Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 June 14

= June 14 =

song in fast and furious 3
Which is the name of the song in the beginning of fast and furious 3? … before the first race Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 01:49, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift soundtrack is listed on IMDB. Does that help?  Astronaut (talk) 18:26, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

What do 998 and 698 mean?
This xkcd comic refers to them. What is the meaning of the expressions in culture that it refers to? Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 15:15, 14 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The small 8s are exponents (the relevant article is at exponentiation, but it's only written for folks with forty years experience with mathematics). Basically, it means that you multiply 99 (in the first example) by itself 8 times, as in 99 x 99 x 99 x 99 x 99 x 99 x 99 x 99. Randall's point is that when you do that, you get a decently accurate number of meters in a light year. I'm not sure what you mean by "expressions in culture"; it's just a handy way of remembering some oddball values. Matt Deres (talk) 16:31, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe I should expand on that a bit. Most of the values he's used are expressed in ways that have little or nothing to do with the way he's expressed them. For example, the population of the world has nothing to do with the number of leap years since hurricane Katrina; he's just stuck that in there for students to use in homework and tests so that they still get the right answer but arrive at it in completely the wrong way, thus "trolling" (i.e. messing with the mind of) the teacher. Matt Deres (talk) 16:36, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I have read somewhere that these exponentiations have something to do with sex. Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 01:27, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, kind of. "69" could certainly a reference to 69 (sex position) and 99 has been used as a modified version of the 69 gag to depict male homosexuals or other rear entry sex (though that's not nearly so widely understood as the 69 thing), but I don't think those are any part of the joke. See also this XKCD for more "numerical sex positions". Matt Deres (talk) 01:34, 15 June 2013 (UTC)


 * http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1047:_Approximations (a wiki anybody can edit) claims: "998 and 698 are sexual references". I don't know about that but in addition to 69 (sex position), 8 (eight) sounds like "ate". The latter is used in a famous joke: "Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 ate 9." PrimeHunter (talk) 01:56, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Isn't "a wiki anybody can edit" a bit of a tautology? --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  03:17, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No. When you set up a wiki (for instance using the MediaWiki package), you decide whether the wiki is to be editable (or viewable, for that matter) by logged in users only. You can disable auto-registration of new users, thus restricting editing (and viewing, if you like) to accounts that are created by an administrator. A private wiki can be quite useful for collaborative work. --NorwegianBluetalk 11:31, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the clarification. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  12:19, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there a list of actors who played God?
I thought so, but a Wikipedia search didn't turn up anything. I wanted to add two to the list if there was one here.— Vchimpanzee  ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 21:24, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There one there, with 13 entries. I'm not sure whether this would be an appropriate subject for a list. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:32, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * They missed a couple of facts. One is that the image used by the Pythoneers was W. G. Grace, a joke that would certainly be lost on Americans or anyone who wasn't a major fan of cricket. A film they missed entirely is The Ten Commandments (1956 film), in which God does not appear on-screen, but was voiced by... well, the article says it was Heston, and I had heard long ago that it was the director, Cecil B. DeMille. In any case, I didn't see it on the list. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:49, 15 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Portrayals of God in popular media has some examples. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:26, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That Python representation was the first one I thought of when I saw this thread. thanks for mentioning it Bugs. I suspect that most actors would have a long list of "directors who thought they were God" and the would probably start with Eli Cross. MarnetteD | Talk 03:03, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I never saw that movie, but it looks like Peter O'Toole is angling for typecasting, given his appearance in The Ruling Class. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  03:11, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The two performances (three if you acknowledge JC and Jack in TRC) did receive many comparisons after TSM's release. IMO they are bravura performances by O'Toole that are markedly different from one another. I hope that you get to see the second one some day Jack. I don't think you would be disappointed. MarnetteD | Talk 03:20, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks MarnetteD. I have never yet been disappointed in an O'Toole performance.  Not even as a singing Don Quixote.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  03:25, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Bill Cosby's early routine about Noah had him voicing God. The cartoon "The Old Grey Hare" had the voice of God (Mel Blanc, of course) talking to Elmer. I don't know that I would count those examples, though. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:22, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Noah to God "Have you looked in the bottom of that ark? Whose gonna clean up that mess down there?" MarnetteD | Talk 06:05, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Are we only interested in the Judeo-Christian god here? Do portrayals of Jesus count? HiLo48 (talk) 03:11, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Even if one believes Jesus was God, they're conceptually different entities. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  03:14, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It does raise the question of whether the god or gods of other current faiths have been portrayed. I think we can assume not for Islam's interpretation of God. And of course the Greek and Roman mythological gods have been portrayed many times. But what about Hindu gods, for example? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:24, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Two that I have seen are Mahabharat (TV series) and the delightful Sita Sings the Blues. Considering the huge number of films that India produces each year I am sure there are more. MarnetteD | Talk 05:34, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has a category called Hindu mythological films. There's a fair chance some gods are portrayed in them. HiLo48 (talk) 05:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Now we're getting into portrayals of gods (small g, plural) rather than God (cap G, singular) the OP asked about. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  05:45, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, this is the Judeo-Christian God. I thought I had seen a list on Wikipedia that I could add to.— Vchimpanzee  ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 16:12, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You asked about God. I asked about gods. It could be reconfigured into a sub-section, if anyone is confused. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I know IMDB is not considered a reliable reference for articles, but this IMDB listing can at least help answer this question.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 00:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * In the TV show Joan of Arcadia, a different actor played God in pretty much every episode, so you can get quite a few in there. See Joan of Arcadia. StuRat (talk) 03:09, 18 June 2013 (UTC)