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June 11

motivation

Is there a word for when a person loses all motivation to do anything ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.219.69.167 (talk) 15:27, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Apathy. Such a person might be described by the slang term slacker. (BTW, why not post this on the Language Desk ?) StuRat (talk) 15:29, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's part of the meaning of depression, though that encompasses more than just lack of motivation. --ColinFine (talk) 16:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lethargy? Lemon martini (talk) 22:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Those are good for losing some or most motivation for many things, but only death gets all the ambition out. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:05, June 12, 2014 (UTC)

Notivation is the word we use in my office for when your will to do anything has gone. Zzubnik (talk) 10:15, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Any relation to "not-ability"? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:52, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sewing mystery

I have a sewing mystery I can't explain. I have a quilted blanket (not a patchwork quilt), and part of the thread for the "quilting" has come out. The blanket consists of two pieces of fabric, some batting in between, and what looks like polyester thread quilting it all together at the interior. The mystery, then, is that a loop of thread seems to have come out without either it breaking or the fabric tearing. Here's a diagram:

  _          _
-|-|--------|-|-  <- FABRIC
   |        |     <- THREAD LOOP

The loose loop of thread is shown below with an intact stitch on each side. For simplicity, the quilted blanket is shown as if it were a single piece of material. Note that holes are still present where the thread had been. The only explanation I can come up with is that this loop was always there, and I just never noticed it, despite having used this blanket for years, and the holes existing and not seeming to have closed up any. Can anyone come up with a better explanation for what happened ? StuRat (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In many/most sewing machines, each thread is only on one side, of the finished product, and the bobbin thread acts to "lock" the stitches in place. See e.g. here [1]. See also lock stitch. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a loose bobbin thread on the other side, though. The corresponding area to the loop seems to lack any thread. StuRat (talk) 17:22, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless it was sewn by hand, it almost surely has two threads that make up the seam. Without seeing it in person or at least a photo it will be hard to diagnose further. My best bet is that the 'lock' got skipped somehow. One thing that you can do to test: pull on the loop. If it pulls freely and gets longer (popping out previously intact parts of the seam), then you have a broken lock stitch. If it pulls to a point but then resists and binds against the other parts of the seam, then you have a skipped stitch. Unfortunately if it's the former you might have to repair... SemanticMantis (talk) 13:58, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks all. StuRat (talk) 13:47, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Farab (Otrar)

The map reference for Farab, more famously known as Otrar, places its location at Shymkent. The Wikipedia reference for Turkistan places Otrar some miles to the southeast of that city near the Syr Darya; this should be accurate. UNESCO can probably provide the correct map location of Otrar. http://unesco.kz/otrar/otrar_house/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElkeWylie (talk • contribs) 15:34, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd put this discussion on the talk page for that article. However, it might be the case that two generations of the city, possibly with different names, were in slightly different places. When a city is rebuilt, it is often moved a few miles, perhaps because the river has moved, so the issue always comes up as to whether it's still the same city or not. StuRat (talk) 15:39, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've emended the coordinates in the Otrar (Farab) article. Thanks for pointing out the contradiction. Deor (talk) 20:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 12

Female Marine Infantry Weapons Officer

Hello all, Has there ever been a female Infantry Weapons Officer? If so, does anyone know when the first one was commissioned? If not, is there an earliest time there could have been one? Also, is it even remotely likely that a Infantry Weapons Officer would have training on flying a helicopter? I know Warrant Officers will fly, but I don't know if a Gunner would ever have that skill set. Thanks! Hobit (talk) 01:12, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Got an answer from another source--no there hasn't. The enlisted background needed to get this position isn't open to women yet. No good sources, but I'm fairly sure it's correct. Thanks! Hobit (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In what organization? —Tamfang (talk) 21:48, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, to what are you referring? Marines if I understood correctly. Hobit (talk) 16:18, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, the United States Marine Corps, as indicated in the link provided by the OP. -- ToE 16:25, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Videocassettes

Can multiple types of videocassettes be played in VCRs, or are they only able to play VHS tapes? I know each player can do just one type, but I can't tell if "VCR" is meant for just VHS players or other types too. The Videocassette recorder article mentions other formats too, but is it mentioning them because they could be played in their own VCRs, or because they required players that competed with VCRs? 2001:18E8:2:1020:114D:7C6F:FA83:BE0 (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

