Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 November 29

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November 29

Ripley Building (British Admiralty)

1. In the main foyer of the Ripley Building there is a statue of Lord Nelson (Coppy of the one at Trafalgar Square) standing on a plinth with an inscription beneath it. What does the inscription read? 2. In same foyer, located in the wall to Nelson's right is a fire place above which is a roll of honour. What is it in reference to and Who/What names aare inscribed on it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leighbridge (talk • contribs) 00:16, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The statue to Lord Nelson described by the OP is not mentioned in the article Monuments and memorials to Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. Any of these quotations by Nelsonmight be used; among them the best known is the battle signal England expects that every man will do his duty. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

What's the name of this song?

Resolved

I've been hearing this song lately on the radio. It's a dance/club song with a female singer. The only really identifiable part that I can think of is that at one point in the song, the music instruments stop playing and the singer says something like "The party doesn't start till I'm here" or "I'm here so the party can start" or words to that effect. I heard it on a Chicago, Illinois radio station (103.5, to be exact). (I'm having iPhone issues so couldn't use Shazam.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind. It's Tik Tok by Kesha. They just played it again and I was able to write down enough lyrics to do a Google search on it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Script

Our professor gave us a very difficult homework; we have to recognize some of scripts. I found out some of them but the main problem is Aldi's script. Do you know which script do they use on their yellow leaves with prices? Do you maybe know the Coca-Cola's scrpit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atacamadesert12 (talk • contribs) 08:09, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "scripts"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:33, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Type of letters they use, for example arial, comic sans. (Fonts?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atacamadesert12 (talk • contribs) 09:49, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Coca-Cola's script logo is undoubtedly unique, so while it might fit into a general family, it wouldn't match any book of fonts. I'm not familiar with Aldi's, but there's a 1954 font called Aldus by Hermann Zapf, named after a famous early Italian printer, Aldus Manutius. This is probably a complete red herring, but on the other hand, Aldi's might have been tempted to use something of his because of the coincidence of names. —— Shakescene (talk) 11:01, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

If we are talking about the Coca-Cola logo, then I agree, it is almost certainly hand drawn. --Tango (talk) 11:16, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

According to http://typophile.com/node/48554, "The ALDI font family is an exclusive development manufactured by FontShop Germany (for ALDI SUED). Type director: Henning Krause; agency: ECC Kohtes Klewes." Aldi in the UK belongs to the Aldi-Süd subgroup. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

A font called Coca Cola II can be downloaded here [1]. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:07, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

These kinds of knock-off/imitation fonts are probably not what the professor has in mind. Anyway, they go about it the wrong way: it is not that the Coca-Cola logo (or Star Wars logo or whatever) was based on the imitation fonts, but the other way around. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a difference between a font or typeface custom-designed for a particular enterprise or institution like ALDI, and one made after the fact, like Interstate (typeface), carefully designed by Tobias Frere-Jones to reflect U.S. highway signage. —— Shakescene (talk) 13:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Coca-Cola was originally done in Spencerian Script (as poking around on the Coca-Cola page, specifically under the "logo" section, will tell you). It is modified, of course, for the logo. It is not a type-set font, per se, but a style of writing that was popular in days of yore. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

There are web sites where you answer some questions about a font (like "Is the top loop of the capital B bigger than the bottom loop?") and the site tries to automatically identify it for you (or give you a list of possibilities). It's an example of what's called an expert system. www.identifont.com is one that I've used successfully in the past. --Anonymous, 08:01 UTC, November 30, 2009.

Those sites are not terribly reliable even on a good day, but especially for things like corporate logos, which are usually stylized in ways that the regular font would not be. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

As to reliability, the decision of whether you've found the right font is ultimately yours. I've found the ones I've looked for with it. As to corporate logos, that's certainly true. --Anon, 08:30 UTC, December 1, 2009.

