Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 November 25

= November 25 =

User interfaces for stock trading?
I'm trying to find an article I read online a while back - maybe two or three years ago - that discussed the user interface design of the terminals that financial professionals (stock traders etc) use. The article (probably from some blog) talked about how these user interfaces are very poorly designed, but that these professionals take pride in understanding and being able to use these unnecessarily complex systems, so any attempts at redesigned or improved systems have been met with disinterest.

I've tried to search for this article, but have not been able to find anything. I realize the chance that you have read it is fairly slim - what could help me find it though, is if anyone knows the name of these systems? This page has some examples of the kinds of systems I'm talking about. Thank you. Obiha (talk) 09:45, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps start at electronic trading platform. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:30, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Help retrieving a deleted fanfiction
Hey, my little sister likes to read fanfictions on fanfiction.net, and she came to me crying a while ago. Apparently she'd read "a really, really, good Land Before Time" fanfiction called 'Two from the past' a long time ago. She'd really, really liked it, and recently went back to read it again to find it'd been deleted. She wants me to try and get it back for her.

A google search found that she's probably talking about this one: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=LfE&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=X&ei=3GzPTtO4MoPY2gWJm4nQDw&ved=0CCAQvwUoAQ&q=%22two+from+the+past%22+land+before+time&spell=1&biw=1366&bih=671 It's too far back for Google Cache to find, at least when I tried.

Is there any other way to retrieve the content of the story? 68.111.165.176 (talk) 10:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you tried the Wayback Machine?--Shantavira|feed me 12:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The site's robots.txt file excludes archiving, so it isn't on there. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Could you email the person that wrote it, asking them to put it back or send you a copy? A long shot, but it might work. 148.197.81.179 (talk) 16:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * For clarification, the robots.txt file on fanfiction.net specifically excludes the Wayback Machine archiver (ia_archiver). There's no way in general to exclude archiving while allowing indexing via the robots.txt file itself AFAIK. However you can use a meta element on a page by page basis . From what I can tell having checked a specific story and the main page, fanfiction.net use the noarchive tag on all their pages, so they do forbid archiving throughout as well. Most bots which archive including Google, Bing & Webcitation do respect the robot meta tag. So unless you can find some fanfiction.net archive site, likely one which uses a bot which ignores normal convention and archives the site anyway yet hasn't been blocked; there's not much chance of finding a generic cached or archived copy of the story.
 * It sounds like the OP or their sister has already attempted to get in contact with the story writers via fanfiction.net without reply, possibly because the person simply hasn't checked their messages. Since the OP or their sister apparently used a third party I would recommend the OP create an account on fanfiction.net and make the contact themselves, not because I doubt the third party but simply because it's another line of communication that could fall down. Particularly if it takes a few months to hear from the authors.
 * But other then hoping the authors do eventual get in contact from the website, the only other real options I can think of are 1) Find some other contact for the authors, although from the limited info provided on the site, I don't know if you have much chance. 2) Find someone who has read the story and kept a personal copy. From one of the search results, it looks like Phoenix710 reviewed that specific story so an obvious person to ask. Other then that you could look for people who have reviewed a number of Land Before Time stories on fanfiction.net from different authors, but you're starting to get in to extreme long shot territory.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 13:08, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Wget with proxies
Hi,

I'm using Wget 1.11.4 on Windows XP and, whereas I have no trouble (by calling wget with a URL as the unique argument) fetching files from the local intranet, it's impossible to get files from the WWW. So I looked in the Internet Explorer parameters (IE works fine with all URLs) and I found a link to a .pac file, which in turn gave me a proxy address and port number. So I typed:

C:\>set HTTP_PROXY = the_proxy_address:port_number (or http://the_proxy_address:port_number

or https://the_proxy_address:port_number)

C:\>set PROXY = on

(the .wgetrc file contains nothing but commented out lines) But when I then call wget, I get nothing but "Connexion timed out" (even if I add "--proxy = on" to the command line and replace the User Agent description with -U), so I'm wondering what could be wrong. Also, I'd like to know if it's normal if, even with the --debug option, wget tells me it's trying to connect to the specified URL but never says it's connecting to the proxy first.

