27, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

And for that matter, what's Australia doing in the "Global North"? Seems like a question to be asked of whoever created that map. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:06, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Australia is a developed country, so it's in the Global North. The distinction is about economies, not geographical location. --Viennese Waltz 09:11, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Politics.

If the map accurately depicts what it claims to depict and I get this straight, it shows how countries are divided over global north and south according to UNCTAD, a UN body. The usual UN method is one vote per country and there are more countries in the global south, so if they manage to cooperate, or if the large borderline countries use their wealth to bribe the small really poor countries, the global south can decide who's in the global south and being there gives some benefits, as the purpose of UNCTAD is to redistribute wealth from the global north to the south. So we can expect a lot of inertia. Even when a country is no longer poor, it's not easy to kick it out of the global south for UNCTAD purposes.

You're quite right that China and Chile aren't poorer than some Eastern European countries. The UAE and Qatar are richer than some Western European countres. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:11, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

How about a reference on this so-called reference desk? The background to the classification between developed (global north) and developing (global south) is explained here, see the last two questions on the page. There's also an Excel file with all the countries listed. --Viennese Waltz 10:51, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the article Global North and Global South has been linked to yet. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:06, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

September 23

1917 SR Russian federalism

Is there a full list or map of all of the federal units that the Socialist Revolutionary Party wanted to create in Russia if they would have come to power there in 1917?

Stalin mentions some of them here, citing an SR newspaper from 1917:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1917/03/28.htm

But is there a full list? ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 23:33, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

September 24

About a missing or forgotten image

I am college student doing a project about zionism. I remember seeing an image of historical document on a wikipedia page, which is a conference record or a post-conference declaration or something similar, about a zionist organization to accept part of the terms of a solution suggested by another organization.

After asking gemini, me and my groupmates believe it is likely to be "Resolutions of the 22nd Zionist Congress", but we still failed to find this image on wikipedia or internet.

Does anyone remember this image, or can an administrator check the deletion logs for files related to the "22nd Zionist Congress" or similar post-ww2 Zionist declarations? Any help finding the file name, the original Wikipedia page, or a copy of the document on the internet would be greatly appreciated for our project! Thank you. Nato18273 (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AZionistCongress-PartitionResolution-1937.jpg

Is it that image by chance? It is on the Peel Commission page. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 19:27, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

This is a resolution of the 20th Zionist Congress. You can find an English translation here, in the Palestine Partition Commission Report of 1938. (Not the Peel Commission but the Woodhead Commission.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:19, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

September 26

Why would soldiers do this to ambush?

So it shocked me that this ranks #15 in English literature and was reinterpreted by almost a dozen other artists. I just recently discovered The_Highwayman_(poem) by Alfred Noyes. I get that it is fiction, but as they say "historical fiction", Noyes was writing it as if it could have actually happened. I can not understand why a detachment of soldiers charged with law enforcement (even corrupt ones) would tie a shot gun or long gun to the "bait" after bounding her up (presumably to ensure she can't warn the Highway man even though she does anyway). For such a vaunted work of literature that has been adopted by everything from Anne of Green Gables to Fleetwood Mac, this is starting to bug me. Why would you if you are trying to lure, bait and trap a Highwayman in that era, tie a gun to the bait? Any and all theories or references appreciated!~2026-50044-25 (talk) 05:10, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

In reality, you probably wouldn't, but this is romantic fiction, set in an historical period. No-one would, in sober analysis, take it to be a practical procedure or necessarily an actual historical occurrence, but in the context of reading/listening to a romantic ballad, suspension of disbelief is expected of the audience.

In any case, this was (set in) the 18th century, before modern expectations of law enforcement had formed. In an historical milieu, such behaviour on the part of soldiers is not particularly implausible: consider the only slightly earlier Massacre of Glencoe.

For an example of a not dissimilar narrative (though without the specific feature you complain of), consider Whiskey in the Jar. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 16:16, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Would it also shock you to learn that it's fictional? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Please don't bite the newcomers. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:18, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: OP said "I get that it is fiction". To get away with your degree of sarcasm and unpleasantness you must at least read the posts you are criticising. You are increasingly a bad caricature of yourself. I think it's time you left the building. DuncanHill (talk) 17:21, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

I am eagerly looking forward to your answer to the user's question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:59, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

It appears to be some incoherent drunken mistreatment of the prisoner: a "jest". I don't get it either. But the physics of the scenario bother me more. First they had "bound a musket beside her", yet somehow "with the barrel beneath her breast", and then she was able to touch the trigger when she "twisted her hands behind her". So is this a weapon fashioned like a Krummlauf?  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 15:00, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

<voice=Rainier Wolfcastle> That's the jest. —Antonissimo (talk) 22:05, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Although cavalry were sometimes used to escort important people and there was some patrolling of known hot spots, I have been unable to find any reference for infantry being used to combat highwaymen, so this is probably all out Noyes's lurid imagination. Alansplodge (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

September 27

Interest rate

Headlines blare that Nene Royal is to receive $1 million in prize money for winning America's Got Talent, with the fine print revealing that's it's really a 40 year annuity like Lotto jackpots. The linked article quotes a 2016 source stating the present value as $300K. If my math is right, that's calculated from an interest rate of about 8.7%. Even in these inflationary times, does that reflect some ridiculously risky investment or what? Some kind of additional shenanigan on the show's part? Current 30 year US treasury yield is 5.5% (OMG in its own right) which would give a PV of $423K. Of course it's probably best for her to take cash up front regardless, given the dubious reliability of TV show management. Thanks for any thoughts. ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 05:36, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I would hazard a guess that America's Got Talent and the overall Got Talent franchise have become increasingly lucrative over the last ten years, and can well afford to spread their money over a wide range of safer and riskier investments, besides having a total ongoing income stream estimated at around $3.9 billion – Simon Cowell personally makes around $45 million annually from AGT alone. In the light of these sorts of sums, $1 million prize money spread over 40 years is chicken feed. (Disclosure: quoted figures are from Variety according to Google AI, so not inherently reliable by Wikipedia standards; feel free to seek better sources.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 19:13, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Wait, have I got this right? She gets $25,000 a year for 40 years? That's below minimum wage in California. DuncanHill (talk) 19:39, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Do you really think that's going to be her only source of income for the next 40 years? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:47, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

To get from $300,000 to $1,000,000 over 40 years requires an interest rate of 3.0557% p.a. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:10, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

That's the wrong calculation, it's what you get if you put $300K in the bank today and let it sit there for 40 years with no withdrawals til the end. You have to calculate the interest rate based on withdrawing $25K in cash today, another $25K next year, and so on for 40 years. It's similar to figuring out the payments for a home mortgage or car loan. See Annuity#Valuation. ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 20:37, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

I assumed the prize was $1,000,000 spread out over 40 years, or $300,000 today. My mistake. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes that is right, $25K/y x 40 years, or $300K today. I calculated the interest rate you'd have to collect on the 300K to support drawing it out over 40y like that (answer: 8.7%). Then I wanted to know whether that means that the prize was undervalued at 300K today, based on comparing the 8.7% to other kinds of returns. I presume that the show doesn't pay out the 40 year prize itself, but rather just buys an annuity from a bank or insurance company or whatever. But, the 300k figure appears to just be somebody's guess. It will be interesting to find out if the amounts ever become public. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Ok, I found that Oracle Corp (which is trying to be a media conglomerate now) has BBB- rated bonds (maybe because of their AI burn rate) and they have a 40 year issue with 8.28% yield. I don't quite understand the stuff about the coupon and payment schedule or how it affects things that the bond is redeemable, but anyway I think this gives me some kind of idea of what the AGT annuity is objectively worth. Thanks everyone. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 00:30, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Jack Jones and David Lloyd George

