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March 12

Melik Izeddin?

Does the Melik Izeddin mentioned here [1] have a WP-article under some name? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:16, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Apparently not. See Halime Hatun#Gevaş tomb, where the mention of Melik Izeddin is unlinked. From that article, one gets the impression that Halime and Melik may be more legendary than real. Deor (talk) 15:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

The spelling "İzzeddin" with a double "z" is more likely for a Turkish spelling of the Arabic name Izz ad-Din, and "İzzettin" is another possibility. There has been a Saltukid sultan by that name, called Saltuk II here as if "Saltuk" was a given name, but he died long before the Gevaş tomb was built.

Deor, it's a little funny you mentioned that section since I added it today. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:08, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Melik sort of means 'ruler'. See that article for more. Nanonic (talk) 17:11, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Apparently the statement that the tomb was constructed in 1335 [other sources have 1358] by Melik İzzeddin for his daughter Halime Hatun is found on a carved inscription over the entrance door. That makes it likely they were real people, who may have left no other impression on the historical record. Lonely Planet reports that Halime was a Karakoyunlu; it is not clear what this is based on; this source – only a snippet – in fact doubts it.  --Lambiam 00:57, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Lambiam, page 171 in this book [2] seems a decent source. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

If the Thuluth inscription has ʿAbd al-Malik ʿIzz al-Dīn, it is more reasonable to render the father's name either as that, or in modern Turkish transliteration as Abdülmelik İzzeddin (as indeed many sources appear to have).  --Lambiam 09:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

And your comment is at the top of those many sources :D Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:43, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

March 13

Why are all of the retailers that send me emails sending me emails about COVID-19?

I get why my employer is emailing me about it. I get why the government is emailing me about it. But does it seem like literally everybody (Best Buy, Publix, Winn-Dixie, Sam's Club, Walmart, Perkin's Restaurant, Target, PeopleReady, and several others) doing it when I don't recall any of them doing anything like this in the past with viral outbreaks or other disasters? I'm curious if the government or some organization is giving out free money to companies to take measures to stop the spread of the virus, if it's just a branding thing to deter a drop in sales, or if there's some other reason. 73.156.246.142 (talk) 00:54, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What do the emails say? Are they advice on how to stay safe, or do they give information specific to the senders?  --Lambiam 01:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The stuff I've been getting seems intended to reassure, that the company is taking all necessary measures to prevent spread of the virus. I don't think it would require government payola to see the publicity advantage in sending out those emails. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

"Never let a crisis go to waste" is an old saying, but most of the search hits for it right now (at least on duckduckgo) are about Covid-19. It will probably be a little longer before serious levels of disaster capitalism are visible. Overpriced hand sanitizer on ebay doesn't count for this purpose. 2601:648:8202:96B0:54D9:2ABB:1EDB:CEE3 (talk) 02:32, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Alex Jones, for example, was recently ordered by a judge to cease and desist from selling fake coronavirus cures. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure, but I wasn't counting small potatoes like that. It sounds like Trump is about to do some kind of Wall Street bailout involving hundreds of billions of federal bucks. Obviously the details matter, and I don't know them, but that's the kind of thing I had in mind. Massive grifts and don't forget that tax cuts cure all ills. 2601:648:8202:96B0:54D9:2ABB:1EDB:CEE3 (talk) 20:27, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it's on: [3] (paywalled); [4]. From yesterday: [5] 2601:648:8202:96B0:54D9:2ABB:1EDB:CEE3 (talk) 21:07, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I hear that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has taken the radical step of honoring nursing licenses from other states; that baby step in the direction of free markets would seem to fit the definition of "disaster capitalism". —Tamfang (talk) 08:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Right now it looks like another Wall St bailout is in progress (reserve requirement eliminated,[6] "quantitative easing" which seems to mean free money). That's more like what I had in mind. I wonder if we can start the Reference Desk National Bank and print some money for indigent Wikipedia editors. 2601:648:8202:96B0:386A:A40C:EBB1:ACC0 (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Write-in

