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October 16

Container islands in New York East River

I don't know what words to use to get a good search for this topic. If you look at satellite images of the East River in New York, you will see multiple rectangular "islands" that look like shipping containers stacked up. The images are very low quality, so it is possible the appearance is just artifacts of image compression. Are there actually stacks of shipping containers or something of similar appearance in the East River? If so, what are they? I originally dismissed it as the satellite picking up container ships moving along the river, but many of them are in the exact same place across more than one satellite image. So, they must be stationary. An example of one is off shore from the Rose M Singer Center on Riker's Island. On Google, it looks like a stack of containers. On Bing, it lookse like a rectangular building. Neither one labels it. Another one is halfway between Soundview pier and Ferry Point Park pier. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 14:28, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A mystery! To me on the satellite photos they look like they could be barges either filled with loose material or covered in a light coloured tarp. To get a different angle, I looked for some near Google Street View coverage. There are a couple of mystery objects just east of the Bronx end of the Whitestone Bridge, and Street View coverage looking out over the East River at the south end of Robinson Avenue in Throg's Neck. Looking south on Street View, you can see what look very much like barges around the same location as the objects in the satellite photos.

As for what they're doing... Is the East River dredged regularly? That might explain them being there frequently/with long linger times, but also moving around - as a barge is filled up it moves off to deposit the fill elsewhere. 91.194.221.225 (talk) 14:54, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lokking on Bing Maps, [1] the object off Rikers Island looks like a lighter with six or seven piles of material (maybe sand or gravel) onboard. There is a much smaller circular object close by, probably a bouy. Alansplodge (talk) 16:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe those are anchor spots for barges when not in use. That would explain why they are in the same location, but appearing rather different, from two obviously different satellite passes. I didn't try a street view of the first one because I assumed there is no street view on Riker's Island. It turns out there is a "street view" from a sailboat, but the sail blocks view of the object. However, following that sailboat's path, I did see that the object between the piers is clearly a flat, red-sided barge full of containers. It is too flat to be a container ship (assuming that refers to those massive ships with hundreds of containers). Assuming these examples (and the many others I found) are anchor spots, I can start googling for official anchor spots along the East River. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:51, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A guide once pointed me at such buoys during a school excursion to the port of Rotterdam, floating in the Waalhaven. You can view them there too. They're meant to tie vessels to, to moor away from the dockside. This can be to store empty barges, to use barges as floating storage or to transship directly from one ship to another, using floating or on-board loading facilities. Traditionally, cereals are transshipped that way. A giant floating vacuum cleaner comes alongside the ocean going ship, sucks up the cereals and dumps them in a river barge for transport deeper inland. If you scroll a bit in time on Google, you can find some ships transshipping bulk goods in the Waalhaven.

There's a lot of sand extraction along the Maas and Waal rivers, where I used to live. It's collected by dredging and sometimes dumped directly into a ship. It looks quite different from the piles you see in the barges near New York. The dredged material is pumped into the cargo hold as a very wet slurry. The sand sinks to the bottom of the hold; the water flows out. There're no visible piles. The material in the pictures was dry when loaded and must have been loaded by chute or conveyor belt.

If the material in the hold isn't sensitive to weather, the cover of river barges is often left off. This saves time. The cover consists of segments of sheet metal, optionally painted, that can be moved using a small portal crane. Sometimes the segments have wheels running on tracks, so that one segment of the cover can be rolled over another. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:54, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With all the information here, I've found plenty of documentation for anchorage regulations throughout the rivers around New York and the locations where there seem to be barges are in fact official anchorages. They are not digital encoding artifacts in the satellite images. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New York (as well as other cities) used to accumulate its garbage on barges, prior to its being disposed of in landfill sites or elsewhere/otherwise; finding places to do so became problematical – see for example Mobro 4000. Such procedures may still be in operation to some extent, and such barges can remain moored in place for long periods: I have seen similar barges remain for weeks at a time in Southampton harbour, beside which I used to work (there is a large refuse incineration plant on the Western shore of the harbour). Storing refuse thusly is relatively cheap, and keeps it from causing onshore problems with vermin, smells, fires, etc. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 23:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Road signs in China

