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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sss41 (talk | contribs) at 01:52, 17 November 2014 (s/Insertion/Selection/). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Welcome!

Hello, Glrx, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! RayTalk 19:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Selection sort - swap function in C

Hi, thanks for the edit. While I see your point, I changed the page for the following reasons: 

1. Function macros normally are typed in ALLCAP so swap should be SWAP(a[i], a[j]); and a comment should be added to make sure the user knows this is a macro.
2. A macro has file scope and I don't see the macro in the listing. On the other hand it is perfectly possible for swap(int *x, int *y); to link to a library function for which we don't have the code.
3. This is a case of macro abuse. Macros are an awesome, simple, useful things but for some reason people misuse them all the time. This is such an example. If I were to write this in C, I would not use a macro and I don't see a reason why the wikipage should promote a macro. If I were to see swap(a+i, a+j); I know what the swap function will do. If I saw swap(a[i], a[j]); then I would say that's either a bug or I don't understand how swap works.

Sss41 (talk) 01:49, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A year and a half after you opposed my RfA

I am inviting you to leave me some feedback, 18 months after you opposed my RfA. Do you still believe I am not fit to be an admin? Do you believe I have been able to improve past the concerns you have brought up? Do not be afraid of being too harsh, I am specifically welcoming criticism as I believe it is the best way to improve and I am always looking to learn from my mistakes. I am particularly looking for feedback as to whether you have objections to myself lifting the self-imposed 1RR restriction I had agreed to towards the end of my RfA. If you don't have time to comment, don't fret it either, this is nothing I'll lose sleep over. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:48, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RF connector

re this revert at RF connector

The edit you undid was not mine, it was User:Rfconnector's. Cluebot's choice was clearly wrong. I don't have an opinion on the content of the edit. jhawkinson (talk) 01:16, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mystified too: I don't know why or how Cluebot thought it was vandalism. Glrx (talk) 01:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lisp

I notice you reverted my edit. And you are not alone with that practice on the Lisp page. Please have a look at this. And I have changed the article to what the source says. -- Zz (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

your revert on Proximity Fuzes

I placed that video reference in the article along with a copy of the cover for the tape box because it seemed to me relevant that, as I described my entry, this was "in popular culture". We've (that is, Wikipedia) certainly got many, make that MANY, articles where such entries are common. Please reconsider your objection. wiki-ny-2007 (talk) 05:09, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About my revert of wiki-ny-2007's edits to Proximity fuze and, indirectly, File:Fuze-102.png.
Including the image of the video's cover art appears to be a copyright violation. Copyrighted cover art can be used in limited circumstances, but this usage does not appear to be one of them. We don't need to see the cover to identify the work. Neither is the article about the video.
The information about where to purchase video is not relevant to the article. "Copies are available through the PBS clearinghouse" sounds in advertising; such a statement does not belong in an article's text.
You added a popular culture section with the video as the only item. Popular culture sections are not for documentaries about the topic. History is not popular culture. Popular culture sections are used when the subject of the article is used as a story item or plot device in a popular work such as a book, movie, or song. Compare Ark of the Covenant#In popular culture.
Documentaries are used to supply content for articles; in that case they are legitimate references. The video is not used as a reference for any content in the article.
Documentaries can also be included in further reading (watching?) sections if they supply content that is not currently in the article. Does the video offer content that is not available in the existing sources? Does it have interviews with principals?
If you think the video should go into the article, then bring it up on the article's talk page. See WP:BRD.
Glrx (talk) 15:56, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Glrx

