74HC595 with no latch pin

Question: If I use the 74HC595 output shift register, and I don't use the latch pin, would it still work as shift register, like the 74HC164, that doesn't have that pin at all?
The shift register is going to be used to reduce the output pins needed to drive the colums on a switch (pushbutton) matrix.
Answer: No. Both SRCLK and RCLK are edge-triggered, so if you hold RCLK at a fixed level, the outputs will never change.
You'd have to connect RCLK and SRCLK together in order to get the functionality you want, but note that this creates an extra clock of delay from the serial data input to the first output, as compared to the '164.
Comment: Thank you. So without a latch (I will use the '164 then), will I still be able to correctly drive a multiplexed switch matrix? Do I need some software shrewdness compared to a latched shift register?
Comment: Shouldn't be a problem. Normally, you're not clocking the shift register at the same time you're trying to read the data.
Comment: Ok, so I guess that using for example Arduino, and the SPI library, if I use SPI.transfer() I will only scan the input after the function returns, so I know that the byte has been fully transferred before I read the data, hence I get the correct behaviour. Is that right?
Comment: Yes, that's right.

74HC595 with no latch pin


How to find extreme hills biomes

Question: Is there any effective way to find extreme hills or extreme hills edge biomes for emerald farming since they are so rare?
Comment: As a side note, as they are so rare (even in extreme hills) it is really inefficient trying to earn emeralds just by mining. The hours spent mining for emeralds can be more efficiently used farming and selling things such as sugar cane, wheat, and wool to villagers; see [Villager Trading](http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Trading).
Comment: @IQAndreas If you do it manually, yes. But with a mining turtle or quarry I'm not sure.
Comment: if you have mystcraft then just create a extreme hills age and stripmine that
Comment: @IQAndreas they are not as rare as you would think. I have been playing on a new world for about a week and have found over 40 diamonds and 30 emeralds. The best place to find them in my opinion is an abandoned mineshaft in the extreme hills biome.
Answer: The vanilla/survival mode way? Grab a bed, a pick, a weapon, and some torches and just start heading out in one direction until you find extreme hills. I would also recommend bringing materials with to create a nether portal, making the return trip 8x faster.
If you are not opposed to using external tools or mods, there are several tools which let you find biomes. The only one I know of off the top of my head (although there are several out there) is Amidst which creates a map of the biome layout in your specific seed. This will help you find that specific biome without having to create those chunks by exploring the area first.

How to find extreme hills biomes


Is Sigma 50 mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art compatibile with Nikon Z50?

Question: Can I use Sigma 50 mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art (Nikon mount) with Nikon Z50? Currently I am using it with D5600 but I am interested in switching to mirrorless and wonder if my lens is going to work properly with Z50.
Answer: TL;DR: Very little has been said about Sigma lenses used in conjunction with the FTZ adapter + Z50, but you'll probably be okay.

Sigma has published lens compatibility statements for their recent (post- November 2013) lenses mounted on the Nikon FTZ (F-mount to Z-mount) adapter, for use on Nikon's Z-mount camera bodies. Note that these compatibility statements were released for the Z7, and later the Z6; Sigma has not issued a specific statement regarding the Z50.
However, the Z6 statement essentially said that their lenses behave identically between the Z6 and Z7, so the compatibility list is basically the same. Unfortunately, there seems be very few reviews of the Z50 used in conjunction with Sigma Art/Sport/Contemporary lenses. This review (Review: Nikon Z50) uses, amongst other Nikon F-mount lenses, the Sigma 135mm F1.8 Art and 14-24mm F2.8 Art lenses. The reviewer didn't note any problems.
Generally, I doubt there will be much issue using the Sigma lenses with the FTZ + Z50. Ostensibly, that's the entire point of Sigma's upgradeable firmware feature using their USB dock: issues can be patched with firmware updates.
Suggestion: if possible, try renting the equipment you're interested in before buying. Often, the rental houses (such as LensRentals.com and BorrowLenses in the US) have vast knowledge and expertise, and will be able to let you know if they expect any compatibility issues with the gear you're interested in.
Sigma's original compatibility statement had the following to say with regards to the 50mm F1.4 DG HSM Art when used with FTZ + Z7:

Phenomena particular to 4 lenses were confirmed after our announcement of September 28th: After careful investigation, we confirmed some phenomena particular to 4 products listed below.
Regarding a firmware update for the SIGMA 24-35mm F2 DG HSM | Art, 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art and 85mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art, we are going to announce them at a later date.
...

SIGMA 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art
[Phenomenon]
When starting to shoot with the subject completely out of focus, the response to the AF operation is intermittent. It is necessary to release several times or to turn the focus ring once to release.
[Future Course of Action]
It is planned to be resolved by a firmware update.

The January 24, 2019 update addressed this:

[Applicable product]

SIGMA 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | Art for NIKON F mount

[Benefit of the update]
When the lens is used in combination with the Nikon "Z 7" and their "Mount Adapter FTZ", it has corrected the phenomenon whereby the response to the AF operation is intermittent when starting to shoot with the subject completely out of focus.

Sigma's statements:

Operating conditions of the Nikon "Z7" and SIGMA's interchangeable lenses for Nikon mount (October 26, 2018)
Operating conditions of the Nikon "Z 6" and SIGMA's interchangeable lenses for NIKON F mount (February 21, 2019)
Firmware update for SIGMA's interchangeable lenses for NIKON F mount (January 24, 2019)


Difference between Bandwidth and Propagation Speed in computer networks?

Question: I want to know the difference between Bandwidth and propagation speed. How are they associated with each other i.e. the impact on bandwidth if propagation speed varies or the impact on speed if bandwidth varies. I have gone through this difference between propagation speed and bandwidth in digital communication still I am unable to understand it very clearly. Could it be possible to explain with some other example like may be with water pipes etc.
Comment: The very first sentence of the answer you reference is "They are unrelated." Varying one has no effect on the other. You will need to say what you find unclear or what you don't understand otherwise another answer may be just as unclear to you.
Answer: These two terms are actually completely unrelated. Bandwidth is a way of expressing how much "stuff" you can send on a network link at a time. Think of it like a highway. If you have only one lane on the highway, then you have a bandwidth of 1 car per some unit of time (let's say seconds). So every second, only 1 car can pass through that particular segment of roadway. But if you widen the road to have 4 lanes, then you can get 4 cars per second. It's literally the width of the frequency band you can send data over.
Now propagation speed is how quickly something can propagate, or move a certain distance. Consider the cars again. If they are driving 60 mph, then then it will take one hour to travel 60 miles. Regardless of how many lanes are on the highway, each car will still take one hour to travel that whole distance. Cars in the front and the back of each lane will take one hour. By the way, the reverse is true as well: increasing the speed of each car has no affect on how many you can fit side by side on any stretch of road.
Answer: Think of a bucket chain.

The bandwidth is the number of buckets you pass along every minute
(or second, or ...).
The propagation speed is how long it takes to pass a bucket along
the chain,

which is  ${(number \; of \;  buckets \; in \; the \; chain) \over bandwidth}$.


Canon Digic 6 and Digic 7

Question: Canon 80 D with DIGIC 6 was released in Feb 2016. Canon 77D with DIGIC 7 was released in Feb 2017.Does that make the canon 77D better than canon 80 D eventhough 80D has better features and is more expensive. What is the effect of a better sensor?
Comment: Note that DIGIC is Canon's name for their image processing pipeline, *not* for the sensor.
Comment: For all practical purposes, these two cameras have the same sensor. They have different processors and also vary with regard to other features. The comparison is very similar to the Rebel T7i/800D vs. 77D or 80D.
Comment: Choice of a camera is extremely dependent upon the intended usage, particularly in the case of cameras as similar as the 77D and 80D. It really depends upon what you specifically intend to do with your camera which would be "better." Both have advantages and disadvantages compared to the other.
Comment: It's also very similar to a comparison of the [70D (the 80D's direct predecessor) vs. the EOS Rebel T6s/760d (the 77D's direct predecessor)](https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/77930/15871).
Answer: TL;DR: Choose 80D if you want 100% viewfinder coverage or need AFMA, choose 77D if you need high ISO and light weight. I would choose 77D.
Camera bodies have several main features:

Viewfinder. More expensive bodies have larger, brighter viewfinders with more coverage. The Canon 80D has 0.95X magnification with 100% coverage, whereas the 77D has 0.82X magnification with 95% coverage.¹ The 80D also has a brighter (and heavier) pentaprism while the 77D has a cheaper pentamirror.
Control of mirror and shutter. More expensive bodies have independent controls of these functions (two motors), meaning e.g. mirror lockup becomes possible. You need this feature if you are concerned about vibration on a tripod. Both 77D and 80D seem to have mirror lockup.
Autofocus. More expensive bodies have autofocus on lower light and generally more AF points. Also, some Canon models have dual pixel AF for better focusing in live view mode. Both 77D and 80D have dual pixel AF and 45 cross-type points. I assume AF features on these models are similar.
AFMA. The 80D has it, the 77D does not. This is most impactful when using wide aperture and long focal length lenses.
Burst. 80D offers 7fps, 77D offers 6fps. Not much difference in practice.
Image sensor. I'd be concerned about low-noise performance at high-ISO, instead of being concerned about megapixel count. All recent sensors contain plenty of megapixels. 77D has higher ISO (25600 as opposed to 16000 on 80D).
Weight. 77D has much less weight, so choose it if you need less weight.

There are also some other useful features such as Wi-Fi connectivity to operate the camera remotely using your phone, but both 77D and 80D have that feature.
¹ At the indicated eye relief for each camera, the viewfinder in the 80D (19mm eye relief) will show approximately 100% of the field of view at an apparent size of 21.185 x 13.708 millimeters. The 77D (22mm eye relief) will show approximately 95% of the camera's field of view at an apparent size of 17.3717 x 11.6011 millimeters.
Comment: The 80D and 77D have essentially the same AF system and imaging sensors (though there does seem to be a slight difference in the analog amplification settings between the two). For me the lack of AFMA with the 77D would be a deal breaker.
Comment: In practice, neither camera is probably going to be acceptable past about ISO 6400. Their performance [as measured by DxO Mark](https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Canon-EOS-77D-versus-Canon-EOS-80D___1156_1076) is almost indistinguishable. Press 'Measurements → SNR 18% → Screen' to see the actual measurements. Also compare 'Dynamic Range', 'Tonal Range', and 'Color Sensitivity'.