Do road signs in China also inculde place names in pinyin? At least some signs in urban areas do that, but how widespread is this? Do they use toneless pinyin as English names? --40bus (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It depends entirely on the area. Hong Kong has a lot of English signs due to the history of English rule and many English speakers still residing there. Beijing is an international city, as with any capital city. It has not only English, but other languages depending on the area of the city and who will likely be using the signs. Shainghai is a big business city with a lot of foreign residents and tourists. They adopted English and Pinyin as the alternative language for most signs. There is always an argument to remove English and Pinyin from the signs, but it doesn't progress much. If you travel away from locations with a lot of foreign residents and tourists, the chance of finding a sign in English or Pinyin drops. If you get near country borders, you will find signs with the other country's language along with Chinese for the same reason that English is found on signs where many people are expected to know English to some degree but not Chinese. 64.53.18.252 (talk) 21:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the top 20-50 cities destination signs are in characters and pinyin. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 23:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While falling asleep, I thought that this is closely related to another topic. Many languages use similar words, so it is not necessary to translate. For example, police in English is police in French, Polizia in Italian, policía in Spanish, politi in Norweegian, poliţie in Romanian, pûlis in Kurdish... etc... Because the word is so similar across languages, there is no need to translate it. When it is different, as in Russian, you will often see it translated from полиция to politsiya. But, in Chinese, there is no way that a person who does not read Chinese to mentally shuffle the phonetics of 警察 to jǐngchá to Police. There is a need to translate words to a language that most visitors will recognize enough to understand. As English has borrowed so heavily from everyone else, it is a good choice for a catch-all/sounds-alike language. My personal experience is that most countries do not translate much. Instead, they use signage that doesn't require translation. I was easily able to get by in Spain, Italy, Turkey, India, Brazil, and Panama without having any knowledge of the local language. In Norway, I was amazed that their written language is so much like English that I thought they were translating. They simply pronounce the words different. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 17

Some vehicle-related questions

In recent months, I have become interested in personal watercraft and other recreational vehicles. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about these things and I’ve found one or two areas which confuse me. I am aiming to get these matters clarified in order to ensure I have the right information necessary to make an informed decision about acquiring for myself something of this sort. I would appreciate it if you could take a look at look at these things for me.

The first point of confusion for me would appear to be pricing. My understanding of this is rather poor, and I’m making a lot of assumptions based on the prices of cars and motorcycles. What I am confused by is how high the price tags are for things such as 2-seater aeroplanes and rigid inflatable boats. The planes seem on the surface to be not that much heavier or more powerful than an average motor car, yet they have six digit prices. The boats seem to be as expensive as a family car despite being considerably lighter and less mechanically complex. Why are the prices so high, and why isn’t anyone offering these types of vehicle at a lower price? What is it about the planes that stops them from being made as cheap as a 1.5 tonne automobile? And, what is it about the RIBs that makes them have 5 digit prices despite being made of rubber and not metal?

The other thing that I’m not quite sure about is the fact that battery electric technology still hasn’t completely taken over yet as far as recreational vehicles are concerned. In particular, even in light of climate change and respiratory concerns, gasoline powered go-karts and boats are still quite common. While I understand that price and battery size are important issues at the moment, I still would have thought that the technology would be a no-brainer for such small vehicles. Why would anyone risk damaging their lungs by using a petrol go-kart on an indoor tracks? Wouldn’t that be as bad as smoking? And, why haven’t batteries completely replaced fossil fuels for vehicles, such as small boats, jet skis, motorcycles, quad bikes, and snowmobiles? Why do people still support climate-destroying engines when battery-electric alternatives are possible with today’s technology? This is especially strange, when it would be easy to do battery swaps to deal with charging times.

I hope I can have some light shed on these mysteries. Then, I can make a more informed choice and be less confused. Thank you. Pablothepenguin (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Price: There are several major factors in the cost of producing a factory-made vehicle (or any other manufactured item).

One is the cost of designing it, including the (often considerable) costs of demonstrating to the relevant regulating bodies that it will be (and continues to be) safe. This is a fixed cost, the same if you then go on to make one hundred or one million of the vehicle.

A second is the cost of making the factory that will make the vehicle. This is also largely fixed.

A third is the labour costs of paying the people who make the vehicle, manage the factory, etc. This generally increases with time (because wages usually increase), and obviously has a lower bound.

A fourth is the cost of the materials and components. This is variable, because the more you make the bigger discount you will be able to negotiate on bulk purchase, but it has a lower bound.

(There are other costs, such as marketing, after-sales service and spares manufacture, etc., but let's ignore those for the moment.)

The first two costs have to be recovered by spreading them over the price of all the vehicles sold, over and above the third and fourth which are inherent in producing each vehicle. This means that the more vehicles that are sold, the less that each individual vehicle's price will have to cover those upfront costs (which may have been paid for by investment or borrowing, which generate dividend or interest costs that also have to be covered).

'Average motor cars' are typically made (often in already-established factories that can easily switch to new designs) and sold in hundreds of thousands per model, so the first two costs are spread very thinly.

Vehicles such as recreational aeroplanes and boats are sold in much smaller numbers, so the upfront costs to be recovered are much higher per individual vehicle.

