Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 October 10

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October 10

Prince Alfred's Visit to Hawaii in 1869

Are there any existing photographs, illustrations or depiction of any kind of Prince Alfred's visit to Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) in 1869? I've seen a photograph or two of him Tahiti with the Brandee-Salmon family but none of his visit to Hawaii. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:32, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

No luck I'm afraid, but I did find The memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford,. Chapter IX, The Cruise of HMS Galatea (Ciontinued), III. Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands, HMS Galatea (1859) being the ship on which Prince Alfred toured the South Pacific. I bring this to your attention only for his Lordship's amusing account of surfing in Tahiti, which he says is "one of the most exhilarating pastimes in the world". I thought we might have more luck with The Cruise of H.M.S. Galatea, but it doesn't seem to mention the Sandwich Islands in the "contents".

BTW, Prince Alfred would have been referred to as "the Duke of Edinburgh" at that time, lest anybody else fancies a search. Alansplodge (talk) 12:32, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

This source list some watercolors done by Nicholas Chevalier: [22.] Native mode of travelling in the Sandwich Islands; the 19th of July 1869. N. Chevalier. [23.] Native female riders at Hawaii, Sandwich Islands; the 20th of July 1869. N. Chevalier. [24.] Bathing at Hilo, Sandwich Islands; the 20th of July 1869. N. Chevalier. [25.] The Island of Molokai, one of the Sandwich group; the cliffs rising abruptly 700 feet above the level of the sea; passed on the 21st of July 1869. N. Chevalier. [26.] View from the verandah of the residence prepared for, and occupied by, the Duke of Edinburgh, while staying at Honolulu; the 30th of July 1869. N. Chevalier. [27.] Waterfall near Honolulu, on the property of the late Queen Kalama; the 31st of July 1869. N. Chevalier. [28.] The Pali or precipice near Honolulu; the 31st of July 1869. N. Chevalier...Is it possible to find these?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:42, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

No year

This is a followup to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2015 July 1#No seasons, at which I asked if there were any locations with no real differences (other than stellar movements) in meteorological phenomena from year to year, and at which it was noted that the climate of Singapore really didn't vary significantly throughout the year.

Do we know of any primitive cultures that historically lacked a concept of a year, because they lived in locations such as Singapore in which the natural world was basically the same year-round? In the temperate zones in which I've always lived, plants other than conifer trees have an easily observed year-long cycle, but I'm not sure if this is a response to the weather or if this is something virtually all plants do — i.e. do most tropical plants have year-long life cycles, with many plants consistently lasting one year, and others consistently producing fruit once per year? Nyttend (talk) 11:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

You can tell the age of a tree by counting the number of annual rings in its trunk - as far as I know that's common to all trees wherever they are. Sufficient water is vital to the reproduction cycle. Singapore is on the equator but I have been in Malaysia during the monsoon season, and that's when it really rains. I doubt that any culture lacked the concept of a year, because they were agriculture based and followed the growing seasons. There are plentiful references to this in the early books of the Bible. The seasons were marked by the position of the sun or the full moon against the stars. The annual inundation of the Nile was marked by the appearance of Sirius. This was known as the "rain star" (Tir) in Persia, and one of the months was named after it. 2A02:C7F:BE2B:5600:C104:51BD:2846:2A97 (talk) 11:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Tree rings are also season-based - trees grow fastest in the spring and early summer. According to our article on dendrochronology (telling age from tree rings), "The rings are more visible in temperate zones, where the seasons differ more markedly." It stands to reason that where there is little or no seasonal variation, trees always grow at roughly the same rate and you see no clear rings. Smurrayinchester 09:35, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Here, [1] it is *claimed*

“ All Indians were adults. It was impossible to establish their age precisely since they have no concept of a 'year'—only of a 'day'. ”

It should be noted that though the Waiana tribe was studied, this is *not* a work about their culture or concepts of time, it's about "adreanal rhythms".

This [2] paper about musicology of a tribe in PNG says

“ There are no seasons and hence no concept of "year" in Huli thought. ”

I don't know who the Waiana are, it seems we don't have a page or they are now known by a different name. That name only appears in our article on Uncontacted_peoples.