At AE. You have lost me over there, the "The PHR report also showed that ninety four per cent of internally displaced persons (IDP's) had been victims of some form of sexual assault". is sourced to Women, Migration, and Conflict: Breaking a Deadly Cycle p50, "94% of displaced households", how are displaced households not displaced persons? The other point you mention is also confusing me, "215,000 to 257,000 victims of sexual abuse", is cited to Women Under Siege, Physicians for Human Rights estimates that during the conflict, between 215,000 and 257,000 of them were subjected to sexualized violence, how is it not accurate to what I have written? Darkness Shines (talk) 07:22, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive156#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Darkness Shines
We have tried to explain these distinctions to you. At AE, it was pointed out that a household is not a person but rather several persons. A displaced household is several displaced persons. If someone in your family was a victim of sexual assault, that does not mean that every member of your family was assaulted. The sexual assault figure is also absurd on its face. The AE discusion pointed out that the 94 percent figure was about violence. Murders are violence, but they are not sexual violence. The discussion at AE also pointed to specific pages in PHR report that gave vastly different figures. A page had a breakdown of the types of violence. We gave you a pinpoint citation in the PHR Report that had one-tenth of your figure for sexual violence. The figure of 94 percent of internally displaced persons were victims of sexual violence doesn't even sound right even when acknowleding 45% of the IDP population is male.
Nobody is disputing the 215,000 to 257,000 victims of sexual violence. That was also spelled out at AE. The problem was with your citation: it went to a page in the PHR Report that did not support the claim; other pages did. The figure also does not support your 94 percent claim. Do you know how many IDPs there are? For the 94 percent figure to make sense, the IDP would have to be less than 300,000. The PHR Report says the IDP population is 1.0 to 1.3 million; 257,000/1,000,000 is not 94 percent. (PHR Report page 4 fn5.)
I get the sense that you quickly jump to the conclusion that you are right and others must be wrong. Do you believe that Callanecc, Sandstein, and I are all wrong? You wanted me to apologize for my comments. You labeled Sandstein's comments a personal attack (even if Sandstein were wrong, a factual error is not a personal attack). If someone had challenged your edits at the Rape in Sierra Leone Civil War article, would you have reverted to keep your interpretation in or labeled those edits personal attacks?
Glrx (talk) 16:44, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, I would not have reverted, I would have asked for an explanation, which I have now gotten. Thanks. Darkness Shines (talk) 06:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your revert on Van Gogh

I made a post on the discussion page regarding your revert of my edit. Uchiha Itachi 25 (talk) 14:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vincent_van_Gogh#Starry_Night_is_his_most_well-known_work[reply]

I had replied at Vincent van Gogh#Starry Night is his most well-known work.
Uchiha Itachi deleted this talk page post saying he had fixed his error.[1]
However, it just changed the source of the best-known claim. I agree it is one of his best known paintings, but I don't think it should be labeled his best known. Glrx (talk) 15:08, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Planimeter

What's the problem with the reference to the Lego planimeter. I found it really interesting. Nijdam (talk) 22:00, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

re Planimeter and my revert of external link to self-published planimeter made from Lego
@Nijdam: It's a cute hack, but the source is a blog. What content does the EL have that is not already in the article? Advice about using friction gears rather than crummy Lego gears with lots of backlash isn't germane to the article. The Pritz Lego planimeter is also cute, but accuracy claims for both (10 cm2 and 2 cm2) are not great. It's cute, but I don't think it belongs in the article. As an extreme argument, should every WP article about an object have a link to a Lego implementation of that object?
Why do you think it should be in the article? Glrx (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it amused me, and I see no harm in showing. The argument about "every article" is not very adequate. A colleague of mine argued: it should not be allowed to take the train to London, then suppose everyone would do so. Nijdam (talk) 20:42, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

September 2014

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Reference Errors on 1 October

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:22, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A kind editor fixed this for me. I had used a ":" when I should have used an "=". Glrx (talk) 17:08, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dunning-Kruger Effect

I see you reverted my edits. I must admit that I'm confused by your comment (esp. "RS"). Could you elaborate?

On the content, it seems to be that Schneier's point is exactly that of D-K, namely, that those less skilled in cryptography think they have it licked because they can come up with a method that they themselves can't break, rather than one that others can't break. IOW, they overestimate their own skill in an area in which they are relatively uninformed. This was noted long ago by Poe, as the article on Schneier indicates. Is there a better section in which to put this observation?

Thanks. Eponymous-Archon (talk) 02:40, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RE: this revert
If you look over the article history of Dunning–Kruger effect, you will see that many editors have found quotations that they believe appropriately illustrate the DK effect.[2][3][4][5] Finding a quotation and deciding it is relevant wanders into editors doing original research, and that is not what editors are supposed to do. We are supposed to find reliable sources that tell us such-and-so quotation illustrates the DK effect. If a statement does not have a reliable source, then it can be challenged and or removed. If you want the quotation in the article, then start a discussion on the talk page to include it; if you can get a consensus, then the quotation can go in. See WP:BRD. The statement may also have an element of synthesis: did Schneier make the observation about Poe, too? If I google the phrase with Poe, I only get 4 hits. What is the vague historical precedent with Poe? That lots of naive newspaper readers thought simple substitution ciphers were secure? Poe's July 1841 comments? The reverted text is opaque about Poe.
I like Schneier's quotation for what it says about how difficult cryptography is, but I don't think it is a good match for the DK effect. First, many skilled German cryptologists during World War II believed the Enigma was secure. Very skilled people can make horrendous narrow mistakes. Schneier's comment can apply to both the skilled and unskilled. Skilled people can miss a trick or a new technique; unskilled people are clueless over a broad area. Cryptography is full of such history as the field progressed: frequency attacks, polyalphabetic attacks, and group theory attacks.
Second, the section is about historical antecedents of DK. Even if Schneier's statement applies to DK, when was the statement made? Was it before 1999? Although you give the text of the quotation, you do not give a source that shows Schneier said it or when he said it.
Third, an article does not need an exhaustive list of quotations or examples. Experts on DK have provided us with several quotations, so why are more needed?
Glrx (talk) 04:10, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A small tangential issue.... Regarding “many skilled German cryptologists during World War II believed the Enigma was secure. Very skilled people can make horrendous narrow mistakes”. Consider, the article “Cryptanalysis of the Enigma”, which states the following.

