Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 November 11

= November 11 =

name that dancer/actress!!
Who is the main female dancer/actress in the music video of replay by Iyaz? or does any one know where i could find out? I could have sworn i have seen her before but i have no idea where from. thanks for all the help.--Sivad4991 (talk) 00:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * If you provide a link to somewhere where the video can be seen, such as YouTube, you are much more likely to get a response.Popcorn II (talk) 09:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Bluray quality
(A bit of history to frame my question...) When CDs came out, a lot of criminals business men decided to make a quick buck by taking crappy cassette tapes and burn them to CD. The result is a crappy sounding CD. So, the industry standardized that all CDs must have a code like AAD to indicate that it went from analog to analog to digital (crappy) or DD to indicate that it went straight from digital to digital (good).

So, we now have the Bluray format which is capable of 1080p digital. Those same asses are probably looking to take old worn out VCR tapes and burn them on Blurays to make a quick buck. Is there any standard or legal process (even a license restriction from Sony) to ensure that if you purchase a Bluray you are actually getting an HD direct to HD version of the movie and not a crappy analog to HD version? -- k a i n a w &trade; 03:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Buying from reputable retailers. If you walk into Best Buy (or whatever your local equivalent is) and buy a Blueray disc, you're going to get the genuine article.  If you are purchasing off of a guy on a street corner, or the internet equivalent, well, caveat emptor.  -- Jayron  32  04:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think he's talking about bootleg discs; he's talking about fully legal media where the transfer has either gone through unnecessary stages (reducing quality) or has otherwise not properly been done. See here for an example. Matt Deres (talk) 02:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * In addition, many crappy transfers are old public domain movies where the distributor doesn't have access to original materials. In those cases, we're lucky to have a digital transfer, even a crappy one, since there's no guarantee that anyone will spend the money to do a quality transfer. It's better to have a crude DVD copy of a hard-to-find Samuel Fuller film, for example, than none at all, at least until Criterion gets around to releasing it. —Kevin Myers 04:11, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm just concerned about spending money for a "High Definition" Blueray movie only to find out it is DVD quality "upscaled" to 1080p. I've looked at the info on the Bluray cases and I cannot find anything that guarantees the movie is at a minimum 1080p quality.  It just states that the "format" is 1080p - meaning that it has the signal format of 1080p, not the true quality.  For sound, they clearly state the quality.  Just not the picture. --  k a i n a w &trade; 00:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Point of information, the SPARS code was never required by "the industry", and was most definitely not a good indicator of sound quality. -- LarryMac  | Talk  14:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, analog recording and mixing need not be inferior to digital. In the early days of CDs especially, the top end analog recording machines were probably better than the top end digital ones. Pfly (talk) 05:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Schnappi's sex
Is schnappi a boy or a girl? Mike R (talk) 06:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The Schnappi article, which is rather bad by the way, refers to Schnappi as "he". Dismas |(talk) 07:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The German Wikipedia article and the song's German lyrics, however, refer to Schnappi as "das", which implies no gender. Now the Germans are notoriously insensitive about such things -- pre-pubescent girls are also called "das" -- but the point is, the "he" in the English Wikipedia article may not be verifiable.  --M @ r ē ino 15:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The word for girl in German is Mädchen, which is a diminutive of Mädel. Mädel is a feminine word but the diminutive ending -chen makes it neutral, like all other words with that ending. In Germany, titles etc. always come in a male and a female form: the present chancellor is a woman so she is titled Bundeskanzlerin, not Bundeskanzler. Sorry for going off-topic... E.G. (talk) 22:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It's "das kleine Krokodil", though. The gender of the article *must* match the gender of the noun (yes, nouns have genders in German, even for things like tables and pencils, which aren't gendered even metaphorically). "Krokodil" is neuter, so even something like "das weibliche Krokodil" (the female crocodile) gets the neutered article. So the neuter article is no indication of "neuter" gender. It's probably better to refer to the gender as "unknown"/"unspecified" rather than "neuter". -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 01:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I changed the gender in the infobox from "neuter" to "unspecified." Thanks! The Hero of This Nation (talk) 17:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. I sure wish someone could point me to more Schnappi videos (see question below). The Hero of This Nation (talk) 17:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. I think Schnappi is a boy, but I cannot find any reliable source that says one way or the other. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 17:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Schnappi!
