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November 1

Noodles

And by the way, why are glass noodles so much more calorific than their egg counterparts? (running at about 350 cals/100g compared to 150 cals,) Bon appetit. SerialNumber54129 13:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is this cooked or uncooked? The USDA's FoodData Central database gives

351 kcal / 100 g for "Noodles, chinese, cellophane or long rice (mung beans), dehydrated"^[1] and
384 kcal / 100 g for "Noodles, egg, dry, unenriched"^[2] and
138 kcal / 100 g for "Noodles, egg, unenriched, cooked, without added salt".^[3]

--Lambiam 19:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: cooked, I think. SerialNumber54129 20:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since cellophane noodles also increase substantially in weight by cooking, I suspect that your date are for uncooked cellophane noodles. The data I find on the web for cooked cellophane noodles are all over the place. --Lambiam 21:09, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's why google and other search engines were invented. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:25, 2 November 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Tio be fair, my question was why calorifically one != the other. It's not that important: a good dollop of bean paste mixed in with a bowlful is food of the gods :) SerialNumber54129 12:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 2

New York presidential electors

Hello. The state of New York, joins the other states that punish faithless electors, with a special law. However, I can't understand one thing: presidential electors, (this year there will be 28), cast their pro-forma vote on a ballot, with the candidates' names already written on the same ballot, and so they don't have to do anything else; to cast their vote, they simply have to put it in a ballot box. But if so, since they cannot change their vote, what is the point of binding the presidential electors themselves? Unless the ballot changes: we shall see. Thank you. 93.150.80.20 (talk) 14:37, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That they don't have to do anything else does not imply they can't do anything else. They could scratch out the written names and write in other names before putting the ballot they were handed in the ballot box. Or they might come in prepared with an alternative ballot in hand and put that one in the ballot box. --Lambiam 19:53, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They could also refuse to sign. Because so many states are pre-printing the ballots, it is easier to wait until the last moment and refuse to sign than to try and trick the system with a different vote. So, the point of binding the electors is to make sure you have people who will not make a spectacle of the process at the last moment unless they agree to the punishment for doing do. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 12:31, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Font to ID

I'm trying my hand at learning vector drawing and I figured I would try cleaning up some WP images that need vectorization. Does anyone know what font is being used in the image here? The user that initially uploaded it is no longer active. Thanks! Matt Deres (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. It's Impact. Matt Deres (talk) 22:40, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sweet sweet anachronism —Tamfang (talk) 01:23, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding notable topic choosing

What is a good notable topic? Everything has already been written about. NoBrainFound (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given that determining notability is a major (and initial) part of the work of creating an article, it is unlikely that many people have spent time finding notable subjects and then not gone on to create the article.

Requested articles is a place where people have made suggestions; but in most cases they have done nothing to determine whether the subject is notable.

Your question takes me back to nearly twenty years ago, when I was a new editor, and desperately looking for a topic that I could write an article about to "make my mark" on Wikipedia. Since then I have learnt that creating articles is not the only way to improve Wikipedia. We have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of seriously deficient articles that are crying out for keen editors to improve them (or in some cases, nominate them for deletion). For some strange reason, not many editors seem to want to spend their time in this way (and I don't much, either: I mostly spend my Wikipedia time on the help and reference desks, helping other editors). ColinFine (talk) 23:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments." Frontinus (c. 40–103 AD)

"In this field [physics], almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." Philipp von Jolly, 1878. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:59, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, Frontinus' words are discussed here and translated very differently: "Having set aside siegeworks and siege engines, because their discovery was completed long ago (so I attend no further to any material from those arts)...". --Antiquary (talk) 08:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know the level at which you can contribute, but there are many notable topics on which we do not have an article. One example is pseudospin, a concept used in the description of the quantum state of two-level systems. One readable treatment can be found here; a different approach to introducing the concept can be seen here. It would probably be best to start with a relatively simple stub article. We already have an article on the Bloch sphere and a redirect from Bloch vector to that article. --Lambiam 08:41, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are many chemical compounds that don't have an article. Even simple salts are missing. Take a table. Insert cations. (Quarternary ammonium cations are infinite). Take another table. Insert anions. (Carboxylic acid anions are infinite). Combine an anion with a cation. For every pair check if article exists. If yes take another pair. If an article doesn't exist look for literature. If literature exists write article. If literature doesn't exist search for some chemist who is willing to synthesize the salts and publish literature about it. Then take that literature and write an article about it. 176.4.186.61 (talk) 12:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 3