Canon Digic 6 and Digic 7


Can someone be an administrator of a festival?

Question: Someone is in charge of organizing a festival/meeting/conference etc.
What do we call him? Can we say he is the administrator of that festival? What word suits better?
Answer: "Administrator" as a title is usually reserved for either:

Heads of entities, especially those titled "administration". For example, the head of the BPA http://www.bpa.gov/news/AboutUs/Execs/Pages/Bill-Drummond.aspx. Note that the head of the US EPA (an Agency) is titled "Administrator of the EPA".
Positions involving overseeing and actively managing information technology objects, like computers, networks and files. In this case they are usually called "system administrators", "network administrators", "license administrators", and so on.

It is not incorrect to use the word administrator - the meaning is easily understood by readers - but godel9's suggestions are more common in English and sound more fluent, if that is important to you.
Answer: I would normally use "organizer" or "coordinator". I would tend to use "organizer" for larger events and "coordinator" for smaller events, but I wouldn't say it's a hard and fast rule.
Examples

festival organizer
  meeting organizer
  conference organizer
  event organizer
meeting coordinator
  event coordinator
Comment: @Juya Yes, I would call that person an organizer.
Comment: thx. In one of them I had to manage 30 people as staff and the number of audience was 400. is it big enough to call the person who did this an organizer?
Comment: At our local university there is a course/discipline called "Events Management" - perhaps Event Manager would suit?
Comment: @toandfro I can definitely see calling someone an "event manager".


What date does probation begin for a judgment in a criminal case that has two different dates around the signature?

Question: What date would probation begin for a criminal judgment that has two different dates in the area of the signature? For example, take this judgment in a Criminal Case from the Southern district of New York, which has a Date of Imposition of the 17th of July 2022 and a signature date of the 22nd of July 2022.
Comment: FYI, in U.S. legal writing, the preferred rule of spelling is that "there is no "judge" in "judgment,"" as done in the body text, but not in the pre-edit headline.
Comment: 13th of July 2022 was a Wednesday, 22nd July 2022 was a Friday
Answer: The date probation began is the date the judge imposed the sentence of probation. Could have been July 13 or July 22 or some other date.
The July 13 date could be a typo.
The defendant could have been sentenced on July 17 but the judge did not sign the order until July 22.
Regardless of what the dates typed or written, probation began on the date when the judge and the defendant were both in the courtroom and the judge said, "Hereby sentence you to probation."
Whatever that date was--regardless of any signature, typed date, or paperwork--is the date when probation began.
Comment: Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).
Answer: The pertinent rule is Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. This states, in the pertinent parts:

(b) Time of Sentencing.
(1) In General. The court must impose sentence without unnecessary
delay. . . .
(k) Judgment.
(1) In General. In the judgment of conviction, the court must set
forth the plea, the jury verdict or the court's findings, the
adjudication, and the sentence. If the defendant is found not guilty
or is otherwise entitled to be discharged, the court must so order.
The judge must sign the judgment, and the clerk must enter it.

This is in contrast to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58(c) which states:

TIME OF ENTRY. For purposes of these rules, judgment is entered at the
following times: (1) if a separate document is not required, when the
judgment is entered in the civil docket under Rule 79(a); or (2) if a
separate document is required, when the judgment is entered in the
civil docket under Rule 79(a) and the earlier of these events occurs:
(A) it is set out in a separate document; or (B) 150 days have run
from the entry in the civil docket.

While it is not the easiest reading, and both civil and criminal judgments must be ultimately signed by the judge, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 does not make the date that the order is signed the effective date of the order, while Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58(c) generally does make the date that the order is signed the effective date of the order.
This distinction makes sense. A criminal defendant must be hauled off to jail immediately in most cases, and that shouldn't be held up while lawyers draft a piece of paper reiterating what was said orally on the record in open court. This need for urgency is usually not present in a civil case.
In this case, the judge appears to be indicating that the judgment was entered orally in open court on the typed date, and then signed the written order on the date shown, nine days later, because judgments must ultimately be memorialized in writing, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 35(k)(1).
So, the probation sentence takes effect and is imposed on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, and not on Friday, July 22, 2022.
Thus, under the Southern District of New York Probation Rules which provides that:

All individuals who are sentenced to a period of probation or
supervised release are required to report within seventy-two (72)
hours of their sentence or release.

the requirement to report would be 72 hours from the time on July 13, 2022 that the sentence was entered, i.e. sometime on Saturday, July 16, 2022, unless there is a rule adjusting deadlines the fall on weekends somewhere in the probation rules.
The probation rules further supports the idea that the sentence starts when it is announced in open court, which happens at a specific time of day, and not when the order ratifying the sentence is signed. This is because the defendant can't easily know when the order was signed by the judge.
Answer: So, let me just start by saying the rules of probation are different in every state. They can even be different within the states depending on jurisdiction, i.e. various counties, city probation, etc. That said, and nearly every state I am familiar with your probation will start on the day that you meet with your probation officer and sign documents. Not the day that the judge orders probation. That's because, unlike being taken into custody… When you enter the probation system, all the duties are to contact your probation officer at the appropriate time due the intake, etc. etc. Many many people never do that. Hence automatically violation but I digress, regardless you do not become under probation thumb until you sign and you are not serving until you sign. So the later day is the date that you will be using, if in fact, there were some sort of rule that said that you had to serve exactly those days. That being said most times, unless you're screwing up, you will very likely removed off probationary as sooner. It's sort of like parole for probation or best of luck!!
Comment: The signature is of the **judge** not the probation officer
Comment: I found the probation requirements for the SDNY: "All individuals who are sentenced to a period of probation or supervised release are required to report within seventy-two (72) hours of their sentence or release."

Knowing that, which date would they be required to report within 72 hours after?

(http://probation.nysd.uscourts.gov/intake-processing)
Comment: How much time after the Date of Imposition or judge's signing does the defendant have to sign with a probation officer?


why use convolutions to image processing tasks

Question: In computer vision, convolutions are so attractive for image processing tasks. What make it suitable for image processing?
Answer: Convolution has proven to be useful in image processing for at least 40 years. That is why it is popular and also the reason to use convolutional layers in deep learning with images during the last 5 years or so.
A better answer to your question would require much more biology than is on this site. But you can check this out if it interests you.
Answer: Why convolutions? First let's look at alternative, using standard (fully connected) layers.
Drawbacks of using fully connected layers on image input

FC layers don't exploit local structure
FC layer is not equivariant under translation (translated pattern can correspond to completely different feature)
For big images FC layers have huge number of parameters (for example for 1000 hidden units, 1000 x 1000 x 3 image such layer has ~3 billion weights)

In contrast to that, CNN layers:

Extract local features (conv layer outputs only depend on adjacent pixels of previous layer)
Are equivariant to translation
Have lot less parameters, since they share kernel over the patches of whole input image

In addition to that, CNN networks use pooling layers, which provide (some) translation invariance (pooling makes each feature more and more invariant to translation).
If you're unsure about equivariance/invariance, I'd recommmend reading these Hinton's slides. They have pictorial explanation of what it means for features to be equivariant (and also more details on the other points I mentioned).
Comment: Moving deeper in the cnn, the receptive field is increased. How a cnn extract local features in this case?
Comment: Well it extracts these features at lower levels. The point is we can control this receptive field using pooling.
Comment: So can we say that they extract local features, with the locality increasing the deeper we go into the network (due to the increase in the reciptive field)? Whereas a neuron in a MLP always look at the whole image irrespective in which layer it is?
Comment: They extract local features because the convolution is local. The nonlocality increases because the max pooling sort of coarse grains the image. In the MLP what you mentioned happens at the first layer - note that the following layers layers don't even know the input was image, they only see last hidden states!
Answer: Image processing is now dominated by the application of convolutional neural networks. Introduction of convolutional and pooling units to our network structure allows us reduce the number of parameters in a large network and take advantage of data structure.
Pooling is a simple dimensionality reduction technique that is almost always used in combination with convolutional layers in CNNs. A pooling layer is defined by a size and a stride.


Smooth homotopy of proper maps

Question: Suppose $M$ is a manifold. We call a map $F:M \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^m$ proper if for every compact subset $K \subset \mathbb{R}^m$ we have that $F^{-1}(K) \subset M$  is compact.
Suppose now that $F: M \times [0,T) \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^m$ is a smooth family of immersions such that $F(\cdot ,0)$ is proper. Is it true that $\forall t \in [0,T): F(\cdot, t)$ is proper?
Answer: This is false as stated. For an (analytic) counterexample, take $M = \mathbb{R}$ and define $F:\mathbb{R} \times [0,\pi] \to \mathbb{R}$ via
$$F(x,t):= (1-\sin(t))x + \sin(t) \arctan(x).$$
For any fixed $t\in [0,\pi]$, $F(\cdot,t)$ is an immersion because the maximum slope of $\arctan$ is $1$. Clearly $F(\cdot,0)$ is proper. But $F(\cdot,\pi/2) = \arctan$, which is bounded and therefore not proper.
The conjecture is still false if $m > \text{dim}(M)$. As a counterexample, take $M= \mathbb{R}$ again, let $F$ be as above and define the map $G: \mathbb{R}\times [0,\pi]\to\mathbb{R}^m$ via
$$ G(x,t):= (F(x,t),\ldots,F(x,t)).$$
$G(\cdot,t)$ is an immersion for any $t \in [0,\pi]$ because $F(\cdot,t)$ is, and $G(\cdot,0)$ is proper, but $G(\cdot,\pi/2)$ is not proper because it is given by the product of $\arctan$ functions.
Comment: You answered my question, however is the result still false when $m>n$ where $n = \dim M$?
Comment: @abcdef It's still false when $m > n$. I added an example in my answer. Also, I edited my answer so that the counterexample is analytic rather than merely $C^\infty$.
Comment: Thank you! Sorry my trivial last question, I was focused on other kinds of counterexamples.
Comment: @abcdef no problem. Also, I removed my comment about Hirsch's book. I was being silly: if $M$ is compact, every map with domain $M$ is automatically proper :-).

