If Jews make an oath to not do mitzvot which are normally required after an action, is it binding

Question: Inspired by the answer to this question,  is it valid  for Jews to
Make an oath  to prevent  themselves from performing mitzvoth which proceed from their choices, for example  vowing to not do Shiluach haken and then picking up eggs under a bird. Or no, is this different from time bound positive mitzvot and you can't  vow to  exempt yourself. Or would it be that the vow is effective but you would be prohibited from doing what would normally require that mitzvah?
Comment: I'm having trouble reconciling the title with the body of the question- mezuzah is in no way optional, whether one rents or buys a home
Comment: @יהושעק maybe that the vow would prohibit you from living in property?
Comment: @Kirk I think a Mitzvah like the commandment to put a parapet on a flat roof is probably a better example: https://outorah.org/p/23432/
Comment: @Chatzkel bingo. And by that logic, "I won't shoo away any mother birds" is fine, because just avoid bird's nests altogether. If he then encounters one, ignore it and walk away! If he takes the eggs -- either he shooed away the mother and gets whipped for violating the oath, or he didn't, and gets whipped for violating the commandment. "I won't shoo away the mother before taking eggs" would be an invalid oath.
Comment: Mezuzah is optional. You don't need to live in a home with valid doors.
Answer: The Radvaz on the Rambam Shavuos 1:6 discusses a shavua not to wear tzitzis. Although the case is not mentioned in the Gemara, the Rambam adds it in to the list. He explains that it referring to someone who says he will wear a four cornered garment and not put on tzitzis. However, if one would just swear not to wear tzitzis it would be a valid shavua and he simply would be prohibited from wearing four cornered garments

כיצד כגון שנשבע שלא יתעטף בציצית. שיתעטף בטלית המחוייבת בציצית ולא יטיל בה ציצית שנמצא נשבע לבטל את המצוה אבל אם נשבע סתם שלא יתעטף בציצית אין זו שבועה לבטל את המצוה שהרי יכול ללבוש בגד שאינו מחוייב בציצית

This would indicate that a vow that would avoid putting yourself into a situation to become mechuyav in the mitzvah, is a valid vow.
Comment: 1 This source is about oaths not vows. 2 The question asked if it is permitted not if it is binding.
Comment: " Or would it be that the vow is effective but you would be prohibited from doing what would normally require that mitzvah?"
Answer: As we learned in Nedarim (Perek bes Mishnah bes) we can't make an oath to anull a mitzvah. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Nedarim.2.2?lang=bi
The Gemara goes on to say that the reason is that since we made an oath at Har Sinai to do the mitzvos, we can't make an oath against an oath we already made.


Why does it start previous android application?

Question: I am working in eclipse and i have gone through Hello world and LinearLayout but when i start the second one, awd opens Hello world first and than it goes to the second app.
I don't know what do i have to set up to run only chosen app.
Answer: You have to manually kill the previous process running in the emulator (and/or the device) ... you can do so via the DDMS perspective.
Answer: when you run the Hello World application and if you don't back to the home screen using back button that means your still running this application and when you start another application from eclipse your current application goes in background with pause mode so every time whenever you change in another appl and again run you first see the hello world application.
it will maintain the stack of all the activity.


Where should I post questions about configuring Dreamhost/WordPress/Trac/SVN repos to play nice?

Question: It seems like a StackOverflow question because of Trac and SVN (clearly programming tools), but I suppose you could make the case for SuperUser (for Wordpress) or ServerFault (server configuration).
Answer: I know some people may not agree with me, but sometimes, since it's a grey area like Cletus said (and I agree with it), it's better to post in SO, because:

these are tools that developers are familiar with in daily programming. Programmers are Super Users, but Supers Users don't have to be programmers, so I exclude Super User here;

"Play nice" is about user experience, and people who use these tools are programmers (This may be a little controversial, since sysadmins could show some concrete user experiences, but I usually more in personal experience opinions);
you have much more visibility and more chances to have a good answered question in SO since your question isn't too much off-topic;
you can let the community and experienced people decide if it's programming related (SO has more users with higher reputation and they can decide if your question isn't so programming related).

The 3rd motive is what I think really drives people to decide which website to post questions.
Answer: It's a grey area.
Questions can potentially belong on any of the three sites and the line can be blurry. Configuring MySQL might well be considered a serverfault question but then again it can relate to programming issues as well. You'll find questions on SO about PHP session config and similar for this reason.
This is the problem when you try and create demarcation on related subject areas by site. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't do that. We just need to accept there are grey areas.

Trac: probably not SO as it's not really programming related. SU/SF depending on if its a usage or admin issue;
Subversion: SO;
Wordpress: potentially anywhere. You'll find Wordpress questions on SO. If it's about installation or admin, probably SF. Writing code for it then definitely SO.

But that's just my opinion. Just use your best judgement.
Comment: Trac not programming related? I don't see that. An old job of mine used Trac for software documentation. I think some Trac usage is programming related. But I agree on the other points. I think I'll post it on SO, since it might involve changing Wordpress code.
Answer: Honestly? None of the above. I'd expect you'd do better on forums specific to that product. Particularly since it's such a Big Ball of Mud product, combining so many other items together.
Comment: if you want to break it apart into specific topics that are appropriate, that's fine by me.
Comment: I asked on Stack Overflow, and it turned out to be an htaccess problem. Fixed in less than an hour with on Stack Overflow (question 1597505, if you are interested). Now, SO has a resource to help developers who have problems with Wordpress and SVN and/or Trac. Isn't that your goal?


How do you make maps in Flash CS4 and then use them in iPhone games?

Question: I was watching a video showing an ngmoco rolando2 level designer.
He seemed to be using flash CS4 to make the maps.
Would anyone know how I would go about doing this?
Just in case you need to know, I am an intermediate programmer, I know both Java and Objective-C pretty well.
Answer: I don't know if any of what I'm about to say is true or not, but hopefully my input will be helpful:
It could be simply that the level used in Rolando are simply vector graphic images and the designer you saw in the video simply preferred Flash CS4 as his vector editor?
Again, I could be wrong here.
It's also possible that the game has some code that decodes flash files into usable levels somehow - assuming this would be permitted by Apple in regards to their "no interpreters" rules.
My final thought, which in my opinion would be the least likely, is that the game may be a flash game compiled to run on the iPhone using Adobe's beta flash-iphone SDK. I say this would be the least likely as I believe ngmoco haven't used this method in any of their previous games and I don't see why they would suddenly resort to this method of developing iPhone apps.
Answer: In my game Hudriks I also used flash to design levels and even make some animations.
There is no any tool to do this, so you need to develop it yourself with requirements for your game.
First of all, it depends on your game and what exactly you need to design in flash - just putting images, defining their parameters (bonus values), ground path, etc.
After that it is important to define structure of your flash file - how you store different levels (in symbols or scenes), what layers for each level you have (boundaries, objects, obstacles, etc).
If you need to have some extra information for you objects in flash, most probably, you will need to develop custom panel in flash to setup all parameters. I used setPersistentData for storing information for flash objects.
After that you need to develop script that goes through all objects in your symbols and extracts basic information, like transformation, and your custom data. I faced some problems with getting correct transformation values, especially for rotation. Had to do extra heuristics.
For animations I just used motion tween data. In my animation framework did simple implementation supporting basic parameters (transformation and alpha) and only linear curves. Fortunately, in Flash CS4 there is function copyMotion that gives you XML for the animation. You just need to parse it or convert to your own format.


Is it possible to play New Leaf on multiple systems with a cartridge?

Question: If my brother and I each have a 3DS or if someone has multiple systems, is it possible to play it on both systems, assuming you have a physical cartridge of the game?
Comment: Do you mean play together or just, will the game work from one 3DS to another? I'm a little unsure what you're asking. Like, are you asking if you can have multiple save files?
Comment: @Zorpix: Either way. Either having a save on each 3DS or just playing in the same town on multiple systems.
Comment: Well there is no download play, so you would need two cartridges to play together. What me and my girlfriend do is share a cartridge, I'm the mayor of the town, and she has her own save file that lets her be a resident in my town.
Comment: @Zorpix: That's what I'm asking, if it's possible to share a single game card.
Comment: with that information, I posted an answer :)
Answer: Yes. It is possible for you both to play on one game card. However, the game saves to the cartridge, not the actual system itself. Therefore, you will have to share the same town. The only problem is that one of you will be the mayor, and the other will be a resident in the town. It doesnt affect much except your ability to create public works projects and create ordinances, really something the two of you can discuss in person and work out in the real world. Other than that, the game will be almost identical, except for some of the villagers not calling you the mayor.
Here's a discussion on the official Nintendo forums about using the same cartridge on multiple 3DS systems.
Have fun!
Comment: I added a link to the official Nintendo forum. Although no moderator took part in the discussion, this should be credible enough a source for the bounty, I hope.
Answer: Yes, it's possible since the game data is stored in the cartridge itself, but Nintendo has made an application available on eShop that allows you to transfer game data into SD Card. So you can use the same cartridge on different systems, but with different game data. Or, you can leave the game data on the cartridge and play, but one of you guys will gonna be a mayor, while the other will not.
Comment: @Ullallulloo As far as I know you can only transfer cartridge save data to a 3DS for use with a digital copy of the game. The transfer is one-way only and does not work the other way around, so it's **not** a backup and thus the transferred savegame **does not** work with the cartridge version of the game. It should be explained somewhere on the 3DS e-shop.
Comment: If so, that's cool. Have you tried this? Does the backed up data still work with the game card fine? I thought that was mostly just a backup tool. I also thought that I heard something about it storing a key of the last play on both the system and the game card to prevent cheating, but I wasn't sure how it worked.
Answer: Basically, you guys can play on the same game cartridge but have different save files.


Does Microsoft provides any way to get the list of running Processes under Windows phone 8?

Question: I know that there was no way to get a list of running processes till Windows Phone 7 and in a way my question is similar to this question on Stack Overflow. However, I just happened to look a link on windowsphonehacker which displays a list of running processes on Windows phone and I'm not very sure I got how he did this. Does Windows 8 provide any way to get the list of running processes if not control them?
Answer:
Naturally, this will require a developer-unlocked device.

So, sure, you can call verboten api functions.  You just need to reverse-engineer which ones are available on a phone.  Kinda typical of these kind of blog posts, they never tell you what you really want to know.  You can probably get somewhere by copying the operating system DLLs off the phone and running Dumpbin.exe /exports on them.
Answer: There are no supported APIs for this on Windows Phone 8.
(By the looks of it that process viewer uses some unsupported APIs - which are blocked if you were ever were to submit an app containing them to the Store).


What is the significance of colour purple in the robe that Jesus was made to wear?

Question: Was there any significance to the colour purple, as described by the evangelists while mentioning the robe that Jesus was made to put on before His crucifixion? Both John 19:2 and Mark 15:7 mentioning the colour, would seem to signify that the colour did convey something, but what?
Answer: Purple in the Roman Empire was associated with triumph, and came to be associated with the Emperors specifically. Along with the crown of thorns, the purple robe was a mocking symbol of Jesus' royalty.
Comment: At the time of Jesus, the dye used for making the colour purple, extracted from shell-fish,  was one of the most expensive dyes. The colour-fast (non-fading) dye was an item of luxury trade, prized by Romans, who used it to colour ceremonial robes.
The very fact that purple was an expensive color made it affordable only to the royals. That Jesus was made to put it on before his crucifixion, implies that the Romans were sending a strong signal to the Jews against any coup.
Answer: Was there any significance to the colour purple, as described by the evangelists while mentioning the robe that Jesus was made to put on before His crucifixion?
The colour purple in antiquity did not always have the same significance or symbolism as it does in our modern culture.
In ancient times, purple symbolized royalty, nobility and imperialism. To a lesser degree it became associated with spirituality and holiness. In modern times purple symbolizes penance and Lent.

Purple symbolizes royalty, nobility and imperialism. In many European societies, the symbolism was even established by law: From ancient Rome to Elizabethan England, "sumptuary laws" forbade anyone except close members of the royal family to wear the color.
Purple's elite status stems from the rarity and cost of the dye originally used to produce it. Fabric traders obtained "Tyrian purple," as the dye was called, from a small mollusk that was found only in a region of the Mediterranean Sea near Tyre, a Phoenician trading city located in modern-day Lebanon. More than 9,000 mollusks were needed to create just one gram of Tyrian purple, and because only wealthy rulers could afford to buy and wear fabrics dyed with the color, it became associated with the imperial classes of Rome, Egypt and Persia.
Another consequence of this is that purple also came to represent spirituality and holiness, because the ancient emperors, kings and queens that wore the color were often considered to be gods or descendants of the gods. - How 8 Colors Got Their Symbolic Meanings

How the symbolic meaning of purple went from meaning royalty and the rich to the modern meaning of fasting, penance and Lent is not truly understood and may always remain a mystery.

In the twelfth century, Pope Innocent III was the first to specify the colours of the vestments that were to be used for the Roman Rite; almost certainly this reflected prevailing custom in Rome, not an invention on his part. Although a separate subject from this article, it is well to remember that it was only towards the end of the 1st Millenium that the question of vestment colour became a significant one. Black was designated for penitential and funeral liturgies, but violaceus was indicated as a substitute for black. Pope Innocent's treatise De sacro altaris mysterio (Book I, chapter 65, which was written before his election as pope in 1198) seems to be the first indication that violaceus had come to be regarded as a penitential colour for the Roman Rite. - The Liturgical Colour violaceus in the Roman Rite

It is obvious that the Romans were mocking Jesus' royalty and divinity with this purple cloak.
Answer: It is full of significance.  The symbolism of not just the purple, but all four colors of the robe viewed in the Gospel accounts from points of view.

Heb. 10:19-20 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

This then relates to the pattern of the tabernacle of Moses wherein the veil was made of four colors.

Ex. 26:31 And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made:

Blue [tekeleth], purple [argaman], scarlet, linen.  So we see Christ clothed in the same, although the two purples refer to the blue and the purple and gorgeous may be translated white, like white linen.

John 19:2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple [porphyrus] robe,
Mt. 27:28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet [kokkinos] robe.
Mk. 15:17 And they clothed him with purple [porphyra- purple fish],
Lk. 23:11 And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous [lampros- white] robe, and sent him again to Pilate.

So, the color purple may have also related to royalty, but the primary point was to show Christ came in the flesh.
Answer: Emperors wore purple togas, so it was a way to make fun of Jesus after He claimed to be the Son of God, which He was.
Answer: In Numbers 4, all items in the tabernacle, when moved, are covered first with blue (HEAVEN)  then the outer 'badger skin' (porpoise, or whatever).
However, in v. 13, the brazen altar (identified by context) is to be wrapped in purple.
The brazen altar, signifying both the humanity and the atonement of Jesus, would seem to indicate that during the suffering and disgrace, his was STILL king, and (in fact) was robed in purple at the time.
This verse 'could' be seen as a prophetic picture of the tortured Christ.
Comment: Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).


Which side of a sink should I install a garbage disposal in?

Question: I am about to purchase a garbage disposal to install myself. Our kitchen sink has a large, deep side, and a small, shallower side. Which side is more appropriate to install the disposal in?
Comment: There is a significant advantage to installing the garbage disposal on the shallow side. This places the unit up higher under the sink and leaves more clearance under the disposal.
Comment: I agree that the disposal, if you're going to have one, belongs on the wash side rather than the rinse side -- assuming you're doing a two-basin technique, which many people haven't learned or distrust for some reason. Personally I would probably be using the deep side of the sink as wash, but obviously others feel otherwise. Mine's two equal basins so the question hasn't arisen.
Comment: Mine is currently on the small(left, dishwasher) side and I hate it. I wash dishes in the dishwasher not the sink. However I want to get the junk off my dishes namely the large frying pan before I put them in the dishwasher. All the junk ends up in the big sink, I have to transfer the junk to the little sink for the garbage disposal. I can't use the little sink for defrosting or cleaning vegetables because the strainer can't be stopped due to the garbage disposal ring. It's just not designed for that. I suppose I could use a rubber thing but this is the 21st-century, and I'm spoiled. I can't w
Answer: The small bowl is typically called a veggie bowl. The idea is that you use the large sink for cleaning dishes or soaking and then the other sink is available for prep usage, peeling etc.  So, the disposal would go on the small bowl.
Comment: I'm unclear which side you believe the disposal should be installed in...??
Comment: and so if you use the small bowl for peeling, then you'd want the disposal on the small bowl?
Answer: I've always seen the garbage disposal installed on the smaller bowl. I'm not aware of any official convention or rule that says which side should be used, that's just what I've noticed.
Answer: I always install into the smaller bowl. (experienced but non-professional opinion)
If you think about it, the only thing that would prevent access to the disposal is a sink full of water. I'd rather have the larger bowl available to fill up with water and still allow access to the disposal. If the user wants one bowl of water and still use the disposal, it could be frustrating to have to fill the smaller bowl.
Answer: I would say that 90% of all sinks with 60/40 splits have the disposal located in the smaller of the two areas. It only makes sense. A lot of people say they want them on the side they wash dishes in. I would be willing to bet that when they have theirs installed on the wash side that eventually they will be rinsing on that side instead of washing. Again, it only makes sense to be able to use the disposal for that forgotten plate or leftovers that have been stored too long while doing dishes in the other sink.
Comment: I agree with the rationale,  but reach the opposite conclusion. Assuming one wants one of these monstrosities in the first place.
Answer: I personally would install on the deeper side.  Due to food particles from hand washing done in the sink flowing to the disposal and easier clean up.  Just my opinion. Don't think there is a rule per se on which is correct or incorrect.
Comment: That was our thinking when we bought our new home. The builder, of course, charged us an exorbitant fee to make this "design change". But other than that, we've been very happy to have the garbage disposal on the larger bowl. (We have a 30/70 configuration.)
Answer: I know my answer is going to raise some eyebrows but here it is... If budget permits, I recommend installing 2 disposals, one on each side of the sink.
PROS:
1) flexibility in which side of the sink you want to wash/rinse/prep food
2) can use 2 different sizes (H/P) of disposals
3) less wear-and-tear on each disposal
CONS:
1) reduces cabinet space underneath
2) more costly to buy/install 2 disposals, compared to 1 disposal
It's worked-out well for me and hope it helps others, too!
Comment: Do you have 2 separate switches for each disposal?
Answer: Placed in the big one allows to scrape food from big pots and pans directly to the GD.
Small one let's you defrost turkeys, and other meats efficiently.
This setup works better if you have a dishwasher on the side of the small one.
InSinkErator tutorial video has it this way too
https://youtu.be/b4weX2rnm24
Comment: And it can be set up left-handed or right-handed.
Answer: Personally, when I'm hand-washing things I use the semi-industrial approach of wash basin to rinse basin to drying rack. That works best with two full-depth basins, and if the drying rack is on the right (as mine is) the right-hand basin is the rinse and left-handbasin is the wash. The wash basin is the one that will have almost all the food scraps in it, hence if you're going to have a disposal that's the one which needs it most.
Others use other approaches, but my point is to consider what you're using each basin for and where the disposerable scraps will be.
Answer: I'd like it further away from the dishwasher which is on right side of the sinks. Large sink is on the left, shallow one on the right. There is bacteria in the gb so I set it up on the left with soap dispenser and on the right is  air gap and filtration water faucet.
Angie of San Diego
Answer: I'd like it on the shallow side to give me the most range in height for the drain lines going out the disposal, through the trap, and into the wall. The disposal lowers the drain line several inches to go through the disposal itself. Every inch of height can matter when getting the kitchen sink to drain properly.
Depending on your disposal and sink, installing on the deep sink could result in the output of the disposal being below the drain connection in the wall, which would result in water needing to flow uphill, and water doesn't flow very well in that direction.
This has the added benefit of more room under the disposal for storage.


What is the origin of the first dynasty in Scotland?

