Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 August 16

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August 16

GPRS still on?

ACCORDING TO MY NETWORK PROVIDER T-MOBILE GPRS STILL WORKS IN THE BACKGROUND WHEN YOUR PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF AND THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN STOP THIS IS TO REMOVE THE BATTERY.CAN YOU PLEASE CONFIRM THIS IS TRUE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmodad (talk • contribs) 09:41, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

1) Turn off your caps lock.

2) Realize that any cell phone company is always capable of tracking their phones capable of sending and receiving signals. That's how they work. It's like getting upset that an oven gets hot. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:18, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's not how they work when they're off. I think it's reasonable to expect that off means off. I would also get upset about an oven that got hot when it was off. --Trovatore (talk) 06:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

To continue the analogy, a cell phone isn't like an electric stove, or a gas stove with an electric igniter, it's like a gas stove with a pilot light. That is, both have a "standby mode", where the oven gets a little hot and the cell phone occasionally checks it's position so the cell phone network knows where to route incoming calls. However, you can also turn both entirely off. When doing so, a restart sequence is required. In the case of the stove, that includes lighting the pilot light, while in the case of the cell phone, that involves sending it's location to the cell network. Now, if the cell phone is still sending location information when turned completely off (but with the battery still in), then that's bad for many reasons. There's wasting the battery, the invasion of privacy aspect, and possible interference it may cause. Presumably, avoiding one of more of these issues is precisely why it was turned off instead of left in standby mode. StuRat (talk) 17:27, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I thought it was like a big truck... - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I added a header to your question. If your phone is off, one would presume it is incapable of sending or receiving signals. However, the definition of 'off' can be quite variable depending on the model of your phone and one sure way is to remove the battery. Certainly, my old Sony K850 would still operate the alarm even if I had pressed the power button to 'off', so obviously something was still on. I am unsure about modern smartphones. Many support an 'aircraft mode' due to supposed interference with aircraft systems. I would be very surprised if the phone was still attempting to contact cell towers when in that mode - I'm assuming that 'airplane mode' is subject to some regulation by bodies such as the FCC or FAA or their equivalents. But then again, maybe the need for the NSA to track terrorists trumps aircraft safety concerns. If you are really concerned about people tracking you, why do you even have a mobile phone? Astronaut (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

A cell phone can be a life saver in an emergency, that's why to carry it. For emergency only cell phones, I agree with the advice to remove the battery when not in use (unfortunately you probably need to plug it into the phone to charge it). In addition to any privacy concerns, removing the battery may make it last longer. Also, get a "burner" phone (a prepaid cell phone bought with cash at a store with no video cameras and never refilled online). This way, even if your phone is on, nobody can track your movements because they don't know which phone is yours. Of course, once you call anybody on it, the NSA might be able to figure out who you are and track you from then on. BTW, I realize this all sounds rather paranoid, but many people don't like the fact that they can be tracked by the NSA, whether or not they actually are. StuRat (talk) 17:42, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Even forgetting the NSA, what about if someone is driving somewhere and becomes hopelessly lost? If there's a continuously online tracking system, it could be a life saver. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:39, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I guess it's possible (but I find very unlikely for various reasons like local regulations) that the phone will occasionally connect to the network even when off. When can be sure that there is no constant network connection when the phone is off. Such connections are somewhat power intensive. And pretty much all phones whether smart phones or whatever have some sort of lithium ion battery of some sort and it's a bad idea to over discharge these (or rather you can, but it's a bad idea to try and charge them again afterwards). Even on a modern smartphone with fairly high capacity batteries, if you're leaving the GPRS constantly on, this is a good way to ensure the battery will eventually overdischarge. Meaning if you let your battery run down and the phone autoswitches off, leave it a few weeks and you can't safely charge it. Since we know phones aren't like this, we can be fairly sure they aren't leaving the GPRS network on when off. I'm fairly confused why GPRS will come in to it anyway. AFAIK, many phones will only connect to GPRS occasionally or as needed. They normally just maintain the ordinary GSM (or whatever) connection. And that's presuming your phone is using GSM, many will preferably connect to 3G if available nowadays. (AFAIK the days of 3G connection being far worse on battery life is long gone.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:29, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the OP means GPS rather than GPRS. The above points are still valid, of course. Tevildo (talk) 16:41, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I wondered that, though GPS is entirely passive and doesn't transmit anything (though, of course, software in the phone can pick up the location and transmit it over GPRS, GSM, WiFi etc.) In all the devices I've ever seen, GPS can be switched off. Many manufacturers allow the device to receive a message via GPRS or GSM to switch GPS on again for legal tracing purposes, but this is under the control of the registered owner unless malware has subverted the facility. Dbfirs 18:06, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

If constantly, GPS is likely to be an even worse battery hog.