Official website of Sumiton, Alabama

What is the official website of Sumiton, Alabama? The domain thecityofsumiton.com has been usurped, and I am unsure if thecityofsumiton.org is the new official site. Cherry Cotton Candy (talk) 09:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Psychology

Which of the Big Five personality traits is the most closely correlated with self-confidence? Camph26 (talk) 13:38, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

People who score high on neuroticism are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and can perceive minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. This is negatively correlated with self-confidence. In fact, here the neuroticism trait is called "a measure of a person's emotional stability and self-confidence". --Lambiam 13:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article may be useful: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4834661/ Stanleykswong (talk) 16:48, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Inheriting our looks

Another Wikipedian famously posted images of their son and daughter. Their son looks exactly like them and their daughter looks exactly like their wife. However, this isn't true at all with my relatives. All joking aside, why do some children end up looking exactly like their parents while others do not? In my family, for example, we all, both on my mother's and my father's side, take after our grandfathers, great-grandfathers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, not our immediate parents. This also goes for my first cousins, who do not look like their parents but their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Any ideas? And yes, I've had genetic testing done, and my parents are my parents. :-) Viriditas (talk) 23:40, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pure chance. An individual's more striking facial features are largely determined by a limited number of genes. Biological inheritance is a complicated subject, but the expected distribution of specific gene combinations can reasonably be assumed to be governed by Mendelian inheritance. Every now and then the random gene shuffles in combination with such phenomena as dominance will produce offspring looking much more like one parent than the other, or more like an ancestor of an earlier generation. --Lambiam 05:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Surely someone has studied the "Mini-Me" phenomenon, where a parent produces offspring that looks somewhat identical to themselves? Viriditas (talk) 09:14, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just had a very similar conversation with a reference person and he showed me multiple studies. It turned out that soft tissue is based on a very small set of genes and human facial recognition is biased by soft tissue structures, mainly the nose and ears. That is why when you look at a family, you notice that they all pretty much have the same nose and ears. It is also why there is the affect that people from a different countries tend to look alike, because your brain is simply telling you that their noses and ears look different and they all get clumped together. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Then there is the issue that in mate selection there is a preferential tendency for mates whose faces appear similar to one's own face.^[4] This increases the likelihood of spitting-image offspring. --Lambiam 15:23, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be that in reality the children look like their grandparents and so on, and the parents look like their grandparents, two lines hopping each other. And only coincidentally both lines looking alike? Can you think of a way to distinguish this case? 176.4.186.61 (talk) 12:09, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 6

Fake vote

Hi, I am reposting my request with the hope of better luck. Now, with the understanding that the thing itself is worthless as obvious, the image in the link depicts fake Arizona electors casting their “votes” on a fake ballot for Trump in 2020. If you look at the image, I even tried to enlarge it but couldn't understand much, how were these “electors” casting this fake vote? The ballot seems drawn in such a way that maybe they had to put their signatures on it, but you can't see much. It's just a little curiosity, but I want to take it off anyway. Thank you. https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2022/01/22/how-arizonas-trump-electors-planned-deliver-him-victory/6604574001/ 93.147.230.249 (talk) 17:30, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your link is behind a paywall, so it is not accessible. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:16, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Page 353 of the final report of the January 6 Select Committee contains an image of the true and the fake Arizona ballots, side by side. It can also be seen, with a lower resolution, here. --Lambiam 07:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 7