VCR is not specific to VHS. The Betamax players are are VCRs. I'm not sure if there were any VCRs that could do both formats. RudolfRed (talk) 20:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nowadays, VCR is a generic term for a video cassette recorder. There are several tape formats, including VHS, Betamax and V2000; VCR originally meant a particular format from Philips. These formats are completely incompatible with each other - and not just because the physical dimensions of the cassette are very different. For example, if a VCR says "Betamax" on the front, you won't be able to fit a VHS tape through the slot - it's far too wide. What's more, you can't open up a Betamax cassette and a VHS cassette, exchange the tape spools and expect that they will then play in the "wrong" machine. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"VCR is not specific to VHS." That's what I meant. I thought maybe it was, or had been, a trademarked term for just VHS players, like "personal computer" once was. I've just found a stash of non-VHS tapes from the 1980s (lots of different formats...) and am trying to figure out what they are. 2001:18E8:2:1020:114D:7C6F:FA83:BE0 (talk) 20:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Lots" of different formats? How many? I would think they would mostly be Beta, which was not as popular as VHS, hence it died. (Good luck finding a Betamax to play them.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The likelihood is that you either have VHS cassettes, Betamax cassettes, Super VHS cassettes or Super 8 cassettes. In all cases, only VHS cassettes will play in a VHS VCR. Although a Super VHS cassette can be used in a VHS VCR in conjunction with an adaptor. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Take them to a place that converts videotapes to CD/DVD. It might cost you $15 per tape to discover they contain nothing of even the slightest interest for you, but, hey, life's an adventure in its rich panoply of surprises, not to mention daily opportunities for self-actualisation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:53, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OP, you might be interested to know that there were (are?) VHS-C tapes which were smaller than standard VHS tapes. You could buy an adapter which was a standard VHS shell that you could put a VHS-C tape into and be able to therefore play the VHS-C tape in your standard VHS VCR. Dismas|^(talk) 06:00, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The way I heard it growing up, a VHS is for VCRs, and everything else with tape is for VTRs, even other cassettes. I was misled, but it's too ingrained in me now to change. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:37, June 13, 2014 (UTC)

All you have to do is break off the little tab, and presto, you can record over it. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:00, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, once. When blurred vision could be cured by tinfoil and the whole point of a satellite dish was pointing it. Things got much more complicated on DVD and ExpressVu. But if I ever really need to remember the truth about VCRs, I guess a screwdriver couldn't hurt. Maybe just bang the top a bit. Thanks for the reminder, Fiend! InedibleHulk (talk) 12:25, June 13, 2014 (UTC)

Er, breaking off the tab prevented recording on a VHS cassette (I've still got two working VHS machines - one Panasonic, one Sony - and a whole heap of tapes that I'll transfer to DVD someday). To record over a record-protected tape, you put some sticky tape over the hole. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:11, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Part of me knew that. Tape may be a hassle to store, but it still beats brain memory on a humid day. Thanks for the re-reminder. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:27, June 13, 2014 (UTC)

June 13

Music

What's the difference between a "blues harp" and a "harmonica"? Carllica4 (talk) 11:30, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Blues Harp would appear to be a technique used in Blues/Jazz music while playing the harmonica. Rojomoke (talk) 12:30, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The blues harp is a particular type of harmonica. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:14, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Blues Harp" can refer to both a style of play, or a type of harmonica. E.g. the Hohner Blues Harp [2] can be played in "cross harp" aka "second position" - leading to a blues scale, or it can be played "straight" aka "first position, leading to a major scale. See also Harmonica_techniques. There are only two common "positions" for playing harmonica, but there are at least 5 total, see this nice description here [3]. Finally, I'll add that the Hohner Blues Harps came about far later than playing in the blues harp style of second position. Early bluesmen often used the "Marine Band" model of harmonica. Make sense? SemanticMantis (talk) 15:33, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Focal length and HD cameras.

Back in the bad old days of film cameras, you could calculate the "horizontal field of view" of the camera from knowing the focal length of the lens and that the film was 35mm wide. 2 x atan((35/2)/f)...and knowing that it has a 3:4 aspect ratio, calculate the vertical field of view.

OK - so now a photographer hands me a photo taken on a modern, wide-format digital camera. I need to know the field of view (because I'm mixing some 3D computer graphics into the image) - and he tells me that he used a "60mm lens". How does that translate into field of view?

