What things can i use to make it a scrambed egg while still in the shell

Question: I really want to know please? Scrambled eggs are delicious and tasty, I want to eat hard boiled egg too! What can it be taste like if I add the two?  Iwant to learn
Comment: This question isn't about a problem, making it off-topic here. I'm going to have to close this.
Answer: Easy (via Wikihow):
Put the egg in the sleeve of a long-arm shirt, secure it with rubber bands, wind up, pull to unwind, repat until egg is scrambled (shine a flashlight through the egg — if it produces an orange hue, it's fully scrambled.). (See link for details, including images).
As additional service: you might want to have a look into this, as your question is easily found via a simple web search using the exact question you asked here.
Edit: added way to know when finished from original source as suggested in comment


Does Android keep deleted photos and images from the phone?

Question: I heard from a friend that android phones can trace deleted photos and images and videos back even after deleting.  Is that true?
If so, how can it keep things there unseen until a technician finds out in service centre?
Thanks in advance.
Comment: This question isn't simple to answer. There are a number of factors; where the photos were saved, which app you used to delete files, what's the underlying filesystem, how much free space is available on the filesystem, how long it has been since you deleted photos, how much data you saved/deleted afterwards, if the device is rooted or not, and possibly some other parameters too. And it's applicable to every OS in the world, not only Android. And there are ways to make sure that data is deleted from device, and is no more recoverable. Online backups (intentional or hidden) are exception.
Answer: It is very basic when you try to understand the current digital storage techniques.
Deletion is not actually deletion on any OS, it would be far to demanding on the CPU if a full change from 1 to 0 was made on every single sector, therefore the computer just registers the area as reusable..
The next operation to copy onto that area will technically do the deletion ( sort of )

Think in all 1's & 0's with me for a second here >_<
Let's just say hypothetically your image looked like this in binary ( computer language )
<code>1001001001001001001001001
</code>
To erase the image, your CPU would need to write 0 over all the sectors ( Secure Delete )... Let's say that each change from either a 1 or a 0 to a 0 will take 1 second... that's 25 seconds to delete that image..
Now let's look at how a computer handles this consumption...
Instead of taking 25 seconds to write nothing over the sectors, it could just mark these sectors as writeable...
Instead of 25 seconds to wite nothing + 25 seconds to wite a new same size file to the same area... It could just skip the first write ( 25 seconds ) and half the time by just overwriting instead of rewriting...
A full ( Double Cycle ) rewrite would consume twice the CPU for every single delete and write...
Therefore, computers do not "DELETE" so-to-speak.
The idea is all based on older Computers, The founding machines if you want ..
The founding machines are alot slower than modern computers and maybe some time soon this will be addressed...
To, Un Delete is not to UnDelete, As Delete is not to Delete...
Un Deleting is marking that area on the storage as Used again.. Meaning the computer knows the file exisrs their and it is not replaceable.
...
Dispite all of this, Android ( since 5.0+ ) now actually keeps your picture's in a hidden folder after deleting, you don't need to do a Sector Scan to find the files marked for replacement... Instead you can see the deleted image's very easily...
This is partly in my opinion due to Law Enforcement Agencies wanting easier access to deleted photos for the obvious reasons...
Ok so want to test what is findable on your phone ?
Run this program called Disk Digger from Google Play...
Disk Digger - Photo Edition Non Root (folder scan) - FREE
Disk Digger - Root ( full sector scan ) - PAID


Re: Shared Memory and Semaphores

Question: Is an IPC mechanism using shared memory and semaphores for synchronization simplex like pipes or duplex like message queues?
Answer: A semaphore works like this...
proc a: "Is the resource available?" semaphore = -2  Yes.  semaphore++
proc b: "Is the resource..." semaphore = -1 Yes.  semaphore++
proc c: "is the resource..." semaphore = 0  No.  (nothing happens)
at this point, proc c can queue (depending on your api, this might be a busy loop or it might be a callback, or you might simply spawn a waiting thread & write your own callback)
proc a: "im done" semaphore--;
proc c will notice that semaphore is available, through something probably similar to what I mentioned previously.
the reason I wrote all that out is so I could say, its both. Its like a message queue in that you can have threads waiting on a resource (shared memory controlled by a semaphore) that trigger some action, even an actual system message, when they get the resource. Or you could just busy-wait until it's done, and that would be like piping.
Answer: If my understanding of your question is correct, it is duplex.
With shared memory, both processes could communicate both ways, not just with one as the reader and one as the writer. Pipes only allow either reading or writing, but you can overcome this by using two pipes (although message queues are a better option).

Re: Shared Memory and Semaphores


Dracula Untold: Why does the Master Vampire remain a vampire?

Question: Why does the Master Vampire remain a vampire? I thought the curse had already passed on to Vlad. Shouldn't the Master Vampire be freed from the curse?
Comment: He was freed of the curse which trapped him inside the cave, not from the curse which caused him to be a vampire in the first place.
Comment: It's mentioned in the movie.  The master vampire tells Vlad, that if he's able to resist the temptation to feed for three days,  he(the master vampire) will die and Vald will return to normal.  However, if Vlad feeds, the curse binding him(the master vampire) would break and he would be set free and Vlad would become a vampire.
Comment: The master vampire said 'someone to replace his place'. If the curse only meant to trapped him in that cave then why does Vlad is out spend time outside so freely?
Comment: I think you are now asking a separate question.
Comment: @Paulster2 I thought I could ask further if it was related. Sry then.
Answer: See my answer for this question. The short version is that the nobleman was cursed twofold - his transformation into a monster, but also his confinement to the cave. As he explained to Vlad, his confinement would endure until he could find a righteous man to take on his curse.
By willfully accepting the curse of the vampire, Vlad freed the nobleman from his confinement. The transformation, however, is permanent.
Answer: Someone posted a non-formatted transcript here, it seems the way the curse worked was that Vlad had three days to resist the temptation to drink blood, if he did he would return to normal after that time (the Master Vampire doesn't say what would happen to himself in this case, perhaps he would just remained trapped). But if Vlad gave into temptation, Vlad would become a vampire, and the Master Vampire says of himself that he would then be "liberated", and "I then darkness gave a worthy sacrifice. You will be his vessel, as I am." It's not clear from this line alone whether "liberated" means "freed from the cave" or if it means the Master Vampire would die (and whether the 'sacrifice' refers to Vlad or the Master Vampire), but the Master Vampire also goes on to say "And I'll be free to let everyone who betrayed me my revenge loose. And you will one day serve me, my pawn. In a game of deadly revenge." (At least I think those are all his lines, the dialogue isn't attributed in the transcript.) So that would seem to indicate that if Vlad drinks in those three days, the Master Vampire will be "free", and will then use Vlad as a pawn.
Here's the dialogue in question, I've added who I think is speaking each line although I'm not sure:

MASTER VAMPIRE: I was centuries caught at this place. I'm stuck in
  this cave, condemned by those who betray me. I've waited a long time
  for someone with your strength. With your gifts, your will. A man,
  worthy of the dark...and all his powers. If I am your salvation, you
  are mine. Drink, you'll feel my power. And the forces of 100 men. The
  velocity of a falling star. Predominant on the night...and all its
  creatures that see and hear through their senses. Even your wounds
  heal naturally.
VLAD: At what price?
MASTER VAMPIRE: Your thirst. Once you drink blood for human blood
  insatiable. But you can withstand three days...then you return to your
  mortal state. After encountering my strength. And maybe you than save
  your people.
VLAD: And if I drink blood?
MASTER VAMPIRE: The consequences will be worse. I will be liberated. I
  then darkness gave a worthy sacrifice. You will be his vessel, as I
  am. A scourge on this earth. Destined to destroy all ... And I'll be
  free to let everyone who betrayed me my revenge loose. And you will
  one day serve me, my pawn. In a game of deadly revenge.
Comment: The last line does make it seem like The original Vampire _knows_ that he will continue to be a vampire.


Does a 'light' version of global OSM map exist?

Question: I need a global map for my project, but without POIs and other unimportant objects for me. Only big cities and country borders. My project will work in offline network therefore I need a local server with maps and I can't use a global map (40GB) because I haven't enough resources.
Answer: Natural Earth might offer the data you need on a worldwide scale.
For lower zoom levels, the Openstreetmap rendering toolchain uses that source too, because it is much faster than querying the global database.
Comment: It's not suitable, because I need custom layots. OSM has a great possibility custom markers.
Answer: There are many ways to come near your aim, so sorry for just linking to other FAQs:
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/136/how-do-i-render-my-own-maps-for-my-website
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/6938/map-without-labels-and-businesses
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/3282/can-i-strip-poi-from-the-map
https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/29059/maperitive-map-without-labels
or try filtering the raw OSM data before giving it to any rendering software,
via osmfilter or osmosis.
See the OSM wiki how to give parameters to those programs to keep OSM elements that you need.


Why is the curse of dimensionality also called the empty space phenomenon?

Question: The curse of dimensionality refers to the fact that the huge number of correlated features tends to increase the complexity of the treatment that has to be applied to the data set. This is also called the empty space phenomenon. So, does anyone know the relation between those two?
Comment: The curse of dimensionality is about the space getting empty very rapidly as we add new dimensions. For many tasks, such as classification, this add too much freedom and hinders generalization to unseen data.
Comment: Why "add freedom"? I thought that space gets empty means it would decrease the freedom.
Comment: Related: http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/99171/why-is-euclidean-distance-not-a-good-metric-in-high-dimensions/99191#99191
Comment: I'd elaborate on xeon's point like this: it's always up to you, the modeler, to determine the complexity of your model.  The curse manifests itself by punishing you more harshly for allowing more freedom.  As you add complexity to your model, it relies on smaller and smaller regions of your space to make inferences, and the curse means that these smaller regions are going to contain lots of empty space.
Comment: @MatthewDrury, 'smaller regions contain lots of empty space' , here, empty space simply means the modeler cannot make any inferences?
Comment: @JosephStone: More or less.  The modeler is asking the algorithm to make inferences on a scale that is not supported by the volume of data.
Answer: I don't think the curse of dimensionality has anything to do with correlation, or at least not in my understanding.  The curse is the notion that a local neighborhood of a point in a high dimensional space is not really so local - the number of data points it takes to uniformly "fill" a neighborhood of a point with a fixed volume (think a unit cube centered at that point) grows exponentially with the dimension.  Conversely, if you have a fixed number of points, and increase the dimension of the space that they reside in, you will very quickly find yourself in the situation where most of your space is empty.
This comes up, for example, in $k$ nearest neighbors classification.  Here we attempt to classify a new point by searching for the $k$ training points closest to it.  In small dimensions, which is what people have concrete experience with and hence hence intuition for, these $k$ points all tend to be close by, as the entire space is is rather densely populated with training examples.  But in large dimensions, the intuition fails - the $k$ nearest points tend to be quite far away, with much empty space in between.

