Copyright plot of movie?

Question: New writer here! I want to ask a question: if I take a plot of a movie and write it in my book but not entirely. There are similarities but also things which don't exist in the  movie. Do I need to but copyright? If not what should be the procedure?
I am new in the writing thing and I want things to be right to avoid problems.
Thank you
Comment: If you have questions that are legal in nature, then you need to, at a minimum, specify which jurisdiction you are interested in. Copyright laws vary by locale.
Answer: That's a good consideration, however, here's my quick tip: Do it and don't tell anyone.
Yikes!
Heres the thing: almost every single idea out there is a copy of another one. If you see something you like and want to recreate it, but want to change some things- then totally just do it. Make it original enough that it can be something else, but you know what you got it from. So many books are like this.
Of course, this does only go so far. If it's too similar, someone might call you out on blatant copyright, and you could look at being sued (this all depends of course on many nuances in the law and exactly what was done, etc)
If your desire, on the other hand, is to simply rewrite the story but keep characters, most of the plot, etc. the same- then fan fiction is really your best bet. Or, talk to the author yourself and see if you can get rights to the story to write your own stuff about it!
My biggest advice though overall, is just be aware that most people copy each other and just hide it. Also, once you really get in the groove of writing, you might be more inclined to write your own unique things rather then copy others (everybody gets inspiration from someone, everybody takes from someone else)
(p.s. chances are, what you're writing now won't get published. I don't mean that to be harsh or critical against your writing, but what I mean is if you're new to writing, and this is your first project, you may not stick with it for very long as you change and grow and new ideas come along. I would only worry about the legal matters about this if you were 100% serious about getting this story out and published. You're not going to be punished for rewriting the story and saving it on your own word docs! or publishing to a fan fiction site)
Comment: I see. But I am not copying from a book,I am copying from a movie. What happens in this case?
Comment: @MarieHoping A book and a movie are pretty much the same thing from a writer's perspective.  They are both a story being told, one through visual, the other through imagination and words.  Also just because it's a movie, doesn't mean you can write the exact same thing as a book because it is still IP of who ever wrote the movie.  As Richard said, change it up enough so that it's not obviously copying, but tributes and aspects of it that display inspiration from material is always nice to see.  Call it easter eggs if you will.
Answer: Depends.
For example, if it is an adaptation of a story that is already copyrighted, then it might be a little bit dodgy for people. If it's fanfiction or whatever, then ok....

Copyright plot of movie?


Minecraft: Villagers Steal?

Question: So I play Minecraft PE and I try to have the Villagers do the work, but they don't give the crops back. Can they put it in a chest or hopper?
Comment: AFAIK they just store them in own inventory... which is similarly sized to yours. With most crops stacking to 64, it would take years till that overflows. The way around that was getting them to pick a wide variety of items so that they fill up the slots. Not sure if that still works.
Answer: You can make them attempt to throw it at another villager. Do this by trapping a villager (Preferably not a farmer) in a glass cell. Dig a one block wide trench all around the cell. Place a hopper two blocks out from the center of the cell and level with the ground.1 Then, link up the hopper to a chest and wait. Also, punch a 1 block hole at head level so that any villagers attempting to throw their crops see the trapped villager.
Finished product:2
Answer: Sadly, they don't.This is why I would suggest trapping them all in a hole, or just kill them. Also the only way they can plant back the seed is if they have a seed in their "inventory".

Minecraft: Villagers Steal?


Is it healthier to live by the coast or inland?

Question: I've asked this question on life hacks and been told to go ask it on medical or travel. It's nothing to do with travel in my opinion. I have heard/ read so many conflicting statistics about the sea air and cloud cover. I would like to know if it is healthier overall to live on the coast or inland.
Answer: Being near water appears to make people happy, British newspaper the Guardian ran this piece on it:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/03/blue-space-living-near-water-good-secret-of-happiness
It contains links to peer reviewed papers about the positive effects of being or living near water or on the coast on well-being, like this one.
The newspaper article and the scientific papers deal with psychological well-being, you would have to look elsewhere for purely physical effects.


Which Star Trek TOS episodes show Dilithium Crystals on screen?

Question: In which episodes of Star Trek: TOS were Dilithium Crystals shown on screen? This is not counting episodes where they were just mentioned; only episodes where they were actually shown.
Answer: I thought about it some more, and there were three episodes.  I checked my DVDs, and hunted up all the scenes I could find.

Mudd's Women Season 1

Spock shows one of the crystals that was damaged in rescuing Mudd.

The Alternative Factor Season1

Lazarus and crazy Lazarus both steal crystals from the Enterprise. You see the crystals several times, and also the dilithium chamber.
Here's the dilithium chamber:

Crazy Lazarus with two crystals in a bag.

Crazy Lazarus with the crystals in his UFO:

Kirk throwing crazy Lazarus through his UFO into the corridor between the universes (crystals visible):

Lazarus (not the crazy one) with the crystals in the alternate universe:

Elaan of Troyius Season 3
This is the one everybody remembers, probably because Elaan was wearing them as a necklace - and she spent most of the episode wearing costumes that would make a stripper blush.  I can't believe it took me nearly 40 years to recognize the ham-fisted play on words "Helen of Troy" and "Elaan of Troyius"

Burned out crystal in the dilithium chamber - note that it is now in a the engine room proper - and that the crystal looks like the ones in "The Alternative Factor."

Elaan with the necklace (no one knows that it is of dilithium yet):

Elaan has left the bridge and come back.  Spock discovers her necklace is made of dilithium.

Spock and Scotty installing the "crude crystals" in the dilithium chamber.  If you look, you'll see the burned out one lying there.  It looks like the ones from "The Alternative Factor" but it is burned looking.

Elaan leaving the Enterprise.  Notice she's wearing her necklace again.  Kirk must have given it back.

It seems the props folks didn't have a real clear idea of what the dilithium crystals should be and what they should look like.
Comment: After seeing all three, I suspect that the Dilithum Crystals in the necklace from "Elaan of Troyius" are the ones I bought fragments of from Chris Doohan.  It's been a long day, but I will post photos tomorrow.
Thanks to all, for your expertise in Star Trek TOS.  (Funny I was never a big fan of TOS, but Love "ST Enterprise" and "ST Voyager".
Stan
Comment: Maybe I'm not remembering correctly, but in Mudd's Women weren't they referred to as "Lithium" crystals?
Comment: #1. that Spock is holding, appears to be a healthy Quartz Crystal with some Iridescent Hematite on it's base and part of one facet.
Answer: In TOS 'Elaan of Troyius', we see Dilithium Crystals twice.  We see some in a necklace:

and also see some burnt out in the assembly itself:
Answer: Besides the three episodes that were previously mentioned, I believe there is a brief scene in The Paradise Syndrome. I've only seen it once, as it seems to have been deleted from most syndication packages, but it's when Enterprise is closing in on the asteroid. Scotty does a quick visual inspection of the crystals where he reports to Spock, "Dilithium crystal circuit's failing, sir."
Found a still:


Including External DLL in AIR Native Extension

Question: I've been trying to get a working (AIR 3) Native Extension in Flex 4.6 working for a while now.  My basic project is to have a Flash (Flex) UI running with a C++/CLI DLL Native Extension running in the background.  That C++ Native Extension uses another C# DLL further in the background.
Basically, the reason for this chain was to have C# DLL running a Kinect camera, which would pass data to a C++ DLL running OpenCV, which would pass data to a Flash UI.
Now, I have basically everything set up, Flash can communicate though the Native Extension to C++ and C++ can communicate to C# via "#using" it's DLL.
However, when I try to have Flash call the Native Extension C++ to call the C#, the Flex desktop app crashes and I get the error:
Process terminated unexpectedly

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'kinect, Version=126.96.36.199, Culture=nutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies.
The System cannot find the file specified.
    at startCamera(Void* ctx, Void* funcData, Uint32 argc, Void** argv)

Launch command details: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.6\sdks\4.6.0\bin\adl.exe" -runtime "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.6\sdks\4.6.0\runtimes\air\win" -profile extendedDesktop -extdir "C:\Users\owner\Adobe Flash Builder 4.6\.metadata\.plugins\com.adobe.flexbuilder.project.ui\ANEFiles\WorkingExtension\win32\" C:\Users\owner\Deskto\FinalWorkingExtension\Flex\bin-debug\WorkingExtension-app.xml C:\Users\owner\Desktop\FinalWOrkingExtension\Flex\bin-debug

As I understand it, it cannot find the kinect.dll (C# DLL).  I've tried putting it in the ANE file for the Native Extension, including it in the system PATH, and linking to it with the project property linker in the C++ project.  I'm kind of out of ideas at this point.
Oh, I've traced the error down to the C++ statement:
kinectClass^ deligate = gcnew kinectClass();

where kinectClass is the C# class that I created in the C# DLL.
Thank you for whatever help you can offer.
Comment: kinect.dll is in app directory? In C++ dll code, is this directory current? (`Directory.GetCurrentDirectory`)
Answer: You can take a look at this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15264535/88231
For debugging I copied my DLL where the ADL.exe is located and it worked.


What was the weight of concrete in pounds per cubic foot?