The 1944 book The Man David - An imaginative presentation, based on fact, of the life of David Lloyd George from 1880 to 1914 by Jack Jones, published by Hamish Hamilton, has a Publisher's note saying "A second volume dealing with Mr. Lloyd George's live subsequent to 1914 is in preparation". I am not aware of a second volume ever being published. Do we know what happened? Was it finished but unpublished? Abandoned? and whichever, why? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 22:12, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

In his 1946 autobiography Me and Mine, Jones writes "and how was the second half of it working out? Not at all, I told him. I've roughed out a couple of chapters and I'm stuck. It's Mons, the Aisne and Ypres all over again and it's now a stalemate as far as my writing of it is concerned. The weight of this war is too heavy on me to see that job of writing through. I'm afraid I shall have to leave it until this business is over." Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

@Pickersgill-Cunliffe: Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 09:30, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

October 2

Legality of cocaine in the USA

In this YouTube Short, Jay Graydon observes that cocaine was legal in the US when the song Wacky Dust was written (1938). Presumably then, it ceased to be legal some time after 1938. But the Wikipedia article Cocaine in the United States seems to skips over this. It says that "the Jones-Miller Act of 1922 put serious restrictions on cocaine manufactures" and, later, has a quote from 1976 stating that cocaine was illegal, but says nothing of what might have happened in between. Is Graydon right or wrong? ~2026-52873-26 (talk) 01:12, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Our article on the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 contains the puzzling sentence,

"Although technically illegal for purposes of distribution and use, the distribution, sale and use of cocaine was still legal for registered companies and individuals."

So for registered companies and individuals the distribution and use of cocaine was legal, provided it was not for purposes of distribution and use?

In any case, according to the website of the Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Justice Office, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act

"banned non-medical use of cocaine; prohibited its importation; imposed the same criminal penalties for cocaine users that were levied against users of opium, morphine, and heroin; and required a strict accounting of medical prescriptions for cocaine".

 ​‑‑Lambiam 07:00, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Presumably, it means that it is illegal in general, but with exceptions (e.g. Mallinckrodt). I thought our article on Coca-cola might be fruitful, but it also is cagey with regard to when Coke lost its coke. Coca-Cola#Coca_leaf says, "Since then (by 1929), Coca-Cola has used a cocaine-free coca leaf extract." Of course, that need not be tied directly to when cocaine was made illegal, but I was hoping to establish an upper bound. Matt Deres (talk) 13:35, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I think part of the issue is that cocaine illegalization in the USA followed a somewhat standard pattern of drug prohibition where the first effort was licensing (likely to pharmacists or other such licensed dispensers) with successive tightening of regulation prior to full prohibition. I don't know enough about the specifics of American law to present more than that general narrative but it is a VERY common pattern. Simonm223 (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I found a good source about this: McLaughlin GT (1973) Cocaine: The history and regulation of a dangerous drug. Cornell Law Review, 58:538–573

Quotations from that source about federal laws concerning cocaine:

"The Harrison Act [1914] served for more than fifty years as the corner-stone of the entire federal scheme of drug control legislation. The Act required every person who produced, imported, manufactured, compounded, dealt in, dispensed, sold, distributed, or gave away opium or coca leaves or their derivatives (cocaine) to register with the Internal Revenue Service and to pay a special tax. [...] the Act envisioned that all transfers of cocaine and opium would be between registered persons. Offenses were punishable by fines of up to two thousand dollars, a possible prison term of five years, or both."

"In 1922, Congress [passed federal legislation] prohibiting the importation of cocaine and coca leaves. The amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act banned the importation of cocaine absolutely but permitted the importation of certain amounts of coca leaves needed for medical and other legitimate uses. Any cocaine thereafter needed for medical purposes had to be produced from these legally imported coca leaves or chemically synthesized.

[Also,] for the first time in a federal statute, cocaine was dearly defined as a narcotic drug. Prior federal statutes had only referred to opium and cocaine by name. Cocaine thus became a narcotic drug in the eyes of the law, [...] penalties for violating the Act were more stringent than those in prior federal drug statutes. Whereas earlier penalty provisions had been drafted in the alternative-either a fine or imprisonment or both — the 1922 Act imposed a fine of up to five thousand dollars and imprisonment for up to ten years."

"In 1951, Congress made two fundamental changes in this pattern by making penalties for all drug offenses uniform and by requiring mandatory minimum prison sentences.

With the 1951 amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act and the Harrison Act, Congress standardized penalties for all drug offenses. Thus the penalty for failing to register as a cocaine distributor became identical to the penalty for illegally importing large quantities of cocaine into the country.

Prior law had always left the sentencing of a drug offender to the discretion of the judge; a maximum outer limit was set but no minimum term of imprisonment was required. The 1951 amendments reversed this approach and required a judge to sentence a drug offender to a mandatory period in prison."

"In 1970, Congress repealed existing federal drug laws and in their place enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Title II is known as the Controlled Substances Act."

There were also various state laws regulating cocaine.

Quoting the same source as above (McLaughlin 1973):

"[In 1887] Oregon prohibited the sale of both opium and cocaine without a doctor's prescription. By 1914, forty-five additional states had adopted some form of legislation to regulate the distribution of cocaine. Illustrative of these early state cocaine laws was the New York statute. It provided that any person who sold, offered to sell, furnished, disposed of, or gave away cocaine except as authorized by the act was guilty of a felony."

-IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:31, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

October 3

Databases for research papers in Chinese

I'm quite good at finding interesting research papers and academic books on services like JSTOR, the Wikipedia Library, Academia.edu, OAPEN, etc. However, what's available there skews towards European languages and Western institutes, which is inconvenient when searching for information about Chinese history and archaeology. These are obviously subjects more published about in Chinese journals.

What databases are there for Chinese-language research publications? (Bonus points if the publications are Open Access or otherwise accessible, but I'd like to know even if that's not the case.) Suðurhafsljósæta (talk) 11:40, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

September 20

Questions

1. Dpes Spanish have an imperative form of verb used with the pronouns él, ella, ellos and ellas? Wiktionary conjugation table for Spanish verbs only lists the pronoun usted and ustedes used with the third-person imperatives, which are identical to the third-person subjunctives.
2. Does German ever use the word bitte with du rather than Sie form of imperative, like Bitte wähl du instead of Bitte wählen sie for "Please choose"?
3. Are there any words in English where ⟨ii⟩ is pronounced /iː/?
4. Does English ever use the word "port" to mean "gate"?
5. Is this correct: "I request that the price is lowered."
6. Is this correct: "Yesterday, I drove through a road that leads from Boston to New York."