This is a very crude and non-comprehensive outline, based on my experience of working in both retail and manufacturing environments. No doubt an expert can give a far better one. I have some thoughts on battery power, but I'll leave that for others. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 03:45, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Today's popular consumer cars are manufactured in assembly lines in a continuous process using highly automated processes. At the rate in which they are produced, the automation results in considerable savings on the production costs. The rate of production of 2-seater aeroplanes or rigid inflatable boats of any brand is far lower, not justifying a comparable investment in automation. --Lambiam 05:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another factor is that aircraft manufacture and component parts are subject to a far stricter regime of quality control. [2] Alansplodge (talk) 09:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know why 60 year old Cessna aeroplanes are still super expensive. Surely oldness = cheapness, right? Pablothepenguin (talk) 11:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, can anyone explain why a rubber boat comes in at a five figure price? Why can’t such things be cheaper than metal vehicles? Pablothepenguin (talk) 11:39, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note that a Rigid inflatable boat is not inflatable except for the sides. I too am somewhat puzzled by the steep price. Leaving material costs out of it, there are some mysterious market forces at work. Old leisure boats, typically small cabin cruisers, are frequently abandoned and left to rot, yet those offered for resale are typically in relatively good condition and still offered at relatively high prices. I suppose the main cause of the high price is that people looking to buy boats have money, and want good quality. On the positive side, this means there is no RIB market for lemons. Card Zero (talk) 14:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Any/one know anything about the aforementioned 60-year-old planes or RIBs? Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:51, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Size of production run has already been covered.

The engine size may appear to be similar for cars compared to boats or aeroplanes, but there's one difference. Car engines only run at maximum power for a few seconds a time when accelerating or a few minutes when climbing a steep hill at high speed – but most steep roads are to sinuous for high speeds. So car engines are only designed to run at peak power for a short time. Engines of boats and aeroplanes run close to peak power almost all the time. Worse, they have to be more reliable. If a car engine breaks down, you simply coast to a stop; if the same happens in an aeroplane, you have to find a suitable landing spot very nearby or you crash. The engines of racing cars do run at full power all the time; maybe you've noticed how often one breaks down during a race.

As for making them battery-electric, some are. Slow recreational boats have been electric for decades. The sporty ones however need such a high power-to-mass ratio that battery power would only last a very short time, maybe half an hour. For an aeroplane, half an hour is about the limit now and it won't be sporty at all. Go-karts can certainly be made battery-electric or on overhead power (think bumper cars), but some users seem to like the noise and smell. Battery swapping could work, but battery designs must then be standardised and demand high enough, or charged batteries will be waiting for ages before a user comes to pick them up. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:48, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And yet an electric car can last for over 200 miles. Explain that? Pablothepenguin (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bearing in mind that said cars are much heavier, maybe 2 tonnes, than any boat or go-kart, therefore they take a lot more energy to move and still too 200 miles on a full charge. Explain that? Pablothepenguin (talk) 11:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First, an electric car may carry several hundred kilogrammes of batteries. It's a significant fraction of the loaded vehicle weight and you can't increase that fraction much on other vehicles. And for vehicles lighter compared to the person using it, you'll get less battery compared to loaded weight, therefore less battery compared to energy use (weight is often a decent proxy for energy use), therefore less range. Electric cars only get their decent range at that speed by being heavy compared to their payload (which in turn makes them inefficient).

Second, a car on a motorway only uses about 10 kW of power, something like 50 watts per kilogramme of battery you can put in. The engine is more powerful, but you rarely use it at full power. Our article on Jet Skis mentions that the 2017 model has a 120 kW engine and weighs 250 kg; maybe you could put a 50 kg battery in one of those. As it actually runs close to full power most of the time, that's 2400 watts per kilogramme of battery. The battery will be drained in five minutes. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:07, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[Edit conflict] Much of that weight is the battery itself, and a car does not have to either float, or remain airborne. As yet, battery technology has not yet been developed to routinely combine very large energy storage and low weight, safely: storing a large amount of energy in a small space is always a potential bomb or conflagration. Cutting-edge experimentation (for example in the form of Formula E racing cars and MotoE bikes) is ongoing, and has shown rapid progress year by year. As for why various recreational vehicles in electric form have not caught on – it boils down to lack of public demand; manufacturers would offer such vehicles if there was sufficient demand to make them profitable. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 18:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I still don’t understand why a 250kg vehicle needs a more “powerful” engine than a 2 tonne vehicle. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Could someone explain the physics behind this? Surely there is no doubt to the fact that 2 tonnes takes 8 times as much energy to move as only 250 kg? So why the discrepancy? I mean, if we have the technology to power a 2 tonne vehicle for 200 miles, then why can’t we do the same with a vehicle one eighth of the weight? I struggle to understand the physics of this and it’s messing with my head.

