Times Arrow Hotel Prices
Posted by Embarrassed-Dot-9734@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 63 comments
Data asks for a room at Hotel Brian and the bellhop quotes him “sixpence per day or four dollars a week.” Why would it cost 10x as much to rent by the week? Did they want people to gtfo after a few days?
GodIsAPizza@reddit
This is a top 5 episode. part 1 slightly better than part 2
Acceptingoptimist@reddit
I really enjoyed Guinan's backstory. And Data among primitive people is always fun.
I didn't love Mark Twain's inclusion as a major character. His involvement is hokey and very out of character, and the actor's portrayal was grating and obnoxious.
Inevitable-Wheel1676@reddit
The Twain voice was my biggest issue with the characterization.
Acceptingoptimist@reddit
His voice was pretty terrible. It's also not how Samuel Clemens actually sounded. Sam wasn't an annoying busybody meddling with other people. He chewed the scenery and distracted from the main characters. No one watches Star Trek to see nasaly Mark Twain threaten the crew at gunpoint. The whole approach was dumb.
I liked everything else about the episode.
factionssharpy@reddit
He did have the distinction of being one of three men to have personally exterminated an extraterrestrial. He was not to be messed with.
sirboulevard@reddit
The voice problem sadly is the same as the William Shatner impression of all things. Though un this case cause Clemens destroyed the only audio recordings of his voice. The only other source as a result was a one man show of Twain speeches performed by one his friends who apparently did a good job imitating his friend, but he had a nasally voice and that is whom everyone is imitating.
That said the real Clemens would have raised eyebrows too. Man was a friend of Nikola Tesla and would often help him with his crazy experiments. One of them involved an electrical stimulus that felt so good, Clemens refused to get out of the chair for almost an hour until it turned out a side effect of prolonged exposure was it created a massive diuretic effect. He also offered to Tesla that he would help sell his inventions.
God help us if THAT Mark Twain had been in the episode. He would have done that scene from the Orville were they replicated 100 cigarettes for real, and Prophets help us what he'd do with the holodeck. They'd never get him off the ship!
Acceptingoptimist@reddit
So you can listen to this recording of his friend doing the impression
https://youtu.be/mqHPN4lW6tI?si=ZdVVVoObcRclmEcD
It's not nasaly and high pitched. It's low and plodding. And all information I have been able to find is that it is pretty accurate. The actor either didn't research the part or was told to do him differently because it wouldn't make for good pacing.
Inevitable-Wheel1676@reddit
“nasally Mark Twain threaten the crew at gunpoint” made me genuinely lol
pacard@reddit
Hoooo. Aaahhh He heh
Sasquatch1729@reddit
I find a lot of people either hate it or love it. It's like Sub Rosa, very few fans have a neutral opinion.
Personally I love it. It's campy and cheesy in all the right ways. I think of it as a guilty pleasure episode.
PM_ME_UR_FLOWERS@reddit
That's how I feel too. I love the campy Mark Twain! He does get a little annoying with his spying, though.
DoctorAnnual6823@reddit
I don't think it's my favorite 2 parter but I love it no less.
TheJedibugs@reddit
Is that a young French Stewart?
gert_van_der_whoops@reddit
I believe it was six bits a day, not sixpence. (The USA has never gone by £sd) A bit is an old word for a quarter, which would be $1.50 a day. Not cheap for the time period, but it would make $4 a week a much better deal.
Mr_SunnyBones@reddit
dont you guys have a coin refered to as a Penny though?
gert_van_der_whoops@reddit
Yes, by tradition we held that over from you. But we decimalized in 1791. A dollar is subdivided into 100 cents. You decimalized in 1971 and still held onto your pence.
If there was still a place to sleep for 6 cents in the 1890s, it would have been in a garden shed, or a dumpster (a skip for you)
chronopoly@reddit
Correct on the bots, but a bit was an eighth of a dollar (hence the phrase “2 bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar,” which used to be used a lot by cheerleaders in the US). That make six bits 75 cents, which would make $5.25 a week, so four bucks is still a deal.
KingSpork@reddit
So a bit was 12.5 cents? Is that why they’re always given in even amounts? So basically 2 bits is a quarter and 1 bit is never used because it contains fractions of a cent.
SleepWouldBeNice@reddit
Shave and a haircut, two bits!
Mr_SunnyBones@reddit
thats the secret knock!
mouse6502@reddit
The Merry Go Round Broke Down… what a looney selection for a group of drunken reprobates!
Lithl@reddit
1 bit was absolutely used, because the Spanish dollar (which is where the bit comes from) was legal tender in the American colonies.
In fact, not only was 1 bit used, but ½ and ¼ bits, too!
gule_gule@reddit
The term originated from old coins that were physically breakable into eight even pieces (pieces of eight, or pesos de ocho). I don't think US currency ever has coins of that style, but the term stuck around anyway.
Lithl@reddit
No it didn't. The term comes from the Spanish dollar, which was legal tender in the American colonies. While 1 dollar was worth 8 reales ("pieces of eight"), a dollar coin could not be physically broken like that.
