Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 October 16

= October 16 =

Looking for short story or novel
I'm looking for a short story or novel. I've never read it. I don't know the title or the author. I don't know the date of publication.

The plot, as it was described to me, was that it followed a small town in mid-west USA when a natural disaster occurred. Probably an asteroid strike. And this disaster caused a very fine, near invisible dust to permeate the air and cause all motorized equipment to fail. The remainder of the story involves trying to survive the winter and rebuild civilization without the use of any motorized contrivances.

My only clue is that the person who described it to me said that he read it probably in about the 60s, and he suspects it might have been serialized. Possibly in the Saturday Evening Post, or Look Magazine.

Does this ring any bells with anyone? Thanks. APL (talk) 00:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The dust throws me off but what comes to mind is Earth Abides, A Canticle for Leibowitz and Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. You might try searching <"post-apocalyptic" AND dust AND meteor OR asteroid>--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Good guesses, but no. The crux of the story, as it was described to me, was that it was a sudden failure of technology. All the people were healthy, but they now had to somehow live without machines. APL (talk) 01:13, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, you should read A Canticle for Leibowitz anyway. I would ask your informant to try to remember keywords, less common words like names of characters, towns, places, diseases, etc. Something like "carolina diabetes EMP" which brings up the sci-fi novel One Second After as the second hit in a google search. That is another good book. μηδείς (talk) 17:01, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, obviously, but that's all I've got. Except that he found the story to be really good, (He probably would have been a teenager at the time, so who knows how good it actually was.) and a bunch of minor, predictable details like people having to heat their homes through wood stoves, and non-farmers having to learn to farm with pre-industrial techniques.
 * It's a long shot for sure, but this reference desk often successfully answers even more obscure questions so I thought I'd give it a try. APL (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a long shot, because the cause of the breakdown of all (electrical) equipment on Earth is both memorable and, though of extraterrestrial origin, not as described: otherwise, however, the described plot greatly resembles that of 'The Waveries' by Fredric Brown. We don't have a full article on the story, but our article on Brown says:
 * "His short story "The Waveries" was described by Philip K. Dick as "what may be the most significant—startlingly so—story SF has yet produced.""
 * The story has been extensively reprinted in magazines and anthologies since its original publication in the January 1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, so your informant may well have seen it in the SEP or elsewhere. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.153 (talk) 11:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That could be it. I'll check it out. Thank you. APL (talk) 00:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I found Fredrick Brown's The Waveries available in PDF form on line. It's 19 pages long, and a damn good read. μηδείς (talk) 9:57 pm, Today (UTC−4)

Which is more of a best-selling game? Pac-Man (arcade) or Super Mario Bros. (NES)?
Super Mario Bros. sold over 40 million copies. And Pac-Man is the most popular arcade game of all time. Which is more of a best-selling game? 98.234.170.202 (talk) 05:07, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If you're just counting the original arcade version of Pac-Man, then it's undoubtedly Super Mario Bros. Simply because the home market is so much larger than the arcade market. APL (talk) 05:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's hard to compare home video game sales with arcade sales, it's really apples and oranges. Arcade games are played by hundreds or thousands of different people, and are individually very expensive, so one "game" may account for more people, and more plays, than a comparable video game cartridge used in a home video game system.  I'm not sure there is any meaningful way to compare the two media in terms of "sales" and have it mean anything.  The article List of best-selling video games breaks up the game data by various metrics, and seperates the arcade games into units sold AND plays (or "quarters").  Pac-Man is the most played arcade game, but Space Invaders is actually the best "selling" arcade game, in terms of actual units sold.  In terms of console games, Wii Sports is the best selling console game of all time; but like Super Mario Bros., it was given away free as part of a bundle.  It would appear the best-selling non-bundled console game of all time might be Mario Kart Wii.  -- Jayron  32  05:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

