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I just read that the Gimli Glider (Boeing 767) was retired from service with Air Canada in 2008, sat in aircraft parking in the desert for a few years, then was put up for auction with the expectation of getting US$2-3 million, but the highest bid was a mere $425,000. I'm like "what?", that figure seems ridiculously low for a high-tech aircraft that by all indications was in working condition. I don't know if the engines were included, but even still. At least til fairly recently there were still backwater airlines flying stuff like DC-3's. Does the 767 have too many expensive technical requirements to be worth keeping it running, or what? 173.228.123.145 (talk) 07:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Air Canada did not retire this particular aircraft because they didn't like it. They retired it because it had served for 25 years and was likely continuing the operations was not economical. You have to take into account that 767 is a relatively advanced aircraft, requiring substantial maintenance (and, after 25 years, probably an overhaul). It is also a very large airplane, meant for heavy-duty routes, not really the target market for "backwater airlines". The reason why DC-3 and a lot of old Russian airplanes are still operating are: they are of "right size", they can take a lot of punishment (e.g., take off from poorly maintained or dirt runways) and can be maintained by a monkey with a screwdriver. 767 satisfied none of those criteria.129.178.88.84 (talk) 08:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But seriously, fuel costs are a major issue and the likely reason why the bid price for the aircraft was so low. Since 2009, in response to rising fuel costs, Boeing and Airbus have introduced the 787 and the A350, respectively, built with more energy-efficient designs. Although it is still in use, especially for air freight, the 767 is no longer really competitive for passenger service because of its relatively high fuel costs. The low sale price for the used 767 likely reflects the need to discount the price to counterbalance the fuel costs. Marco polo (talk) 15:39, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the responses and I guess the bidders knew what they were doing, but I still find the whole thing surprising. When the Glider made its emergency landing, the front landing gear and the nose of the plane got mashed up; this was considered minor damage, but it still cost something like $1M to repair. So I'd have imagined the plane to be worth more than that even just as a source of parts. But maybe they don't cannibalize parts from old planes the way they do for other types of gear. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 01:32, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Cannibalizing would be useful if they needed more 767 parts. But if the airlines want to retire their 767s anyway, for efficiency reasons, there wouldn't be a need for those old parts. $400,000 looks quite right for a parts dealer , who doesn't see a huge market for them either. Just my $0.02. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 07:54, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What is the percent of minorities who earn bachelor’s degrees and of that total number, what proportion of those degrees are in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dharmascholar (talk • contribs) 09:45, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've been searching for the statistics on this since Google released its numbers and I have been trying to get a better picture of the situation. To do this, one needs to know how many ethnic minorities and women have degrees that would be of interest to tech employers (mainly STEM fields) to compare to the number actually employed in those fields. No doubt an disparity exists, but we cannot know how large the gap is until we know the numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dharmascholar (talk • contribs) 09:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What is the minimum crew needed to effectively sail a typical 350 ton Napoleonic-era Frigate? How many men would have been put aboard a captured vessel as a prize crew?
In the first question, do you wish to account for support people (powder monkeys, chaplain, doctor, etc.) and for extras to take over from ill sailors, or are you strictly asking how many guys would have to be working together to get the thing to move effectively? Your prize crew will depend on the condition of the captured vessel. If it's in good shape, you'd probably want it to be able to move effectively: if you capture it, you don't want the enemy to capture it back because you only gave it a skeleton crew who can't keep up with the rest of the fleet. If the battle resulted in the ship losing most of its rigging, but you still capture it instead of sinking or burning it, you'll have to have enough guys to put together a jury rig, but the ship naturally won't be able to sail as well; perhaps you'd put fewer guys (so you have fewer men lost if the ship's lost) or more guys (to fight off the enemies when they come up). Nyttend (talk) 18:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The USS Nightingale (linked from the prize crew article), while sailing back to the USA as a prize, had a crew of 34; due to sickness, she was sailed for a time (although perhaps not effectively) by seven of them. She was rather bigger than a sixth-rate (which is in the 350-ton range), and other non-reliable sources suggest that 10-30 was a typical prize crew at the time. I'd have thought the absolute minimum would be five (two on the wheel and three in the rigging), although there would be no chance of any sort of fighting, and bad weather would put an end to the voyage. Tevildo (talk) 20:19, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A typical "it depends" situation. Up to a point, more seamen mean faster sailing, with the added muscle to move the wheel and sails. If five is the absolute minimum, you'd probably be better off with ten to fifteen sailors, and even more if you have to go a long way (too long to stay awake through the whole trip). From that, a prize crew of ten looks perfectly reasonable for a short trip, and thirty if their destination is days away. Small crews would have more trouble both repairing a damaged ship and sailing in adverse weather, too.
