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January 13

automotive water pump

My Chevy Cobalt has no aparent pulley for the drive belt (serpetine belt). If the drive belt is not powering the water pump then what is powering the water pump? 64.170.21.194 (talk) 01:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it could be powered by gears, a clutch (such as a centrifugal or a magnetic clutch) or (on newer cars only) a self-contained electric motor. 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:3D95:7849:7362:98 (talk) 03:39, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

The chevy cobalt is a 2005 model. While some might not consider that a "newer car" It does have electric power steering instead of hydraulic power steering which people generally say "is a newer car thing". I wonder if an electric motor is used. I scoured through alldata and forums but I could not find any info on what actually powers the water pump. Thanks for the info ipv6. 64.170.21.194 (talk) 04:31, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

It is driven by the timing chain. http://www.autozone.com/cooling-heating-and-climate-control/water-pump/chevrolet/cobalt?vehicleSet=true 196.213.35.146 (talk) 06:13, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

The average cost for a Chevrolet Cobalt Water Pump Replacement in the US is between $606 and $890. Labor costs are estimated between $475 and $600 while parts are priced between $131 and $290. This estimate does not include taxes and fees. The link gives advice on the replacement procedure. Our article Chevrolet Cobalt mentions the fatality rates and recalls of this car model. Blooteuth (talk) 13:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Passenger name records

Every time I take a flight, the booking has a unique passenger name record consisting of six characters. These could be either numbers or letters. It surprises me that there are apparently enough permutations of these six characters to be able to handle such a system. There must be hundreds if not thousands of flights taken every day, so I would have thought the possible PNR codes would run out fairly quickly. So how does the PNR numbering system actually work? And how many possible permutations are there of the six characters, being either numbers from 0 to 9 or letters from A to Z, assuming any of the characters can be repeated up to six times? Viennese Waltz 16:40, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

See permutations: The answer is 36!/(36-6)! which is 1,402,410,240 possible permutations. That's MORE than enough to give every person on earth a unique identifier. 1.4 trillion is 500 or so times the population of the earth. --Jayron32 16:46, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

1.4 billion, right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:24, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm an idiot. Ignore me. --Jayron32 17:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

What happens when the 1,402,410,241st human books air travel? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

By that time, we'll all have flying cars or teleportation booths. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't the calculation be 36 to the 6th power? Though that still only allows for something over 2 billion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the number of possible 6 letter words from a 36 letter alphabet is 36⁶. I don't know how User:Jayron32 got his result. According to our Record locator article, 5 characters are not used (1, I, L, O, and 0), so the actual number of record locator codes is 31⁶ = 887.503,681. According to our article, codes can be reused after "the data to which it refers has been purged from the system", whatever that means, but it seems that the codes don't need to be unique for all time. CodeTalker (talk) 20:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Looks like you put a period in that number, where a comma belongs. StuRat (talk) 17:49, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Also, from looking at the article, it looks like there isn't one globally unique set of PNRs. They're only unique within a given registration system. In other words, it's the same as any arbitrary ID number a given organization, like a bank or utility, might assign to you; it has no particular relevance outside of their own systems. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

"I don't know how User:Jayron32 got his result." They were probably thrown off by the OP's use of the word "permutations", which implies no reuse of the same symbol in an individual code.

Math vocabulary question: Permutation refers to picking without replacement while retaining order, so that nPk = n!/(n-k)!. Combination refers to picking without replacement without retaining order, so that nCk = n!/[(n-k)!k!]. What term is used for picking with replacement while retaining order, so that n?k = n^k? What about picking without replacement without retaining order where n?k = (n+k-1)!/[(n-1)!k!]? -- ToE 21:20, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@Thinking of England:. Pretty sure there isn't one 100% common and well-used term, though we can easily describe the situation. What the OP is asking about is a String_(computer_science), that's the only term for such a general thingy that can have numbers or letters, with repeats, drawn from a fixed set where order is important. The way I'd put this is "number of strings of length n formed from an alphabet of k symbols". In this sense of mathematics/computer science, "alphabet" is just a specific unsorted list of distinct symbols. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, SM. Digging around, I've found the term "permutation with repetition", though problems may involve limits on the number of repetitions allowed. See Permutation#Permutations with repetition. So the OP's use of "permutation" seems appropriate when the context is made clear. Likewise, for picking with replacement without retaining order, "combination with repetition" is used, as in Combination#Number of combinations with repetition and Sloane, N. J. A. (ed.). "Sequence A059481 (Triangle of the numbers of combinations of k elements with repetitions from n elements)". The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. OEIS Foundation.. -- ToE 16:58, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Letters have lots of permutations - especially when they're alphanumeric and base ≈32 rather than 26 (it's common to avoid some, like 1/l and 0/O). Words, in contrast, for latin-derived languages have to limit themselves to pronounceable syllables, and that's far fewer combinations.

