no.stupid.answers

Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! There’s no denying that WikiAnswers.com’s has a lot of dedicated contributors. But sometimes there are those who shine so brightly, they could be mistaken for royalty! One person who really, honestly and truly deserves more than three cheers is our fantabulous Mezzra. On the site since only December 2008, this force to be reckoned with has already accomplished the impossible: just under 90,000 contributions, 50 hours as a Vandal Patrol Site Guardian and winning a 2008 Honorable Mention WAmmy. All this, while simultaneously volunteering as a mentor, WIT Adult Advisor and Wikiguide. And if that doesn’t keep him busy enough, he’s also an avid Category Supervisor – carefully watching over the dire and dangerous Catch-Alls.

What can I say? All hail Mezzra! Here’s more from the Wiki-King himself: How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers.com?

Hmm…Well, it’s nothing as exciting as I have seen others post on this blog. It’s not even very complicated. Basically, one day whilst Googling something (”what” totally evades my memory), I saw a WikiAnswers.com link. Upon opening the link, I was faced with two things; a good answer, but terrible grammar. So I got stuck right in and signed up! Checking grammar (my personal pet peeve) soon earned by around 1,000 Contribution Points in a period of a few days, and on Christmas Eve, I had the Super powers!

Explain your username.

My username is just something I saw one day on another site and nicked. Don’t know the origins or if it actually means anything, but thought it had a pretty awesome sound.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers.com community?

Basically, helping others out. It really gives me a kick and brings me back here day-after-day. That and the fact there are tons of questions that are just…urgh. So I fix those up!

What are your areas of expertise?

Without wanting to sound big-headed, the Catch-alls. I spend 90 percent of my time in there, and it’s my true love on site. Without the category I would go absolutely mad!

What is your favorite WikiAnswers.com feature?

Reverting has always been of interest to me. I just love the fact that the system remembers all of the previous answers and with two clicks you can have an old, excellent answer that has been vandalized. I can’t wait until we get the batch-revert feature…

What has been the funniest question you’ve seen or your funniest experience on WikiAnswers.com?

The question “What is Governmentium?” made me totally LOL. Even a few days after I was still laughing at the thought

Share a random fact (or two) about yourself.

Well, there isn’t much of interest about me. Other than the fact that I love English, both language and literature. As you may have known by reading this all, grammar is my absolute “thing.”

Let’s take a look at Phishtails, a Floating Supervisor and Bronze Contributor known in real-life as Marcus, who is awesome enough to be engaged and living on a cruise ship in the Bahamas where he works as a theatrical lighting technician. Having grown up as an Air Force brat on the east coast, he’s lived in every state on the Eastern seaboard from Florida to New York, plus Arizona.

From age 3 months, Marcus has worked in entertainment in the amateur or professional level in various degrees, from acting to stage manager to show director to video, lighting, or sound technician to set carpenter and much more. Among a huge number of interesting stints, he’s worked shows for Van Halen, the Eagles, Pink Floyd, Phish, Dave Matthews, and the Super Bowl.

Phishtails discovered WikiAnswers.com while searching for a site that sold motorcycle tires, answered a question and felt to be fair he should answer them all. He says he is still working on that and will let us all know when he’s finished. Boy, are we glad to have him on board…

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

I believe I was searching for cheap motorcycle tires on Google.  I had seen WikiAnswers pop up on several searches previous to this, and I bit.  I saw a weird question to which I happened to know the answer.  Then I saw another question and I answered it.  Several more questions had popped up even before I finished answering the first two, some of which I did not know the answers, but in the interest of fairness I felt I had to answer them all.  I’m still working on that.

Subsequently, I blame WikiAnswers for several failed relationships, both for dedicating my time to WikiAnswers as well as poor advice from the Wikommunity.  Therapy helps.

Explain your username.

Phishtails comes from a few puns that happily coincide.  Phish is my favorite band in the whole world.  I follow them whenever I can, which makes me one who tails after Phish.

In motorcycling, a fishtail is when the back tire spins wildly out of control, so I liked the idea of that.

A fish tale is also an exaggerated anecdote, which I am wont to tell when I’m feeling saucy.

A fish tail is a part of a fish that smells not quite as putrid as the fish head, so I use the name to let people know that I don’t smell as bad as a fish head.

I blog on livejournal under the same pseudonym.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

Power.  Power and the women attracted by power.  I also enjoy the intellectual challenge presented by questions that interest me, but to which I have little knowledge.  It forces me to research the subject matter and in effect increases my own personal knowledge.  If you see a super-long answer with my name under it, it’s a fair bet that I knew squat about it before I read the question.

What are your areas of expertise?

I love questions pertaining to motorcycles, theatre (especially technical theatre, but I love acting as well), religion, math and physics.  Occasionally I answer advice questions, especially if it concerns important subjects such as drugs and alcohol,  health or sex.  I love questions concerning politics; however, I find that when I try to answer a political question, my personal feelings turn the answer into a rant and I have to delete my own answer.

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

Aside from researching unknown subjects, I love to merge/split and correct spelling in questions.

What has been the funniest question you’ve seen or your funniest experience on WikiAnswers?

I answered a question How is a refrigerator like a cat? posted in a jokes category.  I think my answer went something like, “They’ll both keep a six-pack cold, providing you gut the cat to make room for the six-pack and stick the cat in the fridge.”  I was very tired when I wrote that.

Share a random fact (or two) about yourself.

I’ve had more motorcycles than cars.  I work on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.  My fiancee and I have decided to change our last names to a great pun gleaned from our favorite sandwich, the PB&J.  We’re going to be the Pibijais, and yes, I’m totally serious about that.  I have very few pieces of clothing that aren’t black.  I have two collections:  One of pharmaceutical company pens, and another of gadgets that will hook onto a belt like flashlights, multi-tools, cell phones, knives … even a Pez dispenser.  I love puns, though I prefer to say them rather than write them — it just translates better when spoken.

My fiancee took that picture of me (above) when I was blowing on a campfire.  She was going to delete it, but it was far too much fun Photoshop’ing it into me looking like the devil.

When not living on a cruise ship, I am in central Florida freelancing as a sound-and-lights guy for concerts and corporate events.  My fiancee works for Geico and takes care of our dogs and cat while I am out on ship.  We plan to move to New York in a couple of years.  I plan to retire as a high school or community college teacher in drama or technical theatre.

Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.

Here’s a mystery word for you: succah. It’s pronounced soo-KAH or SOOK-uh.

If you know what it is, how it should be built and what you’re supposed to do inside it, what are you waiting for? Start answering before you-know-what is over.

If you’re wondering why on earth these huts have been popping up in backyards recently, let’s see if we can’t get you some answers.

• What is a succah? I know the answer! | Tell me
• How should a succah be built? I know the answer! | Tell me
• How is a succah used? I know the answer! | Tell me
  

There are a lot of new categories on WikiAnswers lately: Exotic Pets, Canadian Football, Eli Whitney, Copernicus…

One new category on the block, Household Hints, has really caught my eye. Get a load of these questions!

Some creative cleaning issues:

• How can you remove the scent of a stinky person from a microfiber couch?
• How do you get shredded paper off a sweat jacket it was accidentally washed with?
• What is the best way to wash pillows in the washer?

Your basic household maintenance:

• How can you unclog a toilet with no plunger?
• What is the best way to stop a vinyl window from squeaking when it is being opened and closed?
• Can dog urine damage vinyl siding?
• What is the effect of light on the color of paint?

A green question:

• Why would your refrigerator be consuming more energy than usual?

And my favorite…

• What household item is lithium found in?

Take a crack at these questions - if you succeed, there will be some very grateful people out there.

Visit the What’s New page to see a running list of the newest WikiAnswers categories.

Let’s talk about moving things. On Earth, we’re always on the move (or so they tell us), but we don’t feel it. There are other places, too, where we can be jetting along at, oh, hundreds of miles an hour, and not feel that, either. For example, on excruciatingly long leg-bending neck-cricking plane rides, why does it feel like you’re going nowhere?

When it comes to machines, we know that they move. We can see it and usually we can feel it. But the rules that govern that motion elude us. Take the bicycle - a brillant two-wheeled invention that translates radial motion (what your feet do) into lateral motion (the bike’s movement forward). We all know that if you sit on a non-moving bike and take your feet off the ground, you’ll tip over pretty quickly. But put that same body on the same moving bike and - voila! - you are magically one with the machine, perched easily atop it. If gravity is constant, and you weigh the same, and of course the bike is the same… why does motion change everything?

Some movements are so fast - or slow - as to defy sight and sound. A hummingbird’s flutter can’t be seen at high speeds, and glass moves so slowly that it appears stagnant, like a solid - even though it’s really an amorphous liquid. And an object moving quickly enough can break the sound barrier, which actually causes a huge bang.

Two bonus questions for mechanics aficionados:

• Can a simple pendulum oscillate in a moving satellite?
• Where will a rock hit the ground if you drop it out a moving vehicle?

Today’s topic, motion, was chosen in honor of the new Batch Recat tool. (Supers: read more about it here; non-supers: here’s how to become one!)

If you paid me, I couldn’t tell you why I was wondering today, What is that red thing hanging down from the rooster’s chin?

If you’ve ever watched Ally McBeal, you’ll know the answer to this one. The flap of loose skin, found on roosters, turkeys, rabbits, some dog and goat varieties and even some humans, is called a wattle. Some bird species have wattles hanging from their eyes as well.

Just FYI, the rooster’s red hat is called a comb. And turkeys have a special blob of skin covering their beaks, called a snood. The bumpy stuff on their necks is a caruncle (vocab quiz next Thursday, kids).

Still, as I scavenged the web for information about this fleshy appendage, I was left hungry for more. Why do some animals have wattles? What are they for? Are they just fatty extras, or did they have an ancient evolutionary purpose?

Luckily, I was able to turn to Nirel, one of my coworkers, who has zoo-keeping experience and a ready answer for everything. According to Nirel,

I think this is the equivalent to the tail of a peacock - a measure of the health of the turkey, and therefore a bigger redder brighter wattle is a chick magnet, which will increase the fitness (number of offspring) of an individual.

Thanks, Nirel, for your wisdom. That explains the appeal of Judge Whipper.

Next week: Why do pigeons bob their heads?

Summertime, and the livin’ is…. beesy.

Does PICNIC = BEES? Why are there always so many bees at picnics? Just today, I was lunching outdoors with a friend when a humongous furry bee-thing decided to Merengue in our marinara. After 10 terrifying minutes, we packed up the food and went inside.

So, what attracted that bee to our spaghetti?

Bees are simply attracted to picnics for the same reason humans are: food! Honey bees are attracted to sweets (hello, apple juice can!) and water (we had some of that, too). They also like tree sap (they use it to caulk up their nests to keep the ants out).

What’s bugging me is: I’d rather have my picnic and eat, too. Can you help me?

• How do you keep bees away from BBQs and picnics?
• How do you get bees to leave a picnic without killing them?
• How do you keep bees off a picnic umbrella?