Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 February 8

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February 8

Transposing letters on Twitter

I'm an irregular user of Twitter, still struggling to come to terms with its mores but one thing I keep encountering is really baffling me. I regularly see tweets that consist solely of a person's name but with the first letter or group of letters swapped around, so for instance it might read Wimmy Jales. From what I can determine it usually appears when the person does something of which the Twitterer disapproves but I may be interpreting it wrongly. So am I right and if so is this a widespread thing or specific to one of the niche groups that seem to inhabit the website? Any ideas where the practice arose from? I've tried Google but I struggled to articulate it there and I don't know any of the users of the device well enough to ask them what it means. Keresaspa (talk) 02:53, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it's to evade keyword searches. (But my first thought was of the twit whose current handle – it changes often – is Spysander Loonerist.) —Tamfang (talk) 08:25, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

• It's mostly just a daft joke on Twitter - see this article, which for some reason (*cough*SEO*sough*) was published by dictionary.com. The general practice is called a spoonerism. Lewd Jaw. Smurrayinchester 09:36, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, although I know what it is, it's the why I'm interested in. Maybe it's not as widespread as I thought so perhaps it would help if I gave more concrete information. When I've encountered the phenomenon it has been from people generally identifying as on the political left (not centre-left, more radical) and has tended to be used when somebody they hitherto thought was decent has done something they've disagreed with. So, for instance when Hilary Benn made his speech in support of bombing of Syria several tweets could have appeared with "Bilary Henn" as their entire content. I was really wondering why that particular form was used in those specific circumstances. Keresaspa (talk) 00:40, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Computer won’t boot to Windows.

I have a low-end Lenovo laptop running Windows 10. Whenever I turn it on, it shows this message: “Preparing Automatic Repair”, then this message: “Diagnosing your PC”, after which it goes to this screen, with the following message:

Automatic Repair

Your PC did not start correctly

Press “Restart” to restart your PC, which can sometimes fix the problem. You can also press “Advanced options” to try other options to repair your PC.

Neither option works. What can I do; I have so much material sitting on that computer’s hard drive that I don’t wanna lose?

--24.228.126.236 (talk) 05:28, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Sure-fire method for when your data is really, really important and you have no backups:

1. Turn off the PC and leave it off for now.
2. Remove the hard drive.
3. If you were thinking of getting a newer computer, this would be a good time to do so.
4. Install a new hard drive that is at least twice as large as the old one.
5. Install a fresh copy of windows 10 with the latest updates.
6. Do a fresh install of all your applications
7. Configure windows and apps to taste.
8. Add your old hard drive as a second drive (with laptop drives this may require purchasing an external eSata or USB drive enclosure).
9. Copy everything on your old drive to a new data folder on the new drive using XXCOPY (http://www.xxcopy.com/). This may take many hours.
10. Start moving your data to the appropriate places. Do not attempt to re-use any of the programs in your saved data folder.
11. Never again let yourself be caught without a recent full backup.

--Guy Macon (talk) 07:30, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

If your HDD doesn't register on the new computer, then depending on the make/model of the HDD and possibly your willingness to solder circuit boards, there might be additional data recovery steps you can take. You can check out this video for more about that. But follow Guy's excellent advice first. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:42, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Exellent advice indeed, but not after everything else has failed. The first things I would do:

• Download the installation media from Microsoft (and nowhere else!) and burn it to a dvd
• Boot from the dvd and try the repair options provided
• If that fails, reinstall windows from the dvd without deleting the user data on the hd

There's a good chance this will work. Jahoe (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I would try this first, too. I don't see it having a very good chance of fixing the problem (I've not yet gotten 10 to successfully repair itself). But if it does, it's the cheapest, easiest solution. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:33, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I was a pc-repairman for a few years, and agree that MS' repair options are not that impressive. However I don't remember a reinstall failing, exept in case of hardware issues. What I forgot to mention is that after a reinstall many hardware drivers will be missing. Some will come from the reinstall or windows update, others will have to come from the manufacturers website or a driver cd supplied with the pc. Quite often this is the nastiest part of the repair. Jahoe (talk) 16:04, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

It really depends on the manufacturer and whether the owner created the recovery media. My ASUS ROG laptop can do a repair installation of Windows 8.1 just fine, and adds all the correct drivers in the process (except the nvidia driver which inevitably needs to be updated, but the one they install works well enough to get going). But Win10 has a common error when trying to upgrade. It seems to be less common when using installation media (like the dvd you recommended), but it still happens sometimes, even with no hardware issues. My first encounter with this resulted in me doing a full reinstall of windows 7 and the upgrade to 10 twice before I caught on and used a thumb drive (which in turn required another full install of 7).

