Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 October 27

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October 27

AVI on a xbox 360

When I try to watch avi or other video files on my 360 using a portable hard drive, it always wants to connect to the internet to download a file required to view the video. This is a problem, because my xbox's ability to connect to the internet is very moody, and some days it won't recognize that it's got a cat-5 plugged into the socket. The wire is fine, it works no problem for my computer, so the issue is with the old 360. I was wondering if there was a way to save the codec files or whatever it's downloading on the xbox so that it doesn't always have to refer to the internet?129.128.216.107 (talk) 03:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will stop by in a moment, but maybe I can help a bit. First, a question: have you ever gotten your 360 to play a video in this way? Second, a large percentage of the AVIs out there are encoded with DivX (which see). I no longer use Windows Media Player, but when I did, the DivX codec always had to be downloaded manually and installed manually - it could never be acquired the usual way. Maybe there's a reasonable technical problem there, but I've always assumed that it had something to do with DivX originally being "stolen" from Microsoft and them not wanting to support it. If I was in your place, I would assume that the 360, which is also made by MS, had the same antipathy towards DivX and was intentionally not downloading the codec. So, the first thing I'd recommend is to download the codec yourself and try to install it on your 360 manually (note: I have never done that; I don't play videos on my 360 and have no idea how that works). Hence the reason I asked if you'd gotten anything to work - AVIs encoded with other codecs are more likely to work okay (or at least the 360 will download the codec seamlessly). Matt Deres (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Modern DivX is MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP compliant sometimes with a DivX FourCC. (Nowadays DivX also supports H.264 but when people refer to DivX they almost definitely mean the ASP variant. In my experience DivX is relatively uncommon anyway XviD predominates by far. Microsoft surely has no concern that one codec had a somewhat questionable history, it doesn't relate much to the development of the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard itself which is really what they're supporting, after all it was what they were working on when they developed the codecs that were used in the original DivX.) The primary reason I expect why Microsoft doesn't provide any codec is because of licensing issues i.e. Microsoft didn't want to pay whatever royalities would be asked of them. The lack of much content of interest obviously didn't help. (Being defined as legitimate content that people may actually want to use, since I don't think Microsoft is that much affected by the illegitimate content.) Sure there are some trailers, and I think a few camcorders used MPEG-4 and some independent and other free stuff was distributed in that way but it never really took off probably partially because of licensing issues as well (see MPEG-4 Part 2#Criticisms. It was largely skipped by the industry for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC instead. Remember many versions of Windows didn't even come with an MPEG-2 codec. Windows 7 Ultimate supports ASP, AVC/H.264 and MPEG-2 I believe. Microsoft also has a vested interest in promoting VC-1 instead. Nil Einne (talk) 12:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the "xbox 360 2007 Fall update" is what you need to read , see http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/how_to_play_avi_files_on_xbox_360.cfm and http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-video-playback-faq.aspx

As I remember the XBOX360 should get the codec from the MS servers (assuming the servers have a codec) and then automatically save the codec to either a MS memory card or the MS hard-drive. You should be able to see the codec on the MS storage device once downloaded, and not need to download it again. So you need to download it once and also need a MS flash or hard disk drive. It should be sutomatically saved - it's called "Optional Media Upgrade" see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_40xLn8uymo Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As for the CAT5 issue - this sometimes is a DHCP issue - ie the DHCP not working right.(bug). Assuming you've got the settings right for the xbox360, one solution is the "turn off both devices, and then turn them on again" - which often results in the network connection being made correctly. Alternatively manually setting the IP address on the xbox360 for the computer also works, but is fiddly. That is another issue though.Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a download link here http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Optional-Media-Update/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802fffe07df that might help.77.86.42.103 (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh and it looks like the update is tied to an xbox account - so if you downloaded it in your xbox account you need to be signed in to use it..Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Pause batch file execution on file/folder not found?

