Where is the best place to go if you want to host a web site? It will be a simple website, so I want something cheap.

I would need to register it first, though. What’s the cheapest way to do that? Who gets that money anyway? the govt?

My idea is to have www.ilovetheanserperson.net. Thoughts? I’ll link to you!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Some ISPs allow you to pay for your own unique domain name, and there are a lot of services that allow you to purchase, or lease, a URL that forwards to some underlying account. As a Duke employee, AP can’t really give recommendations to this or that commercial service. Doing a google search with words like “url domain name forwarding” finds stuff — you can play around with the keywords. Some claim to be less than $10/year, but it will probably be a little more, especially if you want to add features like masking your real domain name from the user.

The company gets the money for knowing how to register a domain name and for doing it for you. You might get some insight by reading the articles “domain name registry” and “domain name registrar” at en.wikipedia.com

Thanks for the suggested domain name, although perhaps it’s best to keep AP focused on the Duke community rather than shared with the entire world. We don’t want to risk diluting my powwers!

Is there a way to change the settings on my computer (with Mac OS X) so that all new files, especially word files, are created with the setting “read and write” by all, not just myself. People get annoyed when they have to use a file but it is “read only”, eh?

Cheers.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Without knowing the specific context of your installation, I’m sure it’s best that you contact a local support person (here at Duke, it would be the Office of Information Technology). This could be related to internal Word default settings or it could be related to higher level system defaults in OS X.

How can I convert a PDF to a word file without messing up the footnotes?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: There are third-party programs you can buy that will do this (I suspect the resulting documents need cleanup, and I can’t recommend any particular program). Just do a google search along these lines:
pdf to word converter footnotes

What percentage of American parents hide christmas presents for their kids before wrapping them, putting them under the tree, etc.?

Merry christmas in advance!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The last time that Answer Person checked, the US Census Bureau wasn’t asking this question on it’s forms and Gallup, Roper, and the other polling organizations weren’t asking it either. Wouldn’t it be close to 100%? Or, maybe I just came from a traditional family. Merry Christmas!

Fennel and anise have similar tastes. Are they related?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: No. Fennel is related to parsley and anise isn’t. The bulb, stem, and leaves of fennel are used. The seed and sometimes leaves of anise are used. Since they have similar flavors, the term “anise” is sometimes used to refer to fennel.

Hey I have a query about milk. Why does organic milk take so much longer to expire than the other kind? At my supermarket, the organic milk usually expires in a month and the regular milk in a week.

You’d think non-organic milk would have more preservatives or something, eh? Does milk expire faster than it did, say thirty years ago?

Mooooo.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: This indicates that the milk has been “ultra-pasteurized” to extend shelf life. This involves a very high temperature (280° F), but for a very short time (2 seconds), compared to old-fashioned pasteurization (161.5° F for 15 sec.).

AP can only guess why this might be used more with organic milk, but there are surely a number of economic and publicity reasons. If organic milk doesn’t sell as fast as industrially produced milk, maybe the producers and retailers feel this is nessesary. They perhaps want to maintain a repuation of a product that doesn’t go bad quickly. One suggestion is that the lack of anti-biotics in the milk requires it to be ultra-pasteurized, but I don’t know the scientific validity of this. It could be that due to fewer packaging centers, it’s shipped from farther away and needs longer shelf life. Probably just a rumor.

There is supposedly a “UHT” designation on the front gable top on Horizon brand milk if it’s ultra-pasteurized. Some is, some isn’t.

I’d think that with the adoption of ultra-pasteurization, expiration is longer than it used to be.

There are more details at this webpage: http://www.nbc4.com/answerstoaskliz2005/4494693/detail.html or the Wikipedia article on pasteurization at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization or this university web site on UHT pasteurization: http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/uht.html

Fernet Branca is a liquor made from herbs. How does one make a liquor from herbs? And why would you do so?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: It’s an aromatic bitter, like Campari or Angostura. The herbs are soaked in a base of a distilled spirit (in this case distilled from fermented grapes, like brandy) to impart their flavor to it, and aged over a year in oak. It’s used as an after dinner drink or probably more often as an ingredient in mixed drinks. Why? Why do people flavor anything they eat or drink?

Does the Christian Cross have specific dimensions or a specific ratio, or do people just make crosses by sight?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: They just seem to eyeball it. Who would make the standards? There are so many competing Chistian denominations. The main variants are the Greek cross, used in Orthodox Christianity, where the four arms are of equal length and the Latin cross, where the descending arm is longer. AP can find no mention of standards for its proportions, either today or in ancient times. The cross used for crucifixions by the Romans is said to have been shaped more like a “T”

what percent of american households have real christmas trees each year, what percent have fake and what percent have both?

how many american households are there anyway? thank yous

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The US Dept. of Agriculture says that “according to the National Christmas Tree Association, in 2000, nearly 31 percent of households displayed a real Christmas tree, while 49 percent displayed an artificial tree. Twenty-one percent had no tree. Two percent said they had both a real tree and an artificial tree.”

There are 112,000,000 total “households” in the US, according to March 2004 estimates from the Census Bureau. That’s family as well as non-family (one person or unrelated persons). Or, in March 2001 (the estimate closest to Christmas 2000), a figure of 108,209,000 total households.

Can a foreigner be charged with breaking US law? For example, could someone in Asia be charged with piracy? By extension, does US law apply outside of US territory? For example, when I (as a US citizen) leave US soil, am I still subject to US law?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: This is one of those law questions that librarians (including AP) can’t get involved in. Please consult a lawyer. Nonetheless, a foreigner can be charged in the US with breaking US law (and remember that there are many laws you can break without being present). The juristiction where the crime is committed can charge you, and you — a US citizen or not — can commit a crime in the US (say, securities fraud) while vacationing in Bermuda, can’t you? The bottom line is, don’t break any laws and you’ll be OK. I think that’s safe for a non-lawer to say.