Is it grammatical to say "It's much more cheaper. . ."?

Question: I was confused when I corrected my student and he asked me if he could use "much more" in a sentence. I'm used to using "much" and "more" separately that's why I didn't know what to say.
Answer: "Much more" is fine, but it can't be combined with another comparative adjective like "cheaper." "More" is usually used with adverbs or with adjectives that don't have a comparative form. "Much" can be paired with either form.

It's much cheaper.
It's much more effective. ("More" because "effective" doesn't have a comparative form.)
It's much more fast. (Grammatical, but unusual since we'd usually use the comparative form: "It's much faster.")
Comment: "The teddy bear is much more cheaper than the teddy bear."

Should it be "The teddy bear is much cheaper than the teddy bear"?
Comment: @chell Yes, that's right.
Comment: I'm sorry, I meant ""The teddy bear is much cheaper than the computer". Thank you so much for replying! It helped a lot!
Comment: @chell You can also say *it's much more cheap*. (Although it's not as common or idiomatic.)


What is the difference between the Bantam and Harper paperback editions of "A Dance with Dragons"?

Question: I was in a book store and saw that there are two different paperback publications of "A Dance with Dragons". One published by Bantam, and one published by Harper. The Bantam edition is 1152 pages long, and the Harper is 704 pages long. The pages are the same size. What is the difference between the two versions?
Answer: Harper split A Dance With Dragons into two volumes for the UK market: you've linked to the first part, A Dance With Dragons: Dreams and Dust.  The second part is A Dance With Dragons: After the Feast.  Bantam published the entire book in a single volume.
I'm not aware of any differences in the text, and the AWOIAF page for A Dance With Dragons doesn't mention any either:

Post-publication split into Dreams and Dust and After the Feast
A second form of split occurred involving A Dance with Dragons; while the book has been originally published as a single volume in the middle of 2011, starting around March of 2012 many English language editions were designed as two volumes (a similar decision to that taken in A Storm of Swords. The first half of these split editions are subtitled "Dreams and Dust", while the second half received the subtitle "After the Feast", supposedly because they include chapters that happen chronologically after the end of A Feast for Crows.
Answer: I have read both.  There is little difference to warrant purchasing both. One or the other is sufficient.  There is no more or less of the story of the "A Dance With Dragons" in either.  What the After The Feast version has is a sampler of "The Winds of Winter" and a full appendix as you have seen in previous volumes.  If you are collecting paperbacks, the Dreams version is the same physical book size as the previous volumes.  The after the feast is in a paperback bantam sized book.  The next volume in the series is "The Winds of Winter" and is expected to release sometime between February 2015 and 2017 according to Goodreads and Wikipedia.


How do I move one animation from one blender file to another one?

Question: Okay, so I have two separate blend files and both of them consist of a similar rigged character model with animations. However, one of them has an animation that I want both of them to share. Is there a means by which I can take the animation from one blender file and put it into the other one? Of course, I also don't know how I would go about giving a rigged character model an animation that was copied from another similar character but, I suspect that they're tutorials that cover that type of topic; the main issue here is that I don't know how to get the animation from one blender file to another.
Comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rypC0KM6gs&ab_channel=LukasStratmann
Comment: @Emir: i watched the tutorial, which is good, but it does not describe how you move/link + assign the animation to an object. It only explains how you move/link it.
Answer: In your new blender file, which shall be the target of your animation, you go to File->Append and choose your blend file.
Then open folder action and choose the animation you want to append.
Now select your target object which should get the animation and open NLA Editor and choose Add->include selected objects.

Then tap on Add again and choose your action. Done.
Comment: I partially followed the instruction and I got the desired result but, I don't think I knew what I was doing. I think what happened for me is that I already had my rig for the character selected and, so when I appended the animation for the other file, it just seem to automatically go into the rig. Also, is the NLA Editor the same as the Action Editor? I haven't heard of the NLA Editor. If there is any typo in this comment, I apologize in advance as I wrote it in a very tired state.
Comment: No problem i often follow tutorials in which I have no idea what I am doing but after you do this a few times, you will learn more and more what you are doing!maybe watch a tutorial about NLA. It's a great helpful tool.


Does Windows 7 Automatically Use Multiple Processors for Python 3 Code?

Question: I have windows 7 and I wrote a python program that loops ("for loops", i.e., "for key in dict") over multiple databases, checks for various conditions (e.g., if x in dict, y += 1) and then tallies the results.  I didn't do anything to parralelize the proceesing.  I have 8 CPU cores on my computer.  When I start Windows task manager while running the program, it shows substantial activity on all 8 cores.  Is windows executing the for loops in parralel on multiple proceesors without me doing anything?  The code executes fast.
Answer: No. The C implementation of Python only allows one thread to interpret one bytecode at a time. The only way to take advantage of multiple cores is with multiple threads or multiple processes.
It is completely possible that you will see multiple core activity related to your script however. Let's say you open several files for reading or writing. The OS will buffer the read / write calls that Python is making (on behalf of your script) and will return control to the next statement before that statement is complete in some cases. This is the OS rather than Python making that optimization however.
The Java implementation of Python will do what ever the native version of Java will do on your OS.
Here is a more complete discussion of the same topic.
Answer: The answer to your question is "no" -- whatever's happening on 7 of your 8 cores, it's Windows doing its things (services and whatnot) "in the background".  When you do want to parallelize over multiple cores, you'll need to use Python standard library's multiprocessing module (there are other ways, but none quite as convenient as simple as this).


How to set permissions so that I can read and write to another partition?

Question: I m using Ubuntu 12.04 and i have to partitions part1 and part2, both are ext4. I want to transfer media files to and from them freely through programs.
Answer: What I would do is the following:
Assuming you have both partitions mounted with the names part1 and part2, you will be the only one using them and you want total free control over them, I would do this:
sudo chmod 777 /media/part1 - This would give all permissions (Read, Write, Execute) to you within the part1 partition.
sudo chmod 777 /media/part2 - This would give all permissions (Read, Write, Execute) to you within the part2 partition.
The permissions (in this case 777) are as follow:
7 - Full (Read, Write & Execute)
6 - read and write
5 - read and execute
4 - read only
3 - write and execute
2 - write only
1 - execute only
0 - none
The first 7 (Starting from the Left) is for the owner, the 2nd is for the group where the owner resides. The last 7 is for other groups. Basically like this you can copy anything you want in the partitions and if you ever need to take the HDD out and connect it to another computer with Ubuntu you will not have any problems with permissions. At least in my case it saves me time because I tend to have 1 or 2 hard drives that hold movies, music and similar stuff and I move them around from PC to PC.
Just to add, if you do not know where the partitions are mounted, you can always open Disk Utility and in the information about the hard drive it will tell you where it is mounted. Remember that you need to apply this to the partition AFTER it has been mounted.
Comment: I always avoid a mode like 777, mainly because it is often hard to read due to the terminal colors that alert you to it being world writable.  If he's the only user, then using 755 accomplish the same thing and be easier to read with normal colors
Comment: Why even change the permissions when you can just `chown` it to the current user?
Comment: I agree with you on that. Specially folders.
Comment: Hi n.st the reason is that in all cases I have tried, doing a chown did not actually give the needed permissions.  It did change the owner to the current one but the files and folders still had wrong permissions and so the user could not write to the unit.
Comment: Alternatively chmod +rwx could replace the chmod 777.
Comment: @MartyFried Change your terminal color. It could be dangerous to not be able to read fully.
Comment: @Quidam:  It's also dangerous to set files to R/W for the world.  Changing terminal colors is not very easy, since there are many different terminal programs that might be used, both locally and remote.  I just use chown, and it always works.
Comment: RE: chown.  You need to chown for the directory before mounting, then do it for the folder and files in that directory after mounting to have it work correctly.
Answer: Instead of changing all file permissions, like Luis Alvarado suggested, it would be better to change the file owner - thus keeping the executable bit on any binary and script files that previously had it.
So, assuming your partition is mounted as /media/something and your username is johndoe, you can run
sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /media/something

to change the owner and owning group of /media/something (and all files and directories it contains, hence the -R for 'recursive') to johndoe.
This way, all files will retain their permissions, but since you will be the owner of /media/something, you will be able to write to it and change any file permissions, in case you ever need to.
Answer: Change permission
 sudo chmod -R a+rwx /path/of/folder

Comment: That is exactly the same as what the accepted answer does too, just using different syntax than you.  `777` is the same as `rwx`.
Answer: You can normally do this already, but my advice would be to add the partitions to /etc/fstab so they will be stable and have a location of your choosing.  You can mount them at any existing directory, but conventions seem to be to mount it at /mnt.  To do this, follow these steps:
Create the directories under /mnt; the directories can be whatever name you choose.  I will simply use "MyMount1" and "MyMount2" for an example.  Also, I will use "mylogin" to represent your login name and group; change this to your login account name.
sudo mkdir /mnt/MyMount1
sudo mkdir /mnt/MyMount2
sudo chown mylogin:mylogin /mnt/MyMount1
sudo chown mylogin:mylogin /mnt/MyMount1

You now have the two directories created, with you as the owner.
You need the UUID (Universal Unique Identifier) of the two drives to identify them in the fstab file.  To get these, run sudo blkid from a terminal commandline and find the partitions you want to use.  The easiest way to use them will be to copy and paste from the terminal to the file.
Open /etc/fstab using a text editor such as gedit.  To use gedit, enter
gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Then, enter these two lines at the end of the file  (but substitute the UUID for the xxx.... part, and the directory name for MyMounts):
UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /mnt/MyMount1 ext4 defaults 0 2
UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /mnt/MyMount2 ext4 defaults 0 2

To test, save the file and enter this at a terminal commandline: sudo mount -a; if there are any errors that you can't understand, ask here.  If there are errors and you need to reboot, it may be safest to disable the added lines first by prefixing the line with a pound sign (#) which makes it a comment.
Comment: So what should be the output from the command "sudo mount /a"?       My output was "mount: can't find /a in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab".
Comment: I'm sorry, I don't know how I did that, but I meant "-a", not "/a".  It just means to mount everything in fstab, and is a good way to test for errors.  I'll correct my post.
Answer: I had the same problem and solved it by running nautilus as root, right click on the partition, properties, and changed the permissions (or owner if necessary).
If nautilus is not installed:
sudo apt-get nautilus

Answer: You should be able to mount the partition from nautilus (Ubuntu's default file manager).  If you look at the top left hand side of the window, you should be able to see all of the partitions you have on your drive.  Just click on one to mount it.
However, if you want a given directory to always be mounted on startup, you need to add it to /etc/fstab.  The line that you would add should be something like:
/dev/sda2  /media/part1    ext4    defaults    0   0
The format is
device (tab) mount point (tab) type (in your case ext4) (tab) options (probably "defaults") (tab) dump (tab) pass (probably both 0 in your case)
So basically just replace /dev/sda2 with your device and /media/part1 with your mount point from the example.
If you need more info for editing your /etc/fstab, you could check out this article I found: http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html.


