Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 February 16

= February 16 =

Who made the first Wikipedia edit, "This is the new WikiPedia!" under the name of office.bomis.com?
Tim Starling found old WikiPedia edits, including the first one, "This is the new WikiPedia!", which was made by office.bomis.com. Larry Sanger said that initially it was himself, Jimmy Wales, and Tim Shell who got Wikipedia started. Who's the most likely person to have typed "This is the new WikiPedia!" under the name of office.bomis.com? Icemerang (talk) 14:30, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know the answer, but you could try asking it on User talk:Jimbo Wales. Some people find it surprising that you can ask questions of Jimbo directly and actually get an answer!  But he definitely reads his own talk page and quite often answers these kinds of question, and if anyone remembers the answer, it's probably him. SteveBaker (talk) 15:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You can read about the History of Wikipedia where the Hello, world edit by Jimbo is said to be the first edit. Rmhermen (talk) 18:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "This is the new WikiPedia" is called the oldest surviving edit (early software did not perfectly preserve article histories). See Wikipedia_talk:UuU. Rmhermen (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Help writing a hacker character who is realistic
One of my four characters is a hacker. I'm not a hacker and I want to avoid the Hollywood problem where they behave nothing like a real hacker. I understand that real hacking involves a lot of patience and isn't like the "race against the clock gotta type fast" in movies. Nor do they "hack websites" as a website is more akin to a poster than a database (at least according to XKCD.) So how can I portray this character accurately? Please note I'm not asking for help with real life hacking, I'm not going to use this information to engage in real hacking, nor is my goal to educate my readers in how to hack. I just want to write realistically.

Note that a lot of it I plan to mention simply through dialogue, I.e. "Excuse me? I'd like to see YOU < > without < >, hotshot!" So the exact type of hacking (I'm sure there are many) isn't that important. Its more of a backstory and anecdotes thing. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 16:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It's the same problem you'd have if you were writing a police procedural, or a forensic-science thing, or something in the world of horse racing or art auctions or stevedores or whatever. If you want a character to behave like a real expert in that field would (and not, as you say, like a silly Hollywood collection of stereotypes and nonsense) they're going to behave in a complex way that's specific to the circumstance. If you don't have skills in that field, your choices are either to find yourself a domain expert who will confidentially consult, or simply don't have a character who you don't understand (i.e. write what you know).  It's pretty clear to me that Steig Larsson found himself a consultant for the hacky parts of Liesbet Salander, as they're fairly reasonable; specifically he doesn't go into too much detail as to the how, so he doesn't come unstuck on the details. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 17:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * If you want a feel for the interplay between intruder and defender, you could do worse than read The Cuckoo's Egg or (although it's rather technical) "An evening with Berferd". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 17:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * RE: "Excuse me? I'd like to see YOU < > without < >, hotshot!". Lower level hackers don't write their own hacking programs, but rather just adapt "off-the-shelf" hacks, written by others, to their own use.  This sounds like just what you might be looking for in that quote.  Others can give you the precise terminology for those off-the-shelf hacks. StuRat (talk) 17:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Script kiddie. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 17:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that's the term I was looking for. A hacker can insult another by calling him that. StuRat (talk) 18:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * These days there's more of a separation of responsibilities than there used to be, so it's quite reasonable for a professional computer crime organisation to be buying complete exploits off the (black market) shelf (ref) and rent time on someone else's botnet (ref). -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 19:10, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Kevin Mitnick has an autobiography or two you might want to look into. A lot of his hacking wasn't even done at a computer.  It was typically stuff like going through an office's garbage to get some employee name and phone numbers, using those to make a few more phone calls (alternating between pretending to a prospective customer, a new employee, or other role with each call).  Now a days, it'd probably be emails from a disposable address instead of phone calls, after checking employee social media profiles, but same principle.  After that, it's simply a matter of tricking someone into putting Remote desktop software on their computer that one accesses through a Proxy server if one doesn't want to engage in physical breaking-and-entering (since pretending to be a new employee is a little harder to do in person these days; though pretending to be a potential customer could possibly get one just enough time to plug a USB into the back of a computer maybe).
 * You may also want to watch this video from DEF CON 18 (and others), where a hacker how he had to hack his own computer to get it back from a burglar. In short: protection against hackers vs protection against "low-tech threats" can be almost incompatible.
 * Also, the following articles on Cracked are pretty informative:, , . The last is pretty fantastic, but still stuff that happened.  Ian.thomson (talk) 18:03, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I think much depends on how good you expect your fictional hacker to be. It's very easy to become a script kiddie - so you should easily be able to learn what they do and write a convincing depiction of that.  However, the hard-core guys who develop the original exploits would be much harder to quantify - to convey what they do convincingly would probably require you to come up with at least once convincing exploit of your own...which would probably be very difficult.  Then, at a level beyond that are the kinds of people who worked on things like Stuxnet - which required more than an individual hacker could achieve.  In many cases, fictional hackers are depicted using real hacks that are old and well-documented.   So, for example in "The Matrix Reloaded", Trinity is depicted as hacking into a super-computer that's controlling the electrical grid.  The movie shows a screenful of text - which turns out to be from the program "NMap" - which is a hacker tool that searches for open port connections - it identifies an open "ssh" port - which in reality would give her the chance to get into that computer - then she runs "sshnuke" which is fictitious - but which seems to be using a fairly well-known CRC32 hack to get past the ssh security.   So the depiction of her hack is pretty convincing - except that the, flaw in ssh that she's exploiting was fixed  two years before the movie was released...although The Matrix has "plausible reasons" for it still working in the year 2186...which is that she's hacking into a computer in a virtual world that's probably still simulating the real world as it was before 2001.