Is there a list of official write-in candidates (who have filed a "Declaration of Intent to be a Write-In Candidate") running within the city of Chicago for the March 17 primary election? 147.126.10.36 (talk) 04:02, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I called the Cook County Clerk's Office and the woman who answered, Karen Yahbo (or something that sounds like that), said no. There is no public list. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 16:53, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like Karen Yarbrough, the Cook County Clerk. Their office has information on Cook County elections that occur outside the city of Chicago. The city of Chicago has its own office. Do they have an official list? 147.126.10.36 (talk) 06:14, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

March 15

Help finding a specific Chinese story

I believe that I previously (perhaps several months ago or more) read a real life news story in China about how this one man saved or revived a woman and was then subsequently forced to pay for this woman's hospital bills. Can anyone here actually find this story and/or any story that even remotely resembles this story? Futurist110 (talk) 04:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

No idea if this is what happened in your story, but I've heard that if you run someone over with your car by accident in China and they die, among other things you have to pay a certain monetary fine. If they don't die, you have to pay their hospital bills, which can be a lot bigger than the fine if they die. So if you do hit someone, there is a perverse incentive to back up and run them over a few extra times to make sure they are dead. Maybe the person you mentioned ran someone over but managed to revive them, and was then stuck with the hospital bill. 2601:648:8202:96B0:54D9:2ABB:1EDB:CEE3 (talk) 05:29, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Here are some discussions of the general issue: [7], [8] -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:47, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this information and especially these two links! The second link here might have been especially close to what I am looking for here. That said, though, if anyone here can find any similar links, by all means, please feel free to share them here. Futurist110 (talk) 21:44, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

March 16

School status in Hungary

Does anyone know whether schools (primary and secondary) are closing in Hungary because of CV? I've heard conflicting reports and English-language news reports I see from there are a few days old. At that time, like NYC, they announced that they planned to keep the schools open, but since then NYC has decided on closure. Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:386A:A40C:EBB1:ACC0 (talk) 06:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, according to our article 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Hungary. It's mentioned in Section 3.1 Declaration of nationwide state of emergency that "On the evening of 13th March, Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary announced the closure of elementary & high schools and a switch to e-learning, effective 16th March." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.39 (talk) 08:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:386A:A40C:EBB1:ACC0 (talk) 18:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Youtube

Am i allowed to use a youtube video containing an interview as a source if the interview derives from a country where text based citations are hard to come by ? 92.0.197.126 (talk) 10:44, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Some nitwit might revert you but you can try. I've done it and had it work. 2601:648:8202:96B0:386A:A40C:EBB1:ACC0 (talk) 11:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Unless it's an official / authorized youtube item, then it's better to put it in "External links". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

It's better than nothing as long as it conforms to Wikipedia:Reliable sources; use Template:Cite AV media. Alansplodge (talk) 13:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Alansplodge: Are there any example articles where that template is used so I can copy it? 92.0.197.126 (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Cite_AV_media lists all the pages using that template. RudolfRed (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Permanent Residency condition

Has any country ever had a Permanent Residency condition whereby the person must apply for citizenship within a certain period, say 5 years, and if they fail the citizenship test or fail to apply at all, they must leave or face deportation? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:13, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Just linking to Permanent residency for completeness, even though it doesn't contain the answer requested. It's not a good article so anything we uncover here could be added to it to improve it. It also could use better links, though maybe there are none? I can't find that we have separate articles for Permanent residency in Australia, for example.70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

March 17

Placement of stress in two Greek-derived names

These are "Theotes" and "Ilioneus".

"Theotes" was supposedly a herald in the Trojan War, but there is no entry in Autenrieth's Homeric Dictionary, nor in L&S or the LSJ. I suppose it might be ?Θεότης, which uncapitalized would mean 'divinity', in which case we'd stress it on the 1st syllable, but Greek Wiktionary lists 'Θεώτας' as a (modern) man's name, with the usual η > α shift, and gives this as a ref, though it's not checking out.

"Ilioneus", also from the Trojan War, is given alt pronunciations in an old Noah Webster dict, with stress on either the 2nd or the 3rd syllable, depending on whether the -eus is pronounced as two syllables or as one. Anyone know if the stress normally shifts like that when a word ends in -eus and the preceding syllable is light? I can't think of any examples offhand.

