Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 July 17

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 17

Birth Control Pills

When women take birth control pills they are told not to miss a pill or else they might get pregnant, but then at the end of the pack they are supposed to take placebo pills for 7 days, therefore missing the pill for a whole week, how does this not make them get pregnant? They are supposed to get their period during this time but what about the placebo days when they don't have their period, do they still have sex? (This is not a request for medical advice for myself or anyone else, I just want to know how the pill works, thanks in advance.) --124.254.77.148 (talk) 04:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Birth control pill#Mechanism of action goes into a lot of technical detail about how they work, but the basic idea is that the pill suppresses ovulation during the part of a woman's monthly cycle when it could happen. The placebo days are the part of the cycle when it wouldn't happen anyway. No ovulation, no pregnancy. (If it works, that is; it's pretty near perfect, but not 100%. Nothing is.) --Anonymous, edited 05:00 UTC, July 17, 2009.

It's got a much higher success rate than the "rhythm method" does. If the woman sticks with the pill regimen faithfully, pregnancy is unlikely. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read the article, but in case it's not obvious, women on the birth control pill tend to have extremely regular menstrual cycles. The placebo pills are always going to be at the correct time because the pills regulate that as part of their action. Matt Deres (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

To the OP, why didn't you put this on the Science desk? Dismas|^(talk) 20:19, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

As has been noted the placebo pills are part of the design. As should be obvious, it doesn't actually matter if you miss all 7, provided you take the actual pills at the right time. The reason the placebo pills are there is so someone on bill control pills can continue to take a pill at the same time each day Nil Einne (talk)

One who took both the birth control pills with and those without the placebo pills tells me that taking a pill every morning was way easier than remembering to start taking pills again on a certain date in the future. Edison (talk) 03:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. And I would suspect in those rare cases where the pill "didn't work", it was probably due to the woman messing up the sequence. Hence the value of the placebos. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I recall an old joke that the most effective means of using the Pill was for a lady to hold it between her knees . . . DOR (HK) (talk) 06:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

kindly help....for spectrophotometer

I have moved this question to the Science Reference Desk, where it may have a better chance of getting an answer. You can find it here. Red Act (talk) 08:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Soul Eater fight

Removed duplicate question, already asked on the Entertainment desk DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

What are the most useful websites after Wikipedia in the internet?

The title says it all. Note: I am NOT asking for an opinion but for facts. It IS a fact that Google and Wikipedia can be recommended to anybody as being extremely useful. --Tilmanb (talk) 15:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

For what purpose? Algebraist 15:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Alge brings up a good point. If you are looking for a site for current news and events, you might want CNN, whereas if you are looking for the cheat codes for doom, that is not going to be a useful site and vice versa. Googlemeister (talk) 15:51, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, the most popular websites are arguably the most useful, since the greatest number of people find them useful. You can get a list of the most popular web sites at Alexa. Red Act (talk) 16:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Relative usefulness is difficult (impossible?) to quantify, especially for things with such a wide range of uses, so though you're asking for facts, all you can get is opinions. Vimescarrot (talk) 16:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

After Google and Wikipedia, the usefulness of every other website plummets to near-zero, at least in my books. I like The Onion as a news source but it can be somewhat flaccid at times. Digg is great in theory but in practice it is peopled by juvenile idiots. YouTube is good for music videos. Torrentz is good for sub-legal downloads -- music and games. Vranak (talk) 18:24, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

If other websites are near-useless, why do you use Google? Algebraist 18:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose I want to know what others have said on various topics, even if it proves to be painfully vapid. Vranak (talk) 18:58, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose the maps are available from google, but otherwise google pretty much just gives you a link to another site.

The rest is porn, what about Amazon.com (or ebay if you like handing money over for shit) - amazon has to be the 3rd most useful site right? I propose it as fact.83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:12, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

And Youtube that is useful. Probably equal 3rd usefulness with amazon (or more useful if you don't have any money : )

83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:20, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd vote for googlemaps. --71.236.26.74 (talk) 22:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't find Amazon that useful. I think this is the case for a fair number of NZers. Sure they ship here but the high price of shipping mean it's not necessarily worth it. And if you don't have a great interest in books, CDs or DVDs there's nothing much there anyway that they'll ship here. Similarly eBay is sometimes useful but TradeMe more so. Also, I'm far from convinced wikipedia is useful to everyone. Many of the non English wikipedias aren't that good for example. And even in English our coverage in some areas isn't that good. And I believe Baidu is the most popular search engine in China by a fair amount. In other words, the 'facts' from Tilman are almost definitely wrong as it depends on what someone wants. Nil Einne (talk) 23:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The BBC news website is good for, er, news. 89.240.61.156 (talk) 23:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