An alternative option is to just go with Ubuntu and stop worrying about having an unstable operating system for the rest of your computer's life. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:12, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I like your Ubuntu remark actually. A good alternative for reviving old pc's. Of course it depends a bit on where the focus is: data recovery, pc-repair or both. Anyways, lots of success to the OP. :) Jahoe (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

That's how it goes in my house; old computers don't get trashed or sold, they get Debian (and put out to pasture in my file/processor server farm.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:09, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

This complete section was deleted by the OP, for no obvious reason. I guess the discussion was done, and he/she was tidying up, but this is normally done by a robot after a few days. I've just restored the section, so it can be archived and removed in the usual way. Jahoe (talk) 11:26, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

To backup data in such situations, boot a Linux live CD or an live image from USB memory, to copy all data to an external drive or over the network. This skips to use the screwdriver. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 01:18, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Game like video poker but for kids

I teach teens (and some younger) to program apps while they are in long stays at the hospital. Recently, a girl wanted to make a video poker game, so we did that. Obviously, there was complaints that video poker is gambling and kids shouldn't know that gambling exists. So, is there a game that is functionally similar to video poker, but for kids? I've thought about matching flowers by color and number of petals - just replacing the cards with flowers. Differentiating between 2 to 14 petals on a flower is hard. Any better examples of similar games? 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:09, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, there's a whole universe of debate about whether that sort of thing is inappropriate or not that's well out of the scope of this forum. Honestly, you could stick with the rules of poker and just adjust the game so as to remove the gambling, but then it's not much of a game (since there's almost no skill involved, just luck). According to Video poker however, the video version is slightly different. Honestly, I would just do something like what you already suggested: keeping the rules the same (including the betting, but making sure the player is betting points instead of money) and swapping out cards for something else easy to identify. I think reducing the pool of available 'cards' might help, too. So try doing flowers of three different colors, with 2-8 petals each, maybe? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:17, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like you're looking for a game with a "press your luck" mechanism. Off the top of my head I can't think of one involving cards that would be an easy conversion from a five-card draw video poker game, but such a game probably exists. Whether it would be fun is another question.

There are also dice games, that involve "press your luck" mechanics where you roll your dice, then you choose which dice to re-roll. Farkle is a classic, and Zombie Dice is currently pretty popular. Those are both commercial games, but maybe they could be inspiration.

Hopefully you can find (Or invent!) something that's similar to video poker, and has the added advantage that the odds aren't so far in the house's favor. ApLundell (talk) 14:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

If replacing the cards with dice, how about Yahtzee ? If you don't want to add the score sheet coding, you could just use paper sheets. If you want to keep the program logic the same (4 suits with 13 cards in each suit), I suggest just 4 colors and either numbers 1-13 or letters A-M. To make it a bit more interesting, you can also have an illustration, like an animal that starts with that letter. StuRat (talk) 15:50, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

You could try a simplified collectible card game like Plants vs. Zombies Heroes or Hearthstone. Although the underlying mechanics are a bit different from a conventional card game like poker, there's still a lot in common, mechanically. There's still a deck (or two), a per-player hand, a number of cards on the board, interactions between dealt cards and those on the board (tricks, essentially), and the usual turn-taking behaviour. You could eschew, at least initially, the cost of cards (their mana cost and commensurate power) and have only a few cards. A fun thing is that players can design their own decks - so one person who likes fluffy animals can draw and specify a deck of (say 10) different animal cards, from the friendly panda to the vicious were-bunny. Like wise for robots or pixies or dragons or whatever. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 17:18, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

You could try Koi-Koi or another card game using a Hanafuda deck.
Sleigh (talk) 08:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

These are good suggestions. I am building a list of projects. Right now, a girl in paralysis rehab wants to make a dance game where you touch buttons on the screen with your fingers and your character dances. The programming is easy, but I'm going to have to see how interested she is in learning graphics. She might want to learn to use blender and make full 3-D models. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:45, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

For a lighter version, you might try Flash animation using tweening to fill in intermediate frames. This will work well if she can draw 2D cartoons. StuRat (talk) 15:32, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Need help on how to register/log-in on Kickstarter

Alright, thing is, years ago I somehow joined Kickstarter in order to support one single project. Back then, registering worked as such that by clicking a single button for registration via either Facebook or Amazon.com, I was registered, all because back then, Kickstarter registration for European users was still in beta mode.