Question: Who gave anyone the authority to appoint themselves and hence start a royal line? I assume today's royalty come from this royal line The standard answer is Kenneth Macalpine as far as I can see with lesser kings before him, I assume between Scotland and England this where out modern/current royals come from, I was trying to pinpoint exactly where the royalty came from in the first place, I take it they were generally self appointed. Scotland has immense amount of history, very difficult working where things originate from, it seems like the Vikings were possibly the root of most of history or royals
Comment: What I am getting at is, who gave anyone the authority to appoint themselves and hence start a Royal line, I assume today's Royalty come from this Royal line
Answer: Óengus Olmucaid was a high king of Ireland who also conquered and ruled Scotland in approximately 1000 BC. Around the time of Jesus there was a large emmigration to Albion (Western Scotland) at which time the kingdom of the Dal Riata was firmly established. Later Scottish rulers invariably descend at least in part from this kingdom, the Kings of the Dal Riata. The Dal Riata was founded by Riata Rugaidh (Red Hand).
Kingdoms are founded by force of arms. A king derives his right from being recognized by the soldiers who have conquered a place.
Comment: This answer implies a level of historicity to events before about 500 AD that simply does not exist. Medieval Scottish royal origin myths claimed descent from the kings of Dal Riata around 500AD, but even the existence of the earlier kings of Dal Riata is dubious. Anything before then is in the realm of legend at best.
Comment: People have a tendency to call the histories of others "legends", but when it comes to their own history, then it is fact. How would you like it if I called the Pentateuch or the Saxon Chronicle just a bunch of "legends"?
Comment: The Anglo Saxon Chronicle is a good source (by the standards of the time) for England in the period roughly 800-1100. That's because it was being written in the years 800-1100. 'Legend' is a reasonable description of accounts which are written down (say) in 800-1100 which refer to events in the year 500AD, or 1AD of 1000BC and have no earlier provenence. You in any case don't cite any sources to support your account, so that's rather moot.
Answer: 843 AD
According to Wikipedia (right hand side of article) the foundation of Scotland was 843AD.
Scotland, Wikipedia

Established 9th century (traditionally 843)

Kenneth MacAlpin
The king during this period is widely believed to have been Kenneth MacAlpin, as you have already expressed.
Kenneth MacAlpin, Wikipedia

Kenneth MacAlpin (Medieval Gaelic: Cináed mac Ailpin, Modern Scottish Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein;[a] 810 – 13 February 858), or Kenneth I, was the King of Dál Riada (841–850), the King of the Picts (843–858), and the King of Alba (843–858).

Kenneth I by Alexander Bannermann

Kings of Alt Clut
There are other kings of course which predated Kenneth MacAlpin in the area that became Scotland, but those were just local kings, such as Ceretic Guletic, who according to the "memiors of Saint Patrick" was the king of Alt Clut in the 5th century.
Ceretic Guletic, Wikipedia

Ceretic Guletic of Alt Clut was a king of Alt Clut (modern Dumbarton) in the 5th century. He has been identified with Coroticus, a Brittonic warrior addressed in a letter by Saint Patrick. Of Patrick's two surviving letters, one is addressed to the warband of this Coroticus. Bemoaning the capture and enslavement of newly Christianised Irish and their sale to non-Christians, Patrick includes the imprecation:1

Kings of Dal Riata
Also the kings of Dal Riata.
Despite the fact that certain historians on Wikipedia are sure that Fergus Mor of Dal Riata is mythological, they are certain that his grandchildren are descended from him. Though it may only be his historical career they are disputing, and not his actual existence as a petty king.
Fergus Mor in early sources, wikipedia

These sources, while they offer evidence for the importance of Fergus Mór in Medieval times, are not evidence for his historical career. Indeed, only one king in the 6th century in Scotland is known from contemporary evidence, Ceretic of Alt Clut, and even this identification rests upon a later gloss to Saint Patrick's Letter to Coroticus. The first kings of Dál Riata whose existences are reasonably sure are Fergus's grandsons Gabrán mac Domangairt and Comgall, or perhaps his great-grandson Áedán mac Gabráin.

King of Picts
Also there were historical Pictish kings, such as King Bridei III.
Bridei III, Wikipedia

King Bridei III (or Bridei m. Beli; O.Ir.: Bruide mac Bili) (616/628?–693) was king of the Picts from 672 until 693.

Fergus I
Then we have Fergus I from 330BC, whom it is claimed was king of Alba, though there is absolutely no way of proving this, and so Fergus I is considered legendary at best.
Fergus I, Wikipedia

King Fergus I (said to have flourished c. 330 B.C.),1 is generally identified as the son of Ferchard, Prince of Scots in Ireland and is the first of the line of Legendary kings of Scotland.

I was trying to pinpoint exactly where the Royalty came from in the first place
They appear to come from different directions.
Take for example Cerdic of Wessex, he is believed to have been king of the Saxons and is said to have been originally king of the Gewissae, yet there is no mention of any connection anywhere between petty kings north of hadrians wall, and the Gewissae and it is likely that any suggestion that there were familial connections, would likely not go down well with either side.
Cerdic of Wessex, Wikipedia

Cerdic (/ˈtʃɜːrdɪtʃ/; Latin: Cerdicus) is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a leader of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, being the founder and first king of Saxon Wessex, reigning from 519 to 534 AD. Subsequent kings of Wessex were each claimed by the Chronicle to descend in some manner from Cerdic. His origin, ethnicity, and even his very existence have been extensively disputed. However, though claimed as the founder of Wessex by later West Saxon kings, he would have been known to contemporaries as king of the Gewissae, a folk or tribal group. The first king of the Gewissae to call himself 'King of the West Saxons', was Caedwalla, in a charter of 686.4

Cerdic of Wessex by John Speed

I take it they were generally self appointed.
Though there is no citation given, Wikipedia claims that James VI and others, claim ascendancy from Fergus Mor.
Fergus Mor in later accounts, wikipedia

Buchanan's king, James VI, shared the scholar's view of the origins of his line, describing himself in one of many verses written to his wife Anne of Denmark, as the "happie Monarch sprung of Ferguse race". Nor was James VI the last ruler to share this belief.

James VI by John de Critz

it seems like the Vikings were possibly the root of most of history or Royals
Whilst it can't be proven that this is, or is not the case, that is not what they claim.
Take Fergus Mor for example, it is claimed in the Book of Lismore that Fergus assumes ascendancy from a lineage dating back 46 generations, and the legendary Fergus Mor and his historical children already predate the Vikings.
Fergus Mor in early sources, Wikipedia

The Senchus and the Duan name Fergus's father as Erc son of Eochaid Muinremuir. A Middle Irish genealogy of the kings of Alba gives an extensive genealogy for Fergus: [Fergus] m. h-Eircc m. Echdach Muinremuir m. Óengusa Fir m. Feideilmid m. Óengusa m. Feideilmid m. Cormaicc, and a further forty-six generations here omitted.2

Irish high king list
Basically, they all claim ascendancy from kings before them. The king list they claim ascendancy from is the Irish high king list, which is claimed dates back to around 1500BC approximately, and can be viewed in this irish high king list here
First Royalty in Scotland?
In actual fact, the first king of Scotland would be Duncan I.
Duncan I, wikipedia

Donnchad mac Crinain (Modern Gaelic: Donnchadh mac Crìonain;1 anglicised as Duncan I, and nicknamed An t-Ilgarach, "the Diseased" or "the Sick";2 c. 1001 – 14 August 1040)3 was king of Scotland (Alba) from 1034 to 1040.

King of the Picts
Quite simply, Kenneth MacAlpin could not have been king of Scotland, because Scotland was not the only kingdom north of hadrians wall during his reign, and his true title was king of the Picts, according to Wikipedia.
Kenneth MacAlpin, wikipedia

Kenneth I is traditionally considered the founder of Scotland, known then as Alba, although he himself, like his immediate successors, bore the title of King of the Picts.

Malcolm II
Even Malcolm II, who directly preceeded Duncan I, was only king of the Scots, which is not the samething as king of Scotland, much like king of the Saxons is not the samething as king of England.
Malcolm II, Wikipedia

Malcolm II (Gaelic: Máel Coluim mac Cináeda; c. 954 – 25 November 1034)2 was King of the Scots from 1005 until his death.3 He was a son of King Kenneth II; the Prophecy of Berchán says that his mother was a woman of Leinster and refers to him as Forranach, "the Destroyer".4

To the Irish annals which recorded his death, Malcolm was ard rí Alban, High King of Scotland. In the same way that Brian Bóruma, High King of Ireland, was not the only king in Ireland, Malcolm was one of several kings within the geographical boundaries of modern Scotland:

Duncan I, 1001AD was first king of Scotland
So, regardless of the petty local kings that preceeded Duncan I, as well as the semi legendary, legendary and mythological kings, Duncan I was the first to be crowned "King of Scotland".
Duncan I by Jacob de Wet II

What is the origin of the first dynasty in Scotland?
Since i answered the question, the wording has been changed to something different than i answered.
But the origin of the first dynasty in Scotland was house of Alpin, and it was the Alpinid dynasty
Kenneth MacAlpin, wikipedia

Kenneth MacAlpin (Medieval Gaelic: Cináed mac Ailpin, Modern Scottish Gaelic: Coinneach mac Ailpein;[a] 810 – 13 February 858), or Kenneth I, was the King of Dál Riada (841–850), the King of the Picts (843–858), and the King of Alba (843–858). Inherited the throne of Dál Riada from his father, Alpín mac Echdach, the founder of the Alpínid dynasty.

House of Dunkeld
Though, by the time king of Scots had became king of Scotland, it was House of Dunkeld which Duncan I belonged.
Who gave anyone the authority to appoint themselves and hence start a royal line?
According to traditional mythology, they are descended from the pharoahs.
Scota, wikipedia

Scota and Scotia are the names given to the mythological daughters of two different Egyptian pharaohs in Irish mythology, Scottish mythology and pseudohistory.1
Answer:
What I am getting at is, who gave anyone the authority to appoint themselves and hence start a Royal line, I assume today's Royalty come from this Royal line

At the time, anyone with an army could make himself King of whatever area he could conquer and hold. Constitutions, and prescriptive laws about succession, came rather later. Also, the current British royal house is not from the original Scottish line. They may be related to it, but they don't hold the throne because of that.
The current Royal House is the House of Windsor. They changed their name from "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" in 1917, because the First World War had aroused considerable amounts of anti-German feeling in the UK. The house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had acquired the throne in 1901, when it was inherited by Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, of the previous house of Hannover, and Prince Albert, who had married Victoria.
The House of Hannover had held the throne since George I had inherited it in 1714 under the provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701. Note that at this point, the UK Parliament had decided who the next monarch would be, without any necessity to follow the customs of inheritance, and it retains that power to the present day.
The Hanoverians were preceded by the House of Stuart, who may have had descent from Kenneth MacAlpin, but that wasn't why they held the Scottish throne. They took the throne of England in 1603, essentially via political agreements. They had held the throne of Scotland since 1371, having acquired it by marriage to the eldest daughter of David II of the House of Bruce.
It's all really complicated, and any assumptions made without knowledge of the history will only be correct by accident. Here is a page about some of the imaginable alternate successions.


