One thing I never understood about Star Trek: The Next Generation…
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@futurebird @JeremyMallin I mean, seafaring folk figured all that stuff out centuries ago. It's called watchkeeping, and there's many ways to skin the cat as far as how to spilt the day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping#Watch_systems.
Star Trek does what they do best when confronted with actual real world problems: hand waving. Let's not bog ourselves down with specifics, just so happens that whenever anything happens to $Starship, everyone we know and love is on duty already.
@futurebird @JeremyMallin Most of my sea time sailing tallships was with the three watch merchant marine system, 4 hours on, 8 hours off, twice a day. 0-4, 4-8, and 8-12.
But I've also done six on six off for one shorthanded, storm battered trip, and a few in a kinda homebrewed 4 watch rotation, where the deck crew is doing three hours on, nine off, and the officers are doing six on, six off. All have their benefits and drawbacks, don't really have a strong preference.
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Apparently, there's a following of folk that buy cheap excavators from China for a few grand.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cheap+chinese+excavatorNot sure I'd ever do that.
@jrconlin @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin
mother must never see any of this.
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@futurebird @weemadhamish @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin wait wait wait does Mom grow crops?
@catmisgivings @weemadhamish @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin
Yes. They have a little family farm.
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@phooky @futurebird @JeremyMallin okay so a theory I have is that the function of Starfleet is to serve as a kind of containment pool for people who are only able to live in atavistic situations
The federation is a post scarcity socialist utopia. But in such a society there would be people who are workaholics, hierarchal thinkers etc and can't function in that environment. Starfleet is a sort of SCA of the twentieth century. You can act out what being in a military was like when we had borders.
@phooky @futurebird @JeremyMallin Applying this to the captain problem— if earth is what canon claims it is, the people who live there have socially progressed to where they could have 3 captains on 8 hour shifts in a power sharing arrangement (or even 6 captains, for 4 hour lead shifts and 4 hour copilot shifts, so there's no discontinuities of command at handover) and have organizational continuity. But the people who join Starfleet don't have that social skill set.
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@phooky @futurebird @JeremyMallin Applying this to the captain problem— if earth is what canon claims it is, the people who live there have socially progressed to where they could have 3 captains on 8 hour shifts in a power sharing arrangement (or even 6 captains, for 4 hour lead shifts and 4 hour copilot shifts, so there's no discontinuities of command at handover) and have organizational continuity. But the people who join Starfleet don't have that social skill set.
Listen people love earning merit badges and having goofy titles. If you don't have a place for that to happen you will have problems.
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@futurebird @JeremyMallin Most of my sea time sailing tallships was with the three watch merchant marine system, 4 hours on, 8 hours off, twice a day. 0-4, 4-8, and 8-12.
But I've also done six on six off for one shorthanded, storm battered trip, and a few in a kinda homebrewed 4 watch rotation, where the deck crew is doing three hours on, nine off, and the officers are doing six on, six off. All have their benefits and drawbacks, don't really have a strong preference.
@futurebird @JeremyMallin 4-8 is nice because you're on watch for sunrise, and you can catch the sunset off-watch without loosing too much sleep. Does mean you're on deck and off-watch right when the bosun starts to hand out tasks, so if you're shipping with a driver you end up working through the day when you really should be catching at least an hour or two of sleep, otherwise you're existing on 6 hours day at best.
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@futurebird @JeremyMallin 4-8 is nice because you're on watch for sunrise, and you can catch the sunset off-watch without loosing too much sleep. Does mean you're on deck and off-watch right when the bosun starts to hand out tasks, so if you're shipping with a driver you end up working through the day when you really should be catching at least an hour or two of sleep, otherwise you're existing on 6 hours day at best.
@futurebird @JeremyMallin 8-12 is the cushiest. You're up at a reasonable landsman's hour, have breakfast, then four hours watch, off before lunch. Off watch, coffee time, catch a nap before dinner, sail into the sunset, midnight snack, go to sleep.
0-4 is the only one with four hours of night sailing, unless you get close to the poles. Night watches are fun. It's a bit sleepover vibes. The rest of the boat is asleep, it's dark, lots of stars, everything feels both crisper and less real.
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@weemadhamish @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin
My mom hired a guy to dig some fields for her with his small bulldozer. After watching him for a bit she asked if she could do some of the digging and they guy showed her how.
Then we couldn't get her out of that machine. In fact, we only got her out of it by pointing out that she shouldn't "help by digging the neighbor's yard too" and "maybe we could buy one of these the man needs to go, Mom."
To this day she asks when we will get one.
@futurebird @weemadhamish @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin any time I pass any sort of construction vehicle, I have to suppress the urge to run over and plead for a chance to operate it
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@futurebird @weemadhamish @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin any time I pass any sort of construction vehicle, I have to suppress the urge to run over and plead for a chance to operate it
@eigen @weemadhamish @4censord @Moss @phooky @JeremyMallin
... mom?
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Listen people love earning merit badges and having goofy titles. If you don't have a place for that to happen you will have problems.
And let's not forget the power of a special hat. I think there are a great many people who have strange conservative and regressive urges that could be satiated if only someone would give them a special hat. A little silk beret, or a pointy hat with tassels... anything really.
They might feel sad to look on a world of equals, they might feel lost, but if they only had a hat... it would be OK.
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It would be so annoying to set things up though.
Also, on a big ship you'd have spaces with plants, UV lights, those would need to cycle for the plants people and insects to thrive.
I guess you could have different rooms with different lights, but ideally you'd have ambient light that suggested sunlight and nobody wants that on their skin if your body thinks it's night.
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And let's not forget the power of a special hat. I think there are a great many people who have strange conservative and regressive urges that could be satiated if only someone would give them a special hat. A little silk beret, or a pointy hat with tassels... anything really.
They might feel sad to look on a world of equals, they might feel lost, but if they only had a hat... it would be OK.
Of course, there is danger in a simple hat. It can get very much out of hand.
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@phooky @futurebird @JeremyMallin Applying this to the captain problem— if earth is what canon claims it is, the people who live there have socially progressed to where they could have 3 captains on 8 hour shifts in a power sharing arrangement (or even 6 captains, for 4 hour lead shifts and 4 hour copilot shifts, so there's no discontinuities of command at handover) and have organizational continuity. But the people who join Starfleet don't have that social skill set.
@mcc @phooky @futurebird I love the idea that rather than Starfleet being the best, most evolved of the Federation, they are actually the oddballs and outcasts who need their own space apart from everyone else.
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@mcc @phooky @futurebird I love the idea that rather than Starfleet being the best, most evolved of the Federation, they are actually the oddballs and outcasts who need their own space apart from everyone else.
@JeremyMallin @mcc @phooky @futurebird I always imagined that every other ship is normal and nothing happens. Mental image of an admiral realising that Picard's reports are not, in fact, elaborate stories he makes up because he's bored and nobody reads the reports anyway
