Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 April 28

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April 28

Star Wars vs Yemen

are the Hutts of the Star Wars universe equal to this Huthi in Yemen? Or is it only a coincidence that the name of both is quit the same? --Ip80.123 (talk) 06:11, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

"Jabba the Hutt first appeared in Return of the Jedi (1983), though he is mentioned in Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)"

The Houthis's earliest form was "founded in 1992 in Saada Governorate."

There does not appear to be any relationship between the two. See also False cognate. Ian.thomson (talk) 06:49, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

More specifically, "The Houthi movement [...] took the name "Houthi" after the death of Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi in 2004." Smurrayinchester 07:46, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Which is not to say that Lucas did not use real life analogues in Star Wars. See Tataouine. --Jayron32 14:48, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

If they were it would have been called Return of the Jethi. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 28 April 2016 (UTC).

Browser Hijacker are never using Google.

What is the reason why every Browser Hijacker is searching with Bing! or Yahoo! ? I have never met a browser Hijacker in my life before, which was using Google. Are the hackers / programmers maybe payed by Microsoft / Yahoo, so that the Company can get more Cash or are the programmer something like shareholders of Yahoo / Microsoft? --Ip80.123 (talk) 06:13, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean by "browser hijacker" in this context? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC).

I am fairly certain that the OP refers to the case where you have google set as you default browser or homepage, then visit a site or download a program and find that now Bing or Yahoo has been set as your homepage or default search engine. This happens to my dad all the time, and to me often enough to be annoying. And indeed, I have never once had google set itself as my home page. This question might be better answered at the computing desk, but the logical answer is because google already has the lion's share of the market, as yahoo is dying and bing never got a foothold; search engine.

Browser hijacking @Rich --Ip80.123 (talk) 10:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, well I have had various things that ask, maybe not in a very clear way, to set a home-page to some commercial search engine, or to make it the default searchengine. I have never had anything do it without my permission. I would assume there is some financial kick-back, just as there is with Pups. But I doubt that this would be forthcoming if the sponsor knew the affiliate was using unethical means.

It's also possible that you are seeing a fake Bing/Yahoo page.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:40, 30 April 2016 (UTC).

Oʻahu

I have seen around Honolulu County are more than 7 Airports, Airfields etc - why does a small island like this needs to have so many Airports? --Ip80.123 (talk) 11:21, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Airports other than for commercial jets are quite common outside Hawaii, as well. They are used for multiple purposes, including military, agricultural (such as spraying pesticides), private planes, air shows, etc. The military may very well have more airports in Hawaii per square area than in most other places, because of the strategic location and small land area. Also, there may be more small airports for charter planes and helicopters, used for sightseeing, since tourism is a major employer there. StuRat (talk) 13:05, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Honolulu County, Hawaii is not small. Its population is nearly a million. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:51, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

See General aviation.

7 is a lot for a million people, but it's an island so airports have to (at least partly) fulfill the roles of railway stations and long distance bus/coach stations as well. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:37, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Right. There are no roads connecting the islands, so planes and boats take on a greater role than average. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:53, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

I suppose we should also discuss the increased need for commercial jet lines there. While passengers and cargo can be delivered by sea, that's relatively slow, as there is a lot of ocean to cover, so most people fly to and from Hawaii, and cargo which needs to be delivered quickly is also flown in or out. Hence more need for commercial airlines. Then, if we consider the logistics of shipping things between islands (loaded onto a truck, trucked to the dock, put on a ship, sent to next island, unloaded from the ship, loaded onto another truck, sent to the destination, and unloaded), flying things into and off off your current island directly often makes more sense, so having airports on each island would help with that. StuRat (talk) 14:50, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Air freight has some info, and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics has per-airport and per airline numbers on air passengers and air freight. Here is their "snapshot" page [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

If you find THAT curious, in the Melbourne "metro" area there are also 7 airports but the population is 4 Million. However in the Australian state of Victoria, where Melbourne is, there is 5.8 Million people (including the 4 million in Melbourne alone) spread around 240km^2 (about the size of Minnesota, similar in population too actually), there are 53 airports. And here is a list of airports in Minnesota! Over 150. Vespine (talk) 01:19, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

By comparison, Greater London, population 8.5 million, has only 6 airports, although there are 4 other airports (2 in a neighbouring county, 2 not even) that have "London" in the name. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:57, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

New York City has only 2 airports inside its corporate limits (LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport) and it has a population of 8.5 million as well. --Jayron32 12:16, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

But that's more a comment on the position of the city limits than the number of airports it has. See Aviation in the New York metropolitan area for a list of other airports, both commercial and general aviation, in the city's metropolitan area. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 23:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, if we're comparing population vs. number of airports, it provides some comparison, though. --Jayron32 01:27, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Rope

How much rope is there in the world? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 28 April 2016 (UTC).

Assume that 110 million American households own an excessive 33.3% of the rope in the world and the average is only 1 centimeter. 3,300 kilometers. Assume 5,000 miles per human. 4 light years. Probably somewhere between the two. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Enough to hang everyone I would say.--178.103.251.111 (talk) 00:27, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

You are picking the over on the "exactly enough rope to hang each human" over/under. Nice choice. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

All of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:25, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Not enough for the world to hang itself. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 04:24, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

• Let's do a Fermi estimate. In 2013, the world produced approximately 3,500,000 tonnes of rope, twine and cordage. The density of rope varies, but for any solid organic material, 1 g/cm³ is usually a good guess (if the majority of the world's rope is made of plant fibres or synthetic fibres. If it's mostly steel fibre, the density is going to be 6 or 7 times higher, and all these numbers need to be divided by that much). I'll also assume that on average, the radius of a rope is about 1 cm - it won't be much more or less than that. I don't know how long a rope lasts, but checking a few websites of common rope users (climbing, yachting, machinery, bondage) suggests that a ballpark figure is that most ropes seem to be engineered to last 3-5 years of standard use, whatever that use may be. I'll go for 5 years, to take into account that many ropes are probably bundled up in storage. So 3,500,000 tonnes per year * 5 years / (1 gram per cubic centimeter * pi * 1 centimeter squared) = about 50 million kilometres of rope (or 30 million miles) - enough to reach a third of the way from the Earth to the Sun. This seems excessive, but it's only 8 metres per person. Incidentally, that is enough for the world to hang itself, or to hogtie itself. Smurrayinchester 08:20, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Excellent work. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC).