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March 18

Employees and punching in at scheduled time

I am told that I have to punch within 7 minutes prior to my scheduled time, and punching out must occur within 7 minutes before or after my scheduled time, unless permitted otherwise by the supervisor. I always arrive several minutes before my scheduled time, so I always punch in at :53. But I have seen my co-worker who always punches in at :47, even though her schedule usually starts at the same time I do (I see her work hours on the schedule sheet). How does the time clock work? It seems that she's the only person who punches in at :47. Other people also punch in at :53, unless they are on lunch break. I know my co-worker doesn't have lunch break, because she's part-time. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 22:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a guess. It may go back the days of punch cards. Think if you punch in not more than 15 minutes before and not a second later than your start time, it will be OK. 7 minutes is about ½ way. Your supervisor may just repeating what they have been told without knowing why. If you belong to a Union ask them. If not, ask the Human Resources department (but they may not even know). In the days before computer technology, hundreds of punch-cards had to be processed and it may have removed the mental arithmetic to see if an employee punched-out and then back in again quickly afterward so as to game-the-system.--Aspro (talk) 00:02, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It likely has something do to with how your employer tracks the number of hours you work and get paid for. This page [1] gives an example of if you work less than 7 minutes extra you don't get paid for that 15-minute increment. The exact rules will depend on the laws for your jurisdiction. RudolfRed (talk) 00:21, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's always a chance that there's some special arrangement for your coworker. Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 19

Link to Facebook thread

I found an announcement on a Facebook page that I follow, and I'd like to email a link to it to someone I know face-to-face. Is that possible, or do I have to email my acquaintance the URL for the page and tell him where on that page to look? I wish I could just send http://www.facebook.com/pageURL#section, but I don't know how to find any anchors (the string <a name is completely absent from the page's source code), and all Google gives me when I search for hyperlink facebook post is stuff about putting links into your Facebook posts, not getting links from those posts for elsewhere. <sarcasm>It's as if Facebook thinks its users don't know anything about HTML and email.</sarcasm> Just another reason why I hope "add a share button" never leaves WP:PEREN. Nyttend (talk) 04:28, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Click on the date/time next to the post. That will give you a URL of something like http://www.facebook.com/pageURL/posts/1234, which links direct to that post. --Fuaran buidhe (talk) 16:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 20

Problem with URL containing a curly apostrophe

I have a problem with linking this URL http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/features/seeking-sirens’-song The curly apostrophe after sirens is part of the URL, and if you copy and paste the whole thing into the web browser it takes you to the page. But if you include it as it stands in plain text, for instance in a Facebook post, it breaks at sirens and fails to work, with the active URL becoming http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/features/seeking-sirens . I tried to find a hexadecimal code for the curly apostrophe, thinking that might fix the problem, but I can't find one. Can anyone suggest a fix for this? Moonraker (talk) 05:53, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Try http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/features/seeking-sirens%E2%80%99-song, which I got by right-clicking the url you pasted above, then "Copy link location" (in Firefox, wording might differ in other web browsers) and pasting in this reply.-gadfium 07:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

...which is to use Percent-encoding, a standard method that helps work around software trouble on some platforms and applications softwares. This is a standard machine-readable way to represent any character, including special characters, in a URL.

For what it's worth - many users will have no problem with the original link, provided that they are using certain modern web browsing software. Other users may use web browsers that transform or interpret special characters or quotation marks, and they would not be able to use the original link. For unfamiliar users, this is a heisenbug - mysteriously appearing and disappearing without an obvious cause.

Nimur (talk) 16:11, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, gadfium and Nimur, the Percent-encoding is exactly what I was after, but I didn't know that name for it. It works a treat. Moonraker (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ipad keyboard worries

Hi, I'm looking at getting a new ipad, but every time I check them out in stores, the on-screen keyboard doesn't work very well. It will respond, but not very well, and certain keys (often the "s" key) need to be tapped very carefully. Does anyone know what the story is with this? Does Apple know about it? I have googled the problem, but no one seems to have a solution, and in fact I only seem to get a few hits (the search gets confused with other, unrelated, keyboard problems). IBE (talk) 18:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Touchscreens can vary in response with how wet or how dry your skin happens to be. If you have problems with your skin capacitance, then perhaps using a stylus would help? You can make your own. Dbfirs 08:33, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How to pipe things through Python?

How can I squeeze Python in a pipeline in Bash? For example, I know "abcdef".capitalize() outputs "Abcdef". But if I want to run something like echo "abcdef" | python3 -c '<string>.capitalize()', how can I get the stream into Python? I have already tried things like: python3 -c "print(`echo 'abcd'`.capitalize())", and, echo "abcdef" | python3 -c '$0.capitalize() to no avail. --Hofhof (talk) 20:17, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You can look at this. Ruslik_Zero 20:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, can I use Python at all in a one-liner, and not in a full-fledge script saved in a file?--Hofhof (talk) 23:17, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One way would be something like this, although it doesn't use a pipe; it just passes the string as a command line parameter:

          python3 -c $'import sys\nprint(sys.argv[1].capitalize())' abcdef

If you really want to use a pipe (which would make sense if you're going to process several lines of input), you could do

          python3 -c $'import fileinput\nfor line in fileinput.input() :\n\tprint(line.capitalize())'

CodeTalker (talk) 01:13, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That was kind of ugly.Hofhof (talk) 01:33, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, python is an ugly language. Its insistence on using newlines and tabs in its syntax forces you to do this kind of stuff when you pass a program on the command line with -c. CodeTalker (talk) 02:01, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By comparison, the same thing in Perl is rather cleaner looking:

               perl -e 'while(<>){ print ucfirst }'

CodeTalker (talk) 02:04, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

With Perl you can even avoid the explicit while-loop by using -n or -p, as applicable:

                  perl -ne 'print ucfirst'

--76.71.6.254 (talk) 03:14, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A good French site to ask for a movie to be identified

I'm trying to identify a probably French movie from the 80s. I've already posted my description of it on several English language sites without luck, now I'm thinking about trying to reach a French audience which might have a better chance of recognising an older, obscure French movie. Can you recommend me a good site or forum for that? (Other than Wikipedia.) I've registered on www.allocine.fr but I can't make a new thread there, so that's that. Languagesare (talk) 21:15, 20 March 2017 (UTC)\[reply]

Have you tried movies.stackexchange.com or some subforum in reddit?--Hofhof (talk) 01:32, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The IMDB's advanced title search might be useful, as you have several pieces of information to filter on (approximate date, country, and presumably you can try some keywords or plot words or a cast member). Note that some of the filters only allow you to try one value, but of course you can try different searches. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 03:20, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, it's already on movies.stackexchange.com and reddit and I'm trying with the IMDb advanced search. Languagesare (talk) 12:24, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You could also try a Wikidata query. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 22 March 2017 (UTC).[reply]

March 21

Problems with photo rotated

I have problems with photos taken with my Nikon D7100 in portrait mode. When they are transferred to my Windows 10 computer, they are in portrait mode. However, there are problems with such photos. If I try to upload one to Commons with Vicuna Uploader, it locks up on those photos. Also, I sometimes use a program to reduce the size of JPEG files. These files come out un-rotated. I've written to the author of Vicunna but gotten no reply. I have gotten a response from the JPEG software and he is looking into it. But is there something I can to to avoid these problems? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:41, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Usually the camera stores the converted information from gravity sensor in the EXIF. Users should copy the JPG files from camera as file to the computer to prevent any losts of quality. If image processing software cuts or deletes the EXIF, the picture can not be longer to be rotated automatically. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 22:39, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I copy the photo files to my computer using Photoshop. The JPEG shrinker takes out the EXIF data, which explains why it is un-rotated. But I don't know about the problem with Vicuna, which locks up with rotated files that have the EXIF data. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See the first section of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 August 6 and the WP:VP/T and WP:GL/P results for the image in question. I used a D3200 for it, and I'm guessing that your situation and mine are similar. Nyttend (talk) 00:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The D7100 is very similar to the D3200, so it could be a similar problem. It says that the file needs rotating after being downloaded, but when I downloaded it, it shows up the correct way. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:23, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One workaround to correct the probs is to display each on the screen, take a screen shot, and paste it into your fave photo editor. However, that does limit the resolution to that which can be displayed on the screen. (I'm guessing if you have such an expensive camera that you at least have a 4K resolution screen, though, which should come close to the max resolution of your camera.) StuRat (talk) 05:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have just a regular screen, and doing that would take too much time and lose too much quality. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

One think I just thought of is that I can have the picture rotated in the camera first. I'll see if that makes a difference. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:53, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bubba73: I've got a lot of experience with graphics, I can take a look at it (usually just remaking the image from the color information will fix anything). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:09, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I remade the image from the color information, and it seems to be loading correctly now. It looks like there was some metadata in the file that's getting picked up by the displaying software (the web browser, Firefox in my case) instructing it to rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. This is a little unusual in that it (the rotation) is not something I've ever seen before, and I've been working with digital graphics professionally and as a hobby for over two decades now. My advice going forward is for you to get a program like GIMP to rotate the images (it can do batch rotations if needed). If that looks like too much to handle, there are other, simpler options out there, as well. Don't rotate them using the uploading software, the camera or the Windows photo viewer. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:34, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not rotating them in the camera. I import them with Photoshop, and then I've tried several ways to view them, and all of them rotate them (as they should be seen), except Internet Explorer. Maybe I have Photoshop set to rotate them - I'll check that. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:53, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I just found this page which documents the metadata rotation I referred to. this and this cover the topic, as well. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:37, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I found an option in Photoshop, and the help says

Rotate JPEGs Using Orientation Metadata/Rotate TIFFs Using Orientation Metadata
When these options are selected, the orientation metadata of the image is updated to rotate the image. The image data is untouched; the rotation is specified by just changing the metadata. Rotating an image using its metadata is a faster process than rotating the image itself.
Not all applications recognize orientation metadata. If you plan to import your images into such applications, leave these options deselected.

so I've turned that off to see what happens next time I import files. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:04, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seagate ST4000DX001 HDD dying or not?

One of my HDDs (where my games are stored) is sort of (maybe?) dying* according to some programs. No real important data stored on it, fortunately.

0.1% damaged blocks (3 red ones) according to HDTune, "Caution" according to Crystaldisk (uncorrectable sector count: 100) -- but SeaTools disagrees, as well as Speccy. (S.M.A.R.T. = Good.) Also did a CHKDSK which found nothing.

http://imgur.com/8LH5SN4 http://imgur.com/V71c0NW

Matt714 (talk) 04:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Most defects going more worse. The reasons of an defect are different. It may be the structure of the platter. Sometimes still the signal amplifier on the arm of the actuator has a problem. Sometimes, just the contacts to the controller PCB are corroded. But do not try to fix even this simple failure when needing a reliable mass storage. Steve Gibson argued, some OEMs would not copy the map of bad sector which are marked as bad at formatting. When the stored data has the expected level of magnetism when reading, no error is detected. But if the data of the physical bad sector is being replaced, the error occurs when an other magnetic level could not be stored at that point. It also requires to verify the stored information or checksum it. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 08:41, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Crystaldisk is not a generally trustworthy application: Most CNET reviews are 1-star, due to included spyware. I'm not surprised it told you that it found problems, as untrustworthy diagnostic software will always find problems. HDTune is reliable enough, according to Tom's Hardware and CNET reviews. 0.1% damaged blocks is not that unusual, especially on a disk where applications are stored. SeaTools is the only application you mentioned which I've used, and I have no complaints. It does it's job with a relatively small footprint, doesn't waffle about with proprietary measurements and is easy to use. I would trust it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:47, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The comments above aside, I don't see that the tools actually disagree on anything significant. They key point seems to be that the disk still passes SMART but has developed 100 bad sectors. I'm fairly sure if you look at HDtune's SMART details, you fill find it also has 100 bad sectors. How long has the disk had these bad sectors?

Contrary to what ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants says, I would say 100 bad sectors is actually not that common on hard disks even with use. Yes it may only be 0.1% but we're not talking about an SSD here and this obviously developed since the drive had left the factory otherwise they wouldn't show up as bad sectors. Sure it happens but it's enough to start to cause concerns hence why different tools have different opinions. (Seatools relies mostly on SMART or any errors during self tests. It's really primarily about RMAs and secondly providing utilities to do stuff than about detailed health information.)

If you use a tool to write on these sectors, they should be re-allocated (the disk should have more than 100 spare sectors) and will show up in the reallocated sector count instead. Definitely 100 bad sectors is often enough to ask for an RMA (especially on a new disk), although you may just get a refurbished drive that also has 100 bad sectors or more but these don't show up anywhere since like with a new drive it's only internal to the drive so may not be the best idea unless the drive is very new and you're dealing with the retailer so have a hope of getting a new drive.

