User:NorwegianBlue/refdesk questions answered

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[edit] Some questions that I have contributed to answering

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[edit] The area of a square on the surface of a sphere.

Moved to a separate subpage.

[edit] COMPOSITION OF COMPOSER

Hi, what is the opus (KV) number of this piece Image:Mozart - KV 570.ogg. It is not the sonata known under kv. 570, infact it aint a sonata but instead it seems to be some kind of concerto including a flute and a piano. appreciate some help. -- Funper 22:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Please don't post questions more than once. HenryFlower 09:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart might give you some help. --Halcatalyst 14:49, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Beautiful music, and definately sounds like WA Mozart. The key is Bb major, if that is of any help. Did some googling for Mozart midi files for flute and piano in the key of Bb, but didn't find it. Could it have been written for another instrument originally (violin?), and transcribed? --vibo56 23:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I played the sound clip at work during lunch today, and one of my colleagues (who plays the clarinet and piano in his spare time) immediately recognised it, and knew that he had played it. He wanted to check out his sheet music at home, and has now sent me an email which reads as follows: "This is a sonata for the violin and piano by W.A. Mozart, K378 (also known as K317d in the Köchel revision 6/1994), the key is Bb major. It was probably arranged for the flute and piano by the great French flutist Marcel Joseph Moyse. The sonata has also been arranged for two clarinets by Wilhelm Sadowsky and Otto Büttner, as the first of six duets for two clarinets." My colleague recognised the music because he had played all six duets. As you probably have seen from the tagging within the .ogg file, it is a live recording by Albert Tipton (flute) and his wife Mary Norris (piano). --vibo56 19:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. -- Funper 00:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Gray Matter

Other than medicine, what kind of food can increase the amount of gray matter in our brains? Is there any exercise can increase the amount of gray matter?

Its matters more not how many neurons, it is how well they are connected. And how well you can use them. — The Mac Davis] ⌇☢ ญƛ. 00:11, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Gray matter contains mostly cell bodies of neurons and glia; of the two, only glia are generally capable of dividing in the adult nervous system. I suspect you're more interested in the growth of new neurons, but currently this isn't possible outside of certain regions of the brain (ie, the olfactory bulb and hippocampus)—and even then the physiological significance of such growth is poorly understood. Why do you ask? --David Iberri (talk) 00:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

My question is what food, like lithium, can possibly increase the amount of grey matter, if we eat them? What I am looking for is somethings specific, like what kind of fruits or what king of exercises?

The brain is composed mostly of fat not gray matter. Let the first reply be your guide. Laziness can not be compensated for by increasing physical gray matter. What you need to do is to increase logical gray matter. There is a picture of a kid somewhere who got shot in the head and lost over half of his brain and yet he only had minor physical and mental incapability as a result! One of the TV documentary programs showed him being fitted with a prosthesis that was bigger than a grapefruit! The brain is like a wild cat - it may be born with physical agility and prowess and a bunch of other amazing attributes but if nothing is going on and it is sleeping all the time then those attributes only represent potential that is subject to atrophy. Put that same cat on a hot tin roof and all of those attributes will come alive and be put to good use dealing with a problem. Each time the cat is stimulated in such a way it is challenged to learn a better and faster way to deal better with a similar problem. What you need to do is look for challenges that will force upon you to the need to increase your logical gray matter. ...IMHO (Talk) 04:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I very much doubt that any serious research has been done relating the amount of gray matter to nutrition. The only way to get this information would be do mri scans of a large number of people, calculate the gray matter volume (which I suspect in itself would be a difficult task), and do in-depth interviews of each person about their lifetime dietary habits. What has been done, however, is to study the correlation between nutrition and cognitive functions. There is no doubt that childhood malnutrition is related to lower scores in measurements of cognitive function. Omega-3 Essential fatty acids such as EPA and DHA are probably important. I suggest you follow this link to do a medline search. A search for "(epa or dha) and (cognitive functions)" gets some interesting hits. You might also want to try simply "nutrition and (cognitive functions)". As for exercising the gray matter, isn't that the same thing as using it? --vibo56 10:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] North Star

Can you tell me the simplest way to identify the North Star. I do not know what to look for in order to find. Please spell it out so clear that i can follow step by step instructions on this article in order to find it. Thank you.

