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February 1

ST: Enterprise

They're showing Shockwave (Star Trek: Enterprise) and I begin to think this show is just insufferable. Do they use time travel to fix all their problems everywhere in the whole series? Someone else here watches it so I see it sort of automatically, but maybe I'll start going out of my way to avoid it. I've only seen a few episodes and it has some likeable elements but the whole Time Cop thing is bad juju for any sf story. Babylon 5 barely got away with it but ST seems nowhere near competent enough to even try. Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 08:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Time travel to solve problems has been used quite often in the history of the series. TOS - Tomorrow Is Yesterday, Assignment: Earth among others. The film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Rather than type the rest just see Category:Star Trek time travel episodes. It should be noted that it is a long time trope in SciFi in general. MarnetteD|Talk 22:26, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But, to answer the specific question: No, "time travel to fix all their problems" is not what the show is about. Most of the time it's either willingness to negotiate with aliens, or technical ingenuity. On the other hand, there are quite a few time-travel episodes over the run of the series, including some that resolve major ongoing plot elements. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 05:41, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both of you. Time travel in SF can work ok as a one-shot device, but ENT is an arc series, and imho it becomes a hopeless mess if there are characters travelling back and forth multiple times destroying causality in the story. The blue jumpsuits also make the crew members look like janitors. Oh well. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 19:13, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah ENT is too contrived. Older series are better. 93.136.119.51 (talk) 09:44, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, all works of fiction are contrived. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:40, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Translation to Krakowiaczek

Does anyone have a translation to Krakowiaczek ?

Krakowiaczek jeden
mial koników siedem.
Pojechal na wojnę,
Zostal mu się jeden.

Krakowianka jedna
miala chlopca z drewna
i dziewczynke z wosku,
wszystko po krakowsku.

Krakowiaczek jeden
Miał koników siedem
Pojechał na wojnę
Został mu się jeden

Siedem lat wojował
Szabli nie wyjmował
Szabla zardzewiała
Wojny nie widziała

Krakowianka jedna
Miała chłopca z drewna
A buciki z wosku
Wszystko po krakowsku

Krakowiaczek ci ja
Krakowskiej natury
Kto mi wejdzie w drogę
Ja na niego z góry

Krakowiaczek ci ja
Któż nie przyzna tego
Siedemdziesiąt kółek
U pasika mego

Krakowiaczek ci ja
Z czerwona czapeczką
Szyta kierezyja
Bucik z podkóweczką

Gra mi wciąż muzyka
A kółka trzepocą
Jak małe księżyce
W blasku się migocą

Krakowiaczek jeden
Miał koników siedem
Pojechał na wojnę
Został mu się jeden

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.127.102.118 (talk) 09:14, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You want Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. This is the entertainment desk, which is mostly about movies and TV shows in English. translate.google.com gives some intelligible output though. I added <poem> tags to put line breaks in the right places for you. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 09:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mama Lisa has one (not sure if all the verses you posted are there, but there are quite a few): Krakowiaczek jeden. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:21, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

February 2

Which board game is this?

I played this board game at the Tapiola library in Espoo, Finland but I forgot its name. Can anyone identify it? JIP | Talk 14:23, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Taluva --Viennese Waltz 14:39, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's OK, don't mention it. --Viennese Waltz 09:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks in retrospect. JIP | Talk 13:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Naming Piper Tune

Does someone know the name of the tune by 00:42 to 00:49 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amNF_F6oeRU the Dueling Pipers? Thank you 2003:F5:6F06:9B00:808A:6327:4B4:53F7 (talk) 15:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC) MPB[reply]

It sounds a lot like "Morrison's Jig", but I'm not 100% sure. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:54, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're right. Here's a fiddle player doing the number, at a lower pitch, but it sounds the same or similar.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that, Bugs! The fiddler, Katy Adelson, mentions that it is also called "Stick Across the Hob". "Morrison" is James Morrison, one of the great Sligo fiddlers. This particular jig found its way to Morrison in the United States in 1936. Shortly before a recording with Columbia Records, an accordionist from County Kerry named Tom Carmody

"(...} played him the jig. Jim asked me where I had got it from and I told him it was my father's jig called The Stick Across The Hob. Jim asked me to play it again and wrote it down as I played, then he got the fiddle and played it off. 'I will put that on record tomorrow,' he said, 'and we'll call it Maurice Carmody's Favourite."