Hello, I'm creating a batch file to run on Windows' commandline/Command Prompt which will move items to another location when executed. My batch file is executed in one folder and checks sub folders, moves the files in the subfolders to another folder, then cd's back to the original folder to move on. While creating the batch file, I noticed a serious flaw: If the subfolder does not exist (and it sometimes doesn't), it would execute the move inside the original folder and not the subfolder. Luckily, I noticed this before executing it. For an example, my batch looks somewhat like this:

cd 20101001
move a* (a folder)
move b* (a folder)
move c* (a folder)
[...]
cd "C:\My Folders\Programs\TheFolder"

It goes through that subfolder then moves onto the next subfolder (20101002, 20101003, etc).

My question now is this: Is there a way to have the batch file pause if a file/folder not found error pops up? Then I can handle the situation manually. I wish as much automation as possible; I realize I could just insert a pause after each "cd ########" to manually ensure the folder exists before the move executes. -- 24.251.101.130 (talk) 06:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Instead of pausing, tell Windows to check for the folder:

cd 20101001
if exist TheFolder (
move a* (a folder)
move b* (a folder)
move c* (a folder)
)
[...]
cd "C:\My Folders\Programs\TheFolder"

And, if it cannot find the folder, you can have it complain to you:

cd 20101001
if exist TheFolder (
move a* (a folder)
move b* (a folder)
move c* (a folder)
) else (
echo TheFolder could not be found.
)
[...]
cd "C:\My Folders\Programs\TheFolder"

--Best Dog Ever (talk) 06:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You can separate commands on a line with && to execute the second only if the first succeeds, or || to execute the second only if the first fails, or & to execute the second always. You can use parentheses to establish precedence. For example:

    :retry
    cd 20101001 || (echo Directory 20101001 doesn't exist & pause & goto retry)

If you just want to skip nonexistent directories, you could also write

    move 20101001\a* (a folder)
    move 20101001\b* (a folder)
    move 20101001\c* (a folder)

or

    cd 20101001 && (move a* (a folder) & move b* (a folder) & move c* (a folder))

-- BenRG (talk) 07:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, Best Dog Ever and BenRG; both of you have helped solved my problem. -- 24.251.101.130 (talk) 07:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Black bars on YouTube videos

I've just uploaded a youtube video which I made in wmm, and now it has vertical black bars either side and the quality is awful. When I view my video in wmm, it doesn't have the black bars and the quality is quite good. When publishing I clicked "120p", is that not correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.60.246.201 (talk) 09:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Caveat: I don't deal with video much at all and can't remember the last time I uploaded a video to YouTube. That said, Display_resolution#Current_standards would suggest that "120p" is very low resolution and likely not the best choice (ie it's lower than 480 or 720). What are your other choices? Dismas|^(talk) 09:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The quality will improve slightly as the video is processed further; I don't know how long that takes, it's normally no more than a day (I think...I haven't uploaded in a while). The pillarboxes are affected by the aspect ratio and video format, found in Tools -> Options. The only combination of those which I've found to produce an acceptable result is NTSC format and 16:9 aspect ratio. Note: I'm no expert - this is all based on personal experience of videos turning out badly pillarboxed on Youtube, and the solution that I found. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Facebook friend search

I've never really fully understood how Facebook's friend search works. I realize that they don't reveal just exactly how it works and so on but still, parts that would seem obvious aren't. I'll provide examples to explain what I mean.

• I've sent a message or two back and forth to an old friend's little brother. The brother and I aren't FB friends and he keeps his friend list private, so I can't find my friend by looking through his friends. The brother says that my friend is on FB. When I search for my friend's name, I only get two people (I didn't think his name was that uncommon but whatever) and neither of them are my old friend. A) Why can't I find my friend directly with a search?

• Another example which is similar to the one above... I have about a dozen people that I work with in my department. One of the people, I'll call him "Joe", does not come up in a search. We all were talking about FBs strange search results tonight and started trying to find one another through the search. We're not all friends with each other on FB. None of us could find Joe even though we were typing his name in correctly. And Joe has said that he has not activated any sort of privacy setting to keep people from finding him. In fact, he said that just this week a friend of his from another state was able find him just fine when they don't have any friends in common. I don't believe he is misleading us.