I'd strongly suggest you keep an eye on it with a tool that actually tells you how many bad sectors (both reallocated and non-reallocated) show up in SMART. If these continue to increase, then there's a good sign you drive is going to die sooner rather than later. Speedfan's online submission thing is useful provided you keep a copy of the URL (make sure you have the right URL, if the URL is http://www.hddstatus.com/hdrepanalysis.php you don't). But you could also just copy the readings from HD tune or anything else. On the other hand, if it's stable long term with 100 bad sectors then the drive is probably not that much worse than one of the same vintage etc without any. One thing you didn't mention, are these 3 blocks in HDtune actually consecutive or in different places? If they're in 3 different places it's probably also slightly more concerning.

P.S. I've used Seatools many times before, and also HDtune. Seatools is definitely useful for many things but given its design you have to take care with it. To give an example I have a Seagate disk with IIRC 500+ bad sectors, slowly increasing. When I zero or write the whole disk, it reallocated what it could. But actually some of the bad sectors were reassessed and seemed fine so weren't reallocated. But either the sectors or other ones would reappear and as also said, the number was slowly increasing. Clearly not a healthy disk. A lot of the time though, it would pass Seatools.

P.P.S. I'm assuming here that the bad sectors are just ones that are pending write for reallocation rather than one that can't be reallocated because the drive is out of spare sectors. You should look carefully though. This is one area where the Speedfan's online submission thing is useful (which uses HDDStatus.com so you could probably find other tools) since it provides some explaination of the SMART variables of concern to those who don't understand them. You don't of course need online submission for that, but it doesn't sound like any of you tools have been very good in that regard and HDDstatus.com does IMO do a decent job and I find them useful for other reasons. (Well I know Seatools and HDtune are only really useful for raw data.)

If it is in fact 100 sector that can't be reallocated due the drive being out of spare sectors, I'd consider this a very big sign the drive is probably dying. I believe though that such a drive should fail at least one Seatools test, either SMART, long drive self test or zero fill (well the last is not technically a test but it can still fail it) when this happens though.

Nil Einne (talk) 01:19, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all for your answers. Just re-passed the SeaTools diagnostic tests and it passed S.M.A.R.T and Short Generic, but failed Short DST. I will contact Seagate for a RMA. Matt714 (talk) 19:39, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lowercase name entry in emails leads to spam filtering?

When I send an email, the recipient usually gets a name to pop up instead of the email address, because the sender also has a name field in their settings where they can enter a first and last name. I am wondering if there is an effect on spam filters if the first and last name field are in all lower case. (Clarification: I am not talking about the email address).2601:281:8400:B440:D520:1FA3:BFF:733 (talk) 22:42, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How are you sending your email? Through Outlook/Windows Mail/etc., or are you sending it straight from the server, or some other way? I wonder if the address book's settings may affect the mail's outgoing appearance and thus what the receiving spam filter sees. Nyttend (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For clarify are you saying that the to: or from: or other address fields of the email actually has a name in it with all lower case? There are no first and last name fields that are a standard part of email headers. It is possible to include a display name in the various address fields, but fortunately this display name doesn't deal with things like first names and last names [2] which are concepts which don't apply to all names. Email clients (both web and standalone) may themselves deal with first names and last names if they desire, and they could also have internal names which aren't added to the outgoing email or coming from the incoming email.

Anyway if you are referring to the display name then yes, it's possible spam filters will be affected by this in various ways, including ~~depend on case~~the case usage in the display name field. For example, some spam filters use some degree of machine learning and if they found that an all lower case display name is more likely to indicate that an email is spam or not spam, it may adjust it's spam score based on this. Even manually programmed rules could have this if the designer, felt it was useful. I don't deal with the nitty gritty of spam filters so I have no idea if any known ones do such things but I'd note a number of large email service providers use largely secret algorithms probably using some degree of machine learning so we have no way of knowing for sure even if none which do so are known. In fact with machine learning it can be difficult for even people who control the thing to know depending on the complexity of what it does (if it always modifies a score you can easily test this, however if it only changes the score in some cases then this may be difficult to detect).