Smooth homotopy of proper maps


Boot Camp - running OS X partition as a VM

Question: Now while many users know that it is possible to run a Windows Boot Camp partition as a VM under OS X via VMWare or Parallels - however is the opposite possible? That is, in my case - I would like to know if I can boot into Windows 8.1 on my Retina MBP then access my OS X partition as a VM.
Answer:
There is a legal impediment to run Mac OS X on Non-Apple hardware [sic!].
VMware Player & VMware Workstation therefore officially don't support the installation of Mac OS X on any hardware.
Breaking several EULAs you might install a patch to circumvent this restriction (I will not provide a link for the patches)

Then with Workstation and a patch, you can boot into your OS X partition from Windows.
But in order to access your macintosh HD partition first, you must create a blank OS X virtual machine.
Note that Macintosh HD here means your OS X partition in your internal hard drive.

Source

I didn't test this! So a full Time Machine backup and a full Boot Camp-partition backup deems advisable.
Comment: Being booted into Windows and then running Mac OS in a virtual machine like he described would not violate Apple's EULA - the underlying hardware still has the Apple logo on the back.


Feeling lost with my master's thesis in a new field

Question: Two years ago I started my master's course in mechatronics engineering in Italy. After one year of classes I applied for a double degree program proposed by the university. According to this program I am going to spend two years in a Japanese university (the first year has just passed) to finally get both the Italian degree and the Japanese degree in the same field of studies. Therefore, I am doing the research for my thesis in Japan.
The main problem that I have faced since the beginning is related to the different approach to the studies. In fact I chose with my supervisor a research topic in the field of machine learning and computer vision, that I only started studying on my own in Italy for curiosity. Then, considering the long period of two years abroad, I thought that I had enough supervision to go in depth with the topics and study all the necessary theory. On the other hand I realized that I had to organize most of my research on my own, and even though my Japanese supervisor is open for guiding students, I actually realized that he doesn't have much experience in these fields.
I spent much time even for choosing an initial path to follow, with a solvable problem. I am trying to do my best to study the theory and practice to make small progresses but sometimes it is really though. But I actually like the involved subjects! So I am trying to study from books, video courses, etc. but I feel I don't have a guide to avoid many errors.
Moreover, there is a collaboration between the laboratory and a company, but I have the same feeling. Instead of a growing path it is more related to showing some results through PowerPoint presentations. And one month ago my supervisor in the company left the job, and told me to get the supervision by another member of the group, without spending too many words. Since that time, my supervisor told me that my research could even have application in other fields, thus he is going to get some collaborations with other companies. But how can I manage two different works together?
I have to say that it was a "culture shock" to face all those things, and in some ways it helped me a lot for growing my independence, and my supervisors seem to be satisfied by my work, but I still feel that I could spend better my time if only I had enough guidance. I need a lot of energies for making small improvements, and I don't know if I can resist and I will be able to finish my thesis in one year.
What do you suggest to do? Should I talk with him? Thank you in advance for your help.
Answer: The usual suggestion of this forum applies here as well: Talk to your adviser(s)!
Your adviser knows your situation, and knows the expectations to obtain the degree. Their job is not only to guide your scientifically/educationally, but also to guide you through the process to become a professional. One could expand on this, but I think the previous two sentences summarize well how I feel about the situation: What you experience is something advisers should be able to advise on as well.


Who decides to name an opening?

Question: Some openings are named after the players who spent their whole career playing a particular type of opening. For eg. Alekhine for Alekhine Defense, Philidor for Philidor Defense, William Evans for Evans Gambit. While some are named after the places they were played like French Defense, Dutch Defense, etc. So, my question is, who decides that a particular opening will be called a certain name? Is it FIDE, World Chess, or another organization?
Comment: Nobody decides. Chess players and especially chess writers decide. Openings do not have "official" names. That's why you will see the same opening called several different names by different writers.
Answer:
who decides that a particular opening will be called such and such?

The simple answer is "Chess players".
Wittgenstein's principle of "The meaning is the use" also applies to chess. If more chess players over time call a particular opening "A" rather than "B" then it becomes "A".

Is it FIDE?

No. FIDE actually tried back in the early 1930's but failed miserably. Their one success was in changing the Greco Counter Gambit to the Latvian Gambit. Chess historian, Edward Winter, wrote about this here.

The delegates from Czechoslovakia agreed to draw up a draft by 1 April 1930. At that year's FIDE Congress, in Hamburg, a committee was set up (involving the federations of Czechoslovakia, Germany, Holland, Poland and Sweden) to prepare by the following year a report on the draft (source: FIDE minutes of the 1930 Congress, page 18). In the summer of 1931 FIDE met in Prague and, as noted on page 7 of the minutes, the Secretary of the Czechoslovakian Federation, Josef Louma, reported that the draft had been revised by a large number of chess figures, including Tartakower and Grünfeld. Another year went by. Page 9 of the minutes of the Paris, 1932 Congress contained a brief note by the FIDE President, Alexander Rueb, that no further news was available on the openings project (which was described as 'important mais difficile et considérable'. But then at Folkestone in 1933 the delegate from Czechoslovakia, Jan Bedrníček, presented a document by Louma, still described as a draft ('avant-projet'). Rueb extended his warm congratulations, and the minutes (page 4) also reported that the work would be published, at FIDE's expense, with profits going into the FIDE coffers. A further year passed, and it was not until the Zurich Congress in 1934 that, as noted on page 5 of the minutes, FIDE was able to announce with great pleasure that the book had just appeared

Winter goes on to give some examples of their chosen names:

1 b4: 'Partie Hunter-Englisch'
1 d4 d5 2 Nd2: 'Partie Breyer'
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 ~ Bg7: 'Défense Dr Euwe de la Partie indienne'
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nf6: 'Défense Kljatzkine de la Partie sicilienne'
1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 2 Nc3 Bb4: 'Défense Maroczy-Nimzowitch de la Partie française'
1 e4 e5 2 Bc4: 'Partie Spielmann'
1 e4 f5: 'Gambit en second'
1 Nf3 d5 2 e4: 'Gambit de Léopol'.

In those days French was the official language of FIDE although I don't think that was the reason they failed so utterly.
Answer: You could argue the openings listed in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO), however they were chosen by the editors, are the standard reference for opening names, which seem to be pretty widely adopted in opening explorers (lichess, chess.com,
see What are the letters and numbers next to an opening's name on online services?) and chess publications (chess programming wiki claims it is a de facto standard: https://www.chessprogramming.org/ECO).

Who decides to name an opening?


Why can we calculate potential due to a charge if the other charge is accelerating?

Question: When we  calculate the expression for electric potential due to a charge at a point we assume it to be equal to the( work done by an external force in bringing test charge from infinity to the point/ the test charge ). We assume that the external force is acting on the test charge  in such a manner that it is equal and opposite to the conservative force that is acting on the charge. BUT WHY IS THIS NECESSARY? why won't we  be able to make the calculation if the test charge accelerates?? I have have heard that this is to make sure that the kinetic energy does not change in the process, but why don't we want it to change ?
Comment: Accelerating charges produce electromagnetic radiation
Answer:
BUT WHY IS THIS NECESSARY?

First of all potential energy is defined only for systems (combination of two or more interacting particles).

Keeping this fact in mind,
Note that we only want to calculate the potential energy of the system (charge system) i.e. its pure potential energy (total work it can do wrt it's PE)
If an accelerating test charge is brought form infinity to the desired point then the system will also have Kinetic Energy, thus overall ability to do work of the system formed will be different (somewhat increased) from what we want. We want to calculate only potential energy of the system and potential energy depends only upon configuration of the system.
Therefore we assume such a condition that at each and every point equilibrium is maintained (between external and internal con. force), thus no Kinetic energy (charge is moved very very slowly).


A company has 10 men and 18 women. A work team consists of two workers.What is the maximum number of work teams that can be formed from this group?

Question: A company has $10$ men and $18$ women. A work team consists of two workers. What is the maximum number of work teams (man-man,woman-woman,man-woman) that can be formed from this group? How many different ways can this maximum number of work teams be formed?
I know the max amount of teams is $14.$ I tried $\binom{28}{2}$ for the maximum number of team combinations but it's wrong.
Comment: Could you clarify how the gender of the workers enters into the problem?
Comment: A team can consist of either a man and a woman, or two of one or the other.
Comment: Are you asking how many ways the $28$ workers can be paired off into $14$ teams of two people?
Answer: Imagine pairing people off one group at a time. For the first group, you've got $28$ choose $2$ possible ways to pick a team of $2$ from $28$ people. After you've selected that team, you've got to pick another team of $2$ from the remaining $26$ people, so $26$ choose $2$. Continue on in that manner until you've assigned all the teams, and the total number of possibilities so far is: $${28 \choose 2} \cdot {26 \choose 2} \cdots {2 \choose 2} = \frac{28!}{2! \cdot 26!} \cdot \frac{26!}{2!\cdot 24!} \cdots \frac{2!}{2! \cdot 0!} = \frac{28!}{2^{14}}.$$
This gives you all the different ways you could pick teams if the order you were picking them mattered (i.e., if you were picking a "team 1", "team 2", etc.). Since it doesn't, you want to divide this result by the number of labellings you can give to the same set of $14$ teams, which is $14!$. Hence, the number of ways of splitting 28 people into teams of two is $${28 \choose 2} \cdot {26 \choose 2} \cdots {2 \choose 2} \cdot \frac{1}{14!} = \frac{28! \cdot 26! \cdots 2!}{2^{14} \cdot 26! \cdot 24! \cdots 2! \cdot 14!} = \frac{28!}{2^{14} \cdot 14!}$$
Answer: Since gender doesn't restrict anything, and people are unique individuals, we just need to count ways to divide twenty-eight people into fourteen pairs.
There are $28!$ ways to line everyone up, then split into $14$ pairs.   However, each pair can be formed in $2!$ ways, and we don't care about the $14!$ ways to arrange the teams either.

 $$\dfrac{28!}{{2!}^{14}\,14!}$$
Answer: Graham Kemp and user164385 have provided you with nice solutions.  Here is an alternative approach.
Line up the $28$ workers in some order, whether alphabetically, by seniority, or some other criterion.  The first person in line has $27$ ways of selecting a work partner.  The next person in line who is not already on a team has $25$ ways of selecting a work partner.  Continue.  The number of teams that can be selected is
$$27 \cdot 25 \cdot 23 \cdot 21 \cdot 19 \cdot 17 \cdot 15 \cdot 13 \cdot 11 \cdot 9 \cdot 7 \cdot 5 \cdot 3 \cdot 1 = \prod_{k = 1}^{14} (2k - 1) = 27!!$$
Observe that if we multiply the numerator and denominator of this answer by $2^{14}14!$, we obtain
$$\frac{28!}{2^{14}14!}$$


Can seforim be muktze on tish'a b'av that falls on shabbos?