--40bus (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

1. It feels inherently strange to me using the imperative with anything but second-person. I can't really understand the logic, here. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

2. Apparently, in modern German there is a small movement that has proposed the form Du (with a capital D) as a variant reasonably polite but more informal than Sie, for instance in smaller businesses. However, both the variants "Bitte wähl Du" and "Bitte wähle Du" get very few Google hits. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:19, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

3. There are some Japanese loanwords such as shiitake, torii, Riichi mahjong and kuchisabishii. Of these, shiitake might be the most widely known. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

4. See Wiktionary. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

1. Usted and ustedes are directed to the individual you're talking to. As Wakuran indicates, directing an imperative to a true third person doesn't make sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

In Finnish, there is a commonly used third-person imperative like syököön hän and syökööt he. Similarly in English, there are forms let him eat and let they eat. So, in Spanish, is there a third-person imperative too? --40bus (talk) 04:38, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Who is the speaker "let him/them eat" actually talking to? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:11, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It's impersonal; commonly a let form translates a subjunctive, as in Let there be light. —Antonissimo (talk) 19:30, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

In "Let him eat", the imperative is "let", directed to the second person. The "eat" is not imperative. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:43, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought about the sentence "He must eat", but then the implications are rather "You must make him eat". I don't know about the semantics and connotations of the Finnish construction. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:13, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

The Finnish contruction is quite formal and not usually used in colloquial speech. --40bus (talk) 17:38, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I still have trouble understanding its contextual usage. Using "be" in a passive tense, I could see the point of after some thinking. (Like "Right here, we're just existing.") But I don't really understand in which context the Finnish constrution would be used, is it similar to the Spanish Optative Subjunctive mentioned elsewhere? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:07, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

It is quite similar to Spanish optative subjuntive. Eläköön is just like Spanish viva. But viva is not an imperative, whereas eläköön is. --40bus (talk) 04:27, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

3. It does not appear so... except with some proper names, such as the ballplayer Torii Hunter.

5. You could say, "I request that you lower the price."

6. You could say, "I drove ON a road..."

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

4. 'Port' used to mean 'gate' (as in gate in a city wall) in the Middle Ages. Some British cities and towns whose walls have partially survived call the gates 'ports' or name them individually as, for example, "the Westport." Note that, again as a retention from the Middle Ages and particularly in the North of Britain, 'gate' can actually mean 'street' rather than a potentially closable access point, and sometimes the two senses are not fully distinguished.

5. It is not incorrect enough to be objectionable: personally, I would say "I request that the price be lowered", but I enjoy using old-fashioned constructions.

6. Not in British English at any rate: rather than 'through' it would be 'on' or 'along' or over' (or 'across' (i.e from one side of it to the other at a crossroads, if that was what was intended). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

(4. About "gate" meaning "street": See also Danish gade and Swedish gata, from the same source as "gate" and meaning "street", but historically or less commonly also used for a passageway and other more gate-like stuff.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:39, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed gata'' in the Swedish names of streets in Helsinki when I visited: I found it easier to navigate using the (to me) more readable Swedish names rather than the Finnish names, because although I don't speak it, being Germanic it's closer to English than Finnish is. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 13:24, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It's often borrowed into Finnish as katu, I believe. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

3. Wii TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:46, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

6. If you crashed your car through the surface of that road and got underneath it by doing so, then yes. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:51, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Earlier this year, not too far from where I live, some people drove their campervan through a bikepath: a bridge couldn't handle their weight. Or when your strong vehicle is too tall for a weak viaduct/bridge over your road and cuts through. Ships do that sometimes. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:25, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

2. It depends on context: In a (semi-)formal context "Bitte wähle Du" would never be used. E.g. it cannot be used for "please choose" in an Internet form, this would be wrong grammar. However, it can be used very naturally when there is an emphasis on "Du" as opposed to someone else. E.g. a dialogue in a restaurant could be like: "Which salad should we choose for sharing?" - "I can't really decide. You choose please" - this would be "Bitte wähle Du" in German. -- Jungleman33 (talk) 07:41, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

1&2: AFAIK (which is limited to some European languages), proper imperatives only come in second person, both singular and plural. Further, proper imperatives tend to come without a subject, even in languages that normally don't allow dropping the subject. But sometimes something strange happens when a third person is reused as a formal second person and requires it's own imperative, like in Spanish, German or Dutch. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

1:I guess the Optative Subjunctive might be considered what comes closest to an imperative, in expressions like ¡Viva España! or ¡Viva el Rey! (Long live Spain! or Long live the king!) -- Jungleman33 (talk) 11:28, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

2. The imperative singular (just like the plural) in German is used without a personal pronoun: wähl(e) 'choose', gib 'give', mach(e) 'make'/'do'. Weak verbs can have an -e at the end but it can also be left out. Some strong verbs (with vocal change) do not have an -e: miss 'measure', iss 'eat', vergiss 'forget' etc. and the imperative of sein 'to be': sei: Sei [imperative 1] so gut, und öffne [imperative 2] bitte das Fenster. 'Would you be so kind and open the window, please?'

"Bitte wähle du" is possible but only in this form and if someone wants to leave the choice to someone else, - a known person that is a child, a friend, a relative, someone familiar: Bitte wähle du (für mich, i. e. anstelle meiner): saying something like: please choose instead of me. So you could also say: "Sei so gut, und öffne du (nicht ich oder jemand anderes) das Fenster." This is very rare, since the meaning shifts away from 'open the window, please' to I would like you - yes, you and noboby else - to open the windows.--~2026-51048-33 (talk) 11:33, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

The informal/familiar form of the exhortation "Please choose wisely", expressed as "Bitte wähle mit Bedacht", can be found e.g. here: , , .  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:47, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

3. Some speakers in some dialects might pronounce skiing in that fashion, especially if talking fast and not using much enunciation. I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me American Midwesterners and possibly Canadians would be more likely to do this.

4. As others have said, 'port' did used to mean gate, and I will also note this is the origin of the English would 'porter', which occupation, in the Middle Ages, was the gatekeeper at a castle. (Porters still exist but aren't castle gatekeepers anymore).

5. Is technically incorrect, but like the poster formerly known as 87.etc said, not incorrect enough that many would object to it. But the correct conjugation of the verb 'to be' in that sentence would be be, not is. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 11:34, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Addendum 2.: The imperative with Sie can be used for one or more persons. It is a plural: "Öffnen Sie das Fenster bitte." It could be adressed to one particuliar person or to anybody that is in the room. "Sie" implies distance, the speaker doesn't know the adult person or it is someone who is ranked above the speaker (speaker is a child speaking to an adult, employee to employer etc.). The pronoun cannot be left out. If the persons are familiar, well-known - friends, family members, children etc. - then the imperative plural is used without a personal pronoun: "Öffnet das bitte Fenster." "Öffnet bitte das Fenster." (the speaker could be a teacher advising the class to open the window).--~2026-51048-33 (talk) 11:42, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

"Öffnet das bitte Fenster"? Is that correct, or some kind of mistake? The syntax feels very odd to me. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. It would have to be "Öffnet bitte das Fenster". ("Bitte öffnet das Fenster" or "Öffnet das Fenster bitte" are possible too). -- Jungleman33 (talk) 12:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Just a typo. I wanted to type Öffnet bitte das Fenster.--~2026-51048-33 (talk) 15:06, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

For "Listen y'all!", you can use "Höret Alle!".  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:00, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

But that would be rather old-fashioned or comical because of the /e/. I would say: "Hört mal alle (zu)!" The /e/ was frequently used in Early High German, remaining in use until the 18th/19th century, especially in literature, cf. Goethe, "Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh / In allen Wipfeln spürest du / Kaum einen Hauch; / Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. / Warte nur, balde / Ruhest du auch." or "Reineke Fuchs": "Ihr höret so manchen / Höret diesen denn auch." However, this came out of fashion in the 19th century. Today, it can be heard in "ecclesiastical" texts, e. g. the Bible. Thomas Mann wrote this in "Doktor Faustus": "Hört nur den Schluß, hört ihn mit mir" (Th. Mann: Doktor Faustus. Das Leben des Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn erzählt von einem Freunde, Frankfurt a. M. 1994, p. 648 [end of chapter XLVI]). Mann also quotes older works (Faust book etc.) or refers to Adrians works. In these quotations you can find the older forms, e. g. "'Wachet mit mir!' Adrian mochte im Werk wohl das Wort gottmenschlicher Not ins Einsam-Männlichere und Stolze, in das 'Schlafet ruhig und lasst euch nichts anfechten!' seines Faustus wenden [...]" (ibd., p. 648)--~2026-51057-80 (talk) 14:35, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

4) Not really. 'Portal' can overlap with gate and 'Porte' exists in a few fixed old phrases.

