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October 1

Is a HighBeam Research Subscription Worth the money?

I was going to ask "Any ideas how much 'Personal use' subscriptions to this service cost?" finally found after putting in a fake username, fake e-mail, fake password etc, they only have the prices at about step 3 of the signup procedure. Apparently they are just 'phishing' for details (they at least have an e-mail address if enter a real one) and there are only two options:

Yearly subscription for $199.95
Monthly subscription for $29.95

It seems they go out of their way to be 'evasive' about costs. Example [1]
Is this service worth the money? Anyone have experience with HighBeam? ☣ 220.101 talk^\Contribs 03:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd try the databases available through your public library first. 67.122.209.115 (talk) 05:30, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Google auto-completed “Highbeam research scam” so I guess plenty of other people have experience of this business. The HighBeam Research article has on its history page, many attempts to included things which get taken out again. Perhaps the article needs a spam template and to then go to AfD. --Aspro (talk) 08:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PAL speedup and music development?

Have there been any research on the effects of PAL speedup on development of tonal recognition or something similar to that? Do people develop relative pitch based on the sped up notes? How noticeable is the effect in the general population? --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of any research, but very few people would notice a pitch change of just over half a semitone. Even the small percentage of the population who have perfect pitch would be able to detect the flaw only in films playing music in a known key. They might, for example, just assume that a piano has been tuned slightly sharp. Modern digital methods now correct the pitch, and this has probably been applied to those films where the flaw would be most noticeable (e.g. classical concerts known to be playing in concert pitch), where someone with perfect pitch would detect a very irritating shift. Of course, concert pitch has varied over the centuries by more than a semitone. By the way, research has shown that the few people who have perfect absolute pitch are usually born with it, they don't learn it, though they do learn to use it. Many more people can learn relative pitch, but this is reset regularly, so watching speeded-up films would not affect them. Dbfirs 23:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Antilived, you may be confusing relative pitch and absolute pitch. Relative pitch is the ability to identify intervals and pitches from the context of a starting pitch. It doesn't matter if the starting pitch matches a standard tuning system or not, as long as the intervals are are correct. The intervals between pitches remain the same in the normal and PAL sped-up version of a movie.

> Even the small percentage of the population who have perfect pitch would be able to detect the flaw only in films playing music in a known key. They might, for example, just assume that a piano has been tuned slightly sharp.

Dbfirs, a person with well-trained absolute pitch listening to a movie played with PAL speedup would hear all the pitches shifted out of tune by 7/10 of a semitone, no matter what key the music is in. (That is, no matter what tonic or "home pitch" each musicial piece uses.) For example, if a C pitch was recorded while filming, a person with absolute pitch could tell the PAL sped-up verison plays back as a slightly flat C sharp, no matter if the pitch is part of a musical piece in the key of C major, G major, or any other key. --Bavi H (talk) 04:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks, I was aware of that, but I agree that my answer above came over as slightly confused. My argument about assuming a piano tuned slightly sharp is still valid. My point was intended to be "how would the listener know what frequency (pitch) was originally recorded, unless it was a well-known piece by a well-known orchestra?" Dbfirs 08:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have perfect pitch, but I sing in a group that often performs music at A-415 ("Baroque pitch", about a semitone below the modern A440 standard), and some of the members do have perfect pitch. I once asked one of them how he coped and he said, "you adjust". I didn't ask about the PAL speedup, but I imagine the answer is the same. -- BenRG (talk) 04:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answers guys. The fact that most people don't notice it is probably why they chose to use it the first place. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

... and, of course, many cheaper "record players" and cassette players ran either too fast or too slow, and few people noticed. (Those who did notice bought high-end equipment with speed adjustment if they could afford it.) Dbfirs 08:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hardy Amies & Wood & sons pottery

Could any one please help? I have a milk jug made by Wood & Sons a pottery firm that is no longer with us, the backstamp reads " Wood & sons, " Ermine " designed by Hardy Amies, I would like to hear from any one who could supply any date to this work. Thank you. Tony.86.13.212.96 (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Victoria and Albert Museum has some Wood and Sons "Ermine" pieces, dated circa 1979. You can see an example here. From looking through their collection of Wood and Sons pieces, it seems Hardy Amies did a few designs for them. DuncanHill (talk) 12:05, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a picture of the set here, giving the date as 1978. DuncanHill (talk) 12:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the image, it saves having to ask why they went belly up.--Aspro (talk) 18:23, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What would you call a 'tie' like this?

I refer you to an ad by Scott McAdams - academic who it is, anyway, I just want to know what you would call a tie like the final one he's wearing at 0:23? Thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4aL-GNjPas&feature=player_embedded

AlmostCrimes (talk) 17:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

a Bolo tie? ny156uk (talk)

Confirmed; that's a bolo tie. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:35, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talenthouse

I'm participating in a contest, in order to have a shot at winning I have to get people to vote on my project, which means garnering support from friends. I have friends and relatives, but nowhere near enough for me to win, and I do not have a profile on any other social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Oh yeah, and I only have four days. What do I do? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 22:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Panic--85.211.193.110 (talk) 07:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily. If you have a very brillant project then likely even people who don't know you will vote on it when they see how brillant it is. Just tell people you do know and hope for the best. Nil Einne (talk) 10:54, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the vote of encouragement. And to the person that told me to panic, I mean really, if you have nothing helpful to say, then why bother? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 08:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lowest score in bowling without dropping any pins

I (ten pin) bowled today and got a (for me) very respectable score of 146. I also only missed 5 pins in the entire game. It got me thinking...what's the lowest score you can get where you knock down every single pin in a game? I don't really understand the scoring system so this may be a really simplistic answer. Anyhoo, anybody? ny156uk (talk) 23:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you get a spare each frame, knocking down no pins with your first ball and all ten with your second, you will get ten points for the spare and no bonus points, as after a spare, your bonus is only for the first ball of the next frame. Over ten frames, that's a hundred points. To fulfil your requirement of knocking down every single pin in the game, you would then have to knock over all ten pins with your bonus ball, giving you a bonus of ten points for the final frame - a total of only 110. Warofdreams talk 00:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ten-pin_bowling#Scoring explains the scoring system. (I didn't understand the scoring either until just now. After reading it, you can verify yourself that 110 is the lowest possible score where every pin in the game is knocked down.) --Bavi H (talk) 00:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In Candlepin Bowling it's possible to bowl a 10 that isn't a spare or a strike, so there the minimum score for knocking down all pins is 100. I'll bet it happens from time to time. APL (talk) 01:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto Duckpins. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 17:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]