Suppose the dimension of the input space is 100 and we have a huge training set of a trillion (10^{12}) examples, then the examples will cover only a fraction of about 10^{-18} of the input space. Can anyone explain to me why is that?

Here's a short explanation of what that may be getting at.  Let's suppose all of our features are binary, this simplifies that math but is not essential.  Then there are $2^{100}$ possible combinations of features.  Now $\log_2(10^{12}) \approx 40$, that is $10^{12} \approx 2^{40}$, so the proportion of feature combinations "unaccounted for" is approximately $\frac{2^{100}}{2^{40}} = 2^{60}$.  Now just observe that $\log_{10}(2^{60}) \approx 18$, so $2^{60} \approx 10^{18}$.
Comment: @JosephStone I added an explanation of those figures to my answer.
Comment: Suppose the dimension of the input space is 100 and we have a huge training set of a trillion (10^{12}) examples, then the examples will cover only a fraction of about 10^{-18} of the input space. Can anyone explain to me why is that?


How can I select my visualforce page to custom button?

Question: When I choose my Visualforce Page appended to a Custom Button, I find that I cannot choose pages which use a custom controller at all, and sometimes just some of the pages which use the standard controller.
Comment: based on same SObject
Answer: For a Detail Button, you must implement StandardController, and for a List Button, you must implement StandardSetController.
Detail Button
<apex:page StandardController="MyObject__c">

List Button
<apex:page StandardController="MyObject__c" recordSetVar="records">

If you want to include any extensions, they must define a constructor that accepts the relevant controller.
Detail Button
public MyExtension(ApexPages.StandardController controller)
{
    // constructor logic
}

List Button
public MyExtension(ApexPages.StandardSetController controller)
{
    // constructor logic
}

Answer: This is how Visualforce actions, buttons and links are designed to work. Pages that use standardController (and optionally recordSetVar) are intended to be used against a specific record or set of records from a given object type. You'll find tons of examples and explanations in the documentation, including Mass-Updating Records with a Custom List Controller, Overriding Tabs Using a Standard List Controller, Adding Custom List Buttons using Standard List Controllers, and other places as well. They allow you to define new actions for an object's home page, a button or link on a detail page, or a button on a related list or list view that contains that specific object type.


Shell script to become root

Question: How can we write a shell script to become root?
That is I donot want to input the password at prompt it should be within the script itself. I was trying to make but failed to do so.Is it possible, if Yes please Explain.
Comment: @MichaelMrozek `sudo -i` is preferred. It requires permissions to run `sudo bash`.
Comment: Does it need to be a shell script? I don't see how that would be possible, but you could set it up so `sudo su` or `sudo bash` works without a password
Answer: You can write a script using expect tool.
In Redhat, expect package comes by default. But in Ubuntu you need to install it separately.
You can check this by using commands:
$ rpm -qa | grep expect     for Redhat
$ dpkg -l expect for Ubuntu
The following script will do your work:
#!/usr/bin/expect

spawn su -
expect "Password: "
send "password\r"
interact

Answer: Storing the cleartext of the root password in a file is inherently dangerous - there are lots of routes by which it can be recovered.
This appears to be an XY problem.
The unixy way of delegating permissions is via the setuid bit - but this can only be applied to binary executables, not shell scripts. As jordanm states, applying setuid to the shell itself is very dangerous - that's why sudo exists - it has a setuid bit and validates user requests against the sudoers file to give a fine-grained control over access. But sudo also has some gotchas.
Answer: The simplest way is to make a suid copy of the shell:
cp /bin/bash $HOME/bin/becomeroot
sudo chown root $HOME/bin/becomeroot
sudo chmod 4750 $HOME/bin/becomeroot
hash -r

Then, running becomeroot will start a bash subshell running as root.
However, I would be remiss if I didn't give you this advice: don't do that. It's unwise to make it so easy for malware to escalate its privileges to root. Instead, just install sudo and learn to use it whenever you need to run something as root.
Answer: You can set the SUID sticky bit:
chmod 2664 your-file

That will cause the software to run as the owner of the file.  So of course, you'll have to change ownership to root:
sudo chown root your-file

(assuming you are found in the sudoers file, and you've installed sudo)
Comment: setuid does not work on shell scripts unless you setuid the shell binary (not recommended).

Shell script to become root


Is it possible to simulate bump maps using lighting?

Question: Like, when there is a dent in some object, the dented part will be less illuminated by light. When there is a bump in an object,  the lower rims of the bump will cast small shadows and the upper part will be more affected by light. Is there a way to do this ?
Answer: Well here's the funny thing,
Bump mapping already creates the illusion of detail using lighting tricks. No actual detail is created.
For example:

In this quick little render, I only used a bump map.
As you can see, no real detail is created but blender is using lighting tricks to give an illusion of depth by casting shadows and bouncing extra light. So I think bump mapping already does what you asked for.
BLEND FILE: https://pasteall.org/blend/e18270574ea0464cb27904593c648695
Comment: This is exactly correct but is there a way to do it without the bump node ? Only using lights ?
Comment: Maybe you can but that's gonna be counter-intuitive. I personally don't know of a method to do that


Deadline for Upgrading from Magento (EE) 1x to Magento (EE) 2x?

Question: How long can we stay on Magento (EE) 1x before we would absolutely have to move to Magento (EE) 2x? I can't find a definite answer to this if there is one. I did read that security patches & support for Magento (EE) 1x will end the 4th Quarter of 2018. Perhaps that is the deadline date everyone is using or hearing? I'd imagine that PCI scanning vendors could start showing hesitance to approving applications that are no longer receiving security updates. Huge concern!!! If so, that would make the 4th Quarter of 2018 everyones deadline to upgrade for sure. I'd rather stay on Magento (EE) 1x for another 5 years but I don't think it's possible. Any definitive answers out there?
Answer: I haven't heard a definitive answer but at Imagine 2016, they hinted at 3 years of support from 2.x launch for the 1.x line.  That is right in-line with the Q4 2018 date.  It seems like Magento is suggesting you migrate to the 2.x line sooner rather than later, but they will support it through 2018.
As for me, and where I work, we have so many custom pieces that migrating isn't going to be easy, or pretty.  We're putting it off as much as we can, but my plan is to start shifting the core of my time to Magento 2 migration and less on Magento 1.x.  I figure it will take me about a year to convert everything, which leaves us up to a year to test data migration and features.
Answer: November 17, 2018 (three years from the date Magento 2 launched) is the last day that Magento 1.x will be supported.
I'm sure that the sales team will be pushing to begin migrations much sooner than that, and if history is any indication there will be those who lag in their builds on 2.x or decide to go it alone at which point they will no longer be supported.
Now. Support and sales are two different things. I'm not sure if there is language about being able to use a version of Magento Enterprise in production outside of the "support" date but my guess is that there will be significant pressure on them to migrate. Market forces like demand and competition; non-market forces like feature and extension compatibility.
All in all you still have a good deal of runway, but as they say: time flies like a kite (and fruit flies like a banana).


Clipping mask for text on grid

Question: I've created a tennis racket in Illustrator CS6 and i want to make the text only visible on the lines of the net. I tried to use a copy of the net as clipping mask for the text, but the result was'nt so good, because the black of the underlying lines was still lightly visible. Even when the mask and the net was perfectly aligned.
Is there an easier way as a mask?
Answer: You can use an Opacity Mask:

Note: Boxes have a black fill and white stroke. This is important for the mask to function correctly. Also, make certain the black is 100% black of all colors - that means R0G0B0 or C100M100Y100K100 - if your black isn't a full "rich" black (or registration black), then you'll get some slight bleed through of the number possibly.
Also note, the text in this image is still "live" so the number can easily be changed with the Type Tool and retain the masking.
While the first thought may be a clipping mask, for something as complex as the grid of lines, you would have to expand the strokes and merge them first. And ultimately with the grid it may be too complex to use as a clipping mask. An Opacity mask will do exactly what you want in a less complex manner and should avoid the issues a clipping mask may present.
Comment: Thanks for the fast response, i meant clipping masks. I will try it with an opacity mask.
Comment: Clipping masks aren't really going to work well for this. The grid of lines is a bit complex and may cause issues if its used as a clipping mask. Since everything is vector, there's no issue with using an opacity mask instead. It's merely a different, less complex, method to get the desired results.

Clipping mask for text on grid


How should I interpret "[Something] isn't for me"?

Question:
I'm afraid German beer isn't for me.

Does it mean that "This beer isn't suitable for me" or "This isn't given to me"? How should I understand "for" in this context?
Answer: Great example of why context is important. Let me add one word to the sentence you have provided:

I'm afraid this German beer isn't for me.

That could mean either of the things you mention in your question. If a waitress was putting a stein down in front of a customer who looked confused, I'd assume the sentence meant:

I didn't order this German beer.

or:

I don't know who ordered this German beer, but it wasn't me.

However, if the man had been sipping from the stein for awhile, and his friend asked, "What do you think of that German beer?" then I'd assume the sentence meant:

This German beer isn't quite to my liking.

or:

I don't think I'll be ordering another one of these any time soon.

In the former scenario, for is being used in accordance with definition 1a in Macmillan, whereas in the latter scenario, for is being used in accordance with Macmillan's definitions #7 & #19:

for (prep.)
  1a used for saying who or what is intended to receive something
  7 used for saying what you prefer
  19 used for saying which person a particular thing would be appropriate for

Sometimes, when a word has well over a dozen meanings, there is no way to tell which meaning is being applied simply by analyzing a single sentence. This is particularly true for prepositions, which can be very tricky.
Back to your original question, though:

I'm afraid German beer isn't for me.

