Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 March 15

= March 15 =

Modelling software
Hi,

I'm looking for some software to do basic modelling of intracellular processes. This is exactly what I want, but it crashes and the functions don't work, so I'm hoping there's something else out there you can point me too. I'd like to be able to define objects (maybe 10), and define interactions between these objects which occur if they happen to react with each other, generating new objects, which can then interact with more objects. Can anyone help?

Cheers

Aaadddaaammm (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds a lot like Conway's Game of Life. You might want to search for versions of that.


 * Also, what are your exact requirements. Do you need an animation as output ?  If so, would ASCII text be OK, or do you need actual graphics ?  What type of interactions would be allowed ?  For example: one kills the other, one eats the other (then splits in two), both kill each other, they bind together, they bounce off each other, or they reproduce to make a third ?  Also, what happens if three or more meet, and what does one alone do (change direction, grow and reproduce, change into a different type, die of old age, etc.) ?  And how big should the grid be (and is it 2D or 3D) ?  StuRat (talk) 04:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Um, Game of Life is about cellular automata. This has nothing to do with real-life, biological intracellular processes. I think the OP is pretty clear about what he wants the software to do — model actual biological processes. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Did you read the link he provided ? That seems a lot like the Game of Life, particularly that bit about each object moving "North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West and Northwest".  That doesn't sound like real biology.  Either does defining 10 objects.  You'd want thousands, at the least, to simulate a real system, and they'd need to move in 3D, along any vector, not just the 8 compass directions in a plane. StuRat (talk) 14:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks guys, you're right the thing I'm after is similar to the Game of Life, although more complex. GoL has only 2 states for each position - I'm looking for something with up to 10 states, and these states interact differently with each other. Specifically, I'd like A+B->A+B+C, and D+E->D. And in terms of output, I'm pretty flexible - graphical, data on component concentration vs time, whatever. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 01:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds simple enough to write, if you can't find one already out there. To clarify, is this what you mean ?


 * "A+B -> A+B+C" means when A and B are on adjacent grid squares, they reproduce, producing C on a third square adjacent to both A and B.


 * "D+E -> D" means when D is on an adjacent square to E, D kills E.


 * 1) What are the other rules ?


 * 2) How many total organisms, of all 10 types, are allowed ?


 * 3) What's the maximum grid size ?


 * 4) Do you want organisms which hit the edge of the grid to disappear, bounce off, or wrap to the opposite edge ?


 * 5) Do organisms only move 1 grid space per turn, in one of the 8 random compass directions, or can they move at variable speeds ?


 * 6) Can a maximum of one organism occupy a given grid square at a time ? StuRat (talk) 03:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Try Golly (program). It comes with several cellular automatons preprogrammed, and allows basically arbitrary customisation with several ways of specifying the transition function. Golly supports automata with up to 256 states. Careful, though - it's easy to get lost exploring the Game of Live Lexicon included with it ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Difficulty signing posts
Please be gentle. I can't work out why my posts show as "— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hayttom (talk • contribs)". I'm logged in. I conclude with four tildes. What am I doing wrongly? Your Username 12:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hayttom (talk • contribs)


 * It looks like you have messed up your signature in your user preferences (see Preferences link at the top of any page) so it no longer points to your page. Also help type questions like this should go to one of the help pages, see help in the left column - in particular WP:Help desk. Dmcq (talk) 12:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for both points. Hayttom 13:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Firefox redirecting despite two options set not to
I was fiddling around trying to view source for and get immediately redirected to  despite having current Firefox advanced option "warn me when websites try to redirect or reload..." and having NoScript set to block meta redirects on untrusted sites. What trick are they using?

Extra credit: This particular newspaper seems to have gotten extremely aggressive about trying to get people to run their crummy scripts, and I'd welcome if someone chased down the "real" URL for this example that contains the actual text in its HTML source. (Mostly I want to know how to do it myself though) Wnt (talk) 16:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * There is no source for the first URL: the server sends an HTTP 301 "moved permanently" response containing the second URL. So the browser is doing the only thing it can. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:39, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Doesn't this defeat the whole point of these options, which I thought was to warn you before you got sent to some site you don't trust? Wnt (talk) 18:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * A "meta redirect" is a &lt;meta&gt; tag within the HTML source. Judging by the name of the NoScript option, it only blocks those. The Firefox option you set also only blocks those. The redirect you got came directly from the web server, not from a &lt;meta&gt; tag. I don't know why the options are set up that way, but it may be because anyone who can manipulate the web server responses can deliver arbitrary data to you anyway from the original URL, so blocking redirects wouldn't help. -- BenRG (talk) 19:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * noscript selectively blocks JavaScript, Java, and Flash. They can cause a pseudo-redirect by change the DOM property window.location. As these aren't used in this case, this extension doesn't apply here either. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 01:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Re your extra credit: The second link you provided (the address after redirection) does contain the text of the short four-paragraph article in its source, but not the text of the comments.