The way I normally find it is to locate the Big Dipper and then follow the line that is created by the two stars that make up the edge of the bowl of the dipper on the side opposite from the handle of the dipper. By following this line in the direction of the "opening" of the bowl of the dipper, they point to the North Star which is also the last star in the handle of the Little Dipper. The rest of the Little Dipper is generally harder for me to see since the stars aren't as bright in that constellation. Dismas|(talk) 05:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
P.S. After checking the links I supplied, I see that this is spelled out with diagrams on the page for the Big Dipper. Dismas|(talk)
But don't use the official flag of Alaska, that is shown on the big dipper page as a map! The north star is nowhere nearly as bright as the flag suggests. Use this link instead, and you will find a better map. --vibo56 19:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chromatophores

Hello Scientists. I know this isn't really the place, however, i wonder if i could get a few opinions on the chromatophore article? I requested a peer review, but have had no takers. I'm trying to get it to good or featured article status and would like the opinion of intelligent non-experts, on whether it is too technical, not technical enough or whether anything is missing. Would appreciate it any comments. Thanks. Rockpocket 06:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks very nice! Don't see anything wrong with it. Good references, and external links. — The Mac Davis] ⌇☢ ญƛ. 07:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the article is well-written, interesting, and visually pleasing. The article contains many technical terms, and it could be made more accessible to non-expert readers by making sure that the meanings of these are explained when introduced, or that there are links to pages defining them. An example: the sentence beginning with "Biochromes, such as pteridines and carotinoids...". In context, I suppose it is clear that biochromes are a subset of chromatophores, but I had to stop and think, and read the sentence a couple of times. There is a page (stub) called pteridines, a link would have been helpful if the link points to the correct molecule. Even a term such as de novo could have confused a non-expert reader, especially because the disambiguation page for de novo had a definition of de novo in the biological sense that was, in my opinion wrong ("newly synthesised", instead of "synthesised from simple building blocks". I have fixed that now.) But all in all, a very interesting and thorough article. --vibo56 19:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. Actually, a 'biochrome' is defined as a 'pigment produced by an organism' (as opposed to a schemochrome, which is a colorless organic substance that reflects or refracts light). These aren't types of chromatophore per se, just different ways of generating colour. Its clear that that particular sentence can be improved, i'll work on that. Thanks again. Rockpocket 03:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
My pleasure. I have added some additional comments on the Chromatophore talk page. --vibo56 18:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] amino acids

hello,

why are L-AMINO acids and not D-amino acids used in proteins?

I have searched through google and got only this fact but not the reason......can any one help me out...plz?

This is a fact of evolution. It is an interesting exercise to try and imagine alternative biologies, which with information-carrying molecules different from DNA and RNA, and structural molecules composed of something else than the amino acids we know. And even within the constraints of DNA and RNA, with 64 codons, there could have been 63 different structural building blocks (leaving one for a stop codon). Yet there are only 20.
Amino acids turned out to be good building blocks because of the peptide bond, which links the amino acids together in proteins. Polypeptide chains fold into complex structures. In parts of the chain typical folding patterns like alpha helices and beta-pleated sheets form stable substructures ("secondary structure") within the three dimensional structure of a protein. For such substructures to be stable, all the amino acids have to be of the same type, i.e. either L or D. Therfore, in the primordial soup, nature had to make a choice. And the choice fell upon L-amino acids, possibly for no particular reason. But it had to be one or the other. --vibo56 16:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Are there cases where D-Amino acids are used rarely like reverse transcriptase in certian viruses? Or am I on the wrong track?
I'm not sure about reverse transcriptase, but a medline search for "(D-amino acid)" reveals that D-amino acids are indeed used to some extent for specialized purposes. "(D-amino acid) AND (reverse transcriptase)" gave no relevant hits as far as I could see. This article suggests that D-serine may be a regulator of glia cells, and thus indirectly control the exitability of neurons --vibo56 18:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
My read on this enzyme in Wiki suggests it is made from normal L-AMINO acids, but has a reverse function of making DNA out of RNA instead of the normal way of making RNA out of DNA. This is necessary for viruses to hijack the cells functionality.
Since viral proteins are made by the protein synthesising machinery of the host, they would be expected to consist entirely of L-amino acids, and your interpretation of the reverse part of the enzyme's name is correct. What I thought the questioner had in mind was whether there was something funny going on with this particular enzyme, such as a posttranslational modification, but as stated, no hits in medline. --vibo56 21:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Chirality is often overlooked; see thalidomide. Isopropyl 20:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The link should be Chirality (chemistry). --vibo56 21:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I asked this on the Chirality page, but I am sure a lot more people read this one so I will ask it here. Is it possible to have an optical isomer using isotopes? Suppose the Alanine molecule has the Methyl group replaced with Deuterium instead of Hydrogen? Would that create an optical isomer?
Yup (also answered on the Talk:Chirality (chemistry) page wher eyou asked it). The carbon atom would be tetrahedral as usual and would have four different substituents on it, thus it is an asymmetric center. One might expect the optical rotation to be small--I can't find the exact number at the moment. DMacks 21:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The optical rotation is expected to be small because the chemical difference between the two is small, right?
Yeah...from a non-scientific viewpoint, one might say "well, they're both hydrogen, so why is it considered a stereocenter at all (see the initial question), and even if it is in a technical or pedantic sense, would there be any rotation at all?" Until I found the actual ref (see my response below), I only remembered that indeed it was "a small number". DMacks 16:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Tetrahedron 1959 6 338-344 reports measurements of optical rotation of several isotopically-chiral molecules such as RCHDOH, finding [α]D up to ~1°. DMacks 23:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cancer treatment and research 1450-1750

