Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 April 20

= April 20 =

Cloud storage
Will cloud storage replace USB sticks? Clover345 (talk) 16:14, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Not unless there is a way to guarantee to always be online when the data is needed. Looie496 (talk) 16:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Also there's the issue of it possibly going away in the cloud, if the company goes bankrupt or you don't access it often enough, etc. Then there's the question of how private such data is.  I sure wouldn't want to have account numbers and such there.  And there may also be a question of ownership.  The fine print might well say if it's on their server, then they own it.  StuRat (talk) 18:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

BCD to decimal
I'm trying to make a clock on an Arduino Uno. I have a real time clock where I'm getting data from. Page 11 of the datasheet has the table of values such as seconds, minutes, hours, etc. I'm having trouble with the BCD to decimal conversion though. In my fumblings, I've been able to get the date set on the RTC. The time was set at one point but is now several hours off.

So, I'm trying to display this on an LCD. The time displays fine. Well, I think it does. I haven't watched it for a full 24 hours but I've seen the hours/minutes/seconds tick over like they should during a day. So far I haven't seen anything unusual like more than 60 minutes in an hour. I'm having trouble with the date though. I can't get the numbers to display correctly. For instance, the clock shows that we're on the 25th day of the 16th month. So, here's what I have for the time:

And here is what I have for the date:

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong with the conversion? There's obviously something that I'm not getting. Thanks, Dismas |(talk) 16:55, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you're reading the right registers? You forgot to multiply by 10 in the expressions for date, month, and year, but I don't see how that could give you the output you're seeing. Looie496 (talk) 17:24, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I was being dim.  That got it.  Dismas |(talk) 20:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Cyborg-vs-stronger-computer chess
Our article Advanced chess deals with computer-assisted humans playing against other computer-assisted humans. Have any organized matches occurred where a human and a weaker computer face a stronger computer opponent that has no human help? To what extent can the human provide an advantage? Neon Merlin  19:03, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Wasn't this question just asked and answered ? StuRat (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Right here. --Yellow1996 (talk) 18:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * So Neon, how did you come to think of this identical Q so soon after somebody else asked it ? Was this the theme from some recent TV episode or movie ? StuRat (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It was inspired by this Forbes article's claim that "computers don't play 'human-level' chess" (I'd initially agreed with the Anissimov quote). Neon  Merlin  16:45, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I see. The person who posted the previous Q on this must have read the same article. StuRat (talk) 21:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Also worth noting: the archived question doesn't say anything about the human's presence being able to compensate for a hardware handicap. I see it as an interesting extension of the idea of heterogeneous computing. Neon  Merlin  00:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)