Question: If tish'a b'av were to fall on shabbos, would the sections of Torah prohibited for study on tish'a b'av cause the seforim in which they are found to be muktze?  If in a given sefer there are prohibited sections together with permitted sections of study (e.g. a nach) then I assume the permitted material would not make the entire sefer muktze since one can read it on tish'a b'av.   Also, if such seforim are muktze, which category or categories of muktze would they be and why?
Comment: Not everyone prohibits any Torah study on that Shabbat
Comment: reading or consulting a book is permitted,
Comment: Related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/76862/are-objects-used-for-the-taanugim-muktzeh-for-yom-kippur
Comment: How is this different from books that can't be read in any other Shabbat (eg. business books probably).?
Answer: When shabos came in it was not muktze because it was permitted to use it. Then it can't become muktze unless it changed to a different shape.
Comment: Why would it be permissible to use when Shabbat comes in? Isnt it already the 9th of Av?
Comment: Welcome to Mi Yodeya Yosel! Adding in sources would greatly improve this post.
Comment: What @mevaqesh said. Also, I thought that stuff doesn't "become [fully] muktzeh" Shabbos until nightfall


Do I have all needed for flip flop swap

Question: Forgive my ignorance, but I have a 2011 Bianchi Pista that I've always ridden fixed. I knew that it had a flip flop hub, but now that I'm looking at it, it appears that I need to actually buy a freewheel to switch it over to freewheel since there is no cog on the other side. Attached photos of each side of the hub.
Comment: I agree with Mσᶎ, but just to chip in that I've found the quality of freewheels to vary enormously, so deciding which one to go for may need some thought. In particular cheap ones off eBay didn't impress me. In the end I shelled out for a [White Industries Eno](http://www.whiteind.com/free-wheels.html) freewheel, but this was about the fourth one I tried and was far more expensive than the other three.
Answer: Yes, you need to buy a freewheel. It's almost certainly a standard one so you can go into any LBS and grab whatever they have.
The main thing to know is that it should screw on easily by hand. If it doesn't you've either not got the thread started properly, or the thread is the wrong size. Ideally put a tiny bit of grease on it so it'll come off more easily when it wears out. Chain lube is better than nothing if you don't have grease.
This is one of those things where it's a trivial task that takes less than a minute, but if you stuff it up you have to live without a freewheel or buy a new hub, which usually means a new wheel. So it might be worth paying a bike shop to do it (they should do it on the spot if you bring in the wheel rather than the whole bike, since it's quick and easy).
Getting it off is where you need a special tool. The ratchet mechanism means that putting it on the wheel is the non-rotating direction, but getting it off means having a tool that locks on to the central, non-ratcheting part of the freewheel.
Comment: I probably wouldn't use chain lube - probably white lithium grease or the valvoline red stuff, but grease is important whenever you have threads meeting. Park tool has good instructions in their help section.
Comment: Grease should be required, and chain lube is better than nothing.

Do I have all needed for flip flop swap


Preposition usage

Question: Should it be "the snake moved THROUGH the grass" or the snake "moved IN the grass" ?I have seen "moved in the grass" used in some places but I feel like it depends on the density of the grass. Which one's correct ? An explanation would be helpful too.
Answer: Without context, I would say "moved through the grass" implies direction, meaning the snake moved purposefully from point A to point B.  To me, "moved in the grass" means that the snake is moving but with no intent on a particular direction.
Both are correct, it just depends on the context.
Comment: This one is quite literal and is based on the construction of the road.  If the road is built to rise over the top of the mountain then the road goes "over the mountain."  If the road is tunneled through the mountain or if part of the mountain is cut to allow for the road then the road goes "through the mountain."
Comment: One more. Do you think a road goes "through a mountain" or "over a mountain"?
Comment: Cool, got it.So there's no set preposition for such instances?
Answer: It depends on what you want to emphasize.

The snake moved THROUGH the grass.

This sentence emphasizes the motion of the snake.

The snake moved IN the grass.

This sentence emphasizes the location of the snake.
Why use one or the other? It depends on the context of the sentence. If one didn't know HOW the snake moved, one would likely use the first, and if one didn't know where the snake moved, the second.

Q The snake in the grass did what?
A It moved through the grass.
    or
Q The snake was found. How?
A It moved in the grass.

Preposition usage


Market impact power law fitting confusion

Question: In many market impact papers such as "Anomalous price impact and the critical nature of liquidity in financial markets" by Tóth et al (2018), there is a standard power-law relation in the form of
$$MI = Y\sigma(\frac{Q}{V})^{\delta}$$
where $\sigma$ is volatility, $Q$ is volume traded, $V$ is market volume and $MI$ is the price impact. $Y$ and $\delta$ are constants to be fit, where $\delta$ is usually from 0.4~0.7.
Taking logs of both sides: $\log(MI) = \log(Y)+\log(\sigma)+\delta\log(\frac{Q}{V})$, where we can first ignore $Y$ to fit for $\delta$, and once we have a value for $\delta$, we can then fit for $Y$.
One definition of price impact $MI$ is simply $\frac{S_{avg}-S_{0}}{S_{0}}*sgn(Q)$, where $S_{avg}$ is the average execution price of all the individual child orders, $S_{0}$ is the price before the first execution and $sgn(Q)$ is 1 for buy orders, -1 for sell orders.
However, this seems to restrict buy order samples to $S_{avg} > S_{0}$, and sell order samples to $S_{0} > S_{avg}$, as we require $MI>0$ for $\log(MI)$ to work. For instance, if a buy order was being sliced out during a period T (e.g. 1 hour) where the market was consistently moving down, then $S_{avg}$ will definitely be less than $S_{0}$, and $MI <0$. Does that mean we can't use this sample in the log fit? This seems quite impractical as there isn't anything 'wrong' about the order, and such orders are quite commonly observed.
This will result in a drop of roughly ~50% of the samples I have, which isn't ideal as I don't have that many samples to begin with. Not sure if I'm going about this correctly, any advice would be appreciated.
Answer: If you are fitting trading data to a nonlinear price impact model, the model must include a time decay assumption.  The problem is generally difficult due to the overlapping effect of past trades on current impact.  See Hey, Bouchaud, et al for a useful approximation.


How can I better organize my files?

Question: I'm having a hard time finding any commands for adding/deleting/moving/renaming folders. Are they just non-existent? Are there any workarounds?
Answer: No. There are no commands for editing/removing folders. This is because deleting an entire folder containing files could be damaging to the player's game. Think of the folders as the structure of your OS. Changing your Windows folder on a Windows machine would be very bad.
As for adding folders, I wish we could, but I don't think there's a way in-game.
I think you might be able to edit your game's save file to give yourself more folders, but I don't know if the game could handle it properly. The game's save file is in xml format, and it's pretty readable. Try inspecting/modifying it with a new game and see if you could find what to change and if it works.

How can I better organize my files?


How can you submit your writings internationally?

Question: I live in Argentina, and I've always wondered if (given the case of having something worthy) I'd be able to submit it to publishers in, for example, the USA. Of course the writing would be in English.
Is it possible? How can it be done?
Answer: It's absolutely possible.  If you already have a good idea of the publishers you would like to work with, check their web sites for submission information.  If not, try subscribing to something like Writer's Market to get the info.
Do be aware that some publishing houses shy away from publishing international authors because they aren't sure how to parse the legal issues.  We don't exactly get a ton of Argentinian authors around here, so they have to be willing to invest in the legal expenses for covering all their bases.  However, some publishers are quite used to these sorts of things, and won't take it into account much when evaluating your manuscript.
You also might look at Argentinian publishers that are affiliated with or have distribution agreements with American companies.  I don't have direct experience in this area, but I've seen it bring things into the US pretty smoothly, and I'd imagine that since we have such a huge market, it's not an uncommon thing for foreign publishers to be prepared for.
Answer: Getting an agent and/or getting published in your own country may be easier than trying to sell your work overseas by yourself.
I don't know the details of how literary agents operate in countries outside the US, but I believe it is fairly common for US literary agencies to have "partner" agencies in other countries.  Then, if a book does well in the US market, the partner agencies can pitch it to publishers in their respective countries.


Height In a Tilted Cappilary tube

Question:
If we tilt a cappiliary tube, i had the doubt that would the height rise of fluid change change..? If not why.. and if it would how may we proceed to find the change? I have assumed the condition to be static and fluid is ideal. I want to know would the effective gravity change?
Answer: Tilting the tube "dilutes" the downward force of gravity, just as in the case of a ball rolling down an inclined plane. This allows surface tension to draw the water further up the tube's length, but the position of the meniscus in terms of its vertical height above the surface of the bulk liquid will remain the same.
Comment: If surface tension will be able to pull more, why would the height be same
Comment: Because surface tension is the same. its force gets balanced against gravity.

Height In a Tilted Cappilary tube


is there a formula to determine if a structure will topple over

Question: as a child all of us have built a tower out of Lego. we built it as high as we could but then eventually it topples over.
is there a formula to calculate how wide and heavy the base has to be for the tower not to topple
Answer: Yes there is. Lets say you have a tall building with multiple stories and several unsymmetrical mass protrusions at different floors.
To verify that your building is not going to topple:

You find the center of mass of the buliding.
You drop a vertical line from this center of mass to the footprint of the building, which is usually the exterior extents of its foundation.

If the vertical line fall within the footprint the building will not topple. If it falls outside of the footprint it is not stable and will topple on the side where it falls outside of.
This is called static overturning stability.
Many building codes require the vertical line to fall within an area cantered around the center of the geometry of that surface with sides parallel to footprint and 1/3 each side length.
In siesmic areas this rule changes to  more conservative set of rules considering the dynamic behavior of the building and its tendency to potential rotational vibration or possibly resonance of buildings vibration with the ground motions spectra.
Answer: If your building is very tall and "slender", then the rigidity also comes into play in a set of phenomenon called slender column buckling. For a Lego tower, the tl;dr; is that at some point, the tower will start bending over and then topple due to the kind of situation that kamran described.