Also, why are people not faking climate change more seriously? Shouldn’t they prioritise cutting gasoline out of their lives as soon as possible? Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:41, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. Faking seriously? That's an unfortunate typo. But anyway a jet ski, or a RIB for that matter, is for zooming around, bouncing giddily over the waves. It not only has to go fast, it has to go fast in water, overcoming friction by planing. "To plane, especially to initiate planing, the power-to-weight ratio must be high". This kind of hedonism is not typically associated with environmentalism, although I see an image of an electric jet ski, or "electric personal watercraft", positioned opposite Electric_boat#Efficiency. It has an external link and looks suspiciously like an advert, you may want to check that out before I get round to removing it as promotional. Card Zero (talk) 20:46, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I still don’t understand the physics here. You still can’t deny the fact that a 2 tonne vehicle requires eight times as much energy to move as a 250kg vehicle. So, why the big difference in engine power? Surely it is impossible to deny what you can physically see with these numbers. If we can get a 2 tonne vehicle to travel 200 miles on battery power, then what is stopping us from doing the same with a 250kg vehicle? It should only require one eighth of the energy. Pablothepenguin (talk) 00:59, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no friction, then any tiny force F will move them both the same distance. If we want them to cover the same distance in the same time, a = F/m, so yes, it takes 8 times more. But you should pay attention to the missing f (friction), of which there are many kinds. The watercraft needs more power because it pushes through water. Outboard_motor#Portable says that a 15hp motor (about equivalent to four 50cc scooters) can only move a small dinghy at less than 10 mph. Card Zero (talk) 03:14, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's quite a big difference between land vehicles and water vehicles. At low speed, a land vehicle mostly suffers from rolling resistance and friction in the drivetrain. This is more or less proportional to weight and independent of speed. A boat mostly suffers from skin drag and wave-making resistance, increasing more or less linearly with speed. As the resistance of the boat has no constant term, it's at low speed much less than that of a land vehicle. That's why freight ships are so efficient.

At high speed this changes. For land vehicles, air drag becomes dominant, roughly increasing with the square of velocity. The speed where this becomes dominant depends on the vehicle, maybe 20 km/h for a bicycle and 70 km/h for some cars. For a boat, the critical point is the hull speed, which depends on the size of the boat. For a kayak it's around 8 km/h, for a big container ship 80 km/h. Once you reach the hull speed, drag increases enormously. For a planing hull it's not as bad as for a displacement hull, but it's still bad. That's why fast boats are such an inefficient way of moving things around. Jet Skis and rigid inflatable boats are designed to work well above their (rather low, because they're small) hull speed, so their drag is huge.

For aeroplanes, drag is proportional to weight and practically independent of speed. If you want to go faster, you go higher, keeping lift and drag constant. The lower density of the air compensates for the higher speed in the drag equation. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, that seems reasonable. Now I want to know more about my first question. For instance, why is a 60 year old plane still expensive? Also, how do price drops work in the first place?

Also, why are petrol go-karts still a thing? Can’t we get rid of them and use batteries instead? Pablothepenguin (talk) 17:33, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Especially in the US, many people believe that climate change is either a hoax or a natural phenomenon unrelated to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Apart from that, the price is an issue. I think gasoline-powered go-karts are substantially cheaper than electric ones. The go-karts rented in competitive racing events organized by commercial go-kart track operators need all to be the same type, so switching to an all-electric fleet is a very costly proposition. Also, gas-powered karts produce a more satisfying vroom-vroom noise (satisfying to the driver). --Lambiam 06:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On aircraft pricing, this source [3] lists pre-owned aircraft for less than $100,000. However, I would hate to be flying in one and need repairs ... DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That still sounds like a lot. Why are 60 year old planes still that expensive? I’ve seen brand new cars that cost less than that? Pablothepenguin (talk) 21:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because (a) they're rare, and (b) old things have appeal beyond their utility – see for example Antique.

With reference to your earlier queries, see Electric boat. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 05:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the planes, a 60 year old aircraft isn't that old overall. For example, components like the engine need to be overhauled/rebuild/replaced regularly (every 2000 hours). Every component that is replaced needs to be certified, which also drives up the cost. This ties in with the earlier mentions: if your car engine fails, you call for a tow truck, if your plane fails, your family calls for an obituary.

An earlier post mentioned that aircraft engines always run at full power, but this is not necessarily true. they need a lot of power for take-off, to get enough speed for the wings to work. After that, engine power can be a lot less.

for boats, they live in a lot more corrosive environment and need proper maintenance to keep working (usually way more than road vehicles), driving up the price. Regarding the engine power, realize that the resistance is based on a friction factor times the density. Apart from that, the free surface drag is a major component, which scales with the root of the length of the craft (see Froude number). Small displacement hull ships are very inefficient.