Question: A batch of concrete consisted of $200$ lbs. fine aggregate, $350$ lbs coarse aggregate, $94$ lbs cement, and $5$ gallons water. The specific gravity of the sand and gravel may be taken as $2.65$ and that of the cement as $3.10$. What was the weight of concrete in place per cubic foot?
It shows here that the answer is $153$ lbs. But how?
Here is what I did:
$$\frac{(94 \cdot 3.1)}{(550 \cdot 2.65)+(5 \cdot 7.481 \cdot 62.4)+(94 \cdot 3.1)} = \frac{291.4}{1457.5+41.71+291.4}$$
I was thinking about getting it proportions.
I also know that $density=\frac{mass}{volume}$. However, when I equate volume to be $1ft^3$, then the density of the concrete to be specific gravity $x$ water, I get an answer of 193.44 lbs. Please show steps.
Comment: abstract-algebra is a bit off topic for a question about concrete weight
Answer: Use direcly definition of density
$$ \bar {d }= \frac{\text{Total  Weight}}{\text{Total  Volume}} $$
$$=\dfrac {W_1+ W_2+W_3 +W_4}{ \dfrac{W_1}{d_1}  + \dfrac{W_2}{d_2} + \dfrac{W_3}{d_3}  +\dfrac{W_4}{d_4} }$$
that would give you after needed plug-ins as $ 153  \dfrac{\text{lbs}}{\text {ft^3}}.$
Answer: I am puzzled as to why you have the weight of cement only in the numerator as well as adding it to the other weights in the denominator.   To find the "weight per cubic foot" of concrete you need to divide the total weight of concrete by its volume.  The total weight is 350+ 94+ 40= 484 pounds (for the water, 5 gallons is 40 pints and "a pint's a pound the world around").  Now use the specific gravities to determine the volume of each part and add them to find the total volume.
Answer: Note that

volume $V=5\cdot 0.13+\frac{550}{2.65\cdot 62.4}+\frac{94}{3.10\cdot 62.4}=4.46 \,ft^3$
weight $W=5\cdot 0.13\cdot 62.4+550+94=684.56 \,lbs$

thus

$\frac W V=153.4 \,lbs/ft^3$
Answer: The mass of a batch is presumably about $200+350+94+5\times 8.34$ pounds
The volume of a batch is presumably about $\frac{200}{2.65 \times 8.34}+ \frac{350}{2.65 \times 8.34}+ \frac{94}{3.10 \times 8.34}+5$ US gallons or about
$\frac{200}{2.65 \times 62.4}+ \frac{350}{2.65 \times 62.4}+ \frac{94}{3.10 \times 62.4}+ \frac{5}{7.48}$ cubic feet
So a batch weighs about $685.7$ pounds and has a volume of about $4.48$ cubic feet so dividing one by the other gives about $153$ pounds per cubic foot
This would be rather easier in metric units


Simple linear regression exercise

Question: I'm trying to do an exercise but I can't figure out how to proceed. OLS is run for this model, with 100 observations.
$$
y_i=b_0+b_1x_i+\epsilon_i
$$
The results are $$
\hat\beta =\begin{pmatrix} 9 \\1 \end{pmatrix}
$$
$$
V(\hat\beta)=\hat\sigma^2 (X'X)^{-1}=\begin{pmatrix} 3 &0.12 \\ 0.12 &0.064  \end{pmatrix}
$$
It asks me to calculate $$ e'e$$ aka the sum of squared residuals. I don't know what to do. I know in simple regressione the coefficients and variances have formulas that have to do with averages and variances of y and x. But I don't have any info on the individual observations. Could anyone tell me what I'm missing or how to solve this?
Answer: Notice that
$X'X = \begin{pmatrix}
n & \sum x_i\\
\sum x_i & \sum x_i^2
\end{pmatrix}$
since you know $n$, there are three unknowns that determine the elements of the matrix $\text{Var}(\hat \beta)$  - $\sum x_i, \sum x_i^2$ and $\hat\sigma^2$. Use the three indpendent elements of the matrix to find those quantities, and then assuming
$$\hat\sigma^2 = \frac{e'e}{n-2}$$
you can find $e'e.$
Comment: Thanks, this definitely makes sense. However I don't really know the formulas for the single entries of the variance covariance matrix in function of the three elements you listed. How can I derive them?
Comment: Simply invert the 2-by-2 matrix
Comment: Thanks, I managed to solve it now!
Answer: This is how you would calculate the sum of squared residuals -

Use the value of your coefficients to come up with a prediction for all 100 values, $\hat{y}$

Next compute the difference, for all observations, between the real $y$ and predicted value $\hat{y}$, $y - \hat{y}$

Sum the square of those differences $\sum_{i=1}^{i=100}(y_i - \hat{y_i})^2$
Comment: I know the formula, but I don't have the values for x to calculate the predictions

Simple linear regression exercise


How to copy a surface of an object

Question: just simple and quick question, is there a way to make a plane object like text to copy surface of another object, like in the picture?
Comment: Yes, use the shrinkwrap modifier
Comment: Thank you, I have to go through the modifiers, there is a plenty things what they can do.
Answer: One mesh can be projected onto the surface of another, by adding a Shrinkwrap modifier to it.

The Shrinkwrap modifier allows an object to "shrink" to the surface of
  another object. It moves each vertex of the object being modified to
  the closest position on the surface of the given mesh (using one of
  the four methods available).
It can be applied to meshes, lattices, curves, surfaces and texts.

For your example, the shrinkwrap modifier should probably be set to project, with the X and negative options checked.

How to copy a surface of an object


Can't pass the acpi=off problem

Question: I recently bought an Acer Swift 3. The installation of Ubuntu 16.04.02 LTS was a success, however after the installation is finished when I want to boot into Ubuntu it gets stuck at the purple screen. I searched the web for a solution and find out that it was related to ACPI. However only parameter that is enabling me to get past that boot screen is acpi=off and when I boot using that string I can't use my mouse. The cursor is missing and it feels like the touchpad is completely useless at that time. Any ideas how to get past around this issue, should I contact with Acer? Any help will be appreaciated. Thanks already.
Comment: I have Acer Travelmate x349 which is similar. I took Ubuntu Gnome 14.04.5. This seems to work stable. Newer versions did not work for me. (Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Sparky) Use UEFI with secure Boot turned off. Add the Boot Loader to trust Store of the Bios.
Answer: I have the same laptop, and i had the same problem the first launch.
Near the acpi=off kernel option you need to add these options :
i8042.reset i8042.nomux i8042.nopnp i8042.noloop

Once your computer booted up, your trackpad will be supposed to work, and you will need to add these option to the grub file. Open a terminal and type :
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Find the line "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" and add i8042.reset i8042.nomux i8042.nopnp i8042.noloop between the quotes. Save and exit gedit.
Go back to your terminal and type :
sudo update-grub

(Ignore update-grub2)
Now, the trackpad boot options will be executed automatically.
If you contact Acer, they will answer you : "You are not supposed to run Ubuntu on this Laptop". And because you did it, you don't have your warranty anymore :/
And because of the acpi=off option, you need to know that your laptop will not be 100% stable. On mine, as an example, i dont have any information about the battery status ... Your wifi may not work as well, but you only have to reboot the computer, as many times as you need,  to fix this issue (once, it needed 5 reboots ...).
Of course, i didnt find any fix for those issues
I hope i was helpful,
Cordialy
PS : sorry for the English, i'm French :)
Comment: Thanks a lot. I'll try your solutions when I have the time. Funny thing is when I updated the kernel the problem solved, I didn't had to set acpi to off. But only one kernel worked and the other updates doesn't have the same effect. I'm trying to remember specifically which version worked around the problem and I'll report a bug to ubuntu, and talk to acer. I know they would say that but maybe they would update their uefi in the future, fixing this problem.
Comment: Okay I'm not sure if I should add this to my question or add it as an answer or comment but you should know that after installing elementary OS and kernel 4.10.1 it looks like the problem is solved. I can boot into OS without setting acpi to off and my laptop hadn't still crashed so... I should probably try installing that kernel with ubuntu too but I've had enough of my computer so I'll do that later. So maybe you could give it a try too and let us know also should I notify this to the developers? @NicoTine
Answer: Nicotine, your answer simply will not work. The reason this whole problem is occurring is because of a problem between Acer Firmware and Linux Kernels 4.11 and below. I am copy pasting my Ubuntu 16.10 Acer Swift-3 multiple problems
Or I will just copy pasta it here.
The answer is simple, but first a little bit of backstory.
I too, own one of these machines, and I was famished when I found that Ubuntu would hang and would boot 1/10 percent of the time.
The reason is the following. The Acer Swift 3 firmware and the ACPI firmware in Linux 4.11 & below have a bit of a conflict...
But the solution is this! Linux kernel Devs fixed it in Kernel 4.12 and above! Ubuntu 17.10 officially comes with the latest kernel, but it will release after a few months.
so a TEMPORARY solution (not recommended by me, see below why) is to boot an Ubuntu ISO with the Mainline / unstable 4.12 or above kernel, or boot Ubuntu with acpi=off, use a separate mouse and keyboard, install the Mainline Kernels, and remove that acpi=off from the grub boot commands.
Why is this not a good solution? because Mainline kernels have many bugs and stuff, and I got harsh karma from using Mainline kernels. my new Acer Swift 3's battery total went from 100% to 98%!!! I can never charge my laptop to its full potential now! And that is to be expected in any laptop, but the reason why this is such a big problem is because the battery went down in 1 day!!
within a day, the total of my new laptop took a hit.
that is why I will use Linux on MY Acer Swift 3 only once Ubuntu 18.04 releases (for stability, but 17.10 will also work) But you are free to go ahead and use risky software and kernels.
LINK for Ubuntu ISO with mainline kernel -> http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2017/06/interim-ubuntu-1704-iso-with-mainline_29.html
TIP - Install That ISO, and upgrade its Mainline kernel to the latest, or at least to 4.12, because it comes with 4.12RC7.
Or maybe try an "unstable" Ubuntu kernel, but be warned, battery life takes a hit when using these kernels, so remember to use TLP ;) Good Luck!
Answer: Thank you for your instructions. It helped me get my dual boot Windows 7 / Ubuntu 16.04.02 working on my Acer Travelmate X349. I have BIOS version 1.10 (had to update the BIOS twice since I bought the computer in March), reinstall Ubuntu specifying the boot loader on the partition where my Ubuntu was installed and not on the HDD like on my previous computer with dual boot.
We had to use Boot Repair and specify the trusted path HDD0 EFI and choose Ubuntu and one of the choices in GRUB. So, when the computer starts, I need to hit F12 at the very beginning and choose the GRUB path I have specified manually in the BIOS so that the grub screens appears. And I don't have the purple screen anymore.