 * If you wanted the text of the article, it is indeed in the source. In addition, you can also go to the printable version (click the Print link which adds ?print=1 to the end of the address). This reduces the page to the article text and nothing else, which will make it much easier to see the article text in the source.


 * If you wanted the source of the comments, I found them at the following address: http://echoapi.wpdigital.net/v1/search? &#91;...long parameter list&#93;, but the content isn't HTML, I believe it's JSON data.


 * To find this address, I started a small proxy server utility on my computer and turned on my browser's proxy setting to point to the proxy server. I cleared the browser cache (to ensure the browser had to reload everything), started the proxy server's log, the reloaded the page in the browser. From the proxy server log, I assembled every address the browser requested. Then I looked through the addresses and visited a few interesting ones until I found where the comments were loaded from.


 * Can you explain more about why you wanted to "chase down the real URL that contains the actual text in its HTML source"? I can't tell if my information above is helpful for what you wanted to do. --Bavi H (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Taking a UK phone to NZ
I wanted some unbiased advice! I have a mobile phone in the UK on the ‘3’ network. I would like to take the phone to New Zealand with me later this year. If I have the phone unlocked, will a SIM card bought in NZ work or will I have to set up ‘international roaming’ beforehand? I would ask customer services but I suspect they’ll tell me to do the most expensive option! Thanks a lot to anyone who can help! RichYPE (talk) 16:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

For the record, this is the SIM I am considering buying http://www.0044.co.uk/new-zealand/sim-card.htm