Windows 7 Exploits

Question: I just found my old, Windows 7 Ultimate installer DVD, so I thought I would set it up in a pentest-lab type environment, see what's possible and have some fun with it. So are there any publicly available exploits that target the default Windows 7 operating system (or default services) that will work "straight out of the box"? Thanks in advance for any info; much appreciated.
Comment: exploit-db.com is your friend
Answer: I personally like cvedetails.com:
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/product_id-17153/hasexp-1/Microsoft-Windows-7.html
exploit-db.com, that schroeder mentioned is great:
https://www.exploit-db.com/platform/?p=windows
Comment: Thank you for your contribution. I am aware of exploit-db.com. I am not entirely inexperienced when it comes to information security, just not quite so much when it comes to this particular style or method of directly executing written exploits. (ie. via Metasploit etc.). Your first recommendation, cvedetails.com is quite nice and provides a good amount of information, although it seem like the majority of their listed vulnerabilities aren't accompanied by the relevant, published exploit source-code.
Answer: There are several exploits such as SMB attacks (require known credentials, like passing the hash) that will make an easy attack on a fresh system and thus helping you to find your way around the inside of the OS. If you use metasploit to do so the meterpreter shell will greatly help you find vulnerabilities through additional scanning etc. Here is a link to the website.
If you are starting with kali linux you will be provided with a plethora of attack vectors such as social engineering(Eg. SEToolkit), password cracking (Eg. JohnTheRipper), port analysis (Eg. nmap), exploit modules (Metasploit), wifi scanning etc.
One realistic setup would be to disable https and setup wireshark against a local router. In doing so any credentials logged in from the lab-pc will be sniffed and saved by wireshark. If you make a good assumption that the username and password are a lot similar to that of the pc, you could attempt many different credential based attacks towards the system. One of the most excelling tools in relation to vuln. analysis is Armitage which is available on Kali Linux as an extra to Metasploit.
Give them a go and see where you can get and what sort of escalation or attacks work best for you. Don't forget to always familiarize yourself with new environments also.
Comment: Can you provide an example of any particular SMB attacks? I have noticed that most Windows boxes typically reveal that such services are running, when queried by `nmap` etc.
Comment: Generally you only use an SMB exploit if you know the credentials or have a cred list in a metasploit database. If you do, and you find that the windows box has SMB enabled you can use the "exploit/windows/smb/psexec" metasploit module (psexec stands for process execution. Essentially it uploads a payload to the selected windows share that you can authenticate to and the psexec will execute it with the same creds). If there is a reasonable AV on the target then chances are psexec won't work.
Comment: If the windows box has powershell however, you can append a "_psh" to the psexec module (psexec_psh)  and this is practically undetectable.
Comment: How is it a vulnerability or an exploit if you already have the credentials?
Comment: Because not all windows boxes are vulnerable to SMB attacks. Windows 8 for example by default has SMB disabled because it's generally an enterprise sort of feature, where it is only needed in controlled situations such as a business etc. Windows 7 however is enable by default so if you do have credentials it is still considered a  vulnerability because you can get access and all 'holes' that you can access are vulnerabilities.
Answer: Authenticated scan using Nessus home edition can make things more easier for you as it will also provide the CVE ID which you can later search on msfconsole (Metasploit). After getting the CVE IDs you can search for the script to exploit as mentioned by @yaloner in the above comment. This will rule out most of the exploits which won't work for your system and save you the time trying out those. Refer to @Brayden on how to use Metasploit in this case.

Windows 7 Exploits


robotics as a beginner

Question: I want to begin robotics.So as a beginner what micro-controller would be convenient?Arduino or PIC?what type of robots can be built with arduino or PIC? Should I start from just a line-following vehicle?
Comment: You may consider narrowing down the scope of your question. (It is too broad a premise, almost all possible answer will depend on personal opinion.) You may consider what you want to do in future by studying robotics and what resources you have at your disposal at the moment.
Comment: Is there a FAQ/Wiki to help start from scratch
Answer: Alright, this is my first question that I am answering. I'll try to throw as much light as possible to clarify your doubt. I guess, I'll open the door to many more answers.
Anyways, I am a 2nd Year Robotics Engineering student from Bristol, UK. I started out with an Arduino because when I entered Uni, I had no previous experience with electronics or even coding (zero knowledge infact). So, my uni had us start out with Arduino to get some coding experience with C. We did some coding on an Altera Development Board as well, that was to get us familiar with bit-wise operations for controlling hardware from the register level. Arduino is easier because you don't go into the territory of registers. You have pre-written functions for many operations like reading from sensors, writing to serial port, displaying strings etcetera. My first robot, my team named is Zeus was a helper robot, it's tasks were to follow wall, detect and avoid obstacles, identify and stop at the goal. The last task requires some algorithms to do it efficiently but hey, common, we just started out and so all we had to do was search the entire area, which was a fairly small one. We just had to connect sensors which were ready made and picked from the LEGO Kit and then just program them in Arduino using C. It was easy, the only thing that was difficult for us was we didn't have enough knowledge of C when coding, its easy now that I think back. Now, I am working on PIC Microcontroller, its a level above. Here you have to deal with registers and reading datasheets and configuring ports and yaada yaada yaada. I'd say start from scratch, learn how to use the Arduino first and when you successfully interface sensors with your motors on the Arduino platform which is again easy, then step up to do stuff like sending data wirelessly from a bluetooth back and forth between PC and Arduino. Then step up to do some small projects which will serve as foundation for the big stuff like line-follower robot. It's not as easy as the word sounds. It could be fairly easy on an Arduino but once you get into the discrete platforms like Atmel and PIC, you will deal with much more deeper levels of coding so to keep you strong for that, work on the Arduino a fair bit and then step up to the more complex MCUs like Atmel,PIC, Altera and so on.
I hope that answers your question a little atleast. I might have missed something, let me know, if you need more clarity on a specific issue.
Comment: thank you,it has helped me a lot as a beginner.Now,I am a computer science student.I've formed a group consists of an electronics student and a mechanical engg. student.So how can we distribute our works among ourselves as a beginner according to our areas of expertise?
Comment: Depends on the project actually and the capabilities of your team members. For example, I am currently doing a project and I have three Electronics students and myself, Robotics, so I divided based on the strength of each of the members. So my strength is alround but I use my brain a lot, so I took up coding and another guy as well. Now from the other two, I gave one partial coding and sensor and main board prototyping and the last guy PCB design and prototyping.
Comment: In your case you could have that your Mech friend good at Math and mechanical design or if he is adventurous then even some coding in C, your electronics guy might know some assembly, ofcourse electronic design and prototyping, and yourself some coding and if you are adventurous as well then you might be an allrounder. I don't know your friends, you should give work based on what they can do not their area of expertise, well expertise also plays a role but what they can do preceds expertise in priority.
Comment: Now I'm telling about us.The electronics or mechanical guy is not so good at coding.They are interested rather in hardware part.I am OK with the coding part and also interested in the hardware part.So now what should we do?Will they start learning the coding part?
Comment: I wouldn't know if they would put an effort into learning how to code. It's better to not do that, if you can code, then just take up the task and do it. If you can do hardware as well, take up a small share of hardware along with the others and do it. Obviously the Mech and Electronics guys would want to hardware because they are better at it. So let them be. Just make sure that you distribute based on strengths and one member's strength makes up for the other's weakness so that the team strength is balanced. :D
Comment: So the mechanical engg. student does need to know much about micro-controller or coding.Then what will he learn at beginning and at the beginning on which part he can contribute?

robotics as a beginner


Can't seem to align text to coffee mug template using GIMP, the mug has two centers (one for each side) and this is causing difficulty

Question: The image is of the mug guide template, I am trying to align text vertically and horizontally centered on each side. Made one layer, eyeballed the center and then duplicated it so I could do same on the other side. I'd like it to be exactly centered, not just eyeballed. Thank you for your help!
Answer: The easiest way is:

Make guides that intersect where the center of the text should be (so, one horizontal guide in the middle, and two vertical guides),
Check that View>Snap to guides is enabled
Use the Move tool: as soon as you start dragging a layer, the center of the layer will be shown with a small cross, and when that cross is close enough to the guides it will snap to them.

Note that this aligns the layer and not the "bounding box" of the text, which is smaller, so, depending on the shape of the text, the vertical centering can be off. You can reduce the layer to the bounding box with Layer>Autocrop layer (but this makes the layer a bitmap, so you may want to make a copy first).
Comment: Most welcome. If it works better mark the answer as accepted.


Euclidean functional Integrals: Existence of zero eigenvalue due to time translation symmetry

Question: In the chapter "Uses of Instantons" from the book "aspects of symmetry" by Sidney Coleman I have come across the euclidean version of the path integral in semi-classical approximation. To evaluate the sum over paths, each path is written as the sum of the classical path (for which action is an extremum) and the sum of a set of orthonormal functions obeying the boundary conditions with respective co-efficients. Now action is invariant under time translation. My confusion is that, it is written that due to time translation symmetry, the operator appearing in the path integral formula (whose determinant has to be evaluated) must have a zero eigenvalue, where the eigenfunctions are those orthonormal functions obeying the boundary condition. I can not understand this argument.
Answer: Well, besides time translation invariance, it is important that the action $S$ admits instanton solutions $\bar{x}$ in the first place. (This is the case for the double-well potential that Coleman is analyzing in Section 2.2 p.270.) In the $T=t_f-t_i\to\infty$ limit, again because of no explicit time dependence, these instanton solutions must be parametrized by a "collective" time coordinate (which yields the instant of the instanton, so to speak). This signals the existence of a zero-mode.
For more information, see also Remark (3) on the bottom of p. 276 and Appendix 2 p. 341.


