Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 April 1

= April 1 =

Why are TV commercials telecine'd?
This is one of my pet peeves. If you ever watch commercial TV in the United States, probably >75% of the ads are shot at 24 fps (film/cinema speed) and then pulled down to the 30 fps nominal framerate that NTSC TV uses. I was particularly amused/bemused by an ad for an HDTV that advertised a "blisteringly" fast refresh rate, but the telecine process made the motion on the simulated screenshot of the TV look very jerky. So my question is why do they do that? Is it cost (film cameras are cheap), artistic license (the movie-like motion could be construed as more artistic or cinematic and therefore "better"), or some other reason? 4.242.235.216 (talk) 01:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Most TV dramas are shot on film (or were until recently, more are using digital video now). Film is considered to give a more stylish upmarket appearance (partly this is historical because of the relative status of film and TV, and partly because it was better able to capture light differences and because the grain was considered to be aesthetically pleasing).  Many directors and directors of photography still prefer to use film, because it's what they're used to and it feels more sophisticated than using video.  Also, film can be more easily scaled to run internationally in countries with different TV systems, and in cinemas - since many TV commercials are now shown worldwide in territories with both PAL and NTSC, filming for American TV would restrict the usefulness of commercials. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 09:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? Since the 1930's it has been possible to show a 24 frame per second movie on 30 frame per second TV with one second of the movie filling one second of TV. They do not have to speed up or slow down the movie. The pitch of music would change dramatically, as would the pitch of voices if there were a one frame of movie per frame of TV lockstep such as you describe. Europe sometimes does use the lockstep approach and change 24 frames/sec to 25 frames per sec, with a semitone of pitch change. Edison (talk) 05:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, in the 1930's - until perhaps the late 1980's - the technology was a 'telecine' machine - which is basically a regular cine projector pointed into a regular TV camera with some optics in the way to get the focus right. So what you got was a rather jerky version of the original where 18 of the 24 film frames every second were displayed for one TV frame each and the other 6 were each displayed twice. This was sometimes "fixed" by using longer persistance in the TV camera - resulting in a smeary rather than jerky image.  These days, we can use digital techniques to interpolate the two frame smoothly - that's because of the way that MPEG video compression works by analyzing the motion in the image and separating foreground from background and such.  This goes a long way to explain why film footage used to look very different from raw camera footage on TV...but these days, you don't have to put up with that if you don't want to. SteveBaker (talk) 13:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I remember slowing down Babylon 5 and noticing that every fourth frame was repeated in the live shots but not the digital shots. (Or vice versa? but that seems less likely.) —Tamfang (talk) 17:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Lenticel's law
I have a political science major friend who always stumped me on debates so I made a "law" that will stump her. Here are its clauses: I'm curious on what fallacies does my "law" violate since my friend always calls it invalid or fallacious.-- Lenticel ( talk ) 04:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Lenticel's law says that Lenticel's argument is always right.
 * Lenticel's law is a valid argument because Lenticel's law says so.
 * Lenticel's law exist because Lenticel's law says so.
 * They're all simple circular logic.  bibliomaniac 1  5  04:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay now I know why she's annoyed when I bring it up.-- Lenticel ( talk ) 04:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Of course, WP has an article on Lenticel's law. Well, almost.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a popular version of your law, Lenticel:
 * Rule 1: Lenticel is always right
 * Rule 2: Should Lenticel ever be wrong, Rule 1 automatically applies.
 * I don't know who first came up with this set of two rules, but variations can be found in the articles on Stew Leonard's (replace "Lenticel" with "the customer") and Larry Wall (replace "Lenticel" with "Larry Wall"). ---Sluzzelin talk  13:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That's not really the same - in the original formulation, Lenticel's law can simply be false with no adverse consequences. Then it does not say it's always right (which is just as well, because it isn't) - if it's false then it doesn't say that it is a valid argument - so it's OK that it's not - and if it exists only because it says so - and it's false then it doesn't even have to exist (although it can if that helps).  So we have  perfectly satisfactory, non-paradoxical argument that Lenticel's law is simply false.  The "more popular version" is a little more painful since the second clause says that if it's wrong then it's right.   However, if it IS wrong then it may be wrong about that too...so we still don't really have a problem.  Anyway - for our OP to succeed against impossible debating skills will require a very complete knowledge of Gödel's theorem - nothing is guaranteed to toss a spanner in the works of any serious debate to quite the degree that Godel can.  For the intelligent layman - I recommend reading Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. SteveBaker (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You can't replace Lenticel, it's against the law :P-- Lenticel ( talk ) 15:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of papal infallibility: the popes claim that, in certain matters, they are incapable of error, so anything they say on such matters is automatically right. They claim that this authority is not man-made but divine, which lets them off the hook of circular reasoning. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * So the obvious question is, how well did that work when there were 2 different popes at the same time? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 13:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The official church position is that there have never been two popes simultaneously; rather, all but one simultaneous pope claimants were antipopes. As such, they don't have papal infallibility.  Is it something of a cop-out?  Sure, but it makes sense within the context. &mdash; Lomn 14:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, Papal infallibility is a comparatively recent innovation. There hasn't been a widely supported antipope since the doctrine was announced, nor had there been for some considerable time previously. The last big unseating of antipopes was at the Council of Constance, which also put forward the conciliar doctrine, stating that the Pope is not infallible or the ultimate authority, but is subject to the authority of an ecumenical council. Sadly, this doctrine fell by the wayside during the counter-Reformation. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Manager to be or not
i have applied for a position of a manager with a travel company (call centre). what are the quality they will look for and what questions probably? anyone ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 15:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Read the role profile/job details on the job application - it is the best resource for finding what a company want from you. Beyond that the generic stuff is - confidence, clear evidence of preparation/consideration of your responses, positive attitude etc. Managers should show an ability to be able to people-manage and also be able to delegate/organise workloads across multiple individuals. ny156uk (talk) 17:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure how much help it will be, but we do have an article on Management. --Jayron32. talk . contribs  20:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Dr Pepper
The can on Dr Pepper says that it is made up of 23 different flavors or something like that, but I can't seem to find any info on what those flavors would be. Does anyone know this, and would they please share their wisdom on the subject? 65.121.141.34 (talk) 18:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You don't have to specific the "flavors" (which refers to a specific class of chemicals; if derived synthetically they are labeled as "aritificial" if not then they are labeled "natural" but the chemicals are the same either way). In fact, you almost never do—that's part of the trade secret that allows them to keep making the drink and having it taste distinct from others. (Long long long after a patent on it would have expired.) --140.247.241.244 (talk) 19:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Nobody seems to know, but more information can be found here and here. Viriditas (talk) 04:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Any judges on our board?
This question does not seek legal advice; rather, I'm after an opinion that requires judicial/courtroom experience.