Regarding the batteries, the power density of a battery is an order of magnitude smaller than that of gasoline. I can drive 600 km on my 35 liter tank, but an electrical version has a battery of ~200kg, and reaches only 200km Rmvandijk (talk) 10:45, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's basic economics: supply and demand, whatever the market will bear. If you offer an object for 1,000 dollars and nobody buys it, you can either keep it or reduce the price until it sells. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To return to the electric aircraft question, Wikipedia has (of course) an article called electric aircraft. Most commercially available examples are motor gliders, such as the Lange Antares and Pipistrel Taurus, although a few are proper light aircraft, the Pipistrel Velis Electro for example. A number of passenger aircraft are in the pipeline, the 10-seat Scylax E10 being perhaps the nearest to actual service. Alansplodge (talk) 13:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 20

Average time for inauguration

I stopped editing about topics surrounding the President-elect of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto for a bit. What is exactly the time for the inauguration ceremony? Ahri Boy (talk) 04:04, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did not readily find the time schedule for the ceremony. But, curiously, this article, "Indonesia swears in Prabowo Subianto as the country’s eighth president", was posted "Oct 19, 2024 / 11:04 PM CDT". Since CDT is UTC−05:00, it was posted the very same minute you posted the question. --Lambiam 05:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 24

Founding members of CARE International, 27 November 1945

Which 22 organisations including Salvation Army founded CARE International in 1945?

Kind regards Sarcelles (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Go to this page in the Yale Library Digital Collections, and download the PDF. On page 9 there is a list of 26 CARE member agencies, though the SA is not listed. The PDF includes Kissinger-related documents dated 1946-47, so the list is likely to be of a similar date. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 19:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also see that Wallace Campbell wrote The History of Care: A Personal Account in 1990. Unfortunately, the Archive.org copy cannot be borrowed. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 19:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another book with, unfortunately, only a snippet view: Stanford Cazier (1964). CARE: A Study in Cooperative Voluntary Relief, Volume 1.^[4] --Lambiam 19:28, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When and where were drawers invented?

Looking at old furniture today, I wondered when drawers were first made. I looked at our article drawer, and disappointingly it has absolutely nothing about their history. Furniture has a "History" section, but the word "drawer" does not occur in that section.

When I went looking outside Wikipedia, it only wanted to tell me about "chests of drawers", and this, for example, tells me that " it was not until the late 17th century that the use of drawers in chests emerged": it is not clear whether it is saying that drawers were a new invention, or already existed in some other kind of furniture.

It occurred to me to look at desks, and I found Bargueño desk, which says that these were first produced in the 15th century (but does not explicitly say that these first ones contained drawers, though typical ones certainly do).

Ancient furniture led me to tansu, several types of which from the Edo period are described with drawers - but that is hardly "ancient".

I'm sure somebody can find better sources that will help pin it down. ColinFine (talk) 21:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This source traces proper sliding drawers to mid 17th century chests ("coffers") that open with a hinged lid on top and have a drawer for additional storage beneath. This evolved into a "chest of drawers". Additionally (from what I could find: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)* the "drawers" in 15th century Bargueño desks are what are considered precursors to proper drawers; being small pull-out storage boxes for papers and small objects. --136.56.165.118 (talk) 02:47, 25 October 2024 (UTC) . . . *P.s: these references might be derived from a common unspecified source.[reply]

EO dates the term to the 1570s.[5] And note that "drawers", as in underwear, dates to about the same time, and for similar reason, a literal use of "draw" as a verb. (Presumably they could keep their drawers in the drawers.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And, of course, drawers could make sketches of their drawers in the drawers. 136.56.165.118 (talk) 05:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The OED puts it slightly earlier, with a quotation "bryng hym a litle booke..: which was in a certaine boxe or drawer." from 1565. I didn't think of looking in a dictionary.