Once again thanks to anyone who can help! RichYPE (talk) 17:17, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You seem to be getting mixed up. 'Roaming' is what happens when you take your UK SIM abroad with you. If you are using an NZ SIM you will be treated as a domestic NZ user, and charged whatever price the network whose SIM you are using decide. There would be no roaming involved.
 * Whilst the SIM you linked to should work fine, it seems a tad expensive at £19.99 with only $1 credit - a $20 NZ SIM would give you $20 credit. Personally, I would suggest waiting until you are in New Zealand and buying a $20 prepay (pay-as-you-go) SIM there, although you might want to research beforehand which plan is best for you, especially if you are planning on making calls back to the UK. A very brief Google search showed me three operators you might want to check out: Vodafone, 2degrees and TelecomNZ.
 * However, DO make sure your phone is unlocked first, otherwise you won't be able to use any SIM other than your current one. Best thing to do is find a friend (in the UK) on another network and borrow their SIM. If you can make a call using it, your phone is unlocked. If you can't, take it down to one of those dodgy so-and-sos on the market and get it done for a tenner. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:26, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * How long will you be visiting NZ ? One option is to bring your cell phone with you, but don't use it there, except for looking up phone numbers, etc.  Instead, buy a local, basic prepaid cell phone when you arrive, and use that during your stay.  I can't say what those cost in NZ, but here in Detroit that would cost about US$20 for 30 days/180 minutes.  That sounds a lot easier and less risky than messing with SIM cards, to me. StuRat (talk) 08:43, 16 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you overstate the 'risk' and 'difficulty' of 'messing' around with SIM cards unless you're ultra incompetent or have some very weird phone. Even with the nano SIMs, you have to be very careless to damage the SIM card. In any case, shops specialising in phones also normally sell SIMs and often help you change the SIM if you ask, even if you didn't buy the phone from them. So the only likely risk if the OP screws up and thinks their phone is unlocked and it's not. But that's not really a risk here since the OP could likely either get the phone unlocked in NZ or buy a phone in NZ if they find out it's a problem. Since the OP will have to bring the SIM card with them (but most people do that anyway so they have access when they arrive back in the airport their home country), there is some small risk of loss of the SIM card if the OP is careless, but then again there's also risk of loss of either phone if they bring two phones (and juggling two phones will likely increase the risk over one). The SIM card is a lot smaller then a phone which means in some ways it's easier to lose but in some ways it's hard. In particular the small size, combined with the fact once they take it out they won't need it until leaving again, they should be able to stick it somewhere safe (compared to a second phone they want to have regular access). The only other real 'risk' is what happens when inside the phone when they change SIM. If contacts or SMSes are stored on the SIM, these will not be available, but will not be lost (and with most phones it's trivial to copy contacts from SIM to phone). SMSes may be more tricky but most modern phones even cheap ones store them on the phone, unless perhaps they run of storage and the SIM card can generally only store 20 or so SMSes anyway. Some smart phones may loss stored accounts if you change the SIM, so you will have to reenter passwords, possibly even if you don't do anything and change back, but if you've forgotten your passwords you likely have bigger problems anyway. If the OP wants to stay in reasonably regular contact with a whole bunch of people from the UK by SMS, having to mess around with two phones for contacts is probably not going to be easier and in particular, if the OP has a smart phone they may find a cheap phone extremely limiting, in terms of functionality, SMSing, etc. Note in particular if the OP wants to use data while here, while data prices are high compared to many other countries, wifi availability is even worse. Even in Auckland, it can be quite hard to find free wifi (coffee shops and other places, when they have it, often use commercial services and don't always even offer free access to customers). Hotels in particular often charge even for guests and for many places which charge, their prices often make mobile data attractive. (McDonalds is probably the largest free wifi provider here.) So if they do want to use the internet from somewhere other then a friend/relative's house and have a smart phone, either using the smart phone or wifi/USB tethering if it's supported by their phone (or using a 3G USB or similar device) would likely be a smarter idea then trying to rely on wifi. P.S. The cheapest phone here is probably around NZD20-30 with the SIM card being extra as mentioned in Cucumber Mike's post. Nil Einne (talk) 18:10, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * When it comes to picking the right locally bought SIM card to put in your unlocked phone, many companies can provide a special "international pre-pay" SIM card with preferential rates to some countries. When in Europe, I get good rates back to the UK from my locally bought international pre-pay SIM, as well as good rates to in-country numbers as well, much cheaper then the roaming fees if I stuck with my UK SIM card.  Do some research on phone tarrifs before you go, then seek out their shop when you arrive - they'll probably have a shop at the airport.  Astronaut (talk) 18:05, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Are there ways to make my browser automatically redirect a page?
For example, every time I go on the wikipedia.org page, make my browser automatically redirect to en.wikipedia.org. (I know I can just type 'en.' instead, but this is just an example). Kinkreet ~&#9829;moshi moshi&#9829;~ 18:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * What browser are you using? You can set up a keyword in Firefox, for example.  So if you want to go to yahoo.com, you would set up a keyword for a bookmark of the Yahoo home page. The keyword would simply be yahoo and you wouldn't have to type the .com part.  Or, using your example, you could use www.wikipedia.org as the keyword and it would go to en.  This depends on you setting up several keywords for each bookmark though.  Dismas |(talk) 18:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to record TV with the Elgato Game Capture HD device?
This device is usually used for recording Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 gameplay, but I was wondering if I could use it to record HD television. Nicholasprado (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Without finding a reference I can't say for definite, but I'm going for an almost-certain 'No, you can't use it to record HD television'. The box has an HDMI input, but cannot decrypt HDCP - thus it can take the input from an XBox, but not from a cable decoder or similar. It apparently also has an S-Video port, so if you have a decoder with such an output, you could use that, but it won't be HD. If you only have HDMI-out on your device, but would like to use the S-Video port, you can get an HDMI S-Video converter, but they are expensive and you still won't get an HD signal. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Having said that, I just found this. So, if you can find something to do the decoding for you (an Apple TV in this case) then you can do what you're asking. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Smartphone app notifications
If you log out of an app like facebook on a smartphone, will it still give you alerts and notifications like if you leave it logged in? Clover345 (talk) 19:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Mine doesn't (Samsung Galaxy Y GT-S5360). It might depend on your phone, phone's OS, or the settings of the app itself. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Displaying only a specific string in a NET VIEW
In an attempt to view the list of printers from a server I remember one of my colleagues using NET VIEW and a specific command that only listed that strings he asked for. The command was something like " net view \\(server) find:"##" ", but now when I try it, it doesn't work. Unfortunately, said colleague is not present thus I can't ask him. Can anyone help? -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:39, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You were almost there - if you put a pipe character between the net command, and the find command like this:

net view \\computername | find "string to search for"
 * you may also wish to add a " /i" after the "find" to make the search case-insensitive. Cheers, d avid p rior  t/c 22:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It worked! Thank you so much! -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)