• Another person I work with, I'll call her "Cindy", comes up in a search but she comes up as the seventh result in a list. Cindy's name is not all that common at all. The first six results are all mis-spellings of what I searched for. I searched for "Cindy Doe", which is what she goes by though on FB she is registered as "Cynthia Doe". The first few results are for "Cindy"s with other last names. Then the list goes into "Cynthia"s and, even though I spelled her last name correctly, she is still the second or third Cynthia. Considering Cindy is short for Cynthia and I spelled her last name correctly, I would think that my Cindy would be the first result. Add to that the fact that we have the same company listed as our employer and it's more confusing. And then on top of even that, she is friends with a friend of one of my friends. And finally, although due to privacy settings, I can't see Cindy's "current city" (remember, we're not FB friends) though I know where she lives (roughly) and her home is not that far from my own. So wouldn't this kick her even further up in search results?

So, in summary (and I'm sorry this is so long), FB's search confuses me. It can suggest friends that I knew 30 years ago but not show any evidence of people that I currently work with. I don't see any setting to hide myself from search results, so I don't see how someone could do just that. Besides which, that would run counter to the point of FB which is connecting with other people! Dismas|^(talk) 09:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

When searching by name, the person has to use that name EXACTLY. There are a few things it will do, such as look for "Charles" if you type in "Chuck". But, if you search for me with my first name, you won't find me. My Facebook profile uses my middle name. Facebook won't instamagically search DMV records to find out what my first name is and then add me to your search results. As for the recommender, it is a fairly simplistic "friend of a friend" algorithm. If you have friends in common with someone else, it will suggest that person as a friend. -- kainaw™ 12:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Where did I say anything about it making leaps such as going with a middle name? The example that I gave had the correct spelling of the last name and a derivation of the first. Wouldn't it be more natural to match last name first and then list a derivation of the first instead of giving me mis-spellings of the last name? After all, last names normally don't have derivations whereas Charleses do go by Chuck, as you point out. Dismas|^(talk) 14:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, you can hide yourself from searches, so it's possible your first friend has done this. You say 'Joe' says he hasn't done so, but it is possible he has done so unknowingly if he's not entirely sure what settings he's activating (not all the options are that clear what they're doing, although FB's recent improvements to the privacy settings have made things clearer, but he may also have set this before the recent improvements). The other thing you can do is to hide yourself from being found by specific people - it's possible for example say that if your first friend does not want to renew his friendship with you (especially if he knows via his little brother that you're looking for him) that he could have already found you and put a block on you finding him in a search (I've never done this myself, but I have seen sometime back where you could set it). Re the Cindy/Cynthia thing, I'm not sure I follow exactly - you say you search for Cindy... but are surprised that FB lists Cindys before Cynthias? Unless I've misunderstood, I don't see what's odd about that at all, I would expect a search to find the exact term I'd searched for before finding variations on it. Having said which, yeah, I have seen odd things in FB searches too. For example I was finding it almost impossible to find one old friend (I was typing in his name exactly right, and ultimately exactly as he had it on FB, yet couldn't seem to get him), finally I did a search on his employer rather than his name and he came up. Hmmm... --jjron (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

What I mean about Cindy: Let's say that her name is Cindy Doe. It doesn't seem intuitive to me that Cindy Dole would come up first and Cynthia Doe would come up several names down. Yes, the first name is exactly right but the last name is off. I would think that the programmers of the search would realize that people shorten their first names, switch the spelling around, etc. a lot more often than they would do the same for their last name. I would think that the probability of me spelling the last name right and using a derivation of the first is a lot higher than the probability that I've misspelled the last name.

