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November 8

why does VLC sound so much more AWESOME than winamp?

After installing VLC for video on my new computer, I used it for some mp3 files. I prefer and am more used to winamp, so I downloaded that insteaed, but I was shocked to find out that VLC had sounded WAY more awesome. I couldn't believe it, especially since I prefer winamp, so tested very carefully. Hands down, VLC is more awesome. Why could that be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 00:36, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "more awesome"? VLC comes with a volume normalizer and a "headphone virtual spatialization" effect. I use Winamp with a normalizer (which uses the DSP studio) and ATsurround (which makes stereo music sound good on 5.1 sound systems). --wj32 ^t/c 01:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Winamp uses the DirectShow API for playback whereas VLC uses it's own codecs. This means VLC might sound different from winamp as it is decoding the mp3 file differently. VLC might also be routing sound through different wave or directsound output settings, or winamp could be using an equalizer which would reduce the dynamic range and clarity of the sound, whereas VLC would play it unaltered. SN0WKITT3N 14:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

VLC is standard louder then winamp I belive,

With standard I mean not pushing or clicking anybuttons except file > open > .....

A nice little note: VLC is multiplatform, Yet winamp is just for windows (as the name suggests) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.84.198.234 (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unicode weirdness / mystery

I came across this set of characters some jokester posted on a message board recently that messed up the nearby text above and below it, with a series of dots going above and below some of the characters (in fact, I am seeing this effect now in this text box, I am not sure if it will show up when it's posted to the Reference Desk though). None of them look to be any actual alphanumeric characters... here is the string in question, pasted:

ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚

If I Google search this string, Google returns a "malformed or illegal request" error (first time in my life I've seen Google return an error message instead of attempting to search the web with the given string). If I paste some of the characters into OpenOffice, it won't let me select it (or it might be selecting it but it's 0-width??), or input any further text to the left unless I move the cursor up and down and try again a few times. Set the font size to a huge value to see it better, and individual characters will literally look like scrambled junk just like the string itself, like nothing you'd expect to see in an actual character set -- almost, but not quite, like an inkblot.

So what the hell is going on? --75.165.54.206 (talk) 01:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is AWESOME!!! :) (sorry, but this is the coolest thing I've seen in a while....) I don't know what that might be... SF007 (talk) 01:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the google error, I think it is simply because the string is very big (even a long string with "normal letters" will produce that error), and if we cut this strange string and search it in google, it works! SF007 (talk) 02:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the key to what's going on here is the unicode character U+202B, which is a right-to-left embedding character (meaning that the stuff you type is reversed). Repeated using of it probably screws with character rendering, or something Belisarius (talk) 04:04, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just for kicks, I put your search string into some other search engines: Yahoo! returned this page with about 8 results (a couple of links to news articles on KCRG-9's website, some links to 4chan, one link to 7chan and a link to someone's Facebook page; Live.com silently dumped me back to its main search page, without even so much as an error message; and Ask.com found no results and told me my search terms were too long. --CalusReyma (talk) 09:34, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On my system (Firefox 3 on Windows XP) the rendered page (although not the edit box) clearly shows several instances of ҉ which a hex editor reveals to be U+0489: Combining Cyrillic Millions Sign. Presumably I can only see it clearly because my system's failing to combine it with the adjacent characters. I can also clearly see a couple of instances of ερ (U+03B5: Greek small letter epsilon followed by U+03C1: Greek small letter rho), and there are various other diacritics in there I think.

So there is no rendering error here, just an imaginative use of combining characters - characters for things like accents that are designed to be displayed "on top of" another letter (or symbol). By layering them on top of each other, the jokester has obscured their individual forms and created an intriguing piece of abstract UNICODE art. - IMSoP (talk) 18:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Opening OpenOffice.org Math on Ubuntu?

Resolved

How can I open OpenOffice.org Math 3 on Ubuntu? It is installed, but I can't find a link anywere! SF007 (talk) 01:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For an explanation, see [1]. Right-click the main menu and select Edit Menus. In the Office category there should be an item called OpenOffice.org Formula. Enable that. Alternatively, the command is ooffice -math %U. The icon is at /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/ and is called ooo-math.png. [2] --wj32 ^t/c 06:25, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Press Alt and F2, and type ooffice in the box. Open office is a single application: to run open office math, click File, New, Spreadsheet and you'll be at a new spreadsheet in OO Math. --h2g2bob (talk) 11:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I made it! SF007 (talk) 15:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Feasibilty of buying a Cray CX1 for home use

Could I purchase a Cray CX1 super computer for home use?