 * The point is that this depiction of a hack was "realistic". People who don't understand hacking see a bunch of very convincing (because they are real) interactions taking place on the screen - and people who DO understand hacking smile and enjoy the fact that the script writers took the trouble to "Do It Right".   Nobody could reasonably expect an accurate description of an exploit that is as yet undiscovered and unpatched.


 * So I think that Matrix Reloaded did an absolutely perfect job of depicting a somewhat formulaic attack on a relatively poorly defended computer.


 * That leads me to think that your depiction should do something similar. You could take the time to understand something like the SQL injection hack that still works well on a bunch of systems - and you should be able to write about it intelligently and fit it into your plot without too much trouble. SteveBaker (talk) 20:10, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Not being ill
I know Wikipedia is no place to ask for medical advice, but this is a question about health and medicine, not a request for advice.

I've now been almost perfectly healthy for two years running. I haven't needed to take sick days off work since February 2013. During the entire time, I've only had a slight fever due to a possible slight food poisoning (it wore off the next morning) and a slight headache at night and slight sneezing during the day, but no fever, two weeks ago. That also wore off the next day. My father claims he has been almost perfectly healthy for over half a decade.

However, I hear reports of people taking sick days off work regularly at work, particularly now when it's winter here in Finland. (A very mild winter, though.)

So my question is: Is it common to stay healthy for so long? J I P &#124; Talk 20:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know about common. Anecdotally, I'll say that I'm sick at most once a year (not counting overconsumption of vodka ), but I also take relatively good care of myself foodwise and am generally much stronger and more durable than other people around me. So it might be good genes and healthy living. I'd read some article on mayoclinic and see what they have to say. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 27 Shevat 5775 21:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * From and related to the US:


 * "Overall, 67% of adults aged 18 and over last contacted a doctor or other health professional within the previous 6 months; 15% more than 6 months ago, but not more than 1 year ago; 9% more than 1 year ago, but not more than 2 years ago; 5% more than 2 years ago, but not more than 5 years ago; and 3% last contacted a doctor or other health professional more than 5 years ago. One percent of adults had never contacted a doctor or other health professional."


 * In total, 82% of US adults saw a doctor in the previous year. However, a person might see a doctor for reasons that don't involve acute illness, such as a well-patient exam, pregnancy, or prescription refill.  Hence these figures probably overestimate the frequency of acute illness.  Dragons flight (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Common is very subjective.