And, although it seems to run counter to the purpose of social networking, I guess that there must be a setting to keep oneself out of searches since there is not only my old friend but also two of my co-workers who don't come up at all. I work with these guys every day and they seem pleasant to me otherwise, I have nothing but my own paranoia to give any hint to the idea that everyone is simply trying to avoid me.  :-) Dismas|^(talk) 21:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I would argue you are thinking of a few specific examples and failing to consider the complexity of human naming customs, social interactions, memory and typing ability. For starters you're primarily thinking of a Western European naming custom POV. While it's true many websites do follow POV of that sort and Facebook started from that POV and must still have some bias there (I can't remember whether Facebook asks for your first name and last name specifically via those terms which is obviously a Western European naming POV and I'm also not sure how well they handle other character sets), they do have a global focus so probably don't want to be completely from that POV and I suspect many of their programmers, as is common nowadays are from India and similar places.

For example if you have a patronym rather then a surname, specifically following your fathers name (i.e. where it therefore varies from generation to generation) there are surely as many possible different spelling of the patronym (on average) as there is for the person's name as there is no difference. It may still be that the person may have used a shortened personal name, it may not. To use an example, Mahathir bin Mohamad. Mahathir is not a particular common name so were it not for him being famous (and even with it being) it may be easily misspelled (although given the relative phoentic nature of Malay I'm not sure). Mohamad is a common name, but there are plenty of different spellings and the Mohamad spelling isn't even the most common in Malay AFAIK. For some of his children like Marina Mahathir I would expect (again ignoring the famous aspect) people would be easily more likely to misspell Mahathir then Marina.

Even for those with surnames, if it's transliterated there are often plenty of spellings and it's not unresonable to expect people to not remember which specific one. For example Lee Kuan Yew, even though Lee is a simple and common surname there are several different transliterations depending on the precise surname and dialect. See Li (surname). I don't think it's unresonable people may not rememeber if he's Lee or Li. Kuan Yew is of course also has many possibilities (and there's also the complexity of whether you hypenate, don't seperate at all or seperate as in Kuan Yew the personal name).

Indian names are a complexity I won't even try to get in to (in Malaysia many use a son of/daughter of where you get the same issues as patronyms).

Even in the West, I don't think things are always as simple as you suggest. Barack Obama is perhaps a bit of a cheating example since it's not what you would consider common although I would expect many would agree Barack is more likely to be mispelt as Barak then Obama (again let's ignore that he's famous). But Martin Bryant for example. Bryant is a not uncommon given name, but even when it's a surname I can easily see people confusing or missremembering it as Bryan or Brian (or vice versa). Martin could be Marton of course.

Then of course there's the fact that in the modern Western world, one's surname may not be mentioned much at all. So 20 years later it's easy to imagine someone can barely remember it. Was it Cindy Doe? Cindy Dole? You may remember what you called the person better, e.g. Cindy although as you said, it could be Cindy was short for Cynthia and she has that in her FB, or it could be Cyndi. In other words, while the probability may very well be higher, how much is not clear and would obviously vary depending on the circumstance, the name and other things.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Back @Dismas. Just to pick up on a few points. You seem doubtful of being able to alter who can find you or being able to block people. This page pretty much explains the privacy settings that let you control how easy it is to find or contact you: privacy. Then here's the FB help page on blocking individual people: block. Your search question seems to miss how FB search works - as you type in a name it immediately starts the search, it doesn't wait till you've finished typing or hit enter. Now if you want to look for surnames first, then just start typing in their surname from the start. Your reasoning is valid enough about changes in names etc, but I guess the search has to work somehow and to provide that interactive functionality of searching as you type it simply has to use whatever you type first. I would disagree with your argument about being more likely to misspell firstnames than surnames - at least in English speaking countries first names are generally simpler and easier to get right, for example most people, say 90%+ get my firstname right first time, every time, but, at a generous estimate, maybe 20% get my surname right even though it's not that hard and is the conventional and traditional spelling of a not particularly uncommon name. But really it's probably neither here nor there as it will vary so much from name to name. And, hey, at the end of the day if you are friendly with these people in real life can't you just tell them of your searching woes and ask them to find and friend you instead? :) (FWIW I generally avoid friending people I work with until we no longer work together; nothing personally against them, it's just a bit of a prudent step to take, and I'm usually more than happy to friend them once we no longer have that 'professional' relationship - maybe the people you work with think likewise). --jjron (talk) 11:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you everyone. The last couple responses have been very thorough, not at all snarky, and had very valid arguments. The "instant search" lends a lot of credence, for me, to the argument of looking at the first name *exactly* as it's typed rather than derivations. And finally, just a note to jjron, I didn't send a friend request to Cindy since A) the three of us in the office that were discussing this were doing just that, discussing the search and not looking to add friends B) I keep my work related FB friends to a minimum anyway and C) judging by the relative absence of work related friends in her friend list, she keeps her friend list rather work-free as well. Dismas|^(talk) 21:03, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Backing up mp3s

