September 10

Jodie Foster

How tall is Jodie foster? 207.69.139.157 13:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

5'3" according to quotes attributed to her.[1][2] --John Hubbard 16:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IMDb says "5' 3½" (1.61 m)". Most stars' heights are listed in IMDb on their bio pages. —Tamfang 06:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"The Office" Character Inquiry

Hello. What is the name of the IT Technician who has a recurring role on The Office. I remember Michael hiding from him in one episode by turning off the lights of the office and telling everyone to duck underneath their desks, but I can't seem to remember the guy's name. I just know that he is an Indian-American male. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djcurtis (talk • contribs) 15:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We responded to this previously, here is the archive link. --LarryMac | Talk 15:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to IMDB, the character is named Sadiq.[3] (based on matching photos from the episode). You may also be interested in a clip of a similar character in the UK series. --John Hubbard 15:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC) p.s. Don't forget to ask a librarian if you need help too![reply]

Tots TV

Gooooood Evening,

A very babyish question now, but I've been reminiscing. In the kids show Tots TV, there was a horrible, messy, silent dog that lived in the house, but the tots weren't aware of it. What was it's name? Thank You ::Manors:: 16:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Furry Boo? DuncanHill 16:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah of course, Thank You. ::Manors:: 17:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We really do have an article on everything! I'd never noticed before that Tom was black; how unobservant I am... Skittle 23:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tots TV is shown every weekday on CBeebies (my 2 year old is a big fan). Kelpin 17:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

cant remember the name of a french/german film

hey, im trying to work out the name of a film that i saw ages ago. it was either in german or french (sorry, cant remember that either!). here is the basic plotline from what i can remember:

the girl has a boyfriend and he gets in trouble with some gangster guy or something, and then they go through what they did to get through it.a nd they keep replaying ti but doing different things each time and seeing the outcome

thanks--81.153.199.1 19:22, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You don't mean Run Lola Run, do you? / edg ☺ ★ 19:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds very much like it. Corvus cornix 15:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's Run Lola Run for sure. Coolest movie ever... Beekone 17:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sub Titles in Films

I am curious ... does anyone knows how, exactly, the text of subtitles is incorporated into a film? Let's say, for example, we were to watch the film Titanic on DVD. If you set it up correctly, the text of the character dialogue would be printed on the screen along with the visual images of the film. So, for example, under the video of Leonardo DiCaprio would appear the text "I am the king of the world!" as he speaks that line of dialogue in the film. This is my question: how exactly do those "words" get placed in the film ... and by whom exactly? I mean, does MGM or Paramount or 20th Century Fox (or whoever) hire a secretary and then give a copy of the real film script to the secretary and ask her to type it all in? Or does MGM / Paramount / 20th Century Fox (etc.) hire a secretary to sit there and listen to the film and type / transcribe the words (sort of, in the way that a court reporter does a court transcript)? So, really, I guess what I am also asking is ... how does the studio (or us, as the viewing audience) know that the printed / typed words are correct? Of course, it is patently obvious in 99% of the cases. But, there are often times that I will rewind a movie 100 times, asking myself "what exactly did that character say? I can't seem to make it out, because he mumbled the words". How are those hard-to-decipher words input? Is the secretary looking at a real script? Or is she just rewinding the film 100 times and trying to listen intently, like I am? Furthermore, who exactly decides what other filler words to add in? Like, when they say, "Mr. Smith loudly pounds his fist on the table" or something like that. Is that all carefully scripted by the studio / director / producer / executives / etc.? Or do they just go out and "hire" some closed captioning / transcript service whose employees merely add whatever they feel is appropriate to the sub-titles? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro 20:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]