(I need hard information - guesses and speculation don't help here...I'm more than capable of doing that for myself! :-)

SteveBaker (talk) 14:59, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You need to know the size of the image sensor, then you can use the exact same formula you have above with appropriate substitutions (see also angle of view). You can easily find this out if you know the camera model. 'Wide-format' isn't a normal designation in digital photography, so it's not clear what size sensor it represents. (See also Crop factor#Common crop factors.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the camera is a 1080p HD camera. The problem is that the size of the image sensor isn't frequently specified. In 35mm film, you can grab (say) a 50mm lens and know what kind of a picture you'll get, no matter which camera you're using it with...but with digital cameras, I suppose there might be a wide range of sensor sizes...so is it truly the case that a photographer has to learn a whole new set of lens types for each kind of camera? SteveBaker (talk) 21:50, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, sort of. In practice, your typical DSLR user with a camera body from one of the Big Two (Canon and Nikon) is going to be dealing with a sensor size that is either the same as a 35mm film frame (so-called 'full frame' sensor; only on the higher-end, more-expensive models) or one that is about two-thirds the size (an APS-C sensor, which is smaller by a factor of 1.5 or 1.6 depending on the manufacturer). The lens mounts are generally designed to be compatible, such that you can put the lens built for a larger sensor on a camera with the smaller sensor; all of your full-frame lenses then effectively are cropped/magnified by the same factor (the so-called 'crop factor'). If I have some older full-frame lenses at 30, 50, 80, and 130mm, say, then moving to a 1.6x crop sensor actually gets me almost the same fields of view using the preceding lens in the series (that is, the field of view of the 50mm on the full-frame sensor is about the same as the 30mm on the crop sensor, and so forth). I then just need to buy a new 20mm (ish) lens to round out the wide end, and I'm good to go—and my old 130mm lens gets to be a pretty long telephoto on the new body.

All that said, if the image(s) you've received haven't been too heavily processed already, there's probably a significant amount of EXIF data embedded in the image file that will tell you the camera make and model, lens information, and sensor size. Open the image in Picasa, then View...Properties. Or open in GIMP, then File...Properties...Advanced. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:48, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah - the EXIF data is long-gone. This was a video that was split into still-frames. SteveBaker (talk) 16:53, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

1) Sizes of sensors in DSLR cameras vary indeed. See our article on Digital single-lens reflex camera for the various formats deployed (sometimes by the same manufacturer). The rest is the above trig formula.

2) The 60mm lenses I am familiar with are macro lenses (Canon, Nikkor). This should be obvious from the photo, anyway. In this case, the formulae have to be tweaked (see the article on Angle of view).

3) When combining photos and 3D modes (largely architecture) I generally import the photo as a background and then twiddle the camera´s position / angle of view / etc until “it looks right”. I have to tweak the lighting / insolation anyway so that shadows / reflectivity / turbidity / etc look natural. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:00, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The "tweak it until it looks right" approach isn't useful here - this is an automated "augmented reality" system that operates in realtime on video streams - we need to do this by calculation. (Check out http://binocular.io - if you have an iPhone/iPad, you can go to glasses.com and actually run our AR application to let you try on pairs of glasses using augmented reality.) Normally, we get the field of view from the iPhone/iPad - which is easy. But we have some video of some models, shot by a professional photographer that we need to use in the same system - and knowing the FOV is an essential part of the calculations that extract the 3D shape of the user's face.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:53, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In which case 60mm may be a suitable focal length to be used for a portrait of the myopic model´s heads.

This site (I am a Pentax user) gives the FOV for a 60mm lens as 27° diagonal, using a crop factor of ~1.5 (I possess two cameras, in one case it is 1.53, in the second case it is 1.54).

Bear in mind that the sensor sizes (see note above) differ, and without knowing the brand / exact model of the camera used the FOV can´t be calculated precisely.