Sheet music with no fractional time signature - how to read?

Question: I can't read music yet, and want to know the time signatures of certain pieces of music. When the time signature isn't explicitly shown on the sheet music, how do I find out what it is?
Comment: Time signature _is_ almost always explicitly shown on sheet music. Anyway I find the question strange – once you properly understand what time signature _is_ in relation to sheet music, it should also be obvious how to infer it from the bars themselves.
Comment: @ToddWilcox, http://imslp.org/wiki/File:KoechlinPaysagesEtMarinesOp63.pdf. It's not _that_ uncommon for free-flowing music. You do learn to infer the metre(s) pretty quickly.
Comment: Can you post an example of music without a time signature?
Comment: @ToddWilcox Erik Satie often wrote music with no time signature or even measures: http://imslp.org/wiki/File:TN-Satie,_Erik-Klavierwerke_Peters_Klemm_Band_1_04_Gnossiennes.jpg (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_time_(music) for more examples)
Comment: As the original question said "when it's not shown on the sheet music," I'm amazed that all the answers so far say that never happens. Of course it does: hymnbooks rarely have a time signature, for example.
Comment: @neilfein Are you sure that's what the author intended? It was my original thought, but he starts the question with "I can't read music yet."
Comment: I edited the title to make it clearer what's being asked, but is "fractional time signatures" really the correct way to say this?
Comment: @GeneralNuisance He can correct me if not.
Comment: I want to know if OP ever learned to read music.  And if he got his question answered.
Answer: I'm not sure why the other answers are downplaying music without time signatures.
There is none to be found on this entire page. No C or anything and C would not make sense anyway. These pieces would have to employ too many different time signatures to reflect what the composer intended.
What I do is observe the timing of not notes and try not to think about that overall time signature, since there isn't one. After you play it a few times strictly observing the timing in each bar you start to feel what the music should feel like. The omission of the time signature is not a mistake.
That being said it is likely the the OP just doesn't know about  the symbols for common and cut time. It is weird that many of the answers above just say that a time signature should always be there or is always shown.
Comment: Umm I didn't want to post the entire thing because of copyright reasons. there are some with bars with 2 beats in them as well. It is only 4 lines and that happens fairly often. It is kinda silly and mean spirited to call an editor lazy because you saw one quarter of the piece that was written down in a collection of 700+ songs.
Comment: No matter how many pieces of music of an editor, it is not appropriate not to write the time signature, unless it is in free time, which this is not. Guidot is completely reasonable here.
Comment: I consider this as *the default is 4/4, and the editor was to lazy to insert time signature changes as to 6/4 and back in the second bar*. The example provides no example of a piece beyond the scope of time-signatures
Comment: It is completely appropriate in this praxis, and common, and done for good reasons.
Answer: A lot of comments aren't addressing this, but if a piece actually has no time signature (not a C, because that would be 4/4, but actually no marking there) then that is called 'Free Time'. In free time, there is no meter and you can let the piece flow. There's no rules as to which notes are accented, such as in other time signatures. It's very interpretive, and there's generally no bar lines either.
Edit: Aaaaand I just realised I'm five years late to this convo. Oh well, my point still stands.
Comment: I think you've added valuable information. I was very recently singing a piece with no time signature AND it was conducted, so we couldn't exactly let it flow. In my head I counted a beat for each quarter note value and then we followed the conductor's hand motions to stay together. It requires a great conductor who can very well outline the flow with their hands.
Answer: I'm guessing that you have music with this symbol in the beginning of the first bar. It means the music is in "common time", or 4/4.

Also, as General Nuisance noted in the comments below, a C with a line through it is the symbol for cut time, or 2/2. ¢ is pretty close for casual use but I'd not use it in a score.
Comment: Please note that a **¢**  as a time signature means cut time.
Comment: Haven't seen that on a page since piano lessons! Good one, adding it to my answer.
Comment: A cent sign is not a good approximation of the cut time marker, especially in the font used here.
Comment: There's a Unicode symbol for cut time, apparently:    (It doesn't show up on my system, but maybe it shows up on yours.)
Comment: Unicode: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1d135/index.htm
Answer: I've never seen a piece of music without a time signature. If it doesn't have a number over a number, it has some form of a C. Since I'm not sure exactly what your asking or what kind of music you're looking at, I've separated this answer into 3 parts.
Ways to write time signatures that aren't normal:
If your problem is not having a basic understanding of how to read time signatures, please skip to the next section of this answer where I will address that.
A plain C means "common time," or 4/4 (as noted above by neilfein.)
A C with a vertical cross through it (much like a cent sign) means "cut time," or 2/2 (also called "alla breve" by smart people ;-P).

How to read time signatures:
A time signature is a fraction. It describes the whole. Even a fraction that is less than 1 describes "one whole measure."
So, that means that we're already familiar with the notation, to a certain extent.
The top number is the numerator (how many things are in the whole) and the bottom is the denominator (what kind of things).
Take: 4/4
The top number in the fraction is four, so we know that there's four "things" in the measure, or beats, as they're referred to. (A beat is a steady pulse, so four steady pulses per measure.)
The bottom number is also four, so we know that the "1/4th note," or quarter note, receives one beat. That's the "kind of thing (beat)."
Great, so in 4/4 we have four beats per measure, and the quarter note gets the beat.

In this case, the first note is a quarter note, which equals one beat. So we have three beats left in the measure.
The second two notes are eighth notes, and two of those adds up to a quarter, so there's our second beat.
The last two markings are quarter rests, of which there are two, and therein lie the last two beats. And so, all of our four beats are accounted for.
We could do this for, ahdunno, 3/4 as well.
We would expect to find 3 beats in each measure, with, once again, a quarter note receiving one beat.
Take this song:

You can see that all the measures have exactly three beats when you do the math.

How to read time signatures where the fraction form is not specified:
If you, in some unusual circumstance (like a test) come across music without a time signature noted in the front, you can figure it out quite easily by "reverse engineering" the meter.
For example:

If we pretend the time signature is not notated at the beginning, we must figure out what it is with what we have. But remember, the time signature at the beginning of a piece is simply an observation about how the rest of the piece is written. It is the symptom, not the cause. Therefore, we can look at the actual piece and come to figure out our time signature.
Once again in above measure, we can see that we have four quarter beats, so 4/4 is an obvious conclusion. However, you may notice that there are other possible answers. Basically, any fraction equivalent to 1 where the numbers are multiples of two. This could be read as
2/2
4/4
8/8
etc...
They're equivalent fractions, that could describe the same thing. This is where it can get a bit confusing, but usually it will make sense if you hear the piece.
4/4 has four big pulses, and those can be divided into two parts (or more) but the four beats remain prominent.
2/2, while it can be read as 4/4, has a fundamentally different feel. It, quite simply, has two beats, and the half note gets a beat. So if you have a measure with four quarter notes in 2/2, it will feel like two beats which have each been divided in half. It's how the music is felt.
I'm getting tired, so I'm gonna stop typing now... I hope this helps, and if you have questions, please comment!
Comment: Some of this is helpful for music where the transcriptions are just sloppy and missing something, but it helps less for music in free time like certain prog rock or impressionist pieces (e.g., the _Gnossiennes_).
Comment: @BraddSzonye Yeah, I didn't really know that free meter existed when I wrote this (learn something new every day!) so I assumed the OP, which said "I can't read music yet," was referring to some music theory test (I've seen 'infer the time signature' tests before)
Answer: If no time signature is written - the most likely place for a beginner to have seen this is in church music - it is because you're not MEANT to work out what it is!  Just let it flow...
But yes, this might just be about not knowing what C means as a time signature.
Comment: I don't understand how the other answers don't address this directly. I know of two pieces with no time signatures in my church hymnal.
Comment: In hymnals it's just not practical to keep changing the time signature, because of the limited space, and because alignment is more important than the indication would be, and because the time signature isn't going to help 95% of the congregation anyway.  And shifting meter is very common in hymns.
Answer: Most pieces have a time sig. Even ones where that time sig. needs to be changed every few bars. It's there as a help to the reader; it saves having to calculate how many of what beats are in each bar.As already stated, it's something after the fact, sometimes not even apparent to a songwriter until the song gets written on paper. When, in some pieces, the time sig changes, it's up to the writer to tell the reader with a new time sig.
If a piece has no time sig. - I can't remember seeing any music without - it's probably because it's in free time. In which case, there should be some barlines to indicate emphases, which is essentially what bar lines and time sigs do.
General Nuisance mentioned equivalent fractions, but you need to be aware that they don't always mean what they say. 3/4 is equivalent to 6/8, but they mean very different things, even though they both add up to 3 'beats' in a bar.
Comment: Sorry Tim but 6/8 normally has only two beats in a bar!
Comment: @JimM - that's why the word  'beats' was written as such. I know what you mean and you're correct. I should put each bar contains the equivalent of 3 crotchets (what I call one beat notes, aka 1/4 notes)
Comment: Exactly, which is why I was so "Yeah, it's like this, but it can be kind of confusing unless you hear the song." For someone who, as I judge the OP to be, does not have as much experience with "feeling music," it could be easy to assume that a song in 6/8 is a song in 3/4, or whatever. I once transcribed a version of "What Child is This" for violin so I could mess with some chords, and even though it was played in 6/8, I wrote it in 3/4 because I just didn't really think about it as 6/8 (although, of course, anybody could tell you that it was... STILL WORKS!!;-P)
Answer: It should always be shown on the sheet music. If it is not numbers and is instead the letter "C", that means 4/4 common time. If it is a "C" with a cross through it, it means "cut time" and it is 2/2.
If you are asking how to read time signatures, I am going to simplify it as much as I can. I found it hard to understand exactly what a time signature meant when I first started playing music.
Let's use 4/4 as an example.
The top 4 means there are 4 beats in a bar.
The bottom 4 dictates what type of beat. It works kind of like a fraction in  this way, 4 is a "quarter note" or a crotchet.
Let's use 2/4 as another example.
This means there are 2 quarter notes in a bar.
What about time signatures like 6/8?
This would mean that there would be 6 beats in a bar. However, they would be a different type of beat than the quarter note. They would be half a quarter note, so an "eighth note" or a quaver.
I really hope I explained it well enough. Music involves a lot of maths, but it's not too hard to understand if explained correctly.
Answer: It's a bit tricky: you have to derive it, here from the lowest bass-note, see diagram. Observations:

lowest note is whole note (= length of 4 quarter notes)
marked red, regular pattern, so you'd draw barlines at the red positions nowadays
crosscheck to the right, by identifying multiples of quarter notes (blue)

So I conlcude: time signature is 4/4.
Comment: Well, yes.  But that's not a complete method.  And as the op doesn't read music...