The major studios contract with approved vendors to supply and create the subtitles used in films. They are working from scripts and the audio-visual of the film, that is real-time watching. Check out the website for the vendor Cinetyp Hollywood [4] for more information.
Librarians - Ask us, we answer!
Find your local Library at [5] Ktg2 21:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While your little sign-off is amusing, I would note that the local libraries of a significant percentage of readers are not represented by that link, as it only lists them for the US. Skittle 23:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are computer programs made specifically for captioning or subtitling, but they aren't anything too advanced. Just a way for you to be able to watch the video while typing and then set how long the text should be on the screen. I highly doubt that any of the people they hire to do it have any contact with the studios as far as creative stuff is concerned, considering how many errors there are in them. I guess it's possible for them to get a script, but I've seen it done before and they didn't have one; they just watched the movie and typed it out. As for actions like "Mr. Smith pounds his fist," (or [DOOR OPENING] or [GUNSHOT] or any other offscreen noises) those wouldn't be included in subtitles (which are intended for people who don't speak the movie's language) but would be in captions (intended for deaf or hard of hearing) and the exact wording would again likely just be up to the captioner. Recury 13:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When you watch the subtitles, often at the end it will say 'subtitles courtesy of .....' or some such. (this isn't spoken aloud. also interesting in phone commercials, the subtitles often give info on the tty services for the deaf offered by the phone company, which is not spoken aloud). My observations are that there seem to be two kinds of subtitles, ones where the text seems to be given to the subtitler in advance, and sometimes the speech doesn't quite match which i attribute to improvisation by the actors or maybe a very last minute script change, and the kind where it's obvious they are translating on the fly, like a debate or a sports event, and they pretty much screw up half the transcript.

OT: I have an el cheapo Sanyo VCR (so cheap it doesn't even display the clock on the front panel) from Walmart which has a nifty feature they call "tvguardian" or tvg; if you turn it on it reads the closed caption and mutes the sound around "bad language" and instead displays the closed captioning, with the "bad word" replaced with something more acceptable. It has various settings, for sexual language, sacreligious language, etc., with tolerant, moderate, severe, for each. Very cool for showing something to young kids where the movie would be fine but the language is something you'd rather they not get used to just yet, "School of rock" being a great example. Gzuckier 16:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My hearing is just bad enough, and/or actors' diction is sometimes bad enough, that I usually play DVDs with captions or subtitles on (most DVDs of recent material have both, and I see little difference between them, contrary to what Recury says above). I've often noticed that whoever wrote them could not possibly have had access to the script. A couple of examples that stuck in my mind:

In How to Marry a Millionaire William Powell quotes some well-known proverb in Latin (I have forgotten what it was, but it was relevant to the scene) and the caption says only "[Speaking Latin]".
In A Hard Day's Night John Lennon, clowning in a bathtub, pretends to be a sinking U-boat and cries "Helf uns!" (German: Help us!); the caption says "Headphones!"

I've also seen cases where the caption-writer didn't understand English, but can't recall one now. —Tamfang 06:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I rather enjoy when the subtitles translate Kenny. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While not an actual film, many anime dvd's have a problem with subtitles. Often in English, the character will say something, only to have a subtitle say something different. This is because the English words have to be changed to better suit the lip sinc, to fill time, or to change Japanese culture references to English ones. While not common, I have seen this in American films as well, although I have no examples at the moment. Also, it seems different channels subtitle things different. Such as one channel showing music playing by showing music notes, another by saying "Music Playing," and one saying the actual title of the song. Then there's the issue of shows like the Colbert Report, and the words will appear several seconds after they're said. All in all, it's hard to set subtitles down to one set process. BioYu-Gi! 22:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Follow Up

Wow, thanks for the great input. A slight point of confusion, though. Is there some kind of "difference" between a subtitle and a caption? If so, what? Isn't it all just words typed on the TV screen for whatever purpose (regardless of whether the viewer is of a foreign language and/or whether the viewer is deaf/hearing impaired)? Is there a difference between the two ... or is it all just text typed onto the screen? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro 17:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Really the only differences are that subtitles for the hearing impaired (closed captioning) can be turned on and off with most modern TVs and that they will display offscreen noises. Like if there is a close-up shot a person's face and then there is a loud noise of a plane passing overhead, captioning will say [PLANE PASSES OVERHEAD] but regular subtitles won't bother since the non-hearing-impaired can still hear the plane just fine. Of course the British have to make things difficult by calling closed captioning "subtitles." Recury 18:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TCG/TV tie-ins