The refs are both paywalled but I can provide them to interested parties upon request. My WP:OR is that the second claim rests on better authority as it is more recent, and the author is at least a humanist of sorts. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

The month (cycle of the Moon) may be more significant to a primitive culture near the equator that makes it's living from hunting and fishing, versus agriculture. This is because full moonlight allows them to hunt or fish at night, to catch prey not normally available, and the cycles of the Moon are more obvious there than solar cycles. StuRat (talk) 15:02, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

As 2A02:C7F:BE2B:5600:C104:51BD:2846:2A97 mentioned, even in the tropics, the seasons do change during a year. In most places, even if the temperature does not change, the rain / dry seasons follow annual patterns (even in Singapore), and over thousands of years that is bound to be noticed by any group of people that live off agriculture or hunting-and-gathering. I think it's more plausible that their concept of long term time is different - that is, they see the annual cycle but their philosophy does not recognise a sequential concept of the year as time-marking. (It is somewhat analogous to the traditional Chinese way of marking years - which went in 60-year cycles, rather than sequentially like conventional Western year-marking.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

The dry season is caused by the Intertropical Convergence Zone moving. However, see Andagoya, Colombia. A place with hardly any seasons. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:28, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

When they say things like the average car in America was age 11.5 on 1/1/15?

Is the car age 0.0 on the assembly line or when the dealer gets it or when it turns from new to used when the buyer drives it off the lot? (which could be well over a year after the dealer got it). Do they ask when the event that starts the clock occurred to the day or month or just to the year? Or do they just ask what model year it is then subtract that from the current model year and average those? (if so that is probably why they chose 1/1/15 to do the survey) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Having worked in car sales in the UK I'm not familiar with the age of a car being expressed like this. It might be uniquely American. Can you provide an example of this usage in context? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:20, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

From a consulting firm that does an oft quoted survey

The US "Ministry" of Transportation website

New York Times

Fortune (the Fortune 500 Fortune)

Forbes (the Forbes 400 Forbes)

[3] Los Angeles Times

[4] cars.com

[5] USA Today

Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, and my apologies. Your question was actually clearer than I had been making it in my head.

So, as to the main question, when does the car start aging, the standard date to count from in the UK (and I'd imagine elsewhere too) is the date of first registration. That is the date on which the dealership selling the car provides details of the car and its new owner to the registration authority (the DVLA in the UK) and would normally be a couple of days to a week before the customer drives their new car away. Sometimes the dealer will pre-register a vehicle before they have a customer lined up. In this case a customer buying the 'new' car will get one that could be 6 months old and have had one previous owner (usually the dealership, the manufacturer or some associated company (I used to work for a company that registered vehicles in the name of a 'shell company' that didn't exist other than on paper in order to have cars registered in its name)). The benefit to the dealer of doing this is that they can a) spread out the work of registering vehicles throughout the year, rather than having a rush at traditional busy times (such as, in the UK, March 1st and September 1st, when new registration numbers are released), and b) it allows them to hit sales targets - if the dealer needs an extra 10 sales by the end of the month to hit the target given to them by the manufacturer then it will be cost-effective to take a small hit on the value of each of those vehicles in order to make what might be a 6-figure sum in bonuses from the manufacturer.

I wasn't able to find a methodology for the survey you quoted (and which all the following articles seemed to be using for their information), so I couldn't tell you exactly how they count the age of vehicles, but I suspect that yes, they are counting from the exact date of first registration. This would normally be 1-6 months after the car rolls off the assembly line (depending on how long it takes to transport), and in the case of pre-registered cars, as above, might be 2 days to 6 months before the customer drives away. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 06:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The new car TV ads were selling 2008s after the 2009s came out for ages. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:52, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

My mechanic says a car starts "aging" when it is being used for the purpose it was designed for. So a car starts aging when it is purchased by a buyer who intends to use it for the purpose it was designed for. IE an ordinary person and not a car dealer. 175.45.116.99 (talk) 01:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

But that doesn't make sense. Let's say there is a brand new 2010 car. It sits on the car dealership lot for many years and no one buys it. Now, in 2016, I see the car and I buy it. I just bought a 6-year-old car. According to your mechanic, the car never "aged". So, I bought a brand-new 0-year-old car. That does not make sense. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:17, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

[Banned user's contribution deleted]

Yes, it's all semantics. In my case (above), the car was six-years-old. It was simply never driven for six years. Semantics. So, it is an undriven six-year-old car. When actuary tables, insurance premiums, Kelley Blue Book values, etc., are calculated, the car will be considered to be six-years-old, because it was built in 2010. All of those institutions (actuary tables, insurance premiums, Kelley Blue Book values, etc.) do not care if the car was driven or not driven for six years. They simply care that the car was built six years ago. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Markets are efficient. A car was bought new. It was taken home and never left the garage. After the owner died, many decades later, his wife put it up for auction. It was an unusual model and she got a fortune for it. If its value had been assessed on the same basis as that of others cars of that age which had been in normal use she would have only got a few pounds for it, if that. 2A02:C7F:A14:AA00:B9C1:49D7:605B:A265 (talk) 11:47, 15 October 2016 (UTC)