Can't pass the acpi=off problem


Should MSMQ outgoing queue be empty on successful sending of message?

Question: This would be a pretty easy question to answer.
I have inherited a project involving MSMQ. The program sends confirmation messages to an external message sender. So my question is that when my program sends out the confirmation MSMQ Message to the sender, if the message has been sent successfully, then the Outgoing Queue would be empty correct?
My knowledge is that if there are any messages accumulated in the Outgoing Queue, then they have not been sent for whatever reason.
Answer:
My knowledge is that if there are any messages accumulated in the
  Outgoing Queue, then they have not been sent for whatever reason.

No, it means that either:
1 - a message hasn't been sent at all (usually outgoing queue status is "waiting to connect")
or
2 - a message has been sent but no acknowledgement has been received from destination (usually outgoing queue status is "connected")
So, if you are seeing messages delivered in the destination queue then it is (2).
Check the outgoing queues on the destination machine - there should be an outgoing queue pointing back to the original machine that contains the undelivered acknowledgments.


itunes software update ignore isn't working

Question: I have OSX 10.5.6 and iTunes 10.4.1 on my laptop. I turned off the software update for iTunes, but every time I click on a song, I get a notification that says

iTunes requires Safari 4.0.3 or later to be installed to use the
  iTunes Store with iTunes. Use Software Update to download and install
  the latest version of Safari.

I'm not trying to use the iTunes store, so I'm not sure why this is popping up. I'd prefer not to update Safari because I never use that browser. Suggestions?
Comment: How did you turn off the updates in itunes?
Answer: Since iTunes uses web kit and html to work in the store, you might actually need it for the software to function.
If the app still works for your needs, you can safely ignore the message, but if you don't use that browser, why not just update it and let iTunes be happy?


Buy a new cycle or assemble new parts?

Question: My budget is $300 - $400. I live in India.
My doubt is whether, its better buying a new bike or just assemble different good company spare parts (used or new).
I am very new to cycling, so please help...
Answer: Don't know about India, but assembling from parts in my end of the world costs a lot more than a new bike. I know of many instances where people buy a "donor" bike for good new parts at a reasonable price. If you can get parts at the right price, it may be worth it, but problems with compatibility between components can lead to a  lot of blood, sweat and tears, as well as expense, especially for a beginner. It seems every year has at least one small but significant change that is incompatible with last years model.... Something as simple as seat posts - One post recently someone counted 39 different sizes -size increments are 0.1mm - measuring the hole that accurately is not possible for most of us.
I don't know about India. but where I live you can get great secondhand bikes for good prices, if you do homework and take care. My 14 year old neighbor just got a "new condition" second hand bike for $850 -  a new one with equivalent components would have been $2.5K. The previous owner was obviously a fanatic on maintenance and all of the important bits look anything more than a few 100km old. It's not risk free, but its the best way to ride a better bike than you would otherwise be able to.
The other option is end of season and last years bikes - often 1/2 retail price just because the color changed. This is a good way to get into a new bike cheaply.
Comment: Of course, clearly the "season" will be different in India, and probably things won't be as deeply discounted.  In northern climates people lose interest in cycling as the weather cools, and hence (here in the Frozen North) there aren't a lot of customers from about late August to early March.  Bike shops lower their inventory to "cost", to clear it out.  And models that are to be discontinued are sold below cost.
Comment: @Freakyuser, at this time of year (or probably a little bit earlier) all the bike shops are getting rid of their 2012 stock in order to accommodate the 2013 stock. The upside is that you could get a serious bargain (I got one last year, brand new, at half its retail price), the downside will obviously be the lack of selection, especially as time goes by.
Comment: @Kibbee not to mention it should look ultra cool and be the right colour ;-)
Comment: Can you please elaborate the last sentence, "The other option is end of season and last years bikes - often 1/2 retail price just because the color changed." You mean I will get it cheaply from the showroom itself?
Comment: I bought a new bike in February and got quite a good deal because of it. Not 1/2 retail price, but I did save 20%, which is quite a bit of money.  Would have never bought that level of bike if it wasn't for the savings.  Also, I wouldn't recommend assembling from parts unless your budget is a lot higher. If you're spending $5000+ on a bike, ever piece should be exactly as you want it, not what some factory says you should have.
Comment: For $5000 it should come with a shapely female to hold it for me.
Answer: First, my own experience is that the cost of the new bike is generally a lot less than if you bought the parts separately.
Second, you say you are very new to cycling. If you did go out and buy parts, how confident are you that (a) you'd be buying the correct parts, (b) you'd have the tools to fit them properly, and (c) you'd have the know-how to fit them properly? I don't mean to be at all derogatory to you when I say the last bit, I'm just pointing out that some of the work will be very challenging to a novice.
Third, I don't know the Indian market, or really what type of bike you're looking for, but your budget doesn't seem that huge. As a third alternative, have you considered second hand? Of course there is an associated risk with this (buying a piece of crap, buying something stolen, etc.) but I'm sure with some research you could reduce these risks. You may even find shops which specifically sell used bikes (and therefore anything you buy will come with some kind of warranty). Shops like this exist in England although I don't think many main dealers bother with second-hand nowadays...too much competition from eBay.
Answer: New Cycle or assemble new parts??
this is absolutely different and both of them have an advantage.
New Cycle
you just choose one and pay. you can't choose part one by one and buying new cycle is more than cheap.
Assemble new parts
You will have a satisfy your self. you can choose anything you like and this is absolutely expensive. because you buying one by one of cycle.
so i have some advice if you have really like cycle choose s

Buy a new cycle or assemble new parts?


What part of speech is "methinks"?

Question: Dictionaries call this word a verb, but it doesn't seem to behave like any other verb in the English language. Another question on this site calls it a "conjoined pronoun-verb combination", which seems nearer the mark to me. What is the reasoning behind the dictionaries' decision to label methinks as a verb?
Comment: It's a contraction. What part of speech is _hasn't_ or _I'm_? And if you knew, what good would it do?
Comment: It's pirate speak :)
Answer: Probably the easiest way to understand the syntax of methinks (in the present tense, that is; methought is its past tense) is by viewing it as saying "it thinks to me that", where thinks here actually means seems, and that leading me is a "dative of interest". Curiously, this is not the only verb to do this.  Its synonym meseems (along with meseemeth also in the present and meseemed in the past tense) works exactly the same way, and for just the same reasons, too.
Like its synonym meseems, methinks is an archaic impersonal verb with two odd characteristics: despite its impersonality, it stands without a dummy it, and it includes a prefix me serving as an old "dative of interest".  That is the sort of dative that occurs when someone says "What happened to your old beater car?" and you say "What, that old thing? It broke down on me one time too many, so I junked it."
Both meseems and methinks were originally written as two separate words: me seems and me thinks in the modern spelling, and in Old English variously me þinceþ, me þinceð, me ðincþ, me ðincð, and many others besides.
 Over the course of time, the original construction became obscure, many variant forms were seen, and they became fused into single words each.
The original ameaning of the Old English verb þyncan, ðyncan is not the one we use for think today, and indeed, this sense of think is preserved in modern use only in methinks alone.  That original and now obsolete meaning of think was to seem or appear, which is exactly what it still means here.  The seem meaning of think grew rarer after 1250, and disappeared some time after 1400 except in this frozen impersonal expression, methinks.  For several centuries its written form varied wildly, because this sort of dative fell out of productive use and people became confused about what was going on and how it all worked.
So methinks is a real verb, albeit a curious one. It is in the present tense; its past tense form is methought.  Its OED entry ponders the question of its curious syntax, which it calls "obscure".

Pronunciation:
    Brit.  /mɪˈθɪŋks/,  /miˈθɪŋks/,  /miːˈθɪŋks/, U.S.  /miˈθɪŋks/,  /məˈθɪŋks/
Inflections:   Past tense methought Brit.  /mɪˈθɔːt/,  /miːˈθɔːt/, U.S.  /miˈθɔt/,  /məˈθɔt/,  /miˈθɑt/,  /məˈθɑt/.
Etymology:  < me pron.1 2a + think v.1, originally as a simple syntactic collocation, in later use apprehended as a single word.
Now arch., poet., and regional.
impers. (Used with subordinate clause or parenthetically.)
a. In the present tense: 'it seems to me'.
b. In the past tense: 'it seemed to me'.

The set of forms provided is incredibly long, and contains several entries it thinks may have been transcription errors.
The OED2 has this extended note on its etymology:

As think
v.1 did not, exc. in this phrase, survive beyond the 14th c., and had no very wide
  currency after 1250, the syntax of methinks became obscure.  Hence it underwent various alterations of form.  The
  verb being supposed to be think
v.2, it followed that it ought to be in the first person; hence the form me
  think, in which probably the pronoun was still correctly apprehended as a dative.  In the 16-17th c. there occur the
  forms my think, my thought(s, which are attempts to obtain a normal syntax by taking think,
  thought, as sbs.  The curious form methoughts, used in the 17th and the first half of the 18th c., prob.
  owes its s to the analogy of the present tense methinks.