Vote-counting mode

Hi. Ballots are counted by scanners in a central counting station, along with postal ballots. If there is this general counting mode, why can the machines (again optical scanners) placed in polling stations with closed ballot boxes, since they are configured to do so, also print the results, before the ballots can be transported to the counting center? If then the central count and precicnt count do not match? Thank you very much. 93.147.230.249 (talk) 13:01, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your question does not make sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:39, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You need to specify exactly which voting location you are referring to. There are many wildly different methods of voting across the United States. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:20, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Let's take Miami-Dade County. This county uses ballot-counting machines (optical scanners), which print the results on a paper ribbon once the polls are closed. After counting at the precinct level, the ballots are equally transported and counted in a central facility?

I’ve been an official poll watcher, a few years ago. I got to stay and watch the ballots be counted at the polling place immediately after voting was done. We had witnessed that the ballot boxes were empty before voting started, that only ballots properly given to registered voters for that precinct went into the box, and that the number of ballots at the end of the day equaled the correct number. The ballots went through tabulating machine and the totals were printed out, with a copy for each party, for the reporters who stopped by and for the city clerk. Printout and ballots were turned in. Local counting and multiple copies would have made it evident if ballots had been altered or replaced. Today we can select electronic voting or a paper ballot. With electronic voting, a paper ballot is printed when done, and the voter oks it if it reflects his choices. Again the votes are locally tabulated and the totals preserved in multiple copies, as a check against fraud, but totals are sent in electronically to the clerk for quick reporting. Edison (talk) 22:53, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Language

I want to know more about English language.when it started 105.234.178.192 (talk) 13:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See History of English. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:07, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 8

is Hong Kong and Macao "sovereign" states?

i just found this (List of sovereign states by Internet connection speeds) article and it lists both hk and macao (all are parts of the PR China), so that makes me wonder: are these two even be considered "sovereign"? Coddlebean (talk) 06:21, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously not, a cursory look at Sovereign state would've disabused you of this possibility. They're clearly there because the article is titled or scoped awkwardly and their inclusion in such a list seems worthwhile, not because that claim to their sovereignty is actually being made. In general, you should double-check and then discuss problems with pages on their respective talk pages, not obliquely litigate them at the Reference Desk. Remsense ‥ 论 06:29, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Their existence in the article comes from a time before the article was moved in 2022. Whether it was the move, or is the current inclusion, that is questionable is an exercise for editors and if necessary the talk page. Also @PK2: who made the move. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:02, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 12

Military budget of the USSR

At its all-time historical peak during World War 2, what percentage of the Soviet Union's GDP (or GNP) was its military budget? 2601:646:8082:BA0:90B6:D6C1:A446:513E (talk) 16:24, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is highly unlikely that there is a useful answer to this question. It would require knowing the size of the USSR economy, defining those parts that are strictly part of the budget (as different from, say, survival consumption), and then defining those parts that were strictly reserved for the military (which may / may not include non-military security forces). The key issue is why do you want to know, and what might be a reasonable substitute for this particular answer? DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:04, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

According to CIA (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809A000700230019-4.pdf), the defense budget of USSR in 1940 and 1941 were 57.1 billion rubles and 70.9 billion rubles respectively.

According to “Harrison, M (2005) Why Didn't the Soviet Economy Collapse in 1942?”, GDP of USSR in 1940 and 1941 were US$417 billion and US$359 billion respectively.