Open a quick link with a specific browser?

Question: Is there a way in SharePoint Online to open a URL with a specfic browser? We have a case whereby certain URL should open with Internet explorer instead of the default browser Chrome; Any advise is most appreciated.
Answer: You can create a shortcut like this:
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://servername/
Then, you can call this from Java script like below :
 you have

For details refer to the below article :
Force a link on a web server to open in Internet Explorer
Answer: You should look into Chrome policies for legacy browser redirection. You can find out how to set that up at Legacy Browser Support (integrated) for Windows.
You won't be able to have a shortcut on a page (a href) that launches another application, that would cross the security boundary in place.


What is the best way to take np.percentile along an axis ignoring nans?

Question: Is there a reasonably fast way to do np.percentile(ndarr, axis=0) on data containing NaN values?
For np.median, there is the corresponding bottleneck.nanmedian (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Bottleneck) that is pretty good.
The best I've come up with for percentile, which is incomplete and presently incorrect, is:
   from bottleneck import nanrankdata, nanmax, nanargmin
   def nanpercentile(x, q, axis):
       ranks = nanrankdata(x, axis=axis)
       peak = nanmax(ranks, axis=axis)
       pct = ranks/peak / 100. # to make a percentile
       wh = nanargmin(abs(pct-q),axis=axis)
       return x[wh]

This doesn't work; really what is needed is some way to take the n'th element along the axis, but I haven't found the numpy slicing trick to do that.
"Reasonably fast" means better than looping over indices, e.g.:
q = 40
x = np.array([[[1,2,3],[6,np.nan,4]],[[0.5,2,1],[9,3,np.nan]]])
out = np.empty(x.shape[:-1])
for i in range(x.shape[0]):
   for j in range(x.shape[1]):
      d = x[i,j,:]
      out[i,j] = np.percentile(d[np.isfinite(d)], q)

print out

#array([[ 1.8,  4.8],
#       [ 0.9,  5.4]])

which works but can be exceedingly slow.
np.ma appears not to work as expected; it treats the nan value as if it were inf:
xm = np.ma.masked_where(np.isnan(x),x)
print np.percentile(xm,40,axis=2)

# array([[ 1.8,  5.6],
#        [ 0.9,  7.8]])

Answer: np.nanpercentile is included in numpy 1.9.0
http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.nanpercentile.html
Answer: You can manipulate the strides of the array to iterate over it faster, using as_strided() which is found in numpy.lib.stride_tricks.
Your computations can be viewed as operating on (1,1,3) windows of your array.  I like to use a generalized function (sliding_window() that creates n by n windows using as_strided().  I found it here - Efficient Overlapping Windows with Numpy; credit for the function apparently goes to johnvinyard.  That blog page is a pretty good description of what is happening.
Make some 1x1x3 windows
import numpy as np
x = np.array([[[1,2,3],[6,np.nan,4]],[[0.5,2,1],[9,3,np.nan]]])
for thing in sliding_window(x, (1,1,3)):
    print thing

# [ 1.  2.  3.]
# [  6.  nan   4.]
# [ 0.5  2.   1. ]
# [  9.   3.  nan]

Apply ```np.percentile()'' - disregarding the NaN's
for thing in sliding_window(x, (1,1,3)):
    print np.percentile(thing[np.isfinite(thing)], 40)

# 1.8
# 4.8
# 0.9
# 5.4

Make an array of the result:
per_s = [np.percentile(thing[np.isfinite(thing)], 40)
         for thing in sliding_window(x, (1,1,3))]

print per_s
# [1.8, 4.8000000000000007, 0.90000000000000002, 5.4000000000000004]

per_s = np.array(per_s)
print per_s
# array([ 1.8,  4.8,  0.9,  5.4])

Get it back to the shape you expect
print per_s.reshape((2,2))
# array([[ 1.8,  4.8],
#        [ 0.9,  5.4]])

print per_s.reshape(x.shape[:-1])
# array([[ 1.8,  4.8],
#        [ 0.9,  5.4]])

This should be faster.  I'm curious if it will be - i don't have any real world problems to test it on.
A google search of numpy as_strided turns up some good results: I have this one bookmarked, http://scipy-lectures.github.io/advanced/advanced_numpy/
sliding_window() from Efficient Overlapping Windows with Numpy
from numpy.lib.stride_tricks import as_strided as ast
from itertools import product

def norm_shape(shape):
    '''
    Normalize numpy array shapes so they're always expressed as a tuple,
    even for one-dimensional shapes.

    Parameters
        shape - an int, or a tuple of ints

    Returns
        a shape tuple
    '''
    try:
        i = int(shape)
        return (i,)
    except TypeError:
        # shape was not a number
        pass

    try:
        t = tuple(shape)
        return t
    except TypeError:
        # shape was not iterable
        pass

    raise TypeError('shape must be an int, or a tuple of ints')

def sliding_window(a,ws,ss = None,flatten = True):
    '''
    Return a sliding window over a in any number of dimensions

    Parameters:
        a  - an n-dimensional numpy array
        ws - an int (a is 1D) or tuple (a is 2D or greater) representing the size
             of each dimension of the window
        ss - an int (a is 1D) or tuple (a is 2D or greater) representing the
             amount to slide the window in each dimension. If not specified, it
             defaults to ws.
        flatten - if True, all slices are flattened, otherwise, there is an
                  extra dimension for each dimension of the input.

    Returns
        an array containing each n-dimensional window from a
    '''

    if None is ss:
        # ss was not provided. the windows will not overlap in any direction.
        ss = ws
    ws = norm_shape(ws)
    ss = norm_shape(ss)

    # convert ws, ss, and a.shape to numpy arrays so that we can do math in every
    # dimension at once.
    ws = np.array(ws)
    ss = np.array(ss)
    shape = np.array(a.shape)

    # ensure that ws, ss, and a.shape all have the same number of dimensions
    ls = [len(shape),len(ws),len(ss)]
    if 1 != len(set(ls)):
        raise ValueError(\
        'a.shape, ws and ss must all have the same length. They were %s' % str(ls))

    # ensure that ws is smaller than a in every dimension
    if np.any(ws > shape):
        raise ValueError('ws cannot be larger than a in any dimension. a.shape was %s and ws was %s' % (str(a.shape),str(ws)))

    # how many slices will there be in each dimension?
    newshape = norm_shape(((shape - ws) // ss) + 1)
    # the shape of the strided array will be the number of slices in each dimension
    # plus the shape of the window (tuple addition)
    newshape += norm_shape(ws)
    # the strides tuple will be the array's strides multiplied by step size, plus
    # the array's strides (tuple addition)
    newstrides = norm_shape(np.array(a.strides) * ss) + a.strides
    strided = ast(a,shape = newshape,strides = newstrides)
    if not flatten:
        return strided

    # Collapse strided so that it has one more dimension than the window.  I.e.,
    # the new array is a flat list of slices.
    meat = len(ws) if ws.shape else 0
    firstdim = (np.product(newshape[:-meat]),) if ws.shape else ()
    dim = firstdim + (newshape[-meat:])
    # remove any dimensions with size 1
    #dim = filter(lambda i : i != 1,dim)
    dim = tuple(thing for thing in dim if thing != 1)
    return strided.reshape(dim)

Answer: If you don't need super fast solution, you could first transfer your array to pandas DataFrame and do quantile and then get back to numpy array.
df = pd.DataFrame(array.T).quantile()
arr = np.array(df)

Answer: you can use partition() in numpy 1.8 to take the n'th element along the axis, here is the code to get the second elements along the last axis:
x = np.array([[[1,2,3],[6,np.nan,4]],[[0.5,2,1],[9,3,np.nan]]])
np.partition(x, 1)[..., 1]

the output:
array([[ 2.,  6.],
       [ 1.,  9.]])

Comment: Interesting, I'm using 1.7.1 - what does that return?
Comment: Will this work if you want the `n`'th element along an axis where `n` is not constant?  Also, `partition` creates a copy in memory, which is undesirable but may be unavoidable.


How is the current sequence number in the control file used during recovery?

Question: During recovery, how is the current sequence number used to determine the redo log files used to re-construct the database as well as the order in which to apply the changes recorded in them?
Answer: Perhaps a start on your journey to discovering this:
From the Oracle FAQs:

Every redo log file has both a log sequence number and low and high SCN.

Having said that, why do you feel you need to know this?
Suffice to say that Oracle (and RMAN in particular) does know this and you can use this to recover your database to any Point in Time.  Does the actual mechanism matter?
If you have even the remotest notion of "Rolling Your Own" Oracle Database "Recoverer", - don't!  RMAN is one of a very few options that Oracle will support.  Try to do almost anything else and your on your own and that's not somewhere you want to be when your Production database goes down.


What's the purpose of the [auto] tag?

Question: What's the purpose of the auto tag?  It doesn't have a tag wiki or usage guidance, has 8 questions, and seems to be (to me) a site-tag: every question on the site could be tagged with it.  I'm of the opinion it's not needed, but if someone else thinks they can edit the usage guidance to make it clear, that would work for me too.
Comment: I'll take care of it.
Comment: Well, there is a [tag:truck] and [tag:motorcycle] also?
Comment: Wow those aren't the greatest either.  But they're not quite as ambiguous as [auto] thankfully.
Comment: Yeah, just looked through the questions and all of them could do without the tag.  Can I get rid of it?  It currently means both [car] (as opposed to motorcycle or boat), and [automatic-transmission]
Answer: I cleared out auto as ambiguous. I made what I could into automatic-transmission and then deleted the tag from the rest. I then created a tag synonym to point it to automatic-transmission so it won't be used/created again. Yah, that wasn't a very good tag to be using, no doubt. Thanks Cullub for showing it to me.

What's the purpose of the [auto] tag?


What does "pave the path for" mean?