Because that sentence isn't talking about a specific German beer, it's more evident that the person is talking about their liking for German beer in general.
Answer: Deriving the context from just the sentence, it would be something like:

I don't like German beer.

Saying something "isn't for me" is a polite way of stating that you don't like something. There could be many reasons for disliking it, but normally this phrase is used in the context of personal taste or preference.
Edit:
The "I'm afraid" phrase is also a way to make a statement sound more polite. It's close to "I'm sorry," but can be used when someone doesn't really need to apologize.


freeing up storage space on Iphone 6plus

Question: my emails are taking up 4.9 gb on my iphone 6 plus(16gb)
when i deleted a year's e mails from one of my account on my desktop. nothing changed on the iphone.
Please advise...
Comment: Welcome to Ask Different. It would help us if you provided additional info, such as what you've already done to solve the problem yourself.  Please see [ask] for how to ask good questions that have a better chance at being answered.  Because we're not Apple Support, we don't want to duplicate anything you've already tried.
Comment: The easy way would be to delete the account from the phone. That will remove all the data. then re-add the account and any deleted data won't be there. Note that deleting mail on your desktop will not necessarily remove mail from anywhere else, depending on yuor settings and type of account.
Comment: @SteveChambers The problem with your suggestion is that when they re-add the account it's likely to download all the email that's still on the email server, especially since it's likely the OP is referring to a POP account.
Comment: Specifically where in the question does it say it's a POP account?
Answer: Welcome to the community Joel. Unfortunately your question really hasn't provided much detail, so this answer may go into more detail than you wanted.
POP v IMAP
First of all I am guessing that you're using what's called a POP email account and that you've probably set your email clients up to not delete emails from the server. This is only a guess because your question provides little detail.
Both POP (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) allow users to download their email from an email server. However, POP simply downloads email to your computer, and usually (but not always) deletes the email from the remote server. This is the way email accounts were always set up originally, but problems arise when you have more than one device (desktop, laptop, tablet or phone) you want to access your mail from. This means you have to delete or file or mark as read, etc etc the same email on every device.
IMAP, on the other hand allows you to keep your email on a remote server. This two-way protocol also allows you to synchronise your email among multiple devices, especially useful since most people have at least two devices - their laptop and smartphone. Basically, if you're using IMAP and mark an email as read, it gets marked as read in your web based inbox or other email clients too (because the changes are happening on the server, not just locally). However, this won't be the case if you are using POP, because your emails are downloaded to your PC and the changes won't reflect on the server.
However, there are reasons why you may prefer POP. For example, depending on the email server, storage space for your messages may be limited. Also, reading messages while offline requires use of your e-mail program's Offline mode (assuming it has one). And, in some cases, accessing and working with emails can be slower when using IMAP.
In summary, both protocols offer their advantages and disadvantages. Today many will argue that POP is deprecated and IMAP is the only way forward, but in reality there are still very good arguments for using POP over IMAP. In the end, it gets down to what you value personally.
Your situation
Now you should be able to see why I said I'm guessing that you're using a POP email account. Basically, if you were using an IMAP account you would have seen the emails you deleted on your desktop also disappear from your iPhone.
Now, I'm not saying you should change from POP to IMAP, I'm just explaining what has happened in your case and why.
So, if your goal was to free up space on your iPhone, then you need to do it directly on your iPhone, rather than on your desktop. However, if your goal was to reduce space on both, then you will need to do it separately on both, or consider changing your setup to use IMAP instead.
If you'd like to change your setup and need help in doing so, it'd be best to post another question providing more details of your situation and asking for advice on that.
Steve Chamber's suggestion may work
Just a quick word on Steve's comment re your question:

The easy way would be to delete the account from the phone. That will
  remove all the data. then re-add the account and any deleted data
  won't be there.

Steve's suggestion may also help you achieve what you want if you haven't got a lot of emails still on your server. For example, if you've set up your email clients so that emails remain on the server for only a day or week after being downloaded, then Steve's suggestion may be a quick fix because your iPhone will only re-download a smaller number of emails. However, if your email clients are not deleting emails from the server, or leaving them on the server for a long time before deleting, then Steve's suggestion won't be very helpful.


Are there any studies of epigenetic difference between twins during their lifespan?

Question: Are there any studies of epigenetic difference between twins during their lifespan ? I ask because I wonder if there exist phases during lifespan, when environmental factors plays major role (expecially in early adulthood) - twins study should allow to distinguish between changes in epigenetic  profile caused by external factors and that from "inner dynamics" of organism.
Answer: I would think there have to be, though do you mean collecting samples on a regular basis and plotting out the difference at each point? Or do you simply mean the total accumulated change. If it is the latter, the answer is certainly "yes". You have probably seen the Nova documentary "Ghost in Your Genes" (The US, not BBC one). In it they show comparison of accumulated epigenetic change between a pair of identical twin Spanish women. I'm guessing you are more looking at measuring this change on a regular basis and looking for points of rapid divergence.... I don't know if this has been done for individuals, but it appears that it has been done for sample sets (see the same documentary). They discuss accumulated genetic change in younger twins vs older ones...
Comment: I have seen "Ghost in Your Genes". Excellent doc, which, in part, got me thinking about this (yes the Spanish twins in particular). I was meaning more systematically through life (testing at regular intervals). In the documentary, the observations seemed a bit less pre-defined. On a related note, could anyone point me to the specific methodologies for assessing whole-genome epigenetic differences?
Comment: Great ! I think similar, regular studies are going to come, but can you write more on the latter case, for example about rate of epigenetic changes ?
Comment: good question, ask it but not as a comment


Transcribe + Expresso Store

Question: I have a current project that uses Expresso Store and I need to make the site multilingual (including the products available in the store). I am debating on using Transcribe to handle the heavy lifting of making the site multi-lingual and the products on sale, but I'm thinking there may be a problem. If Transcribe basically creates a duplicate related entry for the translation will this also duplicate the products in Store? (i.e.; Inventory items)
Answer: Short answer is that Store and Transcribe do not play nice together. Things like modifier names, email templates, error messages would only be shown in the default language.
The only officially supported way of having a multilingual setup with Store would be to use MSM and have each site as a language.
Comment: Thanks for the tip. Didn't think about the email templates or error messages (in this particular case product modifiers aren't going to be used).
Comment: No problem. If this answered your question remember to mark it as answered by clicking the check mark.
Comment: Does anyone know the best option for working around this -- e.g. disabling transcribe for the store pages? We have a site that is multilingual, but the store only needs to be in one language. Any idea how to achieve this?
Comment: Hey Tom, following house rules it's best to ask a new 'question' as 'answers' are aimed at being exclusively for answering the original question. SE differs from regular forums in this respect. With regard to Transcribe however it's perfectly possible to integrate with Store and we have a number of customers who are using that combination successfully.

Transcribe + Expresso Store


Do all frequencies of light have the same speed?

Question: Is there any speed difference between blue or red light? Is there ever a speed difference? Or do all types of light move at the same speed?
Comment: published in Sciences [Photons that travel in free space slower than the speed of light](http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.3987) . Authors say : even in free space, the invariance of the speed of light only applies to plane waves. Introducing spatial structure to an optical beam, even for a single photon, reduces the group velocity of the light by a readily measurable amount.
Answer: The speed of light in vacuum is constant and does not depend on characteristics of the wave (e.g. its frequency, polarization, etc). In other words, in vacuum blue and red colored light travel at the same speed c.
The propagation of light in a medium involves complex interactions between the wave and the material through which it travels. This makes the speed of light through the medium dependent on multiple factors which include the frequency (other example factors being refraction index of the material, polarization of the wave, its intensity and direction).
The phenomenon due to which the speed of a wave depends on its frequency is known as dispersion and is the reason why prism and water droplets separate white light into a rainbow.
Answer: Since no one else has mentioned it ...
If you want to have a better conceptual understanding of the apparent slowing of light (and other electromagnetic waves) in materials, I strongly suggest reading Richard Feynman's lectures, especially Chapter 31 of volume I. That will give you much more explanation than is possible in this forum.
All the Feynman lectures are here.
And Chapter 31 is here.
Enjoy!
Answer: Recall that light can travel through a medium, like air or water or glass.  You can measure the speed of light in any of these media.  You can also pass light through a vacuum where there is just empty space.  Think of the light coming from the sun.
  In empty space, all colors travel at the same speed called c. Light of different wavelengths, or colours, travels at different speeds when they travel through any medium other than vacuum.  That last statement is not exactly true but the reasons are complicated and you can just look up solitons.  Red light travels faster than blue in glass.
Answer: As far as we know, light is mediated by a particle without rest mass. Special relativity says that such a massless particle's speed must always be observed to be $c$, irrespective of the observer's motion. In general relativity, a massless particle's speed as measured locally is also always $c$. No experiment so far has detected a measurable difference between the speed of light of any color and $c$. So experimentation tells us that light of all "kinds" and colors moves at $c$ and relativity gives us insight into how this comes about.
When it interacts  with matter, the speed of the disturbance arising from excitation by light can have different speeds. We now have a quantum superposition of light and excited matter states, so, although many people would call me pedantic, this isn't really light proper. Classically you can think of this as like a game of "Whisper Down the Lane": an atom of the medium absorbs light, dwells in an excited state, then re-emits a new photon. The net result is a slowed propagation, but the "light" part of the disturbance still travels at $c$. Depending on the kind of medium involved, there can be all kinds of dependence of propagation speed on color: as in Bill N's answer, Feynman gives a most excellent classical description. My attempt at a quantum explanation is here.
Answer: It is absolutely correct that in vacuum all colors of light travel with same speed and this is why a white ray travels through the vacuum without suffering any dispersion...
Answer: Speed of light is constant in vacuum but different electromagnetic waves travel at different speeds in different media due to different refractive index.
Comment: While not wrong, this answer is kind of nondescript. Also, I'm curious what new information it adds that the currently accepted answer does not have already?


How to know an Apache web server mod_cgi module is enabled?