Fighting a ship (as in, using its artillery effectively) is a whole different beast. Artillerymen were by far the biggest part of a ship's crew, although that was for liners, which had around 40 guns per broadside. The proportion might have been somewhat lower for the lighter frigates with fewer guns. In that case, one had to bring enough extras to compensate not only for sick sailors, but also for battle injuries. This is off topic, but I'd guess gun crews and medics would have tripled the crew requirement easily, bringing it up to about 80 including some medics but few stand-in artillerymen, if any. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 08:36, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah - I'm aware of that. On a 30 gun frigate, you'd have 240 crew - when you figure it probably takes 6 to man a gun in battle, you're going to need 180 guys just to do that. Add in 20 or 30 to fire muskets and such from the fighting tops, some command hierarchy, some medical guys - and there couldn't have been many left to sail the ship. But it's a different matter to do that in battle than to sail a prize vessel back to port. In battle, nobody needs to rest, take meals or sleep. Maintenance isn't necessary no matter how urgent.
That's why I was wondering how many they'd have put aboard a prize. Too few and it wouldn't make it home. Too many and you leave yourself being unable to fight adequately. Anyway, the USS Nightingale number of 34 is the first I've heard with any degree of confidence. Evidently there is some flexibility here - and a trade-off between speed and reliability of getting the prize home versus continued ability to fight on your own ship. But it seems to me that putting a 30 man crew on a prize when you have "must do in battle" tasks eating maybe 60 crewmen would result in a bunch of unmanned guns in your next round of combat. We hear of ships taking multiple prizes in a single trip...seems like they'd be seriously weakened by the end.
One minor addition. Even if you want enough crew to fight, enough men for one broadside might be worth considering; a prize which had to fight two enemies at a time would be lost anyway. Still, one broadside = 15 guns = 90 artillerymen if I go with SteveBaker's 6 men per gun; my initial estimate of 80 was way too low, it seems. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 08:28, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Trade ships routinely did with far smaller crews - they did not need to manoeuvre as aggressively, the did not need to sail as aggressively, and they did not need to fight their far fewer guns as effectively. Landström cites Walter Raleigh complaining that English 100 ts trading ships needed 30 men, while the Dutch managed to do with 10. A typical frigate, on the other hand, had a nominal crew size of around 250. Frigates, especially if out for prize taking, often had supernumeraries on board, exactly to provide prize crews. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
USS Constitution under fighting sails, about to scatter the enemy (?) fleet ;-) One more comment: In battle, most warships would change to fighting sails, usually just topsails, some staysails and spanker, to reduce the number of people needed to manage the rig, and to free men for fighting. I suspect that prizes similarly would do with a reduced rig if necessary. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:33, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above is a discussion of mines that took place last month, it dates to before I had an account, hence the ip. I fear that I was not specific enough. Why are the following brands absent from Scotland:
As for Butterfinger, it would require a distributor to decide that importing it to Scotland would be a profitable venture. Either nobody thought of it (except Pablothepenguin?), or it was not considered an adequately profitable idea. I don't know about Scotland, but some countries have import duties, etc., that discourage such things. It could simply be that the transportation and distribution cost makes importation impractical, unless Nestlé already has a distribution network in Scotland. But, ... if you're moving to Scotland soon, then YOU could become a Butterfinger tycoon!
