Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 April 7

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April 7

RGIS

What is RGIS? I've seen it on job boards for inventory positions, but what do they do? — Melab±1 ☎ 02:32, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

[1]. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:05, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

RGIS = Retail Grocery Inventory Services. Blooteuth (talk) 21:09, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Container ship "supertower"

Somewhere I picked up that notion that the large, multi-storey above-deck structure towards the stern of a container ship which houses the bridge (presumably among others things, like crew quarters) was called the "supertower." But now Google suggests that's not a thing at all, or that it's the name of a skyscraper in Bangkok. What's it actually called? Does it even have a name? "Conning tower" seems to be more military. Dr-ziego (talk) 09:23, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Are you thinking of superstructure, which is obviously not specific to container ships, or ships. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:17, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Superstructure! That's it, thanks. Dr-ziego (talk) 06:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

• Incidentally, that structure goes all the way down to the bottom of the ship and occupies the whole width of the ship (100 feet for Panamax), and it's more than 60 feet front-to-back. The engine room is in the bottom, as are the fuel tanks. It's as tall as a 12-story building. It has to be that big to support the bridge to see over the containers, and of course the container cranes cannot put containers in there because the bridge in in the way. Therefore, the crew has a LOT of room: a junior officer's quarters are much larger than a first-class stateroom on a cruise ship. -Arch dude (talk) 02:17, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

And much bigger than the captain's stateroom on a submarine. 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:98A2:6399:3C22:3E37 (talk) 05:59, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

The term "poop superstructure" gets some hits for supertankers, poop deck being the aftermost area of the ship. Alansplodge (talk) 08:20, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

My wife and I have traveled as passengers on container ships, seven voyages, one around the world for three months, where the Captain complained that our cabin was bigger and better than his!80.234.164.34 (talk) 15:38, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Learning to drive

If staying close enough to the center of your lane in curves to pass the test takes x hours to learn about how long should learning to use the brake and throttle enough to pass the test take to learn? How long would parallel parking take? What about the rest of the skills needed to pass the test? Of you could still be a total nincompoop in snow or a long pickup or anything else the road tester or someone else qualified didn't test you in. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:44, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

The various driving skills (staying in your lane, breaking smoothly, etc) are taught simultaneously during driving practice. Parallel parking does require specific instruction. In my days, the driving schools recommended 8 hours of practice with an instructor (an hour representing around 45 minutes of actual driving) on an automatic gearshift, 10 hours if learning on a manual gearshift. Two full sessions were dedicated solely to parallel parking early on, but it was practiced in each follow-up session as well. The number of hours and type of instruction will depend on what the driving exam entails in your specific jurisdiction. And, in spite of living in Canada at the time, I learned to drive in the middle of summer and got my licence without ever having experienced winter conditions. Nowadays, the period during which one drives with a learner's permit before being allowed to take a road test has been extended by a number of months, so that at least part of that period will take place in winter. --Xuxl (talk) 17:33, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

If one of those is usually learned say halfway through learning the other then that'd seem to suggest one is harder than the other. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:30, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

On the issue of pick-ups, permits are given for a certain class of vehicle. If you want to drive something bigger, you need to qualify on that type of vehicle (i.e. a bus or a large truck). But most pick-ups fall in the category of regular vehicles and can be driven by anyone with a standard driver's licence (at least in North America). See Driver's licence. --Xuxl (talk) 17:38, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

In countries like the US, passing a test to get a licence doesn’t mean one has learnt how how to drive. It just means one can perform the very basics. Whether it is a automobile or aircraft it take some 25 hours of practise for actions to start becoming automatic. A total of about 45 hours for a degree of of competence to develop. Some two years for a higher road-sense to develop. It doesn’t matter as to what the mechanical contrivance is, be it lath, milling machine, ship, guitar, violin, etc. To become a skilled expert, one needs some 10,000 hours. Don't rush it. Wait until you don't have to think about it. It will make for a safer driver as ones attention can then be on the look-out for the unexpected.--Aspro (talk) 21:46, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Note that the acquisition of any skill varies widely between individuals. In the UK, there's a proposal to make young learners do "up to 120 hours" of instruction before they can take their test, see Young drivers face 120 hours of lessons. Alansplodge (talk) 08:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Learner drivers in Western Australia must have 25 hours of lessons ("supervised driving") before sitting the practical test, then 25 hours more over at least 6 months, before getting a licence. Then 2 years as a provisional driver, with some restrictions.

tag - see Outliers (book). When I took my driving test parallel parking was not part of the course and not covered in the test. I believe this is about to change. When I was in Western Australia the standard of driving there was regarded as the world's worst. The number of fatalities involving inexperienced young drivers was horrendous. Crosswalks were a series of black and white stripes laid across the road. Anyone using them at night was dicing with death - one woman did and paid the price. The junction of the Stock Road in Melville was particularly notorious - it was protected by an octagonal red "STOP" sign but drivers would just barrel through. One fatal crash was caused by someone having removed the sign. Maybe this is the reason why the government has imposed the restrictions it has. 86.147.208.18 (talk) 14:55, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

• When I was young, you took a written test, and got a provisional license usable for six month during daylight when accompanied by a driver with a standard license. The first thing my dad did was have me drive around the church parking lot when it was empty, to get used to the brakes on a quick stop, how to back up while turning, etc.

Then we went out on the highway, and almost everything was courtesy: signalling, merging, passing, allowing others to merge and pass. (These skills have disappeared--I would say 1/3 of turners bother to signal) Driving on the right, we had to be told not to pull right before a left hand turn, someone behind us had the right to pass us, and might hit us. We had to learn to stay in the middle lane of three-lane highways, so those who wanted could pass on the left or enter/exit on the right. We learned the clockwise precedence at four-way stops.

We also had a semester of instruction at school using fake cars to learn about things like the hood popping open when you are on the highway, or whether to hit people, animals, trees, shrubbery, buildings or other cars if the breaks go out. And how to turn into a skid, which saved my life twice on the New Jersey Turnpike. Other stuff had to do with laws (35mph in unmarked residential areas, 50mph in unmarked non-residential areas, park at least 50 feet from corners, traffic signs, and fireplugs. Carry an open can of tar to throw at people who cut you off in the city.)

Finally, there was the test; 90 minutes. If you missed two items, you failed. I missed one item (I forget what, but I said "shit!", so the test giver knew I knew I had missed the point). The hardest item was parallel parking. I had practiced a few hours only, and aced it. My friend Pat had spent hours on it, and failed the test three times, even being the best student driver I knew.

A lot of this 2400 hours of practice and how to park between two hitched skittish colts stuff is just overaccreditation in the name of full bureaucratic payrolls. I have been driving for over three decades, and the courtesy element I mentioned above has been replaced with people on wifi. Texters and the like should be hanged/shot on the spot, the way they used to do horse-thieves, and for the same reason. μηδείς (talk) 19:43, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Or we should just normalize self-driving cars and remove that issue from the equation entirely.--WaltCip (talk) 12:18, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

References