So today, I'm trying to return to support another project, and now for anything to function at all, Kickstarter asks me a password that I have never set or used before. As back then I registered by a single-click-on-a-button solution, Kickstarter also has no e-mail address where to send a mail with said non-existing password for retrieval. Basically, I'm logged in all the time while I'm on the Kickstarter page, but I can neither support any projects nor edit my profile, because it always asks me for a password and enter a non-existing e-mail address.

There is no way to log out and create a new account, and I can't even contact any staff because said contact again requires me to enter a non-existing password and a non-existing e-mail adress before it even allows me to notify the staff. And all their FAQs and troubleshooting material only deal with problems between backers and project founders, not with account problems. --79.242.219.119 (talk) 23:08, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

What you want to try first is clearing your cookies and cache. Then see if you can get to this page without it telling you that you're logged in. If that works, just set up a new account, and use that one to get in touch with customer service and explain your problem (that last step is only if you need to migrate all your old data/settings over to your new account). If that doesn't work, try repeating those steps, but before you log back in, reset your modem (with cable and DSL modems, you can do this by simply unplugging it, waiting ten seconds, then plugging it back in and waiting for it to reboot). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:14, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

First : try putting in whatever email you use for your Facebook account. That's probably the one its expecting.

Second : Go to their support page. Follow the instructions, and when it asks "did this solve your problem?" click on "no", and it will let you file a support ticket.

Third : If you just want to log out and create a new account. Click on your face in the upper right. At the very bottom of the drop-down it will let you log out. ApLundell (talk) 23:15, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I've tried both my Facebook and my Amazon.com e-mail, and every other e-mail I've ever had. None of them worked. I did try the "no, did not help" version, and it only re-directs me again to the page where it's telling me to enter a non-existing password and a non-existing e-mail. And there is no smiley for me visible anywhere, only an earth globe with a magnifying glass on it behind which my profile settings are hiding, but as said, none of them are editable. I'll try User_talk:MjolnirPants's solution of clearing my chache now. --79.242.219.119 (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I've tried User:MjolnirPants's solution now, and it didn't change a single thing: Still logged into an entirely dysfunctional account as soon as I go on Kickstarter. But looking at the globe symbol again, I now found a tiny "log out" button at the very bottom of its drop-down menu. It did log me out, but when I then clicked "register", it began to load an empty register form but within a second recognized me as the dysfunctional account and before even fully having loaded the register form, it re-directed me to the page where it demands a non-existing password and a non-existing e-mail. I've made it to log out again, prematurely cold-kill loading of the register form by hitting ESC to prevent it from re-directing me again, and then it seemed like I could enter all relevant data and even hit "submit", after which it claimed data was received and a confirmation mail had been sent to the e-mail address I'd now entered. But so far, it's been 10 minutes and going on 15, and no e-mail received so far. --79.242.219.119 (talk) 23:31, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Your account might have gotten hijacked. That would explain why you never got an email. However, that's not that likely. Check your spam folder, see if the email's in there. Did you try cycling the modem, as well? If you clear your cache and cookies, and you connect from a new IP address (which cycling your modem should do for most folks), the site has no way of knowing who you are. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Go to the support page I linked and press the green button (it's at the bottom) that says "OPEN SUPPORT TICKET". That will let you contact Kickstarter. ApLundell (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) *SUCCESS!* The new, unverified account at least allowed me to go deep enough into the profile and send another confirmation e-mail, and this one actually did go through, so I could use the link in there to confirm the new account. Now I'm a proud sponsor (and soon owner) of a vintage-looking, foldable 6 x 4 medium-format Instax camera with a bellows that only costs c. 30 bucks! [1]

@User:MjolnirPants: Again, when I first joined KS years ago, registration for European users was still in beta mode, that's why I never got an e-mail back then. --79.242.219.119 (talk) 23:48, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Hooray! ApLundell (talk) 23:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Glad we could help! :) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:14, 9 February 2017 (UTC)