Question: I am currently working on penetration test of a web site that uses an Apache HTTP server. To test a vulnerability which is related to mod_cgi module, I need to know whether this web site uses mod_cgi module of Apache or not? How can I determine this?
Answer: The first place to look is the server header. Depending on the server configuration it may report all enabled modules. Alternately you can use a specially formulated request which will provide a less reliable detection. The AddHandler directive allows a script to answer with a non 501 response to incorrect HTTP verbs. I'm using this technique in my Apache profiling script (aprof) from my lbmap project: https://github.com/wireghoul/lbmap
Comment: Thanks a lot for your answer. I want to use lbmap aprof tool to detect which Apache modules are used. I downloaded this project from github, but how can I use this tool?
Comment: You run it the same way you run any perl file. Also, was there a reason you had to detect mod_cgi first as opposed to simply running the exploit?


What download file do I need to get PyODBC 3.1.1 for Python 3.2?

Question: I can't make head nor tail out of the wheelhouse install files for PyODBC.  There seem to be three parameters encoded in .whl file names at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyodbc/3.1.1 .  One appears to be a Python version number, and no file is listed for Python 3.2.  Another parameter is the processor, and I haven't the foggiest idea what the third parameter is.  This is the first time I've ever heard of a "wheelhouse" installation file.  Thank you for any help you can provide.
Comment: `3.1.1` is the version of the library, it has nothing to do with the Python version. Then comes the operating system & platform it's supposed to be run on.
Comment: None of these pre-built wheels are for CPython 3.2 - you could try `pip install pyodbc`as per their [documentation](http://mkleehammer.github.io/pyodbc/#installing) but you may have to build the library from source
Comment: It might be easier all around to simply upgrade from Python 3.2 to Python 3.5 and then use`pip` to install pyodbc (which should grab the appropriate wheel file).
Answer: Why are you downloading wheel files from PyPI? Can't you use pipto install your packages? BTW, wheel files have been around for quite some years now, there's even a PEP about them and here you can read a little about their history. I strongly advise you against manually downloading files from de Index, you should really use pip or set a cache server if you need to keep the packages.
Comment: Basically, nobody at my company has any real idea of how to use Python intelligently, beyond basic knowledge of the syntax.  I want to use PyODBC because we've been relying on COM and the Microsoft ADODB library for database access without bothering to see if there's anything better for about the last fifteen years.  I am not exaggerating.  I have spent far more time than I should have trying to work around that library's eccentricities.  I want to use PyODBC instead because I expect it to be easier to use and much more reliable.  But I've got an old version, and want to upgrade.
Comment: "pip install --upgrade pyodbc" in my Python32/scripts folder failed, complaining that a path cannot be absolute.
Comment: Can you show me the full output of the command? a simple `pip install pyodbc` should do the magic, provided that there's nothing wrong with your internet connection and you have the proper rights in the machine


Can I use Google's Timeline to get the times I've been to a specific location?

Question: Google Map's Timeline records where I (or at least my phone) has been throughout the day every day. Given a particular location, I'd like to see a list of times when I've been there. To get tax credit for days not spent working in a municipality I need to prove that I was out of the city on each day.
Comment: did you ever get this figured out?
Answer: No, Google Maps doesn't let you do that.
It frustrated me as well, so I've written a python script that does just that.
You can find it here: https://github.com/matthieuheitz/google-data-analyses/blob/master/get_visit_times.py
You give it the point of interest (latitude/longitude), a date range, and you get what you want!

A brief overview of what is involved, if you have not used Python before:

Install Python 3 (should already be there for Mac and Linux. For Windows, see here)

Install numpy (pip3 install numpy, or Windows guide)

Edit get_visit_times.py with the basic Python editor with your:
a. Location of your Google Location History JSON file
b. Desired date range with dates in the format YYYY,M,D
c. Point of Interest (Use the "right-click > What's here" feature on Google maps to get the GPS coordinates, and paste into the Python script)
d. Timestamp grouping (output detail verbosity)

Run the script (in a terminal: python3 get_visit_times.py)

An example of the output (with medium detail (level 2), and the timeframe set to one day) is:
Loading 'C:\<your folder path>\Location History.json' ...
JSON file loaded
Extracting relevant data...
Total of points: 310779
Number of close points: 72
Point 124834  --  Date: 2018-11-24 00:24:03  --  Distance to POI: 1532m
    Group of 60 points
Point 129468  --  Date: 2018-12-01 02:58:17  --  Distance to POI: 1401m
    Group of 12 points

Comment: is there any way this could be done on a Mac and if so is there a list of steps I could follow?
Comment: I think Python is pre-installed on Mac, so step 1 is taken care of. For step 2, you can open a terminal, and run `pip3 install numpy`
Then you can follow step 3 and 4.
Comment: Care to explain how to obtain the json file?
Answer: You could use the Timeline exporter Google Chrome plugin. It enables you to view, filter and export your Google timeline data.
Comment: This one is pretty neat. Thanks
Answer: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ad13ae2c-d437-4d53-8622-923943938ca4/converting-json-to-csv?forum=winserverpowershell shows a way to do it in PowerShell.
$in = Get-Content -Raw -Path  '<input file>.json'
$injson = convertfrom-json $in
$injson.Locations | export-csv locations.csv -notypeinformation

locations.csv has 4 columns: timestampMS, latitudeE7, longitudeE7, accuracy
Answer: Maybe the Elcomsoft Cloud eXplorer can do it.
Its mentioned in this article Google Timeline: How Law Enforcement Can Use Google Data.
Comment: Interesting. But $2000 for the license? Wow.
Answer: There is a new tool for extracting visits from Google Location History data. It doesn't just rely on Google's estimate of places visited, but uses its own spatio-temporal analysis. You can download the resulting list of visited locations in spreadsheets (CSV or Excel) or various vector formats.
Answer: You can also try this extension Google Takeout Mileage and Timeline Exporter. You'll first have to go to Google Takeout and download your location data. Upload the zip file to the extension. The extension parses the files and  lets you export as csv files.


Newton's Cradle: why does it stay symmetric?

Question: How is it that always the same number of balls leave at the other end in Newton's cradle. I understand that the momentum needs to be conserved, but as momentum is defined as p=m*v couldn't you have a different number of balls move at a different speed instead of the same number of balls at the same speed?
Comment: Possible duplicates: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/3527/2451
Answer: The simple answer is that not only momentum but also energy needs to be conserved.
This puts constraints on the number of balls that can be activated in the cradle.
Note that this does not always give a unique solution either.  But it enforces that $ n $ balls to $ n $ balls is a "stable" solution.
Answer: The compression pulse that propagates through the metal spheres of Newton's cradle are not ordinary sound waves. They are approximate solitons (a nonlinear wave form that balances dispersion against nonlinearity). It is this property of soliton pulses that is responsible for the observed behavior.
More Details:  Newton's cradle is a physical manifestation of the Fermi Pasta Ulam simulation conducted in the 1950s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%E2%80%93Pasta%E2%80%93Ulam_problem  The expected thermalization (analogous to the expectation that more and more balls in Newton's cradle will start to move) fails to materialize because the dispersion is exactly balanced by the nonlinearity that results from the Hertz deformation law for elastic spheres.  Instead, repeated occurrences of the initial conditions are observed.
In actuality the soliton solutions are only an approximate representation of the motions of the balls in Newton's cradle.  As the energy get dissipated through friction, the balance between dispersion and nonlinearity breaks down and the expected thermalization finally occurs.
Comment: I doubt that the people who make them are aware of how special the physics of Newton's cradle is.
Comment: Also, see this:  https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/231284/why-doesnt-the-9th-ball-move-in-the-break-in-the-nine-ball-pool-game/231317#231317
Comment: So a Newton cradle with something else than balls would _a priori_ not work?
Comment: @anderstood It would probably resemble Newton's cradle for the first few bounces if the nonlinearity is especially weak. Eventually those nonlinear terns should lead to the population of other modes and the periodic behavior should be disrupted.  I'm just using theory as a guide since I have never observed such a modified system.
Comment: Your answer implies that Newton cradle would not work with rodsinstead of balls, right? I made some rough experiments with three small rods and it seems to work exactly the same way (even with uneven contact surface !).
Comment: Uneven surface contact would cause similar behavior.  As long as the contacts are point wise the nonlinear behavior will persist
Comment: So, if I understand correctly, you are saying that the uneven surface induces a nonlinearity. But strangely, the observed behaviour seems to be exactly the solution to a 1D linear hyperbolic problem (d'Alemberts PDE).
Comment: I'm not familiar with d'Alemberts PDE, but yes, the uneven contact does cause a nonlinear response.


Conditions for deleting a question?

Question: I was trying to delete my question but not able to do so. Can someone tell me the conditions of deleting a question??
Answer: First of all, by posting a question (or an answer) on Stack Exchange you have agreed to the Terms of Service which state:

Subscriber Content
You agree that any and all content, including without limitation any and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or source code, audio and video, animations, and product feedback (collectively, "Content") that you provide to the public Network (collectively, "Subscriber Content"), is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Overflow on a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive basis pursuant to Creative Commons licensing terms (CC BY-SA 4.0), and you grant Stack Overflow the perpetual and irrevocable right and license to access, use, process, copy, distribute, export, display and to commercially exploit such Subscriber Content, even if such Subscriber Content has been contributed and subsequently removed by you

That means you can't delete a question just because e.g. you feel embarrassed for asking it. Since you indicate you can't delete it, it probably has an upvoted answer - the linked FAQ has all the details in the section "When can't I delete my own post?". Suppose that you would delete the question: then the answer would be gone too, even though it is (apparently) a good answer, and somebody put in the (or even a lot of) effort to write it. That would not be fair, would it?
There is a way to disassociate the post from your account but it should be used sparingly; if you do repeated requests like that, you might get suspended.
Comment: More generally, a lot of features of Stack Exchange were counterintuitive to me until I understood one thing: The primary purpose of the site is to build a library of questions and answers for future researchers, and helping people asking the question is secondary to that.  This explains some features that would otherwise seem bizarre (for example, the fact that power users can edit your posts without your consent (!), and it's also the reason why you can't delete your own posts).
Answer: Rephrasing the FAQ post, you can delete your question if all of the following apply:

There is no more than one answer; and
You did not accept that answer; and
The answer does not have a positive score; and
No bounty is currently applied on the question or has been given to the answer; and
You are a registered user (not a guest account).