Nil Einne (talk) 12:01, 22 March 2017 (UTC) 10:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 22

Right-side taskbar in Windows 10

What do you call the thing that pops out from the right side of the screen in Windows 10, giving you choices between such things as single-screen view and hooking your computer up to multiple screens? It's not the same as the Action Center, but it appears in the same part of the screen. If you accidentally activate it, you have to choose something from it, because if you just get rid of the popout, it kind-of stays active; if you have hide-taskbar activated, the taskbar stays un-hidden indefinitely as if you're using something, and there's no way to deactivate it. It can be activated through some sort of keypad swipe on my laptop, or it can be activated through pressing a set of keys that's close to Alt+F4. I was constantly activating it by accident until I disabled touchpad-activated swipes, and I still sometimes activate it by making a typo when attempting to type Alt+F4. The frustrating thing is that I can't figure out how to re-activate it, since I only ever activate it with a typo, and since I don't know what to call it, I can't figure out how to search for instructions on activating it, aside from touchpad-related activations that forced me to disable most of my touchpad functions, and the only way to get the taskbar to hide is to restart the computer. Because I don't know how to activate it, I can't describe it beyond the memories that I gave in the first sentence of this paragraph. Nyttend (talk) 01:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

PS, on all previous computers, I had Windows 7 or earlier. This computer originally had Windows 8, then 8.1, and currently Windows 10. Through all three OS'es, I've used Classic Shell, so I'm not particularly familiar with the default Windows 10 start menu. Nyttend (talk) 01:52, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not certain on the name, but the shortcut for it is windows+p (and just hitting enter as soon as it appears will select the option which corresponds to your current configuration, closing it while effectively doing nothing) MChesterMC (talk) 09:55, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And just to note that while that seems an incredibly odd typo for ALT+F4, if you're on a laptop it's probable that you're hitting fn+(something), which your laptop manufacturer has configured to activate that option (Often fn+f5, but these things aren't really standardized) MChesterMC (talk) 09:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, now I feel rather silly — it's Fn+Win+F4. I'd already tried Fn:variousfunctionkeys, but it didn't occur to me until right now to hit three keys all at once. And yes, Win+P also brings it up. Thank you for the help! Nyttend (talk) 12:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There doesn't seem to be an official name for the popout, but it's referred to as the "Project function" in a couple of places on the web. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What screen resolution can an AMD B170 display card display ?

It has an S-Video and DVI output, but I can't use either, as my monitors have only VGA and HDMI inputs. So, I'm wondering if I should bother getting a converter cable. Currently, I'm not using the graphics card and just using the VGA output on the motherboard, which gives me decent 1920x1080 output (it says it supports 1920x1200, but not with my monitor). This is on an old Dell OptiPlex 360, but I could put the graphics card in a newer PC if it's worth it. StuRat (talk) 05:23, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_2000_series#Other_features 89.120.104.138 (talk) 09:45, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but how do you know the B170 is part of that series ? StuRat (talk) 20:05, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why are big and small devices all becoming computers?

It seems that mobile phones, TVs, tablets, laptops, and desktops are different variants of a computer. Even cars resemble computers. What's the deal with transforming everything into a personal computer? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not just TVs and cars, but fridges, central heating, and even the lock on your front door. See Embedded system and Internet of things (and maybe Home automation). Why? Because we can, and because some people will pay for the enhancement. Dbfirs 13:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, many consumers like more features and options. It's also increasing because computers become cheaper, smaller and more powerful. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is interesting is that "things that resemble computers" is a small subset of "things that are computers". For example, the keyboard you are typing on contains a small computer. If it is a Ducky keyboard (also known (by me) as "the best keyboard money can buy"^{[Citation Needed]}) is has a ARM Cortex-M microcontroller in it. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:34, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still awed and confused that each connector on my USB-C cable is Turing-complete, and the wire itself constitutes a networked cluster of vector-processing supercomputers. Thunderbolt™ 3: The USB-C That Does it All, a video from Intel, introduces the technology... You haven't really arrived into the 21st century until you've used a debug cable to debug the software that runs on another cable. Nimur (talk) 16:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notably it's often cheaper to buy a computer-on-a-chip than to have a custom design. This means that computers are now suitable for relatively simple devices. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC).[reply]

Also, integrated circuit chips have no moving parts. Moving parts fail. Take something as simple as a light switch. If the switch was a chip controlled by a signal or sensor, the rate of failure would be spectacularly low. Standard flip switches degrade over time - a little every time you switch it on or off. So, failure is relatively much higher. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 16:20, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great observation, but a couple of corollaries: solid-state parts can fail - everything from tin whiskers to dielectric breakdown to ion drift to transient or soft-errors caused by particle-strikes ... here's a good presentation from Panasonic Semiconductors on failure modes of solid-state electronics: Failure Mechanism of Semiconductor Devices. Almost all experts will readily admit that the statistical incident rate is dramatically lower, by orders of magnitude, compared to mechanical failures in mechanical devices; but when they fail, the mode of failure in a solid-state semiconductor device can be much less intuitive and more catastrophic.