This became a problem for password cracking under VMS in the late MicroVAX era. DEC offered a "super-secret password generator" that generated unguessable passwords. To keep them pronounceable and memorable though, it generated them from a short dictionary of syllables. A few years later, and with more powerful non-VAX computers available, brute-force cracking became surprisingly easy on them. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Is this 6-character limit factual for all airlines? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:59, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• The question talks about passenger name records, but what it's actually about is record locators. (The PNR is the data that the record locator is used to access.) The article says that record locators are usually 6 characters, but it cites no sources and gives no further details. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 05:31, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

My best guess is that the data gets deleted after a certain amount of time (perhaps a few years). That would mean the PNR codes are reusable. They're unique at any given time, but not necessarily into eternity. Jahoe (talk) 00:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

and if they're not unique, never mind, they just bump somebody. Thincat (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

PNRs are purged from the system just a few days after the last segment of the trip took place, so yes, they can be reused quite often. Also, depending on the Global Distribution System used, the characters may or may not include numbers; for instance, Sabre (computer system) uses only letters. Apologies for not including references – this comes from my experience in the travel industry. FlyingAce (talk) 15:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

January 16

What's this?

Any idea what the metal boxes are, the things at bottom right? Full zoom shows that the nearer one has an inscription referring to AT&T, so presumably they're somehow telephone-related. Nyttend (talk) 04:22, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Looks like an AT&T version of one of these: "Telecom: Pedlock CPLS Copper Buried Distribution Pedestals". www.charlesindustries.com. --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:8CBD:4ACF:AA61:2196 (talk) 04:49, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

That one is for copper wires, fiber optic 'Buried Distribution Pedestals' tend to be smaller:[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:8CBD:4ACF:AA61:2196 (talk) 05:09, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) The file says it's 'Between Hemlock and Shawnee.' Just like Socrates then! O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 05:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• I prefer the Shatt al-Arab, which, at it's southern end, is between Iraq and a hard place (Iran). StuRat (talk) 19:44, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• What does Shawnee have to do with Socrates? I can't think of anything on which a pun could rely. Nyttend (talk) 22:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

• This deserves an article. Anyone up for creating Telecommunications pedestal ? The damn thing are everywhere, in a great many varieties, and I cannot find an article about them. (And I don't have time right now. sorry) -Arch dude (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I created the stub. -Arch dude (talk) 05:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

January 17

Looking for a term about energy

I was talking to a guy this weekend about the energy that it takes to make and distribute a product. So, using our example, cat litter has to have the clay taken out of the ground, transported, turned into litter, a bag has to be made, the litter is then bagged, and transported again and again until it reaches the store, then finally sold. The term he used was something like 'encapsulated' or 'encompassed' energy or something along those lines. Now that I'm trying to look it up to learn more, I can't think of the term and my Google-Fu is failing me. Anyone know what the term might have been? TIA, †dismas†|^(talk) 00:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

This reminds me of embodied energy. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

That's it! Thanks!! †dismas†|^(talk) 01:58, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Resolved

Reification and category mistakes

First, I've read the corresponding articles, and it seems like the two are related, but I think that I may be incorrect about the former: I'll be honest, I'm not sure I fully understand what reification, as a fallacy, is. Furthermore, since neither article references the other, I am led to suppose that my understanding is lacking. Both seem to concern ascribing properties to something that are in some sense not right, but what is the core difference? Sure, I can just about understand the map–territory problem. But it is only a problem if I am using the map to say something outside of its domain of applicability.