How many TV series are based on, or have based on them, trading-card games? Are there any such series that are not shonen animés? Neon Merlin 21:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Star Trek Customizable Card Game springs to mind. Algebraist 11:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

and Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game, Battlestar Galactica Collectible Card Game, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game, Doctor Who - Battles in Time, The X-Files Collectible Card Game, The Simpsons Trading Card Game. Algebraist 11:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anything a nerd could like, there is a card game of it. Try browsing Category:Collectible card games. Recury 13:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Objective Question in regards to 80's childs rhyme with slur

I may have not asked the question correctly, for it was deleted w/o cause. (Background for questioning) I myself grew up in a highly populated homosexual environ with my homosexual brother. People are people. So nothing against or for, just a question of how this song came about, and why children of 4, 5, 6, and to the Teens would chant it. Similar to the Streets of Cairo tune.

The song goes I pledge allegiance to the flag / michael jackson is a ___(here is the slur for sexuality) / pepsi cola burned him up / now he's drinking seven-up. Anyone know Origin's or Variations? Thank you. --i am the kwisatz haderach 23:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, it doesn't look deleted; it's still there under "There's a place in France" (Sep.6). —Tamfang 06:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 11

Transformers: The Game

At first the enter key worked in the main menu of that PC game, but then it stopped. I press both "enter" keys on my keyboard, but none of them works and I can't choose anything. However generally they are workable, I checked them in MS Word. Wonder what happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.132.14.38 (talk) 13:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a question? --24.249.108.133 19:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's usually an .INI file somewhere in the game directory that lists all the keys and what their functions in the game are. Search for "enter" in there and see if it's been changed.Froglars the frog 10:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NIRVANA / KURT COBAIN

What Shoe was Kurt wearing when he died? What was Kurt's favourite guitar? Where is he buried?

According to [6], he was cremated, with ashes scattered in the Wishkah river. I am told he favoured the Fender Mustang guitar, though he also designed his own. No idea on the shoe front, except that according to Kurt Cobain, he was wearing two of them. Algebraist 15:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure the shoes were Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. --Canley 06:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Public domain

I know the rules for written text, is there anything I need to keep in mind when I'm checking if a film is in the public domain? - Mgm|^(talk) 19:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to assume you're talking about US Law. See Public_domain#Expiration and the section below it. I believe the rules are the same regardless of medium. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 21:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Eminem

What song did eminem sample when writing his hit single "lose your self" lose your self

Any thoughts?

72.230.5.95 23:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NEVERMIND. that was a very silly question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.230.5.95 (talk) 00:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 12

Alfred Hitchcock's "Lost" Movies

A few days ago, I was reading a Wiki article which mentioned that some (I believe, 5) of Hitchcock's movies are known for being the "lost 5" or words to that effect. It had something to do with legal ownership, rights, copyrights, etc. for all of his movies. Somehow, five certain films (I want to say Rope and Vertigo, among them) "belonged" legally to someone else and, as such, these 5 were not available to the general public as the rest of the Hitchcock library collection was. Eventually, all the legal hurdles and ownership rights were cleared up -- but not until like the mid-1980's or so. And that explains why these lost 5 took so long in becoming publicly available on VHS / DVD / etc. Does anyone know anything about this? And/or ... does anyone know which Wiki article mentions all of this? I can't seem to find it. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro 00:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]

According to this, the five are: The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window, Vertigo, The Trouble With Harry and Rope. They went out of circulation in 1973. Hitchcock bought the rights from Paramount and bequeathed them to his daughter Pat, who, after some court case (no details provided), agreed to let them be restored and rereleased in the 80s. Clarityfiend 03:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In days of old, when knights were bold

One of the questions above (regarding The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid) has me thinking about a little ditty that I (partially) recall from childhood. It went something like this:

In days of old, when knights were bold

And fought for lady's honour

They something-something-something

But crapped inside their armor.

Truly a heartwarming old hymn, I know, but what's bugging me is the missing line there. Anyone care to fill it in? I've done searches, but quoting too much text returns no hits and leaving stuff unquoted gets me a lot of medieval recreationist sites. Any help appreciated! Matt Deres 02:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, and I remember three lines of another quatrain:

In days of old when knights were bold

and ladies weren't particular,

...

and ----ed 'em perpendicular.

