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October 7

number of people on ship

[1] says 78 and [2] says 75. Why? (it's for this). Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 05:56, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only the initial statement in the first source says 78; all of the updates there say 75. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vault of Horror

The "Bargain in Death" segment of the Amicus anthology film Vault of Horror is very obviously cribbed from the Ambrose Bierce short story "One Summer Night". Can anyone find a reliable source that we could use in the article to say so? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 20:36, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you're already aware of this, but just to cover all the bases: the intermediate step of course is the comic book Tales from the Crypt #28 from Feb/Mar 1952, which is where the movie got its direct inspiration from. EC is, in my experience, more studied than Amicus, which is now mostly forgotten (I'm a fan, but they and Tigon tend to get overshadowed or lumped-in with their more famous contemporary, Hammer). So, my suggestion is to establish that connection (Bierce => EC). The original credits unfortunately do not help. It's user-edited like WP, so the Grand Comics Database won't qualify as a WP:RS anyway, but their write up here claims Gaines and Feldstein as co-plotters and Feldstein as the writer of the script. So, not a great start, but it still seems the likeliest connection. What I'd suggest is getting a hold of something like Von Bernewitz, Fred; Geissman, Grant (2000). Tales of Terror: The EC Companion or one of the other sources listed at the bottom of EC Comics and see if you can find something there.

I'm not familiar with the Bierce work, so I can't comment directly, but EC (and their later brethren Creepy, Eerie, etc.) were usually (but not always) pretty good about acknowledging sources, so it's a little unusual that they didn't do that here. Any chance it's a coincidence? Matt Deres (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Matt Deres: Many thanks - the von Bernewitz & Geissman book is available at Archive.org, and on page 118 says Bargain in Death! is inspired by "One Summer Night" by Ambrose Bierce. You can read the Bierce story here. DuncanHill (talk) 10:59, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@DuncanHill: If you're reading Bierce, don't miss "The Death of Halpin Frayser". A classic! Deor (talk) 17:56, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: Thank you for the recommendation - I'm actually working my way through numerous horror/mystery/ghost/weird short-story anthologies I have accumulated over the years. I see that "The Death of Halpin Frayser" is in Blair, David (2002). Gothic Short Stories. Wordsworth Classics. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1-84022-425-8., which is next-but-one (or two, if the latest from the British Library "Tales of the Weird" series turns up before I get to it) on my reading list. I won't read the Wikipedia article until I read the story. DuncanHill (talk) 18:12, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Public knowledge of the FFF system in the 60s

This needs a little explanation before the actual question, which is a mix of history and science - bear with me.

The FFF system (furlong-firkin-fortnight) is a humourous set of measurement units, mostly used for jokes about obscure measurement systems. I'm not sure when it was first proposed, since the article about it is lacking in historical detail.

In the book The Prospect of Immortality by Robert Ettinger, he states that "electrical signals travel essentially with the speed of light, namely about 1,560,000,000,000,000 furlongs per fortnight". There is no indication of this being a joke, and the source given for this paragraph gives the speed of light in the more typical metres per second, not furlongs per fortnight. The book is aimed towards the average layman of the 1960s (specifically "it is meant to be understandable to anyone who gets his money's worth out of a newspaper", from the foreword) and does have some humourous aspects to its writing, but it's strange to me that this measurement is used with zero explanation and zero indication that it's meant to be a joke and not a genuine way of measuring speed - Ettinger doesn't even give the speed in more usual terms afterwards.

So, my question is: would the average person of the 1960s (or even an academic of the 1960s) know about the FFF system enough to know that it's a joke? And would an average person roughly know the speed of light in the 1960s without having to research it, meaning Ettinger wouldn't have to give the speed in the usual units?

Let me know if this would be more well-suited for one of the other reference desks. Suntooooth, it/he (talk/contribs) 21:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of FFF, but it's patently obvious to me that "furlongs per fortnight" is a joke (I went to school in London the 1960s when furlongs were not obscure, if that's pertinent). Alansplodge (talk) 21:43, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One question is whether the figure given for "furlongs per fortnight" is reasonably accurate. In school we learned that the speed of light was about 186,000 miles per second. A furlong is an eighth of a mile, so that would be 1,488,000 furlongs per second. There are 60 x 60 x 24 = 86,400 seconds per day. A fortnight is 14 days, which would be 1,209,600 seconds. So the figure could be 1,488,000 x 1,209,600 = 1,799,884,800,000,000. That's considerably more than 1,560,000,000,000,000, though it's in the general neighborhood. Or is my calculation incorrect? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Baseball Bugs, too many zeroes. 1,488,000 × 1,209,600 = 1,799,884,800,000. You gave the number of furlongs in 1,000 fortnights, i.e. about 38⅓ years. Nyttend (talk) 06:55, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that also then be a problem with the 1,560,000,000,000,000 figure? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, yes, you're right. Nyttend (talk) 21:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure I first heard of furlongs/fortnight in an undergraduate physics class ca. 1980. It's the kind of geeky humor which would probably have been confined to certain groups then -- though later on in the Internet era some such things have achieved wider publicity ("Pi Day" as March 14th, "unobtainium" given prominence by the Avatar movie, and so on)... AnonMoos (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spelled "unobtanium" in the film script. --Lambiam 05:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Surely Pi Day is the 22nd of July? DuncanHill (talk) 21:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pi Day -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Versus Pi Approximation Day. --Lambiam 05:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are they claiming 3.14 is exact? DuncanHill (talk) 10:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just before 4 PM on March 14, it will be 15.926535897932... hours on the 24-hour clock. --Lambiam 16:13, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are y'all talking about me? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]