This significantly predates what all the sources 136.56 cites - but perhaps it has the meaning that the IP suggests for Bargueño desks ColinFine (talk) 12:59, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In French, according to the source cited in wikt:tiroir, we find "1530 tirouer « petite caisse emboîtée dans un meuble et qui peut se tirer", which is earlier still. Again, if the distinction 136.56 makes is valid, this could mean the earlier sense. ColinFine (talk) 13:04, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ColinFine: HTH:

In the mid-1600s, a notable change occurred [in the evolution of chests] with the addition of drawers.
— https://www.penderynantiques.co.uk/the-history-of-the-chest-of-drawer/

--CiaPan (talk) 14:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS. But that, again, tells about adding drawers to chests, which apparently is a moment of application, not an invention. --CiaPan (talk

Here's a Game of Twenty Squares box from the tomb of Tutankhamun, with a drawer to hold the pieces. His tomb also had some caskets, cabinets, whatever you want to call them, with knobs on the front as if for a drawer, but I can't find pictures of how they open so they might just be chests with a hand grip on the front. There are a couple of similar (and probably older) drawered game boxes in the article on senet. Card Zero (talk) 22:47, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, from Howard Carter's notes (Tutankhamun's tomb inventory): 585. A wooden chest. of solid make; having many compartments and sliding drawers for knick-knacks. Size 65x33x27 high --136.56.165.118 (talk) 02:17, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think Carter's units are cm (as used further down the page), so that's under 1 foot high. I suppose all his knick-knack boxes were kept on shelves and tables. Card Zero (talk) 03:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pushing it back about another 500 years, I found this cosmetics box. It is not freestanding furniture, which is another matter. This article from Singapore about drawers says "The use of drawers in Western furniture came no later than in China; it might even have been earlier. Foreigners also like to boast that drawers originated in ancient Greece — at least they appeared widely in Gothic-style furniture during the Middle Ages." I don't think any of that's true, apart from the unexpected admission that something wasn't invented in China. This dressoir from before 1500 has drawers: image #18 here shows a closeup of one in the open position. Mind you I see the Louvre is labelling it "1500/1900", perhaps they doubt its authenticity. Card Zero (talk) 02:37, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I find it plausible that the drawer was invented multiple times independently in civilizations once the arts of woodworking and furniture making were sufficiently developed. Almost all early specimens will not have survived the centuries. --Lambiam 19:02, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 25

Apology

Hi all on the Ref Desks. I've been under a lot of strain AFK recently, and a WP:Wikibreak should have been in order. Many of my posts over the last month or so have been unhelpful, short-tempered, dismissive or otherwise fatuous. I'd like to say sorry to anyone I might have have offended in any way. Please press Ctrl-Alt-Del. MinorProphet (talk) 17:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hang in there. It gets better. Sometimes it helps to talk about what's bothering you, so reach out. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 18:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't noticed! I thought you were very comprehensive with Vchimpanzee's tech support problems recently. Card Zero (talk) 23:17, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I too did not notice anything problematic in your responses. Some questions or reactions irk me too. For your peace of mind, just ignore these and focus on the many questions where you can be really helpful. --Lambiam 18:47, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your answers regarding the Culture series in the past. They were very helpful. Viriditas (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 26

Serendipity through error, cuisine edition

This has been discussed close to death, but it keeps coming up in so many different ways that I wanted to ask a question about cuisine. We are all aware at this point about the role errors and mistakes play in scientific discovery and elsewhere. I have only just recently become aware of how this also plays a significant role in new cuisine. Does anyone have a list of dishes that are said to have been created through error? I am reminded of toasted ravioli, but not much else. The reason I'm bringing this up is because the bakery at my local grocery store messes up a batch of bread once a month or so and then puts that batch on sale to get rid of them, except they never once got around to tasting them and realizing how great they are. They are very crunchy, very dense, and similar to the kind of old world Italian sandwich bread local delis used to have in American cities which are all but gone now. Which got me to thinking, there's probably a huge list of foods that were created by mistake, and we don't have an article on them. Viriditas (talk) 20:52, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ChatGPT seems to indicate that most foods were created by mistake. It lists the following as an answer to my question:

Chocolate chip cookie, accidentally created by Ruth Wakefield
Potato chips, accidentally created by George Crum
Popsicle, accidentally created by Frank Epperson
Coca-Cola, accidentally created by John Pemberton
Tarte Tatin, accidentally created by the Tatin sisters
Corn Flakes, accidentally created by John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will
Worcestershire sauce, accidentally created by John Lea and William Perrins
Ice cream cone, accidentally created by a waffle vendor
Beer, accidentally discovered in a fermented grain store
Cheese, accidentally discovered in curdled milk in the presence of rennet
Slurpee, accidentally created by Omar Knedlik
Nachos, accidentally created by Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya
Champagne, accidentally discovered when wine re-fermented