As for Chuck E Cheese's, it is a franchise; thusfar limited only to the US. Opening a franchise in a foreign country requires an effort that might be deemed excessive or perhaps simply not profitable enough, or nobody seriously thought about it yet. —If you think you could make a go of it... —71.20.250.51 (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Both companies have products that are likely to struggle to do well in Scotland. Scotland already has at least two pizza chains (Pizza Hut and Pizza Express), and innumerable non-chain pizzerias of varying quality. It would take a substantial capital investment to set up a UK subsidiary including the various legal registrations, payroll, accounting, and tax compliance systems, supply chain, advertising, and retail infrastructure (leases, food service equipment, furniture, etc). Managers may have concluded that the business case for such a large investment was not justified by the likely return. As for Butterfinger, it is made with genetically modified corn (maize). European Union rules require that foods made with genetically modified components have to be labeled as such. This kind of labeling is known to deter consumers from buying labeled products. For this reason alone, Nestle, the owners of Butterfinger, are likely to have decided not to try to market the product in the EU. Of course, Nestle could have chosen to produce a version of butter finger in manufacturing facilities in the EU that avoid genetically modified components, but it isn't clear that Europeans (including Scots) have the same taste for peanut products that Americans do. Marco polo (talk) 20:11, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Two other things: Both products are examples of entire genres that are rare or unknown here in the UK. While there are peanut-based chocolate products available, they're not nearly as abundant in the US, because the UK doesn't have a massive surplus peanut harvest to use up. So not only is there no Butterfinger, there's also no NutRageous, no Oh Henry!, and no 5th Avenue, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are a rare import. As for family entertainment centres, of which Chuck E Cheese's is apparently an example, I've never seen one over here at all. It's much commoner for one or more of the entertainment features - soft play apparatus, laser tag, etc - to be the main feature of a venue, and for the accompanying refreshments to be a non-branded sandwich bar. Alternatively, many leisure centres run by (or operated under franchise from) local authorities may incorporate a few arcade games or a soft play facility, and a sandwich bar, alongside the main attractions of a swimming pool, small slide park, and fitness centre. So there's no niche for Chuck E Cheese's or its imitators to exploit; no-one is going to go and eat inferior pizza just because it's co-located with laser tag, when there's laser tag and Pizza Express (or better) a short distance apart. Relatedly: while parts of Scotland are quite remote, and don't have chain restaurants full stop, most of the UK is quite densely populated, and conventional town centres still play a major part. Strip malls are rare in the extreme (although I happen to live walking distance from two of them). So venues of the size necessary for a Chuck E Cheese's are scarce in places where people want to open pizza restaurants. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:31, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Minor factual correction - NutRageous is now sold in the UK, at least in my local branches of Sainsbury's and Tesco's. I've tried it, but (as the typical UK consumer), I would agree that it has rather too high a peanut/chocolate ratio. Tevildo (talk) 23:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
All above info is duly noted. I would like to ask why Canada still has Butterfingers and Chuck E Cheeses when the UK has a much higher population. Pablothepenguin (talk) 21:10, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Canada is contiguous with the USA, and has a similar population distribution, with the added wrinkle that the vast majority of Canadians live within 100 miles of the frontier with the lower 48 US states. So elements like land use patterns and peanut gluts can be considered as likely to be very like the situation for the US, and distribution networks are easy to integrate with the US. Moreover, although Canada has some fairly old cities - Montreal, for example - it lacks the wide spread of very old town and city centres that the UK has. The UK's raw population isn't the issue - it's the density. Parts of the UK - eg the highlands - are very sparsely populated, but most of the UK has a population density higher even than many superficially urban parts of Canada - and the population centres have mostly been there since before Canada was heard of. Even a huge conurbation like London or Greater Manchester is a patchwork of ancient town and village centres, none of which is suitable for extensive new construction of the sort that's easy on the margins of US and Canadian cities. And a lot of the infill between these ancient centres went up between about 1860 and 1935, before anyone had conceived of pizza fast-food restaurants, strip malls, laser tag, or any of the other things we're thinking of here. Most of the extensive commercial land use we've got is either (a) individual hypermarkets (b) on WW2 bomb sites, which are semi-randomly distributed, or (c) on the site of former heavy industry. Some are all three, if the local factory was bombed, not rebuilt, and subsequently replaced by a huge Sainsbury's. Car use also has an effect - fewer Brits than Americans or Canadians have cars, and those that do use them less. So there's considerably less willingness to travel to an edge-of-town location just for dinner and a spot of fun. This is all far more answer than this really needs, though - the basic answer is: the corporations responsible for these products have judged that the cost of introducing them to the UK market outweighs the benefit. The reasons I've given above are likely ones, but 'they didn't feel like it' is all the answer that's really needed.