And this says nothing of the immense potential for design-defects: large scale integration makes it economically cheap to implement extraordinarily complicated designs in hardware and software, increasing the potential for a complex design-error to sneak in. If we consider the total failure rate of the system as a whole, I can truthfully say that my software-controlled light switch fails a lot more often than my mechanical light-switch - the software does not break because it gets "worn out" nor because the metal fatigues, but the software breaks because it is designed incorrectly, and that kind of defective design is encouraged by economic conditions that favor billion-transistor devices and feature-rich software. Bugs emerge from, and hide amongst, this complexity... this pathology inverts our expectations about failure rate, and presents us with a meta-problem that many smart people call the "software crisis" - "Instead of finding out how to cope with the effects of such combinational explosions, it is much more effective to prevent the combinatorial explosion from occurring in the first place." (EWD1012).

Failure analysis, as it pertains to systems engineering, must account for such factors: they are as sinister as any material defect and can have equally-severe impact on the end-user. Nimur (talk) 16:54, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I live in a home built in the 1920's, and the only light switches to ever have failed are circular dimmer switches. On the other hand, electronic devices rarely seem to last more than a decade or two, and often fail in just a few years. For example, the power window switch on my 2008 car has failed. Also, don't most electronics have mechanical components ? On a computer, even if you have an SSD instead of a hard drive and use flash drives instead of CDs, there is still the power button, keyboard keys, cooling fans, etc. My laptop failed when the cables at the hinge broke from the opening and closing cycles. So, you end up with a device with the weaknesses of both electronics (like being destroyed by power surges and sparks) and mechanical systems.

Another reliability problem with electronics is miniaturization, which can lead to microscopic flaws or even hits from gamma rays causing total failure. If mechanical systems were miniaturized to the same degree, than it would be a problem there, too. And many solid state devices have rather limited lifespans, like batteries (even rechargeable) and solar panels. StuRat (talk) 18:47, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To address cars as an example, computers can help to increase safety, convenience, and (fuel) efficiency. Alcherin (talk) 16:26, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And the additional of graphical user interfaces to things that already contained 'computers' (in the technical sense of the word, not the laymen's 'personal computer') further allows individuals to interact with and control the computer systems already present. Alcherin (talk) 17:05, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Although it is considerably different from Internet-of-Things gimmicks, automobiles have contained "onboard computers" for at least thirty years for the tuning of combustion parameters, see engine control unit. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 17:28, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I believe there are two trends here:

1) There are genuine reasons to make SOME devices electronic. A scientific calculator is far better than a slide rule, for example.

2) There's also a fad of putting electronics into all sorts of things that don't really need it. I believe the Apple Watch is a prime example of this. The added electronics don't allow it to do much better at the core function of a watch, which is telling the time. Indeed, before there were electronics we had mechanical watches that could tell the time, date, phases of the moon, set alarms, had stopwatches, etc. The new features that have been added to the Apple Watch are already on smart phones, which presumably their owners also carry, so I don't really see the benefit of the Apple Phone, other than just as a status symbol. So, this "fad" portion may never go mainstream, and just remain a cult phenomenon. Another example is internet-enabled refrigerators, which are supposed to reorder food when you run low. Sounds good, but that requires keeping each food item in a designated place, paying more for food deliveries versus shopping yourself, telling the system when you need more of an item for an upcoming meal or change your food preferences, periodically upgrading the software, etc. And it seems doubtful it will keep track of your entire grocery list, such as items not stored in the fridge. So, probably not a mainstream concept. StuRat (talk) 20:32, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keymapping in vi

I'm trying to set up a keybind in my .vimrc to give me a split screen with scrolling thus:

:nnoremap <f5> <C-W>vgg<Esc>:set scrollbind<CR><C-W>1Lzt<Esc>:set scrollbind<CR>

using the suggestion from Stackoverflow (which works manually).