—Tamfang 06:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In days of old, when knights were bold,

And condoms weren't invented,

They would stick a sock, upon their c*ck,

And f*ck 'til their hearts contented.

That is as far as my memory stretches. Lanfear's Bane 11:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This search should help. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It should, but it doesn't. I mentioned that I'd done searches. Did you notice that the links Google returned are for the "condom" version or are medieval recreation pages? Matt Deres 03:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I recall the following quatrain:

In days of old, when knights were bold

And men wore woolly vests

There was a maid named Razor Blade

Who shaved their hairy chests.

Same ditty, I think, but still not answering your missing line! SaundersW 16:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well. here is my version that I cannot recal the whole thing. It went like this:

In days of old, when knights were bold and women knew it. Sir Arthur and his court were gathered at the Round Table playing camel, crap for horse shit hadn't been invented yet. Just then the King cried SHIT! Fifty thousand assholes sweat and strain cuz the Kings's word was law.

Is the Shadow Of The Beast series acceptable for children?

I'm just wondering...is the great video game series Shadow Of The Beast acceptable for children? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs) 03:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

not for young children, maybe teenagers.87.102.16.32 08:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It scared the bejeesus out of me when I was little. I wouldn't play it. I would say not for young children, as above :) Capuchin 08:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In days of old When knights were bold And paper not invented To wipe their bums They used their thumbs And went away contented58.7.186.137 (talk) 05:14, 1 January 2010 (UTC)cty english public school 1940</ref></ref></ref>[reply]

Citing a DVD commentary

Does the MLA say anything about citing an audio commentary from a DVD? The most recent MLA Handbook I own is from 1999, and doesn't help much. Thanks! Zagalejo ^ 06:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The 2003 MLA Handbook, 6th ed., does not give specific advice for how to cite audio commentaries. But extrapolating from the "Film or Video Recording" section, I'd use this:

Lee, Ang, and James Schamus. Audio commentary. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Dir. Lee. Perf. Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi. 2000. DVD. Sony Pictures Classics, 2001.

--zenohockey 04:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone know where I can find E-Reader© cards on the cheap? Ash "Gotta Catch Em' All" Ketchum 14:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much anywhere. eBay, etc. I'm not sure how much of them are still around but I'd guess quite a few as Nintendo pushed that accessory pretty hard. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin Music Video

Hi, I am looking for the title and artist of a music video where the storyline is like this:

A young woman (who already has a race car driving boyfriend) has her picture taken by a photographer who begins to have a large crush on her, and who asks her to continue modelling for him. Eventually, they enter a relationship and one day at the guy's apartment, he asks her to grab something from the dark room. She accidentally spills some chemical into her eyes, and goes blind from it. After being rushed to the hospital, it is found that she needs a transplant if she will ever see again. (To me, this following ending is a little foggy, but I think this is how it goes). Her boyfriend at the beginning of the story gives her his eyes because of his love, and at the end she is walking at the track and sees the driver sitting with his guide dog.

I believe that this is by a Taiwanese artist, but that is all that I remember. Any help would be appreciated. Crisco 1492 23:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 13

TV show name.

I'm trying to remember the name of an old (maybe 10-15 years ago) childrens' TV show. I'm pretty sure it aired on PBS. I remember that it had different segments. One recurring segment I can remember was about several men in business suits who had dogheads. I know this isn't much to go by, but any help would be appreciated. QWERTY | Dvorak 21:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This might be way off, but Sesame Street had some segments featuring William Wegman's Weimaraners, they may have been dressed in suits. --LarryMac | Talk 17:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