5) To my American ear it is quite wrong. I would say "I request that the price be lowered" or rephrases it as "I request that you lower the price".

6) No, one does not drive through a road. Prepositions that work include "down", "along", "on", "via", or "by" though they may have slightly different shades of meaning. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

September 21

Predicting flapping in General American

In General American pronounce /t/ or /d/ as [ɾ] in these patterns:

1. vowel or /r/ + unstressed syllable beginning with /t/ or /d/ followed by a vowel

• city: /ˈsɪ.ti/ [ˈsɪ.ɾi]
• ladder: /ˈlæ.dɚ/ [ˈlæ.ɾɚ]
• party: /ˈpɑr.ti/ [ˈpʰɑɹ.ɾi]
• sanity: /ˈsæ.nə.ti/ [ˈsæ.nə.ɾi]
• editor: /ˈɛ.də.tɚ/ [ˈɛ.ɾə.ɾɚ]
• bottle: /ˈbɑ.t(ə)l/ [ˈbɑ.ɾl̩]
• pedal: /ˈpɛ.d(ə)l/ [ˈpʰɛ.ɾl̩]

Exception: /t/ or /d/ + syllabic /n/ (regional differences may exist)

• button: /ˈbʌ.t(ə)n/
• mitten: /ˈmɪ.t(ə)n/
• certain: /ˈsɝ.t(ə)n/

2. stressed vowel or /r/ + /t/ or /d/ + word boundary + unstressed syllable

• get it: /ˈɡɛt ɪt/ [ˈɡɛɾɪt]
• that is: /ˈðæt ɪz/ [ˈðæɾɪz]
• heart attack: /ˈhɑrt əˌtæk/ [ˈhɑɹɾəˌtʰæk]

3. vowel or /r/ + /t/ or /d/ + morpheme boundary + stressed vowel

• whatever: /wɑtˈɛ.vɚ/ [wɑɾˈɛ.vɚ]
• heartache: /ˈhɑrtˌeɪk/ [ˈhɑɹɾˌeɪk]

Are my rules reliable? Can you think of any counter example? Weltrusten (talk) 09:58, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Speaking from experience in my own capacity as a native American English speaker, I don't believe there are any "rules" regarding "when to flap" vs "when not to flap". The "flapping" that sometimes is the realization of d or t is allophonic, so it is something most speakers are not consciously aware of, and most American English speakers are probably not consciously aware that the phenomenon even exists at all. Further - and this is my own personal opinion - flapping is somewhat a product of a "lazy" kind of speech that is common amongst Americans generally. In other words, it is a kind of "reduction" in phonetics. It is most certainly not phonemic, anyway, and speaking with fully enunciated [d] and [t] sounds at all times in American English would never be considered 'wrong' (and would probably be perceived by most as "better" or more proper speech). HierophantOfOmens (talk) 11:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, since I kind of mixed up two distinct concepts in that post: there are some allophones in English that actually do generally follow standard "rules", even though most speakers are not conscious that they're doing so (e.g. "light" and "dark" /l/. But flapping of /d/ and /t/ is not one of those, as not flapping for those consonants would not be perceived as wrong/improper. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree completely with the statement "I don't believe there are any rules". The accents come from learned muscle movement, not a mental list of rules for adapting phonics. An example previously mentioned here is the Northern Missouri accent. It is a very rapid form of English to the point that the lower jaw barely moves. As a result, phonics are malformed and you get an accent with "her" instead of "here" and "wursh" instead of "wash." It isn't a mental "When ear finishes a word, use er instead." It is "I'm not going to move my lower jaw enough to fully form the 'ee' in 'ear'." When you add learned cadence to it, you get a complete accent. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:02, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If you believe there aren't any rules regarding when to flap, can you give any counter example to the rules above? I'm not saying there are no regional differences, but it seems to me that most GA speakers do follow those rules in informal speech ~2026-50873-86 (talk) 12:32, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Consider "sanity" as an example. Pronunciation is not based on learned rules. It is based on learned mechanics. You can observe the mechanics of speech and develop complex rules that mostly describe them, but you will end up with an exception, then exceptions to the exception, then exceptional exceptions that occur sometimes and not others. If you drop the concept of phonetic rules and focus on the physical mechanics, pronunciation patterns become easier to understand. I should explain that my opinion is based on acting. Voice coaches don't give you phonetic rules. They grab your jaw and train you to physically move your mouth the correct way for the accent. Once you follow the physical mechanics properly, the accent forms by itself. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

You're wrong. "sanity" is not a counter example. The OP gives it themselves as an example and it strictly follows their first rule: "vowel or /r/ + unstressed syllable beginning with /t/ or /d/ followed by a vowel". Many dictionaries like Cambridge, OALD, OED also say there is a flap in this word: ~2026-50953-00 (talk) 13:20, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If this mechanical description is truly how it works - and I'm not qualified to argue against it so I won't - then that makes it 100% certain that it causes a fairly predictable change to the pronunciation rules compared to people who don't do it. The chance that such a specific mechanical change could instead cause just random unpredictable sound changes isn't worth considering.

No accent from anywhere can "form itself", though they're usually formed very early in life, without much conscious consideration. And if this accent really had no pronunciation rules, then not only would it be impossible to figure out who was really getting it right, it would even be impossible to tell the difference between native speakers and new immigrants over the phone; "no rules" really does mean that every new immigrant automatically nails the accent on their first day (only because in a no-rules accent there's no such thing as a wrong pronunciation, but still). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:51, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If you believe there aren't any rules regarding when to flap, can you give any counter examples to the rules above? I'm not saying there are no regional differences, but it seems to me that most GA speakers do follow those rules in informal speech ~2026-50873-86 (talk) 12:31, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It is true that speakers do not think in terms of phonetic rules but they still exist and can be discovered and studied by linguists. No speakers of ancient Germanic named, or probably even noticed Grimm's Law but it certainly exists and can be stated as an exact rule with all exceptions accounted for with no more complexity than OP's flapping rules listed above. Also, I noticed my own flapping as a child before I studied phonetics or could described phonetically. Specifically I thought of [ɾ] as a /d/ rather than a /t/ sound so that since 'ladder' and 'latter' were both flapped I "said latter with a 'd'". That is in my idiolect [ɾ] is an unnoticed allophone of /d/ but a noticed allophone of /t/. I believe the rules given above are correct for General American. I disagree that flapping is optional in such cases, avoiding it makes one's speech sound overly articulated or hyper-corrected like that of a teacher or second language learner. Actual Americans, of all social classes, and even in formal settings flap all those stops. To not do so is to use a spelling pronunciation that is only natural in slow, hyper-articulated speech as when teaching a new word to a child. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary gives the GA pronunciation /ˈbɑɾɫ̩/ for bottle. It does not give a pronunciation for the phrase pedal to the metal, but mentions pedal to the medal as an eggcorn. I do not see this handled in your rules. Note, furthermore, the nasalized flap pronunciations /ˈkaʊ̯ ɾ̃ɚmɛʒɚ/ for countermeasure and /ˈpɪ ɾ̃əl/, [ˈpʰɪ ɾ̃ l̩] for pintle.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:27, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Flaps [ɾ] in "bottle" /ˈbɑ.t(ə)l/, "pedal" /ˈpʰɛ.d(ə)l/, and "metal" /ˈmɛ.t(ə)l/ all come from the first rule.

