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April 2

Arab cricket teams

I notice that most of the players of both Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Emirates, and Qatar men and women teams are South Asian guys and girls. Why? Is it because Arabs don't understand the game like South Asians do or is it they don't have an interest and think it is not an Arab thing and they see it as a South Asian thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.104.101 (talk) 02:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably just because there are large south Asian communities in those countries. Same thing for Canada (for example) - the Canada national cricket team is almost all south Asian or Caribbean. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably also likely that the South Asians are the better players right now, having learnt the game before emigrating to the Arab world. Perhaps they will coach some "Arab" kids up to be great players in ten years time. I can imagine a time in the sub-continent when the best players would have been expatriate Englishmen, and then the locals learnt the game. HiLo48 (talk) 08:25, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

During the recent visit of the England cricket team to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, this question was raised in radio commentaries. Two answers were given to this: the first is that most of the manual labour in the Arab states come from Bangladesh or Pakistan (it being infra dig for the Arabs to do menial work like building). They have brought their love of cricket with them, and the Arabs being kind rulers, have made provision for them to enjoy their sports outside work. The second was that many of the rulers of the Arab states went to English public schools and learnt to love cricket there, and just as they have spent many millions of pounds on building state-of-the-art stadia for football and horse racing, and the Qataris built the Aspire academy, they have spent a lot of money on bulding a cricketing infrastructure. The ICC are based there, don't forget. Sharjah has long been the venue for cricketing tournaments involving countries where it is not possible to play cricket for one reason or another (e.g. after the terrorist shootings in Pakistan, Pakistan played there a lot). So in short, yer average Arab hasn't yet learned to love cricket, whereas the ruling class and the migrant workers both do. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spoiler warnings in reviews?

I actually don't see the point in placing spoiler warnings in movie, show, episode, anime, play etc. reviews. Sometimes, people go to review sites to see if what they will watch will be good, only for the review site to tell them to go away and not read it if they haven't seen it? I don't see the logic. Don't people read reviews to see if they are good or not? If they didn't want the viewers to be spoiled, then why spoil the work in the review? (unless the review will not make sense unless the work is spoiled). If they need to spoil the movie at least place the ratings or the overall (spoiler-free) opinion at the top (like what Rotten Tomatoes does). For example, this review. It clearly has a spoiler warning at the top (in red no less), but they put the rating (10/10) at the bottom. How can the potential reader know the reviewer's opinion without being spoiled if the rating is in the bottom? I know he/she can just simply scroll down, but he/she could be scared away by the spoiler warning. If they didn't want to spoil the work, they should have kept spoilers to a minimum, but why do they still spoil it? If I were in such a situation, I would feel cheated, because if I watched a bad movie where I didn't read any reviews because the all the reviews I found had spoiler warnings, then I would think it was all a waste of time. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

People read such article for different reasons. Sometimes I watch a movie on TV, but am distracted by a phone call or something, and miss the end. In such a case, I might very well want the exact information (the ending), which others want to avoid. Personally, I think a "hat box" is the best approach...

Citizen Cane spoiler ...

Rosebud was his childhood sled !

StuRat (talk) 07:42, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kane you explain who this citizen is (and why he is spoiled)? Or are you just not Abel? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But if they need to review it, but have a spoiler warning on top, can't they at least put a spoiler-free synopsis at the top as well, along with their ratings? That way, the reader can know the opinion without being spoiled. Oh, and Snape kills Dumbledore, and Soylent Green is people. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some film magazines and websites already give short summaries either at the beginning or end of the review. If you don't want to risk a review that might have a spoiler, you can check a site like IMDb which gives a rating and a brief synopsis at the top of the page, or watch a trailer to get an idea of what the film's about, or read a publication that doesn't spoil films (generally more serious film publications are more likely to discuss the ending). It's actually quite hard for a critic to discuss a movie and explain why it is good/bad without giving away anything about the film's plot, but a reputable critic won't spoil a movie's ending without good reason. Alternatively, read the first couple of paragraphs of a review, but stop when they mention the plot. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Romeo and Juliet both die. HiLo48 (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's been about 40 years since Lucy spoiled Citizen Kane for Linus:[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

HELP ON HALO 3 X-BOX LIVE PROBLEMS!!!!!!!

Ok i don't know why this is happening, but i have had a x-box live account for about three or so months now. But i decided to make my brother an account but it wont let it work. Is it true that your e-mail account has to be older then 18 on your account to be able to play x-box 360 live on halo 3 or what weather its true or not why wont it let him play yet it will let my account play????

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by PyroCase95 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you both have Xbox Live Gold accounts? You can both have "profiles" on the same machine, so you can keep your achievements and game saves separate, but in order to enable online play, both players have to have Gold memberships. Memberships ride with the player, not with the machine. --McDoob AU 93 13:53, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jam session

Hi. Do professional musicians consider the jam session to be useful in rehearsing or practicing existing songs, for example in a band or choir setting, or is it more helpful for creating new tunes? Thanks. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 23:17, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that it's just meant to be fun. HiLo48 (talk) 23:44, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jam sessions can be useful for both purposes you named. Duke Ellington often gained compositional ideas from what he heard his band members playing in informal jams. (Johnny Hodges occasionally (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) referred to the royalties he never received for some elements of the Duke's hit-tunes which had first emerged from Hodges' horn. Many famous rock and pop songs were born while the band was jamming in the studio, and have no clear sole composer.

For novice jazz musicians jam sessions can also be a place to gain experience with jazz standards as soloists as well accompaniment. (Though these novices should already be more than familiar with and have practiced the tunes and chord progressions at home; it isn't fun jamming with a pianist who's fumbling his way through "Cherokee", lending no support to the soloist (or listener). If you mess up your own solo at a jam session, that's bad enough, but messing up someone else's ...).

But I do tend to agree with HiLo48. Jam sessions are here for ad-hoc enjoyment. The joy of playing in a less formal setting, with less pressure on stage, even when the jam sssion is public and with an audience. The joy of playing with all sorts of musicians one would otherwise never interact with, if everything were restricted to fixed formations. And the joy of the unexpected, which is essential to jazz. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, since you mentioned choir settings, I once sang in an a cappella formation where I was the only "jazz person"; the others all came from classical music plus one rock singer. After a few rehearsals with run-of-the-mill warm-up exercises, I asked the leader to add a couple of minutes of free jamming: Someone would start with something — a riff, a simple melody, a famous song, anything — the others would join in. It was a great exercise in listening and trying to fit in your own voice, and it considerably un-stiffened the group who became more at ease with improvisational parts while performing too. Something often notoriously lacking among classically trained musicians where I live. Jamming within an existing ensemble can also increase the qualities of listening to and getting a feeling for one another. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I still think it's possible to add freestyle piano by-ear to a jam whether that pianist is leading or following (or simply "collaborating"). The credit might be an issue though—is it possible for a jam session to be under copyright?! ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 18:32, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]