If you could find the exchange rate of US$ to rubles in 1940 and 1941, then you would find the answer. Stanleykswong (talk) 22:58, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably the black-market exchange rate, not the official one. --Lambiam 23:26, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, but it is difficult to estimate the size of black-market. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:49, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I just did find the exchange rate -- 5.3 rubles to a dollar (this was the official figure, but it squares pretty well with the figures from later years that I know with certainty), which makes the percentage -- WHAT?! Only 3.7 percent?! Are my own calculations off by one zero somewhere, or is the exchange rate way off??? 2601:646:8082:BA0:90B6:D6C1:A446:513E (talk) 05:44, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in an economy not based on trade, there's no need to express everything in money. There was quite a lot of trade going on in the Soviet Union (it was certainly not a fully communist economy), but still, things like budgets and GDP could to some extend be arbitrary. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The transfer of industrially manufactured commodities in the economy of USSR was also based on trade. Barter played a minor role in the whole economy. A reasonably accurate way of describing the economic system of the USSR is as state capitalism: like capitalism, but with one difference with Western capitalism: the enterprises are not privately owned but owned by the state. The consequence is that there is a single all-encompassing monopoly; domestic market competition is ruled out. For the rest, it is business as usual. In particular, the separate enterprises were required to make a profit, otherwise their management would be replaced. --Lambiam 11:18, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[un-indent] As for why I want to know this: I'm trying to find out the approximate maximum for military spending as a % of GDP which can be sustained without causing widespread starvation, and given the USSR's experience during World War 2, the percentage they had would be close to it! But the percentage I calculated based on the 5.3 rubles per dollar exchange ratio is obviously wrong (it's simply not conceivable that the Soviet population would suffer so much with their military budget being a mere 3.7% of their GDP, while we Americans spent forty percent of our GDP on our military with much less hardship, even taking into account the obvious inefficiency of the Soviet economy, and in fact it's inconceivable even that they would spend so little of their budget on their military while literally fighting for their very survival), so I guess the exchange ratio was way off! (Of course, if someone here knows of another example of a nation which had to suffer severe hardship due to being forced to spend most of their GDP on war, you're welcome to share it here as well -- but it would have to be from the last 2 centuries or so, because total war is a fairly recent phenomenon!) 2601:646:8082:BA0:CD5E:73B7:6DF6:2CF6 (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The USA entered the industrial age about a century before Russia. The US spent the entire 19th century developing coal mines, ore mines, steel mills, railways, education centres, modern farming methods, oil refineries etc. Russia had not much of that until the communists rose to power, so the industrial base that could be repurposed to the war effort was much weaker; a far larger fraction of their economy was just producing food.

Actually, they closed the gap rather quickly, going from a mostly agrarian country to a space-faring nuclear-armed superpower in just 40 years. And so did China. Something about copying western technology, avoiding the errors western countries made, a bit of good planning.

As for countries spending a lot of their economy on the military, consider North Korea. I remember reading something like 20% some years ago. Maybe it would be better to look at the number of people working in defense, as this is harder to manipulate the the amount of money involved. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:21, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 14

Air travel by ethnicity in the USA in the 1960s

What data is available on the breakdown by ethnicity of people in the USA taking commercial flights in the 1960s? I'm mostly interested in long-haul flights, but domestic flights could be useful too. Thanks, --Viennese Waltz 08:06, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When booking a flight, one's ethnicity is not recorded, so it would be surprising if any remotely reliable data exists. --Lambiam 10:53, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's this, which relates to 2015. The source of that data seems to be a survey, not information recorded at the time of booking. It would be good to know if any similar survey was carried out in the 1960s. --Viennese Waltz 15:17, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See [5], [6], [7], [8] for some general discussion on the topic but very few stats. Nanonic (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1960s is long before deregulation. Flight costs were very high. If you could afford a ticket, regardless of ethnicity, you could purchase one and fly. Most people could not afford tickets at the time. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but there's also the question of what would actually happen. Civil rights activists from the time could give some insight into that. At least, those that weren't killed for doing things that were actually legal (or for helping others do them). --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:55, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Regardless of skin color, passengers could fly if they could afford a ticket. In the 1960s, it was not profitable for airlines to turn customers away. I feel that the point that airlines were regulated in the 1960s is being overlooked or there is a lack of understanding about how expensive tickets were during regulation. It was nothing at all like modern air travel. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 19:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 15

History of skiplagging

Airline booking ploys describes the odd practice of airlines making it cheaper to buy a ticket from A to C with a stopover at B, than to buy a ticket from A to B. If the passenger just doesn't get back on the plane or the connecting flight from B to C, he saves money and the airline gets angry and wants to punish him. The article does not explain why prices are set that way. or what harm there is to the airline, if the skip lagger doesn't leave checked luggage on the plane. I'm pretty sure they never incur many delays waiting for him to reboard. Family emergencies, business crises, getting lost in an airport, or medical issues might cause an innocent passenger not to rebound. I can't find evidence of such a pricing or punishment practice in, say Greyhound buses or Amtrak trains.