(from Harry Bradshaw's sleeve notes for a reissue of James Morrison The Professor (recordings from 1921-1936) as quoted in Peter Cooper's Complete Irish Fiddle Player (2010). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And here is The Professor's recording from 1936. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:26, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, it stirs the soul of those of us who have some Celtic blood in us. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:05, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, beautiful, thank you so much. A friend of mine used to play this Jig on his violin in the Brittany but I met it again two days ago for the first time after over fourty years. 2003:F5:6F03:3E00:7490:EBB1:46E8:D2A7 (talk) 18:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC) MPB[reply]

What's the median field position of the start of an NFL drive?

Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Places to start your search. MarnetteD|Talk 18:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You ask for median, but for a complete answer, how about mean, median, and mode. The mode is easiest to answer. If a kickoff or punt is not a touchback, there is no telling where it will end. Further, it is unexpected for two non-touchback kicks to start at the same position on the field. The same argument follows for turnover on downs. The line of scrimmage is rather random. A touchback has a set starting position (20 or 25, depending on the rules). Just two touchbacks will likely set the 20/25 yard line as the mode. Mean is also easy to answer because statistics are well published for the NFL. Before the NFL changed touchbacks to the 25, the mean line of scrimmage to start a drive was between 20 and 25 yards. After the change, it moved five yards to between 25 and 30 yards. It was 28 in 2019. Finally, the median. That is nearly impossible to work out exactly because access to the statistics of every drive is hard to come by. I wrote a screenscraper to pull game-by-game data and, assuming I didn't mess it up in any way, the median starting line of scrimmage for 2019 was the 28 yard line. The same value for mean and median is a rounding issue. Mean is actually about 28.4 and median is about 27.8. I would have thought median would be closer to the touchback line of scrimmage. If someone has a better data set, I would be interested in knowing what they calculate meand and median to be. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 14:33, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The data for every drive is available at NFL.com, which maintains game logs. Here is the one from the most recent Super Bowl. It would require someone to take the time to go through it and collect the data. It's not impossible, Jon Bois has gone through such data before for his extremely detailed Chart Party YouTube series; he did a rather impressive video doing a deep dive on punting (it was a 60 minute video, and quite good), for example. He did a shorter one (~15 min) on kickoffs, I don't know if he got the data you're looking for, but you can find his kickoff video here. I'm sure he probably uses some sort of data scraping system to go through all of the game logs and collect the data. It's doable. I don't know if it has been done though. --Jayron 32 19:35, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

February 3

Oval Track Racing

Resolved

In Europe, we are much more used to seeing car racing on a twisty circuit, with both right and left turns, than an oval track.

Why did oval track racing become the most dominate form of motor racing in the USA?
Is it as easy as it seems, foot to floor and steer left?