The Enigma machines were a family of portable cipher machines with rotor scramblers.[2] Good operating procedures, properly enforced, would have made the cipher unbreakable.[3][4] However, most of the German armed and secret services and civilian agencies that used Enigma employed poor procedures and it was these that allowed the cipher to be broken.

Thus, the German cryptologists assumed that the operating instructions would be followed.
TheSeven (talk) 12:53, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@TheSeven: The problems with the Enigma were widespread and on many levels. A huge problem with the machine was its disjoint transposition; that flaw was extensively exploited throughout. The machine's limited rotor permutatoins were also a problem. I'm skeptical of the summary given of Welchman and Calvocoressi. Operator errors made the task easier. User errors (such as structured/stereotyped messages useful for cribs) also helped.
In the 1930s, the procedures were flawed due to the common encryption of the doubled key. The Poles used that flaw to reduce the indicator permutations to a couple thousand possibilities. The operators choosing weak keys allowed the Poles to quickly determine the correct possibility. Specified operating procedures were mostly followed with the exception of operators choosing poor keys.
In the late 1930s, the Germans stopped the common encryption, but the Poles still exploited the doubled key by using a machine to find the doubling. Operating procedures were followed, but the machine was still attacked. The procedure (not the operator) was seriously flawed.
The Naval Enigma did not have the doubled key mistake, but the Brits were still able to attack it. The disjoint transposition allowed crib alignments. That is, good operating procedures did not make the cipher machine unbreakable. It was breakable because the German cipher authorities thought the plugboard permutation offered more security that it did. The Germans knew the combinatorics of the rotors; they knew about plaintext attacks; they did not understand how to look through the plugboard.
Glrx (talk) 16:45, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reference tags

Hi, I saw that you reverted my edit at Akaike information criterion. Your reason was that the edit broke Harv links: I agree that your reason is valid, and so my edit was inappropriate. My reason for the edit, though, is that the current display is wrong. As an example, consider the last item, which currently displays as follows.

Yang, Y. (2005), Can the strengths of AIC and BIC be shared?, Biometrika 92: 937–950

—that should be displayed as follows.

Yang, Y. (2005), "Can the strengths of AIC and BIC be shared?", Biometrika 92: 937–950

—so the edit that you made is also inappropriate.

Is there a way to set things up (with templates) so that Harv links work and the display is right?
TheSeven (talk) 09:56, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I'm mystified here. I thought the only major difference between {{cite}} and {{citation}} was periods versus commas. Both systems have been reworked, and I think some changes have been made (citation journal title behavior has changed with trans_chapter), but I'm a template user rather than an expert. Generally, when an article starts out, then the reference format is kept. (Consensus on the talk page could change it.) The chosen style appears to be primarily Harvard references with {{citation}} templates. The issue you raise is about display style, and that is set by the template election. I don't see it as a right-or-wrong issue. If there is a mistake, then the mistake is in {{citation}}. From the current documentation, it appears that template puts journal article titles in italics and conference paper titles in quotation marks. I'll take a further look. Glrx (talk) 16:26, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The italic v double quotes appears intentional. See Template talk:Citation. Glrx (talk) 16:31, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted your citation template switch at Bertrand paradox (probability). See WP:CITEVAR. Glrx (talk) 17:07, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@TheSeven: To be fixed in the next release? Template talk:Citation#Formatting of journal article title Glrx (talk) 16:00, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Francis Bashforth

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I copied the material from de:Francis Bashforth. When I copied the material I attributed that article in the edit comment. The cyclopaedia.de material clearly states its origin is de:Francis Bashforth. Glrx (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Francis Bashforth

A tag has been placed on Francis Bashforth, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done for the following reason:

non english article

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@Avono: slow your tagging. Glrx (talk) 20:54, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
yeah sorry about that, couldn't be sure though that you were just planning to copy and paste the german article and leave it like that :/ Avono♂ (talk) 10:23, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Francis Bashforth, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page St. John's College. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Fixed in the current release. Glrx (talk) 21:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Revert on Zygalski sheets