I currently keep my ~30 gig MP3 collection on a Western Digital 250 USB External Drive. However, I'm worried about the device becoming disconnected or power failure occuring when my computer is accessing the disk for playback. What are some of the more reliable ways to back your music up? I was thinking that DVDs or other disc media might be prone to scratches or decay after some time, so perhaps buying another external drive is worthwhile? Or are there any consumer storage platforms / devices with decent integrity that will provide a reliable backup platform? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.244.64 (talk) 10:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

If you have 2 Hard drives, or if you have plenty of space in one, you can just keep copies there. If you have a network (Anything with a router) you could consider getting a Network storage HD, so you can access it from anywhere in your network (handy for laptops), or you can get an external desktop hard drive, or you can back it up online, if there is any service willing to do so. If you do that however, it will probably take you a long time as upload speeds are slow. It depends on what else you may want to put on, or how much money you have. I don't recommend DVD's, I'd rather stuff everything in a blu-ray disk. General Rommel (talk) 10:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC) Oh and for anyone wondering, I'm Sir Stupidity, renamed myself

I don't think there's any risk of data corruption during a power-cut if you're only playing back the files. I would recommend a hard dive for backups, you can get 1TB drives very cheap 82.44.55.25 (talk) 11:23, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Over here a large chain is advertising 1 TB hard drives for EUR 49. That's ~0.5 ct per GB, or ~2.5 ct for the 4.7 GB of a DVD. I don't know what a DVD-R costs nowaday, but I'd also suggest going with a spare hard drive. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

"How do I back up reliably" is a recurring question with no silver-bullet answer. DVD+R discs, the articles say, can spontaneously fail after as few as two years' time. Hard disks do fail eventually; the safe attitude toward a hard disk isn't "will this disk fail", but "when will this disk fail". One solution is to keep your local hard disk backup, but also to use an online backup service (here's our comparison article) and trust them to keep the data in two places, assuming they use a RAID 1 system of some sort. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't regard mp3's as critical data as you can always get them back... but this is what I do for data I can't be bothered to find on the internet again. Firstly, get a USB drive like suggested above and make a copy there. If you have multiple internal drives, you can always backup there too if you have space. Then back them up onto DVD's anyway (bluray still too expensive)... use something like WinRar that can write recovery records and you can even create a few par2 files with quickpar. In my experience DVD's get a few bad sectors and you can copy (with retry) most of the bad files off of them and recover with quickpar. Now with critical data (for example your personal home videos and pics) - you need to put them onto external drives, DVD's, and make sure they are OFFSITE also (for example online backups or give your mum a copy)... in case your home catches fire or something weird. Sandman30s (talk) 10:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

what does a message like this mean

fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
/dev/sda1: clean, 159694/7143424 files, 2635033/28562944 blocks
 * Starting AppArmor profiles       �[160G Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.bin.firefox