Are there any more Schnappi videos? I've seen the original (when Schnappi hatches from the egg and chases flies), the one where Schnappi goes to Japan with the llama, and the Christmas one. Mike R (talk) 06:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Lockerbie Urban Legend
Is there any truth to the rumour that anyone connected to Frankie Goes to Hollywood died in the Lockerbie Disaster ? I see a song writer, another musician and the son of an actor did die, but there seems to be no link between them and the aforementioned group ? Also, what about the story concerning some stunt man or actor on Footloose, who is said to have died because he was " too fit for his own heart " ( something I don't have to worry about ), as if that is at all possible ? Initially, people were saying it was Kevin Bacon, so imagine my shock in seeing him in dozens of feature films, all made after Footloose. What, did they dig his bones up, and tie strings to his limbs to get him to move ? I don't think his acting is that bad, although with that Invisible Man movie he made, one begins to wonder. The Russian.202.36.179.66 (talk) 08:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * There isn't anything at Snopes.com about either of these rumors. Dismas |(talk) 11:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a Holly Johnson single which I picked up at a record show and which came with a death notice from the Lockerbie disaster. I've always known that the clipping was a mistake; buying the single probably was also, but that's not important right now.  I thought it was a misidentification of another person named Holly Johnson on the passenger manifest, but according to this forum page, the singer actually was booked on Pan Am 103, but changed his plans.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  13:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, That  makes  sense. So at  the  time  someone  heard  it,  but  assumed  he  got  on  the flight,  and  no  one  corrected  the  mistake  from  my  point of view. It is  also  a  well  known  fact  that  Mark Wahlberg, whose brother Donnie is a singer ( and actor ),  was going to be on one of the 911 planes out of Boston,  but  had a bad feeling about it, and decided not to board. I also heard that the late Waylon Jennings was going to get onto Buddy Holly's plane in Feb 1959, but a coin toss saved his life, so he could live on for at least another forty or so years to sing the theme to Dukes of Hazzard. There were rumours about that flight, that because a gun was found, which had been fired, that the pilot might have been into drugs, the singers found out, there was a struggle, and the plane went down. It turns out a sherrif or his deputy found the gun, and fired it himself to see if it worked. Whose gun it was, I cannot remember. It is true, as the website claim's that Aaliyah's flight was overloaded. What a waste of a beautiful young girl with promise, as well as of all the rest of those  who died that day. If it's not plane crashes, it is cars. But as to my other questions, what of the Footloose legend, which reminds me of the 3 Men and a Baby one about the figure seen in the background. Incidentally, at the climactic scene of Robocop, when Clarence gets his throat slashed by Robo, there is the figure of a late teen or early twenties boy up high in the background, who, scriptwise, is probably not meant to be there. May be the Footloose legend was only in NZ. The only one from that film I remember dying is Chris Penn, but that was over 20 years later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.36.179.66 (talk) 05:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Olympic Games
Are there any countries that have won a medal in every Summer Olympic Games? In every Winter Olympic Games? And, in total, in every Olympic Games? I am not asking about "every Games in which the country participated", but rather, every single Games period. (For example, the USA boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games ... and though the USA probably won medals in every other Olympic Games, they obviously did not do so in 1980. Thus, the USA is disqualified as an answer to my question.)  Thanks. (64.252.124.238 (talk) 13:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC))
 * Well, to start you off, only fourteen countries entered the first Olympic games, if you mean the ones starting in 1896. Eliminating the US, that leaves us with the following possibilities:


 * ??? Australia
 * Austria
 * Bulgaria
 * Chile
 * Denmark
 * ??? France
 * Germany
 * Great Britain
 * Greece
 * Hungary
 * Italy
 * Sweden
 * Switzerland
 * Now, I'm off to check out if any of these pass - but I'm in school at the moment, so no guarantees I won't be called away to do some actual work :$ Vimescarrot (talk) 13:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Bulgaria and Chile didn't get anything in the first Games, so they're off the list. Nor did Sweden or Italy. Vimescarrot (talk) 14:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Greece did not get a medal in the 1932 Summer games. Austria, Germany and Hungary missed out in 1920. In 1908 and 1912, Australia had a combined team, does that count?  No swiss medals in 1908. Neither France nor Denmark participated in 1904 (although a French athlete was part of an American relay race that got a silver). Googlemeister (talk) 14:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Australia didn't win any medals in 1904, so it's just Britain and possibly France (if you accept the athlete who was part of the mixed team that year) who have won medals at every Olympics. Neither of these countries have won medals at every Winter Olympics, so no nation has won a medal at every single Olympic Games. Warofdreams talk 15:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * As for the Winter Olympics, Norway, Finland, Austria, the U.S., Sweden and Canada all appear to have won medals at every competition. Warofdreams talk 15:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Has there been any country that hasn't protested the Olympics at least once? -- k a i n a w &trade; 15:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I would certainly think so. A lot of the countries that missed olympic games did not do so out of protest.  Googlemeister (talk) 16:01, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the input ... but the above thread is very confusing and very hard for me to follow ... sorry about that. So, what exactly are the answers to these questions below?


 * 1) __________ are the only countries to win at least one medal in every Summer Olympic Games ever held since 1896 (Olympiad I)
 * 2) __________ are the only countries to win at least one medal in every Winter Olympic Games ever held since 1896 (Olympiad I)
 * 3) __________ are the only countries to win at least one medal in  every  Olympic Games ever held since 1896 (Olympiad I)

Thanks for your time, effort, research, and patience! Thank you! (64.252.124.238 (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC))
 * For the record, the winter games did not start until 1924. Googlemeister (talk) 21:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Possibly France and Great Britain are the only countries to win at least one medal in every Summer Olympic Games ever held since 1896.
 * Norway, Finland, Austria, the U.S., Sweden and Canada are the only countries to win at least one medal in every Winter Olympic Games ever held since 1896, according to Warofdreams.
 * No-one has won at least one medal in every Olympic Games ever held since 1896.

Vimescarrot (talk) 18:42, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * If that French athlete was not officially representing France (and the tallies at France at the Olympics do not recognise any medals won by France in 1904), then it's just Great Britain that's won medals at every Summer Games. France and Australia came close, the only time either team missing out on at least a bronze being at St Louis in 1904. --  JackofOz (talk) 19:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * As JackofOz says, France at the Olympics suggests no medals in 1904, and Great Britain at the Olympics in every summer Olympics, GB won at least 1 (indeed, 1 Gold) medal. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 21:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * So Great Britain has 2 records: the only country to have won medals (unspecified colour) at all Summer Games, and the only country to have won Gold Medals at all Summer Games. Next step is to change their name to United Kingdom.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all of the info above. It was very helpful. I appreciate the feedback. Thank you. (64.252.124.238 (talk) 01:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC))