It then goes on separately document in the present tense all of me thinketh, methinks, methink, and my thinks(s, and in the past tense all of methought, methoughts, my thought.
The OED3 has an even longer etymological note, of which this is just the beginning:

Although the impersonal use of think  with indirect objects other than me  persisted until the early 17th cent. (see think v.1), the syntax of this collocation seems to have become to some extent obscure already in Middle English. Hence it underwent various alterations of form.
The present tense (β) form me think  apparently shows substitution of the first person singular inflection, perhaps resulting from identification of the verb with think v.1  (compare Middle English forms with thenk, þenk, etc.); the pronoun was perhaps still apprehended as some kind of indirect object. The form me þunch  in Owl & Nightingale (Calig.) 1649, 1651 (see quot. c1275 at sense aα. ), is probably to be regarded as a variant (with inverted spelling of h  for þ) of the α form me þuncþ  found elsewhere in this text rather than as an early example of the β forms (the expected first person form would be þunche). The Middle English forms me þinchez  (c1300 in texts in MS. Laud Misc. 108) and me þinkez  (c1330 (c1250) Floris & Blauncheflur (Auch.)) probably show use of the graph z  for  /θ/, rather than γ forms.
Comment: Methinks this is the most helpful answer. (Both the others are useful too.)
Comment: Yes, the fate of _meseems_ and _methinks_ (which are historically dative-reflexive experiencer contractions, and synonymous) is one of my favorite classroom examples. In modern English, _think_ has become an active transitive verb with an experiencer subject that takes an object _that_-complement, while _seem_ has become a stative intransitive verb that takes a subject _that_-complement (and requires extraposition).
Comment: @John Lawler. But sometimes intransitive: 'I think, therefore I am.' And: 'What are you doing?' 'I'm thinking.'
Comment: @tchrist What are the acronyms OED2 and OED3 you are using in your answer?
Comment: @HonzaZidek Respectively the second and third editions of the *Oxford English Dictionary*.
Answer: The reason it doesn't behave like any other verb is that there is no other verb like it — or at least, no Modern English verb.
It's an Old English verb which means "it seems to me," and although it survives to the present (OED has a 1991 citation), it's listed as "archaic, poetic and regional".
It's also listed as an impersonal verb (a verb with no subject), used with a subordinate clause or parenthetically:

Methinks I hear some frowning warrior say, "With such unmanly thoughts, away! away!" [J. Cottle, Poems, 1796]
  Ha, ha—go away! 'Tis a tale, methink, Thou joker Kit! [T. Hardy, Wessex Poems, 1898]

Dictionaries list it as a verb because that's what it is.
Comment: Meseems there yet exists at least one verb that behaves the same way. :)
Comment: @tchrist I knew someone would find one; but it's not a ModE verb. And this is the first occurrence I've encountered (although I haven't read the whole of Beowulf, Chaucer or Shakespeare).
Comment: Actually, it is not an Old English verb: the Old English version was *mé þyncþ*.
Answer: M-W and YD both label it as an impersonal verb. Apparently, when listing parts of speech, some dictionaries don't make the distinction between a verb and an impersonal verb. Methinks that's because so few verbs are inherently and exclusively impersonal, but it's hard to say for sure.

What part of speech is "methinks"?


what's the difference between these Intents?

Question: I understand the concept of the intent, but I don't understand the difference between
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_WEB_SEARCH)
Intent shopIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(String.format(str)));

// To open directly into youtube app
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("vnd.youtube://" + id));

can someone simplify the difference between action web search and action view?
and the difference between the last two action view?
I'm trying to learn programming for android apps.Thank you.
Answer: ACTION_WEB_SEARCH has 2 distinct working patterns - if you pass in url that starts with http(s), then that web page is opened. If instead of url, you pass in a word or phrase - then google search is opened
ACTION_VIEW can be used to display many different objects - I guess if you pass in http(s) url into it, then it will again open up a browser - so in this specific usecase it seems similar to ACTION_WEB_SEARCH. The difference is that ACTION_VIEW can be used on other objects (mailto: will open up a e-mail compose window, tel: will open up a dialer, etc)
The last one is again more specific - opens a specific Youtube video. I recommend going through the linked page in official Android docs to learn all the nuances.
Answer: You should better go through https://developer.android.com first, there you can find the answers easily.
ACTION_WEB_SEARCH is used to perform a web search. See this.
While ACTION_VIEW is used to display the data to the user. See this.
and the difference between last two intents is that first is taking a formatted string as its argument whereas second is taking the string directly.


Android 4.4.2 not automatically connecting to wifi

Question: I have a samsung galaxy tab 3 8.0 running android 4.4.2 unrooted. My tablet is not automatically connecting to wifi networks. It was previously automatically connecting to two wifi networks (both are home networks secured with a password) but now I have to re-enter the password every time I try to connect to either of these networks. How can I get my tablet to remember the wifi networks?
Comment: well, that's something weird try removing and re-adding the network connection and see if that makes any difference !
Answer: Try Factory resetting the tablet or if you don't want to do that then try shutting down the tablet and then turning it back on,then remove the network and then re-add it.
Comment: I already tried this. Multiple times.
Answer: Just restart the tablet it's annoying but it works for me
Comment: That's a work-around at best – or did one reboot solve the issue permanently for you?


In atomic diffusion in Au/Cu metal contact, where do the atoms come from ? (need melting temperature to break bonding in lattice ?)

Question: It is known that Au metal is diffused when it is contacted with copper metal. And Au metal have lattice which consist of atoms. If so, may I think that atom is diassociated from lattice by heating ? If so, it needs to break bond between atoms before diffuion ?
I think that it needs melting temperature to break bonding in lattice.
Answer: Yes, it takes energy to get an atom off a lattice site. However, as an activated process with an energy barrier, Arrhenius' equation shows you that even with that requirement, some number of atoms will be off their lattice sites in thermal equilibrium, making vacancies (empty sites) and interstitial atoms.
This was realized some time ago by Simmons and Balluffi. They investigated many metals, using precision measurements of the change in length of a bar of material in a furnace, coupled with x-ray diffraction to determine the lattice constant at the furnace temperature. The result is you can back out how many lattice sites are vacant from the difference in the change of length actually measured vs what you would expect from the change in lattice spacing.
The linked article focuses on gold, but has some data on other fcc metals as well. Just at the melting point of gold (not yet melted), the concentration of vacancies is about $7 \times 10^{-4}$, or 0.07% of lattice sites are vacant. The activation energy is given as 0.94 eV.
Bottom line - there are native populations of point defects even at room temperature, and those drive diffusivities. Certain point defects or defect complexes may be more mobile than others, and the concentration of a given defect will vary with temperature.


UIImageView animations lag at first run

Question: I have a series of images that play in my application (it's only got one view/viewcontroller). Whenever I run the app, the first time I play an animation, it will lag a bit the first time the animation is told to play.
I run my animations via different methods (e.g. "animateJump") which are responsible for loading the correct frames, then playing the animation. After the animation finishes, I (supposedly) release the animation from the UIImageView, putting back a single frame to display. (I say supposedly because if the animations are only lagging the first time they run, are they really being release from memory?)
So is there a simple fix to this? I have about 100 frames of animation I go back and forth through. Should I just load them all into memory at the application's start up? What would you do?
-- Derek
Answer: If you've already got a period of loading, I"d probably use it to run the animation whilst it's hidden/non-viewable.

UIImageView animations lag at first run


How to get the ICCID of the SIM card that is in the iPhone using my iOS App?

Question: A SIM card contains ICCID (International Circuit Card ID). The ICCID is unique in the world. I need my app get the ICCID of the SIM card that is in the iPhone. Does anyone know whether it is possible, and if possible, how to do?
Answer: Are you going to submit your app to the AppStore? If so you need to know that Apple rejects any application accessing SIM card because they supposed that such behaviors break the user privacy and security, also there is no way in the official SDK to read anything from the SIM card. Anyway there are some Private APIs out there that lets you access those SIM card information, but obviously your application will be rejected since Private APIs are not allowed on the AppStore.
Comment: No, the application will not be submitted to the Apple Store. It is an enterprise application that will be distributed by the Distribution Certificate (if possible). It is one of the minimum requirements that the application take the ICCID of the SIM card. This procedure we are already doing with the Android app.
Comment: Well in that case you'll need to jailbreak your device(s) first. Also you won't able to use the regular iOS simulator bundled in XCode since an unjailbroken device and the iOS simulator won't give you access to those informations. Anyway you can try Apple's IOKit.framework which can give you access to those infos but, even if it's a public framework, Apple doesn't allow devs to use it.
Comment: Understand. It is undesirable for the company to make this type of procedure. I appreciate the answers. Let's see if we should proceed with the project.
Comment: Private APIs are not allowed on the AppStore :((
Face time used Private APIs so, it is not allowed on the AppStore :((( @Aluminum
Answer: According to my research, there are private APIs that can help you to get IMSI and IMEI but they will not be admissable by Apple and your application will be rejected at the store.


Network analysis using QGIS?

Question: I'm working on my bachelor thesis right now and I want to find a catchment area for different bus stops. Is there a function in QGIS where I could use a point layer as input, use ways as distances and I want to determine the distance (so e.g. a busstop has a catchment area that contains 500m). I think in ArcGIS it should work with the Network Analyst Tool. I'm looking for a similar tool on QGIS.
Comment: Welcome to gis.stackexchange! Please note that a good question on this site is expected to show some degree of research on your part, i.e. what you have tried and - if applicable - code so far. For more info, you can check our [faq].
Answer: The easiest way (at least for me) was to use GRASS for this. In QGIS you load the road network and the points (bus stops). Open the tool box (Str+Alt+T) next and search for v.clean and v.net.iso. You need to clean the road network first with the v.clean. After that you can use the v.net.iso to calculate the catchment area on the basis of the road network. This does not create isochrones. I found the following tutorial very helpful for that: http://www.northrivergeographic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Generating-Drive-Times-in-QGIS-2.14-and-GRASS-7.0.4.pdf
Another approach would be to use the Osm route plugin. A short introduction can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMJVltELU4A. With this plugin you can get polygons however you need to do every calculation for every point manually (or write yourself a script).
Comment: Thanks for your answer! I've followed the instruction from the tutorial. But when I started to use GRASS, an error occur. I cannot open the plugin processing anymore. Did anyone have this problem as well? It says that there is an Python Error.
Comment: you should pay attention, that you DO NOT use special characters (like german Ö, Ä, Ü etc.) within the folder name of the folder that contains your data (shapefiles etc.)! That is often the cause of python errors.

Network analysis using QGIS?


How to add verification rules in jslint?

Question: There are lots of options in jslint such as adsafe, fragment and so on. Set {adsafe: true} means let jslint verify the code according to the adsafe's rule. Here I have the same demand, I wanna add my own rule in jslint, but don't know how to do it for jslint. Moreover how to import all the rules for JsLint validator to Aptana 2.0 in one go and how to categorize these rules based on their severity.
Answer: I am not 100% sure, but I suppose that to include your custom rules for JSLint you will have to get some modification in the original code of JSLint provided on github.
You can try to ask your question to Douglas Crockford directly in the forum (see the reference to the link here).