Question: what does "pave the path for sth/sb" actually means? and if possible, please provide some alternatives with the same meaning as well.
Answer: I'm not sure that pave the path is an idiom. I think that pave the way might be considered an idiom.
Pave the way for somebody/something means to make it possible or easier for someone or something to follow

Their governors and preceptors also should take care what sort of tales and stories it may be proper for them to hear; for all these ought to pave the way for their future instruction: for which reason the generality of their play should be imitations of what they are afterwards to do seriously. - Aristotle.

The figurative sense of to pave the way is attested from 1585.
One can easily imagine it is related to the path of least resistance in meaning. Alternatives are "make it easy", "clear the path", or "set the stage" for sth/sb.
Answer: As others have noticed, the idiom is "pave the way", though technically of course, both a path and a way can be paved.
Paving a path or road means you flatten it and put some kind of usually hard material on it, so that the path becomes easier to travel.
Figuratively speaking, when you pave the way for someone, you make it easier for them to do something.
Alternatives could be "help somebody to do something", "enable them to do something", "create the prerequisites for someone doing something".
An idiom in the same direction could be "show someone the way to do something", although this implies some teaching, whereas paving the path does not necessarily have that connotation.
Answer: The phrase is more commonly pave the way.
To pave is to cover something with material, such as stone, which makes it much easier to cover than muddy ground.
The idiom dates to at least 1585 and means that something has been introduced that allows something else to follow; to make it possible or easier for something else to happen.
For example, from a recent news headline:

Crucial vote could pave the way for Wrexham 'super-prison'

So if the vote is passed, the super-prison could follow.
Answer: While several answers point out the idiom pave the way suggests that a paved road is easier to walk. However, you really need to conjure images of tradesmen, armies, simple foot traffic slogging in mud in a rainy season to appreciate the importance of the Appian Way and how much advantage a paved path gave to Roman commerce and conquest. Many other cultures, before and after, similarly found paved roads to be their critical arteries.
An alternative idiom in the same vein is lay the groundwork.
Answer: As anongoodnurse's answer notes, the standard idiom is "pave the way." Here is the brief entry for that expression in Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition (2013):

pave the way Make progress or development easier, as in Her findings paved the way for developing a new vaccine. This expression alludes to paving a road so it is easier to travel on. {Late 1500s}

A search of Early English Books Online turns up two instances of "pave the way" in figurative use from the late 1500s. From John Penry, An Exhortation vnto the Gouernours, and People of Hir Maiesties Countrie of Wales, to Labour Earnestly, to haue the Preaching of the Gospell Planted Among Them (1588):

Secondly to allow of the Popes superioritie, and to affirme that a minister may also be a king, are wicked and absurd assertions, directly against the word as we see. Therfore it is wicked in like manner, to make the Ecclesiasticall gouerment to be an humane constitution. And not vnlikly also by litle & litle, as experience in poperie techeth vs, to paue the way for the vndermining of the ciuill gouernment.

And from Thomas Sparke, The High Way to Heaven by the Cleare Light of the Gospell Cleansed of a Number of Most Dangerous Stumbling Stones Thereinto Throwen by Bellarmine and Others (1597):

For we may be sure, so that he [Satan] any way can get men to misse or to lease this waie whiles we are busying our owne heades and the peoples with other matters of farre lesse importance, though therein we shew neuer so much zeale and learning, he hath the verie thing he desireth. For that doubtlesse hath beene and is still a dangerous stratageme or pollicie of his, when he findeth he cannot as he would preuaile by keeping men in ignorance and carelesse security, then to doe what he can, that they may spend their learning and zeale about matters of the least moment; that in the meane time he may the more quietlie by their silence in matters of greatest weight, by the other contrary way, as it were paue the waie to Atheisme: yea I feare much (to speake plainely what I thinke) that lacke of due consideration hereof in time, in some hath not onelie beene one of the next causes of the phantasticall sectes of the Brownistes, and Familistes, but also of too shamefull encrease, in so great light of the Gospell, both of Papistes and Atheistes amongest vs.

An Ngram chart tracking the frequency of occurrence of "pave the path" (blue line) versus "pave the way" (red line) versus "pave the road" (green line) for the period 1700–2019 shows an overwhelming preference for "pave the way"—quite aside from the question of whether the expressions are being used in a literal sense or figuratively:

A spot check of the underlying Google Books matches indicates that the vast majority of instances of "pave the way" are figurative, whereas most instances of "pave the path" and "pave the road"—at least since the early 1800s—are literal.
With regard to alternative idiomatic expressions, Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms (2003) offers "lay sb/sth open to (sth)." However, this option strikes me as being far less apt than anongoodnurse's suggestions of "clear the [or a] path" and "set the stage" or bib's suggestion of "lay the groundwork [or foundation]."
Answer: It means to 'make preparations for', with a more specific connotation of allowing things to be possible, e.g.

This new legislation paves the path for same-sex marriage

What does "pave the path for" mean?


Galaxy S screen glowing in locked state as if some one tried to unlock it, even with out touching it

Question: My mobile is working fine till yesterday, but suddenly I observed that when I lock it and keep  it aside, I can see that the screen is glowing as if some one tried to unlock it. This is happening quite often. Can some one please explain me what is the problem and the solution for that pbm.
Comment: Is it glowing with the screen being black or is the screen actually on and showing the lockscreen?
Comment: This looks like it's a LCD model and the backlight stays on with the LCD showing black (or being unpowered). This is most probably a bug with the firmware, so look for an official update or install an aftermarket firmware like [cyanogenmod](http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S:_Full_Update_Guide)
Answer: Go to Settings, Wireless networks, WiFi settings then uncheck NOTIFY ME FOR OPEN NETWORKS.  This solved the problem for me :)


__get/__set/__call performance questions with PHP

Question: I have a custom-built MVC PHP framework that I am in the process of rewriting and had a question about performance and magic methods.  With the model portion of the framework, I was thinking if __get/__set magic methods would cause too much performance hit to be worth using.  I mean accessing (reads and writes) model data is going to be one of the most common things performed.  Is the use of __get/__set magic methods too big of a performance hit for heavy use functionality like the model portion of a MVC framework?
Comment: You should try to find another way around using them, and only use them if necessary. Besides being slow, they are also, in my opinion, harder to read and maintain.
Answer: Measure it.
It certainly has a big performance hit, especially considering function calls are expensive in PHP. This difference will be even bigger in the next version of PHP, which implements optimizations that render regular access to declared instance properties significantly faster.
That said, PHP rarely is the bottleneck. I/O and database queries frequently take much more time. This, however, depends on your usage; the only way to know for sure it to benchmark.
That are also other readability problems with the magic methods. They frequently degenerate into one big switch statement and compromise code completion, both of which may be hits in programming productivity.
Comment: Some IDEs allow code completion for magic methods when you [annotate the class with @method](http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLframesConverter/default/phpDocumentor/tutorial_tags.method.pkg.html)
Comment: There is some [good watching on PHP internals on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5S1K60mhQU).
Answer: Here's a an article (three years old) with some benchmarks. Run your own tests to see how it impacts your code.
Generally speaking, they are much slower. But are they the bottleneck? It depends what you are doing. If you're concerned about speed, where does it stop? The foreach loop is slower than the for loop, yet most people don't rewrite all of their code to use the for.
Just using PHP means that the speed of your code isn't all that critical. Personally, I would favor whatever style makes it easier to program.
Answer: Purely from my experience, it does add a quite a lot over overhead. On a page with about 4000 __get's (yes, there was quite a lot of data on that page) performance was quite measurably slower, to the point it became unacceptable. I threw away all __set's & __get's for variables which wouldn't require other data to be altered or external dependancies (like foreign keys) to be checked, after which the time to generate that page was about 15% of the time it took before.
Answer: I have just asked myself this same question and came to the same conclusion: It's better to set the properties in the traditional way. __get() + massive switch slows everything down


Optimize Mysql & My.cnf to 32g Ram & 8 Core CPU?

Question: please , what is the best configuration to Innodb because mysql eat CPU on linux server this is my configuration but I don`t sure it matches best solution
innodb_buffer_pool_size =24G
innodb_log_file_size = 1G
innodb_buffer_pool_instances = 4
join_buffer_size = 1G
max_heap_table_size = 1G
thread_cache_size = 32
#max_allowed_packet = 1600M
max_allowed_packet = 100M
tmp_table_size = 1G
innodb_buffer_pool_chunk_size=3G

Answer: No to these:
join_buffer_size = 1G
max_heap_table_size = 1G
#max_allowed_packet = 1600M
tmp_table_size = 1G

Don't set any of them to more than 1% of RAM.  Otherwise, you threaten to consume so much RAM as to cause swapping.  Swapping hurts performance a lot.  Anyway, big values for those are mostly in the realm of "diminishing returns".
The most important setting is fine as you have it:
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 24G

You will probably never use all 8 cores unless you have some really inefficient queries.  And they can probably be fixed with a better INDEX or query reformulation.


How can you fill one mesh's volume with as many of another mesh that will fit?

Question:
This was done using a script; however, could there be a way to achieve this effect with geometry nodes?
Comment: Imagine you create a curve line, resample it to create points along its length. That's easy enough. Then you make a vertical one and distribute the previous line on that. And do this for a third one on the Y axis. Then "Instance on Points" your legos. You have a big cube packed with legos. Now you just need to use Raycast to check if they're inside your mesh or not, delete the ones outside. Here's a tut for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvb2aCeTANM If noone else answers I can put sth together tomorrow evening after work, but I need to go to bed now. Good luck.
Comment: You mean something like this? https://entagma.com/pack-points-inside-objects-with-geometry-nodes/ He uses spheres, but if you have something like a Lego piece in mind, it would be even simpler since you wouldn't have to trigonometry, just box size calculations.
Comment: @Kuboå That's actually really close! I don't know how I'd make the necessary changes though. The node setup he used is incredibly complex.
Comment: I integrated a solution based on raycasts inspired by the comment of @Kuboå into my answer
Answer: This is my solution. I filled an icosphere with lots of small cubes. It
would work the same with other objects:

And here rendered with a finer resolution:

I tried two different setups. One works with intersection, the other uses a Raycast node inspired by the comment of @Kuboa in a slightly different way.
This is the setup, that uses intersection:

And this is the setup, that uses the Raycast node:

The included node group looks like this:

And here are my blend files:

How does it work
I will first describe the solution, that uses intersection. After that, I will describe the solution, that uses the Raycast node.
Using Intersection
My strategy is to create a grid and scan the body from bottom to top. Doing this, I create the intersection between the grid and the volume for every position of the grid. After doing this, I simply instantiate cubes at every point of the resulting geometry.
Here we go step by step:
The size for the scanning grid and its resolution are given as input parameters. I used a size of 3 with a resolution of 0.1 (0.03 for the rendered image) in every direction, while the icosphere has a radius of 1. The number of vertices of the grid are calculated by dividing the grid size by the resolution.