The CAB apparently regulated US airline prices before 1978. Did they price multipart trips this way under regulation? Did they or airlines seek to punish passengers before 1978 who did not complete a multistage trip? Is the word "skiplag" of long standing in this usage, or just a pun from "skip a leg" of a trip? I got no help with Google book search or asking LLMs Edison (talk) 19:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why does skiplagging exist? Assume you are an airline. You have a flight from A to C with a layover in B. You have no problem selling tickets from A to B, so you can charge a premium for those. However, you have trouble selling from A to C (or even B to C). There is enough to keep the flight going, but not enough to keep a good profit going. So, you discount A to C to get more people to take that flight. You might even add an extra flight from A to B at an even higher premium. As this continues, there will be a point at which the A to C is discounted to a price less than A to B.

Did this happen before deregulation? Most likely not because the government set routes and prices. They would set the route from A to B. They would set the route from A to C which may be direct and not allow a layover in B. They would set the price. They don't care about profit or popularity. They just regulate. Keep in mind that a hidden agenda of airline regulation was to keep trains and busses a viable alternative for transportation. So, they don't want planes to be cheap or routes sensible.

Now, you have A to C (with a B layover) cheaper at your airline than A to B. So, Joe the Skiplagger buys a ticket for A to C and back. He hops off at B and doesn't get back on the flight. Then, on the return flight, he tries to get back on at B even though he wasn't on the plane from C to B. What could possibly be a problem?

His luggage will go to C, not B. He will complain that his luggage is lost. It will be lost. Nobody will pick it up at C. Now, you, as the airline, have to hunt down his bags and get them to him.
FAA reporting will be wrong. You, as the airline, must report exactly who is in each seat. If you report incorrectly, you can be fined. Add up all the fines for every skiplagger. Do you want to take on that cost?
You want to turn a profit. You know that if you sell 100 tickets, only about 80 people will show up for the flight. So, you sell 120 tickets and you have people on standby to keep the plane full. On the return flight from C to B, Joe the Skiplagger didn't show up. You put someone in his seat. Then, at B, Joe shows up and tries to board. There is no seat. He has a tantrum. Social media trends that your airline refuses to seat paying customers. No point in trying to explain it because everyone knows that skiplagging isn't a problem and airlines should be happy to have as many skiplaggers as possible. Perhaps it was a bad idea to start your airline.
Back to the return flight. Joe the Skiplagger has to check in to be able to get on at B. The flight has to keep calling him at C. Joe? Where are you Joe? Your seat is here Joe? We're going to give it away if you don't show up Joe. The plane sits and waits. Joe never shows up because he is in B, not C. Finally, the gate people let someone take his seat. That means that have to "uncheck" Joe and check in another passenger. Everyone has to wait for that passenger to get on the plane, hunt for a place to put baggage, and find a seat when the plane should be pulling away from the gate. And, just because it is your airline, you get the fine from the airport for spending too many minutes at the gate. Why did you get into the airline business in the first place?
What if Joe bought a ticket for A to B instead of A to C and didn't skiplag? You'd know that the seat from B to C was empty. You could sell it. But, what is more important? Should Joe save %10 by skiplagging or should you be able to sell a $100 seat?
This list is not complete. I am only covering the main points that you need to know so you realize you don't want to run an airline.

If you look at it from the skiplagger's point of view, they are not doing anything illegal and it is the airline's fault for making the process available. If you look at it from the airline's point of view, they are losing money, increasing hassle, and dealing with FAA regulations. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of mention of the FAA here. Is this purely an American problem? HiLo48 (talk) 23:13, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 16