In your case, as of writing this your account lists 4 questions, of which 2 fail condition one, 3 fail condition two and 3 fail condition three rendering all your current questions save one undeletable.
The reasoning behind this is that by deleting a question with an answer that gave the poster reputation you would be harming that person without them being able to do anything about it and in spite of effort they put in. In the case of multiple answers it is less clear but likely due to an idea of 'one of them has to be better, doesn't it?' or something like that.

Conditions for deleting a question?


Regarding the scope of Sample Grabber in DirectShow

Question: I have 2 related questions for my web cam live capture application.

The webcams capture data in varying formats such as YUY2, RGB24, I420, MJPG etc. I need to convert the captured data to I420 irrespective of the input format. Hence I need to know the current scope/capability of the Direct Show inbuilt Transform filter such as Sample Grabber. Will the Sample Grabber support at least these many transformations? Or will I have to write my own custom filters?
Many of the webcams seem to have multiple format output. When I connect Sample Grabber whose media type is Set to I420, will the Sample Grabber filter talk to the Web camera driver to make sure that the data output from Webcam will be I420 ( if the Web cam has support).

I had already posted questions related to the above, but couldn't get them fully answered. Please help.
Answer: Sample Grabber does not change media type of the data, but if you set a preferred media type before connecting then it will require the input stream to be of that mediatype. Just use RenderStream (intelligent connect, not direct one) and DirectShow will insert required decoders or transformers, if they are present.
Answer: Take a look at the RGBFilters example in the directx sdk. For example one of the filters included is TransNull24. That filter will pass all samples unmodified, but is only able to connect when the input is MEDIASUBTYPE_RGB24. What you do is connect the webcam filter to the TransNull24, and the TransNull24 with the samplegrabber. If the webcam is able to output RGB24, that will be used. Otherwise a transform filter will be automatically added between the webcam and the TransNull24. Now you will only receive RGB24 in your samplegrabber, even if the webcam does not support that directly.
Of course you don't need RGB24, but you can simply modify the example filter and create your own TransNullI420 filter. I am not sure the standard color space conversion filter can output I420, so you might need to install ffdshow, en configure it to convert uncompressed video.


Generators in Javascript into the new ECMA standard

Question: Generators are being introduced in the new version of the ECMA standards.
Could any one suggest the importance and the usage of generators in the present Javascript world?
Examples of generators in real world problems will be helpful.
Answer: Starters
I'd suggest to look at:

the ECMAScript Harmony Project's wiki page on Generators,
the Mozilla Developer Doc on Iterators and Generators,
the JavaScript Tips page of the jslibs project,
the Google Traceur Compiler's page on JavaScript Language Features,
SO questions for "javascript generator yield".

A simple example is given in the Mozilla Developer Doc introducing the new features of JavaScript 1.7:
function fib() {
  var i = 0, j = 1;
  while (true) {
    yield i;
    var t = i;
    i = j;
    j += t;
  }
}

var g = fib();
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  console.log(g.next());
}

Others are available in the documents listed above.
Real-World
For real world examples, you can for instance see:

Google's own Traceur-Compiler's tests for EndYieldGenerator, and SwitchGenerator,
or even the whole test battery for the yield keyword in Google's traceur-compiler,
or the AcidMonkey tests, for instance this Pi Generator.
Answer: I think Generators are best explained in the following article:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Guide/Iterators_and_Generators
This might be also useful: http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-18-progress/
Comment: This doesn't answer the question. Posting links is best left to comments, unless you're going to expand on the contents of the linked page.


Magento site slows with IE and gives script error

Question: having issues with one of my clients magento frontend. The website works fine woth chrome but slows down when opening in IE( all versions) or FF. while with ff it is still working ok but the major issue is IE. the error I am getting is the "Stop running this script" A script on this page is causing your web browser to run slowly.
There is a video and a jquery flexislider running on that page and I am not sure if the iframe embed of video is causing the error. IF yes what is the best way to display a video on the page.
Any help would be helpful
Thanks
Comment: probably same issue http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8310233/magento-using-jquery-with-noconflict/8310465#8310465
Answer: The cause of the problem could be that Magento uses an outdated version of the Prototype javascript library and IE barfs on the old version. You either have to live with it or figure some way to upgrade Prototype. I have seen other messages on how to do that but they all said it was problematic.


How to remove dropdown from wp_nav_menu

Question: I dont want to have dropdown (select - options) in my wordpress menu, even in mobile or lower width devices. I know I can use css to hide it, but I want to remove it at all. I googled for an hour and I found that I should use a custom walker on Roots!!!! but I dont know whats that and how. please help me, I am a newby.
Comment: Which Theme do you use?
Comment: meadowhill - http://wordpress.org/themes/meadowhill
Comment: I'm not entirely understanding your situation. May you please elaborate? Add pictures to give a better visual reference on where you are.
Comment: In the `js/functions.js` exists a function `initMainNavigation`. This function creates the dropdown button.
Answer: We can use depth parameter of wp_nav_menu to set how many levels  menu walker traverses.
wp_nav_menu( array( 'menu_id'=>'nav', 'theme_location'=>'header-menu' , 'depth' => 1) );

You can create a child theme so that updates won't override during updates.
Create child theme and copy code from header.php of parent theme then replace the code
 wp_nav_menu( array( 'menu_id'=>'nav', 'theme_location'=>'header-menu' ) );

with the above code.
More Info:
child theme
Answer: Since WP v3.3.0 you can use filter wp_nav_menu_args to alter arguments of function wp_nav_menu that used to display a navigation menu. Add this code in functions.php of your theme files. You can change functions name wpse155177_nav_menu_args.
/**
* @see wp_nav_menu()
*
* @return array $args Array of wp_nav_menu() arguments.
*/
add_filter( 'wp_nav_menu_args', 'wpse155177_nav_menu_args', 1, 1 );
function wpse155177_nav_menu_args( $args )
{
    //lookup theme_location ie: header-menu
    if ( isset( $args['theme_location'] ) && 'header-menu' == $args['theme_location'] ) {
        $args['depth'] = 1; //levels of the hierarchy are to be included
    }

    return $args;
}

Answer: Simply try to move in menu settings "menu voices"(pages as :home, who we are, what to do, etc) alling them one under another.

How to remove dropdown from wp_nav_menu


Road bike and mountain bike shoes

Question: I have a road bike with Look pedals that I would like to ride with SPD pedals, are they any adapters to the cleats that would allow me to do it?
Comment: Perhaps you'd rather replace them with SPD pedals?
Comment: If your shoes can take a two-bolt cleat, just change the cleats.  If you want to use the shoes on two different bikes, it will be best to have a second pair of shoes.   Otherwise an adapter plate between 2/3 holes is your best plan.
Comment: Change the Look pedals to SPD pedals. You may get quite inexpensive single sided SPD pedals that almost look like road pedals and that won't 'disfigure' a road bike.
Answer: I take your question to mean you have road style 3 bolt cleat shoes, but want to use them with Shimano SPD type pedals that need a 2 bolt cleat. You are looking for a way to attach 2 bolt SPD cleats to the 3 bolt shoes.
Another way of putting it is you need a Shimano SPD to SPD-R adapter (SPD-R (road) cleats use 3 bolt attachment).
Yes, there are adapters available. Specific product recommendations or shopping help are off topic here so I wont link to a specific product, but try Googling 'Shimano SPD SPD-R adapter'.

Road bike and mountain bike shoes


What's the rule on revealing something to the audience, but not the characters?

Question: This is a common problem I have writing fantasy. Most of the trouble comes from revealing a monster, but for the characters who have never seen the monster before, they don't know what it is. One example is a minotaur, to describe it as a minotaur lets the reader know what it is straight away, the problem is if i write 'minotaur', a following scene with a character discovering it's a minotaur becomes redundant, and though there are monsters I have a character introduce before their encounter, this seems convenient after a while. It takes away the drama, and after a while writing ' a bull with legs' gets repetitive. Any tips, rule of thumb?
Cheers.
Answer: Maybe the viewpoint character could refer to the minotaur as 'the beast' or 'the monster'?  Meanwhile, you could indicate to the readers that it is a minotaur by describing its appearance in such a way that it is fairly obvious.  For example, you could say something like:
I spun around to see a hulking beast standing behind me.  The monster had the head of a bull, but when it opened its mouth I could see sharp, blood-covered teeth inside.  Though it stood on two legs and had arms like a human, it was covered in shaggy brown fur and had hooves instead of feet.  The beast growled, then charged, thrusting forward wickedly sharp horns.
Just an idea.  You may want to look at a few Rick Riordan books; he does an excellent job of describing mythological creatures.
Answer: Well, this is something that I have a bit of experience in, being the GM of a fantasy RPG, Pathfinder. It's all about player (or reader) and character knowledge. For example, I may give my players an enchanted sword, but I might give it to them like this.
"You pry the blade out of the beasts' hands, with the blood of your fallen comrade still fresh on it. As you grip it, you feel a slight rush of power flow from it to you."
It's only a +1 blade, but I made it seem like it was a very powerful artifact (Which, at level 1-5, was not at all happening.)
Regardless, back to your question, here's a few options.
First off, you don't. You don't have to introduce the monster. Sometimes, it's more impactful not to, particularly if it's an extremely powerful creature at that stage (Think, facing a minotaur at 1st level. I've only had one party survive, only due to some divine (GM) intervention.)
Second, you could do as the person above me said, and describe in detail the monster or enemy they are facing. This gives a sense of suspense as the characters and the readers realize "Oh, s***, it's a minotaur! Run!"
Third, if at all possible, vaguely describe the monster. This is particularly effective for undead and other similar enemies. I've once disguised a succubus as an innocent farm girl, only to have one of the characters unlock the secret with the victim's body inside. They hated me for that, but I had a wicked laugh. Sometimes, it pays to be evil.
Hope that was useful!
Answer: The answer to this depends on your narrative point of view. If you are writing 1st person, or 3rd person close, you want the reader to experience the world as the character does. So you don't want to describe the monster in ways that the character wouldn't have access to, because it would move the reader out of the character's head. On the other hand, if you're writing 3rd person omniscient, you'll most often describe the monster directly to the readers in terms they'll understand.
The key here is understanding what function your descriptions are serving. For close perspective, the objective is to make the reader identify with the character's experience. Using terms like "minotaur" will not help with that goal (unless minotaurs are something the character actually is familiar with). But if the perspective is omniscient, you're trying to give the reader the big picture perspective, watching from the outside.
If you're trying to give the inside view, and it's getting clunky and awkward, or repetitive, consider that might just be a symptom of a deeper problem. Maybe you don't need to give a play-by-play of every battle after all. If it's not interesting to describe it from the character's point of view, maybe you just need to skip over it.