Importing Gift Aid records

Question: I am moving our memberships over to CiviCRM and we have a few thousand active members. I have implemented the Gift Aid extension and I would like to import Gift Aid records for all the existing customers. Can someone recommend a process for this or help me with api calls. I am happy to write php code but I can't identify which api calls are necessary.
Thanks for any help
Answer: You can import Gift Aid records with Import Contacts, but as they are as they are multi record fields, you have to use the ... option which is hidden away. You need to click on the ? help for Import Records, which, at the end, gives you a link to the Import Multi-value Custom Data screen. Obviously you have to get your data into a suitable csv file to import and will have to add the contact id to match to the contact record (but easy enough with an export of all contacts and a lookup - checking duplicate names) or use external id if you have used one for the import of contact data.
Comment: Mick. Thank you very much for the help. It took me ages to find the option even after you told me where to look. Hopefully your answer will help others in the future.
Comment: Yes - it took me ages to find it as well.

Importing Gift Aid records


The Reader Over Your Shoulder by Robert Graves

Question: Does anyone know if there is a contemporary book that explores style in a similar way to The Reader Over Your Shoulder?
Comment: Requests for resources are better on our meta site, but I can't tell if this is a question about an English language and usage resource based on the paucity of information in your question.
Comment: How does *The Reader over your Shoulder* explore style? (Also: its author's name and date of publication would be another great addition to the question.) People may not be familiar with that particular book, but may be able to suggest another they have read based on your description of it.
Comment: Thanks for this question, maybe I will read Graves's book now!
Comment: @Mitch There's nothing so based on opinion as all that stuff on that site,  she guffawed.  Which in my book is **fine**.
Comment: Better on meta.
Comment: You may want to try over at [writers.se] if you are interested more about style questions in fiction.
Answer: The best source for exploring style in a similar manner to Graves' work is that work itself, The Reader Over Your Shoulder. It is very understandable by a modern audience and, while dated, still can be applied depending on audience.
The three most popular style guides nowadays for English are:

Strunk and White, The Elements of Style
Fowler, Modern English Usage
Zinsser, On Writing Well

Strunk and White is very popular among people not accustomed to writing - it helps intermediate writers clean up a lot of problems early in an academic career. It has become somewhat controversial because of its questionable claims about many style points, pointedly the passive voice. In short, it mischaracterizes the passive grammatically, and when it does get the grammar right, it often uses the passive in complaining about it.
Fowler makes style recommendations that are supposedly more descriptive ('this is how good writers tend to do it') rather than prescriptive ('just do it this way'), but nowadays the tendencies he gives might look a bit old-fashioned or formal and too reminiscent of arbitrary prescriptive rules.
(note that Strunk and White primarily use American English, and Fowler British English but the primary difference at the level of formality they both follow shows itself mostly in just spelling).
Zinsser is more recent than either, if the 1970's can be called recent. The other two were, in origination, from the early 1900's even if updated over the century. Zinsser is more of a narrative about writing rather than a point by point reference like the other two.
There are of course some common suggestions: be clear, concise, consistent, avoid jargon, avoid ambiguity, avoid clichés. Orwell, in the essay 'Politics and the English Language', adds that the writer should go against these suggestions if it makes things better.
These three, among many, are guides about how to write non-fiction. If you are looking for a guide on how to write fiction, there are surely numerous ones (Stephen King wrote one, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft).
And to distinguish even more, there's style and there's style. The suggestions so far are not about rules but about preferred choices of how to combine words. In contrast, there are numerous 'style guides' by media sources, for example the Chicago Manual of Style, where what is meant by style is actual rules for things like punctuation and titles and grammar and what to call things (and what words must or cannot be used) all to ensure standardization and public acceptability.
Wikipedia has a list of style guides for English which covers all these possibilities but not necessarily comprehensively.

I forgot to mention Stephen Pinker's 2014 book 'The Sense of Style'. Pinker is a cognitive scientist (child language learning, psychology) and popular science writer. He has written a number of general audience books on cognition. I'm not sure where it stands on acceptability by the writer's community - it is much more recent and I don't have a good feeling for if writers would suggest it. But from its description it seems like it addresses style at the level of the impact on the reader rather than whether to use passives or serial commas.


Is there a difference between ambiguity and vagueness?

Question: I was reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles about Ambiguity and Vagueness, and was led to ask this question. Is there a difference between the two concepts? If so, are there examples of ambiguity without vagueness, and vice versa?
Comment: Vague terms describe a spectrum of meanings without sharp boundaries (e.g. "smart"), ambiguous terms have two or more disjoint meanings (e.g. "sphere" as a round body and as its surface), see [SEP](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vagueness/#ComAmbGen): "*This contrast between vagueness and ambiguity is obscured by the fact that most words are both vague and ambiguous.*"
Comment: Indeed a large part of philosophy could be said to identify polysemy ambiguity from semantic indeterminate inquiry-resistant vagueness. For example, in the proposition "*I walked along the bank on my way to the bank*" there's no vagueness just mixed ambiguity...
Comment: @ScottRowe Jealous is with regards to protecting what you have, while envy is with regards to what someone else has. A jealous husband loves his wife; an envious husband loves someone else's wife. This shows in the common definitions, but this hasn't stopped people from claiming they are "jealous" when confronted with their friend's new toy. People don't tend to claim envy when they mean jealous, however.
Comment: Both can lead to confusion.
Comment: This is a simple question of a dictionary lookup.
Comment: It's just a question about the dictionary definition of two common words.
Comment: It is like jealousy and envy.
Comment: @10479 Yes. And vague and ambiguous differ also, but many people mix them up.
Answer: I am assuming that your question has a philosophical implication. Ambiguity involves two meanings. Vagueness is broader, involving several possibilities. Philosophically, do you mean deliberate ambiguity or vagueness? This has great political utility obviously. It is related to plausible deniability. Ethically, it might be used to mitigate damage caused by hurtful information. Ambiguity can be vague, but vagueness is not ambiguous, since there are more than two options.
Comment: Ambiguity does derive from 'ambos', but ambiguity doesn't derive from two choices.
Comment: I am answering the question philosophically, going beyond the dictionary definition, as I make clear in my opening sentence.
Answer: Vague and ambiguous are overlapping terms and can be used as synonyms. However, the key idea conveyed by vague, which differentiates it from ambiguous, is indistinctness. To take the example cited in JD's excellent answer, 'The boy picked up the bat' can take several meanings, but each of the possible meanings is reasonably clear. Compare that with 'The boy did something', which is far less specific. Ambiguity, then, is best used to imply a choice between alternative distinct meanings, whereas vagueness should be used to imply an indistinct meaning.
Comment: @JD cheers! "The boy picked up something- it was A. Bat, the famous Italian tenor, coming through on short-wave from Milan.' I remember the good old days of valve radio.
Comment: +1 "Indistinct meaning". That's the crux of it! I wish I had thought of using that synonym. We could even combine them with "the long bat". On the one hand, bat is ambiguous because we don't know 'WHICH bat', but even if we did know which bat, it still remains indistinct as to 'WHAT is long'?
Answer: Ambiguity and vagueness are not the same thing. Let's see what WP has to say on each. From the WP article on ambiguity:

Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations, others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved, according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps (The prefix ambi- reflects the idea of "two," as in "two meanings.").
The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately obvious), whereas with vague information it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity. (emphasis mine)

So, we can see that ambiguity has to do with a range of existing interpretations (not just 2) and that vagueness has to do with an inability to interpret. An example will make this clear.

Example of Ambiguity - The boy picked up the bat.

So, here we see that the boy picked up something called 'bat'. There are multiple senses that 'bat' refers to. 1. He might be playing a game of baseball. 2. He might have found a flying mammal in the forest. 3. He might be playing a game of cricket. A cricket bat, a baseball bat, and a vampire bat are all different things. In fact, he may have picked up a 'bat' that is not one of these 'bats' at all. Normally, the context of the text provides us the information to deal with decoding the meaning of a lexeme. But ambiguity can apply to more than words. It might apply to sentences, as Quine argued in his theory of holophrastic indeterminancy.

Example of Vagueness - The Willis Tower is a tall building.

Here, we face a different challenge. We know what someone means when they say tall building in the sense that it stretches high up into the sky. But just how high in the sky does one have to go to be a tall structure? Clearly a skyscraper is tall to most people, but what about a 10-story building? 5-story building? A 10-foot observation platform? A tree fort at 6 ft? Where does tall begin? This sort of vagueness isn't about different meanings, but different judgements which, isn't so much a value decision of morality, but one of ontology because it has to do with categories or types of things. This is a well-known philosophical problem in the form of sorites paradox where the question of what exactly is a pile of sand relates to the vagueness inherent in the necessary and sufficient conditions of what entails a 'pile'. Today, logic and language is often developed to help reduce that ambiguity, and as such is called a precising definition which are often found in conventions or standards.


Google Adsense threshold estimation

Question: I've an electronic music blog with traffic mainly from the North American continent, Western Europe and Russia. Daily I get about 100 unique visitors with 150-200 pageviews. Should I start Adsense or I need to work to increase the traffic stats. Can you suggest another appropriate monetizing option for the given case? How much time It would take me to hit the 100$ Adsense barrier with the given traffic statistics?
Comment: Why would you think you need to wait for increased traffic stats?
Answer: AdSense has no minimum traffic requirements that I'm aware of, at least not published anywhere. There's an entire section in the AdSense help area dedicated to the sign-up and approvals process, which you should read.
As to whether you should work to increase your traffic, you should be doing it regardless, as that's going to directly lead into your advertising making any money in the first place.
It's impossible to speculate when you'll reach the payment threshold, as there are several potential criteria for how much your ads are worth, and when they even accrue earnings.
Answer: Completely agree with Su''s answer. I would think, however, that with adsense you will not be making a lot of money with 100 unique visitors.
stackoverflow article on advertising
Jeff Atwood has also said on his blog before that if you can get fairly specific advertising on your site you're going to do much better than the broad spectrum that is adsense. If your blog has a specific topic then looking for advertisers for that topic will probably do much better.