  � [154G[ OK ]
 * Setting sensors limits       �[160G 
   � [154G[ OK ]
Unable to start guarddog firewall - /etc/rc.firewall does not exist
speech-dispatcher disabled; edit /etc/default/speech-dispatcher
 * Starting Mail Transport Agent (MTA) sendmail       �[160G  

i had installed guard dog but this message is keeping me confused?Metallicmania (talk) 11:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC) in a ubuntu OS is it serious? or some random stuff?Metallicmania (talk) 16:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The important thing the message tells you is that the guarddog firewall is not being started because a configuration file that it needs (a file called rc.firewall in the directory /etc) is not present. Looie496 (talk) 21:33, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Natural Language Programming

Is programming gradually moving towards a more intuitive interface (it seems like it has historically with the progression FORTRAN-->BASIC-->C-->PERL-->VB (seperate debate, I know)) and will we eventually get to the point where you could type build a program to do x, y and z and the computer could compile an effective program? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 12:27, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Natural language is too vague to express complex technical concepts with sufficient accuracy. This problem isn't confined to computer technology, and has nothing to do with a computer being on the receiving end of a communication. When one human mathematician wants to speak to her peers, she writes a mathematical discourse using a complex set of symbols and words; her meaning just can't be conveyed in everyday language, no matter how smart she and her interlocutors are. When an electrical engineer wishes to communicate how an electrical circuit works, she draws a circuit diagram, another complex language that's unintelligible to anyone except other electrical engineers. So it is with chemists, astronomers, molecular biologists, information theorists, and the makers of springs. Computer programs are the specialised language for describing computation; even if computers were still rooms full of people, you couldn't tell them what to do just with a paragraph of ordinary English. There's nothing "intuitive" about how a string of nucleotides is written, how an echo-canceller circuit is drawn, how the Riemann Hypothesis is described, and there definitely nothing intuitive about Visual Basic programs. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Computer! Develop an Algorithm! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you there, ultimately technical concepts can be explained in a natural language because that is how they are taught in the first place. Sure it might not be the most efficient way to present a concept but it's always possible. For example we have an article using thousands of english words to explain E=MC^2. It may take a lot more space but the info is there. It doesn't matter how complicated the program is - you can ultimately explain the variables and operations in english and the computer can run it. It's all computable it's just a matter of efficiency. TheFutureAwaits (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It's possible to go the COBOL route and write ADD ONE TO X GIVING X instead of x += 1 (disclaimer: that might not be real COBOL code), but I don't think that extremely more verbose is what you want (and being extra verbose doesn't do anything about the AI-complete problem of understanding English sentences). "Sort a list" is shorter than a written-out algorithm to sort a list, but that's because the English is ambiguous. Is it going to be a stable sort? A sort that performs really well on almost-sorted lists? Should the list be sorted-in place? What key should the list be sorted by? Part of the art of writing programs is expressing oneself clearly in a programming language, but another, larger, part is making all these decisions in the first place in a way that keeps the complexity of the problem under control. Most of the time, making the wrong decision doesn't mean a broken program, it's just the difference between making the rest of the program ugly and hackish or not. Paul (Stansifer) 19:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You've drawn a "progressive" line that actually makes no sense. C isn't more "natural language" than BASIC at all, Perl doesn't lead to VB, etc., and in any case, unless I'm mistaken, C and its variants are still used for far more "serious" programming than is VB or Perl. It's not a case of language "evolution" like you're showing — there are different languages that are developed often for different tasks, and work better for different situations. (Note as well that VB.NET vs. VB6 was actually a decrease in the natural language aspect.) When I'm mocking up something quick that doesn't have to be clever, a language that has lots of pre-defined functions in it (like PHP) can be great. But if I were trying to make something that was extremely memory efficient or compatible with multiple systems or took advantage of very specific hardware configurations, I'd probably want something more powerful (and less language-like) to do it. This is why when we draw evolutionary trees, they usually are not linear. OCTOPUS-->FISH-->REPTILE-->HUMAN is equally ridiculous; different types of critters evolve, simultaneously, for different niches. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

