Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 August 18

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August 18

Televised poker tournaments

I don't watch poker on television and barely know how to play the game. Just thought I'd get that out there first off. So, while walking through my employer's break room just now, I saw a bit of a poker tournament on the TV. One of the players had headphones on. Are these checked by the holders of the tournament to confirm that the player isn't receiving signals from someone in the audience? I would think that they'd have to be but I could be wrong... Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 02:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Rule 87 of the 2009 World Series of Poker: "Approved Electronic Device Rule: Players are allowed to use as approved electronic devices iPods, MP3 and other music players or noise-reduction headsets during play until they have reached the money in any Event, so long as the approved electronic devices can not access the internet, send or receive SMS texts and are not equipped with any type of communication device." Clarityfiend (talk) 03:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I see. Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 03:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course I would hope that they do random spot checks too - it's not like a seemingly innocent looking headphone couldn't be a radio-receiver thingy - you know, because the tournaments are for a fair bit of money!! ny156uk (talk) 20:15, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The players always appear to make sure that they don't reveal their cards to the audience anyway, rendering such a prohibition largely moot. There are plenty of non-electronic ways that an accomplice in the audience could signal information about an opponent's cards, without resorting to fancy radio transmitters and receivers. Buddy431 (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same thing here? Dismas mentioned poker tournaments on TV. Like Dismas, they're not exactly my cup of tea but the monopoly pay TV provider here in NZ has a lot of dumb sports on (and often misses interesting ones) so I do sometimes see poker. Most of the time when it's shown, there is some sort of transparent hole on the table and a camera below that so the TV audience can see the cards, probably because poker is extremely boring... Okay I meant to add 'if you can't even see the cards the person has'. (In fact Poker on television specifically mentions these cams as an important development which drove the appearance of poker on television.) I don't know if poker tournaments are even shown live on TV (our article suggests yes) but if they are I'm guessing this is what Dismas is referring to.

In the absence of some sort of telepathy and presuming a closed room and no insider help (who probably don't need the TV audience anyway), I'm not sure how someone watching the TV broadcast will communicate with someone playing poker without transceiving equipment. Do people actually watch poker tournaments where they're being played?

Nil Einne (talk) 18:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Those would be lipstick cameras. I'm reasonably almost kinda sorta certain that spectators (yes, there are people who watch live; even poker players have friends and family) are not shown the hole cards. The shows are definitely not shown live, but edited to leave out the boring hands where somebody raises and everybody else folds, and to include the commentary (whoo hoo) and hole cards. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Name of an Anti-Drug PSA

There's a PSA I remember as a child shot in black and white depicting a black inter-city youth running thru the streets of the slums wearing a backpack. His voice over is along the lines of "They say to don't do drugs, but life's hard on the streets". It ends with an adult voice saying "For so-and-so...we're here for you" or something along those lines. It was sponsored by the "Partnership for a Drug-Fee America" and ran in the early to mid 90's. Can anybody remember the name of the PSA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.13.221.79 (talk) 03:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this it? Dismas|^(talk) 03:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

For personal chatbox

Sir/madam, why u dont add social chatting in this? Sir plz add chatting in wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sshanky05 (talk • contribs) 06:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

For what purpose? How would hosting a chatting service help write a better encyclopedia? --Jayron32 07:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

One user in particular seems to think this RD is already a chatroom. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 07:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Just one? You, for a start, just posted a comment that wasn't relevant to the OP. 90.195.179.60 (talk) 11:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is quite specifically not intended for social chatting - there are plenty of other places online where you can do this. See WP:NOTFACEBOOK for more information. However, you might like to read more about WP:IRC, where chat between Wikipedians does occur. Karenjc 16:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Lady Gaga

My friend says she did a concert in Japan entirely naked. Is this true??? Lilyfan87 (talk) 20:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for linking to all of the nouns. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:53, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Nope. If she had, you'd be able to find it on Google images. You can't, so, she didn't. 90.195.179.60 (talk) 21:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thx. Was it in Korea? Lilyfan87 (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• As best as I can tell, she has never (or, not yet) done a nude concert anywhere. Her Japan and Korea debut concerts were near the end of The Fame Ball Tour, however, which I think is when she started wearing those outfits made out of translucent plastic bubbles. That's probably close enough to nude that someone might make an honest mistake, and get the rumor mill started. --M@rēino 19:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

30s, 40s, 50s Hollywood films: Accents

Is it just me, or do all the actors/actresses in these early American films seem to have an accent? Did people speak so differently back then (and I don't mean expressions or phrases, just the accents)? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 21:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I heard this somewhere on TV in a documentary about old Hollywood (or a documentary about an actor from that era, I can't remember) that a lot of American actors were coached to have what one would call a "universal" accent. Where you can't pin down where they came from by listening to their accents. Apparently, it would be less appealing image-wise if you're able to tell that they're from some backwoods Kansas town or something, that it would ruin the illusion of Hollywood glamour. Sometimes they end up sounding like they're British, though. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 22:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Didn't we just have this question recently? Adam Bishop (talk) 23:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The only thing I found in the archives was the debate about British accents used for villains. That's not what I'm asking. The IP's answer is actually closer to what I'm looking for, a "universal" accent. That's kind of brilliant; manipulative, but very interesting. I was almost going to use the phrase "British accent", but it's not quite that either. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 02:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Did you mean Mid-Atlantic English? ---Sluzzelin talk 02:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely fascinating. That's exactly it. Thank you so much, I knew I wasn't crazy. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

(We did have this discussion last month, by the way - I remember because I was being an asshole to Jayron for some reason. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC))

Ah. Except that the mid-Atlantic accent was never brought up. My own discussion served my purpose perfectly; the previous one would not have. Still, one would have to search the archives with every possible keyword known to mankind to be sure their question hadn't already been asked. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if it's still done but there was a time when people went to school for broadcasting they would take classes to dilute their accent. So as to give them a wider audience that could follow what they were saying without having to account for their hometown accents. A friend of mine also encountered this on a tour of some sort of military base/ship. Something like Ft. Knox or the USS Constitution. Anyway, someone asked the tour guide, a uniformed soldier, where he was from since they couldn't tell by the accent. He explained that they were taught to diminish their regional accents to help understanding by the tourists, then he slipped into a deep Southern drawl and declared, "I'm from Mobile, Alabama, ma'am." Dismas|^(talk) 00:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

And that could be why the accents were so popular in early films then, for accessibility. Btw, the whole "Mobile, Alabama" line spoken in a southern drawl always makes me thing of the film Maverick. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:46, 20 August 2010 (UTC)