Google Adsense threshold estimation


about the simplification of Hadamard product

Question: I have some problems in simplification of formula with Hadamard product. First, we have a formulation as
$$L(D)=\mathbf{1}^T_m(x\circ(Dw)\circ(Dw)),$$
where $L(D)\in R$, $x\in R^m$, $D\in R^{m\times k}$, $w\in R^k$, $\mathbf{1}_m$ is $m$-dimension column vector with all element being $1$ and $\circ$ denotes the Hadamard product.
Since the formulation of $L(D)$ is complicated related to variable $D$, we would like to simplify it. So what is the best simplification for $L(D)$?
Furthermore, if we consider time-varying coefficients like
$$\hat{L}(D) = \sum^T_{t=1} \mathbf{1}^T_m((x_t)\circ(Dw_t)\circ(Dw_t)).$$
Can we have the format of $\hat{L}(D) = trace(D A_t)$ or $\hat{L}(D) = trace(D^TD A_t)$, where $A_t$ is a function of $x_t$ and $w_t$?
I am getting stuck in simplifying $L(D)$ and $\hat{L}(D)$. If you could give me some hints on this simplification, I will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Answer: Not sure if this is what you are looking for but
$$
L(D) = \mathbf{1}_m^T(x\circ (Dw)\circ (Dw)) = \sum_{i=1}^m x_i [(Dw)_i]^2 = w^TD^T\text{diag}(x)Dw
$$
Comment: Thanks for your answer. Now the problem is $diag(x)$ in $\hat{L}(D)$. Because there is cumulative information of $x_t$ in $\hat{L}(D)$. Can we have further simplification to obtain the elegant expression of $D^TD$? Thanks again.


Is a kick vent required on resonant head?

Question: Some kicks have vent holes on the resonant head to relieve pressure, dip the dBs a bit, and provide a useful access point for mic installation; so would I, as an intermediate-level drummer with a pillow inside my 22" kick, hear and feel a noticeable difference if I ported my resonant head?
Comment: From where you sit, probably not.
Answer: The existence and size of a port on a kick drum resonator head is a matter of personal preference. That said, they are popular for a reason.
Without a port, the resonator head mostly seals the drum. That means that the drum resonates longer and has more sustain. It also means that higher frequencies generated by the beater inside the drum are reflected back and forth inside the drum and mostly lost. The audience or the microphone won't hear them (a mic on the beater side can pick them up).
So the primary effects of a resonator head hole on a kick drum are reduced sustain of the drum and more high frequencies (articulation) audible in front of the drum.
If you want to get some idea of what your kit and your drumming might sound like with a port without cutting into an expensive head, you can simply remove the resonator head on your kick and play with that for a little while. Obviously that will be an extreme case of least sustain and most high frequencies, but hopefully you can imagine a sound in between no head and full head. That's what you'd get with a hole.
If you play rock, pop, or related genres with an 18" - 22" kick drum, you probably want a 4" - 5" hole. Those styles generally have a less sustained and brighter, dryer kick drum sound. Having no hole at all will sound boomy and muffled compared to popular recordings of drums in that genre.
If you're playing jazz, that is one case I know of where a hole is not a given. Depending on the type of jazz and how you play, having no hole might be important.
If you're still not sure about a hole, you could go one of two ways. You could play without a hole until someone (like a band mate or engineer) notices and says something (or you notice yourself that you don't like your kick sound). Or you could look to your favorite drummers whose work you like to play or emulate and see if they have holes.
One note, from personal experience: if you take your drum kit to a studio or a stage where an engineer is going to mic up your drum kit and you don't have a hole, they should be professional about it and say nothing and get a decent sound anyway. But again, if you're playing rock, that engineer is going to a bit disappointed because it will be harder for them to get a usable sound out of your kick.
Answer: Several reasons for having a hole in the front head of your bass drum.
It changes the sound that is produced. Generally louder, brighter (due to higher harmonics produced and let out), and it changes the amount of resonance and sustain available - depending where the hole is.
It also allows access for damping material - most bass drums ring too much, and need some sort of material placing inside to dampen the sound, so it's not so 'echoey'.
Then there's the use of a mic. For recording or micing up on stage, the mic either goes inside the drum, or directly in front of the hole, to achieve the best sound.
Where the hole is will affect both the sound of the kick drum, and its 'micability'. Usually, lower towards the edge has been found to be the preferred location, probably for scientific reasons.
3.5" is a good start diameter, and there are actually tools available for making the hole. As there are devices which fit in those holes like the port you'd find in a bass cabinet.


Exchange rate of limit orders with a positive interval

Question: Consider some exchange, e.g. Mt. Gox, with just two users, Alice and Bob. If Alice places a sale order limited above 90$, and Bob places a buy order limited below 110$, at what rate will the exchange take place?
Answer: It depends on who posts the order first.
If Alice posts first a sell at 90, then Bob posts a buy at 110, Bob will buy from Alice at 90, and any excess will be posted as a buy at 110 (if he wanted to buy more than Alice sold).
If Bob posted first a buy at 110, then Alice posted a sell at 90, the opposite would happen: Alice would sell to Bob at 110, and any excess would be posted as a sell at 90 (if she wanted to sell more than Bob wanted to buy).
Comment: Thanks! Can you point me to a reference as well?
Comment: @stanga there are plenty of resources explaining limit orders, but they don't address it _exactly_ your question, since they take it for granted. Wasn't able to find you one, sorry.


How to stop a moderator when they have too much power?

Question: How do you stop a moderator when they have so much power? they can literally destroy you in an instant, so what can you possibly do?
Comment: Ryan, whatever experience you've had, here's some facts. (a) Moderator authority is established by Stack Exchange, not the individual Stacks. (b) At the bottom of every page are feedback and contact links. SE takes complaints about moderators very seriously, but you're expected to do your due diligence, which means being very specific, providing examples, links where possible, and being 100% honest about the situation. In my experience, 99% of the time the person complaining about moderator actions didn't understand the [help] or [tour] rules.
Comment: (c) Read the [tour] and [help] rules very carefully before submitting a complaint or you should expect to be told that ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the rules. (d) Finally, complaints about stack operation and policy matters occur in Meta, not Main, so I've flagged your post to migrate the Q someplace more appropriate. It'll likely end up in Meta.WB.
Comment: This is a better question for the worldbuilding meta stack exchange
Comment: @Joachim, https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/9609/30492 second line in the table
Comment: Can you reincarnate?
Comment: @Alexander I'm voting for repent.
Comment: Try this [meta.se] post: [What recourse do I have if I believe a moderator has abused their privileges?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/28867/what-recourse-do-i-have-if-i-believe-a-moderator-has-abused-their-privileges).
Comment: @Goodies One of the first things highlighted in our [tour] is that we're different than other sites and that *"Not all questions work well in our format."* If you're not a fan of the format, then this site probably isn't for you. There's an expectation [written into our rules](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer#:~:text=Answer%20well%2Dasked%20questions) to *"answer well asked questions"*. If you find yourself taking steps to circumvent this rule, and answering questions that this site considers inappropriate, then perhaps this site isn't for you either.
Comment: @ITM_Coder, the moderator status is not related to the posting activity. And moderators do not determine the rules.
Comment: One last thing. To directly address your question: moderators are basically the police of Stack Exchange. What do you do when you believe the police have too much power? You get involved with the government and get the law changed. That means getting involved on [meta.se], gaining a good reputation, proving yourself a competent contributor, and gaining support for your changes. It's really no different from Real Life. If you're not willing to put that much time into it, your option is to learn how to get along with the police.
Comment: Cont: definitely follow JBH's advice and do your due diligence before contacting them else risk feeling like a silly child with a blue tongue and sticky hands in the headmaster's office.
Comment: I have never heard of a moderator destroying a user, so I think this *is* a worldbuilding question. About a software-based world, I presume. (On a *completely* unrelated note: we should have an Agent Smith badge for removing user accounts.)
Comment: I'm not a rules fan either. Sometimes I'm disappointed to see certain WB-rules invoke closures, because I'd like to put an answer, *despite* a WB-rule being applicable. In a way, I cheat a bit, by answering while justified close votes are coming in.  But I down-voted this question. WB is not a game playground for re-opening accounts under different names, or approaching mods as some kind of enemies. Mods give directions about the culture of their website. When the mod returns over and over, you're apparently not "WB-compatible" and better go quora? It has less rules and plenty of answerers.
Comment: You can try and become a moderator yourself and then you can determine the rules. @HDE 226868 hasn't posted in a while so we're due to replace him and have another moderator.
Comment: @Alexander from context he presumably already has  so, Yes?
Answer: Let's have a short recap of your deeds:

you post several questions which are poorly thought and a poor fit for this community

said questions get closed and downvoted, resulting in your profile being automatically blocked from creating new posts

trying to act smart, you delete the blocked profile and start again from point 1. I have lost count of how many of them you have dumped

you are told by many users what's wrong with your posts, you are addressed to the help center which explains what we do want and don't want in questions, but you insist in the 1. 2. 3. loop, showing disrespect for the community and its rules

since you are playing tricks to avoid the system and its checks, a moderator has to step in, because you keep asking low quality and poorly conceived questions, in addition to openly disregarding the difference between main site and meta.

Update on Nov 18th: After having read this answer, you have posted a now deleted apology turned out to be fake like a 3 $ bill, considering that you have kept creating throwaway accounts used to post low quality posts or plainly derogatory.