 * In the US there are people willing to go to work when they have a "minor cold" which they then spread to others. There are people who will go to work with walking pneumonia.  There are also unionized workers and others who have sick/personal days which they are encouraged to take and which they lose at the end of the year; i.e., the days don't accumulate over time, as they do with other employers.


 * For example, one of the biggest companies in the US offers one to four vacation weeks (based on seniority, scheduled at the beginning of the year, and only changed with management approval) plus 15 personal days, five of which can be taken without notice, and ten of which are basically vacation days, but which don't need to be scheduled as week-long blocks. This is in addition to 10 paid holidays such as Christmas, July4th, etc.


 * I worked in the real world after high school until I went to university at almost 30. I called out sick twice over about 10 years. One time was because I strained my back when working at UPS and was told not to work for two weeks.  Because I was a probationary worker, not yet in the union, UPS fired me on the spot.  (Then, strangely, they contacted me several times to ask how I was treated, how I was doing, and why I left.)  The other was when I broke my arm at work due to employer negligence: I returned in a cast and worked as the broiler chef, who was the head of the kitchen after two weeks off recuperating from major surgery.


 * If you want real data you should look for specific studies. A look at why Americans don't even take their paid holidays can be seen here. μηδείς (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, my questions was about actual health, not about sick days off work. This is a question about medicine and health, not about work culture. Besides, the work culture in the USA is way too different to the one here in Finland for me to make any conclusions. What I'm asking here is how common is it for a person not to contract even the slighest cold in two years, never mind where that person lives or works. J I P  &#124; Talk 22:32, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I am not offended by your clarification. But I don't think there's any way you're going to get an answer on actual health, versus reported health.  My grandfathers apparently never took sick days, although one was tied to his bed for a week to overcome delirium tremens and the other was given electroshock therapy during a period of unemployment after he threw an old singer sewing machine through a wall.  Young healthy people who are happy and employed will be different from older people with issues, regardless of actual infections, cancers, or testable metabolic diseases.  Some people are hypochondriacs, who live to 90, others are workaholics who die at 50.   The best thing would be to ask a more narrowly answerable question. μηδείς (talk) 01:24, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * If we take the figures presented above - that 82% of the American population visited a doctor over a 1 year period, which we may take as a proxy for being ill enough to justify taking time off work - and apply these to Finland's population, it is easy to show that over a 2 year period about 177,000 people will be in the same position as you, and that about 1,000 people will be in the same position as your father. However, these results rely on two things being true: first, we assume that illness rates are about the same in the US as in Finland, and second, we assume that being ill in one year is not correlated with being ill in another year. There's no particular reason to suspect that the overall propensity to illness is generally different between the US and Finnish populations, though a more detailed analysis would certainly show up many specific differences at the individual level. The second assumption is almost certainly false: if someone suffers from a chronic condition, they are more likely to be ill over several years; if someone has generally good health, they are likely not to need to visit the doctor regularly. This means that there will be more people in the same position as you and your father, so the numbers calculated above will be underestimates (and probably substantial underestimates). So to answer your question in very general terms, it is likely that neither you nor your father is particularly unusual. RomanSpa (talk) 08:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you purchase Haute Couture pieces?
Haute couture clothing pieces from runway shows of top designer houses Like Gucci or Chanel have often been compared to concept cars. Generally concepts cars are not available for sale, but are these runway pieces available for sale to the general public? Acceptable (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I think for the really classy stuff you need to contact them direct. They sell them in all sorts of extravagant ways then. Several year waiting lists, having. The actual sale conducted on a yacht, etc. A family member did research in this and for that Louis Vuitton does that kind of thing with their bags. Some of them cost as much as 2 million USD. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 27 Shevat 5775 21:00, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Like many things, the answer is "it depends" - it depends on the rarity of the item, the exclusivity of the materials used, the famousness of the designer and the model who wore it, the exposure it received during its runway show, etc. As Flinders suggests, it can be possible to access some of those items from the designers themselves, but generally not right away. Initially the designer is likely to want to get the most out of it by having it on display in show rooms, other shows, high-end shops, etc. Later, pieces can be auctioned off (as suggested above) and more iconic pieces might end up in specific collections (fashion museums, etc). Others might be gifted to celebrities or loaned to fashion schools or go on display at the designer's own gallery/show room/offices. In that way, those pieces remain similar to those concept cars. But just like concept cars, some will go on sale. This is an interesting article and there are auction houses dedicated to the sale of haute couture like Kerry Taylor and Artcurial which sells art, fashion pieces and rare cars.