Need help in flex visualisation

Question: I have an array of data which I need to display in a tree form. Birdeye seems to be a good tool but has poor documentation. Can you suggest some good flex visualisation tools? Or some birdeye tutorials to get the hang of it? (Google wasn't very helpful)
Answer: Have you seen this: http://lab.kapit.fr/display/visualizer/Visualizer ? I only took a superficial look at them a while back and they seemed pretty slick.
Otherwise, if it's just a tree, you might be able to write your own easily. Convert your array to a two-dimensional layout model and place the nodes yourself based on simple height/width arithmetic. BirdEye graphs are quite a bit more complicated if you're looking for things like radial layout. GraphViz might be able to help you in that case, but you'll have to run it on the server and interpret the results on the flex client.

Need help in flex visualisation


Sodium benzoate the correct amount

Question: I would like to know the ratio for using sodium benzoate as a preservative in our jams and relishes. We state on our product that it's home made and no added preservatives are added, would this be wrong when sodium benzoate is added?
Comment: You write yourself that you add sodium benzoate as *preservative*, that makes the claim "no added preservative" false. Also note that sodium benzoate can be an allergen according to the German Wikipedia, so adding it without declaration could put your customers at risk.
Comment: US wikipedia mentions : "Concentration as a preservative is limited by the FDA in the U.S. to 0.1% by weight".   Of course, I have no idea if that's necessarily a good concentration to use (as it might have other effects such as in texture or flavor).
Comment: As far as I know, 500mg per 1kg of body mass of consumer per day does not have immediate health effect on one who is not allergic. That said, some people *are* allergic to it, so no matter what amount you add, you should state it clearly, in a way impossible to overlook, that your product has it added as preservative. Not posting this as an answer because I can't find reliable sourced on toxicity levels, don't trust me on that.
Comment: While benzoate also occurs naturally in some fruit (and in surprisingly high amounts), it is the VERY DEFINITION of what people consider an added preservative.
Answer: Well yeah, adding a preservative is ... just that.
I'd just stick with the "homemade" part; there is so much misinformation about preservatives that get so quickly spread without research.
You can use it to rinse/sterilize containers without mixing it in but not as effective.
Recipes I've used are ¼ teaspoon per litre (mix with 1 tsp hot water to dissolve). Also can be used to sterilize jars by making a hot water rinse (use similar ratio).
Read Wikipedia on Sodium benzoate if anyone is worried about it as all the hype has been debunked and it's safer than the "natural" potassium sorbate used.
Answer: This site
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/food-additive-status-list
indicates the amount of substances permitted (by the Americans at least) for various additives. It supports the assertion that <0.1% is a reasonable concentration. Additive 211 (Sodium benzoate) is most used in acid foods as it imparts a bit more acidity as part of its anti-fungal mechanism. It is also allegedly a flavour enhancer, though in the concentration cited I cannot see how.

Sodium benzoate the correct amount


How to implement a client for file uploading to a WSO2-ESB proxy service?

Question: I config an ESB proxy:
<code>ESB Proxy --> inSqquence --> outSequence --> clone --> VFS
</code>
How to implement a client for file uploading to a WSO2-ESB proxy service?
Answer: You can configure ESB to upload files to a location using VFS transport listener and sender. Refer to Sample 254: Using the File System as Transport Medium (VFS) where in the outSequence the response is saved to a directory using an endpoint with vfs file address. To clone the messages going through the ESB you can use Clone mediator.


SQL column showing -1 if column is nothing inserted

Question: In my SQL Server table, if the column value(integer) is nothing it's inserting value is -1. If i select all column values from table and showing on ASP.net grid it is showing -1 on specified column. I don't want to show it as -1 it need show like some thing like "null or none". How can get this?
Comment: Does the column have a default value of -1?
Answer: make that column null-able and don't set default value for that column and in asp.net page check if there are null then replace that to bank or "none"
Answer: So either in your update statement, or in the driver you're using, '' and nothing are likely being mishandled.  Ff you want NULL, you have to insert NULL.

Insert into (mytable ID, SomeNum, SomeText) Values (1,'','hello
World') Nope
Insert into (mytable ID, SomeNum, SomeText) Values
(1,,'hello World') Nope
Insert into (mytable ID, SomeNum, SomeText)
Values (1,NULL,'hello World') Yep.

all result in different values in someNum.   the first may throw a type conversion, the 2nd I believe results in -1 and the 3rd will give you the result you're looking for.
If you're using a stored procedure, the parameter being passed in is not being handled appropriately.
Answer: 1 You can insert null in your DataBase. (In your datas you use Type Nullable in order to match )
2 You can also treat your information in your Gridview, by deleting -1 and replacing with null value.
<code> void GridView_RowDataBound(Object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
  {

    if(e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
    {

      e.Row.Cells[1].Text = (e.Row.Cells[1].Text == "-1" ) ? "" :  e.Row.Cells[1].Text;

    }

  }
</code>
Comment: Yes.. exactly i want to like this.Thank you.
Answer: Instead of calling an event and avoid an unneccesary postback to server, write the following code after you get the DataTable from database and before you Databind() your GridView.
<code>protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //DataTable dt = GetDataFromDatabase();
    DataTable dt = new DataTable();
    foreach (DataRow row in dt.Rows)
    {
        row["columnName"] = row["columnName"]== "-1" ? "none" : row["columnName"];
    }
}
</code>


Adding a JavaScript Widget to a SharePoint Online Page

Question: I need to add a JavaScript widget to a SharePoint Page. The Widget is basically a popup. How can I achieve this?
Answer: You can add a javascript file using the content web part.
You can do this by
Edit page -> Add web part -> Media and content -> Content editor -> Add
Edit the source of the web part and add the following code into it:
<code><script src="/sites/subsite/list/SiteAssets/file.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</code>
Add the js file under Site Assets using SharePoint Designer.
Answer: The best approach would be to use a Content Editor Web Part or a Script Editor Web Part. You can achieve this by going to your page, Edit Page, Add Web Part and select the Content Editor Web Part. Inside the Content Editor web part click on View Source in the ribbon and paste in your JS script in there.
Another great approach is to put your plugin into a .txt file and save it in your Site Assets library. Add the Content Web Part and open the Properties for it. Inside of the properties you can paste the path to .txt file with your plugin.
If you can post the script on here for reference, I can show you a visual example.


When playing a tank, how do you make sure that you get hit in teamfights?

Question: This goes especially for playing tanks that don't have a taunt.  I know standing in front of your carries is important, but what else can be done to protect them?
Answer: As a tank, you want to be a disruptive as much as possible.  In lots of cases, simply zoning out their carries will let you win the teamfight.  For example, one of my favorite tanks is Singed.  I know I can use my slow to separate their team in a teamfight, activate poison to do a little damage to everyone, then run full speed at their carry.  Their carry knows I have a fling, and generally my fling will put them out of position, so simply by running at them, I can force them out of the fight.  If they are out of the fight, they are not hurting my team which is really the goal of a tank in a teamfight.  In fact, I end up dealing more damage with my poison than they can do cause I make myself the only target they can attack.
These things ultimately depend on what your team needs you to do.  I would not have chosen Singed if my team was playing protect the KogMaw, there are far better champs that can do that - Alistar, Galio, Janna, Nunu for example.  But no, there are no way you can force the enemy to hit you in teamfights, but at same time, that isn't always your goal or shouldn't be.  You want your team to do more damage than their team collectively.  This simple statement usually determine who wins the teamfight.
Comment: you can also taunt with some tank toons
Comment: Team damage output is not the deciding factor. A team fight can be won with a lot less damage, if it is focused properly. If my team deals enough damage to kill 2 champs, and really does kill 2 champs, then they will win against another team that deals enough damage to kill 4 champs, but spreads it over all 5 and kills none.
Answer: This can change depending on which tank champion you are playing. Each tanks has abilities that let them bend the fight in a way. Getting all the damages are not always the priority.
The first thing to take in consideration is the "engage". Most of the time, in the rush of a team-fight, people will target the first champion which come. Either because they do not pay attention, or sometimes because they thing they can get him out fast. Other times, they are so afraid to let someone penetrates their rank that they won't challenge back lines by staying out of range. So be the one engaging is a first way to call a team to hit you.
The second thing is "Taunt" abilities (yes I will still talk about this). Remember that a lot of tank champions can do this. Rammus, Shen, Galio. It can be multi-target or single target. Taunting an enemy force him to attack you (usually they can't use skill as well). If you can get the carries to focus on you, you can release the pressure on your team-mates, allowing them to get these carries out first.
Third thing, is position control. When this won't make enemies target you, but put enemies in immediate danger. If you can grab an enemy into your formation, he's nearly sure to die. In another way, you can also push them back from the battlefield towards your lines.
Fourth, immobilisations. Some champions has the ability to stop enemy from moving (Maokai, Leona, ...). Using this on a melee champion basically let him only able to fight you if no one is near the root position. Eventually if you are forcing other enemies back, the one you got may be in big troubles. If the fight is static, global stun are also a great advantage. Once again, nobody is forced to attack you, but if you're playing Amumu for example, you could be sure they'll fear your AoE stun. This can be a great motivator to make them wanting to kill you fast (but they won't be able to).
Your objective as a tank is to sustain maximum of damages by :

forcing people to attack you (skills)
appealing the focus (using your threat level, being in the best position)
breaking the enemy formation (grabs etc)
breaking the fight structure (stuns, immobilisation)

If the enemies want to avoid you as much as possible, then you are a great asset for team-fights.