If you had wanted out of this, you would have stuck to one profile, you would have bear with the consequences of asking poor questions (blocks included) and improved your question asking by listening to what other users tell you. You can't expect a different outcome from the reiteration of the same behavior.
Comment: (a) Let me underscore the word "automatic." Too few people realize that Stack Exchange is just as interested in people following the rules as moderators and the community itself. Users can and will be blocked for poor choices without any human involvement. (b) L.Dutch is a *fantastic* moderator and since the termination of Monica Cellio has been carrying the moderator burden nearly alone. That I've ocasionally butted heads with him is my fault. God bless you, L.Dutch. This Stack would be a mess without you.
Comment: @JBH And that "automatic" means that not all actions are made by moderators ^^. The system is quite lenient -I picture to avoid false-positives-, so if you get suspended automatically it means you really went far with the rules
Answer: More often than not, conflicts can be resolved by talking to each other.

If you would like to talk to a moderator 1 on 1, go to chat, open a new chatroom and invite the person in question.
If you prefer to handle the matter in public, post here on meta. Describe the situation and ask why the moderator acted the way they did.

When that does not work for you, and you seriously believe that a moderator abuses their power, then you can escalate the matter to the Stack Exchange community team by using this contact form. But keep in mind that using worldbuilding stack exchange is a privilege, not a right. And that privilege is granted with the expectations that you will use it in accordance with the site policies. You are expected to follow the guidelines explained in the help center. When you don't, then the moderators have the duty to remove you from the site, and the community team will not intervene. So please don't waste their time.
You don't like the site policies of worldbuilding stack exchange? Then you also have options:

Create a question here on meta where you make your point why you think a policy is counter-productive and how it should be changed. When the majority of the community agrees, then you might actually achieve a change.
Start your own Q&A community.
Answer: Hope one of the other mods notices
I thought the power ceiling is low, I was wrong
I thought people got mod powers after reaching a certain rep, But it turns out that is wrong. Mods have to be elected but then have no term limits. So if you are elected once you are in for life, barring major action from other mods or SE. All moderators have the same abilities, and rep doesn't matter. So as long as less than the majority of moderators don't abuse their power things should work out. Though, it turns out that "majority" of mods is just two mods. So yeah, if you get the power there are few people who can hold you accountable. However if you make an appeal here, where one of the two other moderators check, people will be held to account. I think.
I though the power floor is higher than you think, I was also wrong
According to Sphennings

A single user's vote will have 0 impact unless there is sufficient agreement with other members about a particular course of action.

So don't bother voting, that won't really change things. Only Meta posts really matter.
I thought the number of mods was high, it is actually really low
There are exactly three mods,
HDE 226868, Monty Wild, and L.Dutch
L.Dutch and Monty are pretty active on meta, visiting I think about a few times a week. HDE 226868 visits meta once a week or so. So yes, any two of them could try to pull something, but it would take at maximum about a week for the odd man out to figure out something is up. So if an issue occurs, you can just send a message here and one of the three people should notice.
If all else fails, contact SE exchange directly. This is a small team so it is understandable.
Comment: Note: The user asked this because several of their questions were closed in a row, and before L.Dutch intervened several users (including me) voted to close. When the querent was locked for asking too many bad questions in a short span of time, they created a new account, effectively circumventing the ban and reasking the exact same kind of questions. That's approx. when mods took more... "preemptive" actions before anyone in the community reacted.
Comment: The more you edit this the more you grossly misrepresent how moderation on this site works, and the systems surrounding community moderation. There is no community vote suspend a user, or delete them. Only mods are entrusted with that responsibility. If you need a moderator's attention you can flag any post or comment and explain the situation. The recommended action for unresolved conflict with a moderator is to contact a community manager via the link at the bottom of the page.
Comment: You're mixing up [site moderators](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/site-moderators) and [community moderation privileges](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/privileges?tab=moderation). A high rep user engaging in community moderation is not a site moderator. You can identify a mod by the `◆ Mod` tag after their name. As far as I know moderators can undo the work of another mod, but the expectation from SE is that they work together to maintain the health of the site. If there was conflict they'd probably resolve it privately rather than dragging the public into it.
Comment: "*I just figured the cut off for even being electable should be 25k. Like, why would you give someone mod abilities before they are eligible for all the privileges of the site?*" loaded question - why *not*? The tools diamond mods are entrusted to use via their position are quite different from the regular site moderation tools available. And basically any of the privileges over close/reopen votes are not quite relevant for moderating a site. They give more options but none of them are really crucial. Why would you need to be able to do full edits to tag wikis to be a mod?
Comment: A high rep user cannot abuse unilaterally close, reopen, or delete a post. It's built that way by design. A single user's vote will have 0 impact unless there is sufficient agreement with other members about a particular course of action. No amount of reputation will ever grant a user the ability to pause or delete another account. The 10K privilege  just gives you access to better search options and the ability to *vote* to delete questions. Only moderators can delete an account or act unilaterally.
Comment: The [10k privilege](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools) granting access to "moderator tools" gives you the ability to *"access to various lists and statistical reports, giving you a broad overview of activity on the site"*. This is access to some of the tools used by mods, not granting the full powers of a mod.
Comment: [3k rep](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/close-questions) doesn't make you a mod. It gives you the ability to vote to close, and reopen questions. A moderator can simply close or reopen a question, no voting needed. To become a moderator, SE needs to first decide to hold an election, which they only do when there is a need for additional moderators on a site. Moderators don't serve a set term, they will remain a mod as long as they continue to serve the community. They only way to stop being a mod is to step down or be removed by SE.
Comment: @sphennings Can other moderators reverse unilateral decisions? I don't know what 25k mods get. Also, are mods different than people with 25k rep? Is there some other process you need to do to become a mod?
Comment: @sphennings and this guy is complaining about mods, not high rep users. But I guess I am confused about mods. Looking at the requirements you only need like 3000 rep to be a mod. I thought 3000 rep was a low amount of rep. But that and a few badges lets you get elected potentially.
Comment: @sphennings I know it doesn't make you a mod, I just figured the cut off for even being electable should be 25k. Like, why would you give someone mod abilities before they are eligible for all the privileges of the site? I think I might be eligible to be elected as a mod and that doesn't seem right.


Microsoft guidelines for creating WPF "gel" buttons

Question: Anyone know where I can find the Microsoft guidelines for creating WPF gel-type buttons? I'm not sure if "gel" is the correct name for this effect but I have heard many people use the term. If MS doesn't have a guideline, do you have some other standards or guidelines for creating these buttons?
Comment: I can't see how you imagine this guidelines?
Comment: Reminds me of a great thing I saw years ago on LonghornBlogs back then when WPF was called Avalon and was a largely different beast...
Comment: When MS creates these buttons for use in their apps they must have some guidelines, or probably standards, for how they need to look. That's what I want to see.
Answer: Have a look at the glass button.

There are a number of XAML elements
  which go into making up the button.
  They are clearly commented in the XAML
  but the list is as follows:

Drop-shadow: an ellipse with a radial gradient of black fading to
  tranparent
Button surround: a white ellipse slightly bigger than the green one
Black button background: only visible round the edges of the green
  when the button is pressed
Main button colour: the green (or whatever color you want) of the
  button.  This ellipse is clipped to
  its initial outline, thus allowing us
  to move the ellipse slightly for the
  button press without it overlapping
  the button surround
Top glow: an ellipse with a linear gradient background of white (at the
  top) fading to transparent.  Smaller
  than the main button colour and
  positioned so that the tops are the
  same
Bottom glow: an ellipse the same size as the main button colour but
  with a linear gradient background of
  white (at the bottom) fading to
  transparent.  This is also clipped as
  per the main button colour.
Hover-over glow: an ellipse the same size as the main button colour
  with a radial gradient background of
  white (at the centre of the ellipse)
  fading to transparent.  This is
  initially transparent.
Transparent element for catching mouse events: on top of all of this is
  a transparent ellipse the same size as
  the white button surround for catching
  MouseEnter, MouseLeave,
  MouseLeftButtonDown and
  MouseLeftButtonUp events.  This
  element also contains the Storyboard
  for the pulsating hover-over effect
  (although this could be in any XAML
  element).


Paste values +transposed

Question: IS there a way to paste transposed but also just values? I want to paste values only, not formulas, keep the destination format and also transpose the data pasted. Is there a way to do this?
Answer: The simple and effective way is to paste transposed, then click on the paste format icon under the pasted section and select values.
Answer: I don't know of a simple button you can press to paste transposed values only, but here's a couple workarounds I found. In general, it depends on why you are seeking to paste values only. If you're doing this to avoid a formula recalculating (particularly something like =randarray()) your options are more limited than if you're doing it to avoid copying cell borders, text formatting, colors, etc.
If you are pasting fixed values with custom formatting you don't want to copy

Select the values you want to copy elsewhere
Press Ctrl+C to copy
Right click on the top left cell of the range you wish to paste into
Choose Paste Special > Paste Transposed (or press e after hovering over paste special)
The newly-pasted cells should be selected. Press Ctrl+C to copy them again in this new orientation
Press Ctrl+Z to undo the pasting and formatting overwrite
Press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the transposed cells in the clipboard as values only

If you are trying to reposition data calculated by formula(s) as transposed values only

Select the top left destination cell
Type =transpose(
Select the range of cells you wish to copy and press enter
Select the values that appeared from the formula
Press Ctrl+C followed by Ctrl+Shift+V to overwrite the formula with values only

Admittedly neither of these solutions are great and you might be aware of them. If you're just looking for something fast, maybe the following key sequence based on the first solution, which could be automated for even better results:
(Assuming the original range is copied to clipboard and destination cell selected, here's the shortest key sequence I found)
[alt]+[/] [ste tr][enter] [ctrl]+[c] [ctrl]+[z] [ctrl]+[shift]+[v]

or to do it in reverse order (values only, then transpose)
[ctrl]+[shift]+[v] [ctrl]+[c] [ctrl]+[z] [alt]+[/] [ste tr][enter]

Comment: Shame, so there is no quick way as in excel where you chose tranposed, skip blank, values, etc. =transpose() + copy-paste.values should do the trick. Thanks
Comment: The respositioning suggestion won't work. When you copy a formula in another location the formulas point to different cells and the results will fail unless all cells are locked in all the formulas. Not very useful answer because if you don't know this you wouldn't know why the solution gaven by an expert is not working
Comment: @ManuelRamirez try following the steps exactly and you'll see it does work. It never tells you to copy a formula from one place to another, actually. You simply use the `=transpose()` function at the destination cell (with the source cell range in the input of the function), and then replace the output with values only to remove the transpose function and leave the data. If you don't know what you're doing you should be following the directions "given by an expert" exactly, not copy and pasting a formula from one place to another.
Comment: Right, I missread.