Okay, perhaps I should clarify. If you're trying to maintain a constant GPS lock, you'll quickly overdischarge any run down battery or even any not run down battery.

If you're actually maintaining a significant GPRS (or even 3G) connection, this will in fact down the battery even faster than the GPS but unless you're actualling doing something most phones won't do that instead just the occasionally polling (and as I mentioned, AFAIK most phones won't maintain a GPRS connection at all, just the ordinary GSM connection). Simple non touch feature phones, despite their generally low capacity batteries are a good example of this. Unlike smartphones, they don't have fancy processors or large LCD screens so the network connection is often a big chunk of battery usage. Try using the GPRS constantly and your battery capacity will drop at a fairly high rate and as I mentioned, I'm pretty sure it's not just because of the screen or processor (the former is easy to test).

Of course such phones are also demonstrate another point. Even if you completely disable the screen, you still won't generally get more than 2 weeks or so standby and as I mentioned, I don't think it's just the processor on the SOC. (Of course either way, you have the same problem if you're phone is doing this when off.)

As I hinted earlier, neither of these rule out the phone intermitedly connecting to either GPS or GPRS when off but there are good reasons to think it doesn't happen particularly in the case of a run down battery (I suspect with the demands of modern smartphones, manufacturers are pushing these to a greater limit so for an already run down battery, even an intermittant connection will easily lead to an overdischarged battery). Personally I wouldn't trust anything some low level staff at the telco says. Such staff are known for not being particularly reliable mostly intended to help with simply matters where they can follow a script.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The idea of the NSA (or other law-enforcement/anti-terrorist/military organization) being able to track a phone even when it's turned fully off is complicated. It's obviously true that if a phone is turned fully off - even if the battery is still in it - then it cannot be tracked. But the NSA (and some others) are reputedly able to infect the phone with a piece of software that changes the function of the "OFF" button to turn off the screen and the ringer and a bunch of other stuff - but leave the phone pinging the cell towers regularly.

If they did infect someone's phone in that way (possibly with collusion from the phone company) - the owner would THINK that they'd turned the phone off when in fact it's still turned on.

Technically, it's true to say that if the phone is turned off, you can't track it...but if you're very paranoid, then recognize that turning it off is a software function that can be circumvented.

So if you desperately don't want to be tracked...physically remove the battery.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:05, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

...or just use a phone booth. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

There are still phone booths? I haven't seen one for years! SteveBaker (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

We certainly still have them down here. Maybe not so many as once upon a time, but still there. And we have one of the highest rates of new technology uptake in the world, meaning inter alia that it is very much the exception for an individual not to have a mobile (cell) phone here (mainly the elderly). But there's always the problem of running out of credit, or having your service cut off because of failure to pay the bill, or losing the phone, so the state helps out. I seem to recall that a guarantee of a permanent reasonable phone booth service was part of some political deal cut in the 1990s when Telstra was being privatised; but don't quote me on that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Why was my Pokemon's nickname banned?

When attempting to transfer Pokemon forward from Gen V to Gen 6, the game will wipe any inappropriate nicknames (for example, a Bibarel of mine named "Balls" got his name reset to Bibarel"). I guess I understand why they're doing this. But what I don't get is why my Alakazam named "Shazaam" tripped that filter. What is inappropriate about that name? This makes me sad because I've had Shazaam since I played FireRed as a grade schooler. He was the cornerstone of my first Elite Four victory ever, and I just want to understand what caused his nickname to get wiped. 98.27.241.101 (talk) 18:03, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

A complete guess, but it could be because it's too similar to the copyrighted and/or trademarked Shazam. Rojomoke (talk) 19:51, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I googled a few of the lists with known banned words and names and couldn't find anything tied to Shazaam, but maybe it contains a string of characters that are banned in another language? As far as I know there is no officially published banned list. I don't think copyright similarity is enough to trigger, though. Mingmingla (talk) 21:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone else remember Shazzan? —Tamfang (talk) 05:57, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I dimly recall that he used to say "Size of an elephant!" to magically enlarge things. It was a while ago... Alansplodge (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Was that not Arabian Knights rather than Shazzan? Are we not showing our ages here? Tevildo (talk) 22:32, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Am I the only one old enough to remember this "Shazam!"; If that's not annoying enough, see also: [1](?)  —E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 17:14, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Leap year

Since we live around the year 2000, some people may've only learned that if the year can be divided by 4, it's a leap year. So how many people are really aware that normally years which can be divided by 100 are not leap years and that 2000 is yet one because it can be divided by 400? When you tell people that 2100 is not a leap year, how many will be surprised? I know there probably won't be any statistics about this, but I just want to see the reactions or experiences here. --2.245.105.0 (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