Per L&S, that's Ἰλιονεύς Īlioneus, but our article Ilioneus gives Ἰλιονῆος, which can't be the same "Ilioneus" as in Webster. Are we wrong, or are there two Greek names transcribed the same way in English? Greek WP, BTW, has "Ιλιονέας (Ιλιονεύς)". — kwami (talk) 06:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The name occurs in the Iliad in the accusative Ἰλιονῆα and the genitive Ἰλιονῆος. These forms fit with the epic conjugation of a name with the nominative Ἰλιονεύς.  --Lambiam 12:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know about the epic conjugation. I assume that Latin and thus English normally uses the prose one? — kwami (talk) 23:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Are you asking about the accented syllable in Greek, or the stressed syllable in the English version of the name? The two are not the same By a curious convention, Ancient Greek names used in English are generally pronounced with the stress on the syllable where the accent would fall if the name were transliterated to Latin. Modern Greek names are however normally pronounced with the stress as in Greek.--rossb (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ross Burgess: Sorry, I meant the stressed syllable in English/Latin. I'm wondering how to pronounce these in English: Théotes or Theótes, Ilíoneus, Ilióneus or Ilionéus. — kwami (talk) 23:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

A herald named Θοώτης (Thoōtēs) is mentioned in the Iliad, book XII. Some GBS hits have Theotes as a scanno.  --Lambiam 06:34, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Also in Greek as a scanno: Θεώτης.  --Lambiam 06:54, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The error may have been introduced in 1839 by Gustav Schwab: in German, in a Swedish translation. It has been perpetuated in later editions. The book has also been translated to Dutch as Griekse en Romeinse Sagen, presumably with the same error.  --Lambiam 07:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! I never would've figured that all out. And that does check out with Autenrieth: "Θοώτης : the herald of Menestheus". I should create a stub on Thootes.

What did you mean by "epic conjugation" above? Is that where e.g. in Latin you change Patroclus to Patrōclus so it fits iambic verse? I don't know how the equivalent works in Greek. — kwami (talk) 10:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

No. Different Ancient Greek dialects have different but usually closely related declensions and conjugations with often predictable correlations, while Homeric Greek often has more unrelated declensions and conjugations, called "Epic". Since we have a (proper) noun here, perhaps I should have said "Epic declension". For an example, see the tables over at Wiktionary for Ἰδομενεύς.  --Lambiam 13:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

How many contractors does Amazon have?

Amazon (company) lists the number of employees, but I couldn't put my finger on the number of contractors they use. I was looking for this number after hearing they are hiring 100,000 new people, and trying to get a sense of the scale of that expansion. The company seems to rely on contract labor a lot for delivery services, so counting both seems like a better measure of how much they are expanding to cope with increased demand. I'm thinking about contractors in lieu of employees that do work that's only for Amazon, like staffing firms or individual gig workers, rather than work they contract out to say, plumbers or the USPS. (Though there's not much info about the business-to-business contracts in the article either, and I suppose it would be of public interest to know how Amazon interfaces with the shipping industry in those ways, too.) -- Beland (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

As background observation, from my past career in Facilities Management I can say that in general, large factories, plants, depots, office complexes and similar sites often outsource to contracting firms to carry out all or most of the day-to-day work that supports the site's actual primary function. This can include (but is not limited to) Security, Mechanical and Electrical Installation, Maintenance and Inspection, Civil (Buildings and Grounds) IMI, Cleaning, Catering, and most of the Office Administration necessary to control all these. Altogether this can add up to a significant proportion of all those working on/in the site.

What and how much of such work is carried out by the contractors' employees rather than those directly employed by the host company depends on the host's current management practices. Fashions for preferring in-house to outsourced work or vice-versa seem (to me) to oscillate over approximately 10-year cycles, with the transitions sometimes seeming to be used to justify the employment of some of the hosts' in-house executives. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.39 (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Fed cuts reserve requirement to zero, what can go wrong?

