Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 May 3

= May 3 =

for great justice and epic lulz
Did Grawp originate this phrase, or does it come from somewhere online? Nyttend (talk) 04:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The "For great justice" part is apparently a weak translation of a phrase used in a Japanese video game from ca.2000. See All your base are belong to us. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Bugs is exactly correct, the name of the game is Zero Wing. HominidMachinae (talk) 12:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The "epic lulz" part is generally considered to have come from the group Anonymous - "Hackers on steroids." Avic ennasis  @ 01:05, 30 Nisan 5771 / 4 May 2011 (UTC)

A case of Ciphertexts on newspaper advertisings in the '70s
Dear Desk,

I remember to have read something on wikipedia some years ago, but I don't find it anymore. This is what I remember!

In the '70s (or '60s?) a university student finds a strange newspaper ad on a local newspaper. He starts to read all ads of the same newspaper and he finds other of the same series of cryptic ads. He eventually funds an association to try and decrypt them. A billionaire living in the same town is the US finances his association. It turns out that the majority of the ads have political leftist meanings, mainly Maoist sentences. The once student is now himself very rich and still manages his decrypting association (there even was the link to it). Probably, until now sure, the ads came from the same billionaire who sponsorised the young student. He wanted to creat as most sensation as possible about his political ideas and writing crypted messages was the best way for him to do that.

I don't find this history anywhere but I remember to have read it on wikipedia!!! Could you help me?

Thank you thank you thank you!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.190.130.3 (talk) 14:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds sort of like the May Day Mystery (a series of cryptic newspaper ads, with one of its first messages containing "Long live Chairman Mao"), but as far as I know, that mystery is still unsolved (unless you count "probably a prank aimed at making people waste time studying it" as a solution) so I don't know where you got that billionaire stuff from. And it looks like there's no Wikipedia article. 67.162.90.113 (talk) 10:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely, it was the mayday and I read it on wikipedia, the article was deleted from wikipedia in 2008 and that's why i was not finding it anymore, thank you thank you thank you!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.190.130.3 (talk) 14:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * May Day being a big deal in Soviet Russia, where they used to (and maybe still do) have a large military parade in Moscow. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Alexis Petridis
How tall is Alexis Petridis? Jeremy Wordsworth (talk) 14:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Of interesting note, google has a "height estimator utility". I am not making this up.  You can enter "How tall is XXXX" and google will composite its search results and return an average estimated height.  You can see the result Here for Kevin Garnett and Here for Ryan Seacrest.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work for everybody; I believe there needs to be a minimum number of websites that report a height for it to work, and Alexis Petridis does not appear to have any information about his height publicly availible.  As a result, there is no way to answer your question.  -- Jayron  32  14:26, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It also works for some mountains, but not for any buildings I tried. It works similarly with lengths for things like rivers.  Googlemeister (talk) 18:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It depends on the builidng, I guess. :) Avic ennasis  @ 03:37, 30 Nisan 5771 / 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * One way of solving it would be to google pictures of him with famous people whose heights are known. But I'm surprised that Petridis, who is a fashion columnist as well as a music journalist, has never mentioned his height in print (if anyone wants to search through his columns for an answer). --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Cod's window
In Pushing Daisies, Chinese writing is visible on Emerson Cod's office window. Is it meaningful? —Tamfang (talk) 20:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If you can find a picture of the writing and post a link to that picture on the Wikipedia Language desk, you're very likely to get a response. --M @ r ē ino 20:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Scanning pics from google, all I see is the generic "pork restaurant" sign. Translating the meaning instead of the words, it is a Chinese BBQ sign. -- k a i n a w &trade; 14:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Emerson's office is above a Chinese restaurant. 216.93.212.245 (talk) 21:07, 4 May 2011 (UTC)