I am looking for information related to the prevalence, attitude, understanding, and treatment of cancer during the time period 1450-1750. I think this is known as the early modern period. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Is this homework? I sense a lack of focus. You are asking several quite disparate questions about a broad range of diseases. An in-depth treatment sounds like a major piece of work. If that is what you are doing, and the problem is that you lack experience in browsing the internet, I suggest you start right here.
Google is an excellent tool for finding starting information. Hint: use Cancer as a search word, together with a term that you would be likely to find in the article you are looking for, and unlikely to find elsewhere, such as "century". If you add "-20th -20st", you will narrow it further down. The minus signs excude articles that contain 20th and 21st. Adding "History of medicine" (including the quotes) will narrow it further down.
A quick search yielded the following:
I cannot vouch for the quality of the sources.
If this is homework, feel free to cut-and-paste, but remember:
  • your teacher may be better at googling than you are.
  • your teacher has the advantage of being able to search for uncommon words or phrases that you have used.
Cheers, --vibo56 23:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips on browsing the internet. You are very perceptive. This was/is part of a homework assignment. I was doing some leg work for my 14 year old son. As a nurse I found the topic of some interest also. The hospital librarian put me onto the first site you mention. Apparently thru the 1500's the most common theory as to the cause of cancer was an excess of black bile. ( the bile I have encountered is yellow ) With the discovery of the lymphatic system this belief ended. Time, ability to do autopsis and the inquiring minds of many physicians " laid the foundation for scientific oncology during the 1700's. I have added this Reference desk to my favorites. I've found it fascinating reading, and the responses of the researches often amusing.Thanks again.

[edit] Ability to Self-Update to New Versions in Linux Distributions

I run Ubuntu in a virtual machine, and was happy to note that the updater that Ubuntu uses to patch, update, etc. is capable of downloading and installing new versions of Ubuntu (right now upgrading from 5.10 to 6.06 LTS) into itself, essentially an in place upgrade. Are any other Linux distributions capable of this? I have previously used SuSE, but via YaST, I was only able to update or upgrade components, I could never upgrade the entire operating system. Thanks. MSTCrow 04:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

On Debian, one can type apt-get update; apt-get upgrade and it downloads and installs new versions of all components, including the kernel. (Which is not surprising, since Ubuntu is based on the Debian architecture.) –Mysid(t) 05:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Are the upgrade mechanisms of Ubuntu and Debian identical, apt-get, synaptic etc.? --vibo56 09:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
In many ways. Ubuntu uses apt-get/aptitude/synaptic to upgrade and dist-upgrade, but uses its own repositories for packages. ❝Sverdrup❞ 01:38, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diamond