Wheel of Fortune million dollar wedge
If someone lands on that and then solves the puzzle, do they keep playing even though it's basically impossible for any of the other players to catch them? I watched the Youtube video and it looks like the one player who has won $1M got it with the little spin wheel in the bonus round, not by landing on the wedge as I'm talking about. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 15:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * When a player's spin ends up on the tiny $1M wedge, that only gives him a chance to win $1M later in the game. He must solve the puzzle during which he picked up the chance, win the whole match without hitting a bankrupt, and then solve the bonus puzzle as well.  Details here.   -- LarryMac  | Talk  16:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * What Larry says is all correct, but there's an additional requirement, which is what the original poster was thinking of. The $1M wedge just causes the bonus-round prize wheel to change so that the top prize is $1M instead of $100K -- the player still has to spin it, which is only a 1/24 chance.  (So the slogan "one spin, one solve, one million dollars" used when they introduced the wedge is doubly wrong.)  As far as I know, this has only happened once -- as it happened, it was the month after the $1M wedge was introduced.  (The player won.)  Fortunately for the player's nerves when attempting the bonus-round puzzle, the bonus amount is revealed only afterwards, so they don't know if they're playing for the million or not.  See Wheel of Fortune gameplay.  --Anonymous, edited 00:12 UTC, November 12, 2009.
 * Hasn't it happened twice? (Or maybe I just saw that episode twice...) Adam Bishop (talk) 04:46, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

A classical piece based on a romany folk song?
I saw a clip of the group Taraf De Haidouks performing a tune in the bonus features of the film "When the Road Bends - tales of a Gypsy Caravan." It took me a few seconds to recognize it as the meter was different, but I distinctly remembered playing a composition like that on the piano as a student in my younger days, though I think it was a waltz. Anyway it's been driving me nuts...

I can't find a clip of the tune anywhere to post, but it is in A-minor - here is the opening motif of the melody as it appears in the film, where hyphens are rests and the numbers in parentheses refer to octaves. This would be much easier if I could upload a brief score transcription...:

A--A/A C B A/E(3)--E(2)/E(2)G# F# E/A--A/A C B A/B E(3)E(2)-

and the second section: A(3)--A/A Bb A G/F--D/D F E D/G--G/G A G F/E--C/C E D C/ etc...Michinoku1 (talk) 17:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * This is an old Hungarian folk tune, used by Franz Liszt in his Hungarian Fantasia for piano and orchestra, and his Hungarian Rhapsody No. 14 for solo piano. --  JackofOz (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not distopyan hard science fiction books
I want some names of hard science fiction books, that are not in a distopyan world. Before someone says "depends on what you call hard science fiction" I view of hard science fiction is the same of that website: (http://www.kheper.net/topics/scifi/grading.html)187.89.104.207 (talk) 18:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * It also depends on how you define dystopian. Are you looking for books where nothing ever goes bad ever?  Or are books about times which are not perfect, and bad stuff happens, but aren't the sort of oppressive hellish dystopian stuff.  Still, heres a short list of authors and works which I wouldn't classify as "dystopian" but still are "hard" sci-fi:
 * Orson Scott Card, especially Ender's Game and the following series.
 * John Scalzi's Old Man's War and following series.
 * Arthur Clarke's 2001 (novel) and sequels
 * Ben Bova's Grand Tour series
 * Isaac Asimov's robot detective series (aka Isaac Asimov's Robot Series) with Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw
 * Just some suggestions -- Jayron  32  19:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * One could argue that the technology explained in the books of The Culture is consistent within its universe, if only remotely plausible.20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