Missing Partition With Recovery Files

Question: I have a 3TB internal hard drive. It was an MBR initialized disk (which doesn't support hard drives over 2TB. You can however use a scheme to make the 3rd Terabyte its own partition. I did so by using Seagate's DiscWizard. I used the 3rd Terabyte for backups and I had a very recent one there. I refreshed my computer to factory conditions because the process said it would only affect its partition. However, now with a fresh operating system, I am only able to see the 2TB my OS sits in. My question is, has all the data on the 1 TB partition been lost or, if it is still there but hidden, can I recover it? Thank you for all your help. I am running Windows 7 64 bit
Comment: Try this: open Disk Management by searching that in the start screen. Check to see if there are two partitions listed under your disk. If there are, right click the 1TB partition and click `Assign drive letters and paths...`. Here, choose a drive letter for the partition and `OK` out of everything. The partition should now be visible.
Comment: The disk wizard uses tricks on the first few disk block things to accomplish the goal you desired, when you wipe or repair the area change the partition table, that change is lost The trick used to create the partitions/tables in that method no longer there. The data that would be on specific sectors of the drive are not lost yet.   IF you had a BackUp of all the data, I would suggest your recreate the original scenario using the software that did that trick, but it is unknown if in the change and any formatting would start actually wiping data.
Answer: having less than 50 reps, I can't make comments
I'm confident TestDisk from CG Security will help you get your data easily.
It's free. Donload it from this page: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
After selecting the type of the disk (intel PC) then select analyze once it has finished you will be presented with the list of all found partitions including the actual and the lost ones. By selecting each one you may click on "p" to visualize its content and even copy it. If you did not find the partition you're looking for select "Deeper search".
Caution! If you select "write" the actual partition table of your HDD will be overwritten with selected partition scheme you chose in the results page. Obviously, this is suggested in case one need to revert its HDD to an earlier stage with everything back (Partitions and data) as if it was before.

Missing Partition With Recovery Files


Polygon in specific size

Question: I have the task of inserting a polygon in a map with a specific size. My idea is to simply "draw" a polygon and keep on enhacing its size, until it reaches the size I actually want to be. Its basically an easy task, but i'm wondering if i could directly have the polygon in the size i want it to be. I went through the vector-tools, but nothing seemed to do the trick.
I'm using QGIS 2.18.3 (Las Palmas)
Comment: what sort of polygon? size as length or area?
Comment: area!The polygon doesnt even have to have a specific shape...
Answer: You can use QAD Plugin to draw a regular polygon with a specific area. For example, if you want to draw a polygon with an area of 50000 square meter you can do the following:

Select regular polygon as you can see below:

Specify the number of edges at the command line below (I chose 6), and click enter

Specify Center of the polygon or Edge: clicked on target position on the screen
Enter an option <code>[Inscibed in Circle/Circumscribed about circle/Area]</code>: Choose Area

Enter the polygon area: Choose the specific area you want, 50000 for example
Comment: The QAD plugin is not compatible with v3.xxx
Comment: This works! I'm still struggeling with the area, there is a gap between what i insert and what i calculate (for verification), but i'm sure its a small issue which is manageable! Thanks
Answer: If it does not need to be QGIS have a try with OpenJUMP. With the Draw circle tool you can define the size and then create circles of fixed size with just one click.
Comment: Hi, Thanks for the quick reply. We dont have OpenJUMP at work. I will look into it anyway
Comment: The normal Draw polygon tool shows the area in real time when you draw a new feature but unfortunately the other circle tool that is used by dragging the circle to the desired size shows only perimeter in real time.
Comment: Hi, I can't chose the number of side I want for my polygon, neither the size with QAD... can you explain how did you do?
Comment: Did you notice this is OpenJUMP? My answer was using the Draw circle with given radius and center from the standard toolbox. It does not have a direct input for the number of sides. Accuracy has an indirect effect but does not allow to draw triangles, for example. There is indeed a special tool in the CAD toolbox "Draw regular concyclic polygon" that takes radius and number of sides as input. The result is a closed linestring but it can be converted into polygon easily. I tried and had no problem with using that CAD tool. Just select the tool, fill in the parameters, and click on the map.

Polygon in specific size


What does shot noise in color images look like?

Question: I can find examples of shot noise in monochrome images, but I can't find any examples in color images.  What does shot noise in color images look like?
Comment: It looks pretty much the same: random. ;)
Answer: Exactly the same. Both CCD and CMOS sensors - with the exception of Foveon sensors - are achromatic. Color is created by an array of color filters in front of the sensor, so the shot-noise is the same, only you tint each pixel Red, Green or Blue. A few rare cameras also use Emerald tint and some leave one sub-pixel achromatic.
Comment: Can you provide examples, assuming a Bayer array?
Comment: @DragonLord - Look at any ISO-noise test. There is your example.
Comment: Look at an ISO noise test as long as Noise-Reduction was turned off, which is not possible on each camera. Here is an older one from a Nikon D3: http://blog.neocamera.com/?p=244


How to migrate from MySQL to SQL Server 2008

Question: I have MySQL database backup file (Mysql version 5.1)
and i want to restore it in Sqlserver 2008 how do i restore it?
Comment: That's not a restore, it's a migration.
Answer: You can't restore a MySQL backup into SQLServer 2008 automatically. You can write a conversion script to convert the data, or use a tool like Microsoft DTS (called SQL Server Integration Services nowadays).
Answer: If you still have access to the database in MySQL, you should be able to get the data out of MySQL into a format usable my MS SQL by using the mysqldump command and the --compatible=mssql command line switch. Although, you do sometimes end up having to edit the dump file manually if it gives you errors importing it into SQL Server.
If you only have access to the backup file, the same tactic may work if you import it into a new instance of MySQL and then dump it to a new backup file.
Answer: Use a SQL script generator on your MYSQL database and run the script file on your MSSQL database. As long as you don't have overlapping different types you should be good.
To create a database create script:

Open the MySQL Query Browser window
Open a new Script tab (Ctrl + Shift + T)
Drag the required tables onto the script tab
You should see the generated CREATE TABLE script

Then you need export the data to CSV so your can import it.
Additionally Redgate has an early release of SQL Compare for MYSQL you could play with to see if it can help generate the scripts between the two types ( i have no idea, as i havent tried it yet ):
http://www.red-gate.com/products/MySQL_Compare/index.htm


What are some of the influences of the Black Plague and its aftermath on the period of Renaissance?

Question: The period of Renaissance in Europe kicked off after the Black Plague started disappearing. How did the the plague help in igniting the fire of rebirth?
Comment: Well, the "not dying from the plague" had some influence.
Comment: possible duplicate of [What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?](http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/1030/what-were-the-reasons-for-the-renaissance-scientific-revolution-in-europe)
Comment: I'm not voting to close, but I am suspicious that this is a thesis disguised as a question, or possibly a homework question.
Comment: It's not a homework question,I assure you. I wanted to find out to what extent Renaissance was affected by The Black Death,so that I could proceed with writing a term paper on the subject.
Answer: The question seems to assume a few things: first, a certain time frame, and second, causation. I don't think these assumptions are quite accurate.
First, early Renaissance started before the Black Plague. For example, Dante Alighieri wrote decades before the plague. There were some advances in architecture even before that, circa 12th century. Given that technological and artistic advances often seem to snowball, one should look at the timing of the first changes that started the movement rather than the timing when the highest momentum was achieved.
Second, even though Black Plague influenced Renaissance, it wasn't the cause that started the snowball rolling. There were several important events that planted the seeds before that: bits and pieces of knowledge acquired by osmosis from Arabs during the Crusades in 12th century and plunder of Constantinople in the 13th century that brought into the West pieces of art and wealth and a few surviving scholars.
Black Plague obviously had tremendous influence on the development of Renaissance, even though it didn't trigger it. Too many influences to discuss on this site. I think the biggest influences were the realization that the Church doesn't have all the answers and the renewed appreciation of preciousness human life. There were many more of course, but these seem to be most important for setting the right mind frame, IMHO.


Can ば conditional form be interpreted as a conjunction?

Question: I was just introduced a new grammar point, the も~も construction as shown on https://core6000.neocities.org/dojg/. I understand the main function of も and how it is the inclusionary particle and I can follow along with most of the examples for the grammar point that the site provides, but I can't make out how sentences with ば (I've only known the form to be the conditional. Haven't done grammar lookups in j-j dictionaries) are working.
One of the samples sentences provided is
<code>彼は親戚でもなければ友達でもない。
</code>
and the english interpretation is "He is neither a relative nor a friend." My question is how does なければ, what I would think would be the ば conditional of ない, work here? Literal English translations aren't doing me much good here if I try and translate this taking ば as the conditional. Can someone help me understand how this is working?
Comment: @Darius, 明鏡、「ば」〘接助〙❾の、"《「AもすればBもする」の形で》同類の事柄を並べて述べる。…もするし…もする。…でもあり…でもある。「雨もふれば風も吹く」「職**もなければ**家**もない** 」" ←これじゃないかな?
Comment: Oddly, couldn't find a relevant 明鏡 entry.
Comment: Nice, missed that, thanks!
Answer: Perhaps a better translation might be "Whilst he is not a relative, neither is he a friend."


Handling Dynamic Presentation Content

Question: I'm wondering what techniques others typically use for persisting dynamic content info for the presentation tier of their web apps. E.g. My customer wants via an admin section to change a few images on the home page. One could create a database table for this of course, but it doesn't feel quite right to me. One, caching is an issue. Two, I prefer to reserve the DB for domain type data, not presentation data. Perhaps an xml file accessed via the infrastructure layer? Any other alternatives?
Answer: If the software code is unique for several sites, and the customers edit its own page among others, I will tend to consider it as part of the business of the application, and then store images paths and (eventually) images files in database, levering caching in UI templates and for rendering.
If the software code is unique for the one customer, or eventually if their is only one instance of the software by customer, I will then tend to consider customization as an integration step, and have every thing stored in UI layer using an XML file for paths (and I will probably have no administration page).

Handling Dynamic Presentation Content


Does inotify trigger the IN_DELETE before or after deletion?

Question: I'm trying to backup a file before it gets deleted. Can someone tell me if inotify triggers the event before or after deletion?
Answer: The IN_DELETE is triggered when a file/directory is deleted in the watched directory, ie after the deletion.
Answer: but is'it possible to make inotify trigger before each action.
rm -rf /media/disqueExterne/   and inotify send an alert as do a database server before each access  to a record..
here :
[bash command rm -rf /media/disqueExterne ] ---> [system pipe ] ---> direct order ---> [/dev/sdd1 ] ---> files destroyeds
with inotify pretrigger
[bash command rm -rf /media/disqueExterne ] ---> [ system pipe] --> [inotify pretrigger catch ] ---> backup each file ---> securised rm -rf order ---> [/dev/sdd1 ] ---> files destroyeds
is it possible to catch the commands in a system pipe or buffer before sending the order.
[user send a command ] ---> [buffer] ---> order [ action launched]  and after
[user send a command ] ---> // inotify hold data  ---> [inotify action] --- // --> [return to buffer ] ---> order ---> [action  launched ]


Limitations of Team Foundation Server Builds

Question: What are the limitations of TFS in heterogeneous development environments?
I have little expirience with Jenkins and like the possibility to run all those different kinds of jobs, like Ant, Maven, CMD, Powershell, ...

