Given how often "Star Trek" has dealt with the concept of small groups of colonists splitting off on their own and establishing enclosed communities, this is a very interesting article.
The basic idea seems to fit what we've generally believed so far, that a certain number of people are needed to maintain genetic stability -- but I'd never have guessed that the number would be less than 200.
I guess this is the kind of information that makes generational starships even more likely -- if a relatively "small" number of people (compared to the hundreds or thousands of people normally considered) can survive for such a long time, then maybe Trek isn't quite as "fantastic" as some people think.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
I gathered it was around the 200 mark, but 80. . . hmm, the keyword here is "social engineering" (yes, Tim, I know that's a term or phrase, not a word). That means you control who mates with whom. I read a SF story where at one point a colony is faced with such a dilemma, with the person having the power (who'd killed half the colony when taking it over) getting to choose.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Imagine if 80 Star Trek fans were stuck in a space ark! They'd either not make it to the second generation (no reproductive ability or killed arguing over the length of Defiant) or become Morlocks pretty damned soon. (present company excluded, of course. I'm talking about other Star Trek fans!)
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
look at the stats.. we seem to have a pretty elite group of 700 or so here that do pretty well.. we are students, have jobs, girlfriends, normal lives, stuff like that.. but then look at the 11,000 or so Trekkies over at TrekBBS that should have been aborted.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Small problem: The number of women here can be counted on one hand. Maybe two.
But we could make one hell of a man train.
Posted by Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
YUO WOULD BE TEH CONDUACTOR! AND YUO WUOLD NOT BE HESNITANT TO BLOW TEH WISTAL!
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
CHOH0000! ChHOOOOO!
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
A man train to the stars?
Posted by Michael_T (Member # 144) on :
It's funny, I have so many things to say about the man train thing but I'm not.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
BX: Congrats, you just came up with the Flare motto. 8)
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
So, how is it that we keep the "bad" trekbbs folks out of here?
I just went there yesterday for the first time - yikes! (I migrated here from rec.***.trek and haven't looked any farther for the most part).
What is the secret of the fanboy barrier?
On the topic however - I live in Iceland which was settled by some hundreds of Vikings w/ associated "wives" they had accumulated about 1000 years ago.
While there has obviously been contact with the outside all along, Icelanders are a fairly homogeneous (no not the man train) population and are the subject of several on-going genetic studies (National Geographic had a good summary a couple of years ago).
Thought I should add - we should NOT use the viking model to get mates for the USS Flare. No Mimm Monkey, NO! Bad monkey.
[ February 21, 2002, 11:37: Message edited by: Toadkiller ]
Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on :
Bright colors, the absence of board ranks like Captain and Ensign...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Toadkiller needs to buy me things in Iceland & ship them to me to satisfy my fetish.
In a way...we DO use a uniquely Icelandic concept, that of the go�ar & the b�ndr. See, in medieval Iceland (that being roughly the time of settlement in the 800s to about AD 1200) the Icelanders were NOT as one might think marauding Vikings with blood & murder on their minds. Indeed, they were the perhaps the most law-abiding & anarchistic group in the history of the "civilized" world; their conversion to Christianity around 1000 was even a legal decision that was come to after much debate at the Althing.
ANyway, back to go�ar & b�ndr. All Icelanders were b�ndr, simple citizen-farmers. However, some of them were also go�ar, a sort of "more influential" farmer who had the generally-recognized influence to mediate disputes & the like, & exerted it over a rough area called a go�ord. (I'm REALLY oversimplifying things here) A go�i (the singular form) knew that his position came from the b�ndr & could be shifted at anytime. Some b�ndr pledged to go�ar who were 2 days' walk away, so there was no need to take to the local one.
The key here was that while a go�i was slightly elevated in status, he was stil at heart just another bondi (also singular). Similarly, here at Flare we have moderators who have slightly elevated positions, yet still know that they're just "regular farmers," so to speak. Their power (mostly) comes from us, the masses, & they know better than to lord their position over us. I bet TrekBBS moderators get all wankerific.
I know far too much about Icelandic political history.
[ February 21, 2002, 13:53: Message edited by: Shik ]
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I am a retard who hits wrong buttons. Please punish me anally.
[ February 21, 2002, 13:54: Message edited by: Shik ]
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Actually, I thought we "refrained from lording over others" because CC has go-like powers over this place, and he'd kick our asses if we did. :-)
On the other hand, every time I hear the word "homogeneous" I think of Alan Turing, so what do I know?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I have tears in my eyes, the first few posts of this thread had me literally laughing out loud! heh thanks! LOL! heh heh man train.
OH and WELCOME to the ICELANDER! WOOOOHOOOOOOOO! I so want to go to Iceland, that is one of the places I just HAVE to go WHEN I got to Europe.
Toadkiller... do you like Bj�rk!?!
OH and how do you pronounce that '�' go�ar? Is it a wierd D or an accent over an 'o'!?! I've noticed it in some Old English excerpts from The History of Middle Earth books.
Andrew
[ February 22, 2002, 06:50: Message edited by: AndrewR ]
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
The character "eth" (�, capital form of �) is a "th" sound like in "the," where it has that slightly "buzzing" sound & feel to it.
The character "thorn" (�, capital form of �) is a "th" sound like in "think<" where it's "breathier."
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
In other words, Ð/ð is a voiced dental fricative, and Þ/þ is the unvoiced version. For all you wannabe FrankGs out there. :-)
"...�, capital form of �..." "...�, capital form of �..."
