Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 June 19

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June 19

PR Question

In Proportional Representation like that used in the recent euro elections, multi-member constituencies are used (otherwise it would just be FPTP). Because of this, parties have lists of candidates, and not just one candidate, but independents don't. What if an independent won 60% of the vote after an amazing campaign in a 6 member region. Do they sit twice (or 3 or 4 times, depending on other results)? Do they get to nominate people to take the extra seats, or do they just get limited to one. If the latter, then are their votes removed from the process once they get their seat, or does the process continue but 'roll-over' whenever they win another seat? Maybe all the seats they win after the first aren't taken, and a region might return less than the full number of members.

Cheers, Q Prokhorovka (talk) 13:05, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Elections to the European Parliament take place using differing forms of PR, depending on the member state - elections in the UK use closed list D'Hondt, where the formula used is V/(S+1). If an independent (such as Katie Hopkins in the South West had won enough votes for two seats, these votes would presumably have been discarded, as the 'list' in that case was a single person long - their opportunity to nominate other people, as you suggest, was when they filed their nomination form. Certainly a region would not return fewer than its entitlement of members - although if non-voting electorate were counted, most regions would be returning fewer than half of their seats! If either an independent won a seat but then retired/died, or a party list was exhausted (one of the reasons why parties tend to run full slates, even though winning more than half the seats is implausible), a byelection would need to be held, which I understand would essentially be FPTP as it would only be for a single seat. --Saalstin (talk) 13:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, does anyone know of any official document detailing this, or is it all conjecture or based on other country's experiences (on that note, has this ever happened anywhere?). Thanks again Prokhorovka (talk) 13:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

electoral commission explanation - important bit is at the bottom, "The first seat that a party wins goes to the first person on its list, the second seat to the second person, and so on, until the party has either not won any more seats or has run out of names on its list. An independent candidate is treated as though he or she were a party with only one name on its list."--Saalstin (talk) 13:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

That's grest, thanks a lot. Prokhorovka (talk) 14:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

A question about my digital converter box...

Well, I have a Magnovox digital converter bo, and I was liking the "Still" button on the remote. The "Stil" button allows me to freeze a frame on TV like a photo. I was thinking of saving the frameshots somewhere, if there's any way to do so. So, is there any way to save a frameshot? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I very much doubt it. Does the TV or the box have anything like a USB port on it? Or does any menu option ask you "save still image?" or anything like that?Popcorn II (talk) 21:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Just take a digital photo of the screenshot. You might need to experiment a bit to find the optimum setup, and remember to turn off the flash beforehand as well as any lights in the room that might reflect off the screen.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 06:52, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I really doubt you could get a decent quality picture that way, no matter how well you try to set things up. I mean, I'm sure you can see what's on the screen clearly enough, but the pictures are going to look pretty crappy. There's a reason why good quality screenshots just aren't taken like that. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Moisten needle

I recently bought a football(soccer ball) and near the air hole it says "moisten needle". I have the needle which fits perfectly into the hole but what does the "moisten" mean? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.54.217 (talk) 17:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

"Moisten" means to make moist, or damp. I guess you get a better seal with a wet needle, or something. --Tango (talk) 17:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

If you just moisten the needle with a couple of drops of water or use the traditional method of using a bit of saliva (yes, I know, possibly unhealthy for the next user) the needle will slide in much easier than trying to push a dry needle in. I guess if you wanted the best result, which includes ease of use and future health safety, a smear with silicon lubricant would do the trick. Richard Avery (talk) 17:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Or washing-up liquid which works brilliantly. Nanonic (talk) 20:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Taxi cabs

Is a mediallon required for any taxi dropping off a passenger at any New York City airport? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Etonic3 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

According to this from 1996, Medallion Cabs were losing business on airport runs to Hackney cabs (For-hire-vehicles in U.S. parlance) so unless the rules have changed, it would appear that both types of taxi can drop off at the airport. Fribbler (talk) 18:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You only need a taxi medallion to make non-scheduled pick-ups (i.e., you show up at the airport hoping to find a passenger to pick up). --Nricardo (talk) 04:39, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

smart car price

I would like a back to back comparison on a smart car price between Paris, France, and San Fransisco, California, USA. 65.121.141.34 (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You could start here [[1]] They have a form for quotes once you've selected your model and features. 68.208.122.33 (talk) 22:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Baseball Standings or Who should be in first place?