How does everyone in Star Trek speak the same language? Even aliens from societies that have never come in contact with each other seem to speak to each other. Bali88 (talk) 20:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Many science fiction settings fall back on the idea of a "universal translator"; Star Trek is no exception, according to our article on the concept (which is... probably more detailed than it needs to be, with 1200 words on ST alone...). Andrew Gray (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So, where is the translator located? Because they seemed to be able to communicate even in situations where they were without their uniforms. Hmm... Bali88 (talk) 21:22, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I remember an episode of DS9 where the Ferengis went back in time to 20th century Earth and their UTs weren't working properly. It showed them trying to remove the implanted translators from their ears. I don't know if only Ferengis used implanted UTs or if all Star Trek species did. Another question I've always had is why, when Captain Picard for example says "Qapla'" in Klingon, we hear "Qapla'" instead of the translated "Success!". Or why, when somebody is speaking to an alien in their language, they respond with "You honor me by speaking my language"....how do they know it's not a translated version? or how does the Universal Translator know not to translate the alien language? Maybe it's better to just enjoy the fiction than to peer behind the curtain.--William ThweattTalkContribs21:37, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
^See, these are my questions. I mean the whole Darmok thing made sense. They got the words translated, but the syntax couldn't be figured out. Fine, whatevs. But there are times when they use words in other language that come out in those languages. Bali88 (talk) 21:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The cool thing about that story was that it wasn't even syntax that stymied them. It was the issue that you could understand every single thing about what was said - and still not be able to extract any meaning without a pile of cultural background. This happens in human communications all the time. I could tell you that my wife was watching TV the other day and said "Wow! That was definitely a giraffe moment!" - and I laughed. You know the English language - all of the words are very common and you do correctly understand all of their meanings. The sentence structure is clear...but the TV show had nothing whatever to do with giraffes - so you still have no idea what that means or why I laughed. That's because you have no knowledge of a specific email I sent her three years ago with a specific description of giraffe biology. There is no explanation I can give you which would convey why that was a funny thing to say without explaining a large chunk of my recent history. How could the universal translator handle that without stopping the conversation, explaining stuff for 30 minutes - and then translating what was actually said?