A brief excerpt of our article on APS-C (qv):

Multiplier factors

A crop factor (sometimes referred to as a "focal length multiplier", even though the actual focal length is the same) can be used to calculate the 35 mm equivalent focal length from the actual focal length. The most common multiplier ratios:

• 1.7× — Sigma DP1, Sigma DP2, Sigma SD15, Sigma SD14, Sigma SD10, Sigma SD9, Canon EOS DCS 3†
• 1.62× — Canon EOS 7D, 50D†, 60D, 70D, 600D (T3i/X5), 650D (T4i/X6i)†, 700D (T5i/X7i), 1100D (T3/X50)†, 1200D (T5/X70); Canon EOS M, M2 • 1.57x — Nikon D3100, Nikon D3200
• 1.54× — Pentax K-5 II, K-5†, K-30†, Pentax K-01, K-50, K-500; Samsung NX
• 1.53× — Pentax K-3, Pentax K10D†, Pentax K200D†, Nikon D3300, Nikon D5300
• 1.52× — All Nikon DX format DSLR cameras except D3100, D3200, D3300, and D5300; all Fuji; Sony (except for the full-frame α 850,† α 900,† α 99, α 7 and α 7R); Sigma SD1, Sigma SD1 Merrill, Sigma DP1 Merrill, Sigma DP2 Merrill
• 1.3×‡ — Canon EOS-1D Mark IV†, 1D Mark III†, 1D Mark II† (and Mark II N), EOS-1D†, Kodak DCS 460†, DCS 560†, DCS 660†, DCS 760†, Leica M8, M8.2

Sorry, this is just copy & paste, so the formatting is off. Greetings to Texas. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:11, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just to make sure I get the idea:

1 you have a photo of the model (or a selfie of the prospective customer)

2 you have a poly mesh of the frames available

3 you need to “combine” the two in real time on iOS

4 to avoid spectacular penetrations of your clients prostheses and the customers´s cranium you require a precise fit of the two geometries? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 15

TV setting

I have an older TV circa 2005, a large cathode ray, much squarer than HD TVs. Everything looks wrong nowadays because they've changed the screen output or however you'd describe it. Calling Time Warner cable is utterly useless. Worst company ever but they have a monopoly so not much I can do. Anyway, I've played around with the settings and it doesn't seem to do much, but can anyone suggest the supposed best settings for my TV? I can supposedly choose for output resolution 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i. In Picture size I have normal, zoom and stretch, and in aspect ratio I have 4 x 3 and 16 x 9. Lady in polka dot (talk) 03:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My advice is for the US and Canada. If you live elsewhere, please tell us. 4x3 is the old analog aspect ratio, so you will want to change to 16x9, which is the new digital aspect ratio. 480, either i or p, is the old analog resolution, so you will want to change to either 720p or 1080i. Now which of those you want will probably depend on the station, as some broadcast in each. You might try each on each channel to see which is best, and write them down for later. Next you have the problem that the 16x9 aspect ratio doesn't fit your physical screen. The stretch option will stretch it vertically to fill the whole screen, which will make everybody look tall and thin while standing. The zoom option will only show the middle of the picture, and cut off the right and left edges. The normal option, I would guess, will put the entire image on the screen without stretching it, so you will have black bars at the top and bottom. Each option has it's advantages, but you might want to change between them at different times. For example, if something important is on the edges of the screen, you don't want the zoom option. StuRat (talk) 04:39, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat has given you a good start here. Allow me to jump to the end and say "You're probably going to need a new TV". At no point will you get to a place where you can just turn on a channel and know that your TV will display the picture correctly; you're going to have to fiddle with it - every time. And as more and more shows get broadcast in the 16:9 or other widescreeen aspect ratio, more and more of your screen will simply be black letterboxing - or you can go for the option to only watch the middle half of the picture as broadcast and simply miss out on everything to the left and right. You can obviously hold out as long as you want, but at no point will things "get better" for you - only worse. Matt Deres (talk) 13:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree fully with the advice given above, but if you are sentimentally attached to your current old technology, I can suggest two alternatives: Firstly, 80% of the action (on average) takes place in the centre of the picture ^{[citation needed]} so just use the view that cuts out a little bit at each side and you will not miss much. Secondly, I know people who have a stretched picture and have become so accustomed to it that they don't notice. You could always tilt your screen forwards or back so that you actually see a 16 by 9 ratio when you view the vertically stretched picture. Dbfirs 16:45, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(Not sure why you smalled your text here, as it is an answer to the Q.) Since tilting the screen would just foreshorten the apparent vertical dimension, rather than doing that you might just as well use the "normal" option, which will give you the same result by putting black bars at the top and bottom. Incidentally, this has a couple advantages I have found:

1) Closed captioning is then often in one of the black bars, not on top of the image. The people who make closed captioning seem to be just terrible at putting it someplace unobtrusive. For example, when watching the weather forecast on the news, the CC here writes over all the numbers every time !