And while the US has never minted a 12.5¢ coin, it did mint a half cent coin from 1793 to 1857, so paying a fee of 12.5¢ was absolutely possible (just not with a single coin).
cmdr_nelson@reddit
There actuality was a half penny coin minted up till 1857.
gert_van_der_whoops@reddit
Damn, you're right. From Robert Louis Stevenson
No_Detective_But_304@reddit
Pieces of eight. Google it.
LordOfFudge@reddit
So that’s why the byte has eight bits?
/s
Lithl@reddit
I understand you're joking, but serious answer:
The name bit was coined as a contraction of "binary information digit".
The name byte is based on the bit, but spelled with a y (rather than "bite") so that you're less likely to typo byte when you meant to write bit. Historically, the size of the byte depends on the hardware architecture. There have been bytes that were pretty much everything from 1 to 48 bits (6 and 9 bit bytes were both common for a while in the 60s), so it wouldn't make sense for either name to be based on the currency named "bit".
With the rise of 8-bit microprocessors in the 70s, 8 bit bytes became the standard. The Intel 8080's ability to perform operations on half-bytes led to coining the term "nibble" (sometimes nybble, mimicking the i->y swap of byte) for that storage size, continuing the naming scheme based on eating.
PyroNine9@reddit
Notably, octal was used instead of hex in the early days because 3 octal digits perfectly fit in a 9 bit byte.
SharMarali@reddit
Oh wow, I also thought a bit was 25 cents. So shave and a haircut, two bits actually means a quarter, not 50 cents like I’ve always thought. TIL!
chronopoly@reddit
This is the answer. Sorry about formatting on script fragment. I’m on my phone and kind of lazy.
BigMrTea@reddit
I read ST scripts like this all the time. Just switch to landscape, and it realigns properly.
chronopoly@reddit
This screenshot was taken in landscape
BigMrTea@reddit
Oh, weird. My bad.
Embarrassed-Dot-9734@reddit (OP)
This makes way more sense! Thank you!
KatNeedsABiggerBoat@reddit
Shave and a haircut… two bits!
mumblerapisgarbage@reddit
I mean it is San Francisco.
Republiconline@reddit
Gul Dukat was not much of a card player.
Acceptingoptimist@reddit
I had no idea that was him.
ArcherNX1701@reddit
Someone adjust it for inflation, so we can see what it would cost today. Just curious.
mumblerapisgarbage@reddit
In 2024 dollars that’s $140 a week. That’s really cheap for San Francisco!
Less_Likely@reddit
It’s amazing how when you apply inflation calculators to things over long periods they alway come out cheaper in the past. Almost as if inflation calculators are not measuring the actual cost of living.
Lithl@reddit
Well... yeah. They're measuring inflation. Inflation and cost of living aren't the same thing.
nebelmorineko@reddit
Well, land was super cheap and you could insulate buildings with pieces of paper, so....yeah. Plus timber was far cheaper, and they didn't have modern AC, appliances or many other things. If you built like they did in the past, you still couldn't make it that cheap because of increased material costs, but they were offering something that was pretty different. It looked ornate and prettier sometimes, but it would not have had the insulation or climate control.
mumblerapisgarbage@reddit
These are excellent points!
mikeh117@reddit
I think the real question is why would Data need a hotel room? He could just set up his equipment behind a rock in the desert.
city_posts@reddit
he shoulda bought an axe and made a log cabin in a few days. it would have been the perfect set up to show us a shirtless data with those pure white pecks, rockin a coonskin hat, splitting logs with robotic precision mmm Mmmm
LOUDCO-HD@reddit
A few days? What if he moved as fast as he does when searching LCARS?
He could be done in an hour!
Sea_Negotiation_1871@reddit
There's no desert in San Francisco, unfortunately.
Republiconline@reddit
Gul Dukat was not much of a card player.
Republiconline@reddit
Mister Pikard
Dry_Trifle860@reddit
How much was a shave and a haircut?
Rapidwatch2024@reddit
You know what they say! "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana." 🍌
dopamine_skeptic@reddit
zerocool359@reddit
Guessing it shoulda been 60p/day?
Embarrassed-Dot-9734@reddit (OP)
I thought that too for a sec but then folks pointed out that Americans didn’t use pound sterling. I misheard “bits” for “pence” so the actual line is “six bits” not “sixpence.”
I was sixpence none the wiser, if you will.
Space-Bum-@reddit
I wondered about that and assumed either they fluffed the line or the weekly charge includes meals and hot water and stuff like that.
Prudent_Leave_2171@reddit
Nah, it’s just that OP misheard or mis-remembered the line. The line is “6 bits” (75 cents). Seven days at that rate would be $5.25, so the weekly rate of $4 is cheaper.
Embarrassed-Dot-9734@reddit (OP)
This is totally it. I should have turned on captions!
Space-Bum-@reddit
Ah, there you go then.
SwimmerIndependent47@reddit
To avoid tenants getting squatters rights
just_anotherReddit@reddit
The increase is probably due to them expecting you to be using the place as an apartment at that point. That is extra wear and tear on the property than just staying a few days with only traveling clothes. But what do I know?