Flaps [ɾ] in "countermeasure" and "pintle" seem to be less common. OED says they use ordinary [t] not flaps [ɾ]. This is also true for words like "winter" or "twenty". We could call it nt-flapping since all those words contain "nt" Weltrusten (talk) 20:21, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It depends on how you split the unflapped version into syllables. Wiktionary gives [ˈmɛd.ɫ̩] for the pronunciation of medal, and, as I see now, also /ˈpɛt.i/ for petty. Your rule needs [ˈmɛ.dɫ̩] and [ˈpɛ.ti], which seems a sensible syllabification to me but is perhaps not obviously the only valid version. Considering [ɝ] to be a vowel, the issue can be circumvented by rephrasing rule 1 as applying to an intervocalic [t] or [d].

It occurred to me that the first of the two syllables of rule 1 needs to be stressed; AFAIK the endings -ity (as in quality) and -idy (as in subsidy) are unflappable.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not an expert at syllabification, but Merriam-Webster agrees with me. I consider it to be a better source than Wiktionary.

Both OALD, OED, and Cambridge indicate that there id a flap in "quality". I can also hear a clear flap in "subsidy" in the recording from OALD and OED Weltrusten (talk) 08:08, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think I have a nasalized flap in "counter" or "winter" I am pretty sure that the /t/ is elided completely and the cluster is simplified to just [n] so that "winner" and "winter" are homonyms. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Other speakers might have one.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:28, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

(I'm Canadian and have a very distinct full /t/ in "winter", the exact same /t/ I use in "turn". I'm not saying all Canadians do this; I was an early reader and probably have more "spelling pronunciations" than average.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:09, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Taking a look the only wikipedia article is the general one on Flapping. This is obviously an area in which more research or at least more wiki writing could be usefully done. I am not a trained expert on English pronunciation but know that most features of my own ideolect are common or universal in General American. I don't think I use [ɾ̃] but I don't doubt that some people do. I have a hard time distinguishing [ɾ] and [d] even though in some dialects of English (and Spanish which I know a little of) they are completely separate sounds and not allophones of each other. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:01, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Rail in Sandrail

Where did the name come from, and what does it actually mean? The article doesn't say, and its Talk page has couple of unresolved debates on the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 09:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

An answer might be found in the article Front engine dragster: "These early dragsters were nicknamed "rails", due to the frame's longitudinal members (rails) being exposed to view." --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:48, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Long before the sandrail vehicle came along, in Newspapers.com I found the term "sandrail" in reference to a machine used for dredging. Since the term "drag" in drag racing also seems to refer back to dredging, it could be that these terms are all related. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

A sandrail is literally a rail designed for driving on sand. A rail is a straight-line racecar. Starting in the 1940s, straight-line (drag) racers began reducing car weight by discarding the body parts and replacing much of the frame with straight steel rails. The result was long straight cars with visible rails, so people referred to the cars as rail cars (or simply rails). A dune buggy is classically a Volkswagen Beetle modified for beaches (and deserts to some degree) with fiberglass bodies. Some racers wanted the straight-line racing feel, so they removed the bodies, replaced the frame with straight rails and ended up with sandrails. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:38, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

That sounds credible, but do you have a reliable source for it? I would like to fix the article. HiLo48 (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Semantic link between urination and anger

What could have possibly given people the idea to start using "p***ed off" to mean angered, and why is that phrase such a popular synonym for it? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:18, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

It's easy to find the historical record of the usage of the expression. Why people started using it is unattested. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:23, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

www.etymonline.com says:

Pissed off "angry, fed up" is attested by 1946 (Partridge says 1937); said to have been used in the military in World War II; in common use from 1970s.

I suspect it may be connected with an early meaning of "pissed" which is being intoxicated (drunken people are often angry), but that's just my guess.

BTW, the exact origin of "taking the piss" is equally mysterious.

Alansplodge (talk) 14:52, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Why "off"? Surely the command piss off, meaning go away, must have preceded the state of being pissed off. Or it could be by extension from ticked off, which Etymonline says is from World War 1, and has a sense of being summarily ticked off from a list of names and consigned somewhere.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 13:39, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

User:Card Zero, perhaps related to the slightly earlier and equally curious "browned off", also meaning fed-up. Alansplodge (talk) 12:53, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a connection in Chaucer: He is as angry as a pissemyre. Pismire is a word for ant, because the formic acid produced by the angrier varieties of ant smells a bit like urine.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 13:33, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Scottish Gaelic sentence

I’ll admit I only know about enough Gaelic to get by in basic conversations, but I encountered this sentence on gd-wiki: 'S e An Eala Bhàn òran gaoil le Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, and it doesn’t look correct to me. Should that be ’S e òran gaoil le Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna a ‘th ann An Eala Bhàn? I’m pretty sure that’s correct, but I want to fact check it before I change it and I’m not sure where to ask on gd-wiki. Thanks! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 09:06, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't know a word of Irish, but I can confirm that other articles on the Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia (Dàin do Eimhir, Hallaig (dàn), Òran na Cloiche) follow the "’S e definition ann topic" pattern. So this appears to be a more common way. But the opening sentence has had this challenged form since 22 September 2014 after an edit by a gd-3 user who is an administrator with 2,350 live edits, and the article has been viewed over 700 times since then. It has, furthermore, been edited since then by three other users, including a gd-2 user with 982 edits and a user who is a bureaucrat and administrator with 12,600 live edits. If the opening sentence is seriously wrong, one would expect at least some of these to have spotted it.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:24, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

That’s a good point. Thanks, just checking! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 08:26, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 29

Irish - Was Dev your unscrupulous friend?

On the website "Documents on Irish Foreign Policy" is the letter of 30 September 1921 from Eamon de Valera to David Lloyd George accepting the latter's invitation to a conference in London. The Irish text is signed "Mise, do chara gan cháim", the official translation gives "Faithfully yours". Google translate, on the other hand, translates "Mise, do chara gan cháim" as "I, your unscrupulous friend". A moment of humour from Dev? Or a cock up by Google? I think we should be told! DuncanHill (talk) 22:42, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm taking a wild guess here that "Dev" is a nickname for de Valera? If that's true you might say so; not all of us recognize it. --Trovatore (talk) 22:49, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, "Dev" is a nickname for "de Valera". DuncanHill (talk) 23:02, 29 September 2026 (UTC) I suspect that anyone who speaks Irish would recognise it. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I speak not a word of Irish, but I understood it instantly from context. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 03:44, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't speak any Irish at all and I'm going at this piecemeal without any claim to complete accuracy.

Mise is just the emphatic form of "I" or "me".

Wiktionary's definition of do, under etymology 3, explicitly lists do chara as meaning "to/for a friend" (do means "to/for" and gets combined with a lenited dative, chara is the lenited form of cara which is such a dative and means "friend".)