In order to scan from bottom to top, a mesh line with the given resolution is created:

Then I create instances of the grid along this grid line:

The resulting instances are realized and intersected with the sphere:

Finally, I create cube instances of the size defined by the resolution on every point of the intersection. In order to prevent artifacts, the geometry of the sphere is excluded by selecting only those points, that have the same position as the closest point of the generated stack of grids.

Using Raycasts
This solution starts with the same grid, as the solution before:

Then, cubes are generated on those points:

Only those points will be used for instancing, that are inside the Ico Sphere:

Let's have a look inside the group node "Is Point in Object?"

Here we need some vector algebra, to understand what's going on. Subtracting the vector of a point P1 from the one of a point P2 results in a vector pointing from P1 to P2. This is used to create a ray starting at the point given by the group input and pointing into the direction of the closest point of the target object.
The ray will point inside the object, if the starting point is outside and vice versa. The normal of the point, that is hit on the object will always point outside the object. This means, the starting point of the ray is inside the object, if the angle between the ray and the normal of the point, that is hit on the object, is less than 90°. The dot product of two vectors is greater than 0, if their angle is less than 90°. Thus, the starting point is inside the object, if the dot product between the direction of the ray and the normal is greater than 0.
Comment: I'll note that this method includes the vertices from the intersected mesh as well, which causes artifacts on the surface--which is really the only part that matters. It does work on the inside, but their needs to be a way to get rid of the points that came from the icosphere.
Comment: @LWS SWL - I limited the selection of points to those, that belong to the original stack of grids and updated the description.


consume ArcGIS Server REST services API into MapBox GL API

Question: Can I consume ArcGIS Server REST services API into MapBox GL API? Please can anyone tell me whether I can consume an ArcGIS Rest Service into MapBox GIS.
Thanks!!
Comment: I don't think you can access the ArcGIS REST API using MapBox GL API, but you can access services published to ArcGIS Server by using other protocols: WMS, WMTS, GeoJSON etc depending on your type of service. Are you asking about tile services or feature services or ... ?
Comment: Trying to access feature services...
Answer: You can use GeoJSON as your go-between format for feature services.  ArcGIS Server supports GeoJSON since version 10.4 and MapBox GL API supports reading GeoJSON.
Here's a snippet:
<code>map.on('load', function () {
    // Add a layer showing the city parks
    map.addLayer({
        'id': 'parks-layer',
        'type': 'fill',
        'source': {
            'type': 'geojson',
            'data': 'https://services.arcgis.com/V6ZHFr6zdgNZuVG0/ArcGIS/rest/services/City_of_Redlands_Parks/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&outSR=4326&f=pgeojson'
        },
        'paint': {
            'fill-color': 'rgba(200, 100, 240, 0.3)',
            'fill-outline-color': 'rgba(200, 100, 240, 1)'
        }
    });
});
</code>
Comment: Thank you so much.....If you don't mind, can you please share me one example program with above "function"....
Comment: @BjornSvensson can you help me with source type json?
Answer: You can use Esri's arcgis-to-geojson-utils to convert arcgis rest services featureset result to geojson format, which can be used with mapbox-gl.


ENO/WENO vs monotone Hermite interpolation

Question: I have see the method PCHIP in matlab that implements the monotone Hermite interpolation method which was originally proposed by Carlson in 1980s. It seem to accomplish the goal of preventing the values go outside of the range. I have not seen the error estimates results but I guess it does as good as cubic polynomial and locally $O(h^4)$. Now, there are more recent ENO/WENO methods and their multiple "kids". Would like to hear why these methods stand out and why they are "better" or worse compare to monotone Hermite?
Comment: In ENO (Essentially Non Oscillatory) methods, the smoothest stencil from all the candidate stencils is chosen (based on Newton's Divided Differences). In WENO (Weighted ENO) schemes, all the candidate stencils are used with appropriate weights attached to them (zero for discontinuity and optimum for smooth portion). ENO and WENO schemes are useful in the cases where solution contains discontinuities.
Answer: PCHIP is not a conservative reconstruction, making it inappropriate for conservation laws. Furthermore, hyperbolic problems have discontinuous solutions so there is generally no benefit to a continuous reconstruction. Conservative monotone spline reconstructions are being investigated by the UK Met Office for use in tracer advection for atmosphere modeling, see papers on the multi-dimensional case, quartic splines, and applications. These methods are relatively new and are not currently popular with many other groups. Some reasons for this include

nonlocal reconstruction is inconvenient, especially in parallel
these methods are semi-Lagrangian and currently only suitable for advection, especially in multiple dimensions
there is no characteristic spline-based reconstruction
only structured grids can be used
Comment: but if the solution of $u_t+cu_x=0, x\in [0,2]$ is not very discontinuous $u_0=1_{\{x\leq 1\}}$, and has a jump at one point only, if make sure that the grid is constructed in such a way that the discontinuity falls at the grid point at each time level, in that case does PCHIP work as well?


Ramps 1.4 1.8 stepper motor extrusion calculation

Question: I have Ramps 1.4 and would like to get answer on extrusion in Marlin firmware. I have NEMA 17 stepper motor 1.8 deg, set to 1/16 step. Mk7 direct drive.
38 teeth in extruder drive gear. I bought it from this website.
Here are my current settings:
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT   { 80,80, 4000, 180 }
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE          { 500, 500, 3, 45 }
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION      { 9000, 9000, 100, 300 }

I am using ABS 1.75 filament and a 0.4 nozzle.
Answer: According to the description, the drive gear you have has a 10.8mm diameter. This means that (in the ideal case) one full rotation of the drive gear will advance a length of filament equal to its circumference, which is pi x 10.8mm or approximately 33.93mm.
Your motor rotates 1.8 degrees per step, so it takes 360 / 1.8 = 200 steps for a full rotation. Since you are using 16x microstepping, this is multiplied to 200 x 16 = 3200 steps.
You thus end up with a steps per mm value of 3200 / 33.93 = 94.31 steps/mm.
You might need to calibrate this further, for instance by extruding a set length of filament (e.g. 100mm) and measuring how much is actually extruded, and then compensating the steps/mm value to get you closer to the desired 100mm. A simple way to measure this is to put a mark on your filament at 150mm from the extruder, and then (after extruding 100mm) measure how close the mark is to the extruder (which should be 50mm) However, this theoretically computed value should be a good starting point. Note that the speed you do this test at should be close to your normal printing speed, since extruding at a much higher (resp. lower) speed will falsely lead you to believe you are underextruding (resp. overextruding).
Comment: Thank you so what i do understand is following in my marlin firmware.

define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 80,80, 4000,  94.31 }
define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 500, 500, 3,  94.31 }
define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION { 9000, 9000, 100, 3200 }

Is this correct. I made printer called graber i3 and got code from GitHub my exstruder are different from the one they using.

Regards

Gerhard
Comment: You only need to change the steps per unit. It doesn't make sense to change the max feedrate to the steps per mm value.
Answer: Simplest way to calculate your extrusion is:
Set your number of perimeters walls 1
top and bottom layer 0
infill 0%
and print simple 20x20x20 cube
look at the wall thickness with caliper and compare your extrusion width value on your slicer software


What is the main difference in chromatin fiber and chromonema?

Question: What I understand is both are coiled version of DNA along with histone but are termed different based on their degree of condensation. My question is when do we call it chromonema and when chromatin fiber? Do we consider 30nm fiber as chromatin and 10nm fiber as chromonema or something else?
Answer: 10nm fibres are seen only by electron microscopy,while chromonema fibres refer to chromatin fibres visible by light microscopy. See this paper. 10nm or 30nm fibres are thus much, much smaller than chromenema fibres. There are likely several layers of organization (like 100nm and 200nm fibres) before you get all the way up to chromenema fibres.


Use open layers plugin display as georeferenced image in QGIS

Question: Could someone tell me if it is possible to save a
plugin open layers display as georeferenced image in QGIS 2.18?
Comment: Which version of QGIS are you using?
Answer: First you have to set up the map view exactly as you want the georeferenced image to look. If there are other layers turned on then those will be on the final image too, so turn them all off beforehand.
OpenLayers and QuickMapServices both default to CRS epsg:3857 so to be safe you should reproject your project to that too while you create the image(s).
Next go to:
Project > Save As Image (QGIS 2.x)
or
Project > Import/Export > Export Map To Image (QGIS 3.x)
Now you can drop that saved image into QGIS like any other raster, if it asks for a CRS then it's whatever your project CRS was when you saved it, epsg:3857 if you did what I said above.
EDIT: Just be aware that the image is saved "as is", meaning it isn't tiled and the resolution will be exactly what is displayed on your screen. It won't scale like OpenLayers does when you zoom in. For greater detail you'll have to save a series of your own 'tiles' by zooming in and panning for each image.


Where to find free open sourced android custom controls?

Question: I'm looking for some site/library/project with advanced custom Android controls? if you know one, are they free and open sourced?
Answer: Take a look at commonsguy github repository. You can find several quite interesting android components there, all with source code available under Apache License
Comment: To follow up a bit on mcveat's answer, I have a widget or two in there, but mostly they are other sorts of components (e.g., decorating adapters like `EndlessAdapter`). In general, there is no go-to site for open source Android components like these. The closest is openintents.org, but they have not exactly caught on with Android developers for listing things like this (though their own components are first-rate).
Comment: @CommonsWare IMO sometimes it is hard to tell if one thing is a widget and some other thing is not. Adapters are so close to UI (they can change the way you're operating on list), that I think they may be mentioned along with widgets 'per se'.
BTW, keep up the good work! Thanks for your effort.
Answer: android-arsenal.com has a few controls, utilities and scripts; it's a mixed bag but it's the closest thing I've seen to a controls website.
Answer: Been a while anyone posted on this thread.
I often refer http://www.androidviews.net/
Tons of free and open sourced custom controls.
You'll love it.
Comment: This website is no longer available.