Is it possible to check coding conventions when building a java project with team foundation server?
I do not know how java builds with TFS work. I saw a presentation form Microsoft and the guy mentioned Maven and Ant Tasks. So I assume it can be done with a checkstyle plugin in Maven.
Is it possible to run CMD skripts?
Comment: I believe Martin Woodward of [Visual Studio / TEE team](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/) addressed a related question on this [post](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9233961/147211). Also read Brian Harry's [post](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/03/20/10280184.aspx) on this.
Answer: The tool mentioned is probably the Team Foundation Server Build Extensions Power Tool December 2011.
These add the ability to trigger standard Java build scripts from Team Build.
The Java build processes just invoke maven or ant, so any task that checks code quality in these build tools should work just fine in Team Build. The team at Microsoft choose not to make a complex build template for the Java people, as they are well accustomed to their own build tools. So the build process templates to execute a Java build aver very thin by default. Everything is done through standard Java tooling. Team Build just invokes these and gathers the output.
As for executing command scripts and other executables as part of the build, there's a number of ways you can do this. The right way depends on the thing you want to accomplish.

If you want to execute something as part of the building of the binaries, you can use the msbuild exec task or an equivalent task in ant/maven.
If you want to execute something after all binaries have been built (say to trigger deployment) you can use a Build Activity in the build process template to execute a process
if you want to execute something before building the binaries on a build agent, you can use the same activity, but you should place it in a different place in the workflow.

The Visual Studio lab management build template and the Build Deploy Test build template serve as a good starting point to learn more about the possibilities of invoking processes during the build process.
As mentioned in other answers, the SVNBridge and possibly Git2tfs might provide alternative ways for the Java team members to access sources in TFS. They can then use the existing ant/maven tasks to get the sources and build the code.
Answer: You are very likely to get a lot of personal opinions on the use of TFS and whether or not it is a good fit, especially for JAVA development. That said, for the purposes of plugging in ANT/Maven/Jenkins you could install SVNBridge to give you the same functionality as you'd find with SVN.
It doesn't mean that there aren't plugins for TFS to support the tools, I've just found SVN related plugins are a lot more accessible.


Annuities and Loans

Question: A loan for $8\, 000$ must be repaid with $6$ year end payments at an annual rate of $11 \%$. What is the annual payment? I know that the present value of an annuity with end payments is $\frac{1-v^n}{i}$ where $v = 1/(1+i)$. Likewise, the future value is $(1+i)^{n}\frac{1-v^n}{i}$. How do I use this to solve this problem?
Comment: Isn't it just that you want the present value of the annuity to equal the loan amount?  Excel's PMT will let you check your answer
Comment: How do you get the present value? I know $PV = \frac{FV}{(1+i)^n}$. But how yould you formulate this in terms of annuities? How do you do it by hand?
Answer: We have to find the value of constant (I assume, since nothing is specified on the contrary) payments $A$ given the principal $P$ during $n$ yearly periods and the interest rate $i$. The value of $A$ in the period $k$ is equivalent to the present value $A/\left( 1+i\right) ^{k}$ monetary units, where $i$ is the interest rate in each capitalization period. Summing in $k$, from 1 to $n$, we get the sum
$$\displaystyle\sum_{k=1}^{n}\dfrac{A}{\left( 1+i\right) ^{k}}$$
This is a geometric progression with ratio $r=1/(1+i)$ and first term $u_{1}=A/\left( 1+i\right)$ whose sum is:
$$\dfrac{A}{1+i}\dfrac{\left( \dfrac{1}{1+i}\right)^{n}-1}{\dfrac{1}{1+i}-1}=A\dfrac{\left( 1+i\right) ^{n}-1}{i\left( 1+i\right) ^{n}}=P.$$
Hence
$$A=P\dfrac{i\left( 1+i\right) ^{n}}{\left( 1+i\right) ^{n}-1}.$$
For the given problem, the payments will be made during $n=6$ years, with $i=11\%=\dfrac{11}{100}$ and $P=8000$:
$$A=8000\times \dfrac{0.11(1.11)^{6}}{(1.11)^{6}-1}\approx 1891$$

Sum of a geometric progression:
$$S=u_{1}+u_{2}+u_{3}+\ldots +u_{n}$$
$$rS=ru_{1}+ru_{2}+ru_{3}+\ldots +ru_{n-1}+ru_{n}$$
$$u_{k}=ru_{k-1}=u_{1}r^{k-1}$$
$$S-rS=\left( u_{1}+u_{2}+u_{3}+\ldots +u_{n}\right) -\left(
ru_{1}+ru_{2}+ru_{3}+\ldots +ru_{n-1}+ru_{n}\right) $$
$$(1-r)S=u_{1}-ru_{n}$$
$$S=\dfrac{u_{1}-ru_{n}}{1-r}=\dfrac{u_{1}-u_{1}r^{n}}{1-r}=u_1\times\dfrac{1-r^{n}}{1-r}=u_1\times\dfrac{r^{n}-1}{r-1}.$$
Comment: How did you sum the geometric series? I thought $\sum_{k=m}^{n} ar^{k} = \frac{a(r^{m}-r^{n+1})}{1-r}$.
Comment: The sum of the geometric progression (starting at order $n=1$ until $n$) $u_{1}$, $u_{2}$, $\ldots$ ,$u_{n}$ is $S=u_{1}\times \dfrac{1-r^{n}}{1-r}$, where $r$ is the progression ratio.
Comment: @Trevor: I added the derivation of the progression sum formula.

Annuities and Loans


Finite element discretization of Reaction-diffusion problem with Dirac source term

Question: I'm writing a code using continuous piecewise linear finite elements on triangular
grids to solve the diffusion-reaction problem. the source function f is a Dirac mass at the center. How can i compute the mesh in order to have the dirac in the baricenter of almost one triangle of the mesh?
thanks
Comment: What program are you using to do the meshing? It's possible to do this in [Triangle](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~quake/triangle.html).
Comment: What is the domain? You wanna triangulate the domain so that the Dirac impulse function sits on the barycenter of a certain triangle?
Comment: the domain is a square of base 2 and I want to triangulate properly becouse if not the solution is 0
Comment: You can just prescribe the triangle that you want as an interior interface that describe the domain to the mesh generator. Afterwards, you can do 1:4 refine so that the Dirac point is always in the barycenter of a triangular element. FreeFem++, gmsh can do this.
Comment: At the moment I'm using the function initmesh() of the [PDE toolbox](http://www.mathworks.it/products/pde/)
Answer: Since you are creating the mesh specifically for this right-hand side in order to have a correct solution, it would make more sense to have the Dirac located on a node instead: On the one hand, this is likely to be easier to realize in the mesh generator, and on the other hand the assembly is easier: Since you are using continuous piecewise linear elements and (presumably) nodal basis functions $\psi_i$, you have for $f=\delta_{x_i}$ (where $x_i$ is one of the nodes of your triangulation) that
$$
\langle f,\psi_j\rangle_{C^*,C} = \psi_j(x_i) =
\begin{cases}
1 &\text{if } i=j,\\
0 &\text{if } i\neq j,
\end{cases}
$$
i.e., your load vector is just the vector with $1$ in the $i$th component and $0$ else. (This also works if you have linear combinations of Dirac measures located on the nodes. This also explains what happens when you forget the mass matrix on the right hand side...)
Comment: yes I have the basis functions and I understand your comment, but it's not clear to me that if I locate the Dirac on a node instead of a barycenter, then the solution will be 0 or infinity, or not?
Comment: For a Dirac on a node, the finite element solution is well-defined (i.e., not "infinity") and not zero (since the linear system arising from your discretization has a unique solution with non-zero right-hand side).
Answer: You cannot use the quadrature points to sample the Dirac data. You would either get zero or infinity as the solution. You could choose to use a smooth approximation (e.g. a narrow Gaussian) of the source term if you don't have access to the piece of code performing the integration over elements.
If you can add a "Dirac-loop" to your FEM code, then you can find the entries $f_i$ of the rhs of your linear system $\mathrm{K} \mathbf{u} = \mathbf{f}$, by directly evaluating your shape functions at the dirac points, i.e. $f_i = \int \delta_{\xi_0} N_i = N_i(\xi_0)$. For this, you'd have to determine the local coordinate $\xi_0$ of the dirac load. This can be done by first detecting on which element the dirac load falls (see convex hull algorithms) and then inverting the geometric map of that element either directly (straight elements) or by Newton iteration (curved elements).


Evaluation of a surface integral using Gauss theorem.

Question: I have 2 questions regarding surface integral using Gauss's Divergence theorem.
My first is:
Evaluate $\int_{\tau} z$ $d\tau$ where $S: x^2+y^2+z^2=a^2$ and $z\geq 0$.
I found it to be $0$:
$\int_{\tau} z$ $d\tau= \iiint_\tau z$ $dxdydz= \iint_{R} \int_{z=0}^{z=\sqrt(a^2-x^2-y^2)} z$ $dzdR$. I then evaluated $\int_{z=0}^{z=\sqrt(a^2-x^2-y^2)} z$ $dz$ alone and use polar coordinates instead of cartesian to evaluate the resulting integral which is: $\int_{r=0}^{a} \int_{\theta=0}^{2\pi} a^2r - a^2r(sin^2\theta+ cos^2\theta) drd\theta= 0$.
Is my work correct?
My second is:
When we are asked to evaluate a surface integral using Gauss's theorem for a certain vector where $S: z= 4-x^2$ bounded by the planes $y=0$, $z=0$ & $y+z=5$, what should be the boundaries of $z$ while evaluating the integral if we want to evaluate it the same way as I did in the first one? ( This is our required method); i.e. we have $\iiint_{\tau} \nabla.\vec{V}$ $d\tau= \iint_{R} \int_{z=m}^{z=n}  \nabla.\vec{V}$ $dzdR$. My question is what should be these $m$ and $n$?
Please answer me about this method and don't suggest any other ways as I need this in my exam that I will do.
Thanks!
Answer: hint for first
with spherical
$=\int_0^a\int_0^{2\pi}\int_0^{\pi /2}(r\cos (\phi) )(r^2\sin (phi))dr d\theta d\phi$
$$=\frac {\pi a^3}{3}\int_0^{\pi /2}\sin (2\phi)d\phi $$
$$=\frac {\pi}{3}a^3$$
Comment: Yess you are right. Is my answer correct?
Comment: @Nour is it okay now for the first.
Comment: Yes it is okay, but what is my mistake? This is the way our doctor solves problems.
Comment: @Nour what is your Jaccobian.