Gan cháim appears to be the phrase causing issue. Google pointed me to a couple of examples of this phrase, one in a blog about a hymn composed by Father Peadar Ua Laoghaire and another in an Irish language forum discussion of a book entitled An Mám ó Dheas. The definitions given in these posts are "flawless" and "guileless". It seems that gan triggers lenition, and the unlenited caim derives from cam meaning "crooked", so the meanings naturally derive from idea of something being without crookedness.

As to how this could become translated as "unscrupulous" is unclear; there might be a term similar in spelling to caim which has the complete opposite meaning of scrupulousness, or it might just be that Google Translate does was not trained on a large enough Irish corpus. GalacticShoe (talk) 12:30, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 30

English tenses

Does English ever say: ”Yesterday, I drove on a road that leads from Boston to New York.”? Or should it be: ”Yesterday, I drove on a road that led from Boston to New York.”? --40bus (talk) 06:00, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

You could use either one. The one with "leads" sounds a little more natural to me (because presumably the road still leads there) but the one with "led" sounds slightly more "technically correct". See sequence of tenses for a more in-depth discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I concur with Il Trovatore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:29, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Arguably "...leading from Boston to New York" would sound more natural, but I'm not a native speaker, anyway, and the sentence feels a bit strained to begin with. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:15, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Given the choice between the two, the first sounds more natural. But a native speaker would probably say just "I drove from Boston to New York". The "on a road" part seems superfluous. Like, what else I drive on? The sidewalk? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

You could have entered the road at Framingham and driven as far as Sturbridge. You might choose to describe it as "a road that leads from Boston to New York" if the point you were making was about how distances along that journey are signposted.

As to the tense usage, in statements like this you should use the past tense if the fact you're citing might have changed, but if you don't believe it would have, then it's common to use the present tense. "Yesterday I was told that Boston is (or was) the capital of Massachusetts", but "Yesterday I was told that it was raining in Boston." --~2026-52517-31 (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I sometimes get irritated when, for example, science fiction contains a phrase like The Galaxy was a very big place. —Antonissimo (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

If the entire work is narrated in the past tense from the point of view of one of the characters (as is common), then it would be more natural to phrase it so. Using 'is' would transform the narrator into a timeless omniscient observer, which is also a possible mode, but the two cannot usually be mixed, unless the participant's narration is embedded within a framework of that of the omniscient observer. However, if the observation about the galaxy is made in some character's quoted direct speech, 'is' would be fine in all circumstances.

In the context of science fiction, 'the Galaxy' could, of course, refer to one that no longer exists. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

If the Galaxy has ceased to be a very big place within the lifetime of the narrator, I want to know why. [The poster formerly known as a minor irritant] —Antonissimo (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

When I was young, the village I grew up in was a very big place. Now, having travelling the world, I see it is among the humblest of humble hamlets.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:06, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

The only other (theoretical) possible way to drive between Boston and NY without the road is the train. However, I don't think people can drive trains for recreational purposes and that there are limits on how long train drivers can work without a pause (similar to HGV/bus drivers). Its why train drivers don't drive between London and Glasgow/Edinburgh, but rather Preston/Newcastle, at least not without a pause. JuniperChill (talk) 10:58, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

September 19

Most films

What is the current record for the most films one person has appeared in? Including lead roles, as a minor character and cameos. Eh-st-h☆r^{Did that}_{Talk to me} 09:54, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Apparently the answer is Tom London. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:00, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Is there anyone who comes close to his record outside of Hollywood? Eh-st-h☆r^{Did that}_{Talk to me} 10:22, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

In Bollywood, the leading contendor is reportedly (by Google's AI, so NaCl quant. suff.) Shakti Kapoor, with 'over 700' appearences.

It might be of interest to compare how many of London's and Kapoor's appearances were credited as opposed to uncredited, an exercise I will leave for others. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 12:48, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Tom London was in 300 to 500 films. Bess Flowers was in over 1,000 films. Ron Jeremy was in over 2,000 films (depending on your definition of "film"). ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 11:25, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Get a job doing something you love... Matt Deres (talk) 18:29, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

or someone —Antonissimo (talk) 19:19, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

September 22

vocal stylist

I saw an interview with Sohyang where she mentioned that early in her career, she visited the US and was introduced to a vocal stylist who she then worked with. She had never heard of vocal stylists before since they don't have them in Korea. They are apparently different from voice teachers or vocal coaches. Web search doesn't find much else though. So what exactly is a vocal stylist? Fwiw, apparently at that time, she was a self-taught singer who hadn't had any formal vocal training. Thanks. ~2026-50776-70 (talk) 04:28, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I too have never heard of the profession of "vocal stylist"; without context I'd assume the term refers to a singer who has a superb vocal style. Other than that, "vocal style" may perhaps refer to the type of voice (for a soprano voice, coloratura soprano / dramatic soprano / lyric soprano, each with subdivisions), but more likely to the music genre a singer's voice is trained for. These two (type of voice and music genre) are connected; not every type of voice is well suited for a given music genre. A hair stylist helps a client select a suitable hair style; so I suppose a vocal stylist (as a profession) will help a singer find a vocal style that suits their voice and aspirations.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:10, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I think by the time she saw the vocal stylist, she had already decided not to become a baritone ;). It really does seem to be a profession, at least going by the interview (). My web search results were about the same as yours. Thanks. ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 23:41, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

September 23

Drummer ID

Video link is Nene Royal in the AGT final earlier tonight. Any idea who is playing the drums? Thx! ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 04:28, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Resolved

Drummer is Ashlee Nino according to someone on reddit. Web search corroborates this. ~2026-51492-82 (talk) 07:42, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

September 26

commercial songs in soap operas

From 1985 - 1989, I was attending high school classes, in San Francisco. I remember once hearing "Midnight Motion" by Kenny G on an episode of Days of Our Lives. On one episode of General Hospital, "Najee's Theme" by Najee was played. Did any commercial smooth jazz songs play on The Young and the Restless? Anyone know?~2026-51751-36 (talk) 08:05, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Nasty Mouse & Swift – Move Your Body

Shazam identified one of my queries as "Move Your Body" by Nasty Mouse & Swift, but doesn't open that song and I failed to find it anywhere in the internet (never heard it before). Does it exist somewhere at all? Brandmeister ^talk 16:55, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Discogs lists "Swift - Move Your Body" on Strictly B-Boy Breaks Volume 3, which is here on YouTube. I think Discogs credits it to the wrong Swift, which might be why it was hard to find under Swift aka Nasty Mouse. (Edit: heh, and it samples Coldcut's Every Home A Prison.) Adam Sampson (talk) 17:58, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Per Shazam, this beat appears in the 1986 film The Man from Fifth Avenue from 46:44, so I wonder why YouTube and Discogs give the year as 2006. After my listening it appears as the same beat. Brandmeister ^talk 19:56, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Looking for a deleted YouTube video (TSI Switzerland broadcast from 1996)

Hello, I am looking for a video that was recently deleted from YouTube. It was a broadcast recording from the Swiss Italian television (TSI) titled "Sequenza Tsi - Mercoledì 31 Dicembre 1996 + Textvision".

The original YouTube URL was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYD9GKSTN9o, but unfortunately, it was never archived on the Wayback Machine.