"Tools are a sound investment that result in..." or "...that results in..."?

Question: If I am using the sentence, "Tools are a sound investment that result(s) in significant gains in productivity.", do I use result or results?  I'm unsure if the verb "result(s)" is acting on the noun "investment" or the noun "tools".
Comment: Singular. Tools are a sound investment. They result in ...
Comment: Parallel flow requires all parts to be parallel. "Tools are great investments." or "Purchasing  tools  is  a  sound investment."
Comment: OMT: "Tools  are  a ..." is the point of error. Of course, I'm being extremely technical; but, that's why we're here.
Comment: This is similar to the following question, but it doesn't have an answer and was closed as a duplicate (wrongly, in my view): [agreement and subordinate clauses](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/393313)
Comment: @scohe001: Sorry, I meant plural.
Answer: I would use "result", because in my opinion it refers to the noun "tools".
But another suggestion I would like very much:
"Tools are a sound investment resulting in significant gains in productivity"
Answer: The correct answer is "results", because its subject is "investment".
But if you want to say that tools result in gains (rather than speaking of an investment that results in gains), there are:

Drew's paraphrase "Tools are a sound investment. They result in..."
Tools are a sound investment, and result in...
Answer: Reduce the sentence to its essentials:

Tools [result/results] in gains.

The choice is plainly result:

Tools are a sound investment that result in significant gains in
  productivity.
Comment: That is not a correct reduction of the sentence. The subject of the verb "result(s)" is "investment".
It is possible that Lucas meant "Tools that result in significant gains in productivity are a sound investment" and decided to postpose the clause "that...gains". But that would be an unusual word-order. Even in that case, yours is not a correct reduction; the correct reduction would be "Tools are a sound investment", and the reduction would not help answer lucas's question.
Comment: When you use an identity (is/are, etc) both parts must match in number. Tools are [both plural] a sound investment [singular]." is wrong, even before the preposition.
Comment: @HardScale English is not as strict as that. True, the subject must match the verb. But it's OK if the subject and verb are plural and the complement is singular. Potatoes are a staple crop. Tools are a sound investment. It's OK to say it that way in English.
Answer: My comments became an answer. Yay!
"Tools are a sound investment that results in significant gains in productivity."
The error here is not in result or results, but the mismatched subject:
"A tool is a sound investment ..."
"Tools are sound investments..."
With each of the above, it is clear from reading aloud which form of verb you would need. The former gets "...that results...," and the latter gets "...results..."
If you really want to have a singular subject you need to put them in a group:
"A SET [singular] of tools [prep: plural contents of set] is [singular identity] a sound investment [singular descriptor] that results [singular verb] in significant gains in productivity."
Comment: I just object to the suggestion that "Tools are a sound investment..." contains an "error". That part of this answer seems mistaken to me.
Comment: There is nothing ungrammatical about using a singular predicative noun after a plural subject or vice versa. "A tool is a sound investment...", "Tools are sound investments..." and "Tools are a sound investment..." all have different meanings and are not interchangeable in all contexts.
Comment: See the examples here: "A verb does not agree with a subjective complement (predicate nominative). It agrees with the subject of the sentence. *Coffee and dessert are the most enjoyable part of the meal. The most enjoyable part of the meal is coffee and dessert. Igor's favorite fruit is prunes. Prunes are Igor's favorite fruit.*" [Instructional Systems Traditional English Grammar](http://utminers.utep.edu/ajkline/u3svagr.htm), J. Kline. I agree that your proposal is a way to work around the problem posed in the original question, and that seems helpful...
Comment: @sumelic Give me an example from a style guide of your choosing. My point isn't about that, necessarily, though. It is the source of confusion for the number of the subject, and the object of the preposition.


Price movements in ETFs

Question: How much money would it take to move the S&P 500 +1% or -1%? How would this be estimated?
Comment: Note that the S&P 500 is an index; it is not an ETF. ETFs tracking the S&P 500 have various tracking errors, so even if you get an answer for the S&P 500, it may not be accurate for the ETF you are looking at.
Comment: Read up on "index divisors". You can use the S&P 500's index divisor to calculate how much a particular stock has to move in order to move the S&P 500 by a particular amount.
Answer: For ease of discussion, I'm going to use the 500 Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) which is a price-weighted index.  Each stock has equal weighting and the daily change is determined by adding up the aggregate change of all 30 companies and then dividing by the index divisor which is currently a bit above 0.14 . That means that the index will move about 7 points for every dollar that a DJIA stock moves.
To move the DJIA 1%, the dollar amount that the stocks would have to move would be roughly:

(Index Value) * .01 / 7

It is important to note that this is the dollar amount that the index must change in order to achieve a 1% change in the index.  It is not the amount of money needed to move the index  because in order to move a stock's price, all volume at current price must be taken out before price will move.  On low volume days, that dollar amount is less.  On high volume days, that dollar amount is higher.  Therefore, the dollar amount varies from day to day.
The S&P 500 is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the 500 largest US companies and therefore, the effect of each stock on the index is not the same.  However, the premise is the same.  You can calculate how much the aggregate change must be to move the index 1% but not the dollar amount needed to achieve this.
Answer: Worth noting that this question is basically impossible to answer, as stock markets can easily collapse or increase with little/no money actually traded, or have the inverse effect, with huge sums traded for no change in price.
The offers available to buy/sell a house that has just started burning down will be radically different than it was before the fire started despite no actual sale being made between the before and after fire bids for fairly obvious reasons.
Conversely, a huge block trade of a company founder's family selling a big % of a company to de-risk can easily be made without moving the dial on any price as the market is fully aware of the sale reason and happy to buy this huge block at market price(s).
This effect basically scales up through all stock indexes and markets.

Price movements in ETFs


Is it possible to reroute a user based off of parameters sent to a Controller?

Question: I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to working with IIS, so I apologize if the question is a bit confusing.
In the application, I have a Controller with a method called 'Login' that takes in a string parameter.  The parameter identifies the organization the user is trying to authenticate against.
For example:
http://mysite1.com/Login/12345

Visiting this link brings the user to a login page for the organization that is associated with '12345' for their access key.
Is there any way to redirect users that are logging in under '12345' to another server?  We have a few beta users that are willing to participate, but the database schemas for both servers are different, so it's important that the beta users are not hitting the wrong site.
After the user logs in, the access key is no longer in the URL, so I can't do matches against it.
I'd like for the user to see the following URL:
http://mysite1.com/Login/12345
http://mysite1.com/Products/
http://mysite1.com/Admin/

While in reality they're on a different server:
http://mysite2.com/Products/
http://mysite2.com/Admin/

I have to emphasize that I really do need the URL to stay 'mysite1' for the user, when in reality they'll be on 'mysite2'.  Please let me know if this is possible or not, or if there's a better solution for it.
Sorry if this is a confusing scenario or if there's some information that I'm missing.  I'll make edits if necessary.
Answer: Virtually anything is possible, but this approach seems really painful.
IIS can perform URL rewriting but it's going to be doing this before it hits the authentication layer so it will not be possible to differentiate users at that level.
It seems like the best option will be to write a custom URL rewriter provider. Looks like this post is attempting to solve it that way.
It really seems better to either redirect to a different server (which I know you're saying you can't do) or merge the multiple versions of functionality into a single app (with different controls/backend models, etc.)
This link may help in understanding a little bit about how the flow works in an ASP.NET MVC app.


Which is the heaviest elementary particle?

Question: Which elementary particle has the greatest rest mass? (For the sake of this question I'll call a photon's rest mass 0, whether it is or isn't [actually, tell me if this is the right thing to do]).
Comment: have you tried looking up elementary particles on wikipedia and looking at which has the largest number under "mass"?
Comment: This question appears to be off-topic because a quick Google search will give the answer.
Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg
Comment: Well, given that the question does not specify Standard Model particle, there could be any of dozens of answers to this question. For example, it is postulated, and highly likely, that if indeed Supersymmetric particles exist, then there are heavier ones than the SM particles. These are just one class of many postulated particles. I think you need to be more specific in your question to get an answer.
Comment: It turns out the answer to this question is a black hole.
Answer: http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2014/04/04/moriond-2014-new-results-new-explorations-but-no-new-physics/
Top quark mass has been revised upward.
Answer: Top Quark, with a rest mass of approximately $\ 173.07 \space GeV/c^2$
.
Comment: @stanleydodds the Higgs Boson is the next heaviest fundamental particle in the standard model.
Comment: ok, is bottom quark the next heaviest then?
Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg mass is number in top left of each box. GeV is larger than MeV.


