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March 2

Nip/Tuck DVDs

Are the Nip/Tucks DVD releases uncensored? Heegoop, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

They would show no less than the original cable broadcast, if that's what you mean. (I have no refs., though, just gut instinct). —Nricardo (talk) 01:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Name of an Instrument

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leG3XiZmuXc Can anyone tell me the name of the keyboard instrument doing Iarla's chordal accompaniment? I'd venture to say that it's some sort of organ---it reminds me of those Indian hand-pumped organs, but it sounds electric.72.219.143.150 (talk) 01:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evangelion DVD

I was hoping to buy a DVD set of Neon Genesis Evangelion. However, this task seems a little more daunting than one would think. I headed over to Amazon.com and searched "Evangelion." Among the products that turned up were these three DVD sets:

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Perfect Collection
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Platinum Collection
Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum: Perfect Collection

Now, common logic would place Platinum: Perfect Collection as the "best" set to buy, but I'm not sure. Platinum costs the least, and Perfect costs the most. I'm unsure of which features are present in each collection, further confusing the situation. Wikipedia's article on NGE media mentioned absolutely nothing about DVD releases, and Gainax doesn't have an English web site. Could some one who knows about the different sets please tell me about them? Thank you.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 01:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Perfect Collection is a much earlier release than the Platinum editions: the Platinum editions are digitally remastered versions of the Perfect Collection, while the Platinum Perfect edition has more extras than the Platinum Collection and comes in a groovy collectors tin. I think the Perfect Collection is more expensive because it is out of print now, so copies are harder to find. Laïka 23:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I suspected. Wonderful! Thanks a bundle for your help!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 01:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistent performance

why do football teams have good runs of form and bad runs of form? like some teams can be unbeaten for 10 matches then suddenly lose 5 matches in a row. then why are some football teams so inconsistent? like liverpool can lose to barnsley but win inter milan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.61.88 (talk) 06:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because every opposition is a different challenge, because every player is human and human's cannot be 100% consistent so will invariably have different output levels for different games, because sometimes fixtures put easy games in a row then hard games, because sometimes the psychological effects of a first defeat after a series of wins causes a big drop in confidence, because nothing in the world of sport is perfect and with 22 players (plus subs) influencing any given game anything can happen on any given day. ny156uk (talk) 12:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not know how the football (soccer over here) games are scheduled. Being overly general, our football (NFL) is purposely scheduled so that the season starts with poor performing teams playing poor performing teams and high performing teams playing high performing teams. The idea is that by mid-season, most of the teams will be in competition for the division championship. Then, in the last half of the season, the poor teams have to round out their play against better teams - which also means that the better teams get a few more games against the poor teams. As a result, many teams that showed great promise will suddenly hit a long losing streak in the second half of the season. Is it possible that your football is scheduled the same way? -- kainaw ™ 13:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is (the NFL I mean)? I doubt there's much evidence in favor of that. Regardless, I'd like to also point out random distributions. Consider the result of a football match to be like a coin (perhaps weighted, though that's really not the point). We expect that we'd see a sequence like heads-tails-heads-heads-tails-heads-tails-tails-tails; that is, more or less alternating. That particular sequence, though, is no more likely (on a fair coin) than heads-heads-heads-heads-heads-heads-heads-heads (or however many heads are appropriate there). Over the course of a season, it's not at all unreasonable to see a few long runs, though it's important at this stage to bear confirmation bias in mind. Seeing one such run is not evidence that said run is commonplace, particularly if only one team out of thirty (or what have you) is performing thusly. If you had half the league on a 10-match win streak and the other half on a 10-match loss streak, that would be suspicious....

Which leads back to the weighted coin bit. The coin is weighted, and the Gambler's fallacy is true -- past results do impact future performance, even if nobody is objectively certain how. Ny156uk and kainaw have covered this admirably, so I won't repeat their efforts. — Lomn 14:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify on the NFL bit: I doubt the scheduling intentionality, and should it exist, I expect that the league's tendancy for many teams to rapidly rise and sink renders it moot. Taking 2006's conference championship teams (Colts, Patriots, Bears, Saints), we find that their 2007 slates scheduled 2006 playoff teams at averages of week 9, 9.4, 7.7, and 10 (middle of the season is 8.5). The Bears schedule was front-loaded, but none of the others were. Looking at a different example, the current string of Colts/Patriots games has been played (counting backwards from 2007) in weeks 9, 9, 9, 1, and 13. Average week 8, the middle of the season. — Lomn 14:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the NFL, it isn't as simple as front-loading or back-loading the schedules, either, because the schedule-makers must take other factors into considertion. (Stadium availability conflicts — esp. with baseball teams in early season; climate; travel; home-and-home games against divisional opponents; demands of the television networks; etc.) — Michael J 01:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]