Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2008 August 19

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August 19

Character?!

I've recently played the game of Dungeon-Siege II;The Broken World.In the game, at last the Azunite Scholar appears to be a Dark Wizard and tells that the Player(Azunai) and he maintains the cosmic balance and they can not defeat one another. But is the Dark Wizard Zaramoth himself? If not, who is he then?117.201.98.78 (talk) 05:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Might want to try GameFAQs or /v/ Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 03:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Peanuts Classics Comics

My newspaper prints Peanuts classics strips that are different from the ones at snoopy.com. The ones in my paper seem to be from a later date. Is there any way I can view this series of strips on the internet. I seem to remember seeing them along side the other ones somewhere before, but now I can only find the older series online. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 05:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

What is the date given in the first box of the series your paper is publishing (Sunday might appear in the bottom box)? Omahapubliclibrary (talk) 20:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the month and day (that date is of the print date), but it does say ©1995. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 20:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Olympic medals

I don't follow the Olympics much ... so this may sound like a naive question. Thanks in advance for any input. I believe that certain events allow ties, while others do not. Is that correct? When there is indeed a tie (say, for gold) ... do they "skip" silver ... and the next person gets bronze? And what if there are, say, three ties for gold? Do they "skip" silver and bronze altogether?

Say that 2 people tie for gold. Are the medals awards like this?

• rank 1 = person A = Gold (tie)
• rank 1 = person B = Gold (tie)
• (no rank 2 due to tie)
• rank 3 = person C = Silver
• rank 4 = person D = Bronze

Or are the medals awards like this?

• rank 1 = person A = Gold (tie)
• rank 1 = person B = Gold (tie)
• (no rank 2 due to tie) ... thus, no Silver
• rank 3 = person C = Bronze

Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 14:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC))

Yes some sports do not allow ties (gymnastics, twice already). Other require them for bronze (judo, wrestling - both semi-final losers get bronze) In other cases, ties can occur (swimming, athletics, etc.) 2008 Summer Olympics medal table notes that there was a tie for silver in the women's 100m run and no bronze was awarded. Rmhermen (talk) 15:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

In the case of a two-way tie for first place, two golds are awarded and a bronze. If you think about it, it makes sense: if person A and person B both score, say, 9.5 in some judged sport, and person C scores 9.3, and no one else except person A + B scored better than person C, than person C is the third-best competitor in the sport, and therefore deserves the bronze. Based off of that thought, only three medals are awared for any event except for a tie for third place. Does all that make sense?--El aprendelenguas (talk) 20:25, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks ... that all makes sense ... I just didn't know exactly how much "sense" the Olympic committee officials used in these decisions ... thanks ... (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC))

Q: What about a four-way tie for first? Or two firsts and two "seconds"? Has anything like that ever happened? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the input ... much appreciated ... (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 11:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC))

Question relating to the film "The Mummy : Tomb of the dragon emperor"

This question relates to one particular scene in the film. the scene i am reffering to is the scene when ming and his undead army do battle with Emperor Han and his terracotta army.

At one point in the battle, Emperor Han shapeshifts and takes down one of the aero-planes brought into battle by the characters "Mad dog" and "Jonathan".

What is the creature that emperor Han shapeshifts into when he takes down the aero-plane?

I believe that the creature he shapeshift into is a mythical creature known as a "behemoth". Can anyone comfirm this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjb123321 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

See our article for the debate over what a behemoth is. Hippo, dino, big ox? Rmhermen (talk) 15:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou for your advice,it is much appreciated.Although, i am already fully aware that there are many different opinions on the idea of what a behemoth may be. Wheter or not the creature existed, and what animal it could be is not of great interest to me at the moment.

But for the record i believe the behemoth is a creature of great strength and power. As referenced in the book of Job 40:15-24, it is supposedly the greates most powerful animal to have ever lived. I cant support my opinions with any evidence except for what i have read on wikipedia. Specifically in this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth.

However,as i said that is not the issue for me.I was simply wondering weather or not the creature Emperor Han shapeshifts into is supposed to be percieved as a behemoth. Did the writers of the film specify the creature as "Behemoth"?