Dishwasher Diagnosis

Question: I have a Maytag Model mdbh949awb that stopped working without any indication that there was an issue. The cycle type (heavy, normal, light, rinse only) buttons on the left of the latch do not function but the heated dry, hi temp wash etc on the right are working. I checked the thermal fuse and door switches with my multimeter and they are passing a continuity test. When I looked at the ribbon from the LED's to the circuit board I noticed a small dark spot and I am wondering if that could be the issue, and if so, how I could test/fix it. I have attached pics of the cable and the door. I tried looking for a tech info booklet for this and I could not find it (i think the previous owner had the dw apart and lost it). I don't mind replacing the circuit board or the touch pad but I want to be certain of the dx before I spend the money. All LED's light up when I do the field test by pressing high temp wash + heated dry ~ 6x. Any assistance anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Comment: That spot looks superficial to me - it doesn't look like the conductor is damaged. You can test that by checking continuity on the ribbon cable. To get into the ribbon connector, if your multi-meter probes are too big, you may need a short piece of 22awg or so wire.
Comment: Being connected on one side won't affect continuity testing (circuits work in a loop, and all the current from testing is only going over the ribbon cable). You just have to find a spot to stick your probe on (tip: sometimes it's easier to follow the trace and use the solder connection from the next component on the circuit board).
Comment: Unfortunately the other side of the ribbon is connected to to the LCD / Control Panel and is not removable.
Comment: Had a duh moment.  That makes sense
Answer: If this ribbon flexes , it is possible that it is broken. The LED's work that tells you that you at least have some parts of the cable working. The buttons are usually in a matrix - address and row. or a control signal and simply a row. You would be missing the control line in this case. So I would check the circuit board for a bad solder connection where that cable attaches. Checking continuity of the conductors on that cable - I would be flapping the cable a bit (while testing for continuity) to see if I lose continuity - looking for a cracked cable. Obviously this cable connects to a single touch pad.
Simple solution to verify bad touch pad. Trace the wires that need to be connected for any one of these functions (heavy, normal, light, rinse only) then using a jumper wire JUMP them with the wire and see if the function lights up (remember you might need the door switch in the locked position).
If it does not try the same for the other non-working buttons and also one of the working buttons just to be sure.
None of the functions work except the previously defined working function - then your controller is defective.
If the functions all work then your keypad is defective.
Remember you are jumping them on that beautiful ribbon cable.

Dishwasher Diagnosis


Why is there a lot of focus on derivatives pricing and much less on stock pricing?

Question: I am a quantitative finance student, and during the first year of this Master's Degree I couldn't help but notice that there's a lot of focus on derivatives pricing and little or none on stock pricing.
Shouldn't stock pricing be important, for example to help determine a fair value?
Comment: Welcome to QSE. There is a ton of literature on company valuation see e.g. discounted cashflow models (DCF) or dividend discount models (DDM). Perhaps they are more frequently taught in classic Finance programs or MBA's and not in an MFE.
Comment: A "revolution" occurred in modern finance in the 1970s and 1980s after Black Scholes applied stochastic calculus to finance. The field of derivative pricing developed enormously and soon became the major focus of research and teaching in academia. The banks were happy to hire such MFE graduates for their derivs business. The older subjects such as stock valuation underwent no such development, perhaps because stock pricing involves estimates of future cash flows which are necessarily judgemental and imprecise, not subject to rigorous math techniques. Expertise rather than maths is involved.
Comment: Stock pricing models are well known, well understood and relatively simplistic (i.e. the Gordon Growth Model, DCF, CAPM, etc...): therefore due to their relative simplicity, they don't require as much time to learn. On the other hand, derivative pricing models are relatively difficult to learn: therefore they get dedicated more time. Finally, I have never come across a job advert requiring someone to be proficient at **stock pricing**, however I have come across many job adverts asking for **derivative pricing** skills => demand for skills also drives the course content.
Comment: It's a general principle that, the harder something is to do or think about with precision, the simpler our mathematics for it must be.  Determining the "right" price for a stock is so difficult that our associated math is near trivial.  On the other hand, derivatives prices are so constrained (by arbitrage or sometimes portfolio reasoning) that the mathematics can become significantly complex.
Answer: I think the comment provided by nbbo2 answers your question fairly well and is pointing in the right direction. To make the answer more concrete, it's important to note that unlike with other types of assets, derivative prices in the Black-Scholes world are driven mainly by changes in the price of the underlying. This means that the randomness of the underlying asset (described by the typical Brownian motion term) drives both the price changes in the asset itself and in the derivative price. This means that by choosing a portfolio with right weightings of the underlying and of the derivative (go long in the derivative and short in the underlying) you can cancel out the source of randomness (the Brownian motion term) and completely hedge your position.
Pricing equity assets, on the other hand, is much more difficult because, as mentioned by nbbo2, the price depends on a lot of different factors, which means that the models are bound to be less precise (DCF, DDM, etc.).


Constructing graph of points in 3D with edges weighted by distance

Question: I have a set of data in $\mathbf{R}^3$ for which I want to construct a $k$-nearest-neighbors graph whose edges are weighted by the distance of each point to its neighbors. Is there a way to do this without reinventing the wheel, since Mathematica already contains a NearestNeighborGraph symbol? As far as I can tell, it outputs the graph I want but doesn't weight the edges by euclidean distance between the vertices.
Answer: NearestNeighborGraph uses the point coordinates as vertex names.
Therefore, if g is your NearestNeighborGraph then this will set its weights:
SetProperty[g, EdgeWeight -> EuclideanDistance @@@ EdgeList[g]]

Comment: Because graph no longer has 3D `VertexCoordinates`, you rebuild the graph from just the list of vertices and edges, and it recalculates the coordinates in 2D. A 3D point essentially becomes just a name for a vertex.
Comment: Thank you! Right before you posted I figured out a worse way of doing it:
`g =
 Graph[VertexList[#], EdgeList[#],
    EdgeWeight -> edgeLength /@ EdgeList[#]] &@g`. Would you happen to know why this makes Mathematica "forget" about the vertex locations, such that if I display it it no longer shows points in 3D?


Inverse relation graphical shape

Question: I have a few points among two quantities which are inversely related. The points are $(0,20), (1,19)$ and $(5,15)$. I have drawn these points in Matlab but it gives me an inverted triangle which isn't present in the inverse relationship among the two quantities.  Clearly stated, if I have two quantities and they are inversely related, what shape should it show me if I were given only three points?  Please help me.
Comment: Strange, that looks like my editing word for word.   Is there a software problem?
Answer: Any three points when plotted on a plane will appear as a triangle.
Inversely related quanties will appear somewhat like the curve y = 1/x.
Points should appear more or less along such a curve.  It is up to you to decide, given three points, how the curve may lie.  The points will appear as a broken line.  Which side of the inverted triangle to remove will require some thought.
Expecting a quick answer from a computer is often a waste of time.

Inverse relation graphical shape


A Water Jug Problem

Question: Suppose you are given two jugs: a 4-gallon one and 3-gallon one, and neither has any markings on it.
You have a pump that can be used to fill the jugs with water.
What do you do so that exactly 2 gallons of water are left in the 4 gallon jug?
Answer:
 Fill the 3 gallon jug, drop to the 4 gallon. Refill the 3 gallon and use it to top the 4 gallon jug. You'll have 2 gallons on the 3 gallon jug. Empty the 4 gallon and move the water in the 3 gallon to the 4 gallon.
Answer: Fill J4             J4=4 J3=0
Fill J3 using J4    J4=1 J3=3
empty J3            J4=1 J3=0
pour J4 in J3       J4=0 J3=1
Fill J4             J4=4 J3=1
Fill J3 using J4    J4=2 J3=3
Answer:
Fill 3 gallons of water into 3 Gallon jug. (3G Jug=3G water, 4G Jug=0G Water).
Pour it into 4 gallon Jug. (3G Jug=0G water, 4G Jug=3G Water).
Fill Again 3 gallon of water into 3G jug. (3G Jug=3G water, 4G Jug=3G Water).
Now put this 3 gallon water of 3 gallon jug into the 4 gallon jug until it fill completely. As 4 gallon jug has only a gallon water space in it. so 3 gallon jug now contains exactly 2 gallons of water.
Drop out 4 gallons water in 4 gallons jug.
Pour 2 gallons water into 4 gallon jug from 3 gallon jug.

A Water Jug Problem


External database connection in web part

Question: So, I have a web part that needs to connect to a different database other than sharepoint. This is a custom web part that I'm writing in VS, not something built with SPD. How can I connect to the external database?
Answer: I believe Steve hit it on the head. Write your web part as you normally would using OLEDB or ODBC to make the connection to your DB and interact accordingly. Then store your password and connection string in the web.config of the SharePoint WFE(s).
You should use WebConfigurationManager to access the web.config and pull the appropriate keys out of it to use in your script. This way if your enterprise requires annual password changes (or similar) you don't need to recompile and redeploy your code every time the password changes.
Additionally, be sure to encrypt the applicable nodes of your web.config after you store your passwords there. You should never store plain text credentials in a web.config (or any configuration file for that matter). See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dtkwfdky.aspx for more information.
Comment: Am I able to use linq to sql?
Comment: If you're making a custom web part from scratch in .NET, you should be able to do anything that works in .NET. I haven't used that method personally; we've used OLEDB to connect to Oracle and SQL.
Comment: To use linq you need to make sure you modify the web.config to allow the .net 3.5 extensions as well as make sure your WFE's have .net 3.5 installed.
Answer: Just write it how you would in a normal ASP.NET webpart or application.  You can store the connection string in the sharepoint web.config.


Is a MSC Adams simulation with smaller steps always more reliable?

Question: In a given simulation in MSC Adams, if I use a 1 or 0.1 step increment, I get the (favorable) result I intuitively assumed would occur, but if I use step increments of 0.01 or 0.001 a different (and unfavorable) result occurs. One would assume the finer-detailed result would generate fewer simulation false-result-inducing artifacts. Should I always assume the more granular simulation will result the more realistic and reliable result?
Comment: Depends on what you simulate, if you need to simulate contact then you may need more steps as even the adaptive nature of the solver wont help.
Answer: This is a common issue on all numerical methods (not just multibody problems), i.e. the tradeoff between the following three types of error:

Round off error
Discretization
Truncation (sometimes the 2 and 3 are included in the same term).

All of them are forms of quantization error.
These three types have a dependence on mesh size (either spatial or temporal). You can see their dependence, in the following image.