Does this mean such a list would be useless? Viriditas (talk) 21:19, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with such a list could be "completeness". One way around that would be to create a category instead of an article. Then things could easily be added to it as they're encountered. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:27, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem would be accuracy. Simply checking the linked article on Potato chips shows that recipes had been published decades before the supposed George Crum 'invention' (making it at best a re-invention). Beer was being made least 13,000 years ago, and we cannot possibly know how it was first 'discovered'. The list appears to be merely of stories circulating on the Internet – ChatGPT is not reliable. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 12:19, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What would you name the category? Viriditas (talk) 21:33, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe "accidental inventions". I expect Silly Putty would be another entry. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There could be a parent category "serendipity" for accidental discoveries - but isn't that every discovery? Some are more accidental than others. Well, at least, there could be a subcategory for food, where happy accidents abound (perhaps because accidents in general abound). "Accidental culinary inventions" I guess. Card Zero (talk) 01:12, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not clear who should be credited with the discovery of Neptune – Johann Gottfried Galle, Urbain Le Verrier, both? – but in no way, regardless of the answer, was the discovery accidental. They knew precisely what they were looking for, and that was what they found. --Lambiam 09:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The popular Serbian dish Karađorđeva šnicla was an improvised chicken kiev without the right ingredients. Card Zero (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One version of how the Cobb salad was invented indicates it was improvised, if not exactly accidental. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The cheese and vinegar in it were originally accidents too, this gets recursive. Card Zero (talk) 03:03, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the event that anyone is interested in the bread I’m talking about, it’s a failed focaccia al rosmarino. I don’t know exactly what went wrong, but it failed to rise and looks like a flattened pizza, except it’s just thick enough to carefully cut into with a knife and stuff sandwich fixings inside. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten, and it’s about as wide as a smartphone but twice as long. Sandwich heaven. Viriditas (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a generic term "flatbread". Focaccia is already in this category, so your serendipitously flattened focaccia should belong there even more strongly. Many are not crisp, but some are. --Lambiam 15:33, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Including Matzah. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:45, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m aware, but this wasn’t flatbread and it wasn’t focaccia, it was something new and was considered a defective product. It was like a very dense, crispy focaccia. Like I said, this isn’t a product on the market. It’s not something you can go out and buy. It terms of taste, it was quite the hybrid. It tastes like a bagel, looks like focaccia, has the feel of flatbread, but has a crisp, cracker-like exterior. Thinking about it further, I think Lambiam is probably right; this should be considered as a kind of flatbread, but there's really nothing like it. Bagel-like dough, focaccia-like taste, but cracker-like mouth feel. Viriditas (talk) 19:37, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to try and talk to the baker tomorrow, but here's what I think happened. They were making bagels and focaccia in separate pans. Something happened, maybe they have a new hire, I don't know, and they accidentally baked a focaccia bagel. No hole, but long, narrow, and wide enough to fit a knife in and cut it open to pack sandwich ingredients inside. Closed on both ends, crispy on top and bottom, soft on the inside. I'm aware there are bagel-like focaccia recipes, but this is much denser and thinner than focaccia. Viriditas (talk) 20:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I feel rather pedantic about the use of the word "accident" here. As an example, Pemberton purposely experimented with several igredients to make a non-opioid pain reliever. Among the ingredients were cola nut and damiana. Eventually, he mixed those and got a flavor he liked. Saying this was an accident implies that he was trying to do one thing, such as make a lubricant for a sewing machine, and acturally produced a pain reliever drink. In reality, he intended to make the drink and eventually stumbled across one that he liked. I do not see that as an "accident." 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Viriditas (talk) 16:36, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 28

Social choice theory paradox

How is it called when the more people are involved in decision-making, the more subjective and biased (rather than well-thought) such a decision becomes? (Suggesting that for a better decision, it should be made either by one person or by a narrow circle of people, technically implying an authoritarian approach). I guess it's somewhat similar to Arrow's impossibility theorem, but not sure. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did not find mentions of the alleged counterintuituive effect of crowd size negatively impacting decision quality. Instead, I see such claims as, "We found that increasing the crowd size improves the quality of the outcome. This improvement is quite large at the beginning and gradually decreases with larger crowd sizes."^[6] Since the cost or effort of determining the crowd decision increases with crowd size and the rate of increase will hardly go down with increasing crowd size, in any given situation there will be an optimal size beyond which the limited gain in outcome quality does not justify the cost increase.