Thanks. Apokrif (talk) 11:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * In my info file it says the environment variables are lower case: http_proxy=url, also do you need authentication at your proxy? proxy_user and proxy_password will do this. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:18, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I tried both upper- and lower-case. I think that if the proxy needed authentication, I would see it somewhere in IE settings or in the .pac file? (I found nothing). Apokrif (talk) 12:35, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

recording sounds
I want to have a microphone on my computer record sounds from my room, however, having gotten such a microphone and plugged it in, nothing happened. How do I set it up and open the program that tells it to start recording? The instruction book only tells me how to plug it in.

148.197.81.179 (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Try Audacity. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, that works now, thanks. Just such a shame it's so quiet, and then buzzes when I turn the volume up enough. Still, guess I can't have everything perfect. 148.197.81.179 (talk) 17:07, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * 1) Assuming it's an ordinary unpowered microphone, make sure the microphone is in connected to the pink microphone socket not the green line-in socket. 2)  In the operating system's audio control panel / mixer, make sure to turn the level of the MIC port up. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

You can remove some of the "noise" in Audacity later. Avoiding it in the first place would require more expensive hardware, and isolation from other sound sources (including, usually, those generated by a running computer). ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I tried the noise remover on the program before, when recording on my camera, which was even worse, but it removed almost all the sounds, leaving just a high pitched whistling in the loudest parts. I shall try the other suggestions, though, and also try moving the microphone a little closer to the source of the sounds, or perhaps the other way around. 148.197.81.179 (talk) 21:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you tried using the noise remover in Audacity that you have to supply with a few seconds of background noise so it knows what to remove? I can't say anything concrete now, since this computer doesn't have Audacity installed, but you may find Spoken Wikipedia project's recording guidelines to be of assistance. ~ Alison C. (Crazytales) 17:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Projected cloud-computing costs
If present exponential trends in cost-effectiveness continue, what will be the annual cost in 2060 (in today's US$) of a cloud-computing system with the following specs? Processing, 30 exaflops, all GPGPU; data storage, 2150 bits with 2136 bit/s throughput, solid state, and with the standard replication level for critical life-support-equivalent data; Internet bandwidth, 10 Gbit/s fiber optic. (In case anyone's wondering, this is my personal retirement plan -- and yes, I know it doesn't include the upfront cost of digitization.) Neon  Merlin  17:18, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Seriously? There is no way we can even begin to reliably answer this question... --Ouro (blah blah) 19:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

For starters you could consider Moore's law. Cloud computing costs will probably be the cheapest eventually, as they require less work per client I would say. I'm not sure solid state as we know it will endure that long... remember only 30 years ago a portable tape cassette player was new, you're talking about 50 years from now. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Assuming Moore's Law type progressions, 30 Exaflops is probably achievable in 50 years (only 3000 times today's fastest supercomputer), but 2150 bits is 1022 times the world's entire storage capacity today. Such a large data storage array would not be expected to exist at any price in 2060 unless storage capacities progress much faster than Moore's Law predicts. Dragons flight (talk) 20:09, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

internet translation
Just wondering, can anyone here translate for me either of these two messages I received recently:

^^ ;-)

OLOOOL'd

I tried running them through my online translator, but nothing.

148.197.81.179 (talk) 20:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * 1) I agree with the preceding and/or it makes me smile and/or wink
 * 2) I am out loud laughing out out out loud or at least I just did
 * ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:59, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The ^^ emoticon is supposed to be two anime-style eyes closed as if you were smiling.


 * http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=%5E%5E

82.1.124.153 (talk) 11:56, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

High Gain Wireless USB Adapters
Those which look like a pen-drive with an antenna. Do they work much better than, say, the 'normal' laptop embedded wifi? 88.9.214.242 (talk) 22:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You'd probably get a slight improvement. Probably a good idea to get one where the antenna can be removed and be replaced by a more sensitive one if possible. Most laptops I've seen inside had an antenna connected to the internal wireless card that ran round the back of the screen, which added up to a reasonable length. It is often possible to disconnect the internal connection and jerry rig up an external antenna connection, like you see on most wireless PCI cards. Nevard (talk) 03:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)