As you reduce the time step (or mesh size) the discretization error decreases, however then what happens is that you get the round off error to increase. Usually, it's the balance between those two that dominates the total error.
Comment: There is no mesh in a multibody system, but the description is more or less the same.
Comment: After running new series, I found the 0.1 step and the 0.001 and 0.0001 (yes weeks running) step runs agreed to the very same result (the 0.1 just giving a chunkier curve). I thus assume the disagreeing 0.01 result was an artifact and may safely discard this result, would you agree?
Comment: The fact that you have [Good, bad, good] results doesn't give me much confidence. Have you tried using 0.02 or 0.12 or 0.09 to check whether that is indeed some strange combination of parameters?


Turn screen off but keep all-in-one PC running

Question: Is there a way for me to turn off the 'monitor' of my all-in-one Windows 10 PC (so that the screen is blank) but have the PC continue running such that typing, mouse clicks etc will still work? Like on a computer with a separate monitor you could turn it off and continue typing.
Answer: I believe you have an option under power settings.  Turn-off Screen after so many minutes.  Just make it ie 5min, and increase Stand by to longer or disable it.  You have to be careful as some AiO, can't wake up screen if it gets turn-off, so you will end up rebooting computer.
Comment: This doesn't do what I need, though, because as soon as I click the mouse or type a key, the screen comes back on again. I basically want to replicate what happens on a 'normal' computer where you can simply switch off (or unplug) the monitor and everything else carries on as normal.
Comment: you can choose which events will wake up screen ie. remove mouse from being able to wake it up.  Obviously there is no physical switch on AiO, so it has to be done via Software, and this is how you can do it in Windows, unless you want to create/find software to do just that.
Comment: How can I choose which events will wake up screen?


Can QGIS preserve layers when exporting a PDF?

Question: I saw this posted about a year ago (Can QGIS preserve layers when exporting to PDF?) but figured it was worth asking again -- is this possible? My usual workflow with ArcGIS is to export to AI then edit the layers that way, is there some way to do that from QGIS? Now I just get everything in one huge layer. Thanks.
Answer: See if this helps with the Illustrator part of your question: Losing large portions of elevation contours from QGIS to PDF
Short answer on QGIS layers to PDF layers support, not yet. My guess would be some form of support might show up by way of the GDAL/OGR providers.
While the version 2 GDAL driver and OGR driver have model-tree layer support for writing PDFs, it's not the same as 'regular' PDF layers.
Sample of Model-Tree (not produced with GDAL/OGR)

The GDAL driver appears to have support for layering an OGR data source over a raster layer (see OGR_DATASOURCE).
Here is some recent discussion on the subject:
GDAL - Dev - [gdal-dev] Geospatial PDF with OGR_DATASOURCE
And some discussion on regular PDF layer support:
GDAL - Dev - [gdal-dev] PDF selective layer sample wanted
There are other libraries, like Cairo and Poppler, but I don't know if anyone is integrating them with QGIS.
Comment: The GeoPDF support is now included in GDAL 1.11 for vector and raster data, but QGIS is not yet able to use it. It can only export a single raster layer to PDF.
Answer: You could try to export it as svg using the simple svg plugin. It keeps layers intact. Then Import the svg in AI. You could then save as PDF from AI if that is your final format.
http://plugins.qgis.org/plugins/simplesvg/
Comment: I know this was forever ago, but I tried that and it put everything into one layer. This was using the print composer, I can't see how to export it otherwise.
Comment: Same problem with QGIS 3.0


Is there a way to add GNOME Night Light to Ubuntu Unity 16.04?

Question: Like the title. If it's possible, how to add GNOME Night Light to a standard Ubuntu Unity 16.04?
Comment: I think you should add the part that you're not looking for alternatives like redshift, f.lux etc. to your question.
Comment: I used redshift, f.lux and others. GNOME Night Light is a part of OS, I mean a night light mode in control panel integrated in system.
Comment: But `redshift-gtk` *is* integrated into control panel on Unity.
Comment: Understood. Just to point out one thing, Night Light is not even available for Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 (shell version 3.18.x). It was introduced in v3.24, so it's there in Ubuntu GNOME 17.04.
Comment: @mchid, you could make your comment an answer.
Answer: I have always used f.lux and redshift. They work great and are easy to use and configure. But it looks like gnome 3.24 has the filter built in, as well as Ubuntu 17.10, which is when Ubuntu switched from Unity back to Gnome.
So to answer your question, no I don't think the gnome night light has been implemented in unity.
https://www.gnome.org/news/2017/03/gnome-3-24-released/
https://www.fosslinux.com/2532/how-to-enable-night-light-mode-in-ubuntu-17-10.htm


Eliminating vertical/horizontal gaps in a seamless grid of images

Question: I am having some trouble creating a seamless photo grid. I have searched the internet for quite a while, and I can't find any solutions.
I have a grid of images that are all square and all the same size. I have eliminated gaps that occur on every row by adding img { vertical-align: middle; }
Now I need to eliminate the vertical white space that occurs in each column.
Here is the site I am working on
Here is a screenshot of the site I am working on
You can see there is about 2-3px of white space the the left and right of the images. I have tried margin:0 and padding:0 on just about everything I can think of.
I have the grid set up using display:inline-block. I need to keep this. I don't want to use floats.
My HTML is pretty simple:

Answer: Do this to eliminate the vertical white-space that appears in each column:
#photos li img { width: 102% }

For example:
Answer: remove width columns.css line 101
Answer: Why don't you want to use floats?  Here's what I suggest:
ul { overflow: auto; width: XXXpx; }

li {
  float: left;
  width: XXXpx;
  margin: 0px;
  padding: 0px;
  outline: 0px;
}

Answer: Thank so much for the quickest response I've ever seen at stackoverflow.
I made a silly mistake though. Since I am using inline-block I forgot that it accounts for whitespace in the HTML. I removed all of the whitespace, and now it seems to work.
@MartinCortez's answers seems to work as well, if I didn't want to fool with whitespace.
Answer: I know this is a little late now however I thought I'd share what I would do, as others may find it useful.
As @davecave said it's a whitespace issue but removing the whitespace in the HTML isn't always ideal.
On the containing element I normally do:
#container {
    letter-spacing: -4px;
    word-spacing: -4px;
}

and on the items that are inline-block reset the values:
.item {
    letter-spacing:0;
    word-spacing:0;
}


Can I reset my infamy with the NCR?

Question: I am a "wild child" with the NCR and I would rather have them not shoot me on sight. I looked back at my old quests and it says I am declared a terrorist and will be shot on sight if I am inside their jurisdiction. Can I reset my infamy with the NCR in any way?
Comment: What platform are you using?
Answer: At which point of the game are you?
If you didn't get the chip back yet, try to do it (you'll have to go to NV so it may be hard). The disguise thing works, so if you have a NCR armor put it on and try to avoid officiers. When you finish the mission and have the chip, a legion and a NCR envoy will speak to you, saying all crimes against their faction will be forgotten.
And, as Aravona said, if you're playing on PC, you can modify your reputation via the console.
Else, I don't see anything possible, I would start to grieve for the clean quest panel if I were you :p.
Answer: Your negative reputation with the NCR is reset once- shortly after you meet House. Aside from the NCR and Caesar resets, there is no way to lower infamy- at least not in an unmodded game. If you're on the PC, console commands can still change rep/quest progress and mods may change this.
Wild Child reputation shouldn't be a problem however, unless you want to do the main NCR plotline. Since it's obtained by having very high amounts of both fame and infamy, it is considered neutral and shouldn't usually result in attacks on sight- even in NCR areas.
If you are considered hostile, use an NCR uniform as a disguise.
Answer: When you get to level 50 you can choose the "Ain't Like That Now" perk. It resets bad karma to 0.
Or you can choose "Thought You Died" perk, which resets good karma. They also both have other perks on their own but I'll let you find that out ;-)
Comment: Isn't Karma different from Infamy though?

Can I reset my infamy with the NCR?


Why does my receptacle tester say open ground on my new outlet?

Question: I replaced an outlet and the tester says open ground. I checked all the wires and they are secure including the ground wire. What could be wrong?
Comment: Did you test the old receptacle? Why did you replace the receptacle in the first place?
Answer: Assuming you didn't reverse the hot/neutral, which should be detected on a standard receptacle tester, it's either a bad receptacle, bad wiring, bad connection between the wiring and the outlet, or a bad tester.

If it's a new receptacle, odds are low that it's bad. Test for continuity from the ground screw to the ground pin inside the receptacle (with the power turned off).
If it's a bad connection, you can do the same test as above, but from the ground wire instead of the receptacle ground screw.
If it's bad wiring, then with the breaker turned on, and with extreme care not to electrocute yourself, a contact tester will not show current between the hot and ground wires.
If none of these tests show a problem, it could be a bad tester, and may be worth checking it in other receptacles or getting a replacement.
Answer: Testing the ground here would be a good way to rule it out. Put one end of a voltage tester to the hot (black), and the other one to the ground, the same pigtail that connects to the ground on the receptacle. You should read the voltage of the hot (between 110 and 120 volts depending on your area).
Alternately, a continuity tester between ground and neutral in residential settings can tell you if the ground is actually connected to anything, but it's best to test under the small load that the tester creates as sometimes loose connections only show under load. That's why I like the solenoid type voltage testers - in addition to the great tactile feedback, they also create enough of a load to cause many problems to show.
As BMitch said, you probably just got hold of a bad receptacle.
Answer: If the outlet is being powered from another outlet you should check the ground at that outlet.  I just had the same problem and the ground wire at the previous outlet had come disconnected somehow.
Answer: When a test says your ground is open, there's a good chance it is.  Just because the wire is secure on the outlet doesn't mean its not open.  Check continuity between this outlet's ground, and another ground reference.
And suspect that the ground might not be connected somewhere else.  Check the main breaker panel, and any junction boxes between it and your outlet.
Answer: Could be that your transformer is not tapped to ground at the XO.   If you have voltage on your neutral and the panel and circuits appear normal.  Chances are your XO is not pegged.     We dont need to make things more difficult than need to be by using big words and fancy definitions
Comment: A receptacle tester only tests back to the neutral-to-ground bonding point...