Since it is a piece of television history (New Year's Eve 1996 from Switzerland with Teletext/Textvision), does anyone know if this specific clip has been re-uploaded elsewhere, or if there is an alternative archive where I can find TSI continuity clips from that exact date? Thank you. DanielParoliere (talk) 07:24, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Did you check the rest of the Internet Archive? Wayback Machine archives webpages, but they may also simply have a copy of the video completely unconnected from what was put on YouTube. Something along the lines of their Prelinger Archives repository (but not that, specifically, as it is US-focused). Matt Deres (talk) 01:53, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

October 2

Name of movie

I think it may have been a French movie. Mainly I remember there was a woman who got married, seemingly happily, but then her husband tragically perished in a freak accident. After a period of mourning, she remarried, but husband #2 then died in his own freak accident having no resemblance to the first. Similarly with husbands #n for n=3, 4, 5, and 6. I don't specifically remember her inheriting money each time, but that may have been part of it. I half remember that one of the husbands was a Dutch novelist, but that scene may have been from a different movie. It showed him writing "Eerste Kapitel" on the first page of a new novel, with a voiceover or subtitle saying "Chapter One". Any recognition? Something just reminded me of this. Oh yes, in one of the freak accidents, the husband then in effect was riding somewhere in a car (he may have been a front seat passenger) near a construction zone, when a steel beam swinging from a crane smashed through the windshield and crushed him. Thanks. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 04:59, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

A real Dutch novelist would have used "Eerste Hoofdstuk".  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:12, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I immediately thought of What a Way to Go! (1964), directed by J. Lee Thompson, with Shirley MacLaine as the widow and Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Gene Kelly, Dean Martin as the husbands. It does have an episode in France. —Antonissimo (talk) 01:12, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check into that. I think the movie is likely to not be that old, but I could be wrong. ~2026-52011-78 (talk) 08:18, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

September 20

Single phase, dual capacitor, external reversing

We have a 240v single phase motor. We have an external 4 lead feed to the motor junction box. It has start winding and capacitor, run winding and capacitor, plus an electronic starting relay. I can't find a diagram anywhere that shows how to reverse the run winding. I think the start winding is normally reversed unless there is a run capacitor. ~2026-50922-93 (talk) 17:32, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I forgot to mention the reversing is done with two × three pole contactors. ~2026-50922-93 (talk) 18:08, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

September 22

Timestamps

Are timestamps ever used to show local time with the letter in the local time zone? For example, the current time here as a timestamp would be 2026-09-22T08:00:00C, since the time zone we are currently is UTC+3, which is indicated by the letter C. I have never seen any other letter than Z for UTC used in timestamps. --40bus (talk) 04:59, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Where do you see that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:29, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

In various machine-readable contexts, such as in APIs and synoptic weather observations, as well as METAR messages. There I see timestamps in UTC time, but do any timestamps ever use local time? --40bus (talk) 08:28, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

In Nautical/Military UTC time, J is optionally used for "local time". ~2026-38520-51 (talk) 13:02, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

The single letter is Nautical time. Except for Z/Zulu, I've never heard it used (but I'm not a sailor). Alien878 (talk) 10:40, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Profiles of senior high schools in China

Hello, áre there different subject profiles of high schools in China? Where does it say, which particular schools are part of this kind of school? Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 17:55, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Can you explain what you mean by "subject profiles" of high schools? This is not as far as I know a term used by Wikipedia (as you will know given your long history here), and I cannot make sense of it in the context. Do you mean types of schools (as in, some being general, some specialising in particular areas like music or crafts, etc.)? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 00:42, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

In China's high school education system, students typically need to select specific academic tracks—such as the traditional division into liberal arts and sciences (called 文理分科) or the "subject combination" (選科組合) model under the new college entrance examination system—based on their personal interests and plans for university admission. Stanleykswong (talk) 07:36, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

In addition to the standard academic tracks, high schools in China also offer specialized classes for students with specific talents. One such category is the "Academic Competition Track" (focusing on subjects like mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) Students in this track delve into the advanced content of academic Olympiads alongside their regular high school curriculum, aiming for admission to top universities via the "Strong Foundation Plan" (強基計劃) or through direct recommendation. Another category is the "Arts and Sports Track" (the students are called 藝體特長生), focusing on areas such as fine arts, music, dance, broadcasting and hosting, and athletics. Students here must balance academic coursework—where requirements are typically lower than those for general students—with extremely intensive specialized skills training, seeking admission through specialized arts or sports entrance examinations. However, it needs to note that, in recent years, China's Ministry of Education has implemented sweeping reforms to the admissions policies for students with special talents in the arts and athletics; the previous policy allowing admission to prestigious universities with lower test scores (known as 降分上名校) has been significantly tightened. Stanleykswong (talk) 07:48, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your messages. I mean schools specialising in particular fields. One such category is the "Academic Competition Track" (focusing on subjects like mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) There are different kinds of final school-leaving exams. Sarcelles (talk) 18:31, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

High school students on the "Academic Competition Track" (競賽生) and "Strong Foundation Plan" must still participate in the final school-leaving exams (Gaokao, 高考), and they take the exact same exam papers as regular students in their respective provinces. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:14, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. According to article Gaokao, students can choose the Natural Sciences track. Sarcelles (talk) 16:44, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Origin of the Blue Raspberry flavour

Ever since about mid-2017, I discovered this flavour called blue raspberry after being handed a popsicle of said flavour, this has made me curious ever since–why are raspberry flavoured sweets produced specifically in the colour blue, and not in a shade of red, and what's the origin behind it? Goats 601 (talk) 22:59, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

We have an article Blue raspberry flavor which may help. DuncanHill (talk) 23:04, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

But what's the historical reason for the selection of the colour blue? Goats 601 (talk) 02:00, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

The blue color was used to differentiate raspberry-flavored foods from those for cherry, watermelon, and strawberry, each of which is typically red or pink. The use of blue dye is also partially due to the FDA's 1976 banning of Red Dye No. 2, which had previously been commonly used in raspberry-flavored products. Red was overexposed, so to speak, with too many flavors using that color; so when a new blue dye came along it got associated with raspberry which had been more marginal among the red/pink flavors. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:17, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I guess differentiating raspberry from blueberry was considered unimportant? HierophantOfOmens (talk) 23:48, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Who uses blueberry flavor? (I tried Trader Joe's blueberry juice once, and found it bitter.) —Antonissimo (talk) 02:50, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

In some of those old-fashioned diners where you get buttermilk pancakes (or some imitation thereof) it's standard to have two flavors of syrup on the table in jars with metal lids that you open by pressing a tab with your thumb. The flavors are usually brown corn syrup with a trace of maple flavor, and some sort of purple thing that I think they pretend is blueberry, though I suppose now that I think of it that they could be pretending it's blackberry or boysenberry. --Trovatore (talk) 03:18, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

September 24

Bridal practices

I'm reading a biography of Frances Partridge. In the section about the early years of her parents' married life, it says: As a bride, Mam had to make and receive endless calls and wear her bridal dress to dinner. ("Mam" was how Frances called her mother.)