Hi, I noticed you reverted my edit to Grill (cryptology). To be honest I am not sure what the best practice is if you want to draw attention to another page that happens to be mentioned in a current version of a currently included template. Relying on the template to connect the pages seems brittle to me and doesn't make the close connection in subject matter clear. In this particular case I think there may even possibly be a case for merging the Z sheets page with Grill (cryptography) as the two accounts seem to discuss almost the same effort, but focussing on two different figures (and not mentioning the other in each case). Both ended up working (presumably together?) in the UK during the war. Some historian of Polish cryptanalysis may be able to help? Anyway, in the absence of confirmation that the two pages are in fact discussing different aspects of the same work, is there some other way of making the strong similarity and connection between the two explicit (that you would find acceptable)?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoh (talk • contribs) 18:49, 14 November 2014‎

RE this revert removing Zygalski sheets from See also section
Generally, if a topic (such as Zygalski sheets) is mentioned in an article's template, then mentioning it in the See also section seems superfluous. Z sheets are listed in both {{Cipher Bureau}} and {{EnigmaSeries}} templates. Also, all the efforts of the Polish Cipher Bureau were centered around Rejewski's characteristic and/or encrypted doubled keys. If one is going to mention Z sheets, then one should also mention the Polish Bomba.
I disagree with your claim of a "close connection". Merging Z sheets with Grill is a bad idea because the attacks are much different. Grills and Z sheets are not even superficially similar (e.g., slots v holes). The Grill used doubled indicators encrypted under the same key (Grundstellung) to extract permutations A B C D E F, and then it searched a small space for permutations P and Q; then Q was broken down and the ring settings were found. The Grill died in 1938 when new procedures (different Grundstellung for each message) prevented determining A B C D E F; the change forced the Poles to find other methods. The result was Z sheets and the Bomba. The Grill used complete cycles and did not need "females". The Z sheets and Bomba used doubled indicators encrypted under different keys, and the doubled indicators had to be 'females'.
If you are looking for similar methods, the Grill and the cyclometer are much closer. The cyclometer was a hash table lookup of the Grill's answer.
If you mean the Poles and Brits worked together in the UK during the war, that would be no. The Poles went to France and joined that service; the French (with the assistance of the Poles) collaborated with the Brits during the Phoney War (the Poles had destroyed their equipment and the French took them in; the British gave the French a set of Z sheets); the station in Algeria may have continued to operate after the Phoney War, but the main Polish cryptographers were either killed (e.g., Różycki and Palluth), captured (e.g., Langer), or fled. Rejewski and Zygalski made it to the UK during the war, but they were not involved with Enigma while there.
The connection between the two methods is not strong but could be mentioned in the article. Quite simply, the Grill and cyclometer methods died in 1938 and were succeeded by Z sheets and Bomba.
Glrx (talk) 20:03, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK. My assumption about the connection between the two was actually at the level of the name "grill" (and the page mentions vaguely that a physical grill had some part in the method) and the fact that Z sheets also have a relationship with Grille (cryptography). In terms of trying to add value to Wikipedia I am a linker more than a splitter, if you know what I mean, and therefore I think it would be informative to at least link the Z sheets page to the historical precedent for grilles in cryptography (actually this is already the case), and probably also explain and link the Grill (cryptology) page to the same Grille (cryptography) page. My edit was a mistaken attempt to respond to this perceived shortcoming by at least making the Z sheets -> grill(e) connection clear.

As far as merging goes, I'm sure you are right that the pages should remain separate. In a traditional encyclopedia I'd expect to find just one "Polish cryptanalysis of Enigma" article... in the absence of that it is a bit difficult to determine what the relationship and temporal sequence of the various techniques listed in the template are... it's just a bag of items, which forces the reader to poke around to find out what is going on. If there isn't going to be an overall narrative on any page maybe the individual pages could each say what methods preceded them and succeeded them in the evolution of the cryptanalysis effort?

(No idea how to indent this reply, sorry) Theoh (talk) 19:42, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Date format in Linux articles

Hello! Any chances, please, for you to have a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software § Date format in release history sections of Linux articles and possibly comment there by providing your point of view? The whole thing is pretty much poorly discussed with only a few editors actually discussing it, while it seems to be affecting more than a few articles (and the date format seems to be extending beyond the tables into references, please see history of the Linux distribution article). Any contributions to the discussion would be highly appreciated! — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 02:40, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at the issue, but I don't have anything to add. I'm a DMY fan in text, but I'm not big on it (and I speak MDY). If a date is in a sortable table, then ISO can make sense. I'm happy with any content as long as it makes sense. Glrx (talk) 03:55, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I totally agree on what's the most important, and that's the articles content that makes sense; formatting some garbage usually doesn't make it better. :) The whole issue about the date formats is actually diverting from that importance, that's why I've found it to be somewhat important. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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