With distopian i meant "books about times which are not perfect, and bad stuff happens, but aren't the sort of oppressive hellish dystopian stuff."187.89.127.220 (talk) 21:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The page you mentioned has large numbers of hard science fiction titles, so we could just look through it for non-dystopian ones. I would argue that Starship Troopers would qualify. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * (after ec) Not sure whether it's "hard enough" sf, but quite a few of Larry Niven's works would probably qualify, too. Grutness...wha?  22:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The Mote In God's Eye. It specifically defines 1 technology that can't exist and 1 that probably can't, but is otherwise hard SF.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Robert Heinlein's Future History series. It was written in the 1930s-1950s, so a lot of the projections turned out to be way off, but Heinlein's logic is solid, and his societies actually address their problems.  --M @ r ē ino 15:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Do these music videos make use of infrared photography?
We Can Walk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMd-626DcA Death In Vegas - Dirt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QWKt1YlquA about a minute into the video Only You / Martha and the Muffins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nJTtM3J7YQ about 45-60 sec into the video Marilyn Manson - The Dope Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP8eNye4J_M I'm thinking of making a list.Thanks.Civic Cat (talk) 19:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you give specific minute-second counts that you're asking about? These videos have lots of fast edits, so I can't tell which individual shots you are writing about.  I looked at the first two and don't think there's any infrared photography; I think they just shoot the video and apply a visual effect in post.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Short film ID
At a short-film festival (I think), at the end of the 1980s or beginning of the 1990s, I saw a short film which featured stop animation of dozens of soup cans. They were, I believe, wrapped in Campbells Tomato Soup wrappers; they marched around city streets. Organized groups marched through the streets in unison, armed; there was a fight; the top popped off a can, it was motionless, and tomato soup gushed all over the pavement. They changed uniforms once by shucking off their paper wrappers and putting on new paper wrappers. It was a parable of Fascism. It may have been created in Eastern Europe. Can anyone point me to it? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure, but the Campbell's tomato soup cans are an obvious reference to the art of Andy Warhol. StuRat (talk) 05:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Just because he painted one doesn't mean the film is referring to Warhol. I'm going to say they're totally unrelated thematically.  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  I have remembered, by the way, that the soup-can film I'm trying to identify may have been in one of the Spike & Mike's shows, or a short-film collection called "Festival of Animation", if anyone can remember.  I can't find it on the Spike & Mike's site.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's any more likely that somebody would use Campbell's tomato soups cans in art coincidentally than that somebody would make a painting with a pitchfork-wielding man and wife in front of their home, without being an intentional reference to American Gothic. StuRat (talk) 14:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Star Trek Animated Series
What ever happened to the new Star Trek Animated series that was announced about 3 years ago. Did it get sucked in to a black-hole? Duomillia (talk) 23:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I never heard of it, but would speculate that there would be no audience for it. While not all animation is aimed at kids, this type of thing would be.  In that case, the problem is that Star Trek isn't fresh in the minds of kids, with all the series and movies having been out of production for some time now.  Perhaps the latest Star trek movie might rekindle some interest.  There was also an animated Star Trek series in the 1970's, which had the voices of many of the original cast, as I recall. StuRat (talk) 05:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I theorize that by the age kids would be interested in something like star trek, they are too old to want to watch it as a cartoon. Googlemeister (talk) 14:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree there. Having been a kid at the time of the original Star Trek, I can testify that it was quite popular with kids, as shown by the Star Trek toys (I had a "phasor" and "communicator") and lunch-boxes that flooded the market.  It's just not popular with kids now, because it's not on TV much. StuRat (talk) 14:26, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd never heard of it either, but trekmovie.com says it was considered as a series of 6-minute web-only episodes to keep interest in the franchise up and save money. It was has happening around the same time ST: Enterprise was being canceled, and there was a general feeling the franchise needed a rest, so it's not too surprising it never happened.  Star Trek was kind of staggering under its own weight at that point; it had to remain true to 27 years of canon, make that canon clear to the uninitiated in order to draw in new viewers without patronizing and losing existing fans (not the easiest people in the world to please, by the way), and honestly, just plain think up new stories.  Warp drives can overload, holodeck characters can gain sentience, nebulae can turn out to be lifeforms, friendly aliens can turn out not to be friendly, hostile aliens can be reasoned with and made friends, &c., only so many times. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 21:07, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm a trekkie but didn't much care for "Enterprise". One of the first things you noticed when watching is that, unlike the earlier series (serieses ?), they didn't bother to make a theme song, but just used an old, off-the-shelf commercial song.  How lazy can you get ?  So, I don't think people are sick of Star Trek, per se, just sick of bad Star Trek.  StuRat (talk) 14:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)