It seems that at least the first scrollbind and the Lzt fail.

Any ideas?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:49, 22 March 2017 (UTC).[reply]

March 23

Ubuntu and music play counts

Greetings. Does anyone know why Ubuntu, and probably Linux in general, don't include play counts in music players? Even the non-FOSS ones never seem to include this important feature, yet about 99% of Windows music players do. I've spent months wondering if it's a Windows metadata thing but even Itunes does it, so it's just Ubuntu/Linux missing it. I really miss play counts. Can anyone explain this? Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 16:26, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Amarok has play count. It has a backend database. A stripped down media player, such as mplayer, won't have a play count because it doesn't store anything. It just plays music. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:15, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, i've been looking at full fledged music players such as: Tomahawk, Lollipop, Rhythmbox, Audacity, etc. After scouring the web for 2 months and experimenting i now have a single option it seems...And it's one i didn't install because it's ugly. Any others you know of? I've been reading reviews for lots. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 17:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

First, Audacity is not a music "player". It is an audio file editor. I wouldn't expect it to have any features you want. Amarok is ugly and clunky. It used to be nice. Clementine forked from version 1.4 before the Amarok developers got stupid. So, you could try Clementine and see if the old Amarok is nicer. As for looks - aren't you using it as a music player? I don't look at my music player. I shove it into the taskbar and ignore it. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:42, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FB page subscription

Not long ago I subscribed to a certain Facebook page, but don't receive any notifications about updates, be it on FB or via email (even though the notificication option is turned on in subscription). As such I'm forced to sift through their page manually to search for updates which usually appear somewhere below the top requiring scrolling. Today, for instance, I caught the update only 3 hours after publication, with no notification whatsoever. How to fix this? Brandmeister^talk 16:46, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I Googled facebook turning on all notifications and found stuff you've likely already tried. Rather unfortunately, FB hates the world and everyone in it, so advice on older webpages quickly becomes obsolete as FB endlessly changes their settings, setup, and options. If you're accessing via an Apple mobile device, this effect is doubled. Facebook does have a help centre, complete with a link to an online community where experienced users try to help with issues such as yours. One point you'll want to detail is whether you get any notifications at all (email or 'push') from other pages. If my tone earlier was not hint enough, I find FB endlessly frustrating and have encountered the opposite problem, where some pages just won't stop sending push and email notifications unless I unsubscribe completely. Matt Deres (talk) 01:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where do these lists come from?

I have Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge. Recently I had to reinstall Windows so this list (Top sites in File:Mercuryturnpike.png) showed up again in some cases when I would click on the URL ad the top of the screen. I don't know why it changes because I don't do anything to make it change. This list may not be the one that appears currently but when i get home I'll try to do it again.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any reason you have to believe that the list is not created from your browsing history? Are you claiming that you have never, not once, been to GoComics? Are you claiming that you've never, not once, visited your contribution history on Wikipedia? You've never ever been to any of those websites? Not once? Never? Never ever? 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:01, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I want to know why these sites? Why not others? And when I get home, there's a new list.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:04, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Char array index

I came across this syntax feature to initialize an array (not associative array or hashtable) in Go:

var inverse = [256]uint8{

  'A': 'T', 'a': 'T',
  'C': 'G', 'c': 'G',
  'G': 'C', 'g': 'C',
  'T': 'A', 't': 'A',

}

Is there name for this syntax feature?

I'm trying to see which other languages have the feature, but it's kinda hard to do without knowing the feature's name. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 18:42, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What feature are you referring to? The use of the word "var"? The bracketed 256? The colon separated pairs in the initialization? The latter is sometimes called an "associative array" and appears in JavaScript [3]. A similar concept appears in Perl where it is called a "hash" although it uses a comma or arrow between the key and the value rather than a colon [4]. In C++ it's called a map and again the initialization syntax is a bit different [5]. CodeTalker (talk) 19:49, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have clarified. It's the use of associative array syntax to initialize a regular array. As you mentioned, pretty much all languages have associative array, and easy and clear syntax for initializing them. However, the Go clip above is only one I've seen so far that allow you to initialize a regular array with the associative array syntax. I'm wondering whether there are other languages that allow you to do the same. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is not uncommon. In PHP you assign key and value as 'key'=>'val'... So it just replaces the colon with an arrow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1004:B049:9B6:CCAC:5A12:84A3:24A4 (talk) 20:58, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, you're right. Thanks! Though admittedly PHP is cheating a bit since their array is both the regular array and the associative array. ECS LIVA Z (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DOT NET emulator for Windows 10