2) Old CRTs are often blurry at the corners, and this avoids placing an image there.

Also, there are many good reasons to keep an old CRT. There's the environmental impact you avoid by not dumping those CRTs in the trash. And, since China seems to make all TVs this day, I don't feel good about sending a thousand dollars to a non-democratic nation which still censors any mention of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and is building up it's military while threatening it's neighbors. (Are any TVs made elsewhere and sold in the US ?) StuRat (talk) 13:46, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there's something really weird about the US, I'm guessing there are plenty of made in Vietnam, made in Thailand, made in Indonesia and made in Malaysia TVs there. Vietnam of course is often called the new China due to effect of rising wages in China on manufacturing there [4] although as that source mentions Cambodia and Laos are often seen as the new Vietnams (may be Myanmar is coming up too). (Although Vietnam is also non democratic with active political censorship. Thailand seems to temporarily? be as well. Malaysia and to a lesser extent Indonesia are flawed democracies and you could probably say the same for their political censorship.) Probably some made in Korea and made in Japan ones as well.

And I'm guessing others. For example do you really have no more made in Mexico TVs there? [5] suggests otherwise. That and [6] [7] [8] suggests unsurprisingly there are some made in US ones as well at least for larger ones (and from you price I guess you're looking at a 100" TV or a UHD or something?). Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if less than 50% of TVs sold in the US are not made in China.

Ignoring since this is the RD, the complicated issue of who and how much they actually benefits from the money that does end up in China, it's worth remembering 'made in' is a fairly complicated question in itself [9]. For a TV, it probably indicates where the TV was assembled. The panel be it LCD or Plasma could easily be made in Korea or Japan or yes China, wherever the TV it self is assembled. The microprocessors themselves are another layer of 'made in'. Many of the other electronic components may be made in China, but possibly also Japan or Taiwan or elsewhere. So regardless of where your TV is 'made', the thousand dollars that you mentioned, of your US$4000 purchase price that actually goes towards making the TV (random guess I'm not sure if that's right) is not all going to end up in one place whereever your TV is nominally made.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:03, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So it looks like our TV purchasing money is going to support nondemocratic nations, no matter what we do. All the more reason to keep the "old gray mule" running as long as possible. StuRat (talk) 16:16, 16 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

June 16

Facebook friend suggestions

Hi, I know this is about Facebook, so it could be in the Computing helpdesk, but this isn't so computing related. It's half computing, half sociology... I think.

How does Facebook suggest friends? I showed my mum how to use the site a couple of years ago, and he was amazed how it could suggest people she hadn't seen or spoken with in ages. At the time, I said it was the genius of the Facebook algorithm, and Facebook worked it out from her current friends and their friends.

However, I have just made a new account (I'm sick of the old one), and without having added any friends, or searched for anyone, or anything like that, Facebook is suggesting me friends from my primary school, and secondary school. Some of these names I haven't seen or heard since those days, so how has it figured out I once went to school with them? It can't just be from me using the same name, because it hasn't suggested the good friends that I have now and contact on Facebook every day with my previous account. It can't be my IP address; my IP address is from my university house, which is half a country away from my primary and secondary school. So how does it know!? It's majorly creepy!

81.110.73.68 (talk) 04:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Facebook can use any information you give; the schools and collages/universities you attended (together with your age), where you worked, and what clubs you belong to, and friends-of-friends. If you allow it, FB will read your email provider's address book, and suggest everyone on it. If someone else has allowed FB to read their contact book, and you're in it, you might get friends suggestions for them. CS Miller (talk) 08:02, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The experience of 81.110.73.68 is very similar to my own. I had done very little - enter name and current home town, but had not linked any schools, colleges etc. I defin'tely didn't release my email contacts. I found three people that I was in regular contact with, and sent them friend requests. Facebook then came back with a long list of friend suggestions, and 15 or so of the first 20 names on the list were all people that I was at primary school with - before 1976. That school is about 30 miles from where I live now, and was not attended by those three people to whom I had sent friend reqs. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is that when you disconnected from FB, killed your account and started a new one - you expected FB to not be able to figure out who you are...and that's just not true.