music

I don’t know how answerable this question will be, and it's kind of random, but here it is. Say; hypothetically, you were to take all of the music produced in the U.S. in the last century. About how many gigabytes would the size of that collection be? Thanks to anyone who attempts to answer this question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.92.182 (talk) 21:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to iTunes Store article they have about 24,000,000 songs available to download worldwide. Taking into account that they only sell a small fraction of the music produced it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that the US has produced well over double this in the past 100 years. The amount would vary hugely dependent on what you consider 'produced'. Some bands make their own CDs (look at myspace - ripe with small bands), do they count? I guess if you say they had to make something like the billboard charts that would alter it a bit. Also the iTunes store has lots and lots of duplication (like say a 'single' and the album version, plus a live version, as well as an acoustic version, etc.) ny156uk 23:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You start with something vague like 'a small fraction' and then arrive at something much more precise like 'well over double', in the process translating from world wide to the US? A better approach might be to take the total turnover of all record companies in the US over the last century and divide that by the average price (over time) and edition (actually, median would be better). Don't have those figures, though. Of course, another factor is in what form you want to store it. Master quality, cd quality or mp3 or what? DirkvdM 07:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The number also depends on whether you're talking about a straight rip of a file to something like a wave format (which doesn't compress) or a compressed MP3 or any other number of compression schemes. A single song which was 3 minutes long could be anywhere from 1Mb to 30Mb (random guess on these numbers by the way). See Audio compression (data) for more info. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 21:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since this estimate will only be within an order of magnitude anyway, we can split the difference and estimate non-lossy compression, roughly 20MB for a 3 minute file. Given an iTunes catalogue of mostly 3 minute songs, mono or stereo CD quality input (i.e. no 5.1 or extra high sample rates), that would be 480,000,000 MB, or roughly 500TB (500,000GB).

Sticking with wild guesses here, let's assume 100 years of recorded music, most of it in the past 40 years, U.S. releases only (but not excluding foreign musicians on U.S. labels, e.g. The Beatles), big and small labels but not demos, bootlegs, and private/home recordings. Let's also assume the iTunes figure represents maybe a third of what was released during a few of those years. Given all that and a big dose of Ketamine, I would hallucinate a figure of 20-100PB (or 20,000,000-100,000,000GB), based on no hard numbers or sound mathematics. I'm sure someone can narrow it down further. / edg ☺ ★ 05:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hendrix performance

On the CD Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: Jimi Hendrix, track 6 is a certain recording of Hendrix's Hear My Train a Comin', a song he would often perform at concerts. However, the version on that album is different from the other two versions I've heard (I've heard one performance from Blues and another from Live at the Fillmore)... the version on Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues is AMAZING. Was that version an unused studio cut or a live performance? If it was a live performance, what concert is that recording from? Jolb 22:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but thanks for the heads up! I was hesitant about this buy, but I like your review. Muchos kudos, Jolb. Beekone 14:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 14

DVD Rental Prior to Official Release (aka Jeff Dunham)

I recently looked at the Wikipedia article for Jeff Dunham for the release date for his new DVD. It said September 4th, but after looking for it at some local stores, I could not find it. I came back and looked at the definitive source for the release date (Image Entertainment website, the DVD publisher) and online stores (Walmart, Amazon, NewEgg, etc.) and found them all to say September 18th. After changing the article to read September 18th, it was reverted, with a note saying it was available at redbox kiosks. And it looks like it is. So what gives? Is it common to be able to rent the movie before the official release date? Or maybe redbox is breaking some rules. --Bennybp 05:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that Redbox has a deal with Dunham's recording company for an exclusive right to distribute for a certain period of time. That happened with Paul McCartney's latest DVD and Starbuck's. Corvus cornix 16:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 15

Gundam Seed [Destiny]

Hey, I found this anime series and I want to know more about it. Whenever I search "Gundam Seed" or "Gundam Seed Destiny" I don't find the info I want to know. I just want to know the story and characters and stuff, could you help me out please? --Ninjawolf 01:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't find what you need to at Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

24 Season 5

I still don't quite understand how it was discovered that Jack was still alive. Could someone explain? Also, I - briefly - saw an add in which, I think, Jack is in the middle of a desert with his bag when his phone rings and he answers it saying, "Who is this?" (I may be a bit incorrect about the details of this, as I only saw it briefly). What was this about? Thanks asyndeton 13:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suresh's map

In Heroes, what do the strings on the map mean? —Tamfang 23:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean in the future, where the apartment is covered in string? They represent connections between people, if I recall correctly. Froglars the frog 10:33, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

September 16

"pervasive gaming"

What is "pervasive gaming"?