or two, so the cost of heating 100 gallons of water an hour is not inconsiderable.
And guess what? None other than Richard Zamboni, now president of his father’s firm, says about his ice rink:
We don’t use hot water and we never have. Cold water works fine for us, and we never have to worry about the cost of heating it. We don’t recommend hot water. When [other] customers have a problem with ice resurfacing, usually sharpening the blade fixes the problem. Occasionally, we recommend trying hot water when other solutions fail.
Despite the Olympia maintenance manual, the experienced chief of maintenance, Raoul Lopez, agrees with Zamboni. His rink doesn’t use hot water except for special occasions. Although he thinks that hot water smoothes the ice out better than room temperature, hot water is just too expensive to justify the small advantages. But we contacted several NHL clubs and high-level figure-skating officials, and they confirmed that hot water rules the day in their domains.
Submitted by Michael Rzechula of Elizabethtown, Illinois.
WHAT IS THE CIRCLE ADJACENT TO THE BATTER’S BOX ON BASEBALL FIELDS?
----
T his area is known as the fungo circle. Coaches stand in the fungo circle during pregame practice and hit balls to infielders and, more frequently, outfielders.
Why confine the coach to stand in one small area? So he won’t wear out the grass on the field!
Submitted by Terrell K. Holmes of New York, New York.
Thanks also to Ronald C. Semone of Washington, D.C.
WHY ARE COPYRIGHT DATES ON MOVIES AND TELEVISION SHOWS WRITTEN IN ROMAN NUMERALS?
----
T his is not the kind of question movie studios want to answer on the record. About the only reason anyone could come up with to answer this Imponderable is the obvious one—they express the release date in Roman numerals in order to make it more difficult for viewers to determine exactly how old the show is. It is hard enough to spot the release date printed in Arabic numbers during a fast credit crawl.
Although studio representatives were not unwilling to so speculate off the record, none of them knew this “deception theory” to be a fact. It may be just as likely that copyright dates are in Roman numerals simply because they’ve always been that way: Never discount inertia as an explanation for any phenome non.
There are many new avenues for international distribution of movies and television shows, notably cable television, home video, and videodisc. With each new “window” of distribution, some time elapses. A hit movie might show up on cable television six months after its theatrical release, and then on videotape and videodisc a year later. But non-hit movies can have a more erratic distribution time frame—B-movies like horror movies or kung-fu flicks might not even hit theaters, let alone home video, until many years after they are shot. And the movie may not be released in foreign markets until even later. There are more reasons than ever for concealing the true release date of movies (writers have long made it a policy not to put dates on screenplays they send out for consideration—the older the date, the staler the script somehow seems to the reader).
Ironically, though, more and more Arabic numbers are popping up on release dates, particularly in television. ABC- and NBC-produced shows now use Arabic numbers, and some movie studios use Arabic numbers, although the policy is inconsistent. W. Drew Kastner, a lawyer for NBC, indicated that the network has no reason to make it difficult for viewers to know exactly when a show was taped or filmed.
Is there any practical reason for the copyright date in the first place? Although ideas cannot be copyrighted, the expression of such ideas is protected. By inserting the copyright date, movies are automatically protected by the Universal Copyright Convention, which means that if there is a copyright date listed, it will be protected internationally, without the
And guess what? None other than Richard Zamboni, now president of his father’s firm, says about his ice rink:
We don’t use hot water and we never have. Cold water works fine for us, and we never have to worry about the cost of heating it. We don’t recommend hot water. When [other] customers have a problem with ice resurfacing, usually sharpening the blade fixes the problem. Occasionally, we recommend trying hot water when other solutions fail.
Despite the Olympia maintenance manual, the experienced chief of maintenance, Raoul Lopez, agrees with Zamboni. His rink doesn’t use hot water except for special occasions. Although he thinks that hot water smoothes the ice out better than room temperature, hot water is just too expensive to justify the small advantages. But we contacted several NHL clubs and high-level figure-skating officials, and they confirmed that hot water rules the day in their domains.
Submitted by Michael Rzechula of Elizabethtown, Illinois.
WHAT IS THE CIRCLE ADJACENT TO THE BATTER’S BOX ON BASEBALL FIELDS?
----
T his area is known as the fungo circle. Coaches stand in the fungo circle during pregame practice and hit balls to infielders and, more frequently, outfielders.
Why confine the coach to stand in one small area? So he won’t wear out the grass on the field!
Submitted by Terrell K. Holmes of New York, New York.
Thanks also to Ronald C. Semone of Washington, D.C.
WHY ARE COPYRIGHT DATES ON MOVIES AND TELEVISION SHOWS WRITTEN IN ROMAN NUMERALS?
----
T his is not the kind of question movie studios want to answer on the record. About the only reason anyone could come up with to answer this Imponderable is the obvious one—they express the release date in Roman numerals in order to make it more difficult for viewers to determine exactly how old the show is. It is hard enough to spot the release date printed in Arabic numbers during a fast credit crawl.
Although studio representatives were not unwilling to so speculate off the record, none of them knew this “deception theory” to be a fact. It may be just as likely that copyright dates are in Roman numerals simply because they’ve always been that way: Never discount inertia as an explanation for any phenome non.
There are many new avenues for international distribution of movies and television shows, notably cable television, home video, and videodisc. With each new “window” of distribution, some time elapses. A hit movie might show up on cable television six months after its theatrical release, and then on videotape and videodisc a year later. But non-hit movies can have a more erratic distribution time frame—B-movies like horror movies or kung-fu flicks might not even hit theaters, let alone home video, until many years after they are shot. And the movie may not be released in foreign markets until even later. There are more reasons than ever for concealing the true release date of movies (writers have long made it a policy not to put dates on screenplays they send out for consideration—the older the date, the staler the script somehow seems to the reader).
Ironically, though, more and more Arabic numbers are popping up on release dates, particularly in television. ABC- and NBC-produced shows now use Arabic numbers, and some movie studios use Arabic numbers, although the policy is inconsistent. W. Drew Kastner, a lawyer for NBC, indicated that the network has no reason to make it difficult for viewers to know exactly when a show was taped or filmed.
Is there any practical reason for the copyright date in the first place? Although ideas cannot be copyrighted, the expression of such ideas is protected. By inserting the copyright date, movies are automatically protected by the Universal Copyright Convention, which means that if there is a copyright date listed, it will be protected internationally, without the
Similar Books