--TrogWoolley (talk) 14:15, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NASCAR racing, the dominant racing organization in the United States, started as beach racing. You raced from one end of the beach to the other, turned around, and raced back. By the time racetracks were being built, the idea of an oval track with two straight ways for acceleration and two tight turns was already popular. This is in contrast to destination racing where you start in one place and race to another. It is also in contrast to city racing, where you follow a twisting path through a city, but still form a loop that you repeat multiple times. It does create a strategy. You cannot simply floor it through the turns. You will slide and hit the wall. You must slow down. How you do it is up to you. You can slow down going into the turn, get grip on the turn, and accelerate out to shoot down the straight track. You can drive hard into the turn, slow down, and come out of the turn on the inside of the track and try to pass someone who comes out of the turn high on the track. But, the higher car usually has a speed advantage on the straight track. So you need to push it hard to keep the inside when the next turn starts. It isn't easy. If you are ever in Atlanta and go to Dave and Busters, they have NASCAR simulators (at least they had them the last time I was there). The simulators are very realistic. I watched many people hop in, slam their foot down, spin out, hit the wall, game over. If you watch a race, they often shown the inside of the car. You can see the driver constantly adjusting - and not just for a short race, but for a very long and grueling race. It is an endurance test as much as a race. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 14:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget the moonshining angle which was a significant part of NASCAR's origins. (That was more like "destination" racing.) In any case, early American auto race tracks (such as Indy) were oval just like horse race tracks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:22, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I expect for the same reason that oval tracks have been common since ancient chariot racing. It keeps the action localized, requires more skill, and allows for strategic passing. I did not intend to imply that oval track racing was invented by Nascar. As for moonshine running, I believe that the legend is much larger than the truth and that it had more to do with fast engines than racing skills. Nascar began in 1948 (long after prohibition) and the big focus from the start was the belief that "if it wins on Sunday, it sells on Monday." 135.84.167.41 (talk) 16:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The stories might be exaggerated. But as noted in the article, moonshining continued long after Prohibition ended, to avoid paying taxes on the stuff. As for the oval track, the reverse question could be asked: Why did some places in Europe start running auto races on the city streets, hence blocking traffic? (Kind of like the Tour de France, except much more dangerous to all concerned.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:40, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requires more skill compared to what? European style circuits? Or drag racing? The latter I can certainly believe. The two styles of circuits require different skills for sure, but the former seems an odd thing the claim. Fgf10 (talk) 20:12, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a Brit who has for the last few years been following IndyCar, which features roughly equal numbers of Ovals, Street courses and Road courses (i.e. dedicated racing circuits) in each season, I can see an argument could be made – Ovals generally feature higher average and top speeds, closer racing, more overtakes, and more running at the absolute edge of traction. On the other hand, drivers on Ovals are more often subject to being taken out by others' crashes through no fault of their own.

Since IndyCar has, as indicated, all three types of circuit, and also features a number of ex-F1/2/3 drivers, it shouldn't be too hard to find actual drivers opining on the subject. However, as it's now past 3:00am where I am (I've just dipped in here briefly after binging on Six Nations Rugby), I'll leave that to others. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.205.58.107 (talk) 03:17, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Requires more skill" than a straight line in an arena. The reference is to an oval track in an arena or stadium of some kind. Assume the arena is 1 mile long. It takes more skill to race a 1 mile long oval track, doing multiple laps, than a single shot down a 1 mile long track. Yes, this is a slight against drag racing. It is well known that drag racing takes skill, but it is silly to claim that it requires the same level of skill as track racing, regardless of the shape of the track. This is the same argument you find for Ford/Chevy vs Dodge. The Dodge cars can go in a straight line insanely fast, but they can't turn. So, the car itself is less "skilled" than the competitors. Some people turn it into a straw-man counterargument by saying that "less skill" is the same as "no skill" and getting upset with the claim that drag racing takes no skill. Being able to accelerate quickly in a straight line takes skill. Being able to do it coming out of a turn and then control yourself into the next turn requires more skill. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 13:23, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the info. BTW I didn't really think it was as easy as foot to the floor and steer left - obviously you have to slow down for the corners. --TrogWoolley (talk) 09:35, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a joke about Bill Gates telling how he came to invent Microsoft Windows: "I heard that NASCAR was popular because of its constant crashes, and that gave me an idea...". 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 01:53, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

February 7

Star Trek: Picard episode

Where I can find a written summary of the recent Star Trek: Picard episode "The End is the Beginning" (not interested in YouTube discussions of it). Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 02:59, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here on Memory Alpha. I'm not reading it myself to see how accurate it is, since I haven't watched the episode myself yet, but usually the descriptions there are good. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 08:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That summary of the plot is very short, however. Can anyone find anything longer? The Star Trek: Picard article doesn't cover it yet. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 09:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yet is the operative word. Like Wikipedia, the content there is user generated and free, so you get what you pay for. The earlier episodes have longer synopses (e.g. here). We don't have separate article for episodes of that series, so options are limited; I'd be surprised if there is a better free online source for stuff like this than Memory Alpha. Matt Deres (talk) 19:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

February 8

Waffles

Had Roger Ebert ever revealed his favorite movie of all time? Had he ever revealed his least favorite film? If so, what were they? In a related question, did he (Ebert) invent waffles.