I know how it crystallizes but how does that relate to valence bonding of it? (no it's not homework)Any help would be appreciated. And remember, as this question may seem ridiculously simple, as I just read above: don't bite the newbies

In diamond, carbon is in the sp3-hybridised state, see orbital hybridisation for a nice image. Each nucleus sits in the middle of a tetrahedron. Thus, it is tetravalent here as elsewhere, and each carbon atom "shares an electron" with each of its four neighbours. --vibo56 09:50, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
This brings another question - a cube is related to an octahedron in Plato's system, how can a self-dual tetraedron build cubic centered crystals ? I'd appreciate any hint. --DLL 20:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this answers your question, DLL, but there's a picture of the 3D structure of diamond in the carbon page. --vibo56 21:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
OK, the distance between the center of the tetrahedron and its summits must differ from the distance between summits linked by Valence. --DLL 22:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How do I tell if I've chosen an appropriate statistical distribution

I have a group of 12 observations. I'd like to predict what my observations will be in the future. I also need the distribution to apply Bayes Theorem.

Right now, I'm using the normal distribution but I don't know if that's the right choice. I've calculated the skewness and kurtosis of the data, but I don't have any idea what they're supposed to be! I mean, I know if my observations were truly normally distributed, the skewness would be zero, but I don't know if my skewness of 1.65 is "close enough" or what. Are there rules of thumb for this? moink 05:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Under the assumption of normal distribution, the probability that a sample of 12 observations has a skewness whose absolute value is at least 1.65 is about 0.002. That is fairly low, and normally ground to reject the null hypothesis of normalcy. What is the source of the observations and how critical is the accuracy of the estimated distribution? Often the physical or other origin of the data suggests a plausible crude model for the distribution that is good enough in practice. --LambiamTalk 06:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
It is not particularly critical. I was actually kinda hoping not to have to share the type of data, but since it's apparently a very poor fit to the normal distribution, I guess I will. It's the length of my menstrual cycle. Now all the boys on the math RD can get all grossed out.  :) I like to know if I should carry tampons on me, and the Bayes' theorem thing... well, if you're very bright you may be able to figure it out but I will not provide an explanation. Here's the data: 32, 29, 28, 28, 26, 27, 27, 29, 36, 25, 26, 28. moink 07:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
You know, you could use a neural network for precisely this task. Neural networks can be used to predict the length of menstrual cycles as well as stock market values or other things. Choose an encoding for the lengths, train some sort of recurrent network on the data you have, and then get it to generate predictions. If I get time, and I am sufficiently bored, I might even try this for you. Dysprosia 07:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Sounds cool but beyond my abilities. Right now, though, I'm less interested in predicting exactly the length of the next cycle, and more in knowing the approximate probability that it is at least some length so I can apply Bayes' theorem. moink 07:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Using your data and the formula at skewness, I find a skewness of 1.27, which is still significantly different from the null hypothesis but less so. Looking at the data, the problem appears to be the outliers at the high side. If you censor the data by discarding values > 30, you get a good agreement with a normal distribution. Given the application censoring at the high side is acceptable, since you want confidence at the low side. The sample is still a bit small, though, to really confidently assume the low end behaves normally, without outliers. --LambiamTalk 14:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
So much for trusting my spreadsheet software. I thought about dropping the large ones, but it's in the higher range that I'm most interested in the probability, and since it seems that it does occasionally get that large, and not that rarely, I wanted to take that into account. moink 15:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm by no means suggesting that this is what you are trying to calculate, but just for the sake of argument: if A=pregnant, and B=menstruation has not yet occurred, and one were interested in P(A|B), then P(B|A) would of course be very close to unity, but what value should be used for P(A)? Would the age specific fertility rate be correct? --vibo56 15:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Addendum: P(A) would obviously have to be either zero, or a lot higher... --vibo56 15:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Why would you say that? I mean, it could be zero, but it could be the small numbers you'd get using the failure rates of certain contraceptives. Even with several instances of unprotected sex in a month, it will generally not go above 25-30%. moink 15:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. You are right. --vibo56 16:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Chi squared might be your answer to whether the data is normal or not. Basically this works by dividing up the domain in to a number of boxes, you then count how many of your data items fall into each box and compare with the number predicted from the normal distribution. Add up the square of differences and compare with the approptite Chi-squared statistic. This should give a confidence interval as to whether the difference is significant or not. I suspect with only twelve points you don't really have enough data to meaningfully talk about skew. --Salix alba (talk) 15:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Sigh. Ok, so I'm transparent. My prior distribution in this context is from a record of instances of penetrative sexual intercourse along with the underlying numbers used by this site combined with a pdf of the date of ovulation using the pdf above and the possibly quite poor assumption of a constant luteal phase of 14 days. moink 15:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
If the goal is to get pregnant, I'd start off by measuring my body temperature, to get a more precise estimate of the time of ovulation. After one year with no success, I would definitely go see a gynecologist. If, on the other hand, the goal is not to get pregnant, and you want a statistical tool to tell you when to start worrying, I'm afraid your approach won't work. Biological distributions tend to have very heavy tails, and you simply do not have enough data to make a sensible estimate of the distribution. With a limited dataset, however, you could make control charts. Here's a link to a how-to (powerpoint), courtesy of the British NHS Modernisation Agency. --vibo56 17:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
When reading my previous comment: forgetting to mention this was maybe a male freudian slip, but anyway: if the goal is getting pregnant, it would be a good idea to have your partner checked as well. --vibo56 21:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, the goal is complicated. It is one, the other, or both of the above, in addition to saving on costs of Human chorionic gonadotropin tests (which have high false negative rates, especially when used too early) by using them at the right time. For example, applying an additional Bayesian update rule, a negative test with a sensitivity of 25 mIU of hCG would reduce my probability by a factor of nearly three if I used it today, while it would reduce the probability by a factor of eight if used tomorrow. And buying a basal thermometer would negate those cost savings.  :) The other main goal is the fun of overanalyzing these things. :) moink 04:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
If you check out the presentation that I linked to, and are able not to get too irritated about the "for dummies" manner in which it is presented, you will see that this might be exactly the tool that you are looking for. It is a tool for decision-making, primarily in the manufacturing industry, but it is now mandatory also in blood banks throughout the EU. As you can see from this article, it has been around for a long time, and has stood the test of time. It is a curious mix of parametric and non-parametric statistics.
Your statement on the goal leaves me with the impression that timing is a rather critical issue. I would definitely invest in that thermometer! I wish you all the best, and hope that you achieve your goal and that it brings you happiness. Best regards, --vibo56 23:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help with MASM32