It is established wisdom, experimentally verified, that social influence can have a negative effect on the wisdom of the crowd,^[7] but this effect is not specifically related to crowd size. --Lambiam 10:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Choice overload" and "overchoice" were common terms about 30 years ago. I do not know how common they are now. A phrase most people understand that means the same thing is "design by committee". Then, there are many old phrases that refer to the same phenomenon, such as "too many witches spoil the brew." There are many related observations, such as the observation that the intelligence of a crowd is equivalent to the dumbest person in the crowd (which I've heard is actually translated from a Polish phrase used to describe how Hitler's speaches to large crowds were accepted so well). In opposition, there is wisdom of the crowd, which can be confused. You are asking about decisions being made by a crowd. The wisdom of the crowd asks for a specific answer to a question, such as "What is the total number of potatoes that are turned into French Fries every day?" Nobody is likely to know, but everyone will guess. Half will guess too high. Half will guess too low. If you average it all together, you get an answer that tends to be accurate. But, as mentioned, that is entirely different than getting a crowd to decide what font to use for a business presentation. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 16:20, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Old phrases are not reliable sources for the existence of the alleged effect. The so-called jury theorems apply to crowd-based decision making in general, not just to estimating the value of a scalar quantity. --Lambiam 17:04, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam, taking your first finding we must assume that the premices of the inquiry (inquiries) were reasonably prepared, that the question(s) attracted the attention of a lost of the available experts aware of the related problematics, that only in the end the curious and the bystanders started joining the crowd. That specific claim they made was indeed about data collection campaigns among a preselected population of experts (your link ). Subjectivity and bias maybe would be about dealing with politics, social matters rather than technical matters. Which does not mean that the reduced comitee necessarily starts on healthy premices, that's for sure, only that the individual members of it may stand more under a possible public scrutiny than when they're and after a while lost amongst the crowd. --Askedonty (talk) 21:39, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The crowdworkers in the experimental setup of the paper were not selected on being experts; the experimenters had no control over the level of expertise of people signing up for the task. Discussing the problem of discrepancies between the reference data and ground truth, the authors of the paper even write, explicitly, "Even if we would replace the crowdworkers with experts, this problem would not be completely solved." Given their evaluation method, also no distinction was made between early and late signers-up. I see no argument why we "must assume" any of what you claim.

All of this is hardly relevant to the original question. Can you find any papers discussing a negative effect of crowd size on outcome quality? --Lambiam 07:29, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We had several examples here on Wiki where many editors voting on a particular proposal created a mess and the discussion became sidetracked, ultimately being closed as inconclusive. Don't know about academic papers, but it appears that in some cases the involvement of a greater number of decision-makers shifts the potential well-thought outcome towards inconclusive and biased as the probability of inexperienced and hotheaded people rises. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 08:53, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In most academic studies, the premise is that individuals first reach their decisions independently, whereupon a fixed algorithm consolidates these many decisions into a single crowd decision. If there is a preceding open discussion, there can be many confounding factors. Some people know how to sound authoritative and persuasive while they actually know next to nothing of the subject matter. Others may sidetrack the discussion by raising issues that, however important by themselves, are not relevant for the issue at hand. People may argue that A because of B, after which discussion may focus on the validity of B, although it has little bearing on the validity of A and refuting B does not tell us anything about A. See also FUD.

Reaching a decision through voting in which there are several alternatives, some of which are mere variants of each other (A1, A2, B1, B2a, B2b, B2c(i), B2c(ii), ...), it makes a tremendous difference how the voting is arranged and which voting system is used. Bad arrangements and systems can lead to outcomes no one wanted. This problem is well known, but independent of crowd size or pre-vote discussions. Without studying the examples you have in mind I can't tell which of these issues made it a mess, but I doubt that the number of voters was by itself a major cause. A greater number of decision makers means that the probability of having experienced, levelheaded and smart people aboard also rises. I see no clear reason why this should have a less powerful effect than the increase in know-nothings and firebrands.

We do not need more anecdotal evidence. I still have seen no references of any kind to papers discussing a negative effect of increased crowd size on outcome quality. --Lambiam 10:34, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, but what we need is to more explicitly define what we're talking about. Studies are formatted to give a standard ranking, individual, decision-making group, wisdom of crowds. Samples here assorted with two crucial dates, 1904 and 1907. You can't count the public to not wonder whether the concept is not somehow flawed given the events posterior to that era. Then you'll have the (U.S. gov) Library of Medicine, and they do leave it there may exist other corridors behind some doors: "... group decision-making was not better than the wisdom of crowds, showing inconsistency with the results of Navajas et al. (2018)." They agree that parametrization of the sudies do play some role: "This inconsistency in result occurs because of no difference found in creativity and utilization of resources between group decision-making and the wisdom of crowds in complex information integration", "because confidence cannot accurately predict correct answers", "weighting confidence would lead to worse rank aggregation". The landscape left behind should not be so arid that the people wonder whether the scientists simply were reluctant to jeopardize their position (mustard gas, you know all that trenches stuff etc.) --Askedonty (talk) 12:50, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One may hope that reports on studies examining the effect of crowd size on outcome quality define the assumptions, the procedure and the quality measure. We do not have to decide that for them here. There are actually many such papers and even whole books, which use different definitions and methods. What we are still missing is references to studies that support the allegation of the OP. --Lambiam 14:42, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 30