Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 March 27

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March 27 edit

Watch Date Calibration edit

How do watches calculate dates for February (for watches that show the day)?174.3.113.245 (talk) 07:54, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some of them simply have software to allow for it. A lot of mechanical watches don't automatically change: you have to remember to change the date yourself. Britmax (talk) 08:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mechanical watches typically require the date to be corrected manually after any month that's less than 31 days. Digital watches may or may not keep track of the year so they can get February right -- if you need to correct the date once every 4 years, that's not much of a burden. (And if they do track the year, they may or may not be programmed with the full Gregorian calendar leap year rold rules -- most of them aren't likely to last until the year 2100 when it would next make a difference. I have no idea which case is more common.)
I think there were mechanical watches which could account for the number of days in each month. Handling leap years would be less common, though. StuRat (talk) 16:41, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Uh-huh. I did say "typically". --Anon, 02:30 UTC, March 29, 2010.
Then of course there are watches that update themselves automatically from an external time reference, which should therefore never go wrong -- but this year, according to an item in the online RISKS Digest (volume 25, issue 97), some of them did. Due to a software error, the "10" in the year was effectively treated as hexadecimal, causing the watch to "think" the year was 2016, and therefore was a leap year, and therefore to display Day #60 of the year as February 29! --Anonymous, 09:38 UTC, March 27, 2010; confusing typo fixed 02:30 UTC and link added 19:23 UTC, March 29.
The infamous "Y2.01K Problem"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What?174.3.113.245 (talk) 05:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How about the "Y200x10 problem"? (0x10 in the C sense, of course.) --Anonymous, 04:30 UTC, April 1, 2010.
What?174.3.113.245 (talk) 05:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help identifying a song. edit

Okay, this is going to be a bit strange: I update the Backyardigans episode page, since as I'm in Canada we generally get the episodes first. Each episode has four songs and sometimes a song's pattern is based off a real song. Here's a song from one of the latest episodes: http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=56075880.wav

I swear I've heard that tonal pattern before. Any help? HalfShadow 16:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Darn it. I know I know that song. I'm getting an early-to-mid-90's pop-punk vibe off of it, and its right on the tip of my tongue. I'm looking for it... --Jayron32 00:00, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It reminded me of Limehouse Blues by Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, I think. I found it on YouTube, but I think posting a link here's not the done thing. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just out of curiosity why is posting a link not the done thing? Everyone else does... Gazhiley (talk) 10:48, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's another one, specifically the chorus. That's 'bug'ged me for two years; again, I'm sure I've heard it somewhere. If fact if anyone wants to take a crack at any of the songs in that site, List of The Backyardigans episodes would benefit from it. HalfShadow 16:25, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Webcomic about the Sega Dreamcast edit

Anyone here knows a webcomic strip that had one character labeled "indie gamer" or something similar, he walked into the scene after being introduced and just said "The Dreamcast was highly underrated!" or something like that? It looked like Penny Arcade or Sinfest, but I don't think those were it. Thanks. Also sorry for asking this on the wrong desk in the first place! --YukiMuonMadobeNite (talk) 16:57, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

VGCats. http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=164 You're welcome. =P Overlord11001001 20:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]