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 00:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The lower end fancy stuff, the kind of thing that's only a measly few thousand/tens of thousands of dollars, you can also find in suitably fancy shops in fancy parts of the fancier cities (New York, London, Paris, Milan, etc). But yes, as Stalwart said, there's a whole other level to the fanciest of the fancy (sorry, I just like that word), which is meant to nurture what's called snob appeal (which lacks its own article amazingly enough) where the buyer both desires a certain feeling of being made to feel special (and has the cash to afford it) as well as getting something that not everyone/no one else can have. So to answer your question, yes they're available, but only for a hefty sum and sometimes only by invitation. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 28 Shevat 5775 03:01, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Fanciest of the fancy" - I like that. Interestingly, Artcurial (linked above) has quite a few "fancy" pieces which have sold for only "a few thousand" euros. It seems that once the "best" stuff is gone, the rest is consigned to auction houses that sell a mix of top and second-tier stuff, vintage stuff and collectors pieces. It seems if you're really in the market for such things, you can get very lucky on occasion.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 03:06, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * M'yes, though it seems that back in the day, auction houses did cater to the super rich, collectors, and resellers. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 28 Shevat 5775 04:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Wall Street Journal article on the subject --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 03:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * , please remember that the WSJ mostly requires a subscription (which fortunately a rhododendron-obsessed family member has, but I don't know if the OP does. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 28 Shevat 5775 04:18, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no subscription either, but can read the article. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 05:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Odd, it worked the second time around. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 28 Shevat 5775 05:22, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * When did catwalks start getting called runways, by the way? I've only ever called them catwalks, but now this other term seems to be gaining traction. --Viennese Waltz 06:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably at the same time as the models wasted away to the size and shape of gigantic stick insects, they learned how (or possibly underwent painful and irreversible surgery) to make their shoulder blades meet in the middle of their backs, and they unlearned how to walk like normal human beings and adopted an unnatural and creepy gait redolent of some sci-fi nightmare. Talk about drawing attention to themselves in the most grotesque way imagineable, and away from whatever clothes they're meant to be showing off. But then, modelling has long since become all about the models and their careers and their fantastic celebrity lifestyles and their short-lived celebrity marriages, which are obviously launched from runways like the aircraft they are. How else can we account for the existence of "super-models"?  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Dryococelus_australis_02_Pengo.jpg ( I only read this comment because I thought it was something about phasmids, of which your country is blessed in abundance. Oh well, at least some stick insects have curves :) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:59, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It probably became PC not to refer to them as catwalks, although why they call them runways when nobody runs must be due to the same people who insist that parkways are for driving and driveways for parking. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for the responses. As a follow up, suppose an individual has the good fortunes to be invited to purchase a fancy haute couture piece and has the financial means to do so, would the designer re-make and custom tailor the piece to the buyer's body? Or is the buyer just purchasing the one-off piece that the model wore for the runway show? Acceptable (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The links provided above suggest both are possible. Customisation/fitting seems more likely where the designer has partnered with a particular auction house to sell off part of a collection. In those cases, the designer is working with the auction house to sell the pieces and, I imagine, if that was the request from a potential buyer, there's no reason that couldn't be accommodated. But where the auction house is selling someone else's collection, the buyer would have to separately contact the designer with such a request. Interestingly, not dissimilar to your original analogy of rare cars.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 03:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)