Please can you recommend me a DOT NET version 2 emulator for Windows 10. I have several DOT NET version 2 applications that no longer work on Windows 10. They are abandonware so will never be updated to the latest DOT NET version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.10.85.15 (talk) 19:24, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

.NET 2.0 is still supported by Windows 10 but it needs to enabled (installed) as described here. So, go to the control panel/programs and features/Turn on and off Windows features and enable .NET framework 3.5. Ruslik_Zero 19:47, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Programming language like the Unix pipeline

Is any programming language build like a series of filters in a pipe like the Pipeline (Unix)? It looks like a cool approach, comparable to OO or imperative. --Llaanngg (talk) 20:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Insofar as bash is a programming language (in addition to being just an interactive command interpreter), ... the bash language encourages the use of pipes. You can also use pipelines and coprocs (if you're using bash-4 or newer). These paradigms fit very well with traditional pipe | syntax.

Nimur (talk) 21:15, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You could do this with any functional language, though it wouldn't be as easy to read as a bash script. e.g. output = FunctionThree(FunctionTwo(FunctionOne(x, y))); or possibly:

FunctionThree( FunctionTwo( FunctionOne(x, y) ) );

(though for obvious reasons, that second example won't work with any language that doesn't ignore linebreaks, like VBA). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:35, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Does that mean that Bash is a functional programming language? If that's the case the corresponding article could benefit from a little updating. Llaanngg (talk) 22:54, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you like pipeline, you would like the programming language Mathematica or should I cry wolf, er? Wolfram.

You can do

FunctionThree[ FunctionTwo[ FunctionOne[12.34] ] ]

or

FunctionThree@FunctionTwo@FunctionOne[12.34]

Or

if you like the postfix notation (aka the pipeline notation)

12.34 // FunctionOne // FunctionTwo // FunctionThree

Now if your function takes multiple parameters (and outputs a list containing multiple elements), for example two parameters x and y. You can put them into a list (think of a list as an array) and get the function(s) to take a list as if it were multiple parameters.

{x,y} // (FunctionOne @@ #) & // (FunctionTwo @@ #) & // (FunctionThree @@ #) &

or

{12.34,56.78} // (FunctionOne @@ #) & // (FunctionTwo @@ #) & // (FunctionThree @@ #) &

148.182.26.69 (talk) 22:57, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you realise the "dream programming language" you are talking about which uses pipelines would have to behave something like this

TheWorld={Value1,Value2,Value3,Value4,...,ValueN};

EndOfTheWorld = TheWorld // Function1 // Function2 // Function3 // ... // FunctionK;

DisplayFinalResultToOperator[EndOfTheWorld];

148.182.26.69 (talk) 23:51, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you can do it all in one line! This is your ultimate pipe dream.

{Value1,Value2,Value3,Value4,...,ValueN} // Function1 // Function2 // Function3 // ... // FunctionK // DisplayFinalResultToOperator

148.182.26.69 (talk) 23:57, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WINE on Windows

I have old versions of Corel Paint Shop Pro that still ran fine on Windows 7, but on Windows 10, the installers just stall during the "module registration" step, in fact so badly I have to use the task manager to kill the installer. The entire programs are then on my disk, including a desktop icon, but when I click the icons, the programs will freeze on the start screen. All this also happens when I'm using the various backwards compatibility modes of Windows 10. Many people told me to use Wine on top of Windows 10 to fix this by simulating XP or Windows 7 within Wine, but all the Wine wikis and how-tos tell me that Wine is not made to be installed on top of Windows. So how does this work? I've found [6], but those instructions seem a tad outside my abilities as a Windows user who's used to just click setup EXEs, or, at outmost, open .rar or .zip archives and drop a tiny program EXE anywhere on my harddisk. Or is there any other XP or Windows 7 emulator I could use for this? The reason why I need these old Paint Shop Pro versions is because I have many self-made scanning and color presets for them that most likely won't work with newer versions. --2003:71:4E33:E510:FC1A:665C:E7A8:5408 (talk) 02:10, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]