I need to create an array that can hold 10 million integer numbers and fill it with random numbers ranging from 1 million to 10 million (minus one), When it is filled I need to write the index and contents to a file. I know how to generate random numbers in MASM and how to write from memory to a file using debug but I need to put them together in a MASM program. Anyone have a demo or example? ...IMHO (Talk) 00:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you rephrased the question to pinpoint the problem more exactly. Do you need help with the memory management/indexing, or with making your "random" numbers fall in that particular range, with writing from memory to a disk file from outside of debug, or with writing a self-contained MASM program? I see from your user page that you program in C. You might try to first write a C-program that does the job, with as few outside dependencies as possible, and then compile the C-program to assembly and study the output. --vibo56 talk 10:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that is quite easy to do with C (or C++) with a few "for" loops and the rand() function (see here for help using that), and then using fstream to write to files (see here). Hope this helps. —Mets501 (talk) 13:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
With the range of pseudorandom numbers that IMHO needs, rand() will not be sufficient, since RAND_MAX typically is quite small (32767). You might of course combine the results of several calls to rand() by bit-shifting. If you do so, I would recommend checking the output with a tool such as ent, to make sure that the result still fits basic requirements to pseudorandom numbers. If you want to write your own pseudorandom number generator, you can find a thorough treatment of the subject in D. E. Knuth. The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms, Third Edition. Addison-Wesley, 1997. --vibo56 talk 15:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes this information helps. Thanks. However, my goal in part here is to learn (or relearn) MASM. Back in the late '60's and early '70's assembly language was quit straight forward (and can still be that straight forward using the command line DEBUG command). Where I am having trouble currently is with INCLUDEs. Irvine32.inc in particular so I am trying to avoid even the use of INCLUDEs and do this (if possible) using only a DEBUG script. Don't get me wrong I have spent ALL of my programming career writing in high level language simply so that I could get far more work done but now my goal is to go back through some of the programs I have written in a high level language like Visual Basic and convert what ever I can to concise assembler or machine code which might help bridge the gap between Windows and Linux whereas a program written in C++ for Linux (source code) may otherwise find difficulty (after it is compiled under any version of Window's C++) to run. What I need specifically is to 1.) know how to create and expand a single dimension integer array with the above size. Therefore I need help with both the memory management and indexing, 2.) Although I can make random numbers fall into any range in Visual Basic I'm not sure about doing this in assembler, 3.) I also need help in writing the array contents and index to a file since even though I know how to write something at a particular location in memory to a file using DEBUG and how to write an array to a file using Visual Basic it has been a long, long time since I used assembler way back in the early '70's. Your suggestion to try writing in C and then doing a compile to study the output is a good and logical one but my thinking is that by the time I get back into C so that I can write such a snippet of a program that I could have already learned how to do it using MASM. Even still it is not an unreasonable or bad idea. Any code examples would lend to my effort and be appreciated. Thanks. ...IMHO (Talk) 14:58, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I followed your suggestion to look at the disassembled output of the following C++ code and was shocked to find that while the .exe file was only 155,000 bytes the disassembled listing is over 3 million bytes long.