My community has had an ongoing feud with a local business owner. Last year, he prevailed in District court, but the community took the case to the Court of Appeals, who have just reversed the District court ruling.

I have just read the Opinion, 15 pages of legalese, and am absolutely blown away by the tone of the writing. "The District court erred when it said...", "The District court erred again when it said...", and so on, and so on -- very many times. If I were the judge in said District court, I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public given the tonguelashing I've just taken, albeit indirectly.

Is that kind of language -- which seems forceful to the point of rebuking -- just the standard way in which such Opinions are normally (or perhaps even required to be) delivered? Or is it really a slapping up of the DC judge? When he gets his annual performance appraisal, will the 75 repetitions of "The District Court erred when..." count against him somehow?

I know I'm asking for opinions. Hopefully, one or two among us will know if this typical or not. Thanks! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have no connection to the legal community, but it seems to me that if the court of appeals were to rule differently from the District Court, it could only do so on a few grounds:
 * Evidence had come to light that was not availible to the District Court
 * The District Court screwed up
 * What other grounds would there be for voiding the rulings of a different court? --Jayron32. talk . contribs  20:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Appeals courts rarely impugn a lower court's decisions on questions of fact, unless there's some manifest absurdity. Almost always, they will look at the lower court's errors on questions of law.
 * You are right that a lower court decision would often be overturned on errors of law (i.e. they "screwed up"). New evidence coming to light can also mean a fresh trial, though in that case the appeals court would not say the District Court "erred".
 * Not sure if there is a more formal process in the US, but in Australia having one of your decisions overturned is embarassing to the judge, and in the judicial community everyone is keeping tabs on each other's statistics in terms of decisions upheld or overturned on appeal. The potential embarassment is usually enough to keep a judge on his toes.
 * Repeatedly using "the lower court erred" is a standard, though not particularly friendly way to phrase the judgment. Without context, I would guess that it means the higher court sees the errors as straight forward errors - and not simply a difficult and ambiguous point on which they tend to disagree.
 * (And no, I'm not a judge.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Another consideration, depending on your jurisdiction: appellate decisions are written not only for the court of first instance (the district court), but for other courts considering similar matters or issues of law. This is the concept of case law.  If the district court erred by misinterpreting State Law XYZ, the appellate decision is one way to say to other district courts, "Listen up."  Lawyers dealing with State Law XYZ will find this decision when doing their research, and take it into account, as might other courts.
 * (As a current example, a recent decision of the Iowa supreme court found Iowa Code section 595.2(1) unconstitutional under Iowa law. This decision is binding on Iowa courts.  In addition, courts in other states may pay attention to the reasoning in the decision, although those states have their own statutory and case law. --- OtherDave (talk) 23:56, 5 April 2009 (UTC)