Second, concerning Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, for which I have read but the Wikipedia article and not the book, I tentatively suppose that Gould saw IQ as an example of reification (and as far as I can see, a category mistake), converting something non-metrizable, at least by one number, to a single number. However, it seems to me that IQ is correlated with attributes that people socially recognize as intelligence. Different people have different ideas of what intelligence is and how it is manifested, but I see that as no problem. If IQ has any predictive power of attributes that people recognize as intelligence, then surely even if it is a fallacy to use it as a definition of intelligence, it may still be a useful construct for many of the reasons that intelligence is. Is there a name for this case when use of a category mistake may still be useful?--Leon (talk) 08:14, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

[I've wikilinked the two articles, in your title, for the convenience of other respondents. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) 09:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

For your last point, it sounds like you are talking about a Proxy for intelligence. Iapetus (talk) 14:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• (Edit conflict) Reification is one type of category mistake - mistaking the abstract for the real. You could also make other sorts of category mistakes - for instance, mistaking something repeatable for a one-off (in Kantian terms, mistaking plurality for unity). As for Gould's opinion on intelligence... reification is only half of the error, in his opinion. The other big problem is ranking. The complex interaction of various mental systems that we call intelligence is very multi-dimensional - people have not only identified different types of intelligence like creative intelligence, logical intelligence, emotional intelligence and so on, but even within those categories exist all sorts of variation. Outside extremely restrictive conditions (say, "Who can solve these sums fastest") there is no clear way to rank these objectively. (Who's more intelligent - the person who flunks one or two questions in every section of the IQ test, or the person who gets a perfect score except that they totally wipe out in one category?) As to "Well, people can still define intelligence in this way, as an arbitrary measure", Gould saw various biases - both open racism on the part of some scientists, and more subtle unconscious effects like not taking into account differences in education - embedded in these definitions. It's not clear how justified Gould's analysis was - many biologists and sociologists, including those like Jim Flynn who agree with Gould that there's no racial element to intelligence, argue that he overplayed the role of IQ testing in racist policies, and I think it's generally agreed that he focused too much on historical cases rather than modern practice - but he was perhaps the first big name figure from the scientific-side of the so-called "Science Wars" to discuss these issues. Smurrayinchester 14:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
  • As a footnote, it's worth noting that Bernard Davis thought that Gould was using the term "reification" incorrectly. Smurrayinchester 14:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Chinese Hoax

Trump asserts that climate change is a Chinese Hoax. Many Americans believe him. But what basis for this claim is there in fact? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.87.233.116 (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely none. The idea of anthropogenic global warming was invented by a Swedish Nobel Prize winning scientist in 1896 AD. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

To be fair, anthropogenic climate change is agreed to be happening, so it was not an invention but a discovery. --Jayron32 17:36, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Newton or Leibniz is said to have invented calculus even though one just invented the (true) idea and calculus is as old as reality (just like the quadratic formula or 1+1=2). Discovered is better but the Trump quote says invented so invented by Svante is symmetrical. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:39, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• To the original question. What Donald Trump does when he makes statements like this is called gaslighting. See here and here for a discussion of his use of the technique, with some attention given to the "Climate Change is a Chinese Hoax" bit. --Jayron32 17:43, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Donald Trump is a Russian hoax. Pass it on. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:38, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I can't read Trump's mind, but this might be similar to what pisses off a lot of other people, that China has consistently supported global efforts to reduce carbon emissions while increasing its own - see Climate change in China. However, China is also the world's leading investor in green technology, and the world's leading producer of both wind turbines and solar panels. China is also projected (and committed) to reach peak CO2 emissions in 2030, with a decline thereafter. Basically, all China is guilty of here is embracing cheap, dirty energy, while admitting its bad for the evironment. On the other hand, China accuses the west of hypocrisy, claiming that highly developed nations with industry dating back to the 19th century are able to stomach the switch to clean and renewable energy much more easily than a nation that had its industrial revolution in the 1970s. In other words, "you got to pollute the earth, why not us? just for a few decades, we swear." Someguy1221 (talk) 01:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this idea comes from a strain of conspiracy theory popular on the U.S. right wing. Basically the idea is that people who say anthropogenic global warming is a big problem are lying, and their proposed responses to AGW are secretly intended to achieve other nefarious goals, like turning the U.S. into a Communist dictatorship. In this milieu, China and India's leadership are generally assumed to be promoting AGW as a means of crippling the developed West with onerous restrictions on industry so they can take over the global economy. RationalWiki has some more info. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 01:28, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Many people have jobs or other vested interests that they perceive to be threatened by efforts to mitigate global warming. When your job or way of life are threatened, you tend to be sceptical of the threat. You deny it, or at least demand very strong proof that the threat is real. In such an environment, it is hard to make an objective evaluation of the arguments for and against the threat. Climate change is an important example of this. Another example is the theory of evolution, which threatens the religious beliefs of many Christian fundamentalists. Creationism (denial of evolution) is as widespread in the US as denial of climate change, and in fact there is a high correlation. -Arch dude (talk) 05:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Why are there two types of accounts for individual customers of the banks?