Paste values +transposed


Algo for Minimum no of solving in a level like Bubble Blast2

Question: Is their any way to make a algo to know minimum no of way to solve in Bubble Blast 2. I am trying to make a clone of it. My real problem is only to determine the minimum no of tap to finish the game. I can play and find them but if level are more then 100 , it is time consuming . In Bubble Blast 2 there are 10000+ levels. So is there any way to solve this problem?
Comment: I think you need to describe the game functionality a bit. Many of us are not familiar with it.
Comment: `white space` is free! Can you do some formatting stuff on your question. It's hard to read.
Comment: I agree. your question should be self-contained ! Many people didn't play that game.
Comment: what about pre-computing those numbers (time taken matters little), and storing them, like, in a JSON array ?
Answer: One way to do it with puzzle games is to start from the end and create the level in reverse.
This has the added bonus that all your puzzles are guaranteed solvable.
Finding the absolute minimum number of steps might be good for a university paper but you don't need to find it for a good game. Players love finding better ways to solve the puzzle. The ego boost adds to the fun.
Sounds like I'm dodging the question but since this is game development rather than computational science (https://scicomp.stackexchange.com/) the most important thing for games is "Is it going to be fun?" over "Is this the perfect solution?".
Cheers,
Answer: It seems to me that you could simply have your program brute-force this at level creation time, and save the answer with the level description.
If your grid is 5 x 6 as in Bubble Blast, there are at most 30 choices for the first tap, and the number of options drops rapidly past that (outside of pathological cases, that is). No chain can possibly use more than 30 taps, and in practice most will take far fewer. So you can try every sequence of valid taps (ie. taps on non-empty cells) and note the shortest sequence to an empty board.
Once you have a sequence of length x, you can abandon any sequence of length x that is still ongoing - it can't possibly give you a shorter path.
You can gain a bit of efficiency by taking a recursive dynamic programming approach, caching recently used game states. Each time a tap from state A would result in a particular game state B, you check to see if state B is already in your cache. If so, the number of taps for completion of A is the number for B + 1. If not, you recurse on B and add it to your cache with the number you find. This way you avoid repeated work for game states that appear frequently in the game tree.
You can also optimize this cache by aliasing similar states. eg. every state with only a single item, or up to three items of the same colour in a row/column, can always be cleared in one tap, so they can be treated as one. Similarly, the orientation/reflection of the board or particular colour identities don't matter, only colour differences, so you can make your cache indexing insensitive to these irrelevant details.
The maximum cache size could still theoretically exceed your total memory (depending on how varied your levels are), so you'll want to throw out entries that haven't been referenced recently.
If you run this program as a batch over all your levels at once, and persist the cache from one to the next, you'll get additional savings anytime a group of levels shares some intermediate states.


Create a linux.img boot file when running with efi

Question: I'm trying to create a linux bootable file from the current linux system.
This is what I'm trying to arcive:
<code># (optional) update core.img (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Generate_core.img_alone )
grub-install --target=i386-pc --grub-setup=/bin/true --debug /dev/sda

# embed core.img into bootable file
cat /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/lnxboot.img /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img >/media/win/grub4bcd.img
</code>
The problem is that I'm booting from efi grub and not a bios grub in the mbr.
Then I don't have the lnxboot.img, core.img, i386-pc module, etc.
How can I create a linux boot file with my current system booting with efi?
I have read a lot and I can't figure our how to do this.
Thank you!
Answer: ok. I have just discovered the answered. I updated grup and during the update I selected to install grub on a usb drive. Then the i396-pc module was installed to do that.


notify application via callback notification

Question: I saw Apigee provides push notification capabilities via Apple APN and Google GCM but would it be possible to notify 3rd party application via custom HTTP interface which it may expose? For example, when app subscribes for events it provides a callback URI which should be triggered in case of event.
Answer: Out of the box, Apigee App Services only offers push notifications for Apple and Android.  However, you could do what you want by using API Services and creating an API Proxy that does a callout to the custom notification interface.  You could create multiple API proxies, one for each custom Http interface you want to implement.


When will the iOS apps be updated?

Question: It would be great in particular to have them support the iPhone X display.
Comment: Just fill the spaces that are currently black bars on the iphone X with advertising banners.. problem solved! (i'm joking, please don't do this).
Comment: AFAIK active development is on hold so don't expect anything in 6 to 8 weeks.
Comment: @Maroun I can only guess but I think a focus on the core product (Q/A, Channels / Jobs) that should bring in money. See also: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/300389/158100
Comment: It would be even greater to at least have a fix for the blank screen on commenting and paste issues, but I guess that's also too much to do :/
Comment: @rene why is that?
Answer: From a Meta Stack Exchange answer by Brian Nickel ♦, Stack Overflow's iOS app developer:

TL;DR: When active app development resumes, this will be a top priority, but there's really no timeline for when that will happen.
  ...
  The good news is there's really no path forward with iOS development that doesn't involve supporting the X, so when development resumes it'll need to be the top priority.

(emphasis mine)

When will the iOS apps be updated?


Class similarity coefficient for kNN

Question: In our group we are dealing with misplacement of items and we came out with a method derived from knn, but we are not sure if there is already some place where this was described. The method would be this one:
Let us imagine the situation where we have a group of items with different classes, lets say "red", "blue" and "green", situated in a Cartesian space. These items are located in some way closer one to another if they belong to the same class.
Now we introduce a new item with one of the three classes, lets say "red". Then we get the e.g. 10 nearest neighbors in the space and we get 6 red, 2 green and 2 blue. We would then assume this item has a score of 0.6 so probably its location is correct. However, if we had a red item with 2 red, 4 green and 4 blue this item would be probably misplaced since its score is 0.2
We have been looking for references since this is not exactly knn clustering. Does anybody of you know if this approach was used before? If so, does the similarity measure have a name?
Thank you very much! I would also appreciate some input
Answer: There is no kNN clustering. There is k-means, but that is unrelated.
What you are doing is kNN classification to check your labels for plausibility. Still, it's simple kNN classification by which you predict the expected label.

Class similarity coefficient for kNN


nftables counter for nat'ed traffic

Question: When setting up a counter for a rule in a 'type nat hook prerouting' chain with dnat on a specific port, the counter will only count the initial packet for that rule and the following packets from that same conntrack will not be counted anymore.
I could setup a counter on the forward hook, but it would have to be based on the post dnat destination IP/port. However, I want the counter to apply on the pre-dnat IP/port, because I could have other IP/ports dnat'ing to that same destination IP/port and I want to distinguish the counters based on pre-dnat destination IP/port. Is there a way to achieve that?
Many thanks in advance.
Answer: Creating a separate rule with a counter in a chain of type filter in the prerouting hook, but with an earlier priority than -200 (NF_IP_PRI_CONNTRACK) will count all packets of the conntrack.
Therefore, only set a counter in the dnat rule if you want to count the packets that trigger the DNAT.

nftables counter for nat'ed traffic


Send XML to php script from flash AS2

Question: I have to send some specific xml to a php script (from flash AS2) that then sends out sms message based on the xml. I have been given the xml by the sms sender and have tested it via their live demo and that works fine. The problem I am having is getting flash to send this XML.
The sms sender states that it needs to recieve the xml in the following format: The XML Document should be posted uriencoded, with a UTF‐8 character set as paramaeter 'xml'
Here is the code I have so far, I think something is missing maybe. I have tried running the swf in a browser rather than in the flash testing environment
<code>    var my_xml:XML = new XML('<xml></xml>');

my_xml.contentType = "text/xml";

send_btn.onRelease = function () {
   my_xml.send("http://address-to-send-to.com" , "_blank");

   };
</code>
Any ideas?
Answer: Try to use my_xml.sendAndLoad instead of my_xml.send that should return the xml back to your object.
Cheers

Send XML to php script from flash AS2


How to choose a coordinate reference system

Question: I have a jpeg image of a reserve's layout and would like to use it to plot animals movements on i.e. GPS points. I have no idea which coordinate reference system to choose during the "georeferencing" process.
Comment: Welcome to GIS SE!  Would you be able to edit your Question to include whereabouts in the world you are observing these animal movements, please?
Answer: It depends on the region you're working in. As you are using GPS data, i suggest using a UTM system. You can look up a suitable zone on this grid.
Answer: As you say you are using an image with GPS data in it the information is going to have been most likely stored in WGS84.
Identify the part of the world you are working in, either by researching the source of the image and or imformation on the image. From there either project the GPS data using WGS84 as the datum into an appropriate UTM Zone that covers your work area.
Or explore what coordinate reference systems are appropriate for the area of interest with appropriate methods of transformation/conversion if nessessary.

Have a look at using epsg.io or use the OGP EPSG Area Polygons
as Searchable Layers which is available to download from
arcgis.com. These resources may help with identifying appropriate coordinate systems.


Can outlier data points included while fitting regression modeling?

Question: I have few data points which is somewhat different from all other data points. But these data points are genuine and makes business sense. While building regression modeling, can we include those points or should ignore it.      How can I justify it to people with no modeling background on my decision on exclusion or inclusion of outlier points for modeling.
Answer: You should certainly not delete points just because they are outliers.  But you can't then apply a model that assumes there are no outliers.  Instead, change your method from OLS regression (which is what I assume you are using) to another method that doesn't have problems with outliers.  I like quantile regression, personally, but robust regression is also good for these purposes.