So, does that mean SMB has a higher gross revenue than Pac-Man? Because SMB sold over 40 million copies, and Pac-Man grossed over 1 billion quarters. And I'm assuming, at most, a mazimum of four quarters (four quarters per person.) are needed to play Pac-Man. So, 1 billion divided by 4 is 250 million. And 1 billion minus 250 million is 750,000,000 people who have played it, at the very least. So I'm assuming that if Pac-Man were originally a console game, it would have sold around 750,000,000 copies (1 copy for each person). What are your thoughts on this? 98.234.170.202 (talk) 07:04, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * First, I don't think Namco get's those quarters.
 * Secondly, I've never seen a classic Pac-Man machine that took anything other than a single quarter or token to play it.
 * Thirdly, Your math is absurd. You're assuming that every player played only four quarters? And that every player would have bought a game? That's crazy. There's no way you can estimate that, But the true number would surely be much, much lower. APL (talk) 07:27, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're converting in the wrong direction. From my perspective, the only way to sensibly compare the two games, given their different income models, is by gross sales. That is, take the total amount of money that Pac-Man games "sold for" (the article says $2.5 billion in quarters, which is actually 10 billion quarters) and compare it to the total amount of money that SMB games "sold for" (e.g. 40 million * (sale price)). This is complicated by at least two factors. One is that SMB was commonly sold as a package with the NES console itself. This means it's hard to figure out what someone "spent" specifically on the SMB portion of a SMB/NES package. The other issue is inflation, as four quarters in 1980 were worth slightly more than a dollar in 1985 was, although as a first approximation we can ignore it. So in order to match Pac-Man's non-inflation adjusted gross receipts, the 40 million SMB copies would need to have had, on average, a retail sales price of $62.50. I don't remember what NES cartridges typically retailed for, but that seems a little high to me, indicating that Pack-Man would be considered the more "best-selling" game, at least by gross sales. -- 174.24.217.108 (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Quibble: "Gross sales" might mean either the number of quarters dropped into all the machines, or the gross revenues of Namco resulting from sales of the machines, which was far less. This is one reason I have to agree with Jayron32 that it is an apples to oranges comparison and trying to answer the question simply is not possible; a paragraph of explanation is necessary to accompany whatever dollar figure is offered.  By the way, another factor is that although Pac-Man was a fad that burst into the broad culture in a way Super Mario NES did not, Pac-Man had only one hit sequel, whereas Mario grew into the icon of the whole video game industry.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Pac-Man was the bigger deal, although Mario Brothers may have outsold it. Pac-Man was a huge fad, played by people who didn't go on to be video game addicts. It was the first blockbuster electronic arcade game. It had a song made about it (Pac-Man Fever (album)) and it was the impetus for people to buy home games. Mario Brothers took advantage of that market. But whereas adults of that age who didn't play videogames will know to today what Pac Man is far fewer will know what super mario brothers is. μηδείς (talk) 16:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

song title
Isn't it Papa Roach rocking from 01:01 to 02:24? Can't identify :( 46.204.0.218 (talk) 22:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like it might be Sum 41's Screaming Bloody Murder. --Onorem♠Dil 17:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Question about when Dragon Ball received 815 votes in a Shonen Jump popularity poll
I read in one of the Daizenshuus that Dragon Ball was at it's height when it received 815 votes in a 1000 ballot Shonen Jump popularity poll. Does anyone know when Jump did this particular popularity poll? Was it during Goku's fight with Burter and Jeice, or was it during Goku's fight with Freeza? 98.234.170.202 (talk) 22:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking for Japanese Yodeler?
I sort of don't remember anything about him, except for a one music video which was on youtube at one point, where he was, at one point in the video, appearing as a street vender, sort of hawking various stuff to onlookers, yodeling the whole way. Other parts included I think a scene in a grocery store with him working the checkout scanner and etc, still yodeling.

I also remember something about him being treated more or less as a celebrity in Germany, and him viewing it as something of a second home, but dunno how far that info can get anyone.

I really want to remember his name, because it's like having the one songstuck in your head and you don't remember anything beyond parts of the tune and a few things about who sang it. My searches both here and across google have sort of turned up like a black hole pulled him off the face of the Earth. On a side note, I remember there used to be a page on Wikipedia aout him, but no sign of that, so...

Could somebody help, despite how ridiculously vague I'm being? 66.189.24.187 (talk) 23:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Takeo Ischi? The en translation and YouTube Oda Mari (talk) 05:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That's him! Thanks! xD 66.189.24.187 (talk) 00:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)