[9] is the idea of the reserve requirement to prevent cascading debt collapse like in 1929? To prevent hyperinflation? Both? What happens with it gone? Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:386A:A40C:EBB1:ACC0 (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

See Leverage (finance) and Margin (finance) to start... AnonMoos (talk) 01:16, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Right, I'm aware of those concepts, so eliminating the reserve requirement is like "whee! Free money!" unless I'm missing something. It is fractional reserve banking so if the fraction is zero, the bank can literally create money out of nowhere with no backing assets. I think the 2008 financial crisis might have worked a bit like that (because of the subprime mortgage bundles) but this is even more direct. 2601:648:8202:96B0:386A:A40C:EBB1:ACC0 (talk) 08:24, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@DOR (HK): you're our in-house economist; what's your take on this? Eliyohub (talk) 12:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

March 18

Saying hamotzi for cooked sticky rice

Halachically, if I cook rice (with water, and maybe a little salt) that is naturally so sticky I can mould it into balls, shouldn't one be able to say hamotzi on it? I'm interested in Sephardic / Mizrahi commentary as well. My question is motivated primarily because rice is my staple food. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 02:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

If you want to say a blessing, m'zonót seems more indicated.  --Lambiam 05:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

A bigger possible area of dispute would seem to be rice bread, something more like bread but made from rice flour without any of the other 5 grains. Although at least one authority still suggests Mezonot for such cases. [10]. Nil Einne (talk) 05:52, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

When was the earliest time that someone with bullet wounds comparable to those of Ronald Reagan in 1981 could have realistically survived?

When was the earliest time that someone with bullet wounds comparable to those of Ronald Reagan in 1981 could have realistically survived? For those of you who don't know, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981--specifically with one of Hinckley's bullets ricocheting off of Reagan's presidential limousine and hitting Reagan below the armpit, where it subsequently hit one of his ribs and then went into one of his lungs--causing this lung of Reagan's to collapse and ending up one inch or even less than that from Reagan's heart and aorta. Apparently this bullet was designed to explode upon impact but failed to do so but nevertheless the damage that this bullet did, in fact, do--with one collapsed lung and with Reagan bleeding quickly and excessively up to the point that he would die pretty quickly without treatment--was in fact quite significant even by the standards of 1981. Ultimately Reagan's doctors were able to halt the bleeding that Reagan endured, give Reagan a lot of blood transfusions, restore Reagan's damaged lung to full capacity, and remove the bullet from Reagan's lung (near Reagan's heart and Reagan's aorta)--thus ensuring that Reagan's life would be saved and that Reagan isn't going to have any further medical problems as a result of this bullet and shooting.

However, what I was wondering is this--when exactly is the earliest point in history when someone could have experienced shooting injuries comparable to those of Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 and still have realistically survived and recovered afterwards? Any thoughts on this?

I know that former US President Teddy Roosevelt was able to survive getting shot back in 1912, but to my knowledge his injuries back then were much less severe than those of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Specifically, Roosevelt didn't actually have any collapsed lungs and he also didn't suffer from massive and rapid bleeding like Reagan did. Futurist110 (talk) 03:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Before antibiotics were developed that can safely be administered intravenously, the patient undergoing such extensive surgery, even when by itself entirely successful, would not have survived the inevitably ensuing infection. I think these only became available after World War II. Another critical issue is the monitoring of the patient's status during a long period of general anesthesia. Anaesthetic machines were developed earlier, but I'm not sure they would have been up to the monitoring task. While I don't dare to pinpoint a year, I guess that 1950 is not far off the mark, medical miracles excluded.  --Lambiam 05:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Molnar, Thomas; Hasse, Jochen; Jeyasingham, Kumarasingham; Rendeki, Szilard (January 2004). "Changing Dogmas: History of Development inTreatment Modalities of Traumatic Pneumothorax,Hemothorax, and Posttraumatic Empyema Thoracis". Annals of Thoracic Surgery. PMID 14726106. has a section for The Great War Immediate thoracic surgery was rather an exception and was indicated only in cases of major bleeding and uncontrollable pneumothorax, even as early as 1914 on the German side. No major surgeries with this indication took place before 1916 in the hospitals of the Allied forces. cites Duval, Pierre (1919). "Gunshot wounds of the lung and their treatment at the front". Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics. 28. and a couple works in German. A good number of surgeons returned from the trenches with experiences of the capabilities of their own hands and of the lung to survive trauma and aggressive treatment. fiveby (talk) 13:46, 18 March 2020 (UTC)