Assume that these are the win/loss records of Major League Baseball teams. (It's actually my softball league, but whatever). Which team should be in first place? I'm pretty sure that Team 4 and Team 5 should be in first place because their winning perceptage is .800. The league is saying that Team 1 is in first place even though they have a lower winning percentage. Team 3 is only 1 game above .500 and the league has them at 3rd place. I know it's pathetic to argue over softball standings but let's pretend this is the MLB. Who should be in first place? How many games are they up by?

Team     W L
------------
Team 1   6 2
Team 2   5 2
Team 3   4 3
Team 4   4 1
Team 5   4 1
Team 6   2 5
Team 7   1 5
Team 8   0 7

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

By MLB rules, Team 1 is in first place, by half a game over teams 4, 5, and 2. Look at the value of (wins minus losses) for each team; to see how far two teams are apart, take the difference in that value and divide by 2. Teams 4 and 5 are "percentage points" ahead of team 2. --Trovatore (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm...I thought that the team with the better winning percentage is the one that should be in first place, and that Team 1 should be out of first by a half game since they would have to win their next 2 games to have the same winning percentage as Teams 4 and 5. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The formula is GB = (difference in wins) + (difference in losses) / 2. Or, another way to think about it is: you get 1/2 pt for each win, and lose 1/2 pt for each loss, giving team 1 two points and team two 1.5 points. Yes, a team can be in second place with a higher percentage if they've played fewer games (hence, making up games that have been postponed due to earthquakes, or, I guess more frequently, rain.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's another way to look at it: The standard formula gives you the expected value of the number of games you'll be behind at the end of the season, assuming that from now on every team has a 50-50 shot at winning each game it plays (see principle of indifference).

Now, you might say, what principle of indifference? We have information here — we know that some teams have won a higher fraction of their games so far, and these are presumably the better teams, so they should be assumed to have a better than 50-50 shot in upcoming games.

And that's a fair point, but it's hard to know how much weight to put on it, especially in a fairly random game like baseball where a much better team might beat a much inferior team only say 70% of the time. Certainly with the very small numbers shown there's not much justification for making the inference that team 4 will keep playing .800 ball. The null hypothesis of parity cannot be rejected with high statistical significance.

And finally, keep in mind that the mid-season standings count for exactly nothing. A team in contention always gets to play out its 162 games, if it's possible for the outcome to affect its post-season status. At least I think that's true. --Trovatore (talk) 23:04, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty certain that first place is determined by winning percentage, not games back. On rare occasions, you'll see a situation where the first place team is actually half a game behind the second place team.

This is how the standings would look in this case:

Team	Wins	Losses	%	GB
4	4	1	.800	.5
5	4	1	.800	.5
1	6	2	.750	--	
2	5	2	.714	.5
3	4	3	.571	1.5
6	2	5	.286	3.5
7	1	5	.167	4
8	0	7	.000	5.5

Mwalcoff (talk) 03:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that in the above standings, newspapers display dashes in the GB column for Team 4 and 5. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I've typically seen it the way it's shown here. Dashes are the first place team by percentage points, or to put it another way, the teams whose GB are 0. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Which newspaper do you usually read? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Standings are normally defined by winning percentage. Games Behind is simply a quick reference to how far back a team is. As noted above, if two teams are close and have not played the same number of games, you can get oddities like being in first place but "half a game behind". But ultimately the percentage is what matters. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Games Behind is the "average" of the difference in wins and the difference in losses. But as the end of the season approaches, the loss column is what becomes important, in determining the "Magic Number" for clinching, or the "Tragic Number" for being eliminated from the race. Obviously, things get more complicated due to the Wild Card, but it's still based on winning percentage. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, no it isn't, because at the end of the season everyone's played the same number of games. At least if it can matter. So winning percentage or games back gives you the same answer. --Trovatore (talk) 09:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

At the end of the season, yes. But in mid-season the number of games each team has played can and often does vary. As the above example shows, two teams tied for first are "half a game behind", but they are in first place because they have a higher percentage. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:19, 21 June 2009 (UTC)