Problem with Geary's Indestructible Gear

Question: Ok, so in Borderlands 2, when you unlock access to the Eridium Blight, you can go back to Claptrap's Place to find an item called Geary's Indestructible Gear in the fireplace. Supposedly, if you take it, then go to Eridium blight on foot without fast-travel, vehicles, or dying, you can bring it to Geary at the volcano, he'll hit you to take it from you, then jump into the lava and cause rare loot chests to appear. My friend and I did this last night, but when Geary attacked us he didn't do anything unusual. He just attacked us. Did we do something wrong, or did we not understand the challenge correctly?
Answer: From the Wiki:
This Easter Egg can be completed in co-op mode; the other players who didn't pick up the gear must stay far away from Geary, preferably at the base of the volcano. Because of this, completion in co-op can prove to be difficult for some players.


can i merge resolution with float single data type

Question: Can I merge resolution with both image is float single data type?
I have done this, but the output image become white.
Do the data type must be in unsigned-8 bit for the merge to be success?
Answer: I am having difficulty understanding the scenario. One solution, if I understand properly, would be to create a file geodatabase in ArcCatalog.  Create a mosaic dataset within the file geodatabase, and add rasters by right clicking on the mosaic dataset once created.  Here you will be able to set a pixel depth for all rasters being added... such as a 32 bit floating point or 8 bit signed.  You will want to determine the use first, as applying colormap functions require a 1, 4, 8, or 16 bit signed/ or unsigned integer.  You would want to use Signed Integer if you have negative values.  If you are just applying a slope or aspect function, 32-bit floating point will work properly, however once you run a function, you will have to recalculate statistics for the mosaic dataset by right clicking on the mosaic dataset> enchance tab> calculate statistics.


Cannot find directory & Cannot cd errors during usb mount openwrt

Question: What I am trying to do:
I have a TP-Link Router running OpenWRT. I have files on my router in the OpenWRT OS that I want to save to a flash drive.
Steps to complete the task:
1.  I navigated to the dev folder and checked my directory.
2.   I put the flash drive into the router and checked the route directory again
3.  I saw sdc and sdc1 (So I knew that it was recognizing the flash drive).
4.   Before trying to see if I could transfer files from the router to the drive, I wanted to see if I could view the files already on the flash drive.
5.  I tried to cd into the flash drive and got a cannot cd into sdc error.
6.  I tried the step above with sdc1 and got the same error.
7.  I then thought, maybe I cannot cd into the directory, but I can transfer files from flash drive to the router.
8.  So, I created a new directory, /media/usb, according to another stack exchange site answer I found.
9.  I ran mount [destination][source] or mount media/usb sdc. I got a directory does not exist error.
10. I tried the same above with sdc1 and got the same error.
11. At this point, I tried to cd into each directory to make sure they were all valid.
12. I could cd into media/usb, but when I tried to cd into sdc and sdc1, I got a cannot cd into sdc and cannot cd into sdc1 error.
13. At this point, I tried to go to what I originally wanted to do which was save the files on the router to the flash drive.
14. I ran mount sdc filesDirectory. I also tried the same with sdc1, and that did not work as well. I got a directory does not exist error.
I didn't try mount –t ext4… (like found here) because I know the disk is formatted, but I wasn't sure if it was formatted with an "ext4" system or not.
Can someone let me know what I am doing wrong or point me in the right direction? Is there something else I am supposed to do to prep the disk, for example, before trying to use it. I assumed automatic mount on boot took care of the majority of the prep work and that it was working because I could see the drive. I've never tried this with Linux, so I'm not sure I could be going wrong.
Comment: `mount /dev/sdc1 /media/usb`
Answer: This is simple syntax error. You are entering the wrong commands and for the wrong reasons.
Assuming your OpenWRT install has the required packages (block mount, filesystem kmod, etc.), your issues are:
Step 5. You are trying to cd (change directory) into a device. /dev/sdc is a 'special file' (aka a device) not a directory.
Step 9. You created /media/usb but tried to mount media/usb into sdc. Not only is that the wrong way round but you left out the / in the mount command.
The syntax is
mount [device] [mountpoint]
so the correct command would be
mount /dev/sdc1 /media/usb

It's not sdc1, it's /dev/sdc1. You need to specify the full path.
See 5. You can't CD into something that's not a D.
Again, you're using incorrect syntax. Where either or any of the things you refer to do not exist in the current directory you need to specify how to get there.

There's also the issue you don't seem to understand the difference between /dev/sdc and /dev/sdc1. In short, /dev/sdc is the entire device, /dev/sdc1 is the first partition on the device. USB devices are finicky in that, unlike hard drives, it's almost common to put a filesystem directly onto the device, outside of any partition, but it's still not a good idea. Always use /dev/sdcX if it exists.
Comment: I still wasn't able to get it working even following that syntax. It says mounting /sdc1 on /media/usb failed: no such file or directory. But your answer did answer my question in terms of letting me know what I was doing wrong. Thanks for such a thorough explanation! Is there any other reason I might get that error?
Comment: @user461262 You made the same error again. It's mount **/dev/sda1** not /sda1. Any time you get the error "No such file or directory" it almost always means exactly that, make sure the file or directory you've specified is valid and exists, and is in the folder you specified.
Comment: I tried that too. Im in the dev directory and I typed mount /dev/sdc1 /media/usb. I got the same error
Comment: @user46126: Does both /dev/sdc1 and /media/usb exist? Are you sure neither has changed since you asked the question?
Comment: I'm positive. I start at the root and run cd dev. I do ls -a and see sdc, sdc1, and media. Then, right there in the dev directory, I run the mount command. I even did a cd into media to make sure usb was there.
Comment: @user46126: Then folder you created is **/dev/media/usb** not **/media/usb** as you originally claimed. You should not be creating folders under /dev/
Comment: My goodness. That was really simple. I understand what I was doing wrong and that works. Thanks so much for your help.


UICollectionViewFlowLayout performance for Text Grid

Question: I have an iOS 7 app using Storyboards that has the following structure:
UITabBarController->UINavgiationController->UICollectionViewController
I use a custom subclass of UICollectionViewFlowLayout to layout the grid. Each cell contains a single UILabel.
I am trying to render a 5 column grid in the UICVC. There can be upwards of 800 rows (sections, as one row per section). I've based this loosely on Erica Sadun's example code from her iOS book.
The cells all have specific, set widths (2 different widths used). All cells have the same height. The grid is wider than the physical display, and so scrolls horizontally and vertically.
It's all working fine, but performance has been very poor for more than about 30 rows. The problem comes when trying to calculate the custom layout, specifically in the following method:
<code>- (NSArray *)layoutAttributesForElementsInRect:(CGRect)rect
{
    NSArray *attribs = [super layoutAttributesForElementsInRect:rect];

    NSMutableArray *attributes = [NSMutableArray array];

    [attribs enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *currentLayout, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop)
     {
         NSString *layoutItemKey = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%ld:%ld", (long)currentLayout.indexPath.section, (long)currentLayout.indexPath.item];

         UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *newLayout = [self.cachedLayoutAttributes objectForKey:layoutItemKey];

         if (nil == newLayout)
         {
             newLayout = [self layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath:currentLayout.indexPath];

             long section = currentLayout.indexPath.section;
             long item = currentLayout.indexPath.item;

             NSString *layoutItemKey = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%ld:%ld", (long)section, (long)item];

             [self.cachedLayoutAttributes setObject:newLayout forKey:layoutItemKey];
         }

         [attributes addObject:newLayout];
     }];

    return attributes;
}
</code>
The main delay here seems to come from a call to the iOS method:
<code>layoutAttributesForCellWithIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath;
</code>
which is inside the layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath method:
<code>- (UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *)layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
    UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *attributes = [UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes layoutAttributesForCellWithIndexPath:indexPath];

    CGSize thisItemSize = [self sizeForItemAtIndexPath:indexPath];

    CGFloat verticalOffset = [self verticalInsetForItemAtIndexPath:indexPath];
    CGFloat horizontalOffset = [self horizontalInsetForItemAtIndexPath:indexPath];

    if (self.scrollDirection == UICollectionViewScrollDirectionVertical)
        attributes.frame = CGRectMake(horizontalOffset, verticalOffset, thisItemSize.width, thisItemSize.height);
    else
        attributes.frame = CGRectMake(verticalOffset, horizontalOffset, thisItemSize.width, thisItemSize.height);

    return attributes;
}
</code>
Scrolling works fine to a point, then freezes for about 1.5 seconds while the next block of layout is calculated (always seems to be about 165 cells). As I'm caching everything, the next time the user scrolls performance is fine.
If I leave the cell widths to the UICollectionViewFlowLayout default everything flies, with no pauses.
To try to speed things up I have:

Ensured all views are opaque
Set the deceleration rate of the CollectionView to FAST
Made - (BOOL)shouldInvalidateLayoutForBoundsChange:(CGRect)newBounds return NO
I cache any UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes calculated
I cache the first 50 rows on initialisation. There's no noticeable lag doing this, and it allows the initial scroll performance to be a bit better than it would have been

I've run out of ideas for squeezing more performance out of the UICollectionViewFlowLayout.
Can anyone suggest how I can improve the code?
Thanks
Darren.
Comment: When you calculate the attributes in layoutAttributesForElementsInRect, are you just calculating them for the passed in rect or are you calculating them for all cells? How many cells on the screen at once?
Comment: Thanks for the reply. I've edited the original question to add in the code for that method. I'm calling super at the start to get the layout attributes for the elements in the rect, which happens very quickly (using the default UICollectionViewFlowLayout is very fast). I then step through them and recalculate the new layout. The delay only comes when trying to calculate the new layout attributes as far as I can tell.
Comment: so on the newLayout = [self layoutAttributesForItemAtIndexPath:currentLayout.indexPath]; line? Have you overridden that method too?
Comment: I have, again though mainly using Erica Sadun's example code. I've updated the question to add in the code. FYI, the layoutAttributesForCellWithIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath; has not been overridden.
Answer: I've found a solution to the problem, and while it's not a complete answer to UICollectionView performance problems, it meets my needs.
I'm rendering a text grid. The rows are all the same height, the widths of the fields are always the same, and the overall width of a row is always the same.
Erica Sadun's code allows for variable height text cells, for text wrapping I assume. Because of that the layout needs to be calculated for each cell and row. For a grid with more than 100 cells the amount of time required is too long (on my iPhone 4S).
What I've done is to remove all the height and width calculation code, and replace it with fixed values I calculated manually.
This removes the bottleneck, and now I can render a grid with a few thousand cells without any noticeable lag.