Again, all help and advice is appriciated! Thankyou. Sjb123321 (talk) 16:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Medals in different Olympic disciplines

Which athletes have obtained medals in different Olympic disciplines? I know some sources quote only two athletes, but I don't think I believe it. I am aware of Women: Rebecca Romero, Roswitha Krause and men Paulo Radmilovic. Anyone else? -- SGBailey (talk) 16:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This question was asked yesterday on Misc. I don't know if the answers there are complete yet. Algebraist 16:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Women's Gymnastics

I enjoy watching women's gymnastics but this Olymipics I'm just plain confused. I get the new scoring system well enough but what has left me confused are the scores some of the athletes are getting. The NBC (United States) seemed to think that the Chinese athletes recieved scores that were too high for a few of their preformances. Even to my untrained eye a couple of these performaces seemed to be more shaky than those of other top competators (US and others). Am I just being swayed by the NBC commentators (as well as mine and their biases) or was there truly something odd about the judging of some of the apparatuses in women's gymnastics? 70.165.110.211 (talk) 19:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Everyone is subject to biases, but there is some unbiased truth to what they say. First, the judges on the floor cannot be representatives of a country that has a competitor in the event. In other words, if there is a Chinese competitor, there cannot be a Chinese judge. This leaves judges from countries that don't produce many world-class gymnasts, and these judges might not be as experienced to give correct scores and recognize all deductions. Second, the judges are unconsciously subject to the crowd's reaction. If the mostly Chinese crowd cheers loudly after a Chinese gymnast performs, the judges might be slightly convinced that the routine was better than it was. Finally, it is a subjective sport, and even though there are concrete rules for deductions, a "mistake" to some judges might not look as bad to other judges. As for Nastia Liukin's tiebreak situation specifically, in my opinion the tiebreaking rules are just an afterthought to quickly resolve a tie, regardless of how nonsensical or unfair they are.--El aprendelenguas (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Vault indiviual is one of the judgings that I don't understand. 70.165.110.211 (talk) 20:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The tiebreak rules weren't an afterthought, as they were programmed into the scoring computer, and it came up with the results immediately after the scores were announced. Corvus cornix_talk 21:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

You can read Vault_(gymnastics)#Olympics-level_scoring. It explains a little bit about how the vault is scored specifically.--El aprendelenguas (talk) 22:45, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The question doesn't sway toward how it is grade but rather how it was graded (as in for certain athletes) during the Olympics. The balance beam was another on the NBC commentators talked about. One of them even went as far as to declare a performance as "too high" 98.161.19.104 (talk) 08:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Flagbearers in 2004 olympics

According to 2008 Summer Olympics national flag bearers, Greece is the first flag bearer and the host nation is the last, according to tradition. So what happened in the 2004 Athens games? There doesn't seem to be a 2004 Summer Olympics national flag bearers article. Asmeurer (talk ♬ contribs) 20:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking at some videos on YouTube, it seems like someone led the parade by carrying the Greek flag, but the entire Greek team didn't come out until the end. The first actual team that marched in the parade was St. Lucia. (The videos are probably copvios, so I won't link to them, but if you search for "Athens 2004 Parade of Nations Part 1" and "Athens 2004 Parade of Nations Part 13", you'll find what you need. Zagalejo^^^ 21:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

See 2004_Olympics#Opening_Ceremony. According to the article: "On this occasion, in observance of the tradition that the delegation of Greece opens the parade and the host nation closes it, the Greek flag bearer opened the parade and all the Greek delegation closed it." So that basically means that Zagalejo is correct. bibliomaniac15 21:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Yup - I remember this from the time, and the discussion of it at Flags of the World. St. Lucia was next because of its rendering in Greek, BTW (Agia Lucia?) Grutness...wha? 01:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Special Weighted Olympic ranking

I'm sure I've seen something like this before, but I can't track it down. I'm looking for a ranking of NOCs by their overall Olympic Games "success" since 1896, where success at any one Games is calculated not just by the number of medals they won, but also takes into account factors such as:

• the population of the country at the time
• the number of different events they contested
• the number of "competitors"
  • a team in a team event is counted as 1 competitor, but individual members of that team who competed in non-team events would be separately counted; and
  • a person who competed in multiple individual events is counted as many times as necessary
• some arbitrary differential weighting for gold, silver and bronze medals.