It's so subjective and dependent on your needs and interests. For me, for example, epicurious.com/ is a top site, and it's probably almost useless to 99% of you.--162.84.166.147 (talk) 23:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I keep meeting people who've never even heard of Wikipedia, so it's never been of much use to them. But they all know about and use YouTube, Ebay, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace ...... -- JackofOz (talk) 22:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Although I obviously refer to wikipedia frequently, I would say that by far my most useful site is Google. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

HEY, great discussion so far! Keep it going :) --Tilmanb (talk) 06:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Useful websites according to Ouro are: a German-English dictionary, another dictionary, local news and gibberish, Allegro - the largest on-line auction site in Poland and my bank. As said above, highly subjective, ain't it? I don't use Amazon, Ebay, Facebook or Myspace, at all, and they rank top in Alexa, right? I read the news at the BBC website as mentioned above. Google and Wikipedia take up the top positions for me, almost in any case. Apart from this there's e-mail and the occassional torrenting. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 07:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

impossible manager !! YES

Why are some managers so difficult rather impossible to convince something which is very logical/sensible which they find it weird. and if you were to to be a dissenter to prove it otherwise in a meeting they take it personally and behave in a manner like we're their bonded laborers. A manager who has connections high above and has no sense of insecutity to loose their job hence taking evryone for granted. is there a way out " still working within this company".a manager does not even qualify to be a human, is an epitome of mismanagement,courtesy,extremely arrogant and sly. but has been assigned to manage us. what do we do?anyone..please help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 17:43, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Not showing him up in meetings, might be a good start. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Our loss of face article is surprisingly large. Tempshill (talk) 19:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Where a bad manager is concerned, I think you have these options:

1. Learn to live with it.
2. Wait for him to move on.
3. Transfer to another department.
4. Find another job elsewhere.

That's pretty much it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

One path is to meet privately with your company's HR department and ask about other opportunities within the company (without telling them the actual reason). Most large companies claim to encourage worker movement over time, in the interest of growing the workers' experience within the organization. Your message shows exaggeration, so it's difficult to tell whether you are just angry that you were overruled a few times, or whether you're saying that the entire working relationship between you and your manager is damaged, or beyond repair. In 99% of cases it's best to meet privately with the manager and have lengthy, honest, frank, specific discussions about your frustrations. In an extreme case you might decide to take the extreme risk of banding together with all your co-workers and going, in unison, to the manager above this person, and all presenting a list of specific errors that the manager has made, and proposing a solution. Of course this will poison the relationship with your manager permanently, and you could all simply be fired for insubordination by either of these two managers. I wouldn't do this unless I was so fed up that I would be quitting the next day (and possibly not even then). Tempshill (talk) 19:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Bit short on time for such a complex question, so here are just a couple of links to shed some light on things: Business ethics and most particularly there ethics of human resource management Promotion (rank), Peter Principle, Social network (we are missing a page on the essential topic of networking in business, or I haven't found it yet), Career development (article needs lots of work), Career and links from there, Managerial economics and "see also" there. Basically, what you consider a good manager and what your company or his immediate boss considers a good manager doesn't have to match. There are also varying opinion whether it is more important in corporations to work on your career or to get a job done. The two don't have to be related. Your manager seems to have an assembly line outlook, whereas you seem to look at things more from a craftsman's perspective. You can either adapt, find common ground or go job hunting. Trying to educate or antagonize your superior is not a promising direction. Unless you can outmaneuver your boss by networking around him banding together is also rarely successful. There are examples to the contrary for extreme cases. [1], [2] -- 71.236.26.74 (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Make a complaint to the HR department or failing that to your boss's boss. Preferably get several people to sign the complaint. Consider a round robin, or you could at worst just make an anonymous complaint. Sounds like a case of macho management with the boss being machismo. I'm writing from a UK perspective - perhaps if you are in the US, with less care for employees, they you run a risk of being sacked yourself I suppose. 89.240.61.156 (talk) 23:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

My most successful tactic ever for dealing with a difficult manager was to find him another job, far, far away. Of course, it helps if the economy is moving in a forward direction! DOR (HK) (talk) 06:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Full employment and wages

If there were no minimal wages, will be all employed? (or at least those who want to work at any price). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs) 19:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

No, there are unemployed people (albeit not too many) in Singapore and there is no minimum wage there. Googlemeister (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Also see The Wealth of Nations and Labor theory of value. Somewhere in there is the principle that there's a certain "natural" level of unemployment even under ideal conditions. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 20:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

For background reading you might like to read the minimum wage article as well as the list of minimum wages by country article, which notes a number of countries like Singapore as having no minimum wage. AlexandrDmitri (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

And there was no UK minimum wage until 1998, and plenty of unemployment before that, and apparently still no minimum wage in the United States in most of the southern states, where I lack data on whether or not there is full employment.