Spring XD Failover

Question: Does Spring XD support automatic failover when running in distributed mode?  Right now, if I create a simple stream on a setup with two containers, the source gets deployed to one container and the sink get deployed to the other container.  If I shut down the second container, the stream is listed as deployed.  If I undeploy and deploy the stream again, things start working as expected with both source and sink deployed to one container.  I would expect this to happen automatically.  I am using version 1.0.0.M3 with the following example stream:
stream create --definition "time | log" --name ticktock
Answer: It it does not support automatic failover.  Better mgmt of streams, e.g. deployment manifests/monitoring, is starting to be developed now, stay tuned.
Cheers,
Mark

Spring XD Failover


How do I get into 3D Java game development?

Question: I have learned how to make a 2D game in Java using Eclipse and processing but I am not sure how to do 3D game development. I have tried looking up examples of how to do this but I have not found any useful ones.
Answer: To create 3D graphics in java you will need to use LWJGL(OpenGL wrapper) or similar.
For getting started I recommend to look at these:

LWJGL.org/guide
LearnOpenGL.com
Youtube.com/ThinMatrix

These helped me getting started, without even prior 2D experience, so I'm sure this will be easy.
If you don't want to make your own engine you can also take a look at jMonkeyEngine.


Can I use a keyboard on Xbox One in the dashboard?

Question: On Xbox 360 and PS4 I can use my keyboard for entering passwords and navigating the dashboard. (Xbox 360 only works with plain USB keyboards, as I found out.) I have been unable to make my keyboards work with the Xbox One yet. What do I need to do?
Comment: I do vaguely remember so... I think... I used it for my account details once
Comment: USB keyboard support was added in an update on February 11, 2014. This should allow you to use any generic USB keyboard in the dashboard. I guess you should try some different keyboards or check that the USB port on your Xbox is working.
Answer: It should work according to the operating system versions and system updates page which I just stumbled over:

OS version: 6.2.10542 (xb_rel_1402.140213-0115) fre
Release date 2/14/2014
New or updated features

Update to My game & apps to allow sorting of games and application lists, and separate queue lists for games, applications, and installs.
Ability to delete game and application saved data.
Improved installation and DLC management.
Addition of the controller battery power indicator.
Improved UI for accessing friends, achievements, messages, and party chat.
Game DVR app to be included in the Xbox OneGuide as an app channel.
Update to the boot progress indicators for system update.
Improve consistency of UX for update and install progress.
Separate game, application, and install queue lists.
Addition of USB keyboard support.

Stability and performance update

Improved NAT detection.
Network Troubleshooter improvements.
Blu-ray quality improvements.
Significant performance and stability improvements.

Additional details
Xbox Wire


What is the value and age of this pre-1967 Ricoh 35 mm camera?

Question: I have a Ricoh 35 mm camera that has not been used since 1967. I am unable to find a value for it or an age.
The body is stamped # 36530 and the lens is tagged # 70573.
Can anybody help me determine its age and value?
Comment: Could you maybe add a picture of the camera? This might help identification.
Comment: You might need to add some details. Ricoh made film cameras with M42 screw mounts as well as with the Pentax K-mount. Is there some model information such as KR-5 on it? Do you have unscrew the lens or is a bayonet style that you push a button and twist to release?
Comment: It is a pretty old camera. It will be more helpful to identify if you can post a picture of the camera. From the info you provided, it's hard to guess. I'd suggest that you can go through Ricoh camera products website and see whether there's any info which can help you.
http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/
Comment: wow that is a collectors' item.  you should give more details on it, and they're right it is better if you can upload a photo of it.
Comment: I think we need a picture or else this needs to be closed as just guessing.
Comment: And what lens?  Each lens they made may have the same range of serial numbers.
Answer: Camerapedia index of Ricoh gives us a lot of pre-1967 models. Since you don't give us any model names or pictures you can check this page to see which one is yours.
Answer: My GF and I have a modest collection of old cameras scattered about the house. I bought an Argus Rangefinder is superb condition with form fitted leather case and light meter also in a leather case all for ... $35 on ebay.
You might get lucky and yours could be super rare but there really are a lot of old cameras out there and few want them.


Reframing after taking down Lath and Plaster

Question: hoping someone can help.Our lath and plaster walls have many cracks and some bulges.We need to rewire house and are thinking of taking down the lath.Our  concerned is -will we need  to reframe in order to insulate and put up drywall?Thanks
Comment: Will depend on what is behind the lath.  If there is nice straight stud walls, then should be good to go.  Cement walls or non straight/level/flat studs will need extra work.
Comment: How old is your house and in what country/state?   We can't tell you what you'll "need" to do, but we can tell you what you can typically expect if we know the rough location and age.   Most probably you'll need to shim some framing to create a flatter surface than before.  If there is anything else in the framing that "needs" doing you should not think of it that way.  You should see it as an opportunity to repair serious defects for a tiny incremental cost.
Answer: Re-frame - not unless you fnd the current framing to be badly damaged behind the plaster & lath.
Shimming or furring to make the wall straight and plumb (if you care about that) - quite likely, but a far cry from reframing.
Depending on your climate you might want to take shimming to a point where it resembles reframing, by putting up a non-bearing wall a few inches inside the old wall (with studs offset from the original studs or stud-equivalents, and at some nice modern spacing like 24" given it's non-bearing) so that you can add far more insulation - but it's still the original frame holding the building up. You lose a few inches of space in the room, and get reduced heating and cooling bills.
Answer: Here's one consideration to start with.
In any house old enough to have lath and plaster, you are likely to find multiple generations of "2x4" studs that were used in successive renovations over the decades. Their "4 inch" width can be inconsistent, and possibly not the same as a standard 2x4 you can buy today.
So, any reframing work that you do (adding or removing doors or windows, repairing cracked framing, and so on) needs careful planning by someone familiar with this challenge so that you can ensure that each wall has flush studs.  Your carpenter might use some combination of saving and re-using studs from demolition, offsetting studs or customizing 2x4s from 2x6s.
It's not difficult and doesn't add much expense but someone who is only used to new construction will be challenged by it.


How to Add a Custom Logo to an ERC-20 Token in Safe Wallet?

Question: I'm looking for guidance on how to incorporate a custom logo for my ERC-20 token when importing it into my Safe Wallet. Currently, the token displays a default logo, and I want to personalize it with the specific logo associated with my token. I've explored the settings within the Safe Wallet but haven't found a direct option to customize the logo for ERC-20 tokens. Additionally, I've reviewed online resources related to ERC-20 token customization but haven't found specific instructions for integrating logos into the Safe Wallet.
Answer: We have a process for that! Could you please:

Provide a proof of legitimacy of the token (links to Coingecko, CoinMarketCap, etc. are accepted).
Provide the network where the token lives.
Provide the contract address for the token to be modified.
Provide a logo image to be attached to the desired token.

Thanks!
Louis


Difference between ADB drivers and MTK drivers?

Question: Flashing a ROM in an android through PC requires  drivers along with softwares in order to make the process success ,in case of drivers which drivers are needed and when ,what is relation between ADB drivers and MTK drivers are they same and if not how are they different .I appreciate the answer in detail
Answer: Firstly it's not ABD driver it's Adb driver.Adb means Android Debug Bridge.ADB is a command-line utility included with Google's Android SDK. ADB can control your device over USB from a computer, copy files back and forth, install and uninstall apps, run shell commands, and more.When your device is in Fastboot/Download mode you can access your phone only through Adb.
For example if something goes wrong while flashing a rom and your phone is softbricked.Only way to access a bricked phone is through Adb.Adb mainly not used for flashing rom, It's used for flashing recovery/bootloader.
Comment: Thanks,but what are MTK drivers ,are adb drivers and MTK drivers same and if not how are they different .which drivers are required when etc


Fixed parallax header image

Question: I have been trying to figure out how to achieve an effect similar to this: ishothim.com. A fixed div that contains either a header image or slideshow. This div is then overlapped by the rest of the content when the user scrolls down. And a neat button pointing down to scroll to the actual content. I have used css z-index to layer the different divs and waypoints.js to make sure the navigation is sticky. But it doesn't seem quite refined and ready yet.
I have a feeling there must be a more elegant jQuery way of doing this, but I don't know where to begin. I have tried parallax scrolling, but it seemed almost too complex for what I want to achieve. There must be something simpler. Any ideas and pointers are very much welcome.
Answer: to use z-index you must also specify a position on the class. in this case, it will most likely be position: fixed;

Fixed parallax header image


How to secure file delete/wipe on mobile phones?

Question: With old HDD to secure delete a file you need to use Gutmann standard, but with new HDD you can use only 1 pass overwrite
I'm not sure what hard drives mobile phones use and don't know how many passes will be okay for secure deleting files on phone.
What standards are okay to safe delete files on phones? How many passes you need ? Is 0x00 or 0xFF standart overwriting with random data 1 pass safe or you need to use DoD 5220.22-M standard or Gutmann standart ? This question is  Android and iPhones related
Answer: On modern Android and iOS devices, some type of file encryption is certainly in place. Without the encryption key, the data is irrecoverable. Therefore, performing a factory reset to remove the key should render the data irrecoverable.
This is assuming you are willing to discard all data on the device.
Comment: But that assumes if brute force will not give success in the short term.  If the key value, is guessed near beginning rounds of brute force, then there is nothing stopping a person from retrieving the data.

You also have to assume that the hardware manufacturer does not have the key value on file, or that TPM is not used.  In which case the original TPM value is probably known by the manufacturer.