Difference between 沿岸, 海岸, 沿海

Question: What is the difference between these words? Which one is the most common?
Comment: @DXV That 沿海 is basically jargon used by marine-related authorities and experts, and they have strict distinctions between 沿岸/沿海/近海 (see [this page](https://jci.go.jp/areamap/) for details). Laypeople are not good at such distinctions, but still have chances to hear the word 沿海 used in reports by such entities. Outside technical contexts 沿海 is actually fairly uncommon.
Comment: I don't think I've ever seen 沿海 in my 25 yrs in Japan. 沿岸 and 海岸 are common, at least in my line of work and in the weather news. Definitions are given here --> https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/kishou/know/yougo_hp/chiiki.html
Comment: @DXV 「沿海」 is actually frequently used. Such as by national TV NHK. Foe example. 「日本沿海に北朝鮮の漁船が多数出没しています」。Translated "Around the Japanese coast, many North Korean fishing ships have been begun to spotted". Though as naturo says, "How far" is hard to define between 沿岸 and 沿海 very technically.
Comment: @Kentaro that must be it then, because I don't watch NHK. :D But really, I haven't heard/read it before. I would hear 日本沿岸に北朝鮮・・・maybe just me (and naruto in his answer below).
Comment: @naruto still doesn't change my experience. Anyway thanks to you and Kentaro for the info.
Answer: 岸 means "shore", or the land along the edge of a sea, lake, etc. Therefore 海岸 is "seashore", the land along the sea. There is also 河岸 "riverside". 海岸 filled with sand is called 砂浜 "beach".
沿岸 literally means "along-the-shore", and it vaguely refers to the area (both the land and the sea) near 海岸. We say both 沿岸農業 "coastal agriculture" and 沿岸漁業 "coastal fishery".
沿海 is a much more uncommon word. The "dictionary" definition is not different from that of 沿岸, but it has some specific uses in some fields. For example, in the airline industry, 沿海区域 is defined as the sea area within 20 nautical miles from the coast.

Difference between 沿岸, 海岸, 沿海


How will I maintain versioning of civicrm in github?

Question: I customized a civicrm. I want to put on github.I cannot maintain a mysql database versioning. How can I do that?
Answer: It's really bad idea to customize CiviCRM core files when you can do thing using extensions. If you feel your customization fixes core issues than you should try to submit pull request against civicrm-core. If your changes are client specific than you can either move those files into custom php or custom template(again bad idea since its very difficult to maintain for future upgrade) or implement JS/hooks. There are many hooks available in CiviCRM where you can alter the content of website or perform additional function that is missing for example sending emails to group admin when a contact is created or change the content of Thank you page of Contribution or Membership signup or Event registration.
If you want to maintain the versioning of db then I would suggest to create extension and implement install/upgrade hook to create/update/delete custom fields or any settings in this way you can version your extension and can deploy on various instances without any hassle. There are also various migration tools available in CiviCRM which is responsible to migrate custom fields, contact types etc from one instance to another. You can also use them to copy your custom fields over staging or production instances.
https://www.drupal.org/project/civicrm_field_migrate
https://github.com/CiviCooP/org.civicoop.configitems
https://github.com/catorghans/net.trinfinity.orgis.mi.dataquality
https://github.com/xurizaemon/civicrm-configexport
Comment: No sir. I add some custom field in contact (pre-define are Individual organization etc) like Question and answer (dropdown). But I want to push on github and then pull on another machine. But Whatever I changed the value, they all are reflecting in database. And database versioning is not possible for mysql.
Comment: Updated my answer!
Comment: I am also changing the permissions of each user. then how can I do that? If this will go in production level and again want to change some fields then data may overwrite.
Comment: Use drupals feature module (https://www.drupal.org/project/features_roles_permissions)
Comment: Please come in chat [link](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/84284/discussion-between-pradeep-nayak-and-dipak-giri)


How to get HOME, given USER?

Question: I have an USER variable in my script, and I want to see his HOME path based on the USER variable. How can I do that?
Comment: Is the `$USER` the name of the user that runs the script, or is it an arbitrary username?
Answer: There is a utility which will lookup user information regardless of whether that information is stored in local files such as /etc/passwd or in LDAP or some other method. It's called getent.
In order to get user information out of it, you run getent passwd $USER. You'll get a line back that looks like:
[jenny@sameen ~]$ getent passwd jenny
jenny:*:1001:1001:Jenny Dybedahl:/home/jenny:/usr/local/bin/bash

Now you can simply cut out the home dir from it, e.g. by using cut, like so:
[jenny@sameen ~]$ getent passwd jenny | cut -d: -f6
/home/jenny

Comment: @muru - that's true - and is spec'd behavior. the `~` does seem to tab-expand, though, and another spec'd behavior of *the tilde-prefix shall be replaced by a pathname of the initial working directory associated with the login name obtained using the `getpwnam()` function* and so probably that lookup is pretty good. i dont like tab-expansions, though - i like to type tabs.
Comment: Note that this only gets you the *initial* value of $HOME; the user's login scripts are perfectly entitled to change it to something else.  This is an unusual thing to do, but I can think of situations where it would be sensible, e.g. choosing between a local and an NFS-mounted homedir.
Comment: @HagenvonEitzen Colons are forbidden precisely because they have been used to separate fields.
Comment: getent is the better answer, specially with remote user. in simpler systems ~user should be enough. Modded you up.
Comment: @RuiFRibeiro you can't use `~foo` with variables in `bash`. Not directly, anyway.
Comment: Should one be prepared for a line `jenny:*:1001:1001:Jenny Dy\:bedahl:/home/jen\:ny:/usr/local/bin/bash` or are colons really forbidden in both full name and home dir?
Answer: You can use eval to get someone's home directory.
eval echo "~$USER"

At least for local users this works for sure. I don't know if remote users like LDAP are handled with eval.
Comment: @nwk an `eval` is needed. Bash doesn't process `~foo` after variable expansion.
Comment: Don't use this without verifying that `$USER` expands to *just* a single string of alphabetic characters.
Comment: @RuiFRibeiro It will work fine with LDAP, just use whatever variable contains your LDAP user's username instead of `USER`.
Comment: No need for eval there. Be careful with your english.
Comment: Interesting, thanks, however this only gets the directory of the *current* user, not of other users. I think LDAP users are not handled, though I can be wrong.
Comment: @Rui F Ribeiro: I agree, $USER is a bad choice. It works with a self assigned variable.
Answer: The usual place is /home/$USER, but that does not have to be universal.
The definitive place to search for such information is inside the file /etc/passwd.
That file is world readable (anyone could read it), so any user has access to its contents.
If the $USER exists in the file, the entry previous to last is the user HOME directory.
This will select the entry and print the HOME directory:
awk -v FS=':' -v user="$USER" '($1==user) {print $6}' "/etc/passwd"

For more complex (remote) systems, getent is the usual command to get users information from the NSS (Name Service Switch libraries) system.
A command of
getent passwd "$USER" | cut -d : -f 6

Will provide equivalent information (if available).
Comment: you have ~user for that, and your solution does not contemplate users in more complex systems, like user coming from LDAP where you have to use getent.
Answer: If the user doesn't exist, getent will return an error.
Here's a small shell function that doesn't ignore the exit code of getent:
get_home() {
  local result; result="$(getent passwd "$1")" || return
  echo $result | cut -d : -f 6
}

Here's a usage example:
da_home="$(get_home missing_user)" || {
  echo 'User does NOT exist!'; exit 1
}

# Now do something with $da_home
echo "Home directory is: '$da_home'"

Answer: If you are logged in as root, if you know USER's password, or if the USER has no password, the following is yet another option:
    su -c 'echo ~' ${USER}

Under standard su behavior, if USER is undefined or empty, then su will attempt to run the command as root.
If the value of USER is not a valid user name, then an appropriate error will be raised: su: user <user> does not exist.
There are already plenty of good answers here but this may still help someone.
Comment: This isn't secure, depending on system config. It runs a process (the shell running echo) as that user, so the user could (for example) ptrace the shell and give you arbitrary output. It's also running in the user's setup, so it's possible that the users shell config files are run (which could also give arbitrary outputs). Or environment loads via pam. Etc. Or just do something as simple as send it a SIGSTOP to make it take forever, effectively DOS attacking your script.
Answer: getent is not reliable...
getent will not work as expected for usernames consisting of all numerics.
Consider username of '0029', getent will return system rpc (in my case, rpc may have a different uid on your system) user details and not username 0029 details.
chown and a few other system commands will also have issues...
see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/310363
Also see getent man page.
/etc/passwd is readable by all, so try
'awk -F':' -v U=$USER '$1==U {print $6}' /etc/passwd

Comment: Link gives "access denied".
Comment: @kikenchitai your link has nothing to do with `chmod` and `getent`, could you check whether it's actually the link you wanted to use?
Comment: I'm also getting "access denied" for the Red Hat page. However, I verified -- @kikenchitai is right (at least in RHEL 9). Manpages are obscure but mention only non-numeric keys are passed to `getpwnam(3)`. As an alternative solution, use `getent passwd | grep '^username:'` (from https://stackoverflow.com/q/35909572/1941654). Either way, we're just getting the passwd database and parsing for the home path.
Answer: Several reasonable solutions are already posted, but all have issues. For example:

getent passwd "${MY_USER}" | cut -d: -f6: Will fail for numeric usernames, as pointed out by @kikenchitai. getent passwd "<value>" assumes UIDs when given numeric values.

eval echo "~${MY_USER}": eval is vulnerable to several security concerns. Additionally, this will fail for usernames with spaces or other interpreted characters.

awk -v FS=':' -v user="${MY_USER}" '($1==user) {print $6}' "/etc/passwd": /etc/passwd does not provide a complete representation of users, hence the need for getent. See read files directly VS getent.
Note: See discussion on using getent passwd here instead of /etc/passwd in comments. In short, one critical caveat of getent passwd is that remote users are often not bulk-listable. getent passwd only lists local users in many cases, whereas getent passwd <UID> also queries remote user databases.

su -c 'echo ~' "${MY_USER}": Requires elevated access, among other security concerns (as mentioned by @derobert).

getent passwd | grep "^${MY_USER}:": Subject to regex injection. Also subject to getent passwd only querying the local user database in many cases.