Do not rate-limit deletion of my own comments

Question: Deleting own comments is rate-limited to one every 5s, similar to voting on comments... not good. An example scenario is a Comment thread where you were talking with someone who deleted their Comments (for whatever reason), rendering yours no-longer-useful.
Comment: Certainly not a [meta-tag:bug] as this is [meta-tag:status-by-design], so probably should be a [meta-tag:feature-request].
Answer: I recommend looking at The Complete Rate Limiting Guide.
Everything on SO is somehow rate limited and designed for evil, site inventors explain why in these respective arcticles.
The assumption is that if the UI does not allow you to do something that you need rarely, and that is severely hindered by rate limiting, you can ask a moderator to do it via a flag.  This is a correct use of flagging, even if you are flagging your own content.  The moderator's role in this case is to apply common sense to see whether the mass deletion of comments is something that will leave the site better off, while respecting your rightful wish to delete your comments.  The moderator may take additional actions as he sees fit as well, depending on what kind of content is being mass-deleted.
Comment: Makes sense. Had I had such knowledge, my request would have been something like **5s is too long**.


In what kinds of situations would it be a good idea to lynch on D2?

Question: What are some circumstances, if any, that should make it a good idea to lynch on D2 rather than holding off till when you have more information?
Answer: Some people (i.e. me) would argue that it is always a good idea to vote to eliminate a player every day, because a day that you're not using that power is a day that the Evil team(s) get a free ride. The Village's job is to eliminate Evil and so I would argue you need a good reason NOT to vote someone on D2.
Many people would argue that giving the various intel roles more time to gather that intel without accidentally exposing them is a good enough reason. However, if there is no pressure on anyone on D2, useful targets to use that intel on are also more difficult to identify.
In a game with an open role-set, it is easier to make the judgement call, e.g. if there is a Bloodthirster, the Village would normally want to vote someone out in an attempt to reduce the KP the Wolves have. If there are Coven and/or Undead and no Wolves, the pressure is reduced, because the KP of those teams is lesser than that of the Wolves.
In a closed role-set, this can be much more difficult to identify, because you're unsure what Evil(s) you may be facing, but equally unsure as to the intel that you are waiting for, as there could easily be a Village team with no intel roles against a very small number of Wolves and you would be fruitlessly giving up valuable time.
This answer is definitely not coming from the usual meta of the site, but is coming from someone who would, if I could, enforce the Village to kill someone every day, including D1 if that were possible.
You do risk mis-killing members of the Village team, but I've always been one to subscribe to the "you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs" school of werewolfing.
Answer: Always. The only possible exception is when there are exactly four remaining players, and even that's debatable.
The best source of information in Werewolves is voting and lynching- people are forced to state opinions about a player, whose role is then revealed. Certain players are privy to knowledge about certain other players- werewolves- potentially revealing information.
If no lynch is voted for, you don't get this information. The werewolves get two night phases in a row, key roles get a chance to be killed off, and unless someone useful survives, gets information, and is willing to claim to reveal it, you put yourself in the same situation.
Comment: +1 although in the particular that the tag relates to (the site werewolv.es), roles are not revealed after the lynch as standard.


Configure Meteor in a server without websocket support

Question: I was asked to test a meteor (js) website in a server without websockets support, how can I achieve this? How can I really know that a server is not capable of using websockets?
Answer: You can achieve that by using environment variables. Remember to always do this on server, either by using /server/lib or /lib/server folder or Meteor.isServer flag. This will do the trick:
Meteor.startup(function () {
  process.env.DISABLE_WEBSOCKETS = 1;
});

You can read more about using environment variables with Meteor on Meteorpedia.
Answer: For those interested, when websockets are disabled, Meteor uses sockjs which is a websockets emulator library.
More info here:
https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-node
http://www.meteorpedia.com/read/Websockets
Answer: This project might help folks who get here:
https://github.com/cult-of-coders/fusion


How to use two HDR/EXR Environmental textures in the same scene and split the two top from bottom

Question:

Please take a look at the node set up, I have tried these two methods and both resulting in distorted color and hdr's not split at all but both still meshed even with messing around fac values. any help would be appreciated.  thank you ☺
Answer: Neither of those methods make much sense, because you're acting on color rather than coordinates.  The output of each of your nodes is a color; Y in this context is the green channel of each image.
Instead, we're interested in mixing on the basis of where the world sample is.  We can do that like this:

We're looking up colors on two different environmental textures, then mixing on the basis of where our lookup is: if the generated texture coordinates Z value is less than 0, we use one image; otherwise, we use the other image.
Comment: thanks! simple enough, I will pay more attention to the logic .


Looking for the right bike

Question: I have been needing a new bike and I need some help with what kind of bike I should purchase. I plan on riding on mainly paved side walks but when traffic is bad I need it to endure riding over curbs and in grass. I want it to handle long rides. I guess I want more of a commuter road bike. I don't really know the price range for a good bike, I just want the cheapest bike possible without it being cheap in quality.
Comment: Regardless of what you purchase, you should know that riding on the sidewalk is a good deal more dangerous than riding in traffic (dangerous for you and for pedestrians.)
Comment: There's a big difference between a 10 mile ride and a 50 mile ride, and people refer to both as "long". Any idea what the longest ride is you have planned? (A good rule of thumb is 10 miles = about 1 hour.) Also, how much do you have to spend on this?
Comment: Borrow a bike, or buy a cheap used one at the Goodwill or Salvation Army or a yard sale.  Ride it.  That's really the only way to learn what works for you.
Comment: What is your budget? Dahon has a number of folding bikes that would likely meet your needs, including some rugged commuter bikes with full size 26" wheels. But it'll cost you close to $2000. I second Dan's suggestion to borrow or buy a cheap used bike and see how it works out.
Comment: 50 miles is "long"?
Comment: You tell us you want to get a 'new' bike, do you have one now? If so, how long have you been riding it and what is wrong with it so that you need to replace it?
Answer: Assumption for all that follows: You're looking for a brand new bike as opposed to used but new to you.
If you want the most bang for your buck, a mountain bike is probably the way to go. Mountain bikes are by far the largest portion of the bike production industry and mass production makes them cheap. Their upright geometry and wider tires make them great for getting over curbs, maneuvering around obstacles, riding off-road (or on crappy roads). You can get an introductory level mountain bike from a bike shop for about $350.
The next step up in price range will be a "commuter" or "multi-purpose" bike. (Both of these are foolish names since any bike fits those descriptions.) The Trek FX and Specialized Crossroads are both perfect examples of this class of bike, but there are plenty of others. These types of bikes will still have that upright mountain bike feel to them, but the larger radius and narrower profile of the tires will make them significantly faster. Also note that both of the bikes I mentioned do not have front shocks. From what you describe, I don't think you need one but similar bikes with shocks do exist. Bikes in this class start out at around $500.
For the type of riding you're describing I would recommend a cyclocross or a touring bike. They're so similar as to be almost indistinguishable; the most noticeable difference being that touring bikes have more places to mount water bottles and racks. Either of these will be more expensive, but will also be significantly faster than a mountain bike or commuter/multi-purpose bike on almost anything but true cross country trails. The tires will be the same as the ones on the multi-purpose bikes but cyclocross bikes come with knobbier tires, a characteristic which you may find desirable for riding through the grass. If you really want those extra places to mount racks, you can fit knobbies on touring bikes easily enough. You can find cyclocross bikes for $800 but $1000 is more the norm. Touring bikes are almost always $1000-$1500.
I personally wouldn't recommend a genuine road bike for what you're talking about. It won't handle grass or curbs well at all. Road bikes also tend to be at the more expensive end of the spectrum. You can get cheaper ones, but they sacrifice a lot of quality to get those prices down. Those sacrifices translate into a heavier and more sluggish bike, which is exactly the opposite of what you want in your road bike. Unless you get an older one on Craigslist or something. Older road bikes have larger tires and are more capable of what you're wanting to do with it. You can also find decent quality older bikes for pretty reasonable prices.
There are, of course, more exotic options. Folding bikes and cargo bikes and 29ers, oh my! Most of these are going to be pretty expensive and probably not what you're looking for.
There are also numerous options for everything I've mentioned above. Mountain bikes and commuter/multi-purpose bikes both have the options of shocks. Almost any type of bike has fixed-gear, single-speed, and geared options. You can put slick tires on almost anything. You can put knobbies on pretty much anything but a road bike. Some of these options will bring the price down, most of them will raise it. And a lot of those type of decisions will come down to experience and personal preference.
Comment: Again, even if he's looking for a brand-new bike, it's dumb to go out and buy a bike when you don't have enough saddle time to know, at least generally, what will suit you.  Better to ride a used/borrowed bike for a few months to get a feel for things.
Comment: @DanielRHicks - one could, of course, go to some bike shops and test ride the different styles of bike. It will be the best and fastest way to get a feel for the different styles. If you buy used, or borrow a bike, you're only getting a feel for that one style. Andrew, a good shop will let you ride all of the different styles and help you choose the style that is right for you. Also, Jimirings mentioned 29ers are expensive, but I think the Trek Marlin is about $600, and a lot of folks swear by them for commuting.
Comment: The thing is, you need to put in a few hours on a bike to know what it's all about.  That's more than you'll get just "testing", in most cases.
Answer: A road bike is going to be your best bet. I have been using my $300 mountain bike, but they need to be repaired so frequently I have switched to a road bike.
As for cheap, Craigslist has always been a preference of mine.

Looking for the right bike


"Simplified Varargs Method Invocation" already implemented in the current OpenJDK 7?

Question: Is "Simplified Varargs Method Invocation" from http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/coin-dev/2009-March/000217.html already implemented in Java 7? Today I read in www.sdtimes.com/INTEGRATION_WATCH_JAVA_7_LOOKING_GOOD/By_ANDREW_BINSTOCK/About_JAVA/34288 about that, but I never found a release note of the JDK 1.7. You have an original quote about that?
Answer: At least now it is in OpenJdk 7.