Actually physically destroying the memory chip into many peices would probably even better.
Comment: @AmolSoneji Modern mobile hardware doesn't use a TPM (remember, TPM is one specific specification for a type of trusted hardware). They use something else called a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) which generates and stores the key and will securely erase it upon factory reset. Brute force is not possible due to the size of the key.
Answer: Mobile phones don't use Hard Drives, and rather use the flash memory chips for memory like the ones used on a Solid State Drive.  So you can't use the same exact methodology that is used to wipe clean a Hard Disk Drive.
You could try factory resetting the phone, that would only "delete" the data.  However, I think it would require rooting the device as a first step towards, wiping clean the data on the phone.  After rooting the device you could probably do a google search on how to wipe clean a phones memory.
A better option would be to physically destroy the memory chip on the phone, in a manner that it would be hard to reassemble it back together.


Wiring for Outdoor Garage Lights

Question: I installed two outdoor garage lights using 14/2 MC Armorlite Cable. The lights are only 8.8 watts and have day/night sensors. I connected the wiring to a garage door opener dedicated 20 amp circuit on the ceiling. This circuit has one duplex 20 amp receptacle for the garage door opener plug. The new outdoor lights 14/2 wires are fed into that box. I now realize that the wiring is not correct. I should have used 12/2 wiring. Upon advice from a friend/electrician I replaced the 20 amp breaker with a 15 amp breaker and replaced the 20 amp receptacle with a 15 amp receptacle. Is this allowed? For safety, should I replace the wiring from the outdoor lights to the garage door receptacle with 12/2 wire?
Thank you for your advice.
Comment: I assume you don't have a garage door opener right now (i.e., hardwired into the same circuit). If you do, **post the model # so we can check the specs** as running it on a 15A circuit may be against the manufacturer's directions.
Comment: I have a Liftmaster Elite Model 3850. It is plugged into the 15 amp receptacle (the dedicated 15 amp circuit.
Comment: Interesting. I found the owner's manual online very easily, but it didn't list the specs (unless I missed it) of how much power is needed. But the diagram clearly shows a 15A receptacle (and also allows for hardwiring) and based on 3/4 HP, etc. it should be fine on a 15A circuit. So you're set.
Answer: Your friend gave you good advice. Breakers are sized by the smallest wire in the circuit. Since you added 14/2 to the circuit, a 15 AMP breaker is the maximum allowed. Replacing the receptacle was needed too. The 14/2 you installed is fine since you replaced the breaker.
Answer: Based on my experience (I am not a licensed electrician), I think everything you did is OK.  Key was to replace the 20 A breaker with a 15 A breaker.  Only other thing you might want to do is to make a note in the circuit breaker panel to the effect that "Circuit [put the number of you circuit breaker here] feeds #14 wiring", or something similar, so that someone doesn't come along in the future and seeing 12 gauge conductors going into the circuit breaker, think they can up the breaker to 20 A.

Wiring for Outdoor Garage Lights


How long did Light's father have to live?

Question: Since Light's father took the shinigami eyes, which reduce your lifespan by 1/2, and died the same day, does this mean he only had 2 days left to live?
Comment: Love the question, just think there is no definite answer to it.
Answer:
How to Use: XLII (from Volume 08):

The use of the DEATH NOTE in the human world sometimes affects other human's lives or shortens their original life-span, even though
  their names are not actually written in the DEATH NOTE itself. In
  these cases, no matter the cause, the god of death sees only the
  original life-span and not the shortened life-span.

With this, I would say Soichiro had some time to live still, but the use of the death note made his death unnatural.


Content type form in infopath for Content type created in Visual studio

Question: I have created content type in Visual Studio and I have to apply infopath form to that content type in infopath. How do i proceed further ?
Answer: Deploy content type in your site then attach it to list.
while creating infopath form select sharepoint list template then give url of your site(http://test.com/lists/testsample/allitems.aspx) then click next to select contenttype which you created in visual studio.
Comment: I think this is unlear to you
here is complete sinario what i have done. I have created one content type in Visual studio and deployed this to site then what i have to do is, i have to add form to that content content type in infopath so that whereever i apply that content type to any list, then that form should appear.


IOBluetooth on iOS / Connecting to a device with its Mac Address?

Question: At work, I was given the mission :) to port an Android Library that connects to a device to do things (I can't say much more because of NDA). The Android code uses getRemoteDevice(macAddress) and createRfcommSocketToServiceRecord to basically skip the whole pairing mechanism and then send bytes "as is". Is this possible on iOS? Is there this level of "dirtyness" :-)
Comment: Because under iOS you nee to go through the Apple Made For iPhone (MFi) program to talk to a Bkuetooth 2.1 device, but BLE is supported by the Core Bluetooth framework with no involvement from Apple. The downside of BLE is that it won't work on devices earlier than iPhone 4S or iPad 3
Comment: Is it Bluetooth Low Energy or Bluetooth 2.1?
Comment: @Paulw11: the device does both. Ideally my boss wants me to do this in 2.1 but I can probably easily "sell" them to do LE. Why do you specifically ask?
Answer: If it is Bluetooth 2.1 then it is pretty easy. You also can create sockets. For example:
EASession *session = [[EASession alloc] initWithAccessory:accessory
                                   forProtocol:PROTOCOL_STRING];
if (session) {

    [[session inputStream] setDelegate:self];
    [[session inputStream] scheduleInRunLoop:[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] forMode:NSDefaultRunLoopMode];
    [[session inputStream] open];

    [[session outputStream] setDelegate:self];
    [[session outputStream] scheduleInRunLoop:[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] forMode:NSDefaultRunLoopMode];
    [[session outputStream] open];
}

But, as @Paulw11 mentioned, you need to go through MFI program.
Bluetooth LE is a lot different. It does not have sockets. You can only operate with services and characteristics.
And by the way you cannot connect to BLE device only by using its MAC address. You first need to scan for this device using its service UUID:
[_centralManager scanForPeripheralsWithServices:@[[CBUUID UUIDWithString:kScanServiceUUID]] options:options];

And only after that connect to its CBPeripheral.
UPDATE:
And what about "to basically skip the whole pairing mechanism" in Bluetooth 2.1, I guess you cannot just do pairing without user.
There is one method that shows dialog to user and he can select device that he wants to pair, but that is all I could find:
- (void)showBluetoothAccessoryPickerWithNameFilter:(NSPredicate *)predicate completion:(EABluetoothAccessoryPickerCompletion)completion

Displays an alert that allows the user to pair the device with a Bluetooth accessory.

Unlike Bluetooth 2.1, in Bluetooth LE you do not need pairing at all.
Answer: Unless you have control over the device firmware, this cannot be done via CoreBluetooth. (Which only talks BT 4.0.) I beat my head against this for weeks and there seems to be no way around this in a manner which would pass muster in the App Store review process. Additionally, the Bluetooth 4.0 std specifically says the MAC address is not fixed and the device may change it on you.
However, if you have control over what goes into the GATT, you can probably fake what android is doing.
I do not know what interfaces are available on the MFI program and whether they may be more amenable to your goals.


change url without redirecting using javascript

Question: I would like to know how to change the url without redirecting like on this website http://dekho.com.pk/ads-in-lahore
when we click on tabs the url changes but the page dosent reload completely. There are other questions on stackoverflow indicating that it is not possible but i would like to know how the above mentioned website have implemented it.
Thanks
Comment: On the link you mentioned, same webservice is called but with different parameters.
Comment: [`history.pushState()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/Manipulating_the_browser_history). There's also jQuery in there, but that particular technique has got to be. push state with a fall back for older browsers.
Comment: You can also use window.location.hash and modify http://url.com/page#hash.
Comment: [History.js](https://github.com/balupton/History.js/) seems to be a fairly comprehensive take on the `pushState` technique. See the [demos](http://balupton.github.com/history.js/demo/).
Answer: use pushState:
window.history.pushState(data, title, url);

LE: since modern browsers changed behaviour, use replaceState instead:
window.history.replaceState(data, title, url);

Comment: `window.history.replaceState(data, title, url);` is also useful
Comment: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History_API
Comment: wow, this works like a charm!
Comment: refer link for more details http://diveintohtml5.info/history.html
Comment: doesnt work in firefox - "SecurityError: The operation is insecure."
Comment: @Pierre thanks, window.history.replaceState(data, title, url); is especially useful if you do not want to mess with the actual history, so when the user clicks back they go to the previous page, not the previous url you pushed.
Comment: What does LE stand for?
Comment: @KevinWheeler :) Later Edit :)
Answer: If you want to know exactly what they using, it's Backbone.js (see lines 4574 and 4981). It's all mixed up in there with the jQuery source, but these are the relevant lines of the annotated Backbone.Router source documentation page:
The support checks:
  this._wantsPushState = !!this.options.pushState;
  this._hasPushState = !!(this.options.pushState && window.history && window.history.pushState);

The route function:
route: function(route, name, callback) {
    Backbone.history || (Backbone.history = new History);

    if (!_.isRegExp(route)) route = this._routeToRegExp(route);

    if (!callback) callback = this[name];

    Backbone.history.route(route, _.bind(function(fragment) {
        var args = this._extractParameters(route, fragment);

        callback && callback.apply(this, args);

        this.trigger.apply(this, ['route:' + name].concat(args));

        Backbone.history.trigger('route', this, name, args);
    }, this));

    return this;
},

Choosing between hash and push states:
// Depending on whether we're using pushState or hashes, and whether
// 'onhashchange' is supported, determine how we check the URL state.
if (this._hasPushState) {
    Backbone.$(window).bind('popstate', this.checkUrl);
} else if (this._wantsHashChange && ('onhashchange' in window) && !oldIE) {
    Backbone.$(window).bind('hashchange', this.checkUrl);
} else if (this._wantsHashChange) {
    this._checkUrlInterval = setInterval(this.checkUrl, this.interval);
}

More on what they're up to:
// If we've started off with a route from a `pushState`-enabled browser,
// but we're currently in a browser that doesn't support it...
if (this._wantsHashChange && this._wantsPushState && !this._hasPushState && !atRoot) {
    this.fragment = this.getFragment(null, true);
    this.location.replace(this.root + this.location.search + '#' + this.fragment);

    // Return immediately as browser will do redirect to new url
    return true;

    // Or if we've started out with a hash-based route, but we're currently
    // in a browser where it could be `pushState`-based instead...
} else if (this._wantsPushState && this._hasPushState && atRoot && loc.hash) {
    this.fragment = this.getHash().replace(routeStripper, '');
    this.history.replaceState({}, document.title, this.root + this.fragment);
}

if (!this.options.silent) return this.loadUrl();

And the coup 'd grace:
// If pushState is available, we use it to set the fragment as a real URL.
if (this._hasPushState) {
     this.history[options.replace ? 'replaceState' : 'pushState']({}, document.title, url);
}

You should read the annotated Backbone.js link I provided at the top. Very informative.
Comment: Thank you for your answer.it was very informative. i dont know backbone yet so i am going for the pushstate as it fulfills all my needs.
Comment: Backbone.js is built around it's router, as it's a "single page app". Although you may not be experienced enough yet to see it in my answer above, that's *exactly* what Backbone.js is doing, as well has graceful degradation (for those who don't have browsers that support it). See my link in comment under your question; I'd use a library like https://github.com/balupton/History.js/, not roll your own. Unless you know what you're doing.
Comment: I am using History.js as i am a newb :)


SQL query optmization

Question: This is one thing I have been trying to read from few days. I am not getting any satisfactory explanation anywhere. Tried surfing some blogs and videos in youtube.
Appreciate if anyone one can throw some light on this.