Banks offer a savings account and a checking account. Why can't they offer just one type of bank account? Given that some employers would digitize the payment process, they would give employees a pay card affiliated with a bank. The employee may then use the pay card like an ordinary debit card. Why would people put money in The Bank instead of using the money to be converted into tangible money or valuable metals (copper, nickel, iron, gold, silver, platinum) and trade the metals for paper money and coins and then use the paper money and coins to buy necessities (food, clothes, shelter, security/protection, payments for the doctor and prescribed medicines)? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 17:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Because the bank assumes different levels of financial risk based upon how long it gets to hold onto your money. Wikipedia has articles titled checking account and savings account. The notion is this: A bank gives you interest for letting it hold on to your money, because it uses that money as capital to make loans at interest; it makes money on those loans. The longer you agree to let the bank hold your money, the more interest it will pay you for it. In a checking account, the expectation is that you can access that money at will. That means at any instant, you could withdraw some or all of it, so that means the bank has to keep a higher percentage of those funds available to pay out for your needs, so THAT means the bank can use less of it, so it pays you a lower interest rate. For a savings account, since you cannot write checks against it means that money, that means that the bank gets to hold it longer, and THAT means that the bank is willing to pay HIGHER interest rates. For accounts like money market accounts and certificates of deposit, banks pay even HIGHER interest rates by putting MORE restrictions on how you can access your money. The principle is: the more access the bank gives you to your money, the less they will pay you for the right to hold it. --Jayron32 17:49, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Do banks work with employers? I know that companies would form a direct deposit. The payment is automatically transferred to one's bank account. However, this may not give the person any freedom to divide the money. With a direct deposit, does the money go directly to the checking account? Can the person transfer 80% of the new income to the savings account? And why do some banks have a promotion in which the client must put in a certain amount of money in the checking account and must stay there? Can the client transfer the money to a savings account and with every new income, the client transfers 80% of the after-tax income to the savings account? If a person receives a large inheritance or makes a large salary, then can that person just live off of interest and be independently wealthy, removing oneself from trade permanently? If one chooses to live in a car on the streets to reduce living costs, then can one still receive benefits from the government, even though one persistently saves 90% of one's income in the savings account and only lives off of 10% ($5,000 a year)? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Direct deposit paychecks can usually be split, though it depends on the employer [2]. There would be a form to fill out where you can specify multiple accounts (even at different banks) and how much you want to go to each account. clpo13_(talk) 18:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

No, banks don't usually work with employers, they just accept direct payments to accounts. The usual method for splitting income between accounts (in the UK at least) is for the employee to set up a standing order to transfer a fixed amount each month from the current account (checking account in the US) to the savings account. Rules about benefits from the government will vary by jurisdiction. People trust banks more than they trust employers or valuable metals because governments in many jurisdictions guarantee at least some of the money in bank accounts even if the bank goes out of business. If you live in a country where banks are not trusted or guaranteed, then metals or an employer card might possibly be a safer option. Dbfirs 21:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

As Dbfirs said, benefit rules vary from country to country. That said, AFAIK in most countries the things that may matter when it comes to money are your income and in some cases your means. In other words, how much you're spending is not generally going to directly affect your normal benefit. Of course if the benefit is means tested and you save up enough, or have enough already then you may become ineligible. Likewise, if you're very wealth, it's possible interest from your savings will be enough to affect your benefit even if it's only income tested.

In some cases you may also be eligible to some sort of housing or accomodation support or other such targeted allowances. This potentially could depend on how much you're actually paying for the accomodation (or whatever) or require you to have some sort of accomodation which is eligible for support, which may not apply to living in your car.