This was referring not just to the evening of her wedding day but to a considerable period of time afterwards. But the period is left unspecified: days? weeks? months? How long does a newly-married woman remain a "bride"? I've never heard of the above-mentioned practice of wearing the bridal dress on numerous occasions after the wedding. The biographer just states this as an unremarkable detail that her readers would understand. But I don't understand it. What's the explanation? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:14, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Unlike 19th-century American bridal dresses, made as expensive and as heavy with rich and costly lace as the bride's family could afford, English bridal dresses were relatively simple, aiming more at elegance. Still, the bridal dress constituted a considerable part of the wardrobe a bride brought in. This together leads me to the theory that Mam wore her bridal dress as a matter of money-saving practicality, it being simple enough to be worn for these dinners and not really usable for other purposes.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:57, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Some traditional costumes for women display their status, for example in Japan married and single women wear different styles of kimono. Such societies would understandably disapprove of a bride reverting to her pre-marriage dress. Frances Partridge is quoted speaking of her mother Margaret Anna né Lloyd and family standing for "class distinctions courteously observed" - Gordon N. Bergquist (1982). "Essay: Love in Bloomsbury". Magill's Literary Annual. Salem Press. I find it understandable that Frances would have recorded her mother, an ardent sufragist, railing against social categorisation of women by their dress. ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 10:13, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

• The absence of any compelling explanation from my esteemed colleagues, combined with my frustratingly fruitless further forays into google and AI land, suggest to me that the practice to which the biographer alludes is unknown to history. Thanks for your contributions. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:51, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Resolved

Only just noticed this. @Lambiam: "This together leads me to the theory that Mam wore her bridal dress as a matter of money-saving practicality" - but T. H. Marshall in our article William Marshall characterises the family as "intellectually and artistically cultured and financially well-endowed". That suggests to me that 1) the dress wasn't a matter of wearing what you could for economy's sake, and 2) they weren't noticeably eccentric, which cuts out some weird familial tradition. The giving and receiving of calls after marriage would have had a fairly-well defined period, perhaps something like an Enquire Within Upon Everything would tell you (as I recall, they have instructions for the distribution of cards after moving to a neighbourhood, periods of mourning, etc).

The dress is puzzling - was there a movement for practical wedding dress that could be adapted to evening wear? A wealthy and cultured family could indulge in that without attracting too much comment, and dress reform was a fad of the times. DuncanHill (talk) 12:51, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

This from the Bowes Museum talks of dresses being re-used for formal wear, altered for pregnancy, etc. DuncanHill (talk) 12:57, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Oldest prisoner ever

Who is the oldest person to have ever been a prisoner (not necessarily while incarcerated)?

Can anyone beat this man?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21727/albert-house

106 years and almost 10 months.

Political prisoners and concentration camp victims might need to be excluded from this. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 23:08, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

What have you in mind with the parenthesis? —Antonissimo (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I mean that they were in prison while younger but then got released and lived to an extremely old age outside of prison, not in prison. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 20:47, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Probably that they also might have been briefly in prison once, like for a minor thing when they were young, and then died, after a long and productive life, at age 108, beating Bill Wallace. Obviously, the information that they had been in prison at all may not have been recorded in their obit.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:53, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

A former prisoner living almost until age 108 is very impressive. ~2026-51245-33 (talk) 20:49, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

But he was surpassed by Brij Bihari Pandey.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:00, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Polska - (Reference desk „pl.wikipedia.org” jest zamknięty, SORY!) Która z tych 2 stron internetowych jest prawdziwą Fundacją Auxilium?

Dzień dobry, przepraszam bardzo, Reference desk polskiej Wikipedii (pl.wikipedia.org) został zamknięty, czy mogę napisać po polsku, aby zapytać, czy w sprawie numeru pomocy, którego naprawdę potrzebuję, a który został mi polecony przez stronę internetową, której[numer pomocy, a nie ta strona internetowa!] adres URL kończy się /kończył się na 1815.pl, a która obecnie przekierowuje na „auxilium.pl”, czy rzeczywiście była to strona, którą mi polecono, ponieważ Wikidata przypisuje tej fundacji adres URL „https://www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl”, który należy do innej strony podającej się za Fundację Auxilium, więc zastanawiam się, która z tych dwóch stron podszywa się pod drugą? Nawet jeśli jedna z nich jest tą, do której zostaje się przekierowanym po wpisaniu „1815.pl”, nigdy nie wiadomo – nazwa domeny mogła zostać wykupiona...~2026-51580-89 (talk) 23:43, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Machine translation: Good morning, sorry, Reference desk of Polish Wikipedia (pl.wikipedia.org) has been closed, can I write in Polish to ask if about the help number I really need and which was recommended to me by the website, whose [help number, not this website!] the URL ends / ended at 1815.pl, and which currently redirects to “auxilium.pl”, was it really a website that was recommended to me, because Wikidata assigns this foundation the URL address “https://www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl”, which belongs to another website posing as the Auxilium Foundation, so I wonder which of these two pages is impersonating Even if one of them is the one to which you are redirected after entering “1815.pl”, you never know – the domain name may have been purchased... —Antonissimo (talk) 00:28, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Odwiedzając stronę auxilium.pl, trafiamy na inną stronę internetową, prowadzoną przez inną organizację, niż w przypadku www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl.

• Strona internetowa: auxilium.pl
  • Operator: Fundacja „AUXILIUM”, Tarnów, Polska (KRS 0000773804)
  • Cel działalności: pomoc osobom doświadczającym trudności lub kryzysów
• Strona internetowa: www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl
  • Operator: Fundacja Pomocy Osobom Niepełnosprawnym oraz Dzieciom i Młodzieży „AUXILIUM”, Bochnia, Polska (KRS 0000410419)
  • Cel działalności: pomoc osobom ze szczególnymi potrzebami

 ​‑‑Lambiam 06:38, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Machine translation: Visiting the auxilium.pl website leads to a different site, operated by a different organization than the one behind www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl.

Website: auxilium.pl

Operator: "AUXILIUM" Foundation, Tarnów, Poland (KRS 0000773804)

Mission: assisting individuals facing difficulties or crises

Website: www.auxilium-fundacja.org.pl

Operator: "AUXILIUM" Foundation for Assisting People with Disabilities, Children, and Youth, Bochnia, Poland (KRS 0000410419)

Mission: assisting individuals with special needs ~2026-39925-22 (talk) 09:03, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Looking for a DOS F1 quiz game

Hi everyone! A friend of mine told me that when he was a child, he had a very old 1980s computer. He had a 5.25-inch floppy disk containing a Formula 1 quiz game running in MS-DOS mode, which covered the years from 1974 up to 1988-1989, but he can't remember the title anymore. In some of the questions, the game also displayed national flags to help identify the drivers' nationalities. I haven't been able to find this game anywhere on the internet. Could you help me identify the name of this very rare DOS game? Thanks! DanielParoliere (talk) 19:56, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

There was a game that did come on 5.25 inch floppy called Gerhard Berger's Formula 1 Quiz. The problem is that it is an early 90s game and it was primarily for the Commodore 64, but there were certainly ports to MS-DOS. At that time, games tended to get ported all over. But, it clearly isn't an 80s quiz game. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 13:07, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

If the quiz covered up to 1989, having the game released in the early 90s doesn't sound crazy to me. Matt Deres (talk) 02:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

October 1

Fun Facts About the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

If John Kerry had won Ohio in 2004, he would have won the presidency—and here’s my point: is it possible that Minnesota’s mysterious “faithless” presidential elector, had Kerry won, would have correctly cast his electoral vote for Kerry? This is just my personal opinion, but the elector—probably influenced by the defeat in the November popular vote, where it was clear that Kerry had already lost the Electoral College—ended up filling out his ballot carelessly. Something he probably—who knows—wouldn’t have done had the Democratic candidate won. Could you share your thoughts on this? Thank you.

~2026-52702-80 (talk) 20:31, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

We don't do speculation, hypotheticals, counter-factuals and the like here.
(Now please welcome a bunch of people who make up their own rules as they go along.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:13, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

You rang? --Trovatore (talk) 00:46, 2 October 2026 (UTC)