One better way to phrase what you are trying to express is that our definitions of low-level languages and high-level languages have shifted over time. C was once considered to be "high-level" (lots of abstraction), when compared to something like Assembly language. Today it is considered fairly "low-level" when compared to things like Perl or PHP or VB or whatever. Even in its time, Assembly is "high-level" when compared to machine code. There are, as the article on high-level language points out, some trade-offs between using higher and lower level languages. I think though that one could say that as hardware becomes more powerful, we require a lot less of the low-level programming to get basic things done, and can specialize almost entirely in high-level programming as a result. That's an entirely different axis to be thinking about this, though, than natural language. I don't think the latter will be terribly popular, and the trends are against it. What programmers like are well-structured, intuitive languages. Natural language is not well-structured and it is not logically intuitive (even native speakers are constantly making errors and using irregular grammar and trying to figure out what other native speakers are trying to say!). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes but a person is able to figure out the meaning through context and followup questions. I see no reason why a computer could not do the same? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

A person is sometimes able to figure out the meaning via context. Computer programs are sets of instructions: they must be completely unambiguous so that there can be no question about intent. Consider communication between two humans in technical areas where ambiguity is unacceptable, such as between a pilot and a control-tower. The language used is not ambiguous; the tower never says "Go ahead and land soon on the longer runway." (When is "soon"? Which runway is longer?) Instead, technical, unambiguous, and declarative instructions are given, ("Aircraft #1, land on Runway 31 at 12:24"). There is no room for question about intent. Computer programming is similar: we are giving instructions to computers, not speaking conversationally. So we need a language that allow concise delivery of instructions. The grammar is straightforward and usually involves subject verb object statements. There is no need for lyrical flourishes in computer programming. Nimur (talk) 16:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to emphasize the example: There are actually strict rules about the language use by ATC controllers and pilots. There may be some chit-chat in low-stress situations, but the actual instructions and replies are very much in a standardized and quite limited subset of English. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Online song editing

Hi,

I really like picnik, the online image editor. You can edit an image from your computer without having to jump through any hoops, like downloading software, registering, etc. Do you know of something like this for editing songs? I have a song on iTunes that I'd like to edit out the middle section for when I play it at a party. I've done lots of editing in the past but I no longer have the software. I just want to do an easy snip. Any suggestions? 71.72.151.162 (talk) 13:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Audacity is the usual suggestion for this sort of thing. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but that appears to be a program that you have to download, which is not what I'm asking about. I'm hoping to find an online editor. (I'd rather not download because I'm not at my own computer now.) 71.72.151.162 (talk) 13:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not entirely sure how you're going to upload a song from iTunes if you're not on your own computer? Anyway Tubechop does the sort of thing you're looking for with Youtube videos, I don't know of a comparable thing for music/iTunes, but it's likely the song you want is on Youtube and you could edit out of that perhaps if you can't find anything better... --jjron (talk) 14:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

http://www.audioexpert.com/ or http://aviary.com/online/audio-editor --Umar1996 (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Those are nice, though the first requires registration for using and the second requires registration for saving. There may not be a audio version of picnik after all. Thanks for your responses everyone! 71.72.151.162 (talk) 00:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

rss

I am using Windows. I would like an rss program that could download the linked articles (.html files and images) that are listed in an rss feed. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.176.96.178 (talk) 13:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

check out http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/News-Newsgroups-Blog-Tools/Daily-RSS-Download.shtml . i hope it fits your needs. --Umar1996 (talk) 14:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

audioboard

whar's the difference between the mic in and the line in? t.i.a. --217.194.34.103 (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Probably they expect different Line_levels, and the mic (probably) uses a Pre-amp. Sorry for the vagueness; clarification will show up soon :) --SemanticMantis (talk) 14:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

If my memory serves me right, the mic in is mono. I assure you the line in is stereo. Oda Mari (talk) 14:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It might vary; my mic input is stereo. Sound card doesn't mention any difference, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Aside from the possible pre-amp on the mic, I don't think you'll find a big difference between the two. It's just a way to have more than one audio input. Indeterminate (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? At least mine is mono. See TRS connector#Uses, TRS connector#Computer sound and the section below. Oda Mari (talk) 15:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