[[3]]

Would I be able to hook up my monitor, keyboard, mouse to it? Could I play games and perform tasks that a regular PC could do?

Acceptable (talk) 20:56, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dunno, but you might want to take a look at [Windows Server 2003#Windows HPC Server 2008]. Though I'd bet you could get a far better price / performance ratio for most "home user" tasks elsewhere. Sorry this ain't a real answer, cheers, davidprior (talk) 21:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your peripherals should work, except your printer XD. Most of the programs won't work, though, since the OS is Server 2008. However, Server 2008 includes Hyper-V, which allows you to run XP and Vista virtual machines inside the operating system. It's like VMWare.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its just a Xeon-based server computer. The Visualization Node CV5401 has a fairly nice video card, so it'd probably be good for gaming. Just expensive. Looks like those systems are more intended for HPC uses. -- JSBillings 01:58, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should mention that the CX1 is an enclosure for 8 nodes. Most games don't aren't parallelized to run across several different computers over a high-speed interconnect, like High performance computing applications. So, the answer to your question is, yes, you could play games and perform tasks a regular PC could do, but it would only run on one node, effectively wasting 7 other nodes. -- JSBillings 02:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found a web site that lists game compatibility: http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/2008/03/08/games-and-entertainment/ . A lot of them have issues. Office 2007 should work, though. But I read that Photoshop won't run inside Server 2008.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could I not just uninstall the operating system and install Vista? Acceptable (talk) 05:27, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think you can. The reason why Windows HPC Server 2008 is used is because it supports the hardware. It is a cluster anyway, not a multiprocessor, so I doubt games are programmed to take advantage of it. Rilak (talk) 08:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity, I installed Server 2008 inside VMware. Firefox, Adobe Reader, Office 2007, and Quicktime work without any problems. Although I read that Photoshop CS3 doesn't work, my pre-release Photoshop and Flash CS4 versions seem to work, too. They warn you when you install, but they work nonetheless.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 11:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

how do I allow XP to physically shut down my computer, instead of just almost doing so?

so this old computer used to have windows 98, which could shut it down all the way. then I installed xp on it, great, but now when I shut it down it goes real quiet and almost completely shuts down, but instead displays the 'safe to turn off your comptuer now' bit. how do I actually enable a complete physical shut-down? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 23:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most likely your computer uses the older AT form factor, where the power switch is directly connected to the power supply, in which case there's no way for the software to control it. This is unlike the newer ATX form factor, where the power switch is connected to the motherboard, allowing software to control the power. See Power supply unit (computer)#AT vs. ATX. --164.67.207.12 (talk) 23:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, maybe you missed the part that "this old computer used to have windows 98, which could shut it down all the way. then I installed xp on it" (on the same computer, no hardware changes, and actually it is dual-boot and the windows 98 os can STILL shut down the computer ALL the way). Was your comment some kind of joke? How could installing xp go so far as messing up physical layout and motherboard connections, reverting the computer to an old AT form factor whenever I run it (but back to normal on the old OS)? I didn't say Vista, I said XP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 03:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because there are thousands of hardware configurations, a specific answer is not easy to give. Check the ACPI settings in your BIOS. Windows is apparently not recognizing that your computer is ACPI compliant. If that doesn't help, it is possible that a driver is failing and preventing XP from shutting down (a common problem with poorly written drivers). -- kainaw ™ 03:18, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that I'm using a wireless adapter, but there is NO other driver loaded, moreover the problem existed even before I installed the wireless card: a pristine install of XP can't do what windows 98 did already. how is that possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 04:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean "no other driver loaded"? Windows requires a large number of drivers to function properly. Possibly you mean you only installed one driver?

Did you check your BIOS settings to make sure ACPI is turned on? Does the computer shut-down properly if it's started in safe-mode? If so that could hint at a driver issue in regular mode. APL (talk) 07:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, before you try messing with safe-mode, try going to the control panel and disabling all power-saving features in Windows. Those can sometimes cause problems like this. I'm not sure why. APL (talk) 07:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As APL said... When you install Windows (3.1, 95, 98, XP, ME, Vista...), it autodetects all the hardware in your computer and installs drivers - tons of drivers. Just because Windows 98 had a good driver for some hardware item does not mean that XP has good drivers (or even that XP has drivers at all - I had a scanner that worked in 98 but wasn't supported in XP at all). -- kainaw ™ 15:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Windows 3.1 doesn't autodetect any hardware. You need to specify it all manually (including fun things like IRQ lines, DMA channels, and I/O ports). --Carnildo (talk) 22:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]