This could result in countries that sent small teams (Kyrgyzstan, East Timor etc) being very high in the ranking if they only contested 2 events, but won gold medals in both of them.

And then they average the individual scores for all the relevant Games and get an overall ranking for that country. Some countries would have only a few scores to average, others would have many. NOCs that have only come into existence since 1896 would not be disadavantaged over those that existed in 1896. Countries that didn't send a team to any particular Games (eg. USA, 1980) are not disadvantaged over those that did.

Anyone know of such a ranking? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't, and I'd think any such formula (while a very interesting concept) would be difficult to develop. How much weight would you give each component? In addition, host countries are "expected" to compete in all events, or almost all events--host countries might well have skewed scores as a result. If you find any such thing, I'd be interested in how they made these decisions. Oh, and Jack--you might want to retitle the question? I saw the heading and assumed you were interested in the Special Olympics. User:Jwrosenzweig editing as 71.231.197.110 (talk) 01:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It has been developed, because I've read something very similar to this, but as I say I'm unable to track it down. There is the "host country effect", but that only applies that particular year (if it applies at all - it certainly didn't apply to Canada in 1976). Regardless of why a country wins medals, they nevertheless won those medals, and this would all go into the mix to come up with a long-term score. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, how about a simple ranking where the number of medals is divided by the country's population? Has someone been calculating that for the current Olympics, for instance? --Anonymous, 05:02 UTC, August 20/08.

I've certainly thought about that; it would make quite a change to the rankings (my country would probably come out near the top for the 2008 Games and some others, although countries with much smaller population than ours, who've won some medals, might pip us at the post - NZ for example). Also, a country that wins 10 silver and 5 bronze medals but no golds is placed way down the standard rankings; whereas a country that has only 2 golds and no other medals is much higher up. Which makes the current system really meaningless for this sort of comparison. If I were only interested in the current Games, that would be one thing, but I want to see the long-term picture, and that introduces complexities. Not all countries have competed in all Games, and some countries have only come into existence relatively recently. Not all countries who do compete regularly, compete in the same set of events, or that set varies from one Olympiad to the next. The method of comparison that I've seen takes all these variations into account, and gives a long-term score that says something meaningful about each country's general Olympic prowess when compared with other countries' scores. The method could also be used to compare a single country's ranking over time and see when they've done well and done not so well (which would be a more useful measurement than just looking at raw tallies of medals). It would obviously take a lot of work to come up with this, and I don't know how they'd do the stats for the early years, when a lot of the detailed information we have available now wasn't recorded, or it's been lost. I'm sure very different results would be produced depending on the arbitrary values assigned to gold, silver and bronze medals, so they'd obviously have to be carefully worked out to ensure my country comes out on top.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The channel four website has a table of weighted (3 2 1) medals divided by population and GDP. Oz comes 6th and 30th by those measures. While I'm here, I'll note that you haven't mentioned one of the obvious obstacles to medal tables being a direct measure of olympic prowess: the fact that some sports have many events (and hence many medals available), while others, not obviously less important, have few. May I suggest a weighting system that gives much weight to swimming and little to cycling? Algebraist 08:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, that's getting close to what I'm after. I did consider GDP but forgot to mention it; although "human rights" is a bit contentious. I'm obviously chuffed that Oz comes out on top in the "Table of Tables", but I doubt there's any validity in simply adding the rankings from the other tables to arrive at this. I'd like to see something like this over the long term, not just for 2008. I'd never consider any event to be less or more important than any other event, which is why all Gold medals are equal in status. Some countries are better at some sports than others; some countries only compete in the sports they think they have any chance of winning a medal in. Some countries might only be interested in butterfly and backstroke, but not the other swimming events. So I don't see that weighting sports is of any use. In my schema, all events are of equal weight, because all countries are entitled to at least try to qualify for all events, even if they don't get to compete in those events at the actual Games. And the number of events within a particular sport can change from year to year, which makes weighting problematical in any event. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:50, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, in terms of "medals by population" yes, NZ is doing well, but IIRC Jamaica is on top of the heap for 2008 as the moment. Grutness...wha? 02:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)