#include <stdio.h> 
#include <stdlib.h> 
main() 
{ 
   printf("RAND_MAX = %u\n", RAND_MAX); 
}

I think I need to stick with the original plan. ...IMHO (Talk) 15:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow! You must have disassembled the entire standard library! What I meant was to generate an assembly listing of your program, such as in this example. You will see that in the example, I have scaled down the size of the array by a factor of 100 compared to your original description of the problem. This is because the compiler was unable to generate sensible code for stack-allocated arrays this size (the code compiled, but gave runtime stack overflow errors).
To bridge the gap between Windows and Linux, I think that this is definitely not the way to go. If you are writing C or C++ and avoid platform-specific calls, your code should easily compile on both platforms. For platform specific stuff, write an abstraction layer, and use makefiles to select the correct .C file for the platform. If you want gui stuff, you can achieve portability by using a widget toolkit that supports both platforms, such as WxWidgets. I have no experience in porting Visual basic to Linux, but I suppose you could do it using Wine. --vibo56 talk 17:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks like I need to learn more about the VC++ disassembler. I was using it to created the execute file and then using another program to do a disassembly (or reassembly) of the execute file. I'll study the VC++ disassembler help references for at least long enough to recover some working knowledge of MASM and then perhaps do the VB rewrites in VC++ if it looks like I can't improve the code. Thanks ...IMHO (Talk) 23:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
You don't need to use a disassembler. In Visual C++ 6.0, you'll find this under project settings, select the C/C++ tab, in the "category" combo select "Listing files", and chose the appropriate one. The .asm file will be generated in the same directory as the .exe. Presumably it works similarly in more recent versions of VC++. --vibo56 talk 04:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
All of the menu items appear to be there but no .asm file can be found in either the main folder or in the debug folder. With the C++ version of the program now up and running as it is supposed to with all of the little details given attention (like appending type designators to literals) the next step is to take a look at that .asm file ...if only it will rear its ugly head. ...IMHO (Talk) 01:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Strange. You could try calling the compiler (cl.exe) from the command line, when the current directory is the directory where your source file lives. The /Fa option forces generation of a listing, the /c option skips the linker, and you might need to use the /I option to specify the directory for your include files, if the INCLUDE environment variable is not set properly. On my system that would be:
E:\src\wikipedia\masm_test>cl /Fa /c /I "c:\Programfiler\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Include" main.c
Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 12.00.8804 for 80x86
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1984-1998. All rights reserved.
 
main.c
 
E:\src\wikipedia\masm_test>dir *.asm
  Volumet i stasjon E er ARBEID
  Volumserienummeret er 4293-94FF
  