But the OP's question is whether all those who want to work at any price will be employed. So it seems to a question of whether those who lack the urge to employ others, or be self employed, but who are prepared to do menial work for even the smallest wages, can be relied on to spontaneously develop such organizing urges when there is money to be made. I don't know. 213.122.35.222 (talk) 21:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a Federal minimum wage, though it's lower than California minimum wage, which in turn may be lower than San Francisco minimum wage. If memory serves. —Tamfang (talk) 06:16, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The only evidence I have that I'm not employed is that I don't get paid - so I tend to agree with you.83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the answer must be "almost yes" because of the OP's strange parenthetical requirement that we only consider people who want to work at any price. I'm sure that there are companies that would like to employ the entire population of the Earth if the asking price were 1 cent per decade, for example. I say "almost yes" instead of "yes" because there are probably a handful of people out there who are not fit for any work whatsoever — what comes to mind is incorrigible convicted felons who are also blind, deaf, mute, and completely paralyzed. Tempshill (talk) 22:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The flaw in the matter is that a) people are not an infinitely mobile commodity. and b) you could probably get an engineer to do a construction worker's job, but the other way round would take years of training and may fail in the end anyway. Employees just don't come in a convenient "one butt per chair" version. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 22:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but there are some tasks that almost anyone can perform, and companies specializing in those tasks would presumably cause 100% employment in the OP's strange category of "people who are willing to work for any wage". Tempshill (talk) 23:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

"At any price" is probably the sticking point on this question. If I offered 5 cents an hour to crush rocks all day, I doubt I'd get many takers (Least here in USA), but it would satisfy your condition of 0% unemployment among people willing to work for $0.05/hour. Anyone who took my deal would be a sucker, however, since the 5cents would not even pay for the calories they burned crushing rocks. They'd be better off sitting quietly at home. APL (talk) 23:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd do it - you can have a hell of a good time with 25cents.83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Not quite so easy because after a while what do you do with the rock? You'll need a truck driver to haul it. The truck driver won't want to work for 5 cents. And all of a sudden you'll either have to fire all your cheap rock crushers or pay the truck drivers more. The guys who shovel the crushed rock will figure out that they are a level above the rock crushers because the crushers can't get at the rock while the crushed rock's in the way. So they have some bargaining chips. If some rock crushers offer to shovel for the same rate as they get for crushing rock the shovel wielders will have to convince them to ask for the same rate as they do or they risk getting replaced. (This may sound familiar.:) They also risk that the company will just fire everyone, but will figure that that won't happen if they eat a small enough share of the company's profit. So, they ask for 7 cents. The truck drivers will then figure that their work is not only worth more than that of the rock crushers, but also more than the shovel-gang. etc. You'll need someone to do the accounting and they won't want to work for the same pay as a truck driver. Unless you sell the crushed rock the whole exercise is good for nothing. More of the expensive employees coming on-board. By now you'll need a couple of managers. And so on. So even if your lowest level employees would be willing to work for nothing and you had enough rock crushers to demolish an entire mountain, unless you can make the next levels up fit you can't hire them. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 03:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

A hypothetical employer might say to some hypothetical job applicant in the Land of No Minimum Wage, "No, you bad smelling drunken thieving job seeking crack-head, I will not hire you at any specified low pay, not even at a pay of one cent per year. Just Go Away!" Edison (talk) 02:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It's also not true that if employees took almost zero salary that employers could simply choose to employ them at almost zero cost. Employees cost the company more than their pay - they have to have somewhere to work - they need management, some fraction of the cost of the human resources department and so on. In many places in the world (the UK, for example) employers have to pay taxes on the employee's behalf. The list goes on. So in some cases, even if you were paying the person almost nothing, that person might still be costing the company a sufficiently large amount of money as to make employing them non-cost-effective. SteveBaker (talk) 03:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. Since this is (probably inadvertently) a weird and out-of-the-box question, you've got to think more out-of-the-box. If I could hire a million people who were willing to work for any price, I would hire them for 1 cent per decade (that's $1,000 per year to me) to physically stand / lie down / sit down all around the legally accessible areas adjacent to the physical workspace of my closest competitor, in order to choke access as much as is legally possible, and make it very undesirable to work there, hence impacting morale at the least, and causing waves of quitters and a shutdown at best. No requirement to feed or water my employees exists in this milieu. 100,000 of these people would be the "sergeants" to monitor whether people were shirking their new duty, 10,000 more would be the "lieutenants" who monitor the sergeants, etc. Even if acceptable sergeants and lieutenants cannot be found and I have a 90% shirking rate, I've still got 100,000 people stinking up the place and harming my competition. There, I'm maximally employing people, even the completely uneducated, in a way that is worthwhile to me, even though the help that I receive from this project is very indirect. Tempshill (talk) 17:11, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Had to strike my disagreement above. Steve is correct, of course — my great plan only works in places where workman's compensation payments, required insurance payments, and other fixed-price overhead charges are a percentage of their wages. Tempshill (talk) 17:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