VHS

Before VHS was released, how did people watch their favourite movies and TV shows whenever they wanted? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 11:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

There were recording machines for home use prior to VHS - I owned a Philips N1700 for example (see http://www.oldtechnology.net/vcr.html for similar and earlier machines). Prior to that, we just watched what was on air at the time it was broadcast. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The early Philips VCRs had a distressing tendency to eat the videotapes :(. I was involved with the student TV service at university in 1976-9 and we had an N1500 to record off-air programmes (maximum recording time 1 hour, and they cost £20 each, at a time when my finances were budgeted so I could live for a week on £14!), and we had an N1520 so we could edit programmes together. We also had an old Sony black and white reel-to-reel VTR to play our adverts on, and as treasurer of the TV service I remember going before the Students Union Finance Committee in 1977 to make a bid for £7639 for a pair of editing Sony U-matic format VCRs with a very clever box of tricks so we could edit programmes down to individual frames; being a bunch of cheapskates, the SU gave us half of what we asked for; being devious, we'd asked for twice as much as we really needed, and we had an electronics whizz who managed to build a control box for the 2 VCRs himself :). This is just to point out that video recording equipment and tapes were extremely expensive back then, and any home which had a VTR or VCR before the introduction of VHS and Betamax in around 1978 was very exceptional. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 19:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

sometimes people also used home camcorders to record stuff, but mostly you just watched what was on, no choice

No they did not. The Betamax and VHS formats were released in 1975. Not until 1983 did Sony and JVC release the first consumer camcorders. Please sign your posts. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes they damn well did. One of the earliest home video recorders was released in 1965 and way WAY before that people had access to movie cameras dating back to the very late 19th century.

The question was how did people watch the shows, not how could someone theoretically have watched them if they had bought a product almost no one purchased. A millionaire could have had a technician make kinescopes of TV shows for viewing at his convenience in 1948, but how many did? In 1956 could have bought a studio type Ampex videorecorder and hired a technician to operate it, but how many did? Perhaps a sponsor or network executive had that done at the TV studio, but I doubt any considerable numbers of home viewers were timeshifting until Beta and VHS. Some fans made audiotapes for later listening in the 1950's and 1960's. Edison (talk) 02:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Until the 1970s, people simply could not watch TV shows whenever they wanted, hence the invention of reruns, for which one never had to wait long. Bear in mind there were many more cinemas and film clubs in those days (at least in the UK), so people did have some choice.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

When I lived in Bedrock we used recorders operated by woolly mammoths. :) Othertimes we just went to the cinema. Dmcq (talk) 13:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Cinema (or movie theater) chains used to re-release popular films on a fairly regular basis, so that people could see their favourites again. As a child I went to see Ben Hur about ten years after its original release. Alansplodge (talk) 13:19, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't until the late 1950s that television itself had videotape. The old kinescopes were basically films of TV monitors. There is no overstating the impact that video recording, especially home video recording, has had on both television and movies. I also recall seeing classic films like Ben-Hur re-released in the theater. That is seldom done anymore. Why bother, when they can make a gazillion times more money by releasing it on video, especially now that people have home theaters; although there's still nothing like seeing it on the BIG screen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

They simply did not watch them "whenever they wanted," nor did they expect to. You watched what you wanted based on what was available. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed Mr 98. You planned your week around what was on television at what time. This is how the Morecambe and Wise Show regularly had audiences around 20 million people in the UK, just under 40% of the population: there wasn't anything else on TV to watch! And you saw what was on at the cinema that week when it was on, unless you went to another town to see it. Kids today don't know they're born! --TammyMoet (talk) 18:09, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The first video recorder I saw was one our school bought in 1975. It was a reel-to-reel job, very large and cost a fortune. I didn't know anyone that had one at home until the first cassette recorders appeared - either VHS or Betamax. Alansplodge (talk) 15:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I recall likewise. Our school had reel-to-reel video available, in varying shades of black and white. Some members of the public had that kind of thing also, but it was expensive. Audio tape was also reel-to-reel. It's worth noting that the affordable availability of recording on tape follows logically at some interval after their becoming available to the industry - and that videocassettes, in particular, mushroomed coincident with the cable-TV explosion that began in the late 70s. And once pre-recorded videos were made affordable (E.T. going for 19 dollars instead of 89 or whatever it was), the impact on the market was truly revolutionary. Of course, something was lost in the process. The Wizard of Oz became an annual event on TV. It no longer is, because everyone and their mother can own it and play it whenever they like. We are so spoiled it's unbelievable. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:25, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