I'm sure that's a typo on Shik's part, but it's the other way 'round. He has the lowercase first, then the capital.
[ February 22, 2002, 09:40: Message edited by: TSN ]
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
No, I meant what I said. Apparently the inferred "and a" before "capital form" didn't make it through.
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
We'll just have to believe Shik about the Icelandic...
I'm actually a wandering American - till last year I was in Hawaii, big switch!.
Icelandic is extremely difficult to learn - primarily because almost all Icelanders speak better English than Americans do (insert joke here). As soon as you try to talk with them they switch to English.
They are some of the nicest folks you'd care to meet too.
This thread is less funny now though....
What, no response from the Mighty Monkey?
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Sorry about taking the fun out of the thread (it WAS quite funny) but thanks for the info!
What about: � (I've seen in German - it looks like a beta) and this: � is it the lowercase form of the 'beta' it was under it in the character map.
And finally, something I've always wanted to know these: �/� the "stargate" A's. What are the 'called' and what is the accent called and what do they sound like!?!
Thanks
Andrew
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
� is pronounced as a sharp s. But I believe the new German spelling is trying hard to replace "�" with "ss". (Fu�ball would then be Fussball)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Which doesn't make a lot of sense, since it would change the pronunciation of all the words...
And a 'ß' is lowercase. There's no capital, because it never comes at the beginning of a word. Of course, if you want to write a word in all-capitals, it's a tall letter, so you can just use it as it is.
The 'ÿ' is a completely different letter. It doesn't occur in German. I don't actually know where it's used. I assume it occurs where it does in the character set just because it was a convenient spot.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The double-dot above a vowel has two common meanings. In German-related languages, it transforms the open vowel into a more nasal variant. For example a (as in "car") becomes � (as in "cat", although the length of the sound doesn't change). In Finnish, we only use �/a-umlaut/ae and �/o-umlaut/oe, but usually u-umlaut/ue is used as well. It's just that apparently my computer crashes if I try to type the letter for u-umlaut in Netscape...
If you see the double-dot over some vowel other than a, o or u, it's probably not a real umlaut. Instead, it just means the vowel is given more length, pitch and accent than one would expect. You see that a lot in (French) translitterations of Arabic or of "exotic" languages.
The a-with-a-circle is a Swedish speciality. It basically transforms a into an open variant of o, when the regular o in Swedish is usually very closed and resembles u in pronunciation. Sometimes it's translitterated as aa, but the Danes hate that since their aa isn't pronounced like that (any more than the "ae" in "Gaelic" is pronounced as a-umlaut). In Finland, we actually call the a-with-a-circle "the Swedish o", and thus "STARG�TE" gives us the same sort of giggles as Lily's "Borg? Sounds Swedish" line. The show's name is pronounced something like "Star-goth-e" around here...
Oh, and the Danes and Norwegians insist on writing o-umlaut not with a double-dot, but with a slash across the o. Silly them. It's basically the same letter anyway.
Boy, that was dull. Next week: how to tell the different types of Nordic ski events apart.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Thanks TIMO! Woo, and to prolong this 'boring' subject, how DO you pronounce the a-e 0 ligatures (�) and the o-e and u-e (I don't see them on my character map)!?!
I always thought � was more an 'ee' sound?
Thanks
���w
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
You'll hear "ae" pronounced like a long 'a', a long 'e', and a long 'i'. If it's from Latin, it should be a long 'i' (just try saying the two sounds separately: ah-ee; it sounds like an 'i').
Of course, in German, "ae" is just another way to write 'ä', so it's pronounced like a long 'a' or short 'e' (depending upon how it's used). The 'ö' is pronounced by rounding your lips for an 'o', but saying either a long 'a' or short 'e'. The 'ü' is pronounced by doing the lip-rounding thing and saying either a long 'e' or a short 'i'.
And every time I refer to a long or short vowel, I'm talking about the way those vowels are pronounced in English.
BTW, "umlaut" is the German word for the double-dots over a letter. In English, it's called a diaresis. Usually in English it's used to show that two vowels in a row are pronounced separately, rather than as a diphthong ("naïve", "coöperation"). However, that went out of practice quite a while ago, so you're not likely to see it much, if at all.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Oh, and regarding the ligatures... You'll usually find 'æ' and 'œ' in Latin. I'm not sure if the form "ue" ever exists in Latin, but, if it does, it isn't a diphthong. The sounds are separate, so the letters are written separately. There is no ligature for "ue", so that's why you couldn't find one.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
What is this!?! ''&"!?! It looks like an ampersand... what value does it have at the start of a word!?!
Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
For what it's worth, in linguistics [�] is the vowel sound in Eng. "cat" or "hat," a rare sound in most other languages. That particular symbol is used because on a logical chart of vowels that sound falls just between the a of "father" and the e of "pet."
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Andrew: What? The only reason I can think that you would see an ampersand is if you were seeing the HTML code I typed instead of the letters (e.g. "ö" instead of 'ö'). But I looked over my posts, and I didn't mistype any of them. Where are you seeing ampersands?
Posted by Treknophyle (Member # 509) on :
What is the secret of the fanboy barrier?
1. Bright colors, the absence of board ranks like Captain and Ensign... 2. Sarcasm to would-be fanboy newbies...
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Fanboy barrier = Lee Kelly.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
*blush*
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
TSN - don't worry - I forget now what that was about the ampersand... I think I didn't at first realise it was the forum's font for an ampersand!?! It was a while ago.
And the reason for digging up this old thread was?
Andrew
np: "UR" - Alanis Morrissette
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
