Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 September 8

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September 8

Howlers in cricket

What's a howler in cricket? Nirvana fallacy includes the following statement as an example of the fallacy:

The Umpire Decision Review System (in cricket) is a bad idea. It can't fix all howlers.

I went to howler, a disambiguation page, and most entries seemed completely irrelevant. Howler (error) was the exception, but it doesn't say anything about cricket at all. Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Howler (error) is the correct article. It's just a generic term to refer to an obvious mistake, not specific to cricket. For example, the "Hand of God" incident was a howler in association football. Tevildo (talk) 00:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

In the example cited, the word "howler" could be replaced for greater clarity by "poor decision", or "error". Decisions in cricket, such as to whether a player is given "out" or not, are made by the umpires. They are increasingly guided by new technology through the Umpire Decision Review System - but the review system itself is not designed to make decisions on their behalf. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:00, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to you two and Bugs! Text changed to "It can't fix all missed calls". Nyttend (talk) 20:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

A "howler" would be any decision so obviously wrong that the fans would howl in disgust. Like the almost-perfect-game a few years ago, where everyone in the park knew the 27th batter was out - except the umpire who made the "safe" call. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:17, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The rub being that the umpire/referee's decision is by definition always right. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:04, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Unless overruled by a higher-ranking official. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

This would fit better on WP:RDL, but we're already talking about it here, so...Does "howler" ever have this sense in American English? I can't remember ever hearing this usage before, and to me "howler" means a little kid who's screaming, or Magical objects in Harry Potter#Howler, or a howler monkey. Nyttend (talk) 01:42, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I can't say I've ever heard this in American sports talk, but it's pretty clear what it means. Also there's the amusing languae oddity that "howler" and "bowler" don't rhyme (not in America, at least). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:22, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

They don't rhyme in England either. Alansplodge (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the only time I see the word (apart from when it's literally describing something which is howling) is at Snopes, where they use it all the time to describe jokey emails, particularly well-traveled ones, so it seems to be a regional thing. Matt Deres (talk) 16:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

There used to be books of "schoolboy howlers" of the "Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 40 foot cutter" ilk. I found some for you: here, here and here. Enjoy. Alansplodge (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Bowling scores

how good is an average score of 129 in bowling? i mean bowling, not the "bowling average" in cricket. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.14.131.11 (talk) 13:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Ten-pin bowling, presumably? Well, it's the sort of score I usually get, so I imagine it's pretty dreadful. I'm sure there are official statistics available. (A cricket bowling average of 129 would be absolutely appalling, incidentally. Nobody would be selected (as a bowler) for any team at any level with that sort of performance). Tevildo (talk) 14:25, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I have a feeling Shane Warne's figures were a bit like that in his first Test match, but the selectors persisted with him. HiLo48 (talk) 02:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I was in a bowling league for three years from ages 10-12, our average score was about 140. My grandmother had several trophies for games in the 290's, with two for 300 score games. She would have been in her 40's at the time. Nowadays playing bowling on the Wii I get about 120-130, while my 5 y/o nephew often scores around 180-200. μηδείς (talk) 17:03, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Obscure 90s (?) Scifi B-movie

This has been driving me nuts for years: the movie is a vaguely Philip K. Dick-ian (but almost certainly *not* actually Philip K. Dick) science fiction story. It involves a man and woman living in a dytopian scenario where the majority of the population believe themselves to be in a normal, capitalist society. One way or another, the couple discover that they're being mind-controlled by broadcast towers to believe this, and that when they fall outside of that influence, their whole surroundings are actually grey and generic, with everyday objects represented by boxes with barcodes on them (for example, a box with "TV" and a barcode on). They make their way to a factory manufacturing these generic items, in the hope of turning off the mind control broadcasts and freeing their fellow citizens from their illusion.

Any ideas? Djkitsch (talk) 20:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

We have a list of dystopian films for you to look through. I checked most of the ones from the 1990s, but didn't see anything like you're describing, but maybe somthing there will jog your memory. The list is quite long, though it is broken up into different general themes. Unfortunately, I can pretty much guarantee that it's not an exhaustive list. Are you sure it was a full-length movie and not an episode from a science fiction show like The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone? Matt Deres (talk) 21:14, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Matt - the thing which reminded me of it recently was this post on Reddit and this one, too, which is an uncannily similar idea! Thanks to quite a bit of following links, I finally managed to dig it out - it's "They Live", and possibly the missing bit was aliens! With that bit of missing info, it was in fact on the list...! Djkitsch (talk) 22:00, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

It starred Roddy Piper! How was this not a blockbuster!? /sarcasm Dismas|^(talk) 02:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

But it did open at number one, made 13 million on a 3 million budget, and is currently rated 84/76% at rotten tomatoes. Sounds good to me. μηδείς (talk) 17:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)