How do I effectively use the Beggar's Bazooka?

Question: In TF2, I was wondering how, as a soldier with a Beggar's Bazooka, you would you kill a scout effectively. Since it takes such a long time to load all three rockets, the scout usually has already killed you by the time you'd be ready to fire. Any tips on how approach this?
Comment: Plan ahead. If you're about to round a corner, load up a rocket. A wasted rocket is worth way less than a wasted 20 seconds respawning.
Answer: If you have to fight and your rocket launcher (of any flavor) is unloaded, you should be swapping to your shotgun. While its weaker, its more than capable of fending off a scout since they have less life than you and must engage at closer range
Comment: I agree, a quick switch to your shotgun is best
Answer: Most of the time, you should let your teammates kill the scout while you reload.  The Beggars' Bazooka is not a weapon you should be roaming solo with - its 1v1 and jumping abilities are somewhat unreliable due to the whole loading mechanic and reduced accuracy, and the recent change has reduced its jumping abilities (overload jumping comes with a penalty).  In other words, if you ever find yourself alone with an unloaded Beggars' Bazooka against a scout, something went wrong.
If you do find yourself in that situation, as has been stated shotgun is probably your best bet.  Another alternative is trying to use single rocket jumps to run away.
If you are really trying to roam with the Bazooka however, you probably have Gunboats on, in which case jumping away is probably your only option.
Answer: A good beggars loadout is: Beggar's Bazooka, Reserve Shooter, and the Escape Plan.
The Bazooka is useful with groups of enemies. When in hostile territory, start loading it up when rounding corners, as you could then ambush quick enemies which would normally take you by surprise.
The Reserve Shooter is good for taking out enemies that are up close. Because of its swap speed, you can easily switch to it to shoot a scout, then switch back.
The Escape Plan is designed for, well, escaping. If you are dying, use the weapon swap speed from the Reserve shooter, switch to the Escape Plan, then run away. Or, you can use it to get around, dodging the scout, then swap to Reserve to finish him.
Answer: Beggar's Bazooka is a terrible weapon when you need firepower immediately and critically - you should use a good secondary when you're weilding it.  Either a Shotgun, which provides good close-range burst damage and modest mid-range damage, or the Bison, which will provide better long-range options and modest but consistent damage.  Choose depending on what you need.
As for handling the Beggar's Bazooka itself, it's a very situational weapon.  Don't treat it like a "special" rocket launcher, because it's not nearly as versatile, and much less reliable.
What it can be very good at is sudden, wide-burst area denial.  This is best utilized at choke points, narrow corridors, or when you have time to prepare for your enemy's approach.  The benefit of the Beggar's Bazooka is that it fires many rockets at once, over a wide area.  You should be using it when you know you're about to encounter a large number of enemies, or when you know you'll be able to funnel your foes into narrow spaces.
If you know that's not going to happen, you should either move to another area of the map, or consider switching off Beggar's Bazooka altogether.  Note that it works better on Defense, regardless of the map or situation, because you know that you'll have a narrow area guaranteed to have enemies gathered together tightly all at once.
Answer: Beggar's Bazooka is very tricky to handle. Not only does it take extra time to fire at first, but the backfire gets extremely annoying.
I recommend that you stick to this:
Beggar's Bazooka, Buff Banner, and the Escape Plan.
As mentioned by others, the Escape Plan is a good getaway, and if things get tough, it can be used as an insta-kill suicide taunt.
The Buff Banner helps a lot when you rack up the kills.
Personally, you should stick with this layout for Mann vs. Machine. It's one of the best Soldier tactics.


Storing and quickly comparing luminosity histograms

Question: I am interested in building a domain-specific image search application capable of searching for images similar to a given image. With a little google-fu I managed to find this question on this site. If I understand the top rated answer correctly then what I am looking to do is achievable by storing the luminosity data for each image in my library.
This is all well and good, but I need a way to quickly search through and compare against 25,000+ records. I have used PostgreSQL and so I immediately thought of it. The problem I find myself facing is that to store luminance data for 256 discrete possible values across 3 colors, I would need a table with 768 columns (r0,g0,b0,...,r255,g255,b255) and in order to effectively search across all records for similarities I would need 768 indices. I have never really worked with large scale data at this level before but that number seems a little unwieldy to me (although I don't know, my experience doesn't extend into this realm).
My other idea is to store the luminance data in one large text column (formatted like this: r0:rrr g0:ggg b0:bbb ... r255:rrr g255:ggg b255:bbb) and construct a full text search index on that column in order to allow searches across the data for similar images.
Another possibility is using the hamming distance between a query histogram and a stored histogram, but I do not believe that is possible to do quickly against all records in the database.
Am I even approaching this the right way? I am also open to any alternatives to relational databases that could provide fast, real-time search across my dataset.
Answer: It looks like you are putting each image into a 3 dimensional space -- have you tried looking at any geospatial / multidimensional query engines. Similar images should be near each other in 3-space with your approach.


In modern writing is there a a significant difference between satire and parody?

Question: Are there significant differences between satire and parody?  Can you provide examples of the difference?  Do you know of a book which is considered satire; one which is considered parody?
Answer: Parody is a mockery of a specific existing thing. Weird Al Yankovic writes parodies — "Beat It" as "Eat It," for example. Saturday Night Live parodies political figures by mimicking their qualities to extremes.
Satire mocks general things and overall qualities and stereotypes, by being an exaggerated copy or twisting some element ironically. In South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Satan's big song "Up There" was a satire of Disney "hero/ine has a dream" songs.
Blazing Saddles is a satire of Westerns; Men in Tights is a parody of the Robin Hood myth.
ETA examples in books: in addition to @what's good examples, you have Sol Weinstein's Israel Bond series, which are parodies of James Bond. There's the Barry Trotter unauthorized parodies of the Harry Potter series. You could argue that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a parody. The Wind Done Gone is both parody and satire. Ian Doescher has brilliantly rewritten the Star Wars trilogy as Shakespearean plays.
Catch-22 is a satire of the military, government, and war. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is a satirical suggestion for dealing with overpopulation, and Gulliver's Travels satirizes various faults of character of different groups of people. Hugh Laurie's The Gun Seller starts as a satire of noir pulp but changes to an actual noir about halfway through. Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy satirizes bureaucracy (among many other subjects).
If you google "satire novels" and "parody novels" you will come up with plenty of examples.
Comment: Great explanation. Do you have any examples of books, especially novels?  thanks
Answer: A parody makes fun of an artistic work by applying the characteristic style or theme to unlikely subjects. Example: Bored of the Rings.
Satire mocks real people, their behavior, and their opinions. One of the most famous satires is probably George Orwell's Animal Farm, a satire of Stalinism.
Comment: Good examples. Thx


Generic word for something that produces itself

Question: Generic word for something that produces itself. For example, a factory of factories; a bibliography of bibliographies; a collection of collections.
Comment: Do you want an *adjective* or a *noun*?
Comment: Is it really making itself or is it merely make something of the same category?  Is a factory that makes factories that make shoes something that fits your request or is it only factories that make factories that make factories?
Comment: If you'd posted the results of your dictionary and thesaurus and search engine searches, and explained which you preferred and why the rest weren't suitable, that might belong here.

Until then, would you mind first asking some dictionaries and thesauruses and search engines, and explaining why the results aren't suitable?
Answer: Recursive or self-replicating, the latter more literally means making itself. Recursive means reoccurring but not necessarily self-making
Comment: Thanks.. Managed to get the answer  - Autopoiesis   The term autopoiesis (from Greek αὐτo- (auto-), meaning "self", and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning "creation, production") refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself. The term was introduced in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells. Since then the concept has been also applied to the fields of cognition, systems theory and sociology.


What's the best practice for single sign on at one web server?

Question: We have some apps written in classic ASP, ASP.NET and PHP. They are all in one same web server.
We want to transfer between the apps who is currently log in or none, we do not need to transfer everything in the session object.
What is the best way?
We need secure and high performance. Thanks.
Answer: If you are looking at a secure single-sign-on solution, something like Shibboleth will come to mind. It uses Security Assertional Markup Language (SAML) to perform user authentication and attribute exchange. It works independently of the application language and injects environment variables into the app.


convert joules to watts

Question: I am investigating the changes in heat fluxes from a given body of water where the measurements are shown in units of W/m2. There are alternative methods for determining the heat fluxes from a given body of water by calculating the change in internal (thermal) energy of the system. This second method provides a change in internal energy in units of J/m2. How can I compare both results i.e. how can I see if the result obtained by method 1 which is given in W/m2 is the same as the result given by method 2 (J/m2). Given the description I have provided, is it possible to convert W/m2 to J/m2?
Comment: This really belongs in Physics.  That said, the answer is no: Watts = Joules/second.  It's not like converting feet to inches or something: these units correspond to different physical quantities unrelated by a physical constant.
Answer: First off, I think this kind of question might be better off on perhaps Physics.
Either way, it's important to remember that $1 W = 1 J/s$, so you can't directly convert between these units. Actually, $J/s^2$ seems more like an energy density unit while $W/s^2$ seems more like a typical unit of heat flux.
Assuming that concepts really aren't getting confused here, then you should be able to divide the $J/m^2$ measure by some appropriate length of time in seconds to find the relevant power flux.
For example, say that you have two compatible measurements:
$A = 3600 J/m^2$ for the course of 1 hour
$B = 2 W/m^2$
Then
$A/1 h = A/3600s = 1 (J/m^2)/s = 1 (J/s)/m^2 = 1 W/m^2$
Perhaps something like this could be done, but you should probably consult with someone on the details to make sure that these two measurements aren't simply referring to different things altogether.

convert joules to watts