They know what IP address you used to work from - and they new which IP address this seemingly new user uses...now they may kinda suspect that this new user is the same as that old one that was recently cancelled. Even if you disconnected your web interface and had your ISP provide a new IP address, they can still do a reasonable job of "geolocation" to figure out which city you're in.
If you didn't delete all of the Facebook-created cookies (and all of your flash cookies and all of the "Local Storage Objects" in your browser then they immediately know who you are - irrespective of your login account.
Even if you very carefully cleaned up every scrap of those things, they can compare a bunch of things that the browser tells them about your computer - which browser revision, which operating system revision, perhaps the capabilities (and therefore the type) of your graphics card, how fast your CPU is.
Using JavaScript, it can figure out a lot of the options you have set - what fonts you have installed - what screen resolution you have.
It can tell which website you were using when you decided to head over to Facebook (the "referrer").
It can store your name in the RGB values of an image file. Your browser will cache it and not bother to reload it later if you go back to the same site. JavaScript can look at the pixels of the image and figure out what name you used last time you logged in to that page. Stopping it from doing that requires that you turn off web caching altogether...that would slow your browsing experience down to a snails' pace!

There are a huge number of tiny pieces of information that are leaked about you through your computer. Obviously, putting together all of these circumstantial things *might* be wrong - but there a re a lot of them. If it can ask 100 questions and get answers to just 50 of them - then it can probably figure out exactly who you are - even if the other 50 don't match from the last time you visited FB.

They have nothing to lose here. If they guessed wrong, then all that would happen is that it might make some bad suggestions. But if it gets it right, then it seems pretty magical. Every piece of information you give - even in the tiniest of ways - is a clue. If you re-friend just one of the people on the suggestions list - then it's pretty much certain to have guessed right - and it knows that. It can produce a confidence figure that climbs rapidly to 100%.

You might ask why they go to all this trouble - surely just offering you a better suggested friend list isn't worth all of that trouble? The real reason is that they are selling all of this information to their customers so they can target you with adverts that you're more likely to respond to or figure out what percentage of 22 year old male hispanics watched such-and-such TV show and also like to eat at Joes' Diner. If you were able to completely flush your old identity - then all the information they have becomes worthless - but if they can preserve it, even though you switched accounts, then they've protected their investment in giving you access to this software, disk space and server time. So you can expect them to work hard to keep on knowing who you are...and it's increasingly difficult to hide.

Scarily, this isn't hard to do. These are called (variously) server-side cookies, forever-cookies and so forth. This site http://samy.pl/evercookie/ offers a JavaScript module - and I'm sure that commercial software is much, much better at it.

You might think that your setup is pretty standard - so there aren't many things to track you by....but try https://panopticlick.eff.org - it has a database of some 4 million people and their computers. The question it asks is how unique you are amongst those 4 million users - how many of them could be confused with you? The answer in my case is none. My computer is sufficiently unique that by testing the handful of things it tests, they can figure out who I am precisely within the 4 million people they have on file. Probably, my computer, the settings on it and the other stuff I inadvertently leak is enough to tell exactly who I am, and probably even track me across the four different computers, one phone and two tablets that I use regularly.

Scary?....yes, definitely. Avoidable?...not really, at least not if you need any kind of convenience at all in your browsing experience.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:37, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Playboy and it's use of maximum age limits past to present?

Apparently, Playboy doesn't really have a maximum age limit on women that it considers attractive. However, I know that Playboy has used a maximum age limit on two occasions when it has searched for attractive women. When the first Playboy Club opened in Chicago in 1960, it ran this newspaper advertisement:

GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR THE 30 MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRLS IN CHICAGOLAND

Playboy is opening a new key club … catering to Chicago’s most prominent executives and sportsmen. To serve our exclusive clientele and decorate the club, we are looking for thirty single girls between 18 and 23. Experience is not necessary. Just be beautiful, charming and refined.