 Innhold i E:\src\wikipedia\masm_test
  
 13.06.2006  19:23             2 292 main.asm
which, as you can see, works fine. The problem may be related to the fact that you have the free version, maybe assembly generation is disabled? Would that be the case if it only compiles to .net bytecode? If so, just about any other C compiler will have an option to generate an assembly listing, try using another compiler instead. --vibo56 talk 17:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
There must be something seriously wrong with my installation. Even after multiple reinstallations of VC C++ v6 Introductory I keep getting command line errors like it can't find the include files, etc. I'll keep working on it. Thanks. ...IMHO (Talk) 00:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, finally got it! The thing that was messing up the command line compile under VC++ v6 Intro seems to have been a "using namespace std;" line (although oddly enough it has to be removed when the contents of an array variable are incremented but required when the same variable is only assigned a value). It looks like VC++ Express 2005 has the same settings function in the GUI but I have not yet been able to figure out and follow the procedure to get it to work. Its command line .asm intruction might also work now but I do not have time right now to test it. Thanks for all of the detailed suggestions and for helping to make the Wikipedia more than I ever dreamed it would be. Thanks. ...IMHO (Talk) 21:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd add a caution here re the random business. It is remarkably hard to generate random sequences deterministically. See hardware random number generator for some observations. If you have to do it in software, you might consider Blum Blum Shub whose output is provably random in a strong sense if a certain problem is in fact intractable computationally. It's just slow in comparison to most other approaches. ISAAC and the Mersenne twister are other possibilites adn rather faster. On a practical basis, you might consult the design of Schneier and Ferguson's Fortuna (see Practical Cryptography). The problem is one of entropy in the information theory sense, and it may be that this doesn't apply to your use in which case the techniques described by Knuth will likley be helpful. Anything which passes his various tests will likely be satisfactory for any none security related purpose. However, for security related issues (eg, cryptography, etc) they won't as the entropy will be too low. Consider Schneier and Ferguson's comentson the issue in Practical Cryptography.
And with reapect to using libraries, I suggest that you either roll your own routines or install a crypto library from such projects as OpenBSD or the equivalent in the Linux world. Peter Gutmann's cryptlib is in C and has such routines. There are several other crypto libraries, most in C. Check them very carefully against the algorithm claimed before you use them for any security related purpose. G luck. ww 04:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please identify this science-fiction short story

When I was a child I read a short story that has affected me greatly. I'd like to reread the story now that I'm an adult, but can't locate it. Here's a plot synopsis...

The planet has been entirely overrun by humans. The society measure it's progress in kilograms of brain mass, and everyone lives in very dense cities. Human waste is shipped out to sea, and kelp is harvested to eat. As a hobby, a man keeps alive the last remaining patch of grass, a bird or other small animal, maybe a lizard or something, in his apartment. One day he receives a notice form the government that his building will be torn down to construct an even larger housing complex, and he is order to vacate. He can't take his pets with him, so he destroys everything and then commits suicide.

I read this story about 25 years ago, but I think it was in an anthology of science-fiction short stories from the mid-1960s. I thought it was by Heinlein, but after searching through many of his works, I'm not so sure anymore.

Thanks for your help, Andy 216.98.254.8 19:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it's by Isaac Asimov -- if memory serves, it was one of a pair of stories dealing with the "last living non-human thing", one glorifying and the other lamenting the concept. However, I don't recall the titles. — Lomn Talk 19:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I can confirm Asimov. Political Mind 20:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
It actually sounds rather un-Asimov-like to me, and I've read many (but not all) of his short stories. But if others confirm, disregard this. :-) zafiroblue05 | Talk 00:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I think maybe I found it: 2430 AD? Didn't get a very good review at this website, though. --vibo56 talk 19:07, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks much for everyone's help! I'll check out the Asimov stories... Andy216.98.255.107

[edit] Trying to remember a person

A while ago, I stumbled upon a Wikiquote article (there was one on Wikipedia, too) on a really interesting man. I think he was an officer in the American civil war who supported equal rights for women, was anti-slavery, very progressive. He was asked to run for governor of Illinois and refused because he was told he would have to pretend to be religious (he wasn't). A lot of his really interesting quotes were about religion and how belief in Hell was contrary to belief in a benevolent god. Does anyone know who he was? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Emmett5 (talk • contribs) .

You could look through Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Governor_of_Illinois and see if any of the article titles ring a bell for you.-gadfium 03:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Would that be Robert Green Ingersoll? --vibo56 talk 13:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is. Thank you very much! Emmett5 19:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
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