What are the query optimization techniques in SQL Server or how to optimize a SQL query in SQL Server?
If we have a query which is 2-3 pages long; what are the first steps to take for optimizing the query?

Faced this in one of the interviews and couldn't give a proper answer other than indexing.
Answer: Indexing is always the first port of call. Ensure that you have the proper indexes in place before anything else.
Next run the query and study the actual execution plan which will give some much needed pointers.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178071(v=sql.105).aspx
Finally these tricks can give a well needed performance boost and most if not all are good practice anyway:

Ensure All tables have a primary Key.
Ensure All tables have a relevant clustered Index.
Ensure All Tables have the appropriate non clustered index. Specifically all columns referenced in the Where / Order By and Join clauses should be covered.
Avoid Views where possible.
Do not use SELECT *
Ensure all of your query is relevant especially where it joins to other tables.
Avoid Cursors unless absolutely necessary.

SQL query optmization


Are there stealth boy side effects?

Question: Specifically, is The Courier subject to stealth boy abuse? I've actually been very hesitant to use stealth boys in New Vegas because of what they did to the nightkin -- and my fear that they might do so to me.
Comment: Schizophrenia and delusions come with being able to turn invisible at will ...
Comment: After reading the article linked (I've not got the game yet... waiting for either a good bit more mods or the GOTY edition, whichever comes first), that would be a bad thing? What am I missing here?
Comment: Oh! That is a good bit of missing I had there. Good to know!
Answer: No, the effects of long-term Stealth Boy abuse, both positive and negative, as seen in the Nightkin will not manifest for the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas.
This is confirmed by Doctor Henry in Jacobstown, if asked, he informs the Courier that he has never seen Nightkin-style Stealth-boy-schizophrenia manifest itself in a human.
Comment: This is so confusing to someone who has never played the game... :D
Answer: I don't have a definitive answer for New Vegas, but in all the other Fallout games the stealth boys have no negative effects.  Additionally, in terms of gameplay, any "negative" effects they might have will mostly likely be a net positive for a player as they will manifest as a perk.

Are there stealth boy side effects?


Can a Warmage make his own spells?

Question: This might just be DM's discretion, but are there any actual rules about Warmages crafting/learning their own spells? i.e. is a Warmage capable of crafting his own spell, and if so, would he need to use an Advanced Learning slot to be able to use it himself?
Comment: To be clear, you are talking about a run-of-the-mill, level 0-9 spell, correct? Not an epic spell?
Comment: Yes, just a non-epic within my spell level limits spell. Particularly one combining or modifying aspects of spells I already know.
Answer: The DM is free to do whatever he likes, obviously. While the rules discuss the idea of creating new spells for Sorcerers and Wizards, those are ultimately left to the DM's discretion, too (i.e. you cannot just walk up to a table and say, "oh yeah, my Sorcerer knows Munchkin's Killing Burst," "What's that?" "A spell I made up; it's 1st-level and kills everything I want it to kill, no save. The rules totally say I can research my own spells.").
In the Warmage's case, Wizards cautions against giving Warmages too many new spells, since they are full-list casters. In reality, though, the Warmage spell list is really quite poor: it only does blasting, and it doesn't even have all the best blasting spells. As a DM, I would definitely be sympathetic to the idea that they deserve a few more spells.
Comment: Yeah, since they don't use Int for anything else, Warmage Edge is at best thoroughly mediocre and at worst a trap, if your level is anywhere above about 6 or so. Investing in Int for the sake of Warmage Edge is just not wise unless you're very low level or you have a very generous game (high PB, lots of wealth for +stat items).
Comment: +1 for covering the fact that they are full list. Agreed on the list, they really seemed to overvalue their intelligence-bonus-to-damage spells. A few more spells would definitely be acceptable for warmages in my game, too.
Answer: I would go with DM's discretion on this one. After paging through the books, I can't find a reason why a Warmage could not research and create a spell. As it would be a Warmage creating the spell, it would be a Warmage spell, and so could be added to your list directly, without using Advanced Learning.

Can a Warmage make his own spells?


Integral with logarithm - residue

Question: Let $R(x)$ be rational function. Is it any general method to calculate $\int_{0}^{\infty}R(x) \log(x)dx$ ? I can do it in special cases, but I am looking for a general method. What should be a minimal assumptions about $R(x)$ ?
Comment: Integration by parts?
Comment: @Demosthene, it should be done using complex analysis.
Answer: Consider the contour integral
$$\oint_C dz\, R(z) \log^2{z} $$
where $C$ is a keyhole contour of outer radius $r$ and inner radius $\epsilon$.  As long as $R$ is sufficiently well-behaved, the integrals about the circular arcs vanish as $r \to \infty$ and $\epsilon \to 0$.  Then in this limit, we have, by the residue theorem
$$-i 4 \pi \int_0^{\infty} dx \, R(x) \log{x} + 4 \pi^2 \int_0^{\infty} dx \, R(x) = i 2 \pi \sum_k \operatorname*{Res}_{z=z_k} R(z) \log^2{z} $$
where the $z_k$ are the poles of $R$.  Note that you still have to evaluate the integral over $R$.  However, this may be done similarly to the way we've done the present integral.  That is, we may find that
$$ \int_0^{\infty} dx \, R(x) =-\sum_k \operatorname*{Res}_{z=z_k} R(z) \log{z} $$
Now you have the integral only depending on the residues of the poles of $R$:

$$\int_0^{\infty} dx \, R(x) \log{x} = -\frac12 \sum_k \operatorname*{Res}_{z=z_k} R(z) \log^2{z} + i \pi \sum_k \operatorname*{Res}_{z=z_k} R(z) \log{z} $$

NB by "sufficiently behaved," we require that
$$\int_0^{2 \pi} d\theta \, \left | R \left ( re^{i \theta} \right ) \right | = o \left ( \frac1{r \log^2{r} } \right ) $$
ADDENDUM
This result may be simplified considerably assuming that $R(x) \in \mathbb{R}$.  Let's write out the poles $z_k = r_r e^{i \theta_k}$.  Then, combining the sums, we get
$$\int_0^{\infty} dx \, R(x) \log{x} = \sum_k \operatorname*{Res}_{z=r_k e^{i \theta_k}} R(z) \left [ \frac12 \left (\pi \theta_k -\theta_k^2 - \log^2{r_k} \right )  + i (\pi-\theta_k) \log{r_k}\right ] $$
The imaginary part of the above sum may be set to zero by observing that, when $R \in \mathbb{R}$, the poles either come in complex conjugate pairs, or $\theta_k = \pi$.  For the former case, the contributions cancel (remember, $\theta_k \in [0, 2 \pi)$; for the latter, they are zero.  Thus,

$$\int_0^{\infty} dx \, R(x) \log{x} = \frac12 \sum_k \left [ \operatorname*{Res}_{z=r_k e^{i \theta_k}} R(z) \right ] \left [\theta_k (\pi-\theta_k) - \log^2{r_k} \right ] $$

Integral with logarithm - residue


Why do I see a yellow/blue blob when installing the "Better Bodies" mod for Morrowind?

Question: I installed "Better Bodies" for morrowind and other graphics mods and they seem to kind of work. Instead of actually seeing the person though its just a giant yellow and blue blob. You can slightly see the unmodded person in the middle. I installed a different one thinking maybe it was the mod itself called "Roberts bodies" but I ran into the same problem. Is there something I may have forgotten to do?
Comment: according to your question you have other graphics mods but you only replaced "Better Bodies" with "Roberts Bodies", did you actual try the game without either one of those mods? have you tried removing each of the other mods one by one to see which mod causes the problem then double checking that the mod alone causes the problem.
Comment: Yea, usually when I start up the game all these error messages pop up with a yes or no option
Comment: I've already had a similar issue when loading a game created with tribunal and bloodmoon while mistakingly deactivating the expansion bsa files in the options. Would you happen to have deactivated some expansions?
Answer: The yellow and blue blob is that exclamation mark you see which means a texture or mesh is missing. I recommend you check your downloads and see what's wrong. If there's something wrong, redownload it and follow the right drill for the download.


Can I track the ??? Rathian on investigations?

Question: The handler said to do expeditions or optional quests to track the ??? Rathian. Is it also possible to progress tracking progress on investigations?
Comment: Are you referring to research level of the monster?
Comment: @n_palum Not in the same way as you research other monsters, although it's related since you gather tracks the same way. There's a specific overarching quest for the ??? Rathian, though.
Answer: Yes, this is entirely possible. This is how I tracked the ??? (Pink) Rathian, as I prefer to do Investigations for the zenny.
As noted in the comments, the Investigations must be High Rank for you to find tracks for this quest.
Comment: Might be a good idea to note that those investigations must be high ranked
Comment: Excellent, this is what I was hoping to hear. Need to squeeze every reward I can out of these hunts to gear up :)