Secondly, Playboy posted this notice for a casting call in 2012:

PLAYBOY CASTING CALL*~ Casting models for upcoming Playboy shoots. Attractive females, 5’0”-5’11" natural or enhanced, minimal tattoos, in shape, model types &girl next door. 18-28 yrs, all ethnicities. Model Rates: $500.00/day for Playboy.com shoots. Playboy conceptual/theme shoots $1,000.00/day $25,000 for Playmate & Opportunity to appear on “Playmates” Models selected will do a test shoot for Playboy Magazine & and will also get to be featured on Playboy TV’s series “Playmates”. If chosen to become Playmate, model will be awarded all Playmate rates. We will have Playboy shoots in New York for local models and will also fly models to Los Angeles for photo shoots. Playboy photo shoots are nude and very tasteful. To see photos go to: REDACTED or REDACTED We are holding a New York casting call on October 15,16 & 17. We also have weekly castings at our Playboy studios in LA. Submit photos, name, age, contact info & City you live in to: REDACTED Include the day you’re available for the casting. Job type: Paid Casting Location: New York Contact email: REDACTED

So I'm wondering, has Playboy used a maximum age limit on occasions other than the two I mentioned above? Hanna Nymous (talk) 10:07, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rebecca Ramos pre-dates the second posting you mention by about a decade. She was 35 when she was a Playmate. And just two years before, Jaime Faith Edmondson was 31. Dismas|^(talk) 10:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure Playboy makes some exceptions. After all, they wouldn't be able to use an ageless yet 34-year-old yet 22-year-old, 8'6", jaundiced women as their cover model otherwise, would they? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Birthdate

I've been working on cleaning up and verifying the article on American artist Molly Crabapple. However, I'm currently stuck on verifying her birthdate, allegedly September 13, 1983. I believe that there are reliable sources that confirm her birth year, but I haven't found any that verify her birth month and day. I think I must be looking in the wrong place because I haven't had this much trouble before. Any ideas? She's a New York-based artist who also used to model. Viriditas (talk) 10:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some people are quite protective of this information. Bear in mind that you should only use dates of birth in Wikipedia that have been widely published by reliable sources. See WP:DOB.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Her website has an email address; you could contact her and ask.--Dreamahighway (talk) 19:22, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Typing pool photo?

Half way down this page is an odd-looking photo that according to the image properties is of a typing pool in 1970. What are the women doing? What are all those screens and gadgets in front of them, and how do they know what to type on the teenyweeny keyboard in front of them? --Dweller (talk) 10:52, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Producing punch cards for computers, maybe? The machines look prettly similar to the one in this picture. Deor (talk) 11:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yep - I agree, those are punched card machines. I used one back in 1976 when I was learning computer programming. The keyboards don't need all of the arrow keys or most of the punctuation symbols, shift/alt/control keys and so forth because punched cards were mostly uppercase only and with a very limited set of other symbols. The three sections you can see at the back are probably the blank card hopper, the punching station in the center, and the finished card hopper on the other side. You had the ability to duplicate sections of one card onto the next - so it keeps one card on the output side to copy from. Each card has room for 80 characters in one line of text. In addition to punching the holes, it also typed the letters along the top of the card so you could see what you'd just typed. There were also features for automatically numbering the cards and employing tab-stops and such - and you could set up a "program card" on a drum inside the machine that let you do various other automatic functions. I'm not sure about the screen above the keyboard. I've never seen that. It suggests that these are more recent machines than I ever used...probably at the very end of the era of punched cards. SteveBaker (talk) 17:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think those are screens above the keyboards. (Note that they are not apparent at some of the stations—such as the two behind the first two in the rightmost row.) I think they're punch cards or some other type of cards from which the typists are copying. Deor (talk) 17:37, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 237: / Line 237: @@
 I've been working on cleaning up and verifying the article on American artist [[Molly Crabapple]].  However, I'm currently stuck on verifying her birthdate, allegedly September 13, 1983.  I believe that there are reliable sources that confirm her birth year, but I haven't found any that verify her birth month and day.  I think I must be looking in the wrong place because I haven't had this much trouble before.  Any ideas? She's a New York-based artist who also used to model. [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] ([[User talk:Viriditas|talk]]) 10:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 :Some people are quite protective of this information. Bear in mind that you should only use dates of birth in Wikipedia that have been '''widely published by reliable sources'''. See [[WP:DOB]].--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]]|[[User talk:Shantavira|<sup>feed me</sup>]] 12:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
-:Her [http://mollycrabapple.com/ website] has an email adress; you could contact her and ask.--[[User:Dreamahighway|Dreamahighway]] ([[User talk:Dreamahighway|talk]]) 19:22, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
+:Her [http://mollycrabapple.com/ website] has an email address; you could contact her and ask.--[[User:Dreamahighway|Dreamahighway]] ([[User talk:Dreamahighway|talk]]) 19:22, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
 == Typing pool photo? ==