Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 April 19

= April 19 =

Another Video Game from the 1980s
I remember seeing this game at Chucky Cheese around 1984 or 1985. The player flew a spaceship that traveled outward from the solar system, encountering various alien craft to destroy. Each level was marked by the name of a planet and the planet briefly came into view when entering the next round. I think the highest level was Pluto, but I never saw the game played that far. Any ideas? -OberRanks (talk) 15:41, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Mad Planets, perhaps? -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 15:50, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Good chance it's Gyruss - it was very popular, and meets your description, except that you're working your way to Earth from Neptune, and there is no Pluto. The NES version had Pluto though, so you probably heard lore about that. BTW, if you like space shooters and don't just want the nostalgia, you should check out how they've developed in the past ~30 years. Notably the bullet hell sub-genre, and anything by Kenta Cho / ABA games  - I'd start with Torus Trooper, like Gyruss it is a tube shooter. But all his games are great, and they are free/open source. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed. That was it.  I haven't seen that game played in over 30 years.  Thanks! -OberRanks (talk) 17:13, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Instrument identification
What instrument is the performer on the left playing in this video? It doesn't appear (to my uneducated eyes) to be a cello or a double bass, and violin family doesn't seem to have any better suggestions. Tevildo (talk) 20:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like a elongated version of a cello. I haven't found a source to back that up yet but if you watch this video you will see a couple of instruments that look like it. I will be interested to see what info other editors have to tell you. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 20:40, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops now I see that they are all the same cello. I feel sure someone will be able to find the info for you. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 20:43, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Their own website says that she plays an 'Upright Bass' which seems to be a synonym of Double Bass. Here's a Flickr image of her playing another. Nanonic (talk) 20:45, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, perhaps an Electric upright bass (or the acoustic version) similar to those produced by Eminence. See this site. Nanonic (talk) 20:53, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * That looks like it, thanks. I've seen the ones with just a fingerboard and no real body, but I wasn't familiar with this design. Tevildo (talk) 21:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Duration of a Soccer Match
Association Football matches in the US are usually 90 minutes long (actual playing time), aren't they, the same as the rest of the world? The Kilosecond article claims they're only an hour long. Rojomoke (talk) 23:45, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, in the MLS and college. (MLS uses FIFA rules.) High school matches are 80 minutes, which can be divided into halves or quarters.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 23:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The kilosecond article is also incorrect about basketball, which is 48 minutes in the NBA, 40 in college and 32 in high school.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 23:54, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I fixed that, and also added a citation for the shortest major league ball game. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:48, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * And I had overlooked the original issue, the soccer mistake, which Rojo has now fixed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:27, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If anyone really cares about the concept of the "kilosecond", maybe the thing to do would be to create a little table in the article listing the major sports. Although this concept reminds me of those little cards showing the size of tips for various amounts, at 15 percent, for those who are arithmetically challenged, and can't divide by 10 and then add half of that figure for the result. In this case, it's Game_Length X 60 / 1000, so soccer would be 90 X 60 / 1000 = 5.4 kiloseconds. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:32, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Aaaand... another editor has just rubbed out that entire section, leaving the article as little more than a definition. I'm not interested enough in this subject to argue with him about it, but if you are, you may want to ask him about it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)