In the hypothetical land where you can hire people for a cent a decade, I doubt labour rights are strong enough that you have to provide any decent worker's comp. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

And we can presume they're not going to want to negotiate it either since they're willing to work for a cent a decade (or perhaps that's their secret? Pay them 1 cent a decade but you need to provide full medical, all my housing, food, even luxuries like 60 days of all paid holidays to anywhere in the world, new computers every year ...) Nil Einne (talk) 17:53, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The other item missed in this otherwise surprisingly complete response to the OP is that companies sometimes go bust. When they do, employees are laid off, and there is a lag between losing one job and getting another. Back to the main point: a minimum wage is the lowest price for which labor may be legally sold (or, purchased). In a very real sense, it is price-fixing. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that somewhere around a statistical 3% unemployment rate is considered "full employment": about 3% of the population is engaged in moving from one job to another at any given point in time. --Carnildo (talk) 05:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Another flaw is that this situation fails to consider the truly incompetent workers who are a hazard to their workmates, and are in general a financial loss to employ. Even at zero-wage, the "labor" that these people can provide is not a valuable resource. This demographic is a non-zero percentage of any population; some societies deal with it by providing useless jobs for them, or allowing them to remain unemployed. The best example I can think of is in the form of a conscripted military, which still has a selection criteria. Even with "universal conscription" (where, by mandate or by force, all individuals must report for service, possibly with zero compensation), there are some people who are so undesirable to work with that they are not accepted even under those conditions, because their presence will create a net loss of productivity for the rest of the organization. To some extent, this also applies to those individuals who suffer from the most extreme forms of debilitating handicaps and disabilities. In the U.S., those demographics are systematically excluded from unemployment statistics, because they are not "seeking" work, but they still count as "unemployed" by some definitions. Nimur (talk) 16:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Sweetened shredded coconut pisses me off

In the U.S., why is it almost impossible to find shredded unsweetened coconut outside of the rare specialty health food store, but there are always twelve brands of sweetened shredded coconut clogging the aisles at every supermarket? Unsweetened coconut is a wonderful ingredient and sweetening is as easy as pouring some sugar on, whereas removing the sweetening from pre-sweetened is probably not impossible, but... This question is relatively trivial, and I'm not expecting a conclusive answer, but if you baked a lot it might cross your mind also.--162.84.166.147 (talk) 23:20, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

That might be a regional or even store-chain problem. The sweetened coconut are a convenience item. The manufacturer puts in a cheap sweetener and can charge a mark up vs. the unsweetened product. The mark up is so small that consumers don't mind paying extra for the convenience of not having to weigh and add sugar in their favorite recipes. The cooking shows get some incentive to promote the stuff. The cook-book writers jump on to the bandwagon and little by little sales for the unsweetened product shrink. If there isn't a significant number of consumers who need unsweetened coconut for their recipes the stores will discontinue them.
Shredded coconut store and ship well, so you could order online e.g. [3]. If you buy a whole box your usual grocery store will usually put in a special order for you. If you live near a big city try to find out where ethnic populations that cook with unsweetened coconut are concentrated. There are states where you'll be sheer out of luck with that approach. It may also be that in your area it's a seasonal product. Check around holidays whether you can find it anywhere and stock up. An e-mail question to customer service may also work. (Don't try the desk in the store it's less effective in most stores because that gets fielded through their ordering manager and he/she will look at prospective sales. Your e-mail will work its way down from headquarters and thus have more oomph.) 71.236.26.74 (talk) 02:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

If there are any Asian supermarkets in your area, you might look there. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:16, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Why not buy an actual coconut and take a steel zester to it? Cracking is as simple as dropping it onto a concrete surface. If you need to save the juice you can do so in a plastic bag. Vranak (talk) 00:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I've bought real coconut, opened them drank the "milk" then scraped out the coconut meat (unsweetened, naturally.) Royal pain in the arse compared to buying a package of sweetened coconut . Coconut is usually added to sweets such as cakes. Edison (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I concur. Clearly the absence of unsweetened coconut in supermarkets is a tacit conspiracy. Nobody wants you to get healthier than they. Vranak (talk) 17:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I have noticed that unsweetened shredded coconut is kept frozen, which is obviously more expensive than it being on a shelf. Perhaps it is sweet enough that its tonicity has a preservative effect? --Sean 16:31, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Where's the question about what you get from an MBA?

Someone asked this question recently. I've searched through the Humanities pages and the Miscellaneous pages, and their archives for June, but I cannot find it. 89.240.61.156 (talk) 23:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 July 8#What they learn in Management schools ????--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:49, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. 78.146.236.46 (talk) 09:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)