Misunderstandings of "Darmok"-like proportions are certain to happen no matter what. It's one of the best STTNG episodes, IMHO. SteveBaker (talk) 03:19, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
They speak English because the audience is English-speaking. It reminds me of a Time Tunnel episode where they landed in ancient Rome, and it was amazing how everyone spoke fluent language-not-invented-yet. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 21:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, see that doesn't bother me. We're used to it, we can just pretend they're actually speaking Greek or whatever. But the whole thing where different cultures who have never come in contact with each other and didn't know they previously existed and yet their languages are programmed in is a little more seamless than you'd expect it to be. Bali88 (talk) 21:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The transporter needs an impossibly large bandwidth for the communications channel. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is violated, conservation of mass/energy is a severe issue...it's MUCH harder than a universal translator. (We're told that the ship has "Heisenberg compensators" to fix the transporter problem. When the actor who plays Scotty was asked how those work, he famously answered: "Very well!" :-) 03:07, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Hm, what? It says in part: The communication officer of the cosmo-ship Enterprise, Hoshi Sato, used the universal translation tool to invent a language-coding matrix and thus a universal translation tool came into existence. —Tamfang (talk) 22:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The serious answer is simply that universal translators are part of the fiction and for the convenience of both the producers and the viewers they're depicted as if a conversation using the device was just like a normal conversation, as long as they work properly. (Darmok was just one of a number of episodes of various Star Trek series where they didn't.) Ever see the movie Judgement at Nuremberg or The Hunt for Red October? In both cases, the non-English-speaking characters are shown at the start of the movie speaking their correct language (and in Judgement at Nuremberg, we see the simultaneous interpreters at work translating between English and German), but once the audience has seen enough of this to be clued in as to what's really going on, the actors suddenly switch to speaking English; and the audience understands that this is for their convenience. Well, Star Trek just skipped the first step where they would show it more realistically. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 04:29, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Insta-translation saves time, the actors don't have to learn a fictional language (though, *COUGH* [Klingon language] *COUGH*), and it would get on your nerves if you heard the translation process all the time (even if it's both real-time and perfect). TVTropes calls that a Justified Trope. Trying to avoid it all of the time would ruin the story-telling and the entertainment value.
There was an argument on de.wp once, that all the sci-fi shows are really just Travel Stories IN SPACE! and by using planets for nations, and starships for wet ships, they can do so without stepping on any nationality's toes. So, aliens are sort of justified, too (if you can live with Star Trek being reduced to a glorified Love BoatIN SPACE!, that is).
Same goes for another mainstay of TV sci-fi, FTL (faster than light) travel. Without it, you'd be pretty much stranded within the Solar System. Long shows would run out of location faster than you could say, "Engage!"
There are many similar inconsistencies. Just something as simple as the communicator badges, for example. They don't seem too science-fiction-ish in an era of ubiquitous cellphones - we could easily build devices with most of their capabilities - but they are subtly weird. Sometimes crew members have to tap the communicator and speak the recipient's name to initiate a call, sometimes they just tell the computer to make the connection without tapping the badge. Sometimes they tap the communicator to "pick up" a call - and other times, they just start talking. Sometimes they tap the badge to end the conversation - and other times, it just kinda trails off and ends by some magical means! Can you imagine the privacy and security concerns about being able to set up a bi-directional voice connection to any crew member without them having to take any action to do so - or a comms channel staying "open" after the conversation was thought to have ended? You could listen in on any conversation from anywhere within a couple of million miles! There is also no "ring tone" or any "busy signal" - conversations always start up immediately and without interference. On a ship with over 1000 crew members (and children) - and with everyone (seemingly) able to communicate with anyone else at any time, and a seemingly rather 'flat' command heirarchy...can you just imagine any of the senior staff ever having a moment to themselves? SteveBaker (talk) 16:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not only that, but if you pay attention to the timing of the communications, it's also subtly wrong. The person initiating the call usually starts by introducing himself/herself, like "Picard to Riker" or "Dr. Crusher to Transporter Room 2". Since the computer can't make the connection until it hears "Riker" or "2", it follows that the person receiving the call must hear the words repeated with a delay equal to the time needed to say "Picard to" or "Dr. Crusher to Transporter Room". Yet when we see the scene from the caller's point of view, we don't hear a corresponding delay in the other person's answer. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 23:30, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yep - that too! Of course we could also get picky and observe the lack of speed-of-light delay between crew on an away mission and the Enterprise...as it's still an hour away and rushing to help them at maximum warp. That means that the transmission system is using some faster-than-light technology. (Make sense because they can also send "subspace"-messages back to StarFleet headquarters and get a response back in less than the lifespan of the crew members!). Soooo...if you can beat the lightspeed barrier, then the entire concept of simultaneity is out the window. We'd have to suppose that the computer cunningly subverts simultaneity to achieve this effect!
In the end, the communicators, the translators, the transporters, deflector shields, holodeck and warp drive are all violating any number of well-known principles of physics. It's that thing about "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - it's magic. Don't sweat it - sit back and enjoy the show!