The final point is that benefits tend to require some need. If you aren't sick or disabled or old enough, you'll probably only be eligible for some sort of unemployment benefit. These tend to be either time limited, or require you to be actively looking for a job or both. This is the case even in places like Norway [3] and Finland [4]/[5]. The precise requirements to be considered looking for a job may vary, but if you're just planning to live off inheritance and have no intention to get a job and are honest about it, you're probably not going to be eligible for a benefit if you're not sick/disabled or old enough. It's also possible living in your car when you don't have to will affect whether you're considered a genuine jobseeker.

A Universal Basic Income would be different, but these aren't generally called benefits, and as our article says these only really exist in limited form in a few places.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

January 18

Categories for a forum?

I want to start my own forum for others to use but because I don't visit forums myself, I have no idea what categories a forum requires. What categories does just about any entertainment forum need? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C457:9F30:551A:EFBD:129:5CAA (talk) 01:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Surviving proton decay

Is it theoretically possible to live forever in a universe where protons decay? If protons decay, all matter is transitory and will evaporate into radiation, so we would have to transfer our minds to some immaterial medium. 101.178.204.3 (talk) 04:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, you're going to run into the heat death of the universe regardless. Only way around that would be some impossible infinite energy source, in which case you can just run proton decay in reverse and create new matter. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:22, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Military discipline

In the British Army in 1942, how much time in the glasshouse would someone typically have to do for a first offense of striking a superior officer? After doing the time, would the offender typically be returned to the same unit and keep the same rank, or would he typically be demoted and/or transferred to another unit? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 09:48, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

It was a capital offence in the First World War according to In trouble: military crimes, but I struggled to find details about the Second conflict. This account of the career of an Australian signaller (1940 onwards), says that he was demoted from corporal to private and posted to another depot for punching an officer, but the court martial was lenient because they agreed that the officer had been provocative. Note that a spell in a military prison or detention camp might be seen as a pleasant alternative to living in a waterlogged fox hole with people shooting at you, therefore a system of field punishments were available: "Field punishment was a common sentence for soldiers convicted of moderately serious crimes. In 1939, this entailed hours of hard physical labour such as filling sandbags, plus a daily non-stop two hours of drill with full kit; this usually occurred at a specialist camp run for each Corps by MPSC staff". (In the Courts or Off the Record: Discipline in the British Expeditionary Force, September 1939–June 1940 Edward Smalley, University of Kent) Alansplodge (talk) 15:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Isles of Loss

Where exactly are the Isles of Loss and Factory Island, referred to in James' "The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume III, 1800–1805"? [[6]] They are somewhere off the coast of West Africa and may have changed their names. Volume 52 of The Monthly Magazine, [[7]] contains more information.--Ykraps (talk) 13:34, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

For see Isles of Loss, see Îles de Los, "an island group lying off Conakry in Guinea". According to Sam Gould And The Isles Of Loss, they are one and the same; other 18th century renderings are "the Edlesses", "The Idols", or "Las Idolas". According to our Îles de Los articles, one of the islands called Kassa " has also previously been known as Factory Island". Alansplodge (talk) 14:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks and thanks in particular for the references. Perhaps the Îles de Los ought to be added to List of archipelagos#Along coast of Africa, where I chose to begin my search.--Ykraps (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

You're very welcome. I see that you've already updated the List of archipelagos, but I will add the alternate name to the Îles de Los article, so that it shows up if anybody else searches for it. Alansplodge (talk) 16:20, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

May I suggest also making Isles of Loss a redirect? (And any other alternate names that aren't already.) --76.71.6.254 (talk) 19:17, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Done. Our article at Îles de Los currently says that the English name is Los Islands - is it actually called that? Should it be Loss or Lost or, I guess, Idols? Or maybe it has another commonly used English name? Matt Deres (talk) 21:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Not to be confused with the isle of Lost. Or is it? --47.138.163.230 (talk) 21:22, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I found TripAdvisor UK - Los Islands, Guinea and Mindat mineral database - Los Archipelago (Los Islands), Guinea, so it seems to have some current usage. Alansplodge (talk) 22:47, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Party of Five - Season 1 & 2 on Region 2 DVD

Why did Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the first two seasons of Party of Five on DVD in Region 2; instead all six seasons? At least they were all released in Region 1. 31.49.30.87 (talk) 22:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)