A standard Mic-In input is 600ohm/2.5mv. A standard Line-In input is 75ohm/150mv. Both can be stereo or mono. If you mismatch ohms or voltage, you will get substandard sound quality. -- kainaw™ 14:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

installation help

im tryin to install capitalist (a game) in my lappie .the instructions say "cd' to the directory containing the package's source code and type

    `./configure' 

to configure the package for your system." what does that mean ? what should i do to install the game? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metallicmania (talk • contribs) 18:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Something like:

    cd /home/metallicmania/placewithgamesource
    ./configure
    make

and then you run the game

    ./thegamesname

and if you're super-happy that it's okay, you generally make it available to everyone with

    sudo make install

But are you confident that the game isn't already available via the package-distribution system (Ubuntu Software Centre or Synaptic, on Ubuntu)? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say step one is to check if the user is on a UNIX-like OS supported by the game. Assuming that the package has already been downloaded and unpacked, the next recommended steps after the cd would be more README and probably more INSTALL ;-). Assuming the game is Kapitalist, it apparently requires KDE/Qt 3.X libraries. If it is in any distributions standard repositories, installing it via RPM/YUM or APT/Synaptic will be much easier than manual installation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

i run ubuntu .i couldnt understand how to execute ur instructions @finlay mcwalter im a n00b so could u simplify it?Metallicmania (talk) 04:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

i have some ubuntu experience. you run these commands by opening root terminal( alt+F2 look for terminal), typing in the commands one by one and pressing enter. --Umar1996 (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

How does Omegle work

I'm not a programmer, so this might be difficult for me to understand, but can someone explain how those random chat sites like omegle and chat roulette work? When I log into one, I'm I assigned a number that gets randomly paired with other numbers or what? Thanks : ]  ?EVAUNIT^{神になった人間} 21:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The server has a list of everyone signed in and who each person is chatting with (or if they are not chatting with anyone). When you sign in, you are assigned a random person from the list of people who are not chatting with anyone. There is nothing particularly complex about it. -- kainaw™ 21:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Assuming that people are immediately eligible again once their session ends, why would there ever be more than one person not chatting? --Tardis (talk) 21:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Latency. It is possible to have more people go into the site than the site can pair up at any given moment. However, if I were to do it, I'd just use a FIFO queue. Pair up the next two in the queue and then pair up the next two and the next two, etc... No random calculations needed. -- kainaw™ 12:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, the pairing of people up is the easiest aspect from a programming point of view. Every user that logs in gets put into a quick database. Any user not yet connected with another is assigned a user who is also not yet connected. They are connected. When they are done, the process repeats. This is easy. What is harder from a programming standpoint is facilitating the actual connections, making sure that the messages are properly relayed, detecting when someone has stopped connecting (e.g. closed their browser window), etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That's about right. Both sites act as a finder-service (they find someone for you to correspond with). Once the connections are established, it seems the traffic between you and the other party flows directly, rather than being intermediated by Omegle/Chatroulette (the Chatroulette article says that this is the case for it, and this ServerFault article claims that the same is true for Omegle, gives some info about the underlying technology). To my mind these "stranger chat" sites are missing a big opportunity: I really don't understand why people would want to just chat to some random stranger, but if you could limit the chat to someone who registers interests in the same kind of stuff that you're interested in (Pokemon, aeroplanes, Cambodian gangster movies, whatever) then that actually sounds (vaguely) worthwhile. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

There have always been specific interest chat sites. The entire point of these sites is that they are random. People like them because it's a goofy, totally-non-committal place where the results will be unpredictable. There is always someone to chat with (unlike your hypothetical site, which may not have enough lovers of Cambodian gangster movies to have more than a couple die-hards on there), and there is a "dangerous" element of not knowing who (or what) you'll be chatting with. I don't think it's a lost opportunity at all — it's actually a very clever idea in and of itself, to provide "random" encounters of this sort, rather than the traditional encounters one expects in like-minded communities. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)