This is the most reliable solution I've seen so far:
getent passwd "$(id -u "${MY_USER}")" | cut -d: -f6

Explanation:

id -u "${MY_USER}": Get the user's UID. This should reliably work with local and non-local users (e.g., LDAP users via SSSD).
getent passwd "<UID>": Get passwd data for the given UID. This will search all user databases via Name Service Switch (not just /etc/passwd).
cut -d: -f6: Pull the home directory field. This should be consistent across the majority of systems. Most (all?) distributions both assign the sixth field to the home directory and explicitly reserve colons as delimiters without escaping.
Comment: The awk one is trivially fixable - just pipe getent to it instead.
Comment: Note too that `getent passwd` isn't usable everywhere — many directory-based setups prevent listing all the users, in which case `getent passwd` only shows locally-defined users.
Comment: @muru trivially fixable with the caveat just above (and if that's fixed by giving the user name on the command line, the caveat mentioned in the first bullet point).
Comment: Thanks for the discussion @muru and @stephen-kitt -- added some commentary to explain this. I see the same behavior on my hosts, where `getent passwd` with no additional parameters only lists local users.

How to get HOME, given USER?


Can I sell a 1975 Piper Cherokee Archer II with no Logs?

Question: My father had a major stroke and I'm having to sell off his assets to fund his healthcare.  One of the assets is a 1975 Cherokee Archer Piper PA-28-181. Unfortunately, I can't find his logs/maintenance records. It's quite frustrating because he was meticulous about keeping records.  The plane hasn't been in the air in 8+ years. It's always been hangared.  He overhauled the Lycoming engine 15 years ago but didn't fly much after that. Maybe 100-200 hours max.  I know there is zero proof of anything without logs. With that said, is there a way to sell it?
Comment: Could you let us know where in the world you're based. GdD has given a great answer but focuses on the US. If you're in a different jurisdiction the same general advice applies but with different agencies/organisations.
Comment: @Neil Pilots are extremely safety conscious for a reason, their lives depend on the correct working of the aircraft. Not knowing when or if the engine has been correctly maintained has direct potentially catastrophic consequences for you operation. In a car you simply pull over, but in an aircraft, you might crash! Additionally, you also might not be able to [legally *fly* you aircraft anymore](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2484/what-happens-when-the-logbook-of-an-aircraft-is-lost). A service of the engine alone will costs upwards of 20k$. Therefore **yes, logs are important!**
Comment: Lordy, I didn't think to ask @Jamiec!
Comment: I realise that planes are significantly different to cars, but can't you arrange to a have 'full service' done?  You may not have that history, but don't flyers really just want a plane that works and has been serviced correctly?  Isn't there a way to do that, without the logs?
Comment: To make sure: absolutely no logs are availlable? Flight hours, service/maintenance?
Comment: @Neil You can. It just costs $$$. Lots of them. A buyer is taking on a lot of financial risk buying an airplane that doesn't have its logs in order.
Comment: Thank you all for your advice.  I am based in Richmond, TX.  I will continue looking for the logs and try to locate the outfit that overhauled the engine.  The FAA should have records as well.  Thanks again!
Comment: _Can_ you sell it without logs? Of course. You'll just lose a lot of value.
Answer: It's definitely worth getting the records figured out, it will make a huge difference to the price and bring many more buyers. Fortunately all is not lost. Maintenance organizations keep records of their work, it's required by regulation for certified airplanes, how long depends on the work done. Some records must be kept for the life of the aircraft or engine. The FAA holds records as well.
Firstly I would ask around the airfield, talk to people and find out what they know. Pilots often love to talk to other pilots as they share the same disease, and owners like to compare notes on maintenance organizations, so you may find a long-time pilot who remembers some details.
Next is to find the maintenance organization which worked on the airplane, and ask them for help. I'd start at the local FBOs, that is fixed base operators at airports that provide maintenance and support services. If you have one or two at the airport that the airplane is based at that would be the place to start, otherwise look at the closest airports that have FBOs as it's unlikely your father went far.
You need to track down what company did the engine overhaul, showing the provenance could double the value of the airplane. There's only so many shops that do a full overhaul, and they have to keep records as well. The maintenance organization again should be able to tell you, or at least narrow it down.
At the same time you can make a records request to the FAA, you could also call your local FAA field office and ask for help. I'm not a legal expert, I suspect as you are not the aircraft's legal owner you'll need to show power of attorney. You waste nothing by trying, it's what they're for. You can also get a replacement registration and other documents.
Before you start it would help you to find the airplane's airframe number and other information from the airplane's data plate, if I remember it's on the airframe down by the pilot's left thigh, which would be in front of the seat on the left side, riveted to the fuselage.
Other countries work similarly, with requirements for maintenance companies to keep records, so I would still approach this the same way, just change FAA to the civil aviation administration/authority of the country the airplane is registered to.
It will likely be a bit of legwork but an investment time and a small amount of money could get you where you need to be. Good hunting!
Answer: Logs aren't required to sell it. Just put out an ad saying what you know about it. The sale price will be significantly less, but besides finding the logs there's nothing you can do about that.
Whatever information you can collect will help. You can ask the FAA for records of major alterations and repairs (337 forms), which will include some information like the total airframe time at the time of the repair. If you can track down the mechanics who actually did the work you may be able to get information from them as well.
But you're ultimately still selling an airplane without most of the logs, and one that has been sitting unused for a long time. Either you or the new owner will need to sink a significant amount of time and/or money to make it legal and safe to fly again.
You could get it inspected yourself and get it into airworthy condition before selling it. But this would involve time and money. Potentially a lot of both. It would be all to easy to end up in the red, so I don't recommend this if you need the money.
Comment: @Jpe61 Aircraft get sold without logs all the time. It decreases the sale value to be sure, but not nearly to scrap metal level. All it needs is a new annual inspection (which it would need anyway), along with confirmation that all ADs have been complied with (which is going to be more work without previous records).
Comment: Well this wasn't very helpful. An aircraft with no documentation might have the scrap value of the metal or less...
Comment: @Jpe61 Any ADs that are required to be done every x hours will need to be done immediately. One time ADs may or may not need to be done again depending on the AD. Obviously any new ADs since it was last flown will need to be taken care of. TBOs are advisory to begin with so not knowing exactly how many hours are on the engine is not as big a deal as it might seem. If it's been mostly sitting for 15 years it's likely to need an overhaul before TBO anyway.
Comment: That would be very different if (as I understood the question when I read it) if there were zero logs availlable. It would be difficult to track total hours, overhauls, maintenance etc. That's something that can't be shrug off by simple inspection.


I have 1999 toyota avalon and recently when the ignition takes to keep holding the more then usually and when i drive around the lights flicker

Question: I took to the mechanic recently and told me it was air suction was lose stop for a week and then start again same problem
Comment: Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair! If you would, please, take a moment and better describe what's going on in the body of the question (not the title). As it stands, I really don't have a clue what you're asking. Further clarification would help tremendously.
Answer: Have your alternator tested.  It sounds like it is not putting out enough amperage.  The lights would flicker if the alternator is not putting out enough power by itself to run all accessories and you are pulling voltage from the battery.  This will have a side effect of the battery not being fully charged when you go to start the vehicle the next time, which will make it crank slower and thus take longer to start.
Answer: I think you should check all the ground or bonding cables (battery to body, battery to engine, engine to body - whichever ones you have) as if one is broken it could cause the flickering symptoms you mention - leading to stalling, poor battery charging and maybe a damaged alternator.
Comment: Thank you both for your answers if was very helpful.    Turns out it was the alternator


How to estimate 100% confidence interval aka. what is the Z value of standard normal distribution at probability of 100%?

Question: Thinking of the various tests and parameter estimates we perform with 99% confindence interval based on assumption of "normal distribution of errors" I asked myself a question what would be the 100% confidence interval for these estimated parameters ? This leads to formulation of normal distribution value Z at 0% or 100%. Is this virtually infinity or some specific number "big enough" ?
Comment: since the normal distribution has support on the entire real line, it would need to be infinity
Answer:
The normal distribution covers the entire real line from $-\infty$ to $\infty$. To include 100% of the probability under the normal distribution would involve having an infinite range.
A "normal distribution of errors" does not imply that the distribution you use for a parameter estimate is itself normal. For example, an interval for the mean of a $N(\mu,\sigma^2)$ (where both parameters are unknown) will be based on the $t$-distribution (also infinite in range), while an interval for $\sigma^2$ would be based on the $\chi^2$ distribution (which is semi-infinite). Other parameters might be on a finite range. For example correlations lie in $(-1,1)$.

However, in the limit as simple sizes go to infinity, in each of those three examples there will be a convergence of all the corresponding pivotal quantities to normality.
More generally, 100% intervals will typically cover the entire possible range of the parameter. The benefit of taking a smaller-than-100% interval is that you can take advantage of the way the intervals become narrower with larger sample size. A 99.9% interval for the mean of a normally distributed population will tend to shrink as $n$ becomes larger, but a 100% interval won't.
Answer: The normal distribution extends to +/- infinity, therefore to cover the 100% confidence interval you need to cover this range.
You can test this in Excel or Python using the inverse T value (i'm assuming 100 degrees of freedom. Use T.INV in Excel):
<code>In [1]: import scipy.stats
In [2]: scipy.stats.t.ppf(1, 100)
Out[2]: inf
In [3]: scipy.stats.t.ppf(0, 100)
Out[3]: -inf
</code>
Your question about a "big enough" number will depend on your population. For example, for a distribution of the height of people, it makes no sense to have a +/- infinity range, so in practice you might want to truncate your range to say the height of the tallest man in the world.