We don't do surveys. Anyone expecting 2100 to be a leap year will find themselves wondering what happened to February 29th when it is already March 1st 2100, a Monday. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 20:05, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Seems to me there was a fair amount of discussion of date-related matters as 2000 and 2001 approached. I expect there will be similar discussions as 2100 approaches, but I don't expect many of us here to be in on it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:28, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I seem to remember hearing more than one person insisting that 2000 would be nonleap. —Tamfang (talk) 05:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe by the year 2100 we'll have found a way to get kids to pay attention at school. HiLo48 (talk) 06:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't quite answer your question, but "in a Computerworld survey of 105 information technology managers, 17% didn't know 2000 is a leap year" ([2]), which suggests that at least 17% knew the 100-year rule (unless some of them didn't even know the 4-year rule). Also, enough ordinary people knew the 100-year rule and not the 400-year rule to aggravate Daniel P. B. Smith into writing this amusing FAQ in 1998. -- BenRG (talk) 06:10, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

There was enough confusion just over the question of whether 1999 or 2000 was the last year in the 20th century. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:43, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

That's in no way comparable. The question of which century a year is in has no practical consequences (unless somebody has been silly enough to set something to explicitly depend on it), and I would argue that there is not a single answer to it. The question of whether a year is a leap year or not has a right answer according to the particular calendar in use, and has practical consequences. In other words, nobody but pedants cares when the century ended. --ColinFine (talk) 17:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The idea of people being "surprised" about some year not being a leap year assumes that they've thought about it at all. I doubt many people know the 100/400 rules because it has no significant bearing on their lives. And the number of people thinking about the year 2100 is probably even smaller yet considering it won't even be within their lifetime. Dismas|^(talk) 08:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

There are children alive today (and a small number of young adults) who could live to see the year 2100. The question is whether the effects of climate change, resource depletion, and associated armed conflicts will have resulted in the collapse of our civilization by then. If not, it will probably be news to a fair number of people that 2100 is not a leap year. If civilization has collapsed, a handful of people may be aware that 2100 should not be a leap year, but most survivors will be too concerned with survival to care about keeping an accurate calendar. Marco polo (talk) 19:40, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

What's to stop a latter-day Pope Gregory XIII from decreeing a change to the calendar to fix assorted glitches and infelicities? Maybe it will be a leap year in 2100 after all under the Francine Calendar. Or the Petrine Calendar. Assuming the world takes any notice of such putative preposterous papal pronouncements. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:02, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Initial scepticism of Pope Gregory XIII#The Gregorian calendar declared in Inter gravissimas can be explained by the small number of people then able to comprehend that mismatch between the actual and assumed lengths of a year necessitated a correction. Education in the 16th century was inadequate to allay suspicions that it was a plot to steal life time (between 5 and 14 October 1582), religious difference caused long delays before protestant and eastern Christian countries eventually understood it, while Eastern Orthodox churches alone still retain the Julian calendar for Easter. Great Britain and its American colonies reformed in 1752 and the Gregorian calendar would therefore have counted the days in 1788 in the British penal colony "New South Wales". How is Gregory's pronouncement putative or preposterous, Jack? 84.209.89.214 (talk) 01:17, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"Putative" refers to things that may be under consideration, not to things that have already happened. The word could only have been in reference to a Francine or Petrine calendar. As for "preposterous", anyone who attempted to reform the calendar in the 21st century, particularly by decreeing it shall be so, as Gregory did in 1582, would be laughed off planet Earth, if only because of the colossal and exceedingly complex task it would be to implement now, compared to the 16th century. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:15, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

There have been various tweaks to how time is "managed" since the Gregorian reforms. See for example International Meridian Conference (1884), before which there was no agreement on such matters as a prime meridian (without which it's not wholly clear what day it is once you begin to travel globally) and time zones which we pretty much take for granted (though in fact standard timezones at a specific offset to "GMT" only came later and involved many countries changing their local standard times). These have of course included changing what time it is - albeit in very small quantities rather than in days - see leap second. They have come about through the international agreement of rational governments advised by experts reaching a scientific consensus. Most people are at best dimly aware of these changes and none caused the ructions that the changes in the 16th, 17th or 18th century did. All these changes were effectively made by decree once scientific experts had agreed amongst themselves. No-one put Coordinated Universal Time, for example, to a vote. Valiantis (talk) 18:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Those were changes to how time-keeping is managed in an international context, but not changes to the fundamental structure of the calendar itself. The "preposterous" change I'm talking about would be where a pope, or someone, decided that for obscure theological reasons we needed to remove 4 days from a certain year, to make Christmas (25 December) coincide with the winter/summer solstice (21 December; except that what we used to call 21 December would now be called 25 December). Easy to say; not so easy to implement. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:17, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

They should have fixed that mistake during Gregory's changes to the calendar. Too late now, especially as the non-Christian part of the world (as well as Eastern Orthodox) would reject it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 21 August 2014 (UTC)