And what would we do without youtube? [2] And what did people listen to before radio, even? Here's Porky's song in a pretty good copy of an acoustic audio disk from 1915: [3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

In our family we never had an acoustic disc nor a cylinder neither, but we were happy. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Right. Acoustic recording was replaced by electronic recording in the mid-1920s. There's always something new. I wonder what will come after Blu-Ray? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say USB 3.0 pen/flash drives will replace Blu-Ray (USB 2.0 isn't fast enough). 3.0 flash drives are more portable, don't get scratched, and can hold more data. They will initially be more expensive, but the price can be predicted to plummet in a few years. StuRat (talk) 03:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps Holographic Versatile Discs, perhaps 5D DVDs. Nobody knows, of course, but I can promise you this: we'll move on to whatever's next without bothering to perfect it or BRDs. Must be faster! Must be larger! Reliable... Matt Deres (talk) 18:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

And before jukeboxes played records, there were what were effectively giant music boxes in public areas, mechanically playing music from notched discs. On the same principle as a jukebox: select your tune and it will retrieve and play the disc. In the simplest version, the notches pluck large tuned tines (like smaller music boxes that you can still get): in more complicated versions, the notches set off a system to play something like a bell, or organ pipe, or drum. In this way, you could get an ensemble effect, playing several instruments at once. You can see one at the Mechanical Music Museum in the south of England, and I'm sure there are others elsewhere. 86.166.148.95 (talk) 19:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

@Shantaviraj: Camcorders, which the OED defines as "A portable video camera incorporating a built-in video recorder", certainly did not appear until cassette recording was available; in fact the OED's first citations for the word, from 1982 and 1983, both appear in quotation marks. Home video recorders did exist earlier (my father had an Akai machine, with 1/4" tape), but they weren't camcorders. --ColinFine (talk) 18:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Prior to consumer-grade videotape, people could buy or (in some places) rent 8mm films and show them on home movie projectors. My parents had a super-8 camera and projector - and I remember watching silent cartoons (Wile'E'Coyote and RoadRunner were popular) and also home movies on 8mm film. You could probably film TV shows using a super-8 camera - but the quality would be terrible. Also, super-8 didn't have a sound track - although there were more up-market 8mm formats that did. SteveBaker (talk) 19:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Bingo. "Castle Films", or some such. They used to be sold in K-Mart and places like that. Not much bigger than a roll of scotch tape. They would run like 7 minutes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:55, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Sample of Super 8 film Please don't live-link animated GIFs of this size... it seriously degrades page performance for people with slower connections to have 2MB images loaded with everything else. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't you have had to be careful to synchronize the filming speed with the scanning/projection speed of the television set (and broadcaster)? Otherwise you could, I imagine, end up with weird stroboscopic effects, such as wagon wheels running backwards. Obviously the kinescopes used by the networks and studios would have been properly calibrated and synchronized, but someone shooting a home movie at a home television set would have far fewer technical resources. I remember making audiotapes (reel-to-reel) of TV programmes, but that's a different matter: semi-analogue signal to analogue tape with no frame rate. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, 8mm cine film ran at 16 to 18 frames per second - and the shutter would be open for more than half the time - so filming TV with 50Hz or 60Hz frame rates would produce relatively little strobing...but your expectations would be pretty low. Very grainy, flickery and without sound...not good! (See example of the kind of thing you got at right) SteveBaker (talk) 02:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Some people recorded the audio for their favourite shows on ordinary tape recorders (see Doctor Who missing episodes and Torrent Freak, and for other info e.g. Dad's Army missing episodes). This is better than nothing, even if there are no pictures. Note that many early BBC shows shot on video exist only as 16mm film copies, but these were generally produced professionally rather than by fans. --193.172.19.20 (talk) 15:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Ready-made Liptauer cheese

Does anyone know of any British shops that sell ready-made Liptauer cheese? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 20:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

this one seems to sell it as a sandwich filling. JMiall₰ 21:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Chicago Style

How does one cite a television program as a source using the Chicago Style? The program in question is 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America, and the specific episode is Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt concerning nuclear weapons research, if that helps. 76.211.107.188 (talk) 23:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

[4] FiggyBee (talk) 02:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)