Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 September 5

= September 5 =

Professional sports & air travel
I'm doing a little project looking at the distance traveled between different stadiums of the World Series, NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals (NFL is omitted as they one use one location). I'm looking at the time necessary to travel so I'm wondering when did commercial or charter aircraft become standard for pro sports teams to travel long distances? And what kind of aircraft would they have used? If this is in the wrong Reference Desk section, please move it.

174.29.37.39 (talk) 00:15, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Not exactly relevant, but when a team of professional wrestlers took a 7+ hour "plane ride from Hell" between shows in 2002, they almost caused the airline to consider making future wrestlers take ships. Lawsuits were filed, guys were fired, everyone was banned from drinking for a spell and Wikipedia even had an article on it for a while.


 * Anyway, for a fake sport, those guys have real tough schedules. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

According to this report,the Packers were the first to travel to a game by air in 1940,so it would only have become standard after that.Certainly in Europe and the Pacific,WW2 would have put paid to the idea of air travel for sports teams for a good few years Lemon martini (talk) 02:14, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * In baseball, air travel did not become standard until the first two teams relocated to the West coast in 1958. See this article . NHL teams for their part mainly traveled by train until the 1967 expansion, and again because of the addition of two teams on the West coast. See here . --Xuxl (talk) 11:51, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks 174.29.56.73 (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

log in
why can't i log in.and use other projects of wikipedia like:wikitionary,wikisource e.t.c .if i am blocked please unblock me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.252.64.233 (talk) 10:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * See Help:Logging in. This sort of question would be better on the Help Desk. Tevildo (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I suggest you also log in before asking, or at least provide your account name. Nil Einne (talk) 18:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

National Cancer Institute
Hi all!

I need three data about the National Cancer Institute: total number of employees, total number of researchers and annual turnover. I can't find them on the official web page or elsewhere... can someone help me please? 188.217.111.68 (talk) 13:59, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I suggest you ask them; their website has contact links at the top and bottom of their home page.--Shantavira|feed me 06:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Question about military marching drills
I've never served in the military of any nation and this might be a stupid question. I've seen in footage and films that infantry drills marching in formation quite a bit, lining up in blocks, turning on command together, etc. This is all very reminiscent of Napoleonic Era warfare where soliders would line up in rows and shoot each other. However, I assume that the soldiers no longer march to the point of battle, nor do they line up in firing blocks and shoot simultaneously. So, what is the practical purpose of the marching drills? Is it just to reinforce discipline and a ethos of group action? Thanks. Zombiesturm (talk) 18:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Some information at foot drill and military parade, but basically it's done to train discipline and create unit cohesion. Tradition also plays a large part in why and how foot drill is conducted in various countries. WegianWarrior (talk) 18:45, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The British Army's Army Doctrine Publication - Operations says in Chapter 2 (Fighting Power); "The best way of generating discipline is through self-discipline and self-control, which is innate rather than imposed. This is expected in individuals, but the Army draws it out through education and training. For example, ceremonial and barracks drill and drills generally are powerful tools for instilling an ability to react to orders, even when under pressure" (p. 37 of the pdf file, labelled "2-21"). Alansplodge (talk) 22:17, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * But, as the OP notes, at one point those "discipline building drills" also simultaneously taught practical skills used in battle. I have to think that they could find a "discipline building drill" which would also build modern practical battle skills at the same time.  They may also need an honor guard, to march in parades, and those can be taught all those non-combat skills like marching in unison and polishing brass buttons and twirling rifles, while 100% of the time spent training combat troops is on skills which will actually keep them alive on the battlefield.  From a return on investment POV, any time spent teaching non-combat skills at taxpayer expense is hard to justify, these days. StuRat (talk) 22:41, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, marching up and down does sometimes send them round the bend.--Shantavira|feed me 06:54, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * @StuRat: In my experience, all the fancy stuff ("polishing brass buttons and twirling rifles") is only taught to those who have stuff like that as part of their duty. For all the rest, being taught the basic drill helps instil discipline and the ability to react to orders - something I much rather have the recruits know before they are taught combat skills... but that's just my opinion as an active officer =) WegianWarrior (talk) 07:14, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Right, but is there really no other way to teach discipline and following orders than as a byproduct of teaching archaic combat formations ? How about if they start their combat training earlier, but without real weapons or bullets, then progress to live fire training when they normally would have ?  Wouldn't that extra time practicing with dummy weapons be of more value than knowing how to march in unison ? StuRat (talk) 14:00, 6 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It's simple, easy to learn, makes it easy for NCO's to keep control when marching from one place to another, and traditional... all things that points in it's favour. In Norway (which is where I'm from), only a couple of days of the first week of the recruits military training is used for teaching drill. I'm utterly unconvinced that spending that time with dummy weapons would make them better soldiers, and I'm strongly suspecting teaching them discipline, reacting to orders and instilling a basic espirit de corps by other means would take longer